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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6605-0.txt b/6605-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf25be7 --- /dev/null +++ b/6605-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7607 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Unconscious Memory, by Samuel Butler + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Unconscious Memory + + +Author: Samuel Butler + + + +Release Date: November 4, 2014 [eBook #6605] +[This file was first posted on December 30, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY*** + + +Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + Unconscious Memory + + + By + Samuel Butler + + Author of “Life and Habit,” “Erewhon,” “The Way of All Flesh,” etc. + + * * * * * + + New Edition, entirely reset, with an Introduction + by Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.SC., F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Pro- + fessor of Zoology in University College, Cork. + + * * * * * + + OP. 5 + + * * * * * + + London + A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C. + 1910 + + * * * * * + + “As this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of + experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every + species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the + multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the + collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three + volumes every year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against + innovations, that can have no other effect than to check the progress + of science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination + which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her temple.”—_Opening + Paragraph of a Review of Dr. Young’s Bakerian Lecture_. _Edinburgh + Review_, _January_ 1803, p. 450. + + “Young’s work was laid before the Royal society, and was made the + 1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. The second + number of the _Edinburgh Review_ contained an article levelled + against him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was so + severe an attack that Young’s ideas were absolutely quenched for + fifteen years. Brougham was then only twenty-four years of age. + Young’s theory was reproduced in France by Fresnel. In our days it + is the accepted theory, and is found to explain all the phenomena of + light.”—_Times Report of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light_, + _April_ 27, 1880. + + * * * * * + + This Book + + Is inscribed to + + RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ. + + (Of the British Museum) + + In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness + with which he has so often placed at my disposal + his varied store of information. + + + + +Contents + + PAGE +NOTE. By R. A. Streatfeild viii +INTRODUCTION. By Professor Marcus Hartog ix +AUTHOR’S PREFACE xxxvii +CHAPTER I. Introduction—General ignorance on the subject 1 +of evolution at the time the “Origin of Species” was +published in 1859 +CHAPTER II. How I came to write “Life and Habit,” and 12 +the circumstances of its completion +CHAPTER III. How I came to write “Evolution, Old and 26 +New”—Mr Darwin’s “brief but imperfect” sketch of the +opinions of the writers on evolution who had preceded +him—The reception which “Evolution, Old and New,” met +with +CHAPTER IV. The manner in which Mr. Darwin met 38 +“Evolution, Old and New” +CHAPTER V. Introduction to Professor Hering’s lecture 52 +CHAPTER VI. Professor Ewald Hering “On Memory” 63 +CHAPTER VII. Introduction to a translation of the 87 +chapter upon instinct in Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of +the Unconscious” +CHAPTER VIII. Translation of the chapter on “The 92 +Unconscious in Instinct,” from Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy +of the Unconscious” +CHAPTER IX. Remarks upon Von Hartmann’s position in 137 +regard to instinct +CHAPTER X. Recapitulation and statement of an objection 146 +CHAPTER XI. On Cycles 156 +CHAPTER XII. Refutation—Memory at once a promoter and a 161 +disturber of uniformity of action and structure +CHAPTER XIII. Conclusion 173 + + + +Note + + +FOR many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butler’s biological works +has been missing. “Unconscious Memory” was originally published thirty +years ago, but for fully half that period it has been out of print, owing +to the destruction of a large number of the unbound sheets in a fire at +the premises of the printers some years ago. The present reprint comes, +I think, at a peculiarly fortunate moment, since the attention of the +general public has of late been drawn to Butler’s biological theories in +a marked manner by several distinguished men of science, notably by Dr. +Francis Darwin, who, in his presidential address to the British +Association in 1908, quoted from the translation of Hering’s address on +“Memory as a Universal Function of Original Matter,” which Butler +incorporated into “Unconscious Memory,” and spoke in the highest terms of +Butler himself. It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to the +changed attitude of scientific authorities with regard to Butler and his +theories, since Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consented to +contribute an introduction to the present edition of “Unconscious +Memory,” summarising Butler’s views upon biology, and defining his +position in the world of science. A word must be said as to the +controversy between Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is +concerned. I have been told that in reissuing the book at all I am +committing a grievous error of taste, that the world is no longer +interested in these “old, unhappy far-off things and battles long ago,” +and that Butler himself, by refraining from republishing “Unconscious +Memory,” tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy to be consigned +to oblivion. This last suggestion, at any rate, has no foundation in +fact. Butler desired nothing less than that his vindication of himself +against what he considered unfair treatment should be forgotten. He +would have republished “Unconscious Memory” himself, had not the latter +years of his life been devoted to all-engrossing work in other fields. +In issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a wish that he expressed +to me shortly before his death. + + R. A. STREATFEILD. + +_April_, 1910. + + + + +Introduction +By Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R.H.S. + + +IN reviewing Samuel Butler’s works, “Unconscious Memory” gives us an +invaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came to +write the Book of the Machines in “Erewhon” (1872), with its +foreshadowing of the later theory, “Life and Habit,” (1878), “Evolution, +Old and New” (1879), as well as “Unconscious Memory” (1880) itself. His +fourth book on biological theory was “Luck? or Cunning?” (1887). {0a} + +Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several +essays: “Remarks on Romanes’ _Mental Evolution in Animals_, contained in +“Selections from Previous Works” (1884) incorporated into “Luck? or +Cunning,” “The Deadlock in Darwinism” (_Universal Review_, April-June, +1890), republished in the posthumous volume of “Essays on Life, Art, and +Science” (1904), and, finally, some of the “Extracts from the Notebooks +of the late Samuel Butler,” edited by Mr. H. Festing Jones, now in course +of publication in the _New Quarterly Review_. + + * * * * * + +Of all these, “LIFE AND HABIT” (1878) is the most important, the main +building to which the other writings are buttresses or, at most, annexes. +Its teaching has been summarised in “Unconscious Memory” in four main +principles: “(1) the oneness of personality between parent and offspring; +(2) memory on the part of the offspring of certain actions which it did +when in the persons of its forefathers; (3) the latency of that memory +until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; (4) the +unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed.” To +these we must add a fifth: the purposiveness of the actions of living +beings, as of the machines which they make or select. + +Butler tells (“Life and Habit,” p. 33) that he sometimes hoped “that this +book would be regarded as a valuable adjunct to Darwinism.” He was +bitterly disappointed in the event, for the book, as a whole, was +received by professional biologists as a gigantic joke—a joke, moreover, +not in the best possible taste. True, its central ideas, largely those +of Lamarck, had been presented by Hering in 1870 (as Butler found shortly +after his publication); they had been favourably received, developed by +Haeckel, expounded and praised by Ray Lankester. Coming from Butler, +they met with contumely, even from such men as Romanes, who, as Butler +had no difficulty in proving, were unconsciously inspired by the same +ideas—“_Nur mit ein bischen ander’n Wörter_.” + +It is easy, looking back, to see why “Life and Habit” so missed its mark. +Charles Darwin’s presentation of the evolution theory had, for the first +time, rendered it possible for a “sound naturalist” to accept the +doctrine of common descent with divergence; and so given a real meaning +to the term “natural relationship,” which had forced itself upon the +older naturalists, despite their belief in special and independent +creations. The immediate aim of the naturalists of the day was now to +fill up the gaps in their knowledge, so as to strengthen the fabric of a +unified biology. For this purpose they found their actual scientific +equipment so inadequate that they were fully occupied in inventing fresh +technique, and working therewith at facts—save a few critics, such as St. +George Mivart, who was regarded as negligible, since he evidently held a +brief for a party standing outside the scientific world. + +Butler introduced himself as what we now call “The Man in the Street,” +far too bare of scientific clothing to satisfy the Mrs. Grundy of the +domain: lacking all recognised tools of science and all sense of the +difficulties in his way, he proceeded to tackle the problems of science +with little save the deft pen of the literary expert in his hand. His +very failure to appreciate the difficulties gave greater power to his +work—much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended the Jungfrau and faced +successfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so long as he believed them to +be the mere “blagues de réclame” of the wily Swiss host. His brilliant +qualities of style and irony themselves told heavily against him. Was he +not already known for having written the most trenchant satire that had +appeared since “Gulliver’s Travels”? Had he not sneered therein at the +very foundations of society, and followed up its success by a +pseudo-biography that had taken in the “Record” and the “Rock”? In “Life +and Habit,” at the very start, he goes out of his way to heap scorn at +the respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Goethe, Arnold of +Rugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed the lowest opinion of the +Fellows of the Royal Society. To him the professional man of science, +with self-conscious knowledge for his ideal and aim, was a medicine-man, +priest, augur—useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be carefully watched by +all who value freedom of thought and person, lest with opportunity he +develop into a persecutor of the worst type. Not content with +blackguarding the audience to whom his work should most appeal, he went +on to depreciate that work itself and its author in his finest vein of +irony. Having argued that our best and highest knowledge is that of +whose possession we are most ignorant, he proceeds: “Above all, let no +unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at +all I am among the damned.” + + * * * * * + +His writing of “EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW” (1879) was due to his conviction +that scant justice had been done by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace and +their admirers to the pioneering work of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and +Lamarck. To repair this he gives a brilliant exposition of what seemed +to him the most valuable portion of their teachings on evolution. His +analysis of Buffon’s true meaning, veiled by the reticences due to the +conditions under which he wrote, is as masterly as the English in which +he develops it. His sense of wounded justice explains the vigorous +polemic which here, as in all his later writings, he carries to the +extreme. + +As a matter of fact, he never realised Charles Darwin’s utter lack of +sympathetic understanding of the work of his French precursors, let alone +his own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet this practical ignorance, which to +Butler was so strange as to transcend belief, was altogether genuine, and +easy to realise when we recall the position of Natural Science in the +early thirties in Darwin’s student days at Cambridge, and for a decade or +two later. Catastropharianism was the tenet of the day: to the last it +commended itself to his Professors of Botany and Geology,—for whom Darwin +held the fervent allegiance of the Indian scholar, or _chela_, to his +_guru_. As Geikie has recently pointed out, it was only later, when +Lyell had shown that the breaks in the succession of the rocks were only +partial and local, without involving the universal catastrophes that +destroyed all life and rendered fresh creations thereof necessary, that +any general acceptance of a descent theory could be expected. We may be +very sure that Darwin must have received many solemn warnings against the +dangerous speculations of the “French Revolutionary School.” He himself +was far too busy at the time with the reception and assimilation of new +facts to be awake to the deeper interest of far-reaching theories. + +It is the more unfortunate that Butler’s lack of appreciation on these +points should have led to the enormous proportion of bitter personal +controversy that we find in the remainder of his biological writings. +Possibly, as suggested by George Bernard Shaw, his acquaintance and +admirer, he was also swayed by philosophical resentment at that +banishment of mind from the organic universe, which was generally thought +to have been achieved by Charles Darwin’s theory. Still, we must +remember that this mindless view is not implicit in Charles Darwin’s +presentment of his own theory, nor was it accepted by him as it has been +by so many of his professed disciples. + + * * * * * + +“UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY” (1880).—We have already alluded to an anticipation +of Butler’s main theses. In 1870 Dr. Ewald Hering, one of the most +eminent physiologists of the day, Professor at Vienna, gave an Inaugural +Address to the Imperial Royal Academy of Sciences: “Das Gedächtniss als +allgemeine Funktion der organisirter Substanz” (“Memory as a Universal +Function of Organised Matter”). When “Life and Habit” was well advanced, +Francis Darwin, at the time a frequent visitor, called Butler’s attention +to this essay, which he himself only knew from an article in “Nature.” +Herein Professor E. Ray Lankester had referred to it with admiring +sympathy in connection with its further development by Haeckel in a +pamphlet entitled “Die Perigenese der Plastidule.” We may note, however, +that in his collected Essays, “The Advancement of Science” (1890), Sir +Ray Lankester, while including this Essay, inserts on the blank page +{0b}—we had almost written “the white sheet”—at the back of it an apology +for having ever advocated the possibility of the transmission of acquired +characters. + +“Unconscious Memory” was largely written to show the relation of Butler’s +views to Hering’s, and contains an exquisitely written translation of the +Address. Hering does, indeed, anticipate Butler, and that in language +far more suitable to the persuasion of the scientific public. It +contains a subsidiary hypothesis that memory has for its mechanism +special vibrations of the protoplasm, and the acquired capacity to +respond to such vibrations once felt upon their repetition. I do not +think that the theory gains anything by the introduction of this even as +a mere formal hypothesis; and there is no evidence for its being anything +more. Butler, however, gives it a warm, nay, enthusiastic, reception in +Chapter V (Introduction to Professor Hering’s lecture), and in his notes +to the translation of the Address, which bulks so large in this book, but +points out that he was “not committed to this hypothesis, though inclined +to accept it on a _prima facie_ view.” Later on, as we shall see, he +attached more importance to it. + +The Hering Address is followed in “Unconscious Memory” by translations of +selected passages from Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” +and annotations to explain the difference from this personification of +“_The Unconscious_” as a mighty all-ruling, all-creating personality, and +his own scientific recognition of the great part played by _unconscious +processes_ in the region of mind and memory. + +These are the essentials of the book as a contribution to biological +philosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid statement of objections +to his theory as they might be put by a rigid necessitarian, and a +refutation of that interpretation as applied to human action. + +But in the second chapter Butler states his recession from the strong +logical position he had hitherto developed in his writings from “Erewhon” +onwards; so far he had not only distinguished the living from the +non-living, but distinguished among the latter _machines_ or _tools_ from +_things at large_. {0c} Machines or tools are the external organs of +living beings, as organs are their internal machines: they are fashioned, +assembled, or selected by the beings for a purposes so they have a +_future purpose_, as well as a _past history_. “Things at large” have a +past history, but no purpose (so long as some being does not convert them +into tools and give them a purpose): Machines have a Why? as well as a +How?: “things at large” have a How? only. + +In “Unconscious Memory” the allurements of unitary or monistic views have +gained the upper hand, and Butler writes (p. 23):— + + “The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between + the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with + our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every + molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up + of an association or corporation, than to start with inanimate + molecules and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what we + call the inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain point + living, and instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness, + volition, and power of concerted action. _It is only of late_, + _however_, _that I have come to this opinion_.” + +I have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was more or less +conscious of its irreconcilability with much of his most characteristic +doctrine. Again, in the closing chapter, Butler writes (p. 275):— + + “We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living in + respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather + than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in + common with the inorganic.” + +We conclude our survey of this book by mentioning the literary +controversial part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but cropping up +elsewhere. It refers to interpolations made in the authorised +translation of Krause’s “Life of Erasmus Darwin.” Only one side is +presented; and we are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss the +merits of the question. + + * * * * * + +“LUCK, OR CUNNING, as the Main Means of Organic Modification? an Attempt +to throw Additional Light upon the late Mr. Charles Darwin’s Theory of +Natural Selection” (1887), completes the series of biological books. +This is mainly a book of strenuous polemic. It brings out still more +forcibly the Hering-Butler doctrine of continued personality from +generation to generation, and of the working of unconscious memory +throughout; and points out that, while this is implicit in much of the +teaching of Herbert Spencer, Romanes, and others, it was nowhere—even +after the appearance of “Life and Habit”—explicitly recognised by them, +but, on the contrary, masked by inconsistent statements and teaching. +Not Luck but Cunning, not the uninspired weeding out by Natural Selection +but the intelligent striving of the organism, is at the bottom of the +useful variety of organic life. And the parallel is drawn that not the +happy accident of time and place, but the Machiavellian cunning of +Charles Darwin, succeeded in imposing, as entirely his own, on the +civilised world an uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution wherein +luck played the leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring views +of the older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their luck. +On this controversy I am bound to say that I do not in the very least +share Butler’s opinions; and I must ascribe them to his lack of personal +familiarity with the biologists of the day and their modes of thought and +of work. Butler everywhere undervalues the important work of elimination +played by Natural Selection in its widest sense. + +The “Conclusion” of “Luck, or Cunning?” shows a strong advance in +monistic views, and a yet more marked development in the vibration +hypothesis of memory given by Hering and only adopted with the greatest +reserve in “Unconscious Memory.” + + “Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter depends + solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on the + characteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. The + exterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its + vibrations to our brain; but if the state of the thing itself depends + upon its vibrations, it [the thing] must be considered as to all + intents and purposes the vibrations themselves—plus, of course, the + underlying substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations, + therefore, form the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal + dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and, + in the course of time, create and further modify the mechanism of + both the sensory and the motor nerves. Thought and thing are one. + + “I commend these two last speculations to the reader’s charitable + consideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond the ground + on which I can safely venture. . . . I believe they are both + substantially true.” + +In 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his notebooks (see +_New Quarterly Review_, 1910, p. 116), and as in “Luck, or Cunning?” +associated them vaguely with the unitary conceptions introduced into +chemistry by Newlands and Mendelejeff. Judging himself as an outsider, +the author of “Life and Habit” would certainly have considered the mild +expression of faith, “I believe they are both substantially true,” +equivalent to one of extreme doubt. Thus “the fact of the Archbishop’s +recognising this as among the number of his beliefs is conclusive +evidence, with those who have devoted attention to the laws of thought, +that his mind is not yet clear” on the matter of the belief avowed (see +“Life and Habit,” pp. 24, 25). + +To sum up: Butler’s fundamental attitude to the vibration hypothesis was +all through that taken in “Unconscious Memory”; he played with it as a +pretty pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; but instead of +backing it for all he was worth, like the main theses of “Life and +Habit,” he put a big stake on it—and then hedged. + + * * * * * + +The last of Butler’s biological writings is the Essay, “THE DEADLOCK IN +DARWINISM,” containing much valuable criticism on Wallace and Weismann. +It is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace’s book, “Darwinism,” that he +introduces the term “Wallaceism” {0d} for a theory of descent that +excludes the transmission of acquired characters. This was, indeed, the +chief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent his hypothesis of +pangenesis, which, unacceptable as it has proved, had far more to +recommend it as a formal hypothesis than the equally formal germ-plasm +hypothesis of Weismann. + + * * * * * + +The chief difficulty in accepting the main theses of Butler and Hering is +one familiar to every biologist, and not at all difficult to understand +by the layman. Everyone knows that the complicated beings that we term +“Animals” and “Plants,” consist of a number of more or less +individualised units, the cells, each analogous to a simpler being, a +Protist—save in so far as the character of the cell unit of the Higher +being is modified in accordance with the part it plays in that complex +being as a whole. Most people, too, are familiar with the fact that the +complex being starts as a single cell, separated from its parent; or, +where bisexual reproduction occurs, from a cell due to the fusion of two +cells, each detached from its parent. Such cells are called +“Germ-cells.” The germ-cell, whether of single or of dual origin, starts +by dividing repeatedly, so as to form the _primary embryonic cells_, a +complex mass of cells, at first essentially similar, which, however, as +they go on multiplying, undergo differentiations and migrations, losing +their simplicity as they do so. Those cells that are modified to take +part in the proper work of the whole are called tissue-cells. In virtue +of their activities, their growth and reproductive power are limited—much +more in Animals than in Plants, in Higher than in Lower beings. It is +these tissues, or some of them, that receive the impressions from the +outside which leave the imprint of memory. Other cells, which may be +closely associated into a continuous organ, or more or less surrounded by +tissue-cells, whose part it is to nourish them, are called “secondary +embryonic cells,” or “germ-cells.” The germ-cells may be differentiated +in the young organism at a very early stage, but in Plants they are +separated at a much later date from the less isolated embryonic regions +that provide for the Plant’s branching; in all cases we find embryonic +and germ-cells screened from the life processes of the complex organism, +or taking no very obvious part in it, save to form new tissues or new +organs, notably in Plants. + +Again, in ourselves, and to a greater or less extent in all Animals, we +find a system of special tissues set apart for the reception and storage +of impressions from the outer world, and for guiding the other organs in +their appropriate responses—the “Nervous System”; and when this system is +ill-developed or out of gear the remaining organs work badly from lack of +proper skilled guidance and co-ordination. How can we, then, speak of +“memory” in a germ-cell which has been screened from the experiences of +the organism, which is too simple in structure to realise them if it were +exposed to them? My own answer is that we cannot form any theory on the +subject, the only question is whether we have any right to _infer_ this +“memory” from the _behaviour_ of living beings; and Butler, like Hering, +Haeckel, and some more modern authors, has shown that the inference is a +very strong presumption. Again, it is easy to over-value such complex +instruments as we possess. The possessor of an up-to-date camera, well +instructed in the function and manipulation of every part, but ignorant +of all optics save a hand-to-mouth knowledge of the properties of his own +lens, might say that _a priori_ no picture could be taken with a +cigar-box perforated by a pin-hole; and our ignorance of the mechanism of +the Psychology of any organism is greater by many times than that of my +supposed photographer. We know that Plants are able to do many things +that can only be accounted for by ascribing to them a “psyche,” and these +co-ordinated enough to satisfy their needs; and yet they possess no +central organ comparable to the brain, no highly specialised system for +intercommunication like our nerve trunks and fibres. As Oscar Hertwig +says, we are as ignorant of the mechanism of the development of the +individual as we are of that of hereditary transmission of acquired +characters, and the absence of such mechanism in either case is no reason +for rejecting the proven fact. + +However, the relations of germ and body just described led Jäger, +Nussbaum, Galton, Lankester, and, above all, Weismann, to the view that +the germ-cells or “stirp” (Galton) were _in_ the body, but not _of_ it. +Indeed, in the body and out of it, whether as reproductive cells set +free, or in the developing embryo, they are regarded as forming one +continuous homogeneity, in contrast to the differentiation of the body; +and it is to these cells, regarded as a continuum, that the terms stirp, +germ-plasm, are especially applied. Yet on this view, so eagerly +advocated by its supporters, we have to substitute for the hypothesis of +memory, which they declare to have no real meaning here, the far more +fantastic hypotheses of Weismann: by these they explain the process of +differentiation in the young embryo into new germ and body; and in the +young body the differentiation of its cells, each in due time and place, +into the varied tissue cells and organs. Such views might perhaps be +acceptable if it could be shown that over each cell-division there +presided a wise all-guiding genie of transcending intellect, to which +Clerk-Maxwell’s sorting demons were mere infants. Yet these views have +so enchanted many distinguished biologists, that in dealing with the +subject they have actually ignored the existence of equally able workers +who hesitate to share the extremest of their views. The phenomenon is +one well known in hypnotic practice. So long as the non-Weismannians +deal with matters outside this discussion, their existence and their work +is rated at its just value; but any work of theirs on this point so +affects the orthodox Weismannite (whether he accept this label or reject +it does not matter), that for the time being their existence and the good +work they have done are alike non-existent. {0e} + +Butler founded no school, and wished to found none. He desired that what +was true in his work should prevail, and he looked forward calmly to the +time when the recognition of that truth and of his share in advancing it +should give him in the lives of others that immortality for which alone +he craved. + +Lamarckian views have never lacked defenders here and in America. Of the +English, Herbert Spencer, who however, was averse to the vitalistic +attitude, Vines and Henslow among botanists, Cunningham among zoologists, +have always resisted Weismannism; but, I think, none of these was +distinctly influenced by Hering and Butler. In America the majority of +the great school of palæontologists have been strong Lamarckians, notably +Cope, who has pointed out, moreover, that the transformations of energy +in living beings are peculiar to them. + +We have already adverted to Haeckel’s acceptance and development of +Hering’s ideas in his “Perigenese der Plastidule.” Oscar Hertwig has +been a consistent Lamarckian, like Yves Delage of the Sorbonne, and these +occupy pre-eminent positions not only as observers, but as discriminating +theorists and historians of the recent progress of biology. We may also +cite as a Lamarckian—of a sort—Felix Le Dantec, the leader of the +chemico-physical school of the present day. + +But we must seek elsewhere for special attention to the points which +Butler regarded as the essentials of “Life and Habit.” In 1893 Henry P. +Orr, Professor of Biology in the University of Louisiana, published a +little book entitled “A Theory of Heredity.” Herein he insists on the +nervous control of the whole body, and on the transmission to the +reproductive cells of such stimuli, received by the body, as will guide +them on their path until they shall have acquired adequate experience of +their own in the new body they have formed. I have found the name of +neither Butler nor Hering, but the treatment is essentially on their +lines, and is both clear and interesting. + +In 1896 I wrote an essay on “The Fundamental Principles of Heredity,” +primarily directed to the man in the street. This, after being held over +for more than a year by one leading review, was “declined with regret,” +and again after some weeks met the same fate from another editor. It +appeared in the pages of “Natural Science” for October, 1897, and in the +“Biologisches Centralblatt” for the same year. I reproduce its closing +paragraph:— + + “This theory [Hering-Butler’s] has, indeed, a tentative character, + and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the more welcome as not + aiming at the impossible. A whole series of phenomena in organic + beings are correlated under the term of _memory_, _conscious and + unconscious_, _patent and latent_. . . . Of the order of unconscious + memory, latent till the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, is all + the co-operative growth and work of the organism, including its + development from the reproductive cells. Concerning the _modus + operandi_ we know nothing: the phenomena may be due, as Hering + suggests, to molecular vibrations, which must be at least as distinct + from ordinary physical disturbances as Röntgen’s rays are from + ordinary light; or it may be correlated, as we ourselves are inclined + to think, with complex chemical changes in an intricate but orderly + succession. For the present, at least, the problem of heredity can + only be elucidated by the light of mental, and not material + processes.” + +It will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity of Hering’s +invocation of molecular vibrations as the mechanism of memory, and +suggest as an alternative rhythmic chemical changes. This view has +recently been put forth in detail by J. J. Cunningham in his essay on the +“Hormone {0f} Theory of Heredity,” in the _Archiv für +Entwicklungsmechanik_ (1909), but I have failed to note any direct effect +of my essay on the trend of biological thought. + +Among post-Darwinian controversies the one that has latterly assumed the +greatest prominence is that of the relative importance of small +variations in the way of more or less “fluctuations,” and of +“discontinuous variations,” or “mutations,” as De Vries has called them. +Darwin, in the first four editions of the “Origin of Species,” attached +more importance to the latter than in subsequent editions; he was swayed +in his attitude, as is well known, by an article of the physicist, +Fleeming Jenkin, which appeared in the _North British Review_. The +mathematics of this article were unimpeachable, but they were founded on +the assumption that exceptional variations would only occur in single +individuals, which is, indeed, often the case among those domesticated +races on which Darwin especially studied the phenomena of variation. +Darwin was no mathematician or physicist, and we are told in his +biography that he regarded every tool-shop rule or optician’s thermometer +as an instrument of precision: so he appears to have regarded Fleeming +Jenkin’s demonstration as a mathematical deduction which he was bound to +accept without criticism. + +Mr. William Bateson, late Professor of Biology in the University of +Cambridge, as early as 1894 laid great stress on the importance of +discontinuous variations, collecting and collating the known facts in his +“Materials for the Study of Variations”; but this important work, now +become rare and valuable, at the time excited so little interest as to be +‘remaindered’ within a very few years after publication. + +In 1901 Hugo De Vries, Professor of Botany in the University of +Amsterdam, published “Die Mutationstheorie,” wherein he showed that +mutations or discontinuous variations in various directions may appear +simultaneously in many individuals, and in various directions. In the +gardener’s phrase, the species may take to sporting in various directions +at the same time, and each sport may be represented by numerous +specimens. + +De Vries shows the probability that species go on for long periods +showing only fluctuations, and then suddenly take to sporting in the way +described, short periods of mutation alternating with long intervals of +relative constancy. It is to mutations that De Vries and his school, as +well as Luther Burbank, the great former of new fruit- and flower-plants, +look for those variations which form the material of Natural Selection. +In “God the Known and God the Unknown,” which appeared in the _Examiner_ +(May, June, and July), 1879, but though then revised was only published +posthumously in 1909, Butler anticipates this distinction:— + + “Under these circumstances organism must act in one or other of these + two ways: it must either change slowly and continuously with the + surroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change + with a corresponding modification, so far as is found convenient, or + it must put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and + more sweeping changes. + + “Both these courses are the same in principle, the difference being + one of scale, and the one being a miniature of the other, as a ripple + is an Atlantic wave in little; both have their advantages and + disadvantages, so that most organisms will take the one course for + one set of things and the other for another. They will deal promptly + with things which they can get at easily, and which lie more upon the + surface; _those_, _however_, _which are more troublesome to reach_, + _and lie deeper_, _will be handled upon more cataclysmic principles_, + _being allowed longer periods of repose followed by short periods of + greater activity_ . . . it may be questioned whether what is called a + sport is not the organic expression of discontent which has been long + felt, but which has not been attended to, nor been met step by step + by as much small remedial modification as was found practicable: so + that when a change does come it comes by way of revolution. Or, + again (only that it comes to much the same thing), it may be compared + to one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come to us unbidden + after we have been thinking for a long time what to do, or how to + arrange our ideas, and have yet been unable to come to any + conclusion” (pp. 14, 15). {0g} + +We come to another order of mind in Hans Driesch. At the time he began +his work biologists were largely busy in a region indicated by Darwin, +and roughly mapped out by Haeckel—that of phylogeny. From the facts of +development of the individual, from the comparison of fossils in +successive strata, they set to work at the construction of pedigrees, and +strove to bring into line the principles of classification with the more +or less hypothetical “stemtrees.” Driesch considered this futile, since +we never could reconstruct from such evidence anything certain in the +history of the past. He therefore asserted that a more complete +knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the organic world might give a +scientific explanation of the phenomena, and maintained that the proper +work of the biologist was to deepen our knowledge in these respects. He +embodied his views, seeking the explanation on this track, filling up +gaps and tracing projected roads along lines of probable truth in his +“Analytische Theorie der organische Entwicklung.” But his own work +convinced him of the hopelessness of the task he had undertaken, and he +has become as strenuous a vitalist as Butler. The most complete +statement of his present views is to be found in “The Philosophy of Life” +(1908–9), being the Giffold Lectures for 1907–8. Herein he postulates a +quality (“psychoid”) in all living beings, directing energy and matter +for the purpose of the organism, and to this he applies the Aristotelian +designation “Entelechy.” The question of the transmission of acquired +characters is regarded as doubtful, and he does not emphasise—if he +accepts—the doctrine of continuous personality. His early youthful +impatience with descent theories and hypotheses has, however, +disappeared. + + * * * * * + +In the next work the influence of Hering and Butler is definitely present +and recognised. In 1906 Signor Eugenio Rignano, an engineer keenly +interested in all branches of science, and a little later the founder of +the international review, _Rivistà di Scienza_ (now simply called +_Scientia_), published in French a volume entitled “Sur la +transmissibilité des Caractères acquis—Hypothèse d’un Centro-épigenèse.” +Into the details of the author’s work we will not enter fully. Suffice +it to know that he accepts the Hering-Butler theory, and makes a distinct +advance on Hering’s rather crude hypothesis of persistent vibrations by +suggesting that the remembering centres store slightly different forms of +energy, to give out energy of the same kind as they have received, like +electrical accumulators. The last chapter, “Le Phénomène mnémonique et +le Phénomène vital,” is frankly based on Hering. + +In “The Lesson of Evolution” (1907, posthumous, and only published for +private circulation) Frederick Wollaston Hutton, F.R.S., late Professor +of Biology and Geology, first at Dunedin and after at Christchurch, New +Zealand, puts forward a strongly vitalistic view, and adopts Hering’s +teaching. After stating this he adds, “The same idea of heredity being +due to unconscious memory was advocated by Mr. Samuel Butler in his “Life +and Habit.” + +Dr. James Mark Baldwin, Stuart Professor of Psychology in Princeton +University, U.S.A., called attention early in the 90’s to a reaction +characteristic of all living beings, which he terms the “Circular +Reaction.” We take his most recent account of this from his “Development +and Evolution” (1902):—{0h} + + “The general fact is that the organism reacts by concentration upon + the locality stimulated for the _continuance_ of the conditions, + movements, stimulations, _which are vitally beneficial_, and for the + cessation of the conditions, movements, stimulations _which are + vitally depressing_.” + +This amounts to saying in the terminology of Jenning (see below) that the +living organism alters its “physiological states” either for its direct +benefit, or for its indirect benefit in the reduction of harmful +conditions. + +Again:— + + “This form of concentration of energy on stimulated localities, with + the resulting renewal through movement of conditions that are + pleasure-giving and beneficial, and the consequent repetition of the + movements is called ‘circular reaction.’” + +Of course, the inhibition of such movements as would be painful on +repetition is merely the negative case of the circular reaction. We must +not put too much of our own ideas into the author’s mind; he nowhere says +explicitly that the animal or plant shows its sense and does this because +it likes the one thing and wants it repeated, or dislikes the other and +stops its repetition, as Butler would have said. Baldwin is very strong +in insisting that no full explanation can be given of living processes, +any more than of history, on purely chemico-physical grounds. + +The same view is put differently and independently by H. S. Jennings, +{0i} who started his investigations of living Protista, the simplest of +living beings, with the idea that only accurate and ample observation was +needed to enable us to explain all their activities on a mechanical +basis, and devised ingenious models of protoplastic movements. He was +led, like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as illusory, and has come to +the conviction that in the behaviour of these lowly beings there is a +purposive and a tentative character—a method of “trial and error”—that +can only be interpreted by the invocation of psychology. He points out +that after stimulation the “state” of the organism may be altered, so +that the response to the same stimulus on repetition is other. Or, as he +puts it, the first stimulus has caused the organism to pass into a new +“physiological state.” As the change of state from what we may call the +“primary indifferent state” is advantageous to the organism, we may +regard this as equivalent to the doctrine of the “circular reaction,” and +also as containing the essence of Semon’s doctrine of “engrams” or +imprints which we are about to consider. We cite one passage which for +audacity of thought (underlying, it is true, most guarded expression) may +well compare with many of the boldest flights in “Life and Habit”:— + + “It may be noted that regulation in the manner we have set forth is + what, in the behaviour of higher organisms, at least, is called + intelligence [the examples have been taken from Protista, Corals, and + the Lowest Worms]. If the same method of regulation is found in + other fields, there is no reason for refusing to compare the action + to intelligence. Comparison of the regulatory processes that are + shown in internal physiological changes and in regeneration to + intelligence seems to be looked upon sometimes as heretical and + unscientific. Yet intelligence is a name applied to processes that + actually exist in the regulation of movements, and there is, _a + priori_, no reason why similar processes should not occur in + regulation in other fields. When we analyse regulation objectively + there seems indeed reason to think that the processes are of the same + character in behaviour as elsewhere. If the term intelligence be + reserved for the subjective accompaniments of such regulation, then + of course we have no direct knowledge of its existence in any of the + fields of regulation outside of the self, and in the self perhaps + only in behaviour. But in a purely objective consideration there + seems no reason to suppose that regulation in behaviour + (intelligence) is of a fundamentally different character from + regulation elsewhere.” (“Method of Regulation,” p. 492.) + +Jennings makes no mention of questions of the theory of heredity. He has +made some experiments on the transmission of an acquired character in +Protozoa; but it was a mutilation-character, which is, as has been often +shown, {0j} not to the point. + + * * * * * + +One of the most obvious criticisms of Hering’s exposition is based upon +the extended use he makes of the word “Memory”: this he had foreseen and +deprecated. + + “We have a perfect right,” he says, “to extend our conception of + memory so as to make it embrace involuntary [and also unconscious] + reproductions of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we + find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries + that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and, + at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious life.” + (“Unconscious Memory,” p. 68.) + +This sentence, coupled with Hering’s omission to give to the concept of +memory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the limitations and of the +stains of habitual use, may well have been the inspiration of the next +work on our list. Richard Semon is a professional zoologist and +anthropologist of such high status for his original observations and +researches in the mere technical sense, that in these countries he would +assuredly have been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the Royal Society +who were Samuel Butler’s special aversion. The full title of his book is +“DIE MNEME als erhaltende Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens” +(Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We may translate it “MNEME, a +Principle of Conservation in the Transformations of Organic Existence.” + +From this I quote in free translation the opening passage of Chapter II:— + + “We have shown that in very many cases, whether in Protist, Plant, or + Animal, when an organism has passed into an indifferent state after + the reaction to a stimulus has ceased, its irritable substance has + suffered a lasting change: I call this after-action of the stimulus + its ‘imprint’ or ‘engraphic’ action, since it penetrates and imprints + itself in the organic substance; and I term the change so effected an + ‘imprint’ or ‘engram’ of the stimulus; and the sum of all the + imprints possessed by the organism may be called its ‘store of + imprints,’ wherein we must distinguish between those which it has + inherited from its forbears and those which it has acquired itself. + Any phenomenon displayed by an organism as the result either of a + single imprint or of a sum of them, I term a ‘mnemic phenomenon’; and + the mnemic possibilities of an organism may be termed, collectively, + its ‘MNEME.’ + + “I have selected my own terms for the concepts that I have just + defined. On many grounds I refrain from making any use of the good + German terms ‘Gedächtniss, Erinnerungsbild.’ The first and chiefest + ground is that for my purpose I should have to employ the German + words in a much wider sense than what they usually convey, and thus + leave the door open to countless misunderstandings and idle + controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error of fact to + give to the wider concept the name already current in the narrower + sense—nay, actually limited, like ‘Erinnerungsbild,’ to phenomena of + consciousness. . . . In Animals, during the course of history, one + set of organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for the reception + and transmission of stimuli—the Nervous System. But from this + specialisation we are not justified in ascribing to the nervous + system any monopoly of the function, even when it is as highly + developed as in Man. . . . Just as the direct excitability of the + nervous system has progressed in the history of the race, so has its + capacity for receiving imprints; but neither susceptibility nor + retentiveness is its monopoly; and, indeed, retentiveness seems + inseparable from susceptibility in living matter.” + +Semen here takes the instance of stimulus and imprint actions affecting +the nervous system of a dog + + “who has up till now never experienced aught but kindness from the + Lord of Creation, and then one day that he is out alone is pelted + with stones by a boy. . . . Here he is affected at once by two sets + of stimuli: (1) the optic stimulus of seeing the boy stoop for stones + and throw them, and (2) the skin stimulus of the pain felt when they + hit him. Here both stimuli leave their imprints; and the organism is + permanently changed in relation to the recurrence of the stimuli. + Hitherto the sight of a human figure quickly stooping had produced no + constant special reaction. Now the reaction is constant, and may + remain so till death. . . . The dog tucks in its tail between its + legs and takes flight, often with a howl [as of] pain.” + + “Here we gain on one side a deeper insight into the imprint action of + stimuli. It reposes on the lasting change in the conditions of the + living matter, so that the repetition of the immediate or synchronous + reaction to its first stimulus (in this case the stooping of the boy, + the flying stones, and the pain on the ribs), no longer demands, as + in the original state of indifference, the full stimulus _a_, but may + be called forth by a partial or different stimulus, _b_ (in this case + the mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences by which + such changed reaction are rendered possible, ‘outcome-reactions,’ and + when such influences assume the form of stimuli, ‘outcome-stimuli.’” + +They are termed “outcome” (“ecphoria”) stimuli, because the author +regards them and would have us regard them as the outcome, manifestation, +or efference of an imprint of a previous stimulus. We have noted that +the imprint is equivalent to the changed “physiological state” of +Jennings. Again, the capacity for gaining imprints and revealing them by +outcomes favourable to the individual is the “circular reaction” of +Baldwin, but Semon gives no reference to either author. {0k} + +In the preface to his first edition (reprinted in the second) Semon +writes, after discussing the work of Hering and Haeckel:— + + “The problem received a more detailed treatment in Samuel Butler’s + book, ‘Life and Habit,’ published in 1878. Though he only made + acquaintance with Hering’s essay after this publication, Butler gave + what was in many respects a more detailed view of the coincidences of + these different phenomena of organic reproduction than did Hering. + With much that is untenable, Butler’s writings present many a + brilliant idea; yet, on the whole, they are rather a retrogression + than an advance upon Hering. Evidently they failed to exercise any + marked influence upon the literature of the day.” + +This judgment needs a little examination. Butler claimed, justly, that +his “Life and Habit” was an advance on Hering in its dealing with +questions of hybridity, and of longevity puberty and sterility. Since +Semon’s extended treatment of the phenomena of crosses might almost be +regarded as the rewriting of the corresponding section of “Life and +Habit” in the “Mneme” terminology, we may infer that this view of the +question was one of Butler’s “brilliant ideas.” That Butler shrank from +accepting such a formal explanation of memory as Hering did with his +hypothesis should certainly be counted as a distinct “advance upon +Hering,” for Semon also avoids any attempt at an explanation of “Mneme.” +I think, however, we may gather the real meaning of Semon’s strictures +from the following passages:— + + “I refrain here from a discussion of the development of this theory + of Lamarck’s by those Neo-Lamarckians who would ascribe to the + individual elementary organism an equipment of complex psychical + powers—so to say, anthropomorphic perception and volitions. This + treatment is no longer directed by the scientific principle of + referring complex phenomena to simpler laws, of deducing even human + intellect and will from simpler elements. On the contrary, they + follow that most abhorrent method of taking the most complex and + unresolved as a datum, and employing it as an explanation. The + adoption of such a method, as formerly by Samuel Butler, and recently + by Pauly, I regard as a big and dangerous step backward” (ed. 2, pp. + 380–1, note). + +Thus Butler’s alleged retrogressions belong to the same order of thinking +that we have seen shared by Driesch, Baldwin, and Jennings, and most +explicitly avowed, as we shall see, by Francis Darwin. Semon makes one +rather candid admission, “The impossibility of interpreting the phenomena +of physiological stimulation by those of direct reaction, and the +undeception of those who had put faith in this being possible, have led +many on the _backward path of vitalism_.” Semon assuredly will never be +able to complete his theory of “Mneme” until, guided by the experience of +Jennings and Driesch, he forsakes the blind alley of mechanisticism and +retraces his steps to reasonable vitalism. + + * * * * * + +But the most notable publications bearing on our matter are incidental to +the Darwin Celebrations of 1908–9. Dr. Francis Darwin, son, +collaborator, and biographer of Charles Darwin, was selected to preside +over the Meeting of the British Association held in Dublin in 1908, the +jubilee of the first publications on Natural Selection by his father and +Alfred Russel Wallace. In this address we find the theory of Hering, +Butler, Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place as a _vera causa_ of +that variation which Natural Selection must find before it can act, and +recognised as the basis of a rational theory of the development of the +individual and of the race. The organism is essentially purposive: the +impossibility of devising any adequate accounts of organic form and +function without taking account of the psychical side is most strenuously +asserted. And with our regret that past misunderstandings should be so +prominent in Butler’s works, it was very pleasant to hear Francis +Darwin’s quotation from Butler’s translation of Hering {0l} followed by a +personal tribute to Butler himself. + + * * * * * + +In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of +the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the “Origin of Species,” +at the suggestion of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the University +Press published during the current year a volume entitled “Darwin and +Modern Science,” edited by Mr. A. C. Seward, Professor of Botany in the +University. Of the twenty-nine essays by men of science of the highest +distinction, one is of peculiar interest to the readers of Samuel Butler: +“Heredity and Variation in Modern Lights,” by Professor W. Bateson, +F.R.S., to whose work on “Discontinuous Variations” we have already +referred. Here once more Butler receives from an official biologist of +the first rank full recognition for his wonderful insight and keen +critical power. This is the more noteworthy because Bateson has +apparently no faith in the transmission of acquired characters; but such +a passage as this would have commended itself to Butler’s admiration:— + + “All this indicates a definiteness and specific order in heredity, + and therefore in variation. This order cannot by the nature of the + case be dependent on Natural Selection for its existence, but must be + a consequence of the fundamental chemical and physical nature of + living things. The study of Variation had from the first shown that + an orderliness of this kind was present. The bodies and properties + of living things are cosmic, not chaotic. No matter how low in the + scale we go, never do we find the slightest hint of a diminution in + that all-pervading orderliness, nor can we conceive an organism + existing for one moment in any other state.” + +We have now before us the materials to determine the problem of Butler’s +relation to biology and to biologists. He was, we have seen, anticipated +by Hering; but his attitude was his own, fresh and original. He did not +hamper his exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis of +vibrations which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory without +giving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is based on no +objective facts, and which, as Semon has practically demonstrated, is +needless for the detailed working out of the theory. Butler failed to +impress the biologists of his day, even those on whom, like Romanes, he +might have reasonably counted for understanding and for support. But he +kept alive Hering’s work when it bade fair to sink into the limbo of +obsolete hypotheses. To use Oliver Wendell Holmes’s phrase, he +“depolarised” evolutionary thought. We quote the words of a young +biologist, who, when an ardent and dogmatic Weismannist of the most +pronounced type, was induced to read “Life and Habit”: “The book was to +me a transformation and an inspiration.” Such learned writings as +Semon’s or Hering’s could never produce such an effect: they do not +penetrate to the heart of man; they cannot carry conviction to the +intellect already filled full with rival theories, and with the +unreasoned faith that to-morrow or next day a new discovery will +obliterate all distinction between Man and his makings. The mind must +needs be open for the reception of truth, for the rejection of prejudice; +and the violence of a Samuel Butler may in the future as in the past be +needed to shatter the coat of mail forged by too exclusively professional +a training. + + MARCUS HARTOG + +_Cork_, _April_, 1910 + + + + +Author’s Preface + + +NOT finding the “well-known German scientific journal _Kosmos_” {0m} +entered in the British Museum Catalogue, I have presented the Museum with +a copy of the number for February 1879, which contains the article by Dr. +Krause of which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a translation, the accuracy +of which is guaranteed—so he informs us—by the translator’s “scientific +reputation together with his knowledge of German.” {0n} + +I have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance what +passages has been suppressed and where matter has been interpolated. + +I have also present a copy of “Erasmus Darwin.” I have marked this too, +so that the genuine and spurious passages can be easily distinguished. + +I understand that both the “Erasmus Darwin” and the number of _Kosmos_ +have been sent to the Keeper of Printed Books, with instructions that +they shall be at once catalogued and made accessible to readers, and do +not doubt that this will have been done before the present volume is +published. The reader, therefore, who may be sufficiently interested in +the matter to care to see exactly what has been done will now have an +opportunity of doing so. + +_October_ 25, 1880. + + + + +Chapter I + + +Introduction—General ignorance on the subject of evolution at the time +the “Origin of Species” was published in 1859. + +THERE are few things which strike us with more surprise, when we review +the course taken by opinion in the last century, than the suddenness with +which belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession came to an end. +This has been often remarked upon, but I am not acquainted with any +record of the fact as it appeared to those under whose eyes the change +was taking place, nor have I seen any contemporary explanation of the +reasons which led to the apparently sudden overthrow of a belief which +had seemed hitherto to be deeply rooted in the minds of almost all men. +As a parallel to this, though in respect of the rapid spread of an +opinion, and not its decadence, it is probable that those of our +descendants who take an interest in ourselves will note the suddenness +with which the theory of evolution, from having been generally ridiculed +during a period of over a hundred years, came into popularity and almost +universal acceptance among educated people. + +It is indisputable that this has been the case; nor is it less +indisputable that the works of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace have been the +main agents in the change that has been brought about in our opinions. +The names of Cobden and Bright do not stand more prominently forward in +connection with the repeal of the Corn Laws than do those of Mr. Darwin +and Mr. Wallace in connection with the general acceptance of the theory +of evolution. There is no living philosopher who has anything like Mr. +Darwin’s popularity with Englishmen generally; and not only this, but his +power of fascination extends all over Europe, and indeed in every country +in which civilisation has obtained footing: not among the illiterate +masses, though these are rapidly following the suit of the educated +classes, but among experts and those who are most capable of judging. +France, indeed—the country of Buffon and Lamarck—must be counted an +exception to the general rule, but in England and Germany there are few +men of scientific reputation who do not accept Mr. Darwin as the founder +of what is commonly called “Darwinism,” and regard him as perhaps the +most penetrative and profound philosopher of modern times. + +To quote an example from the last few weeks only, {2} I have observed +that Professor Huxley has celebrated the twenty-first year since the +“Origin of Species” was published by a lecture at the Royal Institution, +and am told that he described Mr. Darwin’s candour as something actually +“terrible” (I give Professor Huxley’s own word, as reported by one who +heard it); and on opening a small book entitled “Degeneration,” by +Professor Ray Lankester, published a few days before these lines were +written, I find the following passage amid more that is to the same +purport:— + + “Suddenly one of those great guesses which occasionally appear in the + history of science was given to the science of biology by the + imaginative insight of that greatest of living naturalists—I would + say that greatest of living men—Charles Darwin.”—_Degeneration_, p. + 10. + +This is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than that +habitually employed by the leading men of science when they speak of Mr. +Darwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 the Germans devoted an +entire number of one of their scientific periodicals {3} to the +celebration of Mr. Darwin’s seventieth birthday. There is no other +Englishman now living who has been able to win such a compliment as this +from foreigners, who should be disinterested judges. + +Under these circumstances, it must seem the height of presumption to +differ from so great an authority, and to join the small band of +malcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin’s reputation as a philosopher, +though it has grown up with the rapidity of Jonah’s gourd, will yet not +be permanent. I believe, however, that though we must always gladly and +gratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that the public mind has +been brought to accept evolution, the admiration now generally felt for +the “Origin of Species” will appear as unaccountable to our descendants +some fifty or eighty years hence as the enthusiasm of our grandfathers +for the poetry of Dr. Erasmus Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who +has yielded to none in respect of the fascination Mr. Darwin has +exercised over him, I would fain say a few words of explanation which may +make the matter clearer to our future historians. I do this the more +readily because I can at the same time explain thus better than in any +other way the steps which led me to the theory which I afterwards +advanced in “Life and Habit.” + +This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier chapters of +this book. I shall presently give a translation of a lecture by +Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years ago, and which +contains so exactly the theory I subsequently advocated myself, that I am +half uneasy lest it should be supposed that I knew of Professor Hering’s +work and made no reference to it. A friend to whom I submitted my +translation in MS., asking him how closely he thought it resembled “Life +and Habit,” wrote back that it gave my own ideas almost in my own words. +As far as the ideas are concerned this is certainly the case, and +considering that Professor Hering wrote between seven and eight years +before I did, I think it due to him, and to my readers as well as to +myself, to explain the steps which led me to my conclusions, and, while +putting Professor Hering’s lecture before them, to show cause for +thinking that I arrived at an almost identical conclusion, as it would +appear, by an almost identical road, yet, nevertheless, quite +independently, I must ask the reader, therefore, to regard these earlier +chapters as in some measure a personal explanation, as well as a +contribution to the history of an important feature in the developments +of the last twenty years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I +was led to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more +acceptable and easy of comprehension. + +Being on my way to New Zealand when the “Origin of Species” appeared, I +did not get it till 1860 or 1861. When I read it, I found “the theory of +natural selection” repeatedly spoken of as though it were a synonym for +“the theory of descent with modification”; this is especially the case in +the recapitulation chapter of the work. I failed to see how important it +was that these two theories—if indeed “natural selection” can be called a +theory—should not be confounded together, and that a “theory of descent +with modification” might be true, while a “theory of descent with +modification through natural selection” {4} might not stand being looked +into. + +If any one had asked me to state in brief what Mr. Darwin’s theory was, I +am afraid I might have answered “natural selection,” or “descent with +modification,” whichever came first, as though the one meant much the +same as the other. I observe that most of the leading writers on the +subject are still unable to catch sight of the distinction here alluded +to, and console myself for my want of acumen by reflecting that, if I was +misled, I was misled in good company. + +I—and I may add, the public generally—failed also to see what the unaided +reader who was new to the subject would be almost certain to overlook. I +mean, that, according to Mr. Darwin, the variations whose accumulation +resulted in diversity of species and genus were indefinite, fortuitous, +attributable but in small degree to any known causes, and without a +general principle underlying them which would cause them to appear +steadily in a given direction for many successive generations and in a +considerable number of individuals at the same time. We did not know +that the theory of evolution was one that had been quietly but steadily +gaining ground during the last hundred years. Buffon we knew by name, +but he sounded too like “buffoon” for any good to come from him. We had +heard also of Lamarck, and held him to be a kind of French Lord Monboddo; +but we knew nothing of his doctrine save through the caricatures +promulgated by his opponents, or the misrepresentations of those who had +another kind of interest in disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we +believed to be a forgotten minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every +hundred of us had never so much as heard of the “Zoonomia.” We were +little likely, therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very largely from +Buffon, and probably also from Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and that this +last-named writer, though essentially original, was founded upon Buffon, +who was greatly more in advance of any predecessor than any successor has +been in advance of him. + +We did not know, then, that according to the earlier writers the +variations whose accumulation results in species were not fortuitous and +definite, but were due to a known principle of universal +application—namely, “sense of need”—or apprehend the difference between a +theory of evolution which has a backbone, as it were, in the tolerably +constant or slowly varying needs of large numbers of individuals for long +periods together, and one which has no such backbone, but according to +which the progress of one generation is always liable to be cancelled and +obliterated by that of the next. We did not know that the new theory in +a quiet way professed to tell us less than the old had done, and declared +that it could throw little if any light upon the matter which the earlier +writers had endeavoured to illuminate as the central point in their +system. We took it for granted that more light must be being thrown +instead of less; and reading in perfect good faith, we rose from our +perusal with the impression that Mr. Darwin was advocating the descent of +all existing forms of life from a single, or from, at any rate, a very +few primordial types; that no one else had done this hitherto, or that, +if they had, they had got the whole subject into a mess, which mess, +whatever it was—for we were never told this—was now being removed once +for all by Mr. Darwin. + +The evolution part of the story, that is to say, the fact of evolution, +remained in our minds as by far the most prominent feature in Mr. +Darwin’s book; and being grateful for it, we were very ready to take Mr. +Darwin’s work at the estimate tacitly claimed for it by himself, and +vehemently insisted upon by reviewers in influential journals, who took +much the same line towards the earlier writers on evolution as Mr. Darwin +himself had taken. But perhaps nothing more prepossessed us in Mr. +Darwin’s favour than the air of candour that was omnipresent throughout +his work. The prominence given to the arguments of opponents completely +carried us away; it was this which threw us off our guard. It never +occurred to us that there might be other and more dangerous opponents who +were not brought forward. Mr. Darwin did not tell us what his +grandfather and Lamarck would have had to say to this or that. Moreover, +there was an unobtrusive parade of hidden learning and of difficulties at +last overcome which was particularly grateful to us. Whatever opinion +might be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there +could be but one about the value of the example he had set to men of +science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work. +Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to Mr. Darwin in this +respect. + +For, brilliant as the reception of the “Origin of Species” was, it met in +the first instance with hardly less hostile than friendly criticism. But +the attacks were ill-directed; they came from a suspected quarter, and +those who led them did not detect more than the general public had done +what were the really weak places in Mr. Darwin’s armour. They attacked +him where he was strongest; and above all, they were, as a general rule, +stamped with a disingenuousness which at that time we believed to be +peculiar to theological writers and alien to the spirit of science. +Seeing, therefore, that the men of science ranged themselves more and +more decidedly on Mr. Darwin’s side, while his opponents had +manifestly—so far as I can remember, all the more prominent among them—a +bias to which their hostility was attributable, we left off looking at +the arguments against “Darwinism,” as we now began to call it, and +pigeon-holed the matter to the effect that there was one evolution, and +that Mr. Darwin was its prophet. + +The blame of our errors and oversights rests primarily with Mr. Darwin +himself. The first, and far the most important, edition of the “Origin +of Species” came out as a kind of literary Melchisedec, without father +and without mother in the works of other people. Here is its opening +paragraph:— + + “When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ as naturalist, I was much struck with + certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South + America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past + inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw + some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it + has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return + home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might be made out on + this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting upon all sorts + of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five + years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up + some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the + conclusions which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the + present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I + may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them + to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.” {8a} + +In the latest edition this passage remains unaltered, except in one +unimportant respect. What could more completely throw us off the scent +of the earlier writers? If they had written anything worthy of our +attention, or indeed if there had been any earlier writers at all, Mr. +Darwin would have been the first to tell us about them, and to award them +their due meed of recognition. But, no; the whole thing was an original +growth in Mr. Darwin’s mind, and he had never so much as heard of his +grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. + +Dr. Krause, indeed, thought otherwise. In the number of _Kosmos_ for +February 1879 he represented Mr. Darwin as in his youth approaching the +works of his grandfather with all the devotion which people usually feel +for the writings of a renowned poet. {8b} This should perhaps be a +delicately ironical way of hinting that Mr. Darwin did not read his +grandfather’s books closely; but I hardly think that Dr. Krause looked at +the matter in this light, for he goes on to say that “almost every single +work of the younger Darwin may be paralleled by at least a chapter in the +works of his ancestor: the mystery of heredity, adaptation, the +protective arrangements of animals and plants, sexual selection, +insectivorous plants, and the analysis of the emotions and sociological +impulses; nay, even the studies on infants are to be found already +discussed in the pages of the elder Darwin.” {8c} + +Nevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin’s opening sentence appeared, it +contained enough to have put us upon our guard. When he informed us +that, on his return from a long voyage, “it occurred to” him that the way +to make anything out about his subject was to collect and reflect upon +the facts that bore upon it, it should have occurred to us in our turn, +that when people betray a return of consciousness upon such matters as +this, they are on the confines of that state in which other and not less +elementary matters will not “occur to” them. The introduction of the +word “patiently” should have been conclusive. I will not analyse more of +the sentence, but will repeat the next two lines:—“After five years of +work, I allowed myself to speculate upon the subject, and drew up some +short notes.” We read this, thousands of us, and were blind. + +If Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s name was not mentioned in the first edition of +the “Origin of Species,” we should not be surprised at there being no +notice taken of Buffon, or at Lamarck’s being referred to only twice—on +the first occasion to be serenely waved aside, he and all his works; {9a} +on the second, {9b} to be commended on a point of detail. The author of +the “Vestiges of Creation” was more widely known to English readers, +having written more recently and nearer home. He was dealt with +summarily, on an early and prominent page, by a misrepresentation, which +was silently expunged in later editions of the “Origin of Species.” In +his later editions (I believe first in his third, when 6000 copies had +been already sold), Mr. Darwin did indeed introduce a few pages in which +he gave what he designated as a “brief but imperfect sketch” of the +progress of opinion on the origin of species prior to the appearance of +his own work; but the general impression which a book conveys to, and +leaves upon, the public is conveyed by the first edition—the one which is +alone, with rare exceptions, reviewed; and in the first edition of the +“Origin of Species” Mr. Darwin’s great precursors were all either ignored +or misrepresented. Moreover, the “brief but imperfect sketch,” when it +did come, was so very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is what I +suppose Mr. Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it might as well +have been left unwritten for all the help it gave the reader to see the +true question at issue between the original propounders of the theory of +evolution and Mr. Charles Darwin himself. + +That question is this: Whether variation is in the main attributable to a +known general principle, or whether it is not?—whether the minute +variations whose accumulation results in specific and generic differences +are referable to something which will ensure their appearing in a certain +definite direction, or in certain definite directions, for long periods +together, and in many individuals, or whether they are not?—whether, in a +word, these variations are in the main definite or indefinite? + +It is observable that the leading men of science seem rarely to +understand this even now. I am told that Professor Huxley, in his recent +lecture on the coming of age of the “Origin of Species,” never so much as +alluded to the existence of any such division of opinion as this. He did +not even, I am assured, mention “natural selection,” but appeared to +believe, with Professor Tyndall, {10a} that “evolution” is “Mr. Darwin’s +theory.” In his article on evolution in the latest edition of the +“Encyclopædia Britannica,” I find only a veiled perception of the point +wherein Mr. Darwin is at variance with his precursors. Professor Huxley +evidently knows little of these writers beyond their names; if he had +known more, it is impossible he should have written that “Buffon +contributed nothing to the general doctrine of evolution,” {10b} and that +Erasmus Darwin, “though a zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to +have made any real advance on his predecessors.” {11} The article is in +a high degree unsatisfactory, and betrays at once an amount of ignorance +and of perception which leaves an uncomfortable impression. + +If this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is not +surprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few exceptions, +have known of only one evolution, namely, that propounded by Mr. Darwin. +As a member of the general public, at that time residing eighteen miles +from the nearest human habitation, and three days’ journey on horseback +from a bookseller’s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin’s many enthusiastic +admirers, and wrote a philosophical dialogue (the most offensive form, +except poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown countries, that +even literature can assume) upon the “Origin of Species.” This +production appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or +1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had. + + + + +Chapter II + + +How I came to write “Life and Habit,” and the circumstances of its +completion. + +IT was impossible, however, for Mr. Darwin’s readers to leave the matter +as Mr. Darwin had left it. We wanted to know whence came that germ or +those germs of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, were once the world’s +only inhabitants. They could hardly have come hither from some other +world; they could not in their wet, cold, slimy state have travelled +through the dry ethereal medium which we call space, and yet remained +alive. If they travelled slowly, they would die; if fast, they would +catch fire, as meteors do on entering the earth’s atmosphere. The idea, +again, of their having been created by a quasi-anthropomorphic being out +of the matter upon the earth was at variance with the whole spirit of +evolution, which indicated that no such being could exist except as +himself the result, and not the cause, of evolution. Having got back +from ourselves to the monad, we were suddenly to begin again with +something which was either unthinkable, or was only ourselves again upon +a larger scale—to return to the same point as that from which we had +started, only made harder for us to stand upon. + +There was only one other conception possible, namely, that the germs had +been developed in the course of time from some thing or things that were +not what we called living at all; that they had grown up, in fact, out of +the material substances and forces of the world in some manner more or +less analogous to that in which man had been developed from themselves. + +I first asked myself whether life might not, after all, resolve itself +into the complexity of arrangement of an inconceivably intricate +mechanism. Kittens think our shoe-strings are alive when they see us +lacing them, because they see the tag at the end jump about without +understanding all the ins and outs of how it comes to do so. “Of +course,” they argue, “if we cannot understand how a thing comes to move, +it must move of itself, for there can be no motion beyond our +comprehension but what is spontaneous; if the motion is spontaneous, the +thing moving must he alive, for nothing can move of itself or without our +understanding why unless it is alive. Everything that is alive and not +too large can be tortured, and perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring +upon the tag” and they spring upon it. Cats are above this; yet give the +cat something which presents a few more of those appearances which she is +accustomed to see whenever she sees life, and she will fall as easy a +prey to the power which association exercises over all that lives as the +kitten itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few yards after being +wound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse being here, there is no +good cat which will not conclude that so many of the appearances of +mousehood could not be present at the same time without the presence also +of the remainder. She will, therefore, spring upon the toy as eagerly as +the kitten upon the tag. + +Suppose the toy more complex still, so that it might run a few yards, +stop, and run on again without an additional winding up; and suppose it +so constructed that it could imitate eating and drinking, and could make +as though the mouse were cleaning its face with its paws. Should we not +at first be taken in ourselves, and assume the presence of the remaining +facts of life, though in reality they were not there? Query, therefore, +whether a machine so complex as to be prepared with a corresponding +manner of action for each one of the successive emergencies of life as it +arose, would not take us in for good and all, and look so much as if it +were alive that, whether we liked it or not, we should be compelled to +think it and call it so; and whether the being alive was not simply the +being an exceedingly complicated machine, whose parts were set in motion +by the action upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in fact, man +was not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only capable of going +for seventy or eighty years, instead of half as many seconds, and as much +more versatile as he is more durable? Of course I had an uneasy feeling +that if I thus made all plants and men into machines, these machines must +have what all other machines have if they are machines at all—a designer, +and some one to wind them up and work them; but I thought this might wait +for the present, and was perfectly ready then, as now, to accept a +designer from without, if the facts upon examination rendered such a +belief reasonable. + +If, then, men were not really alive after all, but were only machines of +so complicated a make that it was less trouble to us to cut the +difficulty and say that that kind of mechanism was “being alive,” why +should not machines ultimately become as complicated as we are, or at any +rate complicated enough to be called living, and to be indeed as living +as it was in the nature of anything at all to be? If it was only a case +of their becoming more complicated, we were certainly doing our best to +make them so. + +I do not suppose I at that time saw that this view comes to much the same +as denying that there are such qualities as life and consciousness at +all, and that this, again, works round to the assertion of their +omnipresence in every molecule of matter, inasmuch as it destroys the +separation between the organic and inorganic, and maintains that whatever +the organic is the inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much as we +please, we shall still always feel that an organic body, unless dead, is +living and conscious to a greater or less degree. Therefore, if we once +break down the wall of partition between the organic and inorganic, the +inorganic must be living and conscious also, up to a certain point. + +I have been at work on this subject now for nearly twenty years, what I +have published being only a small part of what I have written and +destroyed. I cannot, therefore, remember exactly how I stood in 1863. +Nor can I pretend to see far into the matter even now; for when I think +of life, I find it so difficult, that I take refuge in death or +mechanism; and when I think of death or mechanism, I find it so +inconceivable, that it is easier to call it life again. The only thing +of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and +inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other ideas, +and therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule as a living +thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up of an association or +corporation, than to start with inanimate molecules and smuggle life into +them; and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic world must be +regarded as up to a certain point living, and instinct, within certain +limits, with consciousness, volition, and power of concerted action. It +is only of late, however, that I have come to this opinion. + +One must start with a hypothesis, no matter how much one distrusts it; so +I started with man as a mechanism, this being the strand of the knot that +I could then pick at most easily. Having worked upon it a certain time, +I drew the inference about machines becoming animate, and in 1862 or 1863 +wrote the sketch of the chapter on machines which I afterwards rewrote in +“Erewhon.” This sketch appeared in the _Press_, Canterbury, N.Z., June +13, 1863; a copy of it is in the British Museum. + +I soon felt that though there was plenty of amusement to be got out of +this line, it was one that I should have to leave sooner or later; I +therefore left it at once for the view that machines were limbs which we +had made, and carried outside our bodies instead of incorporating them +with ourselves. A few days or weeks later than June 13, 1863, I +published a second letter in the _Press_ putting this view forward. Of +this letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have not seen it for +years. The first was certainly not good; the second, if I remember +rightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more in the views it +put forward than in those of the first letter. I had lost my copy before +I wrote “Erewhon,” and therefore only gave a couple of pages to it in +that book; besides, there was more amusement in the other view. I should +perhaps say there was an intermediate extension of the first letter which +appeared in the _Reasoner_, July 1, 1865. + +In 1870 and 1871, when I was writing “Erewhon,” I thought the best way of +looking at machines was to see them as limbs which we had made and +carried about with us or left at home at pleasure. I was not, however, +satisfied, and should have gone on with the subject at once if I had not +been anxious to write “The Fair Haven,” a book which is a development of +a pamphlet I wrote in New Zealand and published in London in 1865. + +As soon as I had finished this, I returned to the old subject, on which I +had already been engaged for nearly a dozen years as continuously as +other business would allow, and proposed to myself to see not only +machines as limbs, but also limbs as machines. I felt immediately that I +was upon firmer ground. The use of the word “organ” for a limb told its +own story; the word could not have become so current under this meaning +unless the idea of a limb as a tool or machine had been agreeable to +common sense. What would follow, then, if we regarded our limbs and +organs as things that we had ourselves manufactured for our convenience? + +The first question that suggested itself was, how did we come to make +them without knowing anything about it? And this raised another, namely, +how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer “habit” was +not far to seek. But can a person be said to do a thing by force of +habit or routine when it is his ancestors, and not he, that has done it +hitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one and the same person. +Perhaps, then, they _are_ the same person after all. What is sameness? +I remembered Bishop Butler’s sermon on “Personal Identity,” read it +again, and saw very plainly that if a man of eighty may consider himself +identical with the baby from whom he has developed, so that he may say, +“I am the person who at six months old did this or that,” then the baby +may just as fairly claim identity with its father and mother, and say to +its parents on being born, “I was you only a few months ago.” By parity +of reasoning each living form now on the earth must be able to claim +identity with each generation of its ancestors up to the primordial cell +inclusive. + +Again, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with the infant, +the infant may certainly do so with the impregnate ovum from which it has +developed. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have been a fish once +in this his present life. This is as certain as that he was living +yesterday, and stands on exactly the same foundation. + +I am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He writes: “It is +not true, for example, . . . that a reptile was ever a fish, but it is +true that the reptile embryo” (and what is said here of the reptile holds +good also for the human embryo), “at one stage of its development, is an +organism, which, if it had an independent existence, must be classified +among fishes.” {17} + +This is like saying, “It is not true that such and such a picture was +rejected for the Academy, but it is true that it was submitted to the +President and Council of the Royal Academy, with a view to acceptance at +their next forthcoming annual exhibition, and that the President and +Council regretted they were unable through want of space, &c., &c.”—and +as much more as the reader chooses. I shall venture, therefore, to stick +to it that the octogenarian was once a fish, or if Professor Huxley +prefers it, “an organism which must be classified among fishes.” + +But if a man was a fish once, he may have been a fish a million times +over, for aught he knows; for he must admit that his conscious +recollection is at fault, and has nothing whatever to do with the matter, +which must be decided, not, as it were, upon his own evidence as to what +deeds he may or may not recollect having executed, but by the production +of his signatures in court, with satisfactory proof that he has delivered +each document as his act and deed. + +This made things very much simpler. The processes of embryonic +development, and instinctive actions, might be now seen as repetitions of +the same kind of action by the same individual in successive generations. +It was natural, therefore, that they should come in the course of time to +be done unconsciously, and a consideration of the most obvious facts of +memory removed all further doubt that habit—which is based on memory—was +at the bottom of all the phenomena of heredity. + +I had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had begun to write, +when I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the next year and a half +did hardly any writing. The first passage in “Life and Habit” which I +can date with certainty is the one on page 52, which runs as follows:— + + “It is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his own + past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so + as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to + gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should ‘eat + strange food,’ and that his cheek should ‘so much as lank not,’ than + that he should starve if the strange food be at his command. His + past selves are living in him at this moment with the accumulated + life of centuries. ‘Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and + found out profit in it,’ cry the souls of his forefathers within him. + Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted + on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an + alarm of fire.” + +This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. I was +on Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its extreme +beauty. It was a magnificent Summer’s evening; the noble St. Lawrence +flowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of country beyond +it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot surpass. Sitting +down for a while, I began making notes for “Life and Habit,” of which I +was then continually thinking, and had written the first few lines of the +above, when the bells of Notre Dame in Montreal began to ring, and their +sound was carried to and fro in a remarkably beautiful manner. I took +advantage of the incident to insert then and there the last lines of the +piece just quoted. I kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration, +and am thus able to date it accurately. + +Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, I +nevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left Canada at +the end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into more +coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of +which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I find two dates +among them—the first, “Sunday, Feb. 6, 1876”; and the second, at the end +of the notes, “Feb. 12, 1876.” + +From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained in +“Life and Habit” completely before me, with the four main principles +which it involves, namely, the oneness of personality between parents and +offspring; memory on the part of offspring of certain actions which it +did when in the persons of its forefathers; the latency of that memory +until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; and the +unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be performed. + +The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs thus:— + + “Those habits and functions which we have in common with the lower + animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as + our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting food, + &c. . . . + + “We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it + is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? + + “It knew how to make a great many things before it was hatched. + + “It grew eyes and feathers and bones. + + “Yet we say it knew nothing about all this. + + “After it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its bones larger, + and develops a reproductive system. + + “Again we say it knows nothing about all this. + + “What then does it know? + + “Whatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious of knowing + it. + + “Knowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty. + + “When we are very certain, we do not know that we know. When we will + very strongly, we do not know that we will.” + +I then began my book, but considering myself still a painter by +profession, I gave comparatively little time to writing, and got on but +slowly. I left England for North Italy in the middle of May 1876 and +returned early in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to hear of +the account of Professor Hering’s lecture given by Professor Ray +Lankester in _Nature_, July 13 1876; though, never at that time seeing +_Nature_, I should probably have missed it under any circumstances. On +my return I continued slowly writing. By August 1877 I considered that I +had to all intents and purposes completed my book. My first proof bears +date October 13, 1877. + +At this time I had not been able to find that anything like what I was +advancing had been said already. I asked many friends, but not one of +them knew of anything more than I did; to them, as to me, it seemed an +idea so new as to be almost preposterous; but knowing how things turn up +after one has written, of the existence of which one had not known +before, I was particularly careful to guard against being supposed to +claim originality. I neither claimed it nor wished for it; for if a +theory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur to several people +much about the same time, and a reasonable person will look upon his work +with great suspicion unless he can confirm it with the support of others +who have gone before him. Still I knew of nothing in the least +resembling it, and was so afraid of what I was doing, that though I could +see no flaw in the argument, nor any loophole for escape from the +conclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put it forward with the +seriousness and sobriety with which I should have treated the subject if +I had not been in continual fear of a mine being sprung upon me from some +unexpected quarter. I am exceedingly glad now that I knew nothing of +Professor Hering’s lecture, for it is much better that two people should +think a thing out as far as they can independently before they become +aware of each other’s works but if I had seen it, I should either, as is +most likely, not have written at all, or I should have pitched my book in +another key. + +Among the additions I intended making while the book was in the press, +was a chapter on Mr. Darwin’s provisional theory of Pangenesis, which I +felt convinced must be right if it was Mr. Darwin’s, and which I was +sure, if I could once understand it, must have an important bearing on +“Life and Habit.” I had not as yet seen that the principle I was +contending for was Darwinian, not Neo-Darwinian. My pages still teemed +with allusions to “natural selection,” and I sometimes allowed myself to +hope that “Life and Habit” was going to be an adjunct to Darwinism which +no one would welcome more gladly than Mr. Darwin himself. At this time I +had a visit from a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of +mine, relative, if I remember rightly, to “Pangenesis.” He came, +September 26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory +which had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time +was one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly what I was +doing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. He replied +that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in _Nature_ +some time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, and had given +extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who had originated the +theory. I said I should not look at it, as I had completed that part of +my work, and was on the point of going to press. I could not recast my +work if, as was most likely, I should find something, when I saw what +Professor Hering had said, which would make me wish to rewrite my own +book; it was too late in the day and I did not feel equal to making any +radical alteration; and so the matter ended with very little said upon +either side. I wrote, however, afterwards to my friend asking him to +tell me the number of _Nature_ which contained the lecture if he could +find it, but he was unable to do so, and I was well enough content. + +A few days before this I had met another friend, and had explained to him +what I was doing. He told me I ought to read Professor Mivart’s “Genesis +of Species,” and that if I did so I should find there were two sides to +“natural selection.” Thinking, as so many people do—and no wonder—that +“natural selection” and evolution were much the same thing, and having +found so many attacks upon evolution produce no effect upon me, I +declined to read it. I had as yet no idea that a writer could attack +Neo-Darwinism without attacking evolution. But my friend kindly sent me +a copy; and when I read it, I found myself in the presence of arguments +different from those I had met with hitherto, and did not see my way to +answering them. I had, however, read only a small part of Professor +Mivart’s work, and was not fully awake to the position, when the friend +referred to in the preceding paragraph called on me. + +When I had finished the “Genesis of Species,” I felt that something was +certainly wanted which should give a definite aim to the variations whose +accumulation was to amount ultimately to specific and generic +differences, and that without this there could have been no progress in +organic development. I got the latest edition of the “Origin of Species” +in order to see how Mr. Darwin met Professor Mivart, and found his +answers in many respects unsatisfactory. I had lost my original copy of +the “Origin of Species,” and had not read the book for some years. I now +set about reading it again, and came to the chapter on instinct, where I +was horrified to find the following passage:— + + “But 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 the succeeding generations. It can be + clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we are + acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not + possibly have been acquired by habit.” {23a} + +This showed that, according to Mr. Darwin, I had fallen into serious +error, and my faith in him, though somewhat shaken, was far too great to +be destroyed by a few days’ course of Professor Mivart, the full +importance of whose work I had not yet apprehended. I continued to read, +and when I had finished the chapter felt sure that I must indeed have +been blundering. The concluding words, “I am surprised that no one has +hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects against the +well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced by Lamarck,” {23b} +were positively awful. There was a quiet consciousness of strength about +them which was more convincing than any amount of more detailed +explanation. This was the first I had heard of any doctrine of inherited +habit as having been propounded by Lamarck (the passage stands in the +first edition, “the well-known doctrine of Lamarck,” p. 242); and now to +find that I had been only busying myself with a stale theory of this +long-since exploded charlatan—with my book three parts written and +already in the press—it was a serious scare. + +On reflection, however, I was again met with the overwhelming weight of +the evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to memory. +I accordingly gathered as much as I could second-hand of what Lamarck had +said, reserving a study of his “Philosophie Zoologique” for another +occasion, and read as much about ants and bees as I could find in readily +accessible works. In a few days I saw my way again; and now, reading the +“Origin of Species” more closely, and I may say more sceptically, the +antagonism between Mr. Darwin and Lamarck became fully apparent to me, +and I saw how incoherent and unworkable in practice the later view was in +comparison with the earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin’s answers to +miscellaneous objections, and was met, and this time brought up, by the +passage beginning “In the earlier editions of this work,” {24a} &c., on +which I wrote very severely in “Life and Habit”; {24b} for I felt by this +time that the difference of opinion between us was radical, and that the +matter must be fought out according to the rules of the game. After this +I went through the earlier part of my book, and cut out the expressions +which I had used inadvertently, and which were inconsistent with a +teleological view. This necessitated only verbal alterations; for, +though I had not known it, the spirit of the book was throughout +teleological. + +I now saw that I had got my hands full, and abandoned my intention of +touching upon “Pangenesis.” I took up the words of Mr. Darwin quoted +above, to the effect that it would be a serious error to ascribe the +greater number of instincts to transmitted habit. I wrote chapter xi. of +“Life and Habit,” which is headed “Instincts as Inherited Memory”; I also +wrote the four subsequent chapters, “Instincts of Neuter Insects,” +“Lamarck and Mr. Darwin,” “Mr. Mivart and Mr. Darwin,” and the concluding +chapter, all of them in the month of October and the early part of +November 1877, the complete book leaving the binder’s hands December 4, +1877, but, according to trade custom, being dated 1878. It will be seen +that these five concluding chapters were rapidly written, and this may +account in part for the directness with which I said anything I had to +say about Mr. Darwin; partly this, and partly I felt I was in for a penny +and might as well be in for a pound. I therefore wrote about Mr. +Darwin’s work exactly as I should about any one else’s, bearing in mind +the inestimable services he had undoubtedly—and must always be counted to +have—rendered to evolution. + + + + +Chapter III + + +How I came to write “Evolution, Old and New”—Mr Darwin’s “brief but +imperfect” sketch of the opinions of the writers on evolution who had +preceded him—The reception which “Evolution, Old and New,” met with. + +THOUGH my book was out in 1877, it was not till January 1878 that I took +an opportunity of looking up Professor Ray Lankester’s account of +Professor Hering’s lecture. I can hardly say how relieved I was to find +that it sprung no mine upon me, but that, so far as I could gather, +Professor Hering and I had come to pretty much the same conclusion. I +had already found the passage in Dr. Erasmus Darwin which I quoted in +“Evolution, Old and New,” but may perhaps as well repeat it here. It +runs— + + “Owing to the imperfection of language, the offspring is termed a new + animal; but is, in truth, a branch or elongation of the parent, since + a part of the embryon animal is or was a part of the parent, and, + therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at + the time of its production, and, therefore, it may retain some of the + habits of the parent system.” {26} + +When, then, the _Athenæum_ reviewed “Life and Habit” (January 26, 1878), +I took the opportunity to write to that paper, calling attention to +Professor Hering’s lecture, and also to the passage just quoted from Dr. +Erasmus Darwin. The editor kindly inserted my letter in his issue of +February 9, 1878. I felt that I had now done all in the way of +acknowledgment to Professor Hering which it was, for the time, in my +power to do. + +I again took up Mr. Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” this time, I admit, in +a spirit of scepticism. I read his “brief but imperfect” sketch of the +progress of opinion on the origin of species, and turned to each one of +the writers he had mentioned. First, I read all the parts of the +“Zoonomia” that were not purely medical, and was astonished to find that, +as Dr. Krause has since said in his essay on Erasmus Darwin, “_he was the +first who proposed and persistently carried out a well-rounded theory +with regard to the development of the living world_” {27} (italics in +original). + +This is undoubtedly the case, and I was surprised at finding Professor +Huxley say concerning this very eminent man that he could “hardly be said +to have made any real advance upon his predecessors.” Still more was I +surprised at remembering that, in the first edition of the “Origin of +Species,” Dr. Erasmus Darwin had never been so much as named; while in +the “brief but imperfect” sketch he was dismissed with a line of +half-contemptuous patronage, as though the mingled tribute of admiration +and curiosity which attaches to scientific prophecies, as distinguished +from discoveries, was the utmost he was entitled to. “It is curious,” +says Mr. Darwin innocently, in the middle of a note in the smallest +possible type, “how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, +anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his +‘Zoonomia’ (vol. i. pp. 500–510), published in 1794”; this was all he had +to say about the founder of “Darwinism,” until I myself unearthed Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, and put his work fairly before the present generation in +“Evolution, Old and New.” Six months after I had done this, I had the +satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin had woke up to the propriety of +doing much the same thing, and that he had published an interesting and +charmingly written memoir of his grandfather, of which more anon. + +Not that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete theory of +evolution. Buffon was the first to point out that, in view of the known +modifications which had been effected among our domesticated animals and +cultivated plants, the ass and the horse should be considered as, in all +probability, descended from a common ancestor; yet, if this is so, he +writes—if the point “were once gained that among animals and vegetables +there had been, I do not say several species, but even a single one, +which had been produced in the course of direct descent from another +species; if, for example, it could be once shown that the ass was but a +degeneration from the horse, then there is no further limit to be set to +the power of Nature, and we should not be wrong in supposing that, with +sufficient time, she has evolved all other organised forms from one +primordial type” {28a} (_et l’on n’auroit pas tort de supposer_, _que +d’un seul être elle a su tirer avec le temps tous les autres êtres +organisés_). + +This, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley’s dictum, is contributing a +good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for though Descartes and +Leibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more or less broadly in the +direction of evolution, some of which Professor Huxley has quoted, he has +adduced nothing approaching to the passage from Buffon given above, +either in respect of the clearness with which the conclusion intended to +be arrived at is pointed out, or the breadth of view with which the whole +ground of animal and vegetable nature is covered. The passage referred +to is only one of many to the same effect, and must be connected with one +quoted in “Evolution, Old and New,” {28b} from p. 13 of Buffon’s first +volume, which appeared in 1749, and than which nothing can well point +more plainly in the direction of evolution. It is not easy, therefore, +to understand why Professor Huxley should give 1753–78 as the date of +Buffon’s work, nor yet why he should say that Buffon was “at first a +partisan of the absolute immutability of species,” {29a} unless, indeed, +we suppose he has been content to follow that very unsatisfactory writer, +Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into this error, and says that +Buffon’s first volume on animals appeared 1753), without verifying him, +and without making any reference to him. + +Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the “Palingénésie Philosophique” +of Bonnet, of which he says that, making allowance for his peculiar views +on the subject of generation, they bear no small resemblance to what is +understood by “evolution” at the present day. The most important parts +of the passage quoted are as follows:— + + “Should I be going too far if I were to conjecture that the plants + and animals of the present day have arisen by a sort of natural + evolution from the organised beings which peopled the world in its + original state as it left the hands of the Creator? . . . In the + outset organised beings were probably very different from what they + are now—as different as the original world is from our present one. + We have no means of estimating the amount of these differences, but + it is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted to + the original world, would entirely fail to recognise our plants and + animals therein.” {29b} + +But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not appear till +1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for fully twenty years +with the eyes of scientific Europe upon him. Whatever concession to the +opinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 1764, +when he published his “Contemplation de la Nature,” and in 1762 when his +“Considérations sur les Corps Organes” appeared, he cannot be considered +to have been a supporter of evolution. I went through these works in +1878 when I was writing “Evolution, Old and New,” to see whether I could +claim him as on my side; but though frequently delighted with his work, I +found it impossible to press him into my service. + +The pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father of the +modern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably disputed, though he was +doubtless led to his conclusions by the works of Descartes and Leibnitz, +of both of whom he was an avowed and very warm admirer. His claim does +not rest upon a passage here or there, but upon the spirit of forty +quartos written over a period of about as many years. Nevertheless he +wrote, as I have shown in “Evolution, Old and New,” of set purpose +enigmatically, whereas there was no beating about the bush with Dr. +Darwin. He speaks straight out, and Dr. Krause is justified in saying of +him “_that he was the first who proposed and persistently carried out a +well-rounded theory_” of evolution. + +I now turned to Lamarck. I read the first volume of the “Philosophie +Zoologique,” analysed it and translated the most important parts. The +second volume was beside my purpose, dealing as it does rather with the +origin of life than of species, and travelling too fast and too far for +me to be able to keep up with him. Again I was astonished at the little +mention Mr. Darwin had made of this illustrious writer, at the manner in +which he had motioned him away, as it were, with his hand in the first +edition of the “Origin of Species,” and at the brevity and imperfection +of the remarks made upon him in the subsequent historical sketch. + +I got Isidore Geoffroy’s “Histoire Naturelle Générale,” which Mr. Darwin +commends in the note on the second page of the historical sketch, as +giving “an excellent history of opinion” upon the subject of evolution, +and a full account of Buffon’s conclusions upon the same subject. This +at least is what I supposed Mr. Darwin to mean. What he said was that +Isidore Geoffroy gives an excellent history of opinion on the subject of +the date of the first publication of Lamarck, and that in his work there +is a full account of Buffon’s fluctuating conclusions upon _the same +subject_. {31} But Mr. Darwin is a more than commonly puzzling writer. +I read what M. Geoffroy had to say upon Buffon, and was surprised to find +that, after all, according to M. Geoffroy, Buffon, and not Lamarck, was +the founder of the theory of evolution. His name, as I have already +said, was never mentioned in the first edition of the “Origin of +Species.” + +M. Geoffroy goes into the accusations of having fluctuated in his +opinions, which he tells us have been brought against Buffon, and comes +to the conclusion that they are unjust, as any one else will do who turns +to Buffon himself. Mr. Darwin, however, in the “brief but imperfect +sketch,” catches at the accusation, and repeats it while saying nothing +whatever about the defence. The following is still all he says: “The +first author who in modern times has treated” evolution “in a scientific +spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different +periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the +transformation of species, I need not here enter on details.” On the +next page, in the note last quoted, Mr. Darwin originally repeated the +accusation of Buffon’s having been fluctuating in his opinions, and +appeared to give it the imprimatur of Isidore Geoffroy’s approval; the +fact being that Isidore Geoffroy only quoted the accusation in order to +refute it; and though, I suppose, meaning well, did not make half the +case he might have done, and abounds with misstatements. My readers will +find this matter particularly dealt with in “Evolution, Old and New,” +Chapter X. + +I gather that some one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of his saying +that Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of Buffon’s “fluctuating +conclusions” concerning evolution, when he was doing all he knew to +maintain that Buffon’s conclusions did not fluctuate; for I see that in +the edition of 1876 the word “fluctuating” has dropped out of the note in +question, and we now learn that Isidore Geoffroy gives “a full account of +Buffon’s conclusions,” without the “fluctuating.” But Buffon has not +taken much by this, for his opinions are still left fluctuating greatly +at different periods on the preceding page, and though he still was the +first to treat evolution in a scientific spirit, he still does not enter +upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. No one can +understand Mr. Darwin who does not collate the different editions of the +“Origin of Species” with some attention. When he has done this, he will +know what Newton meant by saying he felt like a child playing with +pebbles upon the seashore. + +One word more upon this note before I leave it. Mr. Darwin speaks of +Isidore Geoffroy’s history of opinion as “excellent,” and his account of +Buffon’s opinions as “full.” I wonder how well qualified he is to be a +judge of these matters? If he knows much about the earlier writers, he +is the more inexcusable for having said so little about them. If little, +what is his opinion worth? + +To return to the “brief but imperfect sketch.” I do not think I can ever +again be surprised at anything Mr. Darwin may say or do, but if I could, +I should wonder how a writer who did not “enter upon the causes or means +of the transformation of species,” and whose opinions “fluctuated greatly +at different periods,” can be held to have treated evolution “in a +scientific spirit.” Nevertheless, when I reflect upon the scientific +reputation Mr. Darwin has attained, and the means by which he has won it, +I suppose the scientific spirit must be much what he here implies. I see +Mr. Darwin says of his own father, Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, that +he does not consider him to have had a scientific mind. Mr. Darwin +cannot tell why he does not think his father’s mind to have been fitted +for advancing science, “for he was fond of theorising, and was +incomparably the best observer” Mr. Darwin ever knew. {33a} From the +hint given in the “brief but imperfect sketch,” I fancy I can help Mr. +Darwin to see why he does not think his father’s mind to have been a +scientific one. It is possible that Dr. Robert Darwin’s opinions did not +fluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin +considered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or means of +the transformation of species. Certainly those who read Mr. Darwin’s own +works attentively will find no lack of fluctuation in his case; and +reflection will show them that a theory of evolution which relies mainly +on the accumulation of accidental variations comes very close to not +entering upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. {33b} + +I have shown, however, in “Evolution, Old and New,” that the assertion +that Buffon does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation +of species is absolutely without foundation, and that, on the contrary, +he is continually dealing with this very matter, and devotes to it one of +his longest and most important chapters, {33c} but I admit that he is +less satisfactory on this head than either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck. + +As a matter of fact, Buffon is much more of a Neo-Darwinian than either +Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, for with him the variations are sometimes +fortuitous. In the case of the dog, he speaks of them as making their +appearance “_by some chance_ common enough with Nature,” {33d} and being +perpetuated by man’s selection. This is exactly the “if any slight +favourable variation _happen_ to arise” of Mr. Charles Darwin. Buffon +also speaks of the variations among pigeons arising “_par hasard_.” But +these expressions are only ships; his main cause of variation is the +direct action of changed conditions of existence, while with Dr. Erasmus +Darwin and Lamarck the action of the conditions of existence is indirect, +the direct action being that of the animals or plants themselves, in +consequence of changed sense of need under changed conditions. + +I should say that the sketch so often referred to is at first sight now +no longer imperfect in Mr. Darwin’s opinion. It was “brief but +imperfect” in 1861 and in 1866, but in 1876 I see that it is brief only. +Of course, discovering that it was no longer imperfect, I expected to +find it briefer. What, then, was my surprise at finding that it had +become rather longer? I have found no perfectly satisfactory explanation +of this inconsistency, but, on the whole, incline to think that the +“greatest of living men” felt himself unequal to prolonging his struggle +with the word “but,” and resolved to lay that conjunction at all hazards, +even though the doing so might cost him the balance of his adjectives; +for I think he must know that his sketch is still imperfect. + +From Isidore Geoffroy I turned to Buffon himself, and had not long to +wait before I felt that I was now brought into communication with the +master-mind of all those who have up to the present time busied +themselves with evolution. For a brief and imperfect sketch of him, I +must refer my readers to “Evolution, Old and New.” + +I have no great respect for the author of the “Vestiges of Creation,” who +behaved hardly better to the writers upon whom his own work was founded +than Mr. Darwin himself has done. Nevertheless, I could not forget the +gravity of the misrepresentation with which he was assailed on page 3 of +the first edition of the “Origin of Species,” nor impugn the justice of +his rejoinder in the following year, {34} when he replied that it was to +be regretted Mr. Darwin had read his work “almost as much amiss as if, +like its declared opponents, he had an interest in misrepresenting it.” +{35a} I could not, again, forget that, though Mr. Darwin did not venture +to stand by the passage in question, it was expunged without a word of +apology or explanation of how it was that he had come to write it. A +writer with any claim to our consideration will never fall into serious +error about another writer without hastening to make a public apology as +soon as he becomes aware of what he has done. + +Reflecting upon the substance of what I have written in the last few +pages, I thought it right that people should have a chance of knowing +more about the earlier writers on evolution than they were likely to hear +from any of our leading scientists (no matter how many lectures they may +give on the coming of age of the “Origin of Species”) except Professor +Mivart. A book pointing the difference between teleological and +non-teleological views of evolution seemed likely to be useful, and would +afford me the opportunity I wanted for giving a _résumé_ of the views of +each one of the three chief founders of the theory, and of contrasting +them with those of Mr. Charles Darwin, as well as for calling attention +to Professor Hering’s lecture. I accordingly wrote “Evolution, Old and +New,” which was prominently announced in the leading literary periodicals +at the end of February, or on the very first days of March 1879, {35b} as +“a comparison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, +with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the works of +the three first-named writers.” In this book I was hardly able to +conceal the fact that, in spite of the obligations under which we must +always remain to Mr. Darwin, I had lost my respect for him and for his +work. + +I should point out that this announcement, coupled with what I had +written in “Life and Habit,” would enable Mr. Darwin and his friends to +form a pretty shrewd guess as to what I was likely to say, and to quote +from Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my forthcoming book. The announcement, +indeed, would tell almost as much as the book itself to those who knew +the works of Erasmus Darwin. + +As may be supposed, “Evolution, Old and New,” met with a very +unfavourable reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. The +_Saturday Review_ was furious. “When a writer,” it exclaimed, “who has +not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, is +not content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but assumes to +criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster +looking over a boy’s theme, it is difficult not to take him more +seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. +Butler was the travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin +the pert speculator who takes all his facts at secondhand.” {36} + +The lady or gentleman who writes in such a strain as this should not be +too hard upon others whom she or he may consider to write like +schoolmasters. It is true I have travelled—not much, but still as much +as many others, and have endeavoured to keep my eyes open to the facts +before me; but I cannot think that I made any reference to my travels in +“Evolution, Old and New.” I did not quite see what that had to do with +the matter. A man may get to know a good deal without ever going beyond +the four-mile radius from Charing Cross. Much less did I imply that Mr. +Darwin was pert: pert is one of the last words that can be applied to Mr. +Darwin. Nor, again, had I blamed him for taking his facts at secondhand; +no one is to be blamed for this, provided he takes well-established facts +and acknowledges his sources. Mr. Darwin has generally gone to good +sources. The ground of complaint against him is that he muddied the +water after he had drawn it, and tacitly claimed to be the rightful owner +of the spring, on the score of the damage he had effected. + +Notwithstanding, however, the generally hostile, or more or less +contemptuous, reception which “Evolution, Old and New,” met with, there +were some reviews—as, for example, those in the _Field_, {37a} the _Daily +Chronicle_, {37b} the _Athenæum_, {37c} the _Journal of Science_, {37d} +the _British Journal of Homæopathy_, {37e} the _Daily News_, {37f} the +_Popular Science Review_ {37g}—which were all I could expect or wish. + + + + +Chapter IV + + +The manner in which Mr. Darwin met “Evolution, Old and New.” + +BY far the most important notice of “Evolution, Old and New,” was that +taken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in believing +that Dr. Krause’s article would have been allowed to repose unaltered in +the pages of the well-known German scientific journal, _Kosmos_, unless +something had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel that his reticence +concerning his grandfather must now be ended. + +Mr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to understand +that this is not the case. At the beginning of this year he wrote to me, +in a letter which I will presently give in full, that he had obtained Dr. +Krause’s consent for a translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas, +before my book was “announced.” “I remember this,” he continues, +“because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement.” But Mr. +Darwin is not a clear writer, and it is impossible to say whether he is +referring to the announcement of “Evolution, Old and New”—in which case +he means that the arrangements for the translation of Dr. Krause’s +article were made before the end of February 1879, and before any public +intimation could have reached him as to the substance of the book on +which I was then engaged—or to the advertisements of its being now +published, which appeared at the beginning of May; in which case, as I +have said above, Mr. Darwin and his friends had for some time had full +opportunity of knowing what I was about. I believe, however, Mr. Darwin +to intend that he remembered the arrangements having been made before the +beginning of May—his use of the word “announced,” instead of +“advertised,” being an accident; but let this pass. + +Some time after Mr. Darwin’s work appeared in November 1879, I got it, +and looking at the last page of the book, I read as follows:— + + “They” (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) “explain the adaptation to + purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense of what is + purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit of + saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. The + purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that which + is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same + way the beautiful is what pleases.” + +I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have had +“Evolution, Old and New,” in his mind, but went on to the next sentence, +which ran— + + “Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant first step + in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but + to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been + seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental + anachronism which no one can envy.” + +“That’s me,” said I to myself promptly. I noticed also the position in +which the sentence stood, which made it both one of the first that would +be likely to catch a reader’s eye, and the last he would carry away with +him. I therefore expected to find an open reply to some parts of +“Evolution, Old and New,” and turned to Mr. Darwin’s preface. + +To my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading could not by +any possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as follows:— + + “In the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, + _Kosmos_, {39} Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of the ‘Life of + Erasmus Darwin,’ the author of the ‘Zoonomia,’ ‘Botanic Garden,’ and + other works. This article bears the title of a ‘Contribution to the + History of the Descent Theory’; and Dr. Krause has kindly allowed my + brother Erasmus and myself to have a translation made of it for + publication in this country.” + +Then came a note as follows:— + + “Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific + reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for + its accuracy.” + +I ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much consciousness +of accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. Darwin pins himself +down with every circumstance of preciseness to giving Dr. Krause’s +article as it appeared in _Kosmos_,—the whole article, and nothing but +the article. No one could know this better than Mr. Darwin. + +On the second page of Mr. Darwin’s preface there is a small-type note +saying that my work, “Evolution, Old and New,” had appeared since the +publication of Dr. Krause’s article. Mr. Darwin thus distinctly +precludes his readers from supposing that any passage they might meet +with could have been written in reference to, or by the light of, my +book. If anything appeared condemnatory of that book, it was an +undesigned coincidence, and would show how little worthy of consideration +I must be when my opinions were refuted in advance by one who could have +no bias in regard to them. + +Knowing that if the article I was about to read appeared in February, it +must have been published before my book, which was not out till three +months later, I saw nothing in Mr. Darwin’s preface to complain of, and +felt that this was only another instance of my absurd vanity having led +me to rush to conclusions without sufficient grounds,—as if it was +likely, indeed, that Mr. Darwin should think what I had said of +sufficient importance to be affected by it. It was plain that some one +besides myself, of whom I as yet knew nothing, had been writing about the +elder Darwin, and had taken much the same line concerning him that I had +done. It was for the benefit of this person, then, that Dr. Krause’s +paragraph was intended. I returned to a becoming sense of my own +insignificance, and began to read what I supposed to be an accurate +translation of Dr. Krause’s article as it originally appeared, before +“Evolution, Old and New,” was published. + +On pp. 3 and 4 of Dr. Krause’s part of Mr. Darwin’s book (pp. 133 and 134 +of the book itself), I detected a sub-apologetic tone which a little +surprised me, and a notice of the fact that Coleridge when writing on +Stillingfleet had used the word “Darwinising.” Mr. R. Garnett had called +my attention to this, and I had mentioned it in “Evolution, Old and New,” +but the paragraph only struck me as being a little odd. + +When I got a few pages farther on (p. 147 of Mr. Darwin’s book), I found +a long quotation from Buffon about rudimentary organs, which I had quoted +in “Evolution, Old and New.” I observed that Dr. Krause used the same +edition of Buffon that I did, and began his quotation two lines from the +beginning of Buffon’s paragraph, exactly as I had done; also that he had +taken his nominative from the omitted part of the sentence across a full +stop, as I had myself taken it. A little lower I found a line of +Buffon’s omitted which I had given, but I found that at that place I had +inadvertently left two pair of inverted commas which ought to have come +out, {41} having intended to end my quotation, but changed my mind and +continued it without erasing the commas. It seemed to me that these +commas had bothered Dr. Krause, and made him think it safer to leave +something out, for the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that +he translated “Mais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter à un +certain but,” “But we, always wishing to refer,” &c., while I had it, +“But we, ever on the look-out to refer,” &c.; and “Nous ne faisons pas +attention que nous altérons la philosophie,” “We fail to see that thus we +deprive philosophy of her true character,” whereas I had “We fail to see +that we thus rob philosophy of her true character.” This last was too +much; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had quoted this +passage before I had done so, had used the same edition as I had, had +begun two lines from the beginning of a paragraph as I had done, and that +the later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas having compared Dr. +Krause’s German translation of Buffon with my English, and very properly +made use of it when he thought fit, it looked _primâ facie_ more as +though my quotation had been copied in English as it stood, and then +altered, but not quite altered enough. This, in the face of the preface, +was incredible; but so many points had such an unpleasant aspect, that I +thought it better to send for _Kosmos_ and see what I could make out. + +At this time I knew not one word of German. On the same day, therefore, +that I sent for _Kosmos_ I began acquire that language, and in the +fortnight before _Kosmos_ came had got far enough forward for all +practical purposes—that is to say, with the help of a translation and a +dictionary, I could see whether or no a German passage was the same as +what purported to be its translation. + +When _Kosmos_ came I turned to the end of the article to see how the +sentence about mental anachronism and weakness of thought looked in +German. I found nothing of the kind, the original article ended with +some innocent rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring +something with eagle eye; but ten lines from the end I found a sentence +which corresponded with one six pages from the end of the English +translation. After this there could be little doubt that the whole of +these last six English pages were spurious matter. What little doubt +remained was afterwards removed by my finding that they had no place in +any part of the genuine article. I looked for the passage about +Coleridge’s using the word “Darwinising”; it was not to be found in the +German. I looked for the piece I had quoted from Buffon about +rudimentary organs; but there was nothing of it, nor indeed any reference +to Buffon. It was plain, therefore, that the article which Mr. Darwin +had given was not the one he professed to be giving. I read Mr. Darwin’s +preface over again to see whether he left himself any loophole. There +was not a chink or cranny through which escape was possible. The only +inference that could be drawn was either that some one had imposed upon +Mr. Darwin, or that Mr. Darwin, although it was not possible to suppose +him ignorant of the interpolations that had been made, nor of the obvious +purpose of the concluding sentence, had nevertheless palmed off an +article which had been added to and made to attack “Evolution, Old and +New,” as though it were the original article which appeared before that +book was written. I could not and would not believe that Mr. Darwin had +condescended to this. Nevertheless, I saw it was necessary to sift the +whole matter, and began to compare the German and the English articles +paragraph by paragraph. + +On the first page I found a passage omitted from the English, which with +great labour I managed to get through, and can now translate as follows:— + + “Alexander Von Humboldt used to take pleasure in recounting how + powerfully Forster’s pictures of the South Sea Islands and St. + Pierre’s illustrations of Nature had provoked his ardour for travel + and influenced his career as a scientific investigator. How much + more impressively must the works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with their + reiterated foreshadowing of a more lofty interpretation of Nature, + have affected his grandson, who in his youth assuredly approached + them with the devotion due to the works of a renowned poet.” {43} + +I then came upon a passage common to both German and English, which in +its turn was followed in the English by the sub-apologetic paragraph +which I had been struck with on first reading, and which was not in the +German, its place being taken by a much longer passage which had no place +in the English. A little farther on I was amused at coming upon the +following, and at finding it wholly transformed in the supposed accurate +translation:— + + “How must this early and penetrating explanation of rudimentary + organs have affected the grandson when he read the poem of his + ancestor! But indeed the biological remarks of this accurate + observer in regard to certain definite natural objects must have + produced a still deeper impression upon him, pointing, as they do, to + questions which hay attained so great a prominence at the present + day; such as, Why is any creature anywhere such as we actually see it + and nothing else? Why has such and such a plant poisonous juices? + Why has such and such another thorns? Why have birds and fishes + light-coloured breasts and dark backs, and, Why does every creature + resemble the one from which it sprung?” {44a} + +I will not weary the reader with further details as to the omissions from +and additions to the German text. Let it suffice that the so-called +translation begins on p. 131 and ends on p. 216 of Mr. Darwin’s book. +There is new matter on each one of the pp. 132–139, while almost the +whole of pp. 147–152 inclusive, and the whole of pp. 211–216 inclusive, +are spurious—that is to say, not what the purport to be, not translations +from an article that was published in February 1879, and before +“Evolution, Old and New,” but interpolations not published till six +months after that book. + +Bearing in mind the contents of two of the added passages and the tenor +of the concluding sentence quoted above, {44b} I could no longer doubt +that the article had been altered by the light of and with a view to +“Evolution, Old and New.” + +The steps are perfectly clear. First Dr. Krause published his article in +_Kosmos_ and my book was announced (its purport being thus made obvious), +both in the month of February 1879. Soon afterwards arrangements were +made for a translation of Dr. Krause’s essay, and were completed by the +end of April. Then my book came out, and in some way or other Dr. Krause +happened to get hold of it. He helped himself—not to much, but to +enough; made what other additions to and omissions from his article he +thought would best meet “Evolution, Old and New,” and then fell to +condemning that book in a finale that was meant to be crushing. Nothing +was said about the revision which Dr. Krause’s work had undergone, but it +was expressly and particularly declared in the preface that the English +translation was an accurate version of what appeared in the February +number of _Kosmos_, and no less expressly and particularly stated that my +book was published subsequently to this. Both these statements are +untrue; they are in Mr. Darwin’s favour and prejudicial to myself. + +All this was done with that well-known “happy simplicity” of which the +_Pall Mall Gazette_, December 12, 1879, declared that Mr. Darwin was “a +master.” The final sentence, about the “weakness of thought and mental +anachronism which no one can envy,” was especially successful. The +reviewer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ just quoted from gave it in full, and +said that it was thoroughly justified. He then mused forth a general +gnome that the “confidence of writers who deal in semi-scientific +paradoxes is commonly in inverse proportion to their grasp of the +subject.” Again my vanity suggested to me that I was the person for +whose benefit this gnome was intended. My vanity, indeed, was well fed +by the whole transaction; for I saw that not only did Mr. Darwin, who +should be the best judge, think my work worth notice, but that he did not +venture to meet it openly. As for Dr. Krause’s concluding sentence, I +thought that when a sentence had been antedated the less it contained +about anachronism the better. + +Only one of the reviews that I saw of Mr. Darwin’s “Life of Erasmus +Darwin” showed any knowledge of the facts. The _Popular Science Review_ +for January 1880, in flat contradiction to Mr. Darwin’s preface, said +that only part of Dr. Krause’s article was being given by Mr. Darwin. +This reviewer had plainly seen both _Kosmos_ and Mr. Darwin’s book. + +In the same number of the _Popular Science Review_, and immediately +following the review of Mr. Darwin’s book, there is a review of +“Evolution, Old and New.” The writer of this review quotes the passage +about mental anachronism as quoted by the reviewer in the _Pall Mall +Gazette_, and adds immediately: “This anachronism has been committed by +Mr. Samuel Butler in a . . . little volume now before us, and it is +doubtless to this, _which appeared while his own work was in progress_ +[italics mine] that Dr. Krause alludes in the foregoing passage.” +Considering that the editor of the _Popular Science Review_ and the +translator of Dr. Krause’s article for Mr. Darwin are one and the same +person, it is likely the _Popular Science Review_ is well informed in +saying that my book appeared before Dr. Krause’s article had been +transformed into its present shape, and that my book was intended by the +passage in question. + +Unable to see any way of escaping from a conclusion which I could not +willingly adopt, I thought it best to write to Mr. Darwin, stating the +facts as they appeared to myself, and asking an explanation, which I +would have gladly strained a good many points to have accepted. It is +better, perhaps, that I should give my letter and Darwin’s answer in +full. My letter ran thus:— + + _January_ 2, 1880. + + CHARLES DARWIN, ESQ., F.R.S., &c. + + DEAR SIR,—Will you kindly refer me to the edition of _Kosmos_ which + contains the text of Dr. Krause’s article on Dr. Erasmus Darwin, as + translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas? + + I have before me the last February number of _Kosmos_, which appears + by your preface to be the one from which Mr. Dallas has translated, + but his translation contains long and important passages which are + not in the February number of _Kosmos_, while many passages in the + original article are omitted in the translation. + + Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the English + article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position I have + taken as regards Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my book, “Evolution, Old and + New,” and which I believe I was the first to take. The concluding, + and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the translation + you have given to the public stands thus:— + + “Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant first step + in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but + to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been + seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental + anachronism which no man can envy.” + + The _Kosmos_ which has been sent me from Germany contains no such + passage. + + As you have stated in your preface that my book, “Evolution, Old and + New,” appeared subsequently to Dr. Krause’s article, and as no + intimation is given that the article has been altered and added to + since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation + as though from the February number of _Kosmos_ is, as you expressly + say, guaranteed by Mr. Dallas’s “scientific reputation together with + his knowledge of German,” your readers will naturally suppose that + all they read in the translation appeared in February last, and + therefore before “Evolution, Old and New,” was written, and therefore + independently of, and necessarily without reference to, that book. + + I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have failed to + obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred to, and + several others which appear in the translation. + + I have a personal interest in this matter, and venture, therefore, to + ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you will readily give + me.—Yours faithfully, S. BUTLER. + +The following is Mr. Darwin’s answer:— + + _January_ 3, 1880. + + MY DEAR SIR,—Dr. Krause, soon after the appearance of his article in + _Kosmos_ told me that he intended to publish it separately and to + alter it considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas for + translation. This is so common a practice that it never occurred to + me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret + that I did not do so. The original will soon appear in German, and I + believe will be a much larger book than the English one; for, with + Dr. Krause’s consent, many long extracts from Miss Seward were + omitted (as well as much other matter), from being in my opinion + superfluous for the English reader. I believe that the omitted parts + will appear as notes in the German edition. Should there be a + reprint of the English Life I will state that the original as it + appeared in _Kosmos_ was modified by Dr. Krause before it was + translated. I may add that I had obtained Dr. Krause’s consent for a + translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas before your book was + announced. I remember this because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of + the advertisement.—I remain, yours faithfully, C. DARWIN. + +This was not a letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said that by +some inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account for, a +blunder had been made which he would at once correct so far as was in his +power by a letter to the _Times_ or the _Athenæum_, and that a notice of +the erratum should be printed on a flyleaf and pasted into all unsold +copies of the “Life of Erasmus Darwin,” there would have been no more +heard about the matter from me; but when Mr. Darwin maintained that it +was a common practice to take advantage of an opportunity of revising a +work to interpolate a covert attack upon an opponent, and at the same +time to misdate the interpolated matter by expressly stating that it +appeared months sooner than it actually did, and prior to the work which +it attacked; when he maintained that what was being done was “so common a +practice that it never occurred,” to him—the writer of some twenty +volumes—to do what all literary men must know to be inexorably requisite, +I thought this was going far beyond what was permissible in honourable +warfare, and that it was time, in the interests of literary and +scientific morality, even more than in my own, to appeal to public +opinion. I was particularly struck with the use of the words “it never +occurred to me,” and felt how completely of a piece it was with the +opening paragraph of the “Origin of Species.” It was not merely that it +did not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified +since it was written—this would have been bad enough under the +circumstances but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to say +what was not true. There was no necessity for him to have said anything +about my book. It appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me that if a +reprint of the English Life was wanted (which might or might not be the +case, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of the shoulders, and I +must make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might perhaps silently omit his +note about my book, as he omitted his misrepresentation of the author of +the “Vestiges of Creation,” and put the words “revised and corrected by +the author” on his title-page. + +No matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he may have +unquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general well-being that he +should be allowed to set aside the fundamental principles of +straightforwardness and fair play. When I thought of Buffon, of Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, of Lamarck and even of the author of the “Vestiges of +Creation,” to all of whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he +was now dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now dumb, +who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels had been +filched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. Darwin had been +abetted by those who should have been the first to detect the fallacy +which had misled him; of the hotbed of intrigue which science has now +become; of the disrepute into which we English must fall as a nation if +such practices as Mr. Darwin had attempted in this case were to be +tolerated;—when I thought of all this, I felt that though prayers for the +repose of dead men’s souls might be unavailing, yet a defence of their +work and memory, no matter against what odds, might avail the living, and +resolved that I would do my utmost to make my countrymen aware of the +spirit now ruling among those whom they delight to honour. + +At first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence privately with +Mr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was insufficient, but on +reflection I felt that little good was likely to come of a second letter, +if what I had already written was not enough. I therefore wrote to the +_Athenæum_ and gave a condensed account of the facts contained in the +last ten or a dozen pages. My letter appeared January 31, 1880. {50} + +The accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very public place. +I gave my name; I adduced the strongest _primâ facie_ grounds for the +acceptance of my statements; but there was no rejoinder, and for the best +of all reasons—that no rejoinder was possible. Besides, what is the good +of having a reputation for candour if one may not stand upon it at a +pinch? I never yet knew a person with an especial reputation for candour +without finding sooner or later that he had developed it as animals +develop their organs, through “sense of need.” Not only did Mr. Darwin +remain perfectly quiet, but all reviewers and _littérateurs_ remained +perfectly quiet also. It seemed—though I do not for a moment believe +that this is so—as if public opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin +had done, and of his silence than otherwise. I saw the “Life of Erasmus +Darwin” more frequently and more prominently advertised now than I had +seen it hitherto—perhaps in the hope of selling off the adulterated +copies, and being able to reprint the work with a corrected title page. +Presently I saw Professor Huxley hastening to the rescue with his lecture +on the coming of age of the “Origin of Species,” and by May it was easy +for Professor Ray Lankester to imply that Mr. Darwin was the greatest of +living men. I have since noticed two or three other controversies raging +in the _Athenæum_ and _Times_; in each of these cases I saw it assumed +that the defeated party, when proved to have publicly misrepresented his +adversary, should do his best to correct in public the injury which he +had publicly inflicted, but I noticed that in none of them had the beaten +side any especial reputation for candour. This probably made all the +difference. But however this may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of +the field, in the hope, doubtless, that the matter would blow over—which +it apparently soon did. Whether it has done so in reality or no, is a +matter which remains to be seen. My own belief is that people paid no +attention to what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that +when they come to know that it is true, they will think as I do +concerning it. + +From ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no expectations. +There is no conduct so dishonourable that people will not deny it or +explain it away, if it has been committed by one whom they recognise as +of their own persuasion. It must be remembered that facts cannot be +respected by the scientist in the same way as by other people. It is his +business to familiarise himself with facts, and, as we all know, the path +from familiarity to contempt is an easy one. + +Here, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. If it appears +that I have used language such as is rarely seen in controversy, let the +reader remember that the occasion is, so far as I know, unparalleled for +the cynicism and audacity with which the wrong complained of was +committed and persisted in. I trust, however, that, though not +indifferent to this, my indignation has been mainly roused, as when I +wrote “Evolution, Old and New,” before Mr. Darwin had given me personal +ground of complaint against him, by the wrongs he has inflicted on dead +men, on whose behalf I now fight, as I trust that some one—whom I thank +by anticipation—may one day fight on mine. + + + + +Chapter V + + +Introduction to Professor Hering’s lecture. + +AFTER I had finished “Evolution, Old and New,” I wrote some articles for +the _Examiner_, {52} in which I carried out the idea put forward in “Life +and Habit,” that we are one person with our ancestors. It follows from +this, that all living animals and vegetables, being—as appears likely if +the theory of evolution is accepted—descended from a common ancestor, are +in reality one person, and unite to form a body corporate, of whose +existence, however, they are unconscious. There is an obvious analogy +between this and the manner in which the component cells of our bodies +unite to form our single individuality, of which it is not likely they +have a conception, and with which they have probably only the same +partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, have with them. +In the articles above alluded to I separated the organic from the +inorganic, and when I came to rewrite them, I found that this could not +be done, and that I must reconstruct what I had written. I was at work +on this—to which I hope to return shortly—when Dr. Krause’s’ “Erasmus +Darwin,” with its preliminary notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and +having been compelled, as I have shown above, by Dr. Krause’s work to +look a little into the German language, the opportunity seemed favourable +for going on with it and becoming acquainted with Professor Hering’s +lecture. I therefore began to translate his lecture at once, with the +kind assistance of friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, and found +myself well rewarded for my trouble. + +Professor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as men who have +observed the action of living beings upon the stage of the world, he from +the point of view at once of a spectator and of one who has free access +to much of what goes on behind the scenes, I from that of a spectator +only, with none but the vaguest notion of the actual manner in which the +stage machinery is worked. If two men so placed, after years of +reflection, arrive independently of one another at an identical +conclusion as regards the manner in which this machinery must have been +invented and perfected, it is natural that each should take a deep +interest in the arguments of the other, and be anxious to put them +forward with the utmost possible prominence. It seems to me that the +theory which Professor Hering and I are supporting in common, is one the +importance of which is hardly inferior to that of the theory of evolution +itself—for it puts the backbone, as it were, into the theory of +evolution. I shall therefore make no apology for laying my translation +of Professor Hering’s work before my reader. + +Concerning the identity of the main idea put forward in “Life and Habit” +with that of Professor Hering’s lecture, there can hardly, I think, be +two opinions. We both of us maintain that we grow our limbs as we do, +and possess the instincts we possess, because we remember having grown +our limbs in this way, and having had these instincts in past generations +when we were in the persons of our forefathers—each individual life +adding a small (but so small, in any one lifetime, as to be hardly +appreciable) amount of new experience to the general store of memory; +that we have thus got into certain habits which we can now rarely break; +and that we do much of what we do unconsciously on the same principle as +that (whatever it is) on which we do all other habitual actions, with the +greater ease and unconsciousness the more often we repeat them. Not only +is the main idea the same, but I was surprised to find how often +Professor Hering and I had taken the same illustrations with which to +point our meaning. + +Nevertheless, we have each of us left undealt with some points which the +other has treated of. Professor Hering, for example, goes into the +question of what memory is, and this I did not venture to do. I confined +myself to saying that whatever memory was, heredity was also. Professor +Hering adds that memory is due to vibrations of the molecules of the +nerve fibres, which under certain circumstances recur, and bring about a +corresponding recurrence of visible action. + +This approaches closely to the theory concerning the physics of memory +which has been most generally adopted since the time of Bonnet, who wrote +as follows:— + + “The soul never has a new sensation but by the inter position of the + senses. This sensation has been originally attached to the motion of + certain fibres. Its reproduction or recollection by the senses will + then be likewise connected with these same fibres.” . . . {54a} + +And again:— + + “It appeared to me that since this memory is connected with the body, + it must depend upon some change which must happen to the primitive + state of the sensible fibres by the action of objects. I have, + therefore, admitted as probable that the state of the fibres on which + an object has acted is not precisely the same after this action as it + was before I have conjectured that the sensible fibres experience + more or less durable modifications, which constitute the physics of + memory and recollection.” {54b} + +Professor Hering comes near to endorsing this view, and uses it for the +purpose of explaining personal identity. This, at least, is what he does +in fact, though perhaps hardly in words. I did not say more upon the +essence of personality than that it was inseparable from the idea that +the various phases of our existence should have flowed one out of the +other, “in what we see as a continuous, though it may be at times a very +troubled, stream” {55} but I maintained that the identity between two +successive generations was of essentially the same kind as that existing +between an infant and an octogenarian. I thus left personal identity +unexplained, though insisting that it was the key to two apparently +distinct sets of phenomena, the one of which had been hitherto considered +incompatible with our ideas concerning it. Professor Hering insists on +this too, but he gives us farther insight into what personal identity is, +and explains how it is that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also +of personal identity. + +He implies, though in the short space at his command he has hardly said +so in express terms, that personal identity as we commonly think of +it—that is to say, as confined to the single life of the +individual—consists in the uninterruptedness of a sufficient number of +vibrations, which have been communicated from molecule to molecule of the +nerve fibres, and which go on communicating each one of them its own +peculiar characteristic elements to the new matter which we introduce +into the body by way of nutrition. These vibrations may be so gentle as +to be imperceptible for years together; but they are there, and may +become perceived if they receive accession through the running into them +of a wave going the same way as themselves, which wave has been set up in +the ether by exterior objects and has been communicated to the organs of +sense. + +As these pages are on the point of leaving my hands, I see the following +remarkable passage in _Mind_ for the current month, and introduce it +parenthetically here:— + + “I followed the sluggish current of hyaline material issuing from + globules of most primitive living substance. Persistently it + followed its way into space, conquering, at first, the manifold + resistances opposed to it by its watery medium. Gradually, however, + its energies became exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed, + it stopped, an immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity. + Thus for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such + rays of some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By degrees, + then, or perhaps quite suddenly, _help would come to it from foreign + but congruous sources_. _It would seem to combine with outside + complemental matter_ drifted to it at random. Slowly it would regain + thereby its vital mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually + completely restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life, + it was ready to take part again in the progressive flow of a new + ray.” {56} + +To return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If this is so—but I +should warn the reader that Professor Hering is not responsible for this +suggestion, though it seems to follow so naturally from what he has said +that I imagine he intended the inference to be drawn,—if this is so, +assimilation is nothing else than the communication of its own rhythms +from the assimilating to the assimilated substance, to the effacement of +the vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing in this last; and +suitability for food will depend upon whether the rhythms of the +substance eaten are such as to flow harmoniously into and chime in with +those of the body which has eaten it, or whether they will refuse to act +in concert with the new rhythms with which they have become associated, +and will persist obstinately in pursuing their own course. In this case +they will either be turned out of the body at once, or will disconcert +its arrangements, with perhaps fatal consequences. This comes round to +the conclusion I arrived at in “Life and Habit,” that assimilation was +nothing but the imbuing of one thing with the memories of another. (See +“Life and Habit,” pp. 136, 137, 140, &c.) + +It will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity into +phenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, so Professor +Hering resolves the phenomena of personal identity into the phenomena of +a living mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by vibrations of a +certain character—and leaves it there. We now want to understand more +about the vibrations. + +But if, according to Professor Hering, the personal identity of the +single life consists in the uninterruptedness of vibrations, so also do +the phenomena of heredity. For not only may vibrations of a certain +violence or character be persistent unperceived for many years in a +living body, and communicate themselves to the matter it has assimilated, +but they may, and will, under certain circumstances, extend to the +particle which is about to leave the parent body as the germ of its +future offspring. In this minute piece of matter there must, if +Professor Hering is right, be an infinity of rhythmic undulations +incessantly vibrating with more or less activity, and ready to be set in +more active agitation at a moment’s warning, under due accession of +vibration from exterior objects. On the occurrence of such stimulus, +that is to say, when a vibration of a suitable rhythm from without +concurs with one within the body so as to augment it, the agitation may +gather such strength that the touch, as it were, is given to a house of +cards, and the whole comes toppling over. This toppling over is what we +call action; and when it is the result of the disturbance of certain +usual arrangements in certain usual ways, we call it the habitual +development and instinctive characteristics of the race. In either case, +then, whether we consider the continued identity of the individual in +what we call his single life, or those features in his offspring which we +refer to heredity, the same explanation of the phenomena is applicable. +It follows from this as a matter of course, that the continuation of life +or personal identity in the individual and the race are fundamentally of +the same kind, or, in other words, that there is a veritable prolongation +of identity or oneness of personality between parents and offspring. +Professor Hering reaches his conclusion by physical methods, while I +reached mine, as I am told, by metaphysical. I never yet could +understand what “metaphysics” and “metaphysical” mean; but I should have +said I reached it by the exercise of a little common sense while +regarding certain facts which are open to every one. There is, however, +so far as I can see, no difference in the conclusion come to. + +The view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to throw light +upon that difficult question, the manner in which neuter bees acquire +structures and instincts, not one of which was possessed by any of their +direct ancestors. Those who have read “Life and Habit” may remember, I +suggested that the food prepared in the stomachs of the nurse-bees, with +which the neuter working bees are fed, might thus acquire a quasi-seminal +character, and be made a means of communicating the instincts and +structures in question. {58} If assimilation be regarded as the +receiving by one substance of the rhythms or undulations from another, +the explanation just referred to receives an accession of probability. + +If it is objected that Professor Hering’s theory as to continuity of +vibrations being the key to memory and heredity involves the action of +more wheels within wheels than our imagination can come near to +comprehending, and also that it supposes this complexity of action as +going on within a compass which no unaided eye can detect by reason of +its littleness, so that we are carried into a fairy land with which sober +people should have nothing to do, it may be answered that the case of +light affords us an example of our being truly aware of a multitude of +minute actions, the hundred million millionth part of which we should +have declared to be beyond our ken, could we not incontestably prove that +we notice and count them all with a very sufficient and creditable +accuracy. + +“Who would not,” {59a} says Sir John Herschel, “ask for demonstration +when told that a gnat’s wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred +times in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly organised +beings many thousands of whose bodies laid close together would not +extend to an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which +modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point +of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a +succession of periodical movements, recurring regularly at equal +intervals, no less than five hundred millions of millions of times in a +second; that it is by such movements communicated to the nerves of our +eyes that we see; nay, more, that it is the _difference_ in the frequency +of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of +colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our +eyes are affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of +times; of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of +times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of +times per second? {59b} Do not such things sound more like the ravings +of madmen than the sober conclusions of people in their waking senses? +They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly +arrive who will only be at the pains of examining the chain of reasoning +by which they have been obtained.” + +A man counting as hard as he can repeat numbers one after another, and +never counting more than a hundred, so that he shall have no long words +to repeat, may perhaps count ten thousand, or a hundred a hundred times +over, in an hour. At this rate, counting night and day, and allowing no +time for rest or refreshment, he would count one million in four days and +four hours, or say four days only. To count a million a million times +over, he would require four million days, or roughly ten thousand years; +for five hundred millions of millions, he must have the utterly +unrealisable period of five million years. Yet he actually goes through +this stupendous piece of reckoning unconsciously hour after hour, day +after day, it may be for eighty years, _often in each second_ of +daylight; and how much more by artificial or subdued light I do not know. +He knows whether his eye is being struck five hundred millions of +millions of times, or only four hundred and eighty-two millions of +millions of times. He thus shows that he estimates or counts each set of +vibrations, and registers them according to his results. If a man writes +upon the back of a British Museum blotting-pad of the common _nonpareil_ +pattern, on which there are some thousands of small spaces each differing +in colour from that which is immediately next to it, his eye will, +nevertheless, without an effort assign its true colour to each one of +these spaces. This implies that he is all the time counting and taking +tally of the difference in the numbers of the vibrations from each one of +the small spaces in question. Yet the mind that is capable of such +stupendous computations as these so long as it knows nothing about them, +makes no little fuss about the conscious adding together of such almost +inconceivably minute numbers as, we will say, 2730169 and 5790135—or, if +these be considered too large, as 27 and 19. Let the reader remember +that he cannot by any effort bring before his mind the units, not in +ones, _but in millions of millions_ of the processes which his visual +organs are undergoing second after second from dawn till dark, and then +let him demur if he will to the possibility of the existence in a germ, +of currents and undercurrents, and rhythms and counter rhythms, also by +the million of millions—each one of which, on being overtaken by the +rhythm from without that chimes in with and stimulates it, may be the +beginning of that unsettlement of equilibrium which results in the crash +of action, unless it is timely counteracted. + +If another objector maintains that the vibrations within the germ as +above supposed must be continually crossing and interfering with one +another in such a manner as to destroy the continuity of any one series, +it may be replied that the vibrations of the light proceeding from the +objects that surround us traverse one another by the millions of millions +every second yet in no way interfere with one another. Nevertheless, it +must be admitted that the difficulties of the theory towards which I +suppose Professor Hering to incline are like those of all other theories +on the same subject—almost inconceivably great. + +In “Life and Habit” I did not touch upon these vibrations, knowing +nothing about them. Here, then, is one important point of difference, +not between the conclusions arrived at, but between the aim and scope of +the work that Professor Hering and I severally attempted. Another +difference consists in the points at which we have left off. Professor +Hering, having established his main thesis, is content. I, on the other +hand, went on to maintain that if vigour was due to memory, want of +vigour was due to want of memory. Thus I was led to connect memory with +the phenomena of hybridism and of old age; to show that the sterility of +certain animals under domestication is only a phase of, and of a piece +with, the very common sterility of hybrids—phenomena which at first sight +have no connection either with each other or with memory, but the +connection between which will never be lost sight of by those who have +once laid hold of it. I also pointed out how exactly the phenomena of +development agreed with those of the abeyance and recurrence of memory, +and the rationale of the fact that puberty in so many animals and plants +comes about the end of development. The principle underlying longevity +follows as a matter of course. I have no idea how far Professor Hering +would agree with me in the position I have taken in respect of these +phenomena, but there is nothing in the above at variance with his +lecture. + +Another matter on which Professor Hering has not touched is the bearing +of his theory on that view of evolution which is now commonly accepted. +It is plain he accepts evolution, but it does not appear that he sees how +fatal his theory is to any view of evolution except a teleological +one—the purpose residing within the animal and not without it. There is, +however, nothing in his lecture to indicate that he does not see this. + +It should be remembered that the question whether memory is due to the +persistence within the body of certain vibrations, which have been +already set up within the bodies of its ancestors, is true or no, will +not affect the position I took up in “Life and Habit.” In that book I +have maintained nothing more than that whatever memory is heredity is +also. I am not committed to the vibration theory of memory, though +inclined to accept it on a _primâ facie_ view. All I am committed to is, +that if memory is due to persistence of vibrations, so is heredity; and +if memory is not so due, then no more is heredity. + +Finally, I may say that Professor Hering’s lecture, the passage quoted +from Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of this volume, and a few hints in the +extracts from Mr. Patrick Mathew which I have quoted in “Evolution, Old +and New,” are all that I yet know of in other writers as pointing to the +conclusion that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also of memory. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +Professor Ewald Hering “On Memory.” + +I WILL now lay before the reader a translation of Professor Hering’s own +words. I have had it carefully revised throughout by a gentleman whose +native language is German, but who has resided in England for many years +past. The original lecture is entitled “On Memory as a Universal +Function of Organised Matter,” and was delivered at the anniversary +meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, May 30, 1870. {63} +It is as follows:— + +“When the student of Nature quits the narrow workshop of his own +particular inquiry, and sets out upon an excursion into the vast kingdom +of philosophical investigation, he does so, doubtless, in the hope of +finding the answer to that great riddle, to the solution of a small part +of which he devotes his life. Those, however, whom he leaves behind him +still working at their own special branch of inquiry, regard his +departure with secret misgivings on his behalf, while the born citizens +of the kingdom of speculation among whom he would naturalise himself, +receive him with well-authorised distrust. He is likely, therefore, to +lose ground with the first, while not gaining it with the second. + +The subject to the consideration of which I would now solicit your +attention does certainly appear likely to lure us on towards the +flattering land of speculation, but bearing in mind what I have just +said, I will beware of quitting the department of natural science to +which I have devoted myself hitherto. I shall, however, endeavour to +attain its highest point, so as to take a freer view of the surrounding +territory. + +It will soon appear that I should fail in this purpose if my remarks were +to confine themselves solely to physiology. I hope to show how far +psychological investigations also afford not only permissible, but +indispensable, aid to physiological inquiries. + +Consciousness is an accompaniment of that animal and human organisation +and of that material mechanism which it is the province of physiology to +explore; and as long as the atoms of the brain follow their due course +according to certain definite laws, there arises an inner life which +springs from sensation and idea, from feeling and will. + +We feel this in our own cases; it strikes us in our converse with other +people; we can see it plainly in the more highly organised animals; even +the lowest forms of life bear traces of it; and who can draw a line in +the kingdom of organic life, and say that it is here the soul ceases? + +With what eyes, then, is physiology to regard this two-fold life of the +organised world? Shall she close them entirely to one whole side of it, +that she may fix them more intently on the other? + +So long as the physiologist is content to be a physicist, and nothing +more—using the word “physicist” in its widest signification—his position +in regard to the organic world is one of extreme but legitimate +one-sidedness. As the crystal to the mineralogist or the vibrating +string to the acoustician, so from this point of view both man and the +lower animals are to the physiologist neither more nor less than the +matter of which they consist. That animals feel desire and repugnance, +that the material mechanism of the human frame is in chose connection +with emotions of pleasure or pain, and with the active idea-life of +consciousness—this cannot, in the eyes of the physicist, make the animal +or human body into anything more than what it actually is. To him it is +a combination of matter, subjected to the same inflexible laws as stones +and plants—a material combination, the outward and inward movements of +which interact as cause and effect, and are in as close connection with +each other and with their surroundings as the working of a machine with +the revolutions of the wheels that compose it. + +Neither sensation, nor idea, nor yet conscious will, can form a link in +this chain of material occurrences which make up the physical life of an +organism. If I am asked a question and reply to it, the material process +which the nerve fibre conveys from the organ of hearing to the brain must +travel through my brain as an actual and material process before it can +reach the nerves which will act upon my organs of speech. It cannot, on +reaching a given place in the brain, change then and there into an +immaterial something, and turn up again some time afterwards in another +part of the brain as a material process. The traveller in the desert +might as well hope, before he again goes forth into the wilderness of +reality, to take rest and refreshment in the oasis with which the Fata +Morgana illudes him; or as well might a prisoner hope to escape from his +prison through a door reflected in a mirror. + +So much for the physiologist in his capacity of pure physicist. As long +as he remains behind the scenes in painful exploration of the details of +the machinery—as long as he only observes the action of the players from +behind the stage—so long will he miss the spirit of the performance, +which is, nevertheless, caught easily by one who sees it from the front. +May he not, then, for once in a way, be allowed to change his standpoint? +True, he came not to see the representation of an imaginary world; he is +in search of the actual; but surely it must help him to a comprehension +of the dramatic apparatus itself, and of the manner in which it is +worked, if he were to view its action from in front as well as from +behind, or at least allow himself to hear what sober-minded spectators +can tell him upon the subject. + +There can be no question as to the answer; and hence it comes that +psychology is such an indispensable help to physiology, whose fault it +only in small part is that she has hitherto made such little use of this +assistance; for psychology has been late in beginning to till her fertile +field with the plough of the inductive method, and it is only from ground +so tilled that fruits can spring which can be of service to physiology. + +If, then, the student of nervous physiology takes his stand between the +physicist and the psychologist, and if the first of these rightly makes +the unbroken causative continuity of all material processes an axiom of +his system of investigation, the prudent psychologist, on the other hand, +will investigate the laws of conscious life according to the inductive +method, and will hence, as much as the physicist, make the existence of +fixed laws his initial assumption. If, again, the most superficial +introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is +dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely +his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only +remains for him to make one assumption more, namely, _that this mutual +interdependence between the spiritual and the material is itself also +dependent on law_, and he has discovered the bond by which the science of +matter and the science of consciousness are united into a single whole. + +Thus regarded, the phenomena of consciousness become functions of the +material changes of organised substance, and inversely—though this is +involved in the use of the word “function”—the material processes of +brain substance become functions of the phenomena of consciousness. For +when two variables are so dependent upon one another in the changes they +undergo in accordance with fixed laws that a change in either involves +simultaneous and corresponding change in the other, the one is called a +function of the other. + +This, then, by no means implies that the two variables above-named—matter +and consciousness—stand in the relation of cause and effect, antecedent +and consequence, to one another. For on this subject we know nothing. + +The materialist regards consciousness as a product or result of matter, +while the idealist holds matter to be a result of consciousness, and a +third maintains that matter and spirit are identical; with all this the +physiologist, as such, has nothing whatever to do; his sole concern is +with the fact that matter and consciousness are functions one of the +other. + +By the help of this hypothesis of the functional interdependence of +matter and spirit, modern physiology is enabled to bring the phenomena of +consciousness within the domain of her investigations without leaving the +_terra firma_ of scientific methods. The physiologist, as physicist, can +follow the ray of light and the wave of sound or heat till they reach the +organ of sense. He can watch them entering upon the ends of the nerves, +and finding their way to the cells of the brain by means of the series of +undulations or vibrations which they establish in the nerve filaments. +Here, however, he loses all trace of them. On the other hand, still +looking with the eyes of a pure physicist, he sees sound waves of speech +issue from the mouth of a speaker; he observes the motion of his own +limbs, and finds how this is conditional upon muscular contractions +occasioned by the motor nerves, and how these nerves are in their turn +excited by the cells of the central organ. But here again his knowledge +comes to an end. True, he sees indications of the bridge which is to +carry him from excitation of the sensory to that of the motor nerves in +the labyrinth of intricately interwoven nerve cells, but he knows nothing +of the inconceivably complex process which is introduced at this stage. +Here the physiologist will change his standpoint; what matter will not +reveal to his inquiry, he will find in the mirror, as it were, of +consciousness; by way of a reflection, indeed, only, but a reflection, +nevertheless, which stands in intimate relation to the object of his +inquiry. When at this point he observes how one idea gives rise to +another, how closely idea is connected with sensation and sensation with +will, and how thought, again, and feeling are inseparable from one +another, he will be compelled to suppose corresponding successions of +material processes, which generate and are closely connected with one +another, and which attend the whole machinery of conscious life, +according to the law of the functional interdependence of matter and +consciousness. + + * * * * * + +After this explanation I shall venture to regard under a single aspect a +great series of phenomena which apparently have nothing to do with one +another, and which belong partly to the conscious and partly to the +unconscious life of organised beings. I shall regard them as the outcome +of one and the same primary force of organised matter—namely, its memory +or power of reproduction. + +The word “memory” is often understood as though it meant nothing more +than our faculty of intentionally reproducing ideas or series of ideas. +But when the figures and events of bygone days rise up again unbidden in +our minds, is not this also an act of recollection or memory? We have a +perfect right to extend our conception of memory so as to make it embrace +involuntary reproductions, of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and +efforts; but we find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her +boundaries that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the +source, and at the same time the unifying bond, of our whole conscious +life. + +We know that when an impression, or a series of impressions, has been +made upon our senses for a long time, and always in the same way, it may +come to impress itself in such a manner upon the so-called sense-memory +that hours afterwards, and though a hundred other things have occupied +our attention meanwhile, it will yet return suddenly to our consciousness +with all the force and freshness of the original sensation. A whole +group of sensations is sometimes reproduced in its due sequence as +regards time and space, with so much reality that it illudes us, as +though things were actually present which have long ceased to be so. We +have here a striking proof of the fact that after both conscious +sensation and perception have been extinguished, their material vestiges +yet remain in our nervous system by way of a change in its molecular or +atomic disposition, {69} that enables the nerve substance to reproduce +all the physical processes of the original sensation, and with these the +corresponding psychical processes of sensation and perception. + +Every hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present with each one of us, +but in a less degree than this. We are all at times aware of a host of +more or less faded recollections of earlier impressions, which we either +summon intentionally or which come upon us involuntarily. Visions of +absent people come and go before us as faint and fleeting shadows, and +the notes of long-forgotten melodies float around us, not actually heard, +but yet perceptible. + +Some things and occurrences, especially if they have happened to us only +once and hurriedly, will be reproducible by the memory in respect only of +a few conspicuous qualities; in other cases those details alone will +recur to us which we have met with elsewhere, and for the reception of +which the brain is, so to speak, attuned. These last recollections find +themselves in fuller accord with our consciousness, and enter upon it +more easily and energetically; hence also their aptitude for reproduction +is enhanced; so that what is common to many things, and is therefore felt +and perceived with exceptional frequency, becomes reproduced so easily +that eventually the actual presence of the corresponding external +_stimuli_ is no longer necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations set +up by faint _stimuli_ from within. {70} Sensations arising in this way +from within, as, for example, an idea of whiteness, are not, indeed, +perceived with the full freshness of those raised by the actual presence +of white light without us, but they are of the same kind; they are feeble +repetitions of one and the same material brain process—of one and the +same conscious sensation. Thus the idea of whiteness arises in our mind +as a faint, almost extinct, sensation. + +In this way those qualities which are common to many things become +separated, as it were, in our memory from the objects with which they +were originally associated, and attain an independent existence in our +consciousness as _ideas_ and _conceptions_, and thus the whole rich +superstructure of our ideas and conceptions is built up from materials +supplied by memory. + +On examining more closely, we see plainly that memory is a faculty not +only of our conscious states, but also, and much more so, of our +unconscious ones. I was conscious of this or that yesterday, and am +again conscious of it to-day. Where has it been meanwhile? It does not +remain continuously within my consciousness, nevertheless it returns +after having quitted it. Our ideas tread but for a moment upon the stage +of consciousness, and then go back again behind the scenes, to make way +for others in their place. As the player is only a king when he is on +the stage, so they too exist as ideas so long only as they are +recognised. How do they live when they are off the stage? For we know +that they are living somewhere; give them their cue and they reappear +immediately. They do not exist continuously as ideas; what is continuous +is the special disposition of nerve substance in virtue of which this +substance gives out to-day the same sound which it gave yesterday if it +is rightly struck. {71} Countless reproductions of organic processes of +our brain connect themselves orderly together, so that one acts as a +stimulus to the next, but a phenomenon of consciousness is not +necessarily attached to every link in the chain. From this it arises +that a series of ideas may appear to disregard the order that would be +observed in purely material processes of brain substance unaccompanied by +consciousness; but on the other hand it becomes possible for a long chain +of recollections to have its due development without each link in the +chain being necessarily perceived by ourselves. One may emerge from the +bosom of our unconscious thoughts without fully entering upon the stage +of conscious perception; another dies away in unconsciousness, leaving no +successor to take its place. 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. Who can hope after this +to disentangle the infinite intricacy of our inner life? For we can only +follow its threads so far as they have strayed over within the bounds of +consciousness. We might as well hope to familiarise ourselves with the +world of forms that teem within the bosom of the sea by observing the few +that now and again come to the surface and soon return into the deep. + +The bond of union, therefore, which connects the individual phenomena of +our consciousness lies in our unconscious world; and as we know nothing +of this but what investigation into the laws of matter teach us—as, in +fact, for purely experimental purposes, “matter” and the “unconscious” +must be one and the same thing—so the physiologist has a full right to +denote memory as, in the wider sense of the word, a function of brain +substance, whose results, it is true, fall, as regards one part of them, +into the domain of consciousness, while another and not less essential +part escapes unperceived as purely material processes. + +The perception of a body in space is a very complicated process. I see +suddenly before me, for example, a white ball. This has the effect of +conveying to me more than a mere sensation of whiteness. I deduce the +spherical character of the ball from the gradations of light and shade +upon its surface. I form a correct appreciation of its distance from my +eye, and hence again I deduce an inference as to the size of the ball. +What an expenditure of sensations, ideas, and inferences is found to be +necessary before all this can be brought about; yet the production of a +correct perception of the ball was the work only of a few seconds, and I +was unconscious of the individual processes by means of which it was +effected, the result as a whole being alone present in my consciousness. + +The nerve substance preserves faithfully the memory of habitual actions. +{72} Perceptions which were once long and difficult, requiring constant +and conscious attention, come to reproduce themselves in transient and +abridged guise, without such duration and intensity that each link has to +pass over the threshold of our consciousness. + +We have chains of material nerve processes to which eventually a link +becomes attached that is attended with conscious perception. This is +sufficiently established from the standpoint of the physiologist, and is +also proved by our unconsciousness of many whole series of ideas and of +the inferences we draw from them. If the soul is not to ship through the +fingers of physiology, she must hold fast to the considerations suggested +by our unconscious states. As far, however, as the investigations of the +pure physicist are concerned, the unconscious and matter are one and the +same thing, and the physiology of the unconscious is no “philosophy of +the unconscious.” + +By far the greater number of our movements are the result of long and +arduous practice. The harmonious cooperation of the separate muscles, +the finely adjusted measure of participation which each contributes to +the working of the whole, must, as a rule, have been laboriously +acquired, in respect of most of the movements that are necessary in order +to effect it. How long does it not take each note to find its way from +the eyes to the fingers of one who is beginning to learn the pianoforte; +and, on the other hand, what an astonishing performance is the playing of +the professional pianist. The sight of each note occasions the +corresponding movement of the fingers with the speed of thought—a hurried +glance at the page of music before him suffices to give rise to a whole +series of harmonies; nay, when a melody has been long practised, it can +be played even while the player’s attention is being given to something +of a perfectly different character over and above his music. + +The will need now no longer wend its way to each individual finger before +the desired movements can be extorted from it; no longer now does a +sustained attention keep watch over the movements of each limb; the will +need exercise a supervising control only. At the word of command the +muscles become active, with a due regard to time and proportion, and go +on working, so long as they are bidden to keep in their accustomed +groove, while a slight hint on the part of the will, will indicate to +them their further journey. How could all this be if every part of the +central nerve system, by means of which movement is effected, were not +able {74a} to reproduce whole series of vibrations, which at an earlier +date required the constant and continuous participation of consciousness, +but which are now set in motion automatically on a mere touch, as it +were, from consciousness—if it were not able to reproduce them the more +quickly and easily in proportion to the frequency of the repetitions—if, +in fact, there was no power of recollecting earlier performances? Our +perceptive faculties must have remained always at their lowest stage if +we had been compelled to build up consciously every process from the +details of the sensation-causing materials tendered to us by our senses; +nor could our voluntary movements have got beyond the helplessness of the +child, if the necessary impulses could only be imparted to every movement +through effort of the will and conscious reproduction of all the +corresponding ideas—if, in a word, the motor nerve system had not also +its memory, {74b} though that memory is unperceived by ourselves. The +power of this memory is what is called “the force of habit.” + +It seems, then, that we owe to memory almost all that we either have or +are; that our ideas and conceptions are its work, and that our every +perception, thought, and movement is derived from this source. Memory +collects the countless phenomena of our existence into a single whole; +and as our bodies would be scattered into the dust of their component +atoms if they were not held together by the attraction of matter, so our +consciousness would be broken up into as many fragments as we had lived +seconds but for the binding and unifying force of memory. + +We have already repeatedly seen that the reproductions of organic +processes, brought about by means of the memory of the nervous system, +enter but partly within the domain of consciousness, remaining +unperceived in other and not less important respects. This is also +confirmed by numerous facts in the life of that part of the nervous +system which ministers almost exclusively to our unconscious life +processes. For the memory of the so-called sympathetic ganglionic system +is no less rich than that of the brain and spinal marrow, and a great +part of the medical art consists in making wise use of the assistance +thus afforded us. + +To bring, however, this part of my observations to a close, I will take +leave of the nervous system, and glance hurriedly at other phases of +organised matter, where we meet with the same powers of reproduction, but +in simpler guise. + +Daily experience teaches us that a muscle becomes the stronger the more +we use it. The muscular fibre, which in the first instance may have +answered but feebly to the stimulus conducted to it by the motor nerve, +does so with the greater energy the more often it is stimulated, +provided, of course, that reasonable times are allowed for repose. After +each individual action it becomes more capable, more disposed towards the +same kind of work, and has a greater aptitude for repetition of the same +organic processes. It gains also in weight, for it assimilates more +matter than when constantly at rest. We have here, in its simplest form, +and in a phase which comes home most closely to the comprehension of the +physicist, the same power of reproduction which we encountered when we +were dealing with nerve substance, but under such far more complicated +conditions. And what is known thus certainly from muscle substance holds +good with greater or less plainness for all our organs. More especially +may we note the fact, that after increased use, alternated with times of +repose, there accrues to the organ in all animal economy an increased +power of execution with an increased power of assimilation and a gain in +size. + +This gain in size consists not only in the enlargement of the individual +cells or fibres of which the organ is composed, but in the multiplication +of their number; for when cells have grown to a certain size they give +rise to others, which inherit more or less completely the qualities of +those from which they came, and therefore appear to be repetitions of the +same cell. This growth, and multiplication of cells is only a special +phase of those manifold functions which characterise organised matter, +and which consist not only in what goes on within the cell substance as +alterations or undulatory movement of the molecular disposition, but also +in that which becomes visible outside the cells as change of shape, +enlargement, or subdivision. Reproduction of performance, therefore, +manifests itself to us as reproduction of the cells themselves, as may be +seen most plainly in the case of plants, whose chief work consists in +growth, whereas with animal organism other faculties greatly +preponderate. + +Let us now take a brief survey of a class of facts in the case of which +we may most abundantly observe the power of memory in organised matter. +We have ample evidence of the fact that characteristics of an organism +may descend to offspring which the organism did not inherit, but which it +acquired owing to the special circumstances under which it lived; and +that, in consequence, every organism imparts to the germ that issues from +it a small heritage of acquisitions which it has added during its own +lifetime to the gross inheritance of its race. + +When we reflect that we are dealing with the heredity of acquired +qualities which came to development in the most diverse parts of the +parent organism, it must seem in a high degree mysterious how those parts +can have any kind of influence upon a germ which develops itself in an +entirely different place. Many mystical theories have been propounded +for the elucidation of this question, but the following reflections may +serve to bring the cause nearer to the comprehension of the physiologist. + +The nerve substance, in spite of its thousandfold subdivision as cells +and fibres, forms, nevertheless, a united whole, which is present +directly in all organs—nay, as more recent histology conjectures, in each +cell of the more important organs—or is at least in ready communication +with them by means of the living, irritable, and therefore highly +conductive substance of other cells. Through the connection thus +established all organs find themselves in such a condition of more or +less mutual interdependence upon one another, that events which happen to +one are repeated in others, and a notification, however slight, of a +vibration set up {77} in one quarter is at once conveyed even to the +farthest parts of the body. With this easy and rapid intercourse between +all parts is associated the more difficult communication that goes on by +way of the circulation of sap or blood. + +We see, further, that the process of the development of all germs that +are marked out for independent existence causes a powerful reaction, even +from the very beginning of that existence, on both the conscious and +unconscious life of the whole organism. We may see this from the fact +that the organ of reproduction stands in closer and more important +relation to the remaining parts, and especially to the nervous system, +than do the other organs; and, inversely, that both the perceived and +unperceived events affecting the whole organism find a more marked +response in the reproductive system than elsewhere. + +We can now see with sufficient plainness in what the material connection +is established between the acquired peculiarities of an organism, and the +proclivity on the part of the germ in virtue of which it develops the +special characteristics of its parent. + +The microscope teaches us that no difference can be perceived between one +germ and another; it cannot, however, be objected on this account that +the determining cause of its ulterior development must be something +immaterial, rather than the specific kind of its material constitution. + +The curves and surfaces which the mathematician conceives, or finds +conceivable, are more varied and infinite than the forms of animal life. +Let us suppose an infinitely small segment to be taken from every +possible curve; each one of these will appear as like every other as one +germ is to another, yet the whole of every curve lies dormant, as it +were, in each of them, and if the mathematician chooses to develop it, it +will take the path indicated by the elements of each segment. + +It is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine distinctions as +physiology must assume lie beyond the limits of what is conceivable by +the human mind. An infinitely small change of position on the part of a +point, or in the relations of the parts of a segment of a curve to one +another, suffices to alter the law of its whole path, and so in like +manner an infinitely small influence exercised by the parent organism on +the molecular disposition of the germ {78} may suffice to produce a +determining effect upon its whole farther development. + +What is the descent of special peculiarities but a reproduction on the +part of organised matter of processes in which it once took part as a +germ in the germ-containing organs of its parent, and of which it seems +still to retain a recollection that reappears when time and the occasion +serve, inasmuch as it responds to the same or like stimuli in a like way +to that in which the parent organism responded, of which it was once +part, and in the events of whose history it was itself also an +accomplice? {79} When an action through long habit or continual practice +has become so much a second nature to any organisation that its effects +will penetrate, though ever so faintly, into the germ that lies within +it, and when this last comes to find itself in a new sphere, to extend +itself, and develop into a new creature—(the individual parts of which +are still always the creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so that what +is reproduced is the same being as that in company with which the germ +once lived, and of which it was once actually a part)—all this is as +wonderful as when a grey-haired man remembers the events of his own +childhood; but it is not more so. Whether we say that the same organised +substance is again reproducing its past experience, or whether we prefer +to hold that an offshoot or part of the original substance has waxed and +developed itself since separation from the parent stock, it is plain that +this will constitute a difference of degree, not kind. + +When we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired characteristics +can be reproduced in offspring, we are apt to forget that offspring is +only a full-sized reproduction of the parent—a reproduction, moreover, +that goes as far as possible into detail. We are so accustomed to +consider family resemblance a matter of course, that we are sometimes +surprised when a child is in some respect unlike its parent; surely, +however, the infinite number of points in respect of which parents and +children resemble one another is a more reasonable ground for our +surprise. + +But if the substance of the germ can reproduce characteristics acquired +by the parent during its single life, how much more will it not be able +to reproduce those that were congenital to the parent, and which have +happened through countless generations to the organised matter of which +the germ of to-day is a fragment? We cannot wonder that action already +taken on innumerable past occasions by organised matter is more deeply +impressed upon the recollection of the germ to which it gives rise than +action taken once only during a single lifetime. {80a} + +We must bear in mind that every organised being now in existence +represents the last link of an inconceivably long series of organisms, +which come down in a direct line of descent, and of which each has +inherited a part of the acquired characteristics of its predecessor. +Everything, furthermore, points in the direction of our believing that at +the beginning of this chain there existed an organism of the very +simplest kind, something, in fact, like those which we call organised +germs. The chain of living beings thus appears to be the magnificent +achievement of the reproductive power of the original organic structure +from which they have all descended. As this subdivided itself and +transmitted its characteristics {80b} to its descendants, these acquired +new ones, and in their turn transmitted them—all new germs transmitting +the chief part of what had happened to their predecessors, while the +remaining part lapsed out of their memory, circumstances not stimulating +it to reproduce itself. + +An organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of the +unconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever increasing and ever +dividing itself, ever assimilating new matter and returning it in changed +shape to the inorganic world, ever receiving some new thing into its +memory, and transmitting its acquisitions by the way of reproduction, +grows continually richer and richer the longer it lives. + +Thus regarded, the development of one of the more highly organised +animals represents a continuous series of organised recollections +concerning the past development of the great chain of living forms, the +last link of which stands before us in the particular animal we may be +considering. As a complicated perception may arise by means of a rapid +and superficial reproduction of long and laboriously practised brain +processes, so a germ in the course of its development hurries through a +series of phases, hinting at them only. Often and long foreshadowed in +theories of varied characters, this conception has only now found correct +exposition from a naturalist of our own time. {81} For Truth hides +herself under many disguises from those who seek her, but in the end +stands unveiled before the eyes of him whom she has chosen. + +Not only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner conformation +of body, organs, and cells, but the habitual actions of the parent are +also reproduced. The chicken on emerging from the eggshell runs off as +its mother ran off before it; yet what an extraordinary complication of +emotions and sensations is necessary in order to preserve equilibrium in +running. Surely the supposition of an inborn capacity for the +reproduction of these intricate actions can alone explain the facts. As +habitual practice becomes a second nature to the individual during his +single lifetime, so the often-repeated action of each generation becomes +a second nature to the race. + +The chicken not only displays great dexterity in the performance of +movements for the effecting of which it has an innate capacity, but it +exhibits also a tolerably high perceptive power. It immediately picks up +any grain that may be thrown to it. Yet, in order to do this, more is +wanted than a mere visual perception of the grains; there must be an +accurate apprehension of the direction and distance of the precise spot +in which each grain is lying, and there must be no less accuracy in the +adjustment of the movements of the head and of the whole body. The +chicken cannot have gained experience in these respects while it was +still in the egg. It gained it rather from the thousands of thousands of +beings that have lived before it, and from which it is directly +descended. + +The memory of organised substance displays itself here in the most +surprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of the light proceeding from the +grain that affects the retina of the chicken, {82} gives occasion for the +reproduction of a many-linked chain of sensations, perceptions, and +emotions, which were never yet brought together in the case of the +individual before us. We are accustomed to regard these surprising +performances of animals as manifestations of what we call instinct, and +the mysticism of natural philosophy has ever shown a predilection for +this theme; but if we regard instinct as the outcome of the memory or +reproductive power of organised substance, and if we ascribe a memory to +the race as we already ascribe it to the individual, then instinct +becomes at once intelligible, and the physiologist at the same time finds +a point of contact which will bring it into connection with the great +series of facts indicated above as phenomena of the reproductive faculty. +Here, then, we have a physical explanation which has not, indeed, been +given yet, but the time for which appears to be rapidly approaching. + +When, in accordance with its instinct, the caterpillar becomes a +chrysalis, or the bird builds its nest, or the bee its cell, these +creatures act consciously and not as blind machines. They know how to +vary their proceedings within certain limits in conformity with altered +circumstances, and they are thus liable to make mistakes. They feel +pleasure when their work advances and pain if it is hindered; they learn +by the experience thus acquired, and build on a second occasion better +than on the first; but that even in the outset they hit so readily upon +the most judicious way of achieving their purpose, and that their +movements adapt themselves so admirably and automatically to the end they +have in view—surely this is owing to the inherited acquisitions of the +memory of their nerve substance, which requires but a touch and it will +fall at once to the most appropriate kind of activity, thinking always, +and directly, of whatever it is that may be wanted. + +Man can readily acquire surprising kinds of dexterity if he confines his +attention to their acquisition. Specialisation is the mother of +proficiency. He who marvels at the skill with which the spider weaves +her web should bear in mind that she did not learn her art all on a +sudden, but that innumerable generations of spiders acquired it +toilsomely and step by step—this being about all that, as a general rule, +they did acquire. Man took to bows and arrows if his nets failed him—the +spider starved. Thus we see the body and—what most concerns us—the whole +nervous system of the new-born animal constructed beforehand, and, as it +were, ready attuned for intercourse with the outside world in which it is +about to play its part, by means of its tendency to respond to external +stimuli in the same manner as it has often heretofore responded in the +persons of its ancestors. + +We naturally ask whether the brain and nervous system of the human infant +are subjected to the principles we have laid down above? Man certainly +finds it difficult to acquire arts of which the lower animals are born +masters; but the brain of man at birth is much farther from its highest +development than is the brain of an animal. It not only grows for a +longer time, but it becomes stronger than that of other living beings. +The brain of man may be said to be exceptionally young at birth. The +lower animal is born precocious, and acts precociously; it resembles +those infant prodigies whose brain, as it were, is born old into the +world, but who, in spite of, or rather in addition to, their rich +endowment at birth, in after life develop as much mental power as others +who were less splendidly furnished to start with, but born with greater +freshness of youth. Man’s brain, and indeed his whole body, affords +greater scope for individuality, inasmuch as a relatively greater part of +it is of post-natal growth. It develops under the influence of +impressions made by the environment upon its senses, and thus makes its +acquisitions in a more special and individual manner, whereas the animal +receives them ready made, and of a more final, stereotyped character. + +Nevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain and body of +the new-born infant a far-reaching power of remembering or reproducing +things which have already come to their development thousands of times +over in the persons of its ancestors. It is in virtue of this that it +acquires proficiency in the actions necessary for its existence—so far as +it was not already at birth proficient in them—much more quickly and +easily than would be otherwise possible; but what we call instinct in the +case of animals takes in man the looser form of aptitude, talent, and +genius. {84} Granted that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of +their taking form so easily and certainly from out of the chaos of his +sensations, is due not to his own labour, but to that of the brain +substance of the thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is +descended. Theories concerning the development of individual +consciousness which deny heredity or the power of transmission, and +insist upon an entirely fresh start for every human soul, as though the +infinite number of generations that have gone before us might as well +have never lived for all the effect they have had upon ourselves,—such +theories will contradict the facts of our daily experience at every touch +and turn. + +The brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble man in +the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than those +connected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive instinct +affected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world. It is in +respect of these instincts, therefore, and of the means to gratify them, +that the memory of organised substance is strongest—the impulses and +instincts that arise hence having still paramount power over the minds of +men. The spiritual life has been superadded slowly; its most splendid +outcome belongs to the latest epoch in the history of organised matter, +nor has any very great length of time elapsed since the nervous system +was first crowned with the glory of a large and well-developed brain. + +Oral tradition and written history have been called the memory of man, +and this is not without its truth. But there is another and a living +memory in the innate reproductive power of brain substance, and without +this both writings and oral tradition would be without significance to +posterity. The most sublime ideas, though never so immortalised in +speech or letters, are yet nothing for heads that are out of harmony with +them; they must be not only heard, but reproduced; and both speech and +writing would be in vain were there not an inheritance of inward and +outward brain development, growing in correspondence with the inheritance +of ideas that are handed down from age to age, and did not an enhanced +capacity for their reproduction on the part of each succeeding generation +accompany the thoughts that have been preserved in writing. Man’s +conscious memory comes to an end at death, but the unconscious memory of +Nature is true and ineradicable: whoever succeeds in stamping upon her +the impress of his work, she will remember him to the end of time. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +Introduction to a translation of the chapter upon instinct in Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” + +I AM afraid my readers will find the chapter on instinct from Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” which will now follow, as +distasteful to read as I did to translate, and would gladly have spared +it them if I could. At present, the works of Mr. Sully, who has treated +of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious” both in the _Westminster Review_ +(vol. xlix. N.S.) and in his work “Pessimism,” are the best source to +which English readers can have recourse for information concerning Von +Hartmann. Giving him all credit for the pains he has taken with an +ungrateful, if not impossible subject, I think that a sufficient sample +of Von Hartmann’s own words will be a useful adjunct to Mr. Sully’s work, +and may perhaps save some readers trouble by resolving them to look no +farther into the “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” Over and above this, I +have been so often told that the views concerning unconscious action +contained in the foregoing lecture and in “Life and Habit” are only the +very fallacy of Von Hartmann over again, that I should like to give the +public an opportunity of seeing whether this is so or no, by placing the +two contending theories of unconscious action side by side. I hope that +it will thus be seen that neither Professor Hering nor I have fallen into +the fallacy of Von Hartmann, but that rather Von Hartmann has fallen into +his fallacy through failure to grasp the principle which Professor Hering +has insisted upon, and to connect heredity with memory. + +Professor Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious is of extreme +simplicity. He rests upon a fact of daily and hourly experience, namely, +that practice makes things easy that were once difficult, and often +results in their being done without any consciousness of effort. But if +the repetition of an act tends ultimately, under certain circumstances, +to its being done unconsciously, so also is the fact of an intricate and +difficult action being done unconsciously an argument that it must have +been done repeatedly already. As I said in “Life and Habit,” it is more +easy to suppose that occasions on which such an action has been performed +have not been wanting, even though we do not see when and where they +were, than that the facility which we observe should have been attained +without practice and memory (p. 56). + +There can be nothing better established or more easy, whether to +understand or verify, than the unconsciousness with which habitual +actions come to be performed. If, however, it is once conceded that it +is the manner of habitual action generally, then all _à priori_ objection +to Professor Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious is at an end. The +question becomes one of fact in individual cases, and of degree. + +How far, then, does the principle of the convertibility, as it were, of +practice and unconsciousness extend? Can any line be drawn beyond which +it shall cease to operate? If not, may it not have operated and be +operating to a vast and hitherto unsuspected extent? This is all, and +certainly it is sufficiently simple. I sometimes think it has found its +greatest stumbling-block in its total want of mystery, as though we must +be like those conjurers whose stock in trade is a small deal table and a +kitchen-chair with bare legs, and who, with their parade of “no +deception” and “examine everything for yourselves,” deceive worse than +others who make use of all manner of elaborate paraphernalia. It is true +we require no paraphernalia, and we produce unexpected results, but we +are not conjuring. + +To turn now to Von Hartmann. When I read Mr. Sully’s article in the +_Westminster Review_, I did not know whether the sense of mystification +which it produced in me was wholly due to Von Hartmann or no; but on +making acquaintance with Von Hartmann himself, I found that Mr. Sully has +erred, if at all, in making him more intelligible than he actually is. +Von Hartmann has not got a meaning. Give him Professor Hering’s key and +he might get one, but it would be at the expense of seeing what approach +he had made to a system fallen to pieces. Granted that in his details +and subordinate passages he often both has and conveys a meaning, there +is, nevertheless, no coherence between these details, and the nearest +approach to a broad conception covering the work which the reader can +carry away with him is at once so incomprehensible and repulsive, that it +is difficult to write about it without saying more perhaps than those who +have not seen the original will accept as likely to be true. The idea to +which I refer is that of an unconscious clairvoyance, which, from the +language continually used concerning it, must be of the nature of a +person, and which is supposed to take possession of living beings so +fully as to be the very essence of their nature, the promoter of their +embryonic development, and the instigator of their instinctive actions. +This approaches closely to the personal God of Mosaic and Christian +theology, with the exception that the word “clairvoyance” {89} is +substituted for God, and that the God is supposed to be unconscious. + +Mr. Sully says:— + + “When we grasp it [the philosophy of Von Hartmann] as a whole, it + amounts to nothing more than this, that all or nearly all the + phenomena of the material and spiritual world rest upon and result + from a mysterious, unconscious being, though to call it being is + really to add on an idea not immediately contained within the + all-sufficient principle. But what difference is there between this + and saying that the phenomena of the world at large come we know not + whence? . . . The unconscious, therefore, tends to be simple phrase + and nothing more . . . No doubt there are a number of mental + processes . . . of which we are unconscious . . . but to infer from + this that they are due to an unconscious power, and to proceed to + demonstrate them in the presence of the unconscious through all + nature, is to make an unwarrantable _saltus_ in reasoning. What, in + fact, is this ‘unconscious’ but a high-sounding name to veil our + ignorance? Is the unconscious any better explanation of phenomena we + do not understand than the ‘devil-devil’ by which Australian tribes + explain the Leyden jar and its phenomena? Does it increase our + knowledge to know that we do not know the origin of language or the + cause of instinct? . . . Alike in organic creation and the evolution + of history ‘performances and actions’—the words are those of + Strauss—are ascribed to an unconscious, which can only belong to a + conscious being. {90a} + + . . . . . + + “The difficulties of the system advance as we proceed. {90b} + Subtract this questionable factor—the unconscious from Hartmann’s + ‘Biology and Psychology,’ and the chapters remain pleasant and + instructive reading. But with the third part of his work—the + Metaphysic of the Unconscious—our feet are clogged at every step. We + are encircled by the merest play of words, the most unsatisfactory + demonstrations, and most inconsistent inferences. The theory of + final causes has been hitherto employed to show the wisdom of the + world; with our Pessimist philosopher it shows nothing but its + irrationality and misery. Consciousness has been generally supposed + to be the condition of all happiness and interest in life; here it + simply awakens us to misery, and the lower an animal lies in the + scale of conscious life, the better and the pleasanter its lot. + + . . . . . + + “Thus, then, the universe, as an emanation of the unconscious, has + been constructed. {90c} Throughout it has been marked by design, by + purpose, by finality; throughout a wonderful adaptation of means to + ends, a wonderful adjustment and relativity in different portions has + been noticed—and all this for what conclusion? Not, as in the hands + of the natural theologians of the eighteenth century, to show that + the world is the result of design, of an intelligent, beneficent + Creator, but the manifestation of a Being whose only predicates are + negatives, whose very essence is to be unconscious. It is not only + like ancient Athens, to an unknown, but to an unknowing God, that + modern Pessimism rears its altar. Yet surely the fact that the + motive principle of existence moves in a mysterious way outside our + consciousness no way requires that the All-one Being should be + himself unconscious.” + +I believe the foregoing to convey as correct an idea of Von Hartmann’s +system as it is possible to convey, and will leave it to the reader to +say how much in common there is between this and the lecture given in the +preceding chapter, beyond the fact that both touch upon unconscious +actions. The extract which will form my next chapter is only about a +thirtieth part of the entire “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” but it +will, I believe, suffice to substantiate the justice of what Mr. Sully +has said in the passages above quoted. + +As regards the accuracy of the translation, I have submitted all passages +about which I was in the least doubtful to the same gentleman who revised +my translation of Professor Hering’s lecture; I have also given the +German wherever I thought the reader might be glad to see it. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +Translation of the chapter on “The Unconscious in Instinct,” from Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” + +VON HARTMANN’S chapter on instinct is as follows:— + +Instinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose but without conscious +perception of what the purpose is. {92a} + +A purposive action, with consciousness of the purpose and where the +course taken is the result of deliberation is not said to be instinctive; +nor yet, again, is blind aimless action, such as outbreaks of fury on the +part of offended or otherwise enraged animals. I see no occasion for +disturbing the commonly received definition of instinct as given above; +for those who think they can refer all the so-called ordinary instincts +of animals to conscious deliberation _ipso facto_ deny that there is such +a thing as instinct at all, and should strike the word out of their +vocabulary. But of this more hereafter. + +Assuming, then, the existence of instinctive action as above defined, it +can be explained as— + +I. A mere necessary consequence of bodily organisation. {92b} + +II. A mechanism of brain or mind contrived by nature. + +III. The outcome of an unconscious activity of mind. + +In neither of the two first cases is there any scope for the idea of +purpose; in the third, purpose must be present immediately before the +action. In the two first cases, action is supposed to be brought about +by means of an initial arrangement, either of bodily or mental mechanism, +purpose being conceived of as existing on a single occasion only—that is +to say, in the determination of the initial arrangement. In the third, +purpose is conceived as present in every individual instance. Let us +proceed to the consideration of these three cases. + +Instinct is not a mere consequence of bodily organisation; for— + +(_a_.) Bodies may be alike, yet they may be endowed with different +instincts. + +All spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind weaves +radiating webs, another irregular ones, while a third makes none at all, +but lives in holes, whose walls it overspins, and whose entrance it +closes with a door. Almost all birds have a like organisation for the +construction of their nests (a beak and feet), but how infinitely do +their nests vary in appearance, mode of construction, attachment to +surrounding objects (they stand, are glued on, hang, &c.), selection of +site (caves, holes, corners, forks of trees, shrubs, the ground), and +excellence of workmanship; how often, too, are they not varied in the +species of a single genus, as of _parus_. Many birds, moreover, build no +nest at all. The difference in the songs of birds are in like manner +independent of the special construction of their voice apparatus, nor do +the modes of nest construction that obtain among ants and bees depend +upon their bodily organisation. Organisation, as a general rule, only +renders the bird capable of singing, as giving it an apparatus with which +to sing at all, but it has nothing to do with the specific character of +the execution . . . The nursing, defence, and education of offspring +cannot be considered as in any way more dependent upon bodily +organisation; nor yet the sites which insects choose for the laying of +their eggs; nor, again, the selection of deposits of spawn, of their own +species, by male fish for impregnation. The rabbit burrows, the hare +does not, though both have the same burrowing apparatus. The hare, +however, has less need of a subterranean place of refuge by reason of its +greater swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers of flight, are +nevertheless stationary in their habits, as the secretary falcon and +certain other birds of prey; while even such moderate fliers as quails +are sometimes known to make very distant migrations. + +(_b_.) Like instincts may be found associated with unlike organs. + +Birds with and without feet adapted for climbing live in trees; so also +do monkeys with and without flexible tails, squirrels, sloths, pumas, &c. +Mole-crickets dig with a well-pronounced spade upon their fore-feet, +while the burying-beetle does the same thing though it has no special +apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender in pockets, an +inch wide, long and half an inch wide within its cheeks; the field-mouse +does so without the help of any such contrivance. The migratory instinct +displays itself with equal strength in animals of widely different form, +by whatever means they may pursue their journey, whether by water, land, +or air. + +It is clear, therefore, that instinct is in great measure independent of +bodily organisation. Granted, indeed, that a certain amount of bodily +apparatus is a _sine quâ non_ for any power of execution at all—as, for +example, that there would be no ingenious nest without organs more or +less adapted for its construction, no spinning of a web without spinning +glands—nevertheless, it is impossible to maintain that instinct is a +consequence of organisation. The mere existence of the organ does not +constitute even the smallest incentive to any corresponding habitual +activity. A sensation of pleasure must at least accompany the use of the +organ before its existence can incite to its employment. And even so +when a sensation of pleasure has given the impulse which is to render it +active, it is only the fact of there being activity at all, and not the +special characteristics of the activity, that can be due to organisation. +The reason for the special mode of the activity is the very problem that +we have to solve. No one will call the action of the spider instinctive +in voiding the fluid from her spinning gland when it is too full, and +therefore painful to her; nor that of the male fish when it does what +amounts to much the same thing as this. The instinct and the marvel lie +in the fact that the spider spins threads, and proceeds to weave her web +with them, and that the male fish will only impregnate ova of his own +species. + +Another proof that the pleasure felt in the employment of an organ is +wholly inadequate to account for this employment is to be found in the +fact that the moral greatness of instinct, the point in respect of which +it most commands our admiration, consists in the obedience paid to its +behests, to the postponement of all personal well-being, and at the cost, +it may be, of life itself. If the mere pleasure of relieving certain +glands from overfulness were the reason why caterpillars generally spin +webs, they would go on spinning until they had relieved these glands, but +they would not repair their work as often as any one destroyed it, and do +this again and again until they die of exhaustion. The same holds good +with the other instincts that at first sight appear to be inspired only +by a sensation of pleasure; for if we change the circumstances, so as to +put self-sacrifice in the place of self-interest, it becomes at once +apparent that they have a higher source than this. We think, for +example, that birds pair for the sake of mere sexual gratification; why, +then, do they leave off pairing as soon as they have laid the requisite +number of eggs? That there is a reproductive instinct over and above the +desire for sexual gratification appears from the fact that if a man takes +an egg out of the nest, the birds will come together again and the hen +will lay another egg; or, if they belong to some of the more wary +species, they will desert their nest, and make preparation for an +entirely new brood. A female wryneck, whose nest was daily robbed of the +egg she laid in it, continued to lay a new one, which grew smaller and +smaller, till, when she had laid her twenty-ninth egg, she was found dead +upon her nest. If an instinct cannot stand the test of self-sacrifice—if +it is the simple outcome of a desire for bodily gratification—then it is +no true instinct, and is only so called erroneously. + +Instinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in living beings +by nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action without any, even +unconscious, activity of mind, and with no conception concerning the +purpose of the action, would be executed mechanically, the purpose having +been once for all thought out by Nature or Providence, which has so +organised the individual that it acts henceforth as a purely mechanical +medium. We are now dealing with a psychical organisation as the cause +instinct, as we were above dealing with a physical. A psychical +organisation would be a conceivable explanation and we need look no +farther if every instinct once belonging to an animal discharged its +functions in an unvarying manner. But this is never found to be the +case, for instincts vary when there arises a sufficient motive for +varying them. This proves that special exterior circumstances enter into +the matter, and that these circumstances are the very things that render +the attainment of the purpose possible through means selected by the +instinct. Here first do we find instinct acting as though it were +actually design with action following at its heels, for until the arrival +of the motive, the instinct remains late and discharges no function +whatever. The motive enters by way of an idea received into the mind +through the instrumentality of the senses, and there is a constant +connection between instinct in action and all sensual images which give +information that an opportunity has arisen for attaining the ends +proposed to itself by the instinct. + +The psychical mechanism of this constant connection must also be looked +for. It may help us here to turn to the piano for an illustration. The +struck keys are the motives, the notes that sound in consequence are the +instincts in action. This illustration might perhaps be allowed to pass +(if we also suppose that entirely different keys can give out the same +sound) if instincts could only be compared with _distinctly tuned_ notes, +so that one and the same instinct acted always in the same manner on the +rising of the motive which should set it in action. This, however, is +not so; for it is the blind unconscious purpose of the instinct that is +alone constant, the instinct itself—that is to say, the will to make use +of certain means—varying as the means that can be most suitably employed +vary under varying circumstances. + +In this we condemn the theory which refuses to recognise unconscious +purpose as present in each individual case of instinctive action. For he +who maintains instinct to be the result of a mechanism of mind, must +suppose a special and constant mechanism for each variation and +modification of the instinct in accordance with exterior circumstances, +{97} that is to say, a new string giving a note with a new tone must be +inserted, and this would involve the mechanism in endless complication. +But the fact that the purpose is constant notwithstanding all manner of +variation in the means chosen by the instinct, proves that there is no +necessity for the supposition of such an elaborate mental mechanism—the +presence of an unconscious purpose being sufficient to explain the facts. +The purpose of the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, +and consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. When the +temperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits upon her +eggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest countries; the +mammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment of its instinctive +purpose without any co-operation on its own part. In warm climates many +birds only sit by night, and small exotic birds that have built in +aviaries kept at a high temperature sit little upon their eggs or not at +all. How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism that impels the +bird to sit as soon as the temperature falls below a certain height! How +clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is an +unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the use of +the fitting means, of which process, however, only the last link, that is +to say, the will immediately preceding the action falls within the +consciousness of the bird! + +In South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as a defence +against apes and serpents. The eggs of the cuckoo, as regards size, +colour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the birds in whose +nests she lays. Sylvia _ruja_, for example, lays a white egg with violet +spots; _Sylvia hippolais_, a red one with black spots; _Regulus +ignicapellus_, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo’s egg is in each case so +deceptive an imitation of its model, that it can hardly be distinguished +except by the structure of its shell. + +Huber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in their usual +instinctive manner, beginning from above and working downwards; on this +they began building from below, and again horizontally. The outermost +cells that spring from the top of the hive or abut against its sides are +not hexagonal, but pentagonal, so as to gain in strength, being attached +with one base instead of two sides. In autumn bees lengthen their +existing honey cells if these are insufficient, but in the ensuing spring +they again shorten them in order to get greater roadway between the +combs. When the full combs have become too heavy, they strengthen the +walls of the uppermost or bearing cells by thickening them with wax and +propolis. If larvæ of working bees are introduced into the cells set +apart for drones, the working bees will cover these cells with the flat +lids usual for this kind of larvæ, and not with the round ones that are +proper for drones. In autumn, as a general rule, bees kill their drones, +but they refrain from doing this when they have lost their queen, and +keep them to fertilise the young queen, who will be developed from larvæ +that would otherwise have become working bees. Huber observed that they +defend the entrance of their hive against the inroads of the sphinx moth +by means of skilful constructions made of wax and propolis. They only +introduce propolis when they want it for the execution of repairs, or for +some other special purpose. Spiders and caterpillars also display +marvellous dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been +damaged, and this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite +for the construction of a new one. + +The above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they are +sufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not capacities +rolled, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an invariable +system, but that they adapt themselves most closely to the circumstances +of each case, and are capable of such great modification and variation +that at times they almost appear to cease to be instinctive. + +Many will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious deliberation +on the part of the animals themselves, and it is impossible to deny that +in the case of the more intellectually gifted animals there may be such a +thing as a combination of instinctive faculty and conscious reflection. +I think, however, the examples already cited are enough to show that +often where the normal and the abnormal action springs from the same +source, without any complication with conscious deliberation, they are +either both instinctive or both deliberative. {99} Or is that which +prompts the bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb +something of an actually distinct character from that which impels her to +build pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate kinds of +thing, one of which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit upon +their eggs, while another leads them under certain other circumstances to +refrain from doing so? And does this hold good also with bees when they +at one time kill their brethren without mercy and at another grant them +their lives? Or with birds when they construct the kind of nest peculiar +to their race, and, again, any special provision which they may think fit +under certain circumstances to take? If it is once granted that the +normal and the abnormal manifestations of instinct—and they are often +incapable of being distinguished—spring from a single source, then the +objection that the modification is due to conscious knowledge will be +found to be a suicidal one later on, so far as it is directed against +instinct generally. It may be sufficient here to point out, in +anticipation of remarks that will be found in later chapters, that +instinct and the power of organic development involve the same essential +principle, though operating under different circumstances—the two melting +into one another without any definite boundary between them. Here, then, +we have conclusive proof that instinct does not depend upon organisation +of body or brain, but that, more truly, the organisation is due to the +nature and manner of the instinct. + +On the other hand, we must now return to a closer consideration of the +conception of a psychical mechanism. {100} And here we find that this +mechanism, in spite of its explaining so much, is itself so obscure that +we can hardly form any idea concerning it. The motive enters the mind by +way of a conscious sensual impression; this is the first link of the +process; the last link {101} appears as the conscious motive of an +action. Both, however, are entirely unlike, and neither has anything to +do with ordinary motivation, which consists exclusively in the desire +that springs from a conception either of pleasure or dislike—the former +prompting to the attainment of any object, the latter to its avoidance. +In the case of instinct, pleasure is for the most part a concomitant +phenomenon; but it is not so always, as we have already seen, inasmuch as +the consummation and highest moral development of instinct displays +itself in self-sacrifice. + +The true problem, however, lies far deeper than this. For every +conception of a pleasure proves that we have experienced this pleasure +already. But it follows from this, that when the pleasure was first felt +there must have been will present, in the gratification of which will the +pleasure consisted; the question, therefore, arises, whence did the will +come before the pleasure that would follow on its gratification was +known, and before bodily pain, as, for example, of hunger, rendered +relief imperative? Yet we may see that even though an animal has grown +up apart from any others of its kind, it will yet none the less manifest +the instinctive impulses of its race, though experience can have taught +it nothing whatever concerning the pleasure that will ensue upon their +gratification. As regards instinct, therefore, there must be a causal +connection between the motivating sensual conception and the will to +perform the instinctive action, and the pleasure of the subsequent +gratification has nothing to do with the matter. We know by the +experience of our own instincts that this causal connection does not lie +within our consciousness; {102a} therefore, if it is to be a mechanism of +any kind, it can only be either an unconscious mechanical induction and +metamorphosis of the vibrations of the conceived motive into the +vibrations of the conscious action in the brain, or an unconscious +spiritual mechanism. + +In the first case, it is surely strange that this process should go on +unconsciously, though it is so powerful in its effects that the will +resulting from it overpowers every other consideration, every other kind +of will, and that vibrations of this kind, when set up in the brain, +become always consciously perceived; nor is it easy to conceive in what +way this metamorphosis can take place so that the constant purpose can be +attained under varying circumstances by the resulting will in modes that +vary with variation of the special features of each individual case. + +But if we take the other alternative, and suppose an unconscious mental +mechanism, we cannot legitimately conceive of the process going on in +this as other than what prevails in all mental mechanism, namely, than as +by way of idea and will. We are, therefore, compelled to imagine a +causal connection between the consciously recognised motive and the will +to do the instinctive action, through unconscious idea and will; nor do I +know how this connection can be conceived as being brought about more +simply than through a conceived and willed purpose. {102b} Arrived at +this point, however, we have attained the logical mechanism peculiar to +and inseparable from all mind, and find unconscious purpose to be an +indispensable link in every instinctive action. With this, therefore, +the conception of a mental mechanism, dead and predestined from without, +has disappeared, and has become transformed into the spiritual life +inseparable from logic, so that we have reached the sole remaining +requirement for the conception of an actual instinct, which proves to be +a conscious willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed purpose. +This conception explains clearly and without violence all the problems +which instinct presents to us; or more truly, all that was problematical +about instinct disappears when its true nature has been thus declared. +If this work were confined to the consideration of instinct alone, the +conception of an unconscious activity of mind might excite opposition, +inasmuch as it is one with which our educated public is not yet familiar; +but in a work like the present, every chapter of which adduces fresh +facts in support of the existence of such an activity and of its +remarkable consequences, the novelty of the theory should be taken no +farther into consideration. + +Though I so confidently deny that instinct is the simple action of a +mechanism which has been contrived once for all, I by no means exclude +the supposition that in the constitution of the brain, the ganglia, and +the whole body, in respect of morphological as well as +molecular-physiological condition, certain predispositions can be +established which direct the unconscious intermediaries more readily into +one channel than into another. This predisposition is either the result +of a habit which keeps continually cutting for itself a deeper and deeper +channel, until in the end it leaves indelible traces whether in the +individual or in the race, or it is expressly called into being by the +unconscious formative principle in generation, so as to facilitate action +in a given direction. This last will be the case more frequently in +respect of exterior organisation—as, for example, with the weapons or +working organs of animals—while to the former must be referred the +molecular condition of brain and ganglia which bring about the +perpetually recurring elements of an instinct such as the hexagonal shape +of the cells of bees. We shall presently see that by individual +character we mean the sum of the individual methods of reaction against +all possible motives, and that this character depends essentially upon a +constitution of mind and body acquired in some measure through habit by +the individual, but for the most part inherited. But an instinct is also +a mode of reaction against certain motives; here, too, then, we are +dealing with character, though perhaps not so much with that of the +individual as of the race; for by character in regard to instinct we do +not intend the differences that distinguish individuals, but races from +one another. If any one chooses to maintain that such a predisposition +for certain kinds of activity on the part of brain and body constitutes a +mechanism, this may in one sense be admitted; but as against this view it +must be remarked— + +1. That such deviations from the normal scheme of an instinct as cannot +be referred to conscious deliberation are not provided for by any +predisposition in this mechanism. + +2. That heredity is only possible under the circumstances of a constant +superintendence of the embryonic development by a purposive unconscious +activity of growth. It must be admitted, however, that this is +influenced in return by the predisposition existing in the germ. + +3. That the impressing of the predisposition upon the individual from +whom it is inherited can only be effected by long practice, consequently +the instinct without auxiliary mechanism {105a} is the originating cause +of the auxiliary mechanism. + +4. That none of those instinctive actions that are performed rarely, or +perhaps once only, in the lifetime of any individual—as, for example, +those connected with the propagation and metamorphoses of the lower forms +of life, and none of those instinctive omissions of action, neglect of +which necessarily entails death—can be conceived as having become +engrained into the character through habit; the ganglionic constitution, +therefore, that predisposes the animal towards them must have been +fashioned purposively. + +5. That even the presence of an auxiliary mechanism {105b} does not +compel the unconscious to a particular corresponding mode of instinctive +action, but only predisposes it. This is shown by the possibility of +departure from the normal type of action, so that the unconscious purpose +is always stronger than the ganglionic constitution, and takes any +opportunity of choosing from several similar possible courses the one +that is handiest and most convenient to the constitution of the +individual. + +We now approach the question that I have reserved for our final one,—Is +there, namely, actually such a thing as instinct, {105c} or are all +so-called instinctive actions only the results of conscious deliberation? + +In support of the second of these two views, it may be alleged that the +more limited is the range of the conscious mental activity of any living +being, the more fully developed in proportion to its entire mental power +is its performance commonly found to be in respect of its own limited and +special instinctive department. This holds as good with the lower +animals as with men, and is explained by the fact that perfection of +proficiency is only partly dependent upon natural capacity, but is in +great measure due to practice and cultivation of the original faculty. A +philologist, for example, is unskilled in questions of jurisprudence; a +natural philosopher or mathematician, in philology; an abstract +philosopher, in poetical criticism. Nor has this anything to do with the +natural talents of the several persons, but follows as a consequence of +their special training. The more special, therefore, is the direction in +which the mental activity of any living being is exercised, the more will +the whole developing and practising power of the mind be brought to bear +upon this one branch, so that it is not surprising if the special power +comes ultimately to bear an increased proportion to the total power of +the individual, through the contraction of the range within which it is +exercised. + +Those, however, who apply this to the elucidation of instinct should not +forget the words, “in proportion to the entire mental power of the animal +in question,” and should bear in mind that the entire mental power +becomes less and less continually as we descend the scale of animal life, +whereas proficiency in the performance of an instinctive action seems to +be much of a muchness in all grades of the animal world. As, therefore, +those performances which indisputably proceed from conscious deliberation +decrease proportionately with decrease of mental power, while nothing of +the kind is observable in the case of instinct—it follows that instinct +must involve some other principle than that of conscious intelligence. +We see, moreover, that actions which have their source in conscious +intelligence are of one and the same kind, whether among the lower +animals or with mankind—that is to say, that they are acquired by +apprenticeship or instruction and perfected by practice; so that the +saying, “Age brings wisdom,” holds good with the brutes as much as with +ourselves. Instinctive actions, on the contrary, have a special and +distinct character, in that they are performed with no less proficiency +by animals that have been reared in solitude than by those that have been +instructed by their parents, the first essays of a hitherto unpractised +animal being as successful as its later ones. There is a difference in +principle here which cannot be mistaken. Again, we know by experience +that the feebler and more limited an intelligence is, the more slowly do +ideas act upon it, that is to say, the slower and more laborious is its +conscious thought. So long as instinct does not come into play, this +holds good both in the case of men of different powers of comprehension +and with animals; but with instinct all is changed, for it is the +speciality of instinct never to hesitate or loiter, but to take action +instantly upon perceiving that the stimulating motive has made its +appearance. This rapidity in arriving at a resolution is common to the +instinctive actions both of the highest and the lowest animals, and +indicates an essential difference between instinct and conscious +deliberation. + +Finally, as regards perfection of the power of execution, a glance will +suffice to show the disproportion that exists between this and the grade +of intellectual activity on which an animal may be standing. Take, for +instance, the caterpillar of the emperor moth (_Saturnia pavonia minor_). +It eats the leaves of the bush upon which it was born; at the utmost has +just enough sense to get on to the lower sides of the leaves if it begins +to rain, and from time to time changes its skin. This is its whole +existence, which certainly does not lead us to expect a display of any, +even the most limited, intellectual power. When, however, the time comes +for the larva of this moth to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a +double cocoon, fortified with bristles that point outwards, so that it +can be opened easily from within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable +from without. If this contrivance were the result of conscious +reflection, we should have to suppose some such reasoning process as the +following to take place in the mind of the caterpillar:—“I am about to +become a chrysalis, and, motionless as I must be, shall be exposed to +many different kinds of attack. I must therefore weave myself a web. +But when I am a moth I shall not be able, as some moths are, to find my +way out of it by chemical or mechanical means; therefore I must leave a +way open for myself. In order, however, that my enemies may not take +advantage of this, I will close it with elastic bristles, which I can +easily push asunder from within, but which, upon the principle of the +arch, will resist all pressure from without.” Surely this is asking +rather too much from a poor caterpillar; yet the whole of the foregoing +must be thought out if a correct result is to be arrived at. + +This theoretical separation of instinct from conscious intelligence can +be easily misrepresented by opponents of my theory, as though a +separation in practice also would be necessitated in consequence. This +is by no means my intention. On the contrary, I have already insisted at +some length that both the two kinds of mental activity may co-exist in +all manner of different proportions, so that there may be every degree of +combination, from pure instinct to pure deliberation. We shall see, +however, in a later chapter, that even in the highest and most abstract +activity of human consciousness there are forces at work that are of the +highest importance, and are essentially of the same kind as instinct. + +On the other hand, the most marvellous displays of instinct are to be +found not only in plants, but also in those lowest organisms of the +simplest bodily form which are partly unicellular, and in respect of +conscious intelligence stand far below the higher plants—to which, +indeed, any kind of deliberative faculty is commonly denied. Even in the +case of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our attempts to +classify them either as animals or vegetables, we are still compelled to +admire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which goes far beyond a mere +reflex responsive to a stimulus from without; all doubt, therefore, +concerning the actual existence of an instinct must be at an end, and the +attempt to deduce it as a consequence of conscious deliberation be given +up as hopeless. I will here adduce an instance as extraordinary as any +we yet know of, showing, as it does, that many different purposes, which +in the case of the higher animals require a complicated system of organs +of motion, can be attained with incredibly simple means. + +_Arcella vulgaris_ is a minute morsel of protoplasm, which lives in a +concave-convex, brown, finely reticulated shell, through a circular +opening in the concave side of which it can project itself by throwing +out _pseudopodia_. If we look through the microscope at a drop of water +containing living _arcellæ_, we may happen to see one of them lying on +its back at the bottom of the drop, and making fruitless efforts for two +or three minutes to lay hold of some fixed point by means of a +_pseudopodium_. After this there will appear suddenly from two to five, +but sometimes more, dark points in the protoplasm at a small distance +from the circumference, and, as a rule, at regular distances from one +another. These rapidly develop themselves into well-defined spherical +air vesicles, and come presently to fill a considerable part of the +hollow of the shell, thereby driving part of the protoplasm outside it. +After from five to twenty minutes, the specific gravity of the _arcella_ +is so much lessened that it is lifted by the water with its +_pseudopodia_, and brought up against the upper surface of the +water-drop, on which it is able to travel. In from five to ten minutes +the vesicles will now disappear, the last small point vanishing with a +jerk. If, however, the creature has been accidentally turned over during +its journey, and reaches the top of the water-drop with its back +uppermost, the vesicles will continue growing only on one side, while +they diminish on the other; by this means the shell is brought first into +an oblique and then into a vertical position, until one of the +_pseudopodia_ obtains a footing and the whole turns over. From the +moment the animal has obtained foothold, the bladders become immediately +smaller, and after they have disappeared the experiment may be repeated +at pleasure. + +The positions of the protoplasm which the vesicles fashion change +continually; only the grainless protoplasm of the _pseudopodia_ develops +no air. After long and fruitless efforts a manifest fatigue sets in; the +animal gives up the attempt for a time, and resumes it after an interval +of repose. + +Engelmann, the discoverer of these phenomena, says (Pflüger’s Archiv für +Physologie, Bd. II.): “The changes in volume in all the vesicles of the +same animal are for the most part synchronous, effected in the same +manner, and of like size. There are, however, not a few exceptions; it +often happens that some of them increase or diminish in volume much +faster than others; sometimes one may increase while another diminishes; +all the changes, however, are throughout unquestionably intentional. The +object of the air-vesicles is to bring the animal into such a position +that it can take fast hold of something with its _pseudopodia_. When +this has been obtained, the air disappears without our being able to +discover any other reason for its disappearance than the fact that it is +no longer needed. . . . If we bear these circumstances in mind, we can +almost always tell whether an _arcella_ will develop air-vesicles or no; +and if it has already developed them, we can tell whether they will +increase or diminish . . . The _arcellæ_, in fact, in this power of +altering their specific gravity possess a mechanism for raising +themselves to the top of the water, or lowering themselves to the bottom +at will. They use this not only in the abnormal circumstances of their +being under microscopical observation, but at all times, as may be known +by our being always able to find some specimens with air-bladders at the +top of the water in which they live.” + +If what has been already advanced has failed to convince the reader of +the hopelessness of attempting to explain instinct as a mode of conscious +deliberation, he must admit that the following considerations are +conclusive. It is most certain that deliberation and conscious +reflection can only take account of such data as are consciously +perceived; if, then, it can be shown that data absolutely indispensable +for the arrival at a just conclusion cannot by any possibility have been +known consciously, the result can no longer be held as having had its +source in conscious deliberation. It is admitted that the only way in +which consciousness can arrive at a knowledge of exterior facts is by way +of an impression made upon the senses. We must, therefore, prove that a +knowledge of the facts indispensable for arrival at a just conclusion +could not have been thus acquired. This may be done as follows: {111} +for, Firstly, the facts in question lie in the future, and the present +gives no ground for conjecturing the time and manner of their subsequent +development. + +Secondly, they are manifestly debarred from the category of perceptions +perceived through the senses, inasmuch as no information can be derived +concerning them except through experience of similar occurrences in time +past, and such experience is plainly out of the question. + +It would not affect the argument if, as I think likely, it were to turn +out, with the advance of our physiological knowledge, that all the +examples of the first case that I am about to adduce reduce themselves to +examples of the second, as must be admitted to have already happened in +respect of many that I have adduced hitherto. For it is hardly more +difficult to conceive of _à priori_ knowledge, disconnected from any +impression made upon the senses, than of knowledge which, it is true, +does at the present day manifest itself upon the occasion of certain +general perceptions, but which can only be supposed to be connected with +these by means of such a chain of inferences and judiciously applied +knowledge as cannot be believed to exist when we have regard to the +capacity and organisation of the animal we may be considering. + +An example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the stag-beetle +in its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in which to become a +chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole exactly her own size, but the +male makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow for the growth of +his horns, which will be about the same length as his body. A knowledge +of this circumstance is indispensable if the result achieved is to be +considered as due to reflection, yet the actual present of the larva +affords it no ground for conjecturing beforehand the condition in which +it will presently find itself. + +As regards the second case, ferrets and buzzards fall forthwith upon +blind worms or other non-poisonous snakes, and devour them then and +there. But they exhibit the greatest caution in laying hold of adders, +even though they have never before seen one, and will endeavour first to +bruise their heads, so as to avoid being bitten. As there is nothing in +any other respect alarming in the adder, a conscious knowledge of the +danger of its bite is indispensable, if the conduct above described is to +be referred to conscious deliberation. But this could only have been +acquired through experience, and the possibility of such experience may +be controlled in the case of animals that have been kept in captivity +from their youth up, so that the knowledge displayed can be ascertained +to be independent of experience. On the other hand, both the above +illustrations afford evidence of an unconscious perception of the facts, +and prove the existence of a direct knowledge underivable from any +sensual impression or from consciousness. + +This has always been recognised, {113} and has been described under the +words “presentiment” or “foreboding.” These words, however, refer, on +the one hand, only to an unknowable in the future, separated from us by +space, and not to one that is actually present; on the other hand, they +denote only the faint, dull, indefinite echo returned by consciousness to +an invariably distinct state of unconscious knowledge. Hence the word +“presentiment,” which carries with it an idea of faintness and +indistinctness, while, however, it may be easily seen that sentiment +destitute of all, even unconscious, ideas can have no influence upon the +result, for knowledge can only follow upon an idea. A presentiment that +sounds in consonance with our consciousness can indeed, under certain +circumstances, become tolerably definite, so that in the case of man it +can be expressed in thought and language; but experience teaches us that +even among ourselves this is not so when instincts special to the human +race come into play; we see rather that the echo of our unconscious +knowledge which finds its way into our consciousness is so weak that it +manifests itself only in the accompanying feelings or frame of mind, and +represents but an infinitely small fraction of the sum of our sensations. +It is obvious that such a faintly sympathetic consciousness cannot form a +sufficient foundation for a superstructure of conscious deliberation; on +the other hand, conscious deliberation would be unnecessary, inasmuch as +the process of thinking must have been already gone through +unconsciously, for every faint presentiment that obtrudes itself upon our +consciousness is in fact only the consequence of a distinct unconscious +knowledge, and the knowledge with which it is concerned is almost always +an idea of the purpose of some instinctive action, or of one most +intimately connected therewith. Thus, in the case of the stag-beetle, +the purpose consists in the leaving space for the growth of the horns; +the means, in the digging the hole of a sufficient size; and the +unconscious knowledge, in prescience concerning the future development of +the horns. + +Lastly, all instinctive actions give us an impression of absolute +security and infallibility. With instinct the will is never hesitating +or weak, as it is when inferences are being drawn consciously. We never +find instinct making mistakes; we cannot, therefore, ascribe a result +which is so invariably precise to such an obscure condition of mind as is +implied when the word presentiment is used; on the contrary, this +absolute certainty is so characteristic a feature of instinctive actions, +that it constitutes almost the only well-marked point of distinction +between these and actions that are done upon reflection. But from this +it must again follow that some principle lies at the root of instinct +other than that which underlies reflective action, and this can only be +looked for in a determination of the will through a process that lies in +the unconscious, {115a} to which this character of unhesitating +infallibility will attach itself in all our future investigations. + +Many will be surprised at my ascribing to instinct an unconscious +knowledge, arising out of no sensual impression, and yet invariably +accurate. This, however, is not a consequence of my theory concerning +instinct; it is the foundation on which that theory is based, and is +forced upon us by facts. I must therefore adduce examples. And to give +a name to the unconscious knowledge, which is not acquired through +impression made upon the senses, but which will be found to be in our +possession, though attained without the instrumentality of means, {115b} +I prefer the word “clairvoyance” {115c} to “presentiment,” which, for +reasons already given, will not serve me. This word, therefore, will be +here employed throughout, as above defined. + +Let us now consider examples of the instincts of self-preservation, +subsistence, migration, and the continuation of the species. Most +animals know their natural enemies prior to experience of any hostile +designs upon themselves. A flight of young pigeons, even though they +have no old birds with them, will become shy, and will separate from one +another on the approach of a bird of prey. Horses and cattle that come +from countries where there are no lions become unquiet and display alarm +as soon as they are aware that a lion is approaching them in the night. +Horses going along a bridle-path that used to leave the town at the back +of the old dens of the carnivora in the Berlin Zoological Gardens were +often terrified by the propinquity of enemies who were entirely unknown +to them. Sticklebacks will swim composedly among a number of voracious +pike, knowing, as they do, that the pike will not touch them. For if a +pike once by mistake swallows a stickleback, the stickleback will stick +in its throat by reason of the spine it carries upon its back, and the +pike must starve to death without being able to transmit his painful +experience to his descendants. In some countries there are people who by +choice eat dog’s flesh; dogs are invariably savage in the presence of +these persons, as recognising in them enemies at whose hands they may one +day come to harm. This is the more wonderful inasmuch as dog’s fat +applied externally (as when rubbed upon boots) attracts dogs by its +smell. Grant saw a young chimpanzee throw itself into convulsions of +terror at the sight of a large snake; and even among ourselves a Gretchen +can often detect a Mephistopheles. An insect of the genius _bombyx_ will +seize another of the genus _parnopæa_, and kill it wherever it finds it, +without making any subsequent use of the body; but we know that the +last-named insect lies in wait for the eggs of the first, and is +therefore the natural enemy of its race. The phenomenon known to +stockdrivers and shepherds as “das Biesen des Viehes” affords another +example. For when a “dassel” or “bies” fly draws near the herd, the +cattle become unmanageable and run about among one another as though they +were mad, knowing, as they do, that the larvæ from the eggs which the fly +will lay upon them will presently pierce their hides and occasion them +painful sores. These “dassel” flies—which have no sting—closely resemble +another kind of gadfly which has a sting. Nevertheless, this last kind +is little feared by cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate +extent. The laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite +painless, and no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that +we cannot suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference concerning the +connection that exists between the two. I have already spoken of the +foresight shown by ferrets and buzzards in respect of adders; in like +manner a young honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first time, +immediately devoured it after having squeezed the sting from its body. +No animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by unnatural habits, will +eat poisonous plants. Even when apes have contracted bad habits through +their having been brought into contact with mankind, they can still be +trusted to show us whether certain fruits found in their native forests +are poisonous or no; for if poisonous fruits are offered them they will +refuse them with loud cries. Every animal will choose for its sustenance +exactly those animal or vegetable substances which agree best with its +digestive organs, without having received any instruction on the matter, +and without testing them beforehand. Even, indeed, though we assume that +the power of distinguishing the different kinds of food is due to sight +and not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious how the animal can +know what it is that will agree with it. Thus the kid which Galen took +prematurely from its mother smelt at all the different kinds of food that +were set before it, but drank only the milk without touching anything +else. The cherry-finch opens a cherry-stone by turning it so that her +beak can hit the part where the two sides join, and does this as much +with the first stone she cracks as with the last. Fitchets, martens, and +weasels make small holes on the opposite sides of an egg which they are +about to suck, so that the air may come in while they are sucking. Not +only do animals know the food that will suit them best, but they find out +the most suitable remedies when they are ill, and constantly form a +correct diagnosis of their malady with a therapeutical knowledge which +they cannot possibly have acquired. Dogs will often eat a great quantity +of grass—particularly couch-grass—when they are unwell, especially after +spring, if they have worms, which thus pass from them entangled in the +grass, or if they want to get fragments of bone from out of their +stomachs. As a purgative they make use of plants that sting. Hens and +pigeons pick lime from walls and pavements if their food does not afford +them lime enough to make their eggshells with. Little children eat chalk +when suffering from acidity of the stomach, and pieces of charcoal if +they are troubled with flatulence. We may observe these same instincts +for certain kinds of food or drugs even among grown-up people, under +circumstances in which their unconscious nature has unusual power; as, +for example, among women when they are pregnant, whose capricious +appetites are probably due to some special condition of the fœtus, which +renders a certain state of the blood desirable. Field-mice bite off the +germs of the corn which they collect together, in order to prevent its +growing during the winter. Some days before the beginning of cold +weather the squirrel is most assiduous in augmenting its store, and then +closes its dwelling. Birds of passage betake themselves to warmer +countries at times when there is still no scarcity of food for them here, +and when the temperature is considerably warmer than it will be when they +return to us. The same holds good of the time when animals begin to +prepare their winter quarters, which beetles constantly do during the +very hottest days of autumn. When swallows and storks find their way +back to their native places over distances of hundreds of miles, and +though the aspect of the country is reversed, we say that this is due to +the acuteness of their perception of locality; but the same cannot be +said of dogs, which, though they have been carried in a bag from one +place to another that they do not know, and have been turned round and +round twenty times over, have still been known to find their way home. +Here we can say no more than that their instinct has conducted them—that +the clairvoyance of the unconscious has allowed them to conjecture their +way. {119a} + +Before an early winter, birds of passage collect themselves in +preparation for their flight sooner than usual; but when the winter is +going to be mild, they will either not migrate at all, or travel only a +small distance southward. When a hard winter is coming, tortoises will +make their burrows deeper. If wild geese, cranes, etc., soon return from +the countries to which they had betaken themselves at the beginning of +spring, it is a sign that a hot and dry summer is about to ensue in those +countries, and that the drought will prevent their being able to rear +their young. In years of flood, beavers construct their dwellings at a +higher level than usual, and shortly before an inundation the field-mice +in Kamtschatka come out of their holes in large bands. If the summer is +going to be dry, spiders may be seen in May and April, hanging from the +ends of threads several feet in length. If in winter spiders are seen +running about much, fighting with one another and preparing new webs, +there will be cold weather within the next nine days, or from that to +twelve: when they again hide themselves there will be a thaw. I have no +doubt that much of this power of prophesying the weather is due to a +perception of certain atmospheric conditions which escape ourselves, but +this perception can only have relation to a certain actual and now +present condition of the weather; and what can the impression made by +this have to do with their idea of the weather that will ensue? No one +will ascribe to animals a power of prognosticating the weather months +beforehand by means of inferences drawn logically from a series of +observations, {119b} to the extent of being able to foretell floods. It +is far more probable that the power of perceiving subtle differences of +actual atmospheric condition is nothing more than the sensual perception +which acts as motive—for a motive must assuredly be always present—when +an instinct comes into operation. It continues to hold good, therefore, +that the power of foreseeing the weather is a case of unconscious +clairvoyance, of which the stork which takes its departure for the south +four weeks earlier than usual knows no more than does the stag when +before a cold winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his wont. +On the one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a perception +of the actual state of the weather; on the other, their ensuing action is +precisely such as it would be if the idea present with them was that of +the weather that is about to come. This they cannot consciously have; +the only natural intermediate link, therefore, between their conscious +knowledge and their action is supplied by unconscious idea, which, +however, is always accurately prescient, inasmuch as it contains +something which is neither given directly to the animal through sensual +perception, nor can be deduced inferentially through the understanding. + +Most wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the continuation +of the species. The males always find out the females of their own kind, +but certainly not solely through their resemblance to themselves. With +many animals, as, for example, parasitic crabs, the sexes so little +resemble one another that the male would be more likely to seek a mate +from the females of a thousand other species than from his own. Certain +butterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males and females of the +same species differ, but the females present two distinct forms, one of +which as a general rule mimics the outward appearance of a distant but +highly valued species; yet the males will pair only with the females of +their own kind, and not with the strangers, though these may be very +likely much more like the males themselves. Among the insect species of +the _strepsiptera_, the female is a shapeless worm which lives its whole +life long in the hind body of a wasp; its head, which is of the shape of +a lentil, protrudes between two of the belly rings of the wasp, the rest +of the body being inside. The male, which only lives for a few hours, +and resembles a moth, nevertheless recognises his mate in spite of these +adverse circumstances, and fecundates her. + +Before any experience of parturition, the knowledge that it is +approaching drives all mammals into solitude, and bids them prepare a +nest for their young in a hole or in some other place of shelter. The +bird builds her nest as soon as she feels the eggs coming to maturity +within her. Snails, land-crabs, tree-frogs, and toads, all of them +ordinarily dwellers upon land, now betake themselves to the water; +sea-tortoises go on shore, and many saltwater fishes come up into the +rivers in order to lay their eggs where they can alone find the +requisites for their development. Insects lay their eggs in the most +varied kinds of situations,—in sand, on leaves, under the hides and horny +substances of other animals; they often select the spot where the larva +will be able most readily to find its future sustenance, as in autumn +upon the trees that will open first in the coming spring, or in spring +upon the blossoms that will first bear fruit in autumn, or in the insides +of those caterpillars which will soonest as chrysalides provide the +parasitic larva at once with food and with protection. Other insects +select the sites from which they will first get forwarded to the +destination best adapted for their development. Thus some horseflies lay +their eggs upon the lips of horses or upon parts where they are +accustomed to lick themselves. The eggs get conveyed hence into the +entrails, the proper place for their development,—and are excreted upon +their arrival at maturity. The flies that infest cattle know so well how +to select the most vigorous and healthiest beasts, that cattle-dealers +and tanners place entire dependence upon them, and prefer those beasts +and hides that are most scarred by maggots. This selection of the best +cattle by the help of these flies is no evidence in support of the +conclusion that the flies possess the power of making experiments +consciously and of reflecting thereupon, even though the men whose trade +it is to do this recognise them as their masters. The solitary wasp +makes a hole several inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs +along with it a number of green maggots that have no legs, and which, +being on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well nourished and able +to go a long time without food; she packs these maggots so closely +together that they cannot move nor turn into chrysalides, and just enough +of them to support the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind of bug +(_cerceris bupresticida_), which itself lives only upon pollen, lays her +eggs in an underground cell, and with each one of them she deposits three +beetles, which she has lain in wait for and captured when they were still +weak through having only just left off being chrysalides. She kills +these beetles, and appears to smear them with a fluid whereby she +preserves them fresh and suitable for food. Many kinds of wasps open the +cells in which their larvæ are confined when these must have consumed the +provision that was left with them. They supply them with more food, and +again close the cell. Ants, again, hit always upon exactly the right +moment for opening the cocoons in which their larvæ are confined and for +setting them free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the +life of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single breeding +season. What then can they know about the contents of their eggs and the +fittest place for their development? What can they know about the kind +of food the larva will want when it leaves the egg—a food so different +from their own? What, again, can they know about the quantity of food +that will be necessary? How much of all this at least can they know +consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they take, and the importance +they evidently attach to these matters, prove that they have a +foreknowledge of the future: this knowledge therefore can only be an +unconscious clairvoyance. For clairvoyance it must certainly be that +inspires the will of an animal to open cells and cocoons at the very +moment that the larva is either ready for more food or fit for leaving +the cocoon. The eggs of the cuckoo do not take only from two to three +days to mature in her ovaries, as those of most birds do, but require +from eleven to twelve; the cuckoo, therefore, cannot sit upon her own +eggs, for her first egg would be spoiled before the last was laid. She +therefore lays in other birds’ nests—of course laying each egg in a +different nest. But in order that the birds may not perceive her egg to +be a stranger and turn it out of the nest, not only does she lay an egg +much smaller than might be expected from a bird of her size (for she only +finds her opportunity among small birds), but, as already said, she +imitates the other eggs in the nest she has selected with surprising +accuracy in respect both of colour and marking. As the cuckoo chooses +the nest some days beforehand, it may be thought, if the nest is an open +one, that the cuckoo looks upon the colour of the eggs within it while +her own is in process of maturing inside her, and that it is thus her egg +comes to assume the colour of the others; but this explanation will not +hold good for nests that are made in the holes of trees, as that of +_sylvia phænicurus_, or which are oven-shaped with a narrow entrance, as +with _sylvia rufa_. In these cases the cuckoo can neither slip in nor +look in, and must therefore lay her egg outside the nest and push it +inside with her beak; she can therefore have no means of perceiving +through her senses what the eggs already in the nest are like. If, then, +in spite of all this, her egg closely resembles the others, this can only +have come about through an unconscious clairvoyance which directs the +process that goes on within the ovary in respect of colour and marking. + +An important argument in support of the existence of a clairvoyance in +the instincts of animals is to be found in the series of facts which +testify to the existence of a like clairvoyance, under certain +circumstances, even among human beings, while the self-curative instincts +of children and of pregnant women have been already mentioned. Here, +however, {124} in correspondence with the higher stage of development +which human consciousness has attained, a stronger echo of the +unconscious clairvoyance commonly resounds within consciousness itself, +and this is represented by a more or less definite presentiment of the +consequences that will ensue. It is also in accord with the greater +independence of the human intellect that this kind of presentiment is not +felt exclusively immediately before the carrying out of an action, but is +occasionally disconnected from the condition that an action has to be +performed immediately, and displays itself simply as an idea +independently of conscious will, provided only that the matter concerning +which the presentiment is felt is one which in a high degree concerns the +will of the person who feels it. In the intervals of an intermittent +fever or of other illness, it not unfrequently happens that sick persons +can accurately foretell the day of an approaching attack and how long it +will last. The same thing occurs almost invariably in the case of +spontaneous, and generally in that of artificial, somnambulism; certainly +the Pythia, as is well known, used to announce the date of her next +ecstatic state. In like manner the curative instinct displays itself in +somnambulists, and they have been known to select remedies that have been +no less remarkable for the success attending their employment than for +the completeness with which they have run counter to received +professional opinion. The indication of medicinal remedies is the only +use which respectable electro-biologists will make of the half-sleeping, +half-waking condition of those whom they are influencing. “People in +perfectly sound health have been known, before childbirth or at the +commencement of an illness, to predict accurately their own approaching +death. The accomplishment of their predictions can hardly be explained +as the result of mere chance, for if this were all, the prophecy should +fail at least as often as not, whereas the reverse is actually the case. +Many of these persons neither desire death nor fear it, so that the +result cannot be ascribed to imagination.” So writes the celebrated +physiologist, Burdach, from whose chapter on presentiment in his work +“Bhicke in’s Leben” a great part of my most striking examples is taken. +This presentiment of deaths, which is the exception among men, is quite +common with animals, even though they do not know nor understand what +death is. When they become aware that their end is approaching, they +steal away to outlying and solitary places. This is why in cities we so +rarely see the dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can only suppose that +the unconscious clairvoyance, which is of essentially the same kind +whether in man or beast, calls forth presentiments of different degrees +of definiteness, so that the cat is driven to withdraw herself through a +mere instinct without knowing why she does so, while in man a definite +perception is awakened of the fact that he is about to die. Not only do +people have presentiments concerning their own death, but there are many +instances on record in which they have become aware of that of those near +and dear to them, the dying person having appeared in a dream to friend +or wife or husband. Stories to this effect prevail among all nations, +and unquestionably contain much truth. Closely connected with this is +the power of second sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and still +does so in the Danish islands. This power enables certain people without +any ecstasy, but simply through their keener perception, to foresee +coming events, or to tell what is going on in foreign countries on +matters in which they are deeply interested, such as deaths, battles, +conflagrations (Swedenborg foretold the burning of Stockholm), the +arrival or the doings of friends who are at a distance. With many +persons this clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of +their acquaintances or fellow-townspeople. There have been a great many +instances of such death-prophetesses, and, what is most important, some +cases have been verified in courts of law. I may say, in passing, that +this power of second sight is found in persons who are in ecstatic +states, in the spontaneous or artificially induced somnambulism of the +higher kinds of waking dreams, as well as in lucid moments before death. +These prophetic glimpses, by which the clairvoyance of the unconscious +reveals itself to consciousness, {126} are commonly obscure because in +the brain they must assume a form perceptible by the senses, whereas the +unconscious idea can have nothing to do with any form of sensual +impression: it is for this reason that humours, dreams, and the +hallucinations of sick persons can so easily have a false signification +attached to them. The chances of error and self-deception that arise +from this source, the ease with which people may be deceived +intentionally, and the mischief which, as a general rule, attends a +knowledge of the future, these considerations place beyond all doubt the +practical unwisdom of attempts to arrive at certainty concerning the +future. This, however, cannot affect the weight which in theory should +be attached to phenomena of this kind, and must not prevent us from +recognising the positive existence of the clairvoyance whose existence I +am maintaining, though it is often hidden under a chaos of madness and +imposture. + +The materialistic and rationalistic tendencies of the present day lead +most people either to deny facts of this kind _in toto_, or to ignore +them, inasmuch as they are inexplicable from a materialistic standpoint, +and cannot be established by the inductive or experimental method—as +though this last were not equally impossible in the case of morals, +social science, and politics. A mind of any candour will only be able to +deny the truths of this entire class of phenomena so long as it remains +in ignorance of the facts that have been related concerning them; but, +again, a continuance in this ignorance can only arise from unwillingness +to be convinced. I am satisfied that many of those who deny all human +power of divination would come to another, and, to say the least, more +cautious conclusion if they would be at the pains of further +investigation; and I hold that no one, even at the present day, need be +ashamed of joining in with an opinion which was maintained by all the +great spirits of antiquity except Epicurus—an opinion whose possible +truth hardly one of our best modern philosophers has ventured to +contravene, and which the champions of German enlightenment were so +little disposed to relegate to the domain of old wives’ tales, that +Goethe furnishes us with an example of second sight that fell within his +own experience, and confirms it down to its minutest details. + +Although I am far from believing that the kind of phenomena above +referred to form in themselves a proper foundation for a superstructure +of scientific demonstration, I nevertheless find them valuable as a +completion and further confirmation of the series of phenomena presented +to us by the clairvoyance which we observe in human and animal instinct. +Even though they only continue this series {128} through the echo that is +awakened within our consciousness, they as powerfully support the account +which instinctive actions give concerning their own nature, as they are +themselves supported by the analogy they present to the clairvoyance +observable in instinct. This, then, as well as my desire not to lose an +opportunity of protesting against a modern prejudice, must stand as my +reason for having allowed myself to refer, in a scientific work, to a +class of phenomena which has fallen at present into so much discredit. + +I will conclude with a few words upon a special kind of instinct which +has a very instructive bearing upon the subject generally, and shows how +impossible it is to evade the supposition of an unconscious clairvoyance +on the part of instinct. In the examples adduced hitherto, the action of +each individual has been done on the individual’s own behalf, except in +the case of instincts connected with the continuation of the species, +where the action benefits others—that is to say, the offspring of the +creature performing it. + +We must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of instinct is found +to exist between several individuals, so that, on the one hand, the +action of each redounds to the common welfare, and, on the other, it +becomes possible for a useful purpose to be achieved through the +harmonious association of individual workers. This community of instinct +exists also among the higher animals, but here it is harder to +distinguish from associations originating through conscious will, +inasmuch as speech supplies the means of a more perfect +intercommunication of aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely +recognise {129} this general effect of a universal instinct in the origin +of speech and in the great political and social movements in the history +of the world. Here we are concerned only with the simplest and most +definite examples that can be found anywhere, and therefore we will deal +in preference with the lower animals, among which, in the absence of +voice, the means of communicating thought, mimicry, and physiognomy, are +so imperfect that the harmony and interconnection of the individual +actions cannot in its main points be ascribed to an understanding arrived +at through speech. Huber observed that when a new comb was being +constructed a number of the largest working-bees, that were full of +honey, took no part in the ordinary business of the others, but remained +perfectly aloof. Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had +formed under their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, +masticated them, and made them into a band. The small plates of wax thus +prepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the top of the +other. When one of the bees of this kind had used up her plates of wax, +another followed her and carried the same work forward in the same way. +A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness and fastened to the +sides of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, one of the smaller +working-bees whose belly was empty came, and after surveying the wall, +made a flat half-oval excavation in the middle of one of its sides; she +piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge of the excavation. After +a short time she was relieved by another like herself, till more than +twenty followed one another in this way. Meanwhile another bee began to +make a similar hollow on the other side of the wall, but corresponding +only with the rim of the excavation on this side. Presently another bee +began a second hollow upon the same side, each bee being continually +relieved by others. Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their +bellies plates of wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small +wall of wax. In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for +more cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already +begun into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued +building up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked on +opposite sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in the +closest correspondence with those upon the other side, until eventually +the cells on both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity +and harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those standing side by +side, but also as regards those which were upon the other side of their +pyramidal base. + +Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer +together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may be +pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of opinion; +let him reflect how often something has to be undone, destroyed, and done +over again; how at one time too many hands come forward, and at another +too few; what running to and fro there is before each has found his right +place; how often too many, and again too few, present themselves for a +relief gang; and how we find all this in the concerted works of men, who +stand so far higher than bees in the scale of organisation. We see +nothing of the kind among bees. A survey of their operations leaves +rather the impression upon us as though an invisible master-builder had +prearranged a scheme of action for the entire community, and had +impressed it upon each individual member, as though each class of workers +had learnt their appointed work by heart, knew their places and the +numbers in which they should relieve each other, and were informed +instantaneously by a secret signal of the moment when their action was +wanted. This, however, is exactly the manner in which an instinct works; +and as the intention of the entire community is instinctively present in +the unconscious clairvoyance {131a} of each individual bee, so the +possession of this common instinct impels each one of them to the +discharge of her special duties when the right moment has arrived. It is +only thus that the wonderful tranquillity and order which we observe +could be attained. What we are to think concerning this common instinct +must be reserved for explanation later on, but the possibility of its +existence is already evident, inasmuch {131b} as each individual has an +unconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to itself by the +community, and also concerning the means immediately to be adopted +through concerted action—of which, however, only the part requiring his +own co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. Thus, for +example, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in which it +is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with its lid of +wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which the larva can become +a chrysalis must be present in the minds of each of these two parties to +the transaction, but neither of them acts under the influence of +conscious will, except in regard to his own particular department. I +have already mentioned the fact that the larva, after its metamorphosis, +must be freed from its cell by other bees, and have told how the +working-bees in autumn kill the drones, so that they may not have to feed +a number of useless mouths throughout the winter, and how they only spare +them when they are wanted in order to fecundate a new queen. +Furthermore, the working-bees build cells in which the eggs laid by the +queen may come to maturity, and, as a general rule, make just as many +chambers as the queen lays eggs; they make these, moreover, in the same +order as that in which the queen lays her eggs, namely, first for the +working-bees, then for the drones, and lastly for the queens. In the +polity of the bees, the working and the sexual capacities, which were +once united, are now personified in three distinct kinds of individual, +and these combine with an inner, unconscious, spiritual union, so as to +form a single body politic, as the organs of a living body combine to +form the body itself. + +In this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following +conclusions:— + +Instinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; {132} it is not a +consequence of bodily organisation; it is not a mere result of a +mechanism which lies in the organisation of the brain; it is not the +operation of dead mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, and +foreign to its inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action of the +individual, springing from his most essential nature and character. The +purpose to which any particular kind of instinctive action is subservient +is not the purpose of a soul standing outside the individual and near +akin to Providence—a purpose once for all thought out, and now become a +matter of necessity to the individual, so that he can act in no other +way, though it is engrafted into his nature from without, and not natural +to it. The purpose of the instinct is in each individual case thought +out and willed unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards the choice +of means adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A +knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable {133} by +conscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the +peculiarity of the unconscious display itself in the clairvoyance of +which consciousness perceives partly only a faint and dull, and partly, +as in the case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of sentiment, +whereas the instinctive action itself—the carrying out of the means +necessary for the achievement of the unconscious purpose—falls always +more clearly within consciousness, inasmuch as due performance of what is +necessary would be otherwise impossible. Finally, the clairvoyance makes +itself perceived in the concerted action of several individuals combining +to carry out a common but unconscious purpose. + +Up to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact which we +observe but cannot explain, and the reader may say that he prefers to +take his stand here, and be content with regarding instinct simply as a +matter of fact, the explanation of which is at present beyond our reach. +Against this it must be urged, firstly, that clairvoyance is not confined +to instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that clairvoyance is by +no means present in all instincts, and that therefore our experience +shows us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct things—clairvoyance +being of great use in explaining instinct, but instinct serving nothing +to explain clairvoyance; thirdly and lastly, that the clairvoyance of the +individual will not continue to be so incomprehensible to us, but will be +perfectly well explained in the further course of our investigation, +while we must give up all hope of explaining instinct in any other way. + +The conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard instinct as +the innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living being. That this is +actually the case is shown by the instincts of self-preservation and of +the continuation of the species which we observe throughout creation, and +by the heroic self-abandonment with which the individual will sacrifice +welfare, and even life, at the bidding of instinct. We see this when we +think of the caterpillar, and how she repairs her cocoon until she yields +to exhaustion; of the bird, and how she will lay herself to death; of the +disquiet and grief displayed by all migratory animals if they are +prevented from migrating. A captive cuckoo will always die at the +approach of winter through despair at being unable to fly away; so will +the vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest +mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, and suffer +death cheerfully for her offspring’s sake. Every year we see fresh cases +of people who have been unfortunate going mad or committing suicide. +Women who have survived the Cæsarian operation allow themselves so little +to be deterred from further childbearing through fear of this frightful +and generally fatal operation, that they will undergo it no less than +three times. Can we suppose that what so closely resembles demoniacal +possession can have come about through something engrafted on to the soul +as a mechanism foreign to its inner nature, {135} or through conscious +deliberation which adheres always to a bare egoism, and is utterly +incapable of such self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring as is +displayed by the procreative and maternal instincts? + +We have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the instincts of any +animal species are so similar within the limits of that species—a +circumstance which has not a little contributed to the +engrafted-mechanism theory. But it is plain that like causes will be +followed by like effects; and this should afford sufficient explanation. +The bodily mechanism, for example, of all the individuals of a species is +alike; so again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their +conscious intelligence—though this, indeed, is not the case with man, nor +in some measure even with the highest animals; and it is through this +want of uniformity that there is such a thing as individuality. The +external conditions of all the individuals of a species are also +tolerably similar, and when they differ essentially, the instincts are +likewise different—a fact in support of which no examples are necessary. +From like conditions of mind and body (and this includes like +predispositions of brain and ganglia) and like exterior circumstances, +like desires will follow as a necessary logical consequence. Again, from +like desires and like inward and outward circumstances, a like choice of +means—that is to say, like instincts—must ensue. These last two steps +would not be conceded without restriction if the question were one +involving conscious deliberation, but as these logical consequences are +supposed to follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step +unfailingly without vacillation or delay so long as the premises are +similar, the ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the means for +their gratification will be similar also. + +Thus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains the very +last point which it may be thought worth while to bring forward in +support of the opinions of our opponents. + +I will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: “Thoughtful +minds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most +important of all phenomena, and to be the true touchstone of a durable +philosophy.” + + + + +Chapter IX + + +Remarks upon Von Hartmann’s position in regard to instinct. + +UNCERTAIN how far the foregoing chapter is not better left without +comment of any kind, I nevertheless think that some of my readers may be +helped by the following extracts from the notes I took while translating. +I will give them as they come, without throwing them into connected form. + + * * * * * + +Von Hartmann defines instinct as action done with a purpose, but without +consciousness of purpose. + +The building of her nest by a bird is an instinctive action; it is done +with a purpose, but it is arbitrary to say that the bird has no knowledge +of that purpose. Some hold that birds when they are building their nest +know as well that they mean to bring up a family in it as a young married +couple do when they build themselves a house. This is the conclusion +which would be come to by a plain person on a _primâ facie_ view of the +facts, and Von Hartmann shows no reason for modifying it. + +A better definition of instinct would be that it is inherited knowledge +in respect of certain facts, and of the most suitable manner in which to +deal with them. + + * * * * * + +Von Hartmann speaks of “a mechanism of brain or mind” contrived by +nature, and again of “a psychical organisation,” as though it were +something distinct from a physical organisation. + +We can conceive of such a thing as mechanism of brain, for we have seen +brain and handled it; but until we have seen a mind and handled it, or at +any rate been enabled to draw inferences which will warrant us in +conceiving of it as a material substance apart from bodily substance, we +cannot infer that it has an organisation apart from bodily organisation. +Does Von Hartmann mean that we have two bodies—a body-body, and a +soul-body? + + * * * * * + +He says that no one will call the action of the spider instinctive in +voiding the fluids from its glands when they are too full. Why not? + + * * * * * + +He is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the “ends +proposed to itself by the instinct,” of “the blind unconscious purpose of +the instinct,” of “an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of +the bird,” of “each variation and modification of the instinct,” as +though instinct, purpose, and, later on, clairvoyance, were persons, and +not words characterising a certain class of actions. The ends are +proposed to itself by the animal, not by the instinct. Nothing but +mischief can come of a mode of expression which does not keep this +clearly in view. + + * * * * * + +It must not be supposed that the same cuckoo is in the habit of laying in +the nests of several different species, and of changing the colour of her +eggs according to that of the eggs of the bird in whose nest she lays. I +have inquired from Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe of the ornithological department +at the British Museum, who kindly gives it me as his opinion that though +cuckoos do imitate the eggs of the species on whom they foist their young +ones, yet one cuckoo will probably lay in the nests of one species also, +and will stick to that species for life. If so, the same race of cuckoos +may impose upon the same species for generations together. The instinct +will even thus remain a very wonderful one, but it is not at all +inconsistent with the theory put forward by Professor Hering and myself. + + * * * * * + +Returning to the idea of psychical mechanism, he admits that “it is +itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it,” {139a} +and then goes on to claim for it that it explains a great many other +things. This must have been the passage which Mr. Sully had in view when +he very justly wrote that Von Hartmann “dogmatically closes the field of +physical inquiry, and takes refuge in a phantom which explains +everything, simply because it is itself incapable of explanation.” + + * * * * * + +According to Von Hartmann {139b} the unpractised animal manifests its +instinct as perfectly as the practised. This is not the case. The young +animal exhibits marvellous proficiency, but it gains by experience. I +have watched sparrows, which I can hardly doubt to be young ones, spend a +whole month in trying to build their nest, and give it up in the end as +hopeless. I have watched three such cases this spring in a tree not +twenty feet from my own window and on a level with my eye, so that I have +been able to see what was going on at all hours of the day. In each case +the nest was made well and rapidly up to a certain point, and then got +top-heavy and tumbled over, so that little was left on the tree: it was +reconstructed and reconstructed over and over again, always with the same +result, till at last in all three cases the birds gave up in despair. I +believe the older and stronger birds secure the fixed and best sites, +driving the younger birds to the trees, and that the art of building +nests in trees is dying out among house-sparrows. + + * * * * * + +He declares that instinct is not due to organisation so much as +organisation to instinct. {140} The fact is, that neither can claim +precedence of or pre-eminence over the other. Instinct and organisation +are only mind and body, or mind and matter; and these are not two +separable things, but one and inseparable, with, as it were, two sides; +the one of which is a function of the other. There was never yet either +matter without mind, however low, nor mind, however high, without a +material body of some sort; there can be no change in one without a +corresponding change in the other; neither came before the other; neither +can either cease to change or cease to be; for “to be” is to continue +changing, so that “to be” and “to change” are one. + + * * * * * + +Whence, he asks, comes the desire to gratify an instinct before +experience of the pleasure that will ensue on gratification? This is a +pertinent question, but it is met by Professor Hering with the answer +that this is due to memory—to the continuation in the germ of vibrations +that were vibrating in the body of the parent, and which, when stimulated +by vibrations of a suitable rhythm, become more and more powerful till +they suffice to set the body in visible action. For my own part I only +venture to maintain that it is due to memory, that is to say, to an +enduring sense on the part of the germ of the action it took when in the +persons of its ancestors, and of the gratification which ensued thereon. +This meets Von Hartmann’s whole difficulty. + + * * * * * + +The glacier is not snow. It is snow packed tight into a small compass, +and has thus lost all trace of its original form. How incomplete, +however, would be any theory of glacial action which left out of sight +the origin of the glacier in snow! Von Hartmann loses sight of the +origin of instinctive in deliberative actions because the two classes of +action are now in many respects different. His philosophy of the +unconscious fails to consider what is the normal process by means of +which such common actions as we can watch, and whose history we can +follow, have come to be done unconsciously. + + * * * * * + +He says, {141} “How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism, &c., +&c.; how clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is +an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the use +of the fitting means.” Does he mean that there is an actual thing—an +unconscious purpose—something outside the bird, as it were a man, which +lays hold of the bird and makes it do this or that, as a master makes a +servant do his bidding? If so, he again personifies the purpose itself, +and must therefore embody it, or be talking in a manner which plain +people cannot understand. If, on the other hand, he means “how simple is +the view that the bird acts unconsciously,” this is not more simple than +supposing it to act consciously; and what ground has he for supposing +that the bird is unconscious? It is as simple, and as much in accordance +with the facts, to suppose that the bird feels the air to be colder, and +knows that she must warm her eggs if she is to hatch them, as consciously +as a mother knows that she must not expose her new-born infant to the +cold. + + * * * * * + +On page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying that if it is once +granted that the normal and abnormal manifestations of instinct spring +from a single source, then the objection that the modification is due to +conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later on, in so +far as it is directed against instinct generally. I understand him to +mean that if we admit instinctive action, and the modifications of that +action which more nearly resemble results of reason, to be actions of the +same ultimate kind differing in degree only, and if we thus attempt to +reduce instinctive action to the prophetic strain arising from old +experience, we shall be obliged to admit that the formation of the embryo +is ultimately due to reflection—which he seems to think is a _reductio ad +absurdum_ of the argument. + +Therefore, he concludes, if there is to be only one source, the source +must be unconscious, and not conscious. We reply, that we do not see the +absurdity of the position which we grant we have been driven to. We hold +that the formation of the embryo _is_ ultimately due to reflection and +design. + + * * * * * + +The writer of an article in the _Times_, April 1, 1880, says that +servants must be taught their calling before they can practise it; but, +in fact, they can only be taught their calling by practising it. So Von +Hartmann says animals must feel the pleasure consequent on gratification +of an instinct before they can be stimulated to act upon the instinct by +a knowledge of the pleasure that will ensue. This sounds logical, but in +practice a little performance and a little teaching—a little sense of +pleasure and a little connection of that pleasure with this or that +practice,—come up simultaneously from something that we cannot see, the +two being so small and so much abreast, that we do not know which is +first, performance or teaching; and, again, action, or pleasure supposed +as coming from the action. + + * * * * * + +“Geistes-mechanismus” comes as near to “disposition of mind,” or, more +shortly, “disposition,” as so unsatisfactory a word can come to anything. +Yet, if we translate it throughout by “disposition,” we shall see how +little we are being told. + +We find on page 114 that “all instinctive actions give us an impression +of absolute security and infallibility”; that “the will is never weak or +hesitating, as it is when inferences are being drawn consciously.” “We +never,” Von Hartmann continues, “find instinct making mistakes.” Passing +over the fact that instinct is again personified, the statement is still +incorrect. Instinctive actions are certainly, as a general rule, +performed with less uncertainty than deliberative ones; this is +explicable by the fact that they have been more often practised, and thus +reduced more completely to a matter of routine; but nothing is more +certain than that animals acting under the guidance of inherited +experience or instinct frequently make mistakes which with further +practice they correct. Von Hartmann has abundantly admitted that the +manner of an instinctive action is often varied in correspondence with +variation in external circumstances. It is impossible to see how this +does not involve both possibility of error and the connection of instinct +with deliberation at one and the same time. The fact is simply this—when +an animal finds itself in a like position with that in which it has +already often done a certain thing in the persons of its forefathers, it +will do this thing well and easily: when it finds the position somewhat, +but not unrecognisably, altered through change either in its own person +or in the circumstances exterior to it, it will vary its action with +greater or less ease according to the nature of the change in the +position: when the position is gravely altered the animal either bungles +or is completely thwarted. + + * * * * * + +Not only does Von Hartmann suppose that instinct may, and does, involve +knowledge antecedent to, and independent of, experience—an idea as +contrary to the tendency of modern thought as that of spontaneous +generation, with which indeed it is identical though presented in another +shape—but he implies by his frequent use of the word “unmittelbar” that a +result can come about without any cause whatever. So he says, “Um für +die unbewusster Erkenntniss, welche nicht durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung +erworben, _sondern als unmittelbar Besitz_,” &c. {144a} Because he does +not see where the experience can have been gained, he cuts the knot, and +denies that there has been experience. We say, Look more attentively and +you will discover the time and manner in which the experience was gained. + + * * * * * + +Again, he continually assumes that animals low down in the scale of life +cannot know their own business because they show no sign of knowing ours. +See his remarks on _Saturnia pavonia minor_ (page 107), and elsewhere on +cattle and gadflies. The question is not what can they know, but what +does their action prove to us that they do know. With each species of +animal or plant there is one profession only, and it is hereditary. With +us there are many professions, and they are not hereditary; so that they +cannot become instinctive, as they would otherwise tend to do. + + * * * * * + +He attempts {144b} to draw a distinction between the causes that have +produced the weapons and working instruments of animals, on the one hand, +and those that lead to the formation of hexagonal cells by bees, &c., on +the other. No such distinction can be justly drawn. + + * * * * * + +The ghost-stories which Von Hartmann accepts will hardly be accepted by +people of sound judgment. There is one well-marked distinctive feature +between the knowledge manifested by animals when acting instinctively and +the supposed knowledge of seers and clairvoyants. In the first case, the +animal never exhibits knowledge except upon matters concerning which its +race has been conversant for generations; in the second, the seer is +supposed to do so. In the first case, a new feature is invariably +attended with disturbance of the performance and the awakening of +consciousness and deliberation, unless the new matter is too small in +proportion to the remaining features of the case to attract attention, or +unless, though really new, it appears so similar to an old feature as to +be at first mistaken for it; with the second, it is not even professed +that the seer’s ancestors have had long experience upon the matter +concerning which the seer is supposed to have special insight, and I can +imagine no more powerful _à priori_ argument against a belief in such +stories. + + * * * * * + +Close upon the end of his chapter Von Hartmann touches upon the one +matter which requires consideration. He refers the similarity of +instinct that is observable among all species to the fact that like +causes produce like effects; and I gather, though he does not expressly +say so, that he considers similarity of instinct in successive +generations to be referable to the same cause as similarity of instinct +between all the contemporary members of a species. He thus raises the +one objection against referring the phenomena of heredity to memory which +I think need be gone into with any fulness. I will, however, reserve +this matter for my concluding chapters. + +Von Hartmann concludes his chapter with a quotation from Schelling, to +the effect that the phenomena of animal instinct are the true touchstone +of a durable philosophy; by which I suppose it is intended to say that if +a system or theory deals satisfactorily with animal instinct, it will +stand, but not otherwise. I can wish nothing better than that the +philosophy of the unconscious advanced by Von Hartmann be tested by this +standard. + + + + +Chapter X + + +Recapitulation and statement of an objection. + +THE true theory of unconscious action, then, is that of Professor Hering, +from whose lecture it is no strained conclusion to gather that he holds +the action of all living beings, from the moment of their conception to +that of their fullest development, to be founded in volition and design, +though these have been so long lost sight of that the work is now carried +on, as it were, departmentally and in due course according to an official +routine which can hardly now be departed from. + +This involves the older “Darwinism” and the theory of Lamarck, according +to which the modification of living forms has been effected mainly +through the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary with varying +conditions, the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B. +Baildon has just said, “sometimes comes to mean merely the survival of +the survivors” {146}) being taken almost as a matter of course. +According to this view of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy +between the development of living organs or tools and that of those +organs or tools external to the body which has been so rapid during the +last few thousand years. + +Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughout +their development, and preserve the due order in each step which they +take, through memory of the course they took on past occasions when in +the persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already too often +said that if this memory remains for long periods together latent and +without effect, it is because the undulations of the molecular substance +of the body which are its supposed explanation are during these periods +too feeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force through +an accession of suitable undulations issuing from exterior objects; or, +in other words, until recollection is stimulated by a return of the +associated ideas. On this the eternal agitation becomes so much +enhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action ensues +which is proper to the vibration of the particular substance under the +particular conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose Professor +Hering to intend. + +Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves to +the fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed, +according to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in the +egg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection of +the action taken by its ancestors when they were first hatched. It is +guided in the course it takes by the experience it can thus command. +Each step it takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through +its development as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar +leading his recollection to the bar that should next follow. + +In “Life and Habit” will be found examples of the manner in which this +view solves a number of difficulties for the explanation of which the +leading men of science express themselves at a loss. The following from +Professor Huxley’s recent work upon the crayfish may serve for an +example. Professor Huxley writes:— + + “It is a widely received notion that the energies of living matter + have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death + of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That + all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but + it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief + that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or + later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its + parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually + renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual + components of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are + taken by vigorous successors. A city remains notwithstanding the + constant death-rate of its inhabitants; and such an organism as a + crayfish is only a corporate unity, made up of innumerable partially + independent individualities.”—_The Crayfish_, p. 127. + +Surely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain why +no organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives. The +death of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the social +condition becoming more complex than there is memory of past experience +to deal with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, and decay. The +crayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we have heard of die +sooner or later. There are some savages who have not yet arrived at the +conception that death is the necessary end of all living beings, and who +consider even the gentlest death from old age as violent and abnormal; so +Professor Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing that though a city +commonly outlives many generations of its citizens, yet cities and states +are in the end no less mortal than individuals. “The city,” he says, +“remains.” Yes, but not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a city +that will last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last for +ever. + +I have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring forward +in support of Professor Hering’s theory; it now remains for me to meet +the most troublesome objection to it that I have been able to think of—an +objection which I had before me when I wrote “Life and Habit,” but which +then as now I believe to be unsound. Seeing, however, as I have pointed +out at the end of the preceding chapter, that Von Hartmann has touched +upon it, and being aware that a plausible case can be made out for it, I +will state it and refute it here. When I say refute it, I do not mean +that I shall have done with it—for it is plain that it opens up a vaster +question in the relations between the so-called organic and inorganic +worlds—but that I will refute the supposition that it any way militates +against Professor Hering’s theory. + +Why, it may be asked, should we go out of our way to invent unconscious +memory—the existence of which must at the best remain an inference +{149}—when the observed fact that like antecedents are invariably +followed by like consequents should be sufficient for our purpose? Why +should the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a given condition will +always become a butterfly within a certain time be connected with memory, +when it is not pretended that memory has anything to do with the +invariableness with which oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in certain +proportions make water? + +We assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into its +component parts, and if these were brought together again, and again +decomposed and again brought together any number of times over, the +results would be invariably the same, whether decomposition or +combination, yet no one will refer the invariableness of the action +during each repetition, to recollection by the gaseous molecules of the +course taken when the process was last repeated. On the contrary, we are +assured that molecules in some distant part of the world, which had never +entered into such and such a known combination themselves, nor held +concert with other molecules that had been so combined, and which, +therefore, could have had no experience and no memory, would none the +less act upon one another in that one way in which other like +combinations of atoms have acted under like circumstances, as readily as +though they had been combined and separated and recombined again a +hundred or a hundred thousand times. It is this assumption, tacitly made +by every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time and +in every action of their lives, that has made any action possible, lying, +as it does, at the root of all experience. + +As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not suppose +an alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any moment +during the process of their combination. This process is, in all +probability, an exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude of +actions and subordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, and +each one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all +come to pass in what appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point +do we conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or +left of a determined course, but invest each one of them with so much of +the divine attributes as that with it there shall be no variableness, +neither shadow of turning. + +We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity of +things, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances in +which they are placed. We say that only one proximate result can ever +arise from any given combination. If, then, so great uniformity of +action as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one will +impute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the only way +of accounting for regularity of action in living beings? Sameness of +action may be seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that we +can consistently call memory. In these cases we say that it is due to +sameness of substance in same circumstances. + +The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is no +more possible for living action to have more than one set of proximate +consequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in +the proportions proper for the formation of water. Why, then, not +recognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action to +the reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense of +connection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar action +taken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen +molecules between the several occasions on which they may have been +disunited and reunited? + +A boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught them in +the persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit soil for a +certain kind of seed to grow upon. In like manner he should be said to +grow his nose because he is a fit combination for a nose to spring from. +Dr. X—’s father died of _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine; so +did Dr. X—. Can it be pretended that Dr. X— remembered having died of +_angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine when in the person of his +father, and accordingly, when he came to be forty-nine years old himself, +died also? For this to hold, Dr. X—’s father must have begotten him +after he was dead; for the son could not remember the father’s death +before it happened. + +As for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they are +developed for the most part not only long after the average age of +reproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory of any +previous existence can remain; for a man will not have many male +ancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor female +ancestors who did so at over forty. By our own showing, therefore, +recollection can have nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can doubt +that gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In what +respects do the two things differ so that we should refer the inheritance +of eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection between memory +and gout? We may have a ghost of a pretence for saying that a man grew a +nose by rote, or even that he catches the measles or whooping-cough by +rote during his boyhood; but do we mean to say that he develops the gout +by rote in his old age if he comes of a gouty family? If, then, rote and +red-tape have nothing to do with the one, why should they with the other? + +Remember also the cases in which aged females develop male +characteristics. Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable extent, +which make their appearance during the decay of the body, and grow with +greater and greater vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for days +after death itself. It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendency +to develop these characteristics runs as an inheritance in certain +families; here then is perhaps the best case that can be found of a +development strictly inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to do +with memory. Why should not all development stand upon the same footing? + +A friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, concluded +with the following words:— + + “If you cannot be content with the similar action of similar + substances (living or non-living) under similar circumstances—if you + cannot accept this as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to + connect repetition of similar action with memory before you can rest + in it and be thankful—be consistent, and introduce this memory which + you find so necessary into the inorganic world also. Either say that + a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it is, + and, being that kind of thing, must act in such and such a manner and + in such a manner only, so that the act of one generation has no more + to do with the act of the next than the fact of cream being churned + into butter in a dairy one day has to do with other cream being + churnable into butter in the following week—either say this, or else + develop some mental condition—which I have no doubt you will be very + well able to do if you feel the want of it—in which you can make out + a case for saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought together, + and cream on being churned, are in some way acquainted with, and + mindful of, action taken by other cream and other oxygen and hydrogen + on past occasions.” + +I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being able +to develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his own +ingenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his life was +but an example of this omnipresent principle. + +When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. I +endeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory, +and reasoned as follows:—A repetition of like antecedents will be +certainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether the +agents be men and women or chemical substances. “If there be two cowards +perfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a +perfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves +perfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity +in the running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between the +original combination and its repetition.” {153} Here certainly there is +no coming into play of memory, more than in the pan of cream on two +successive churning days, yet the action is similar. + +A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner. +About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at once he takes down +his hat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood, +and on getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which +is the best eating-house within easy distance. The policeman tells him +of three houses, one of which is a little farther off than the other two, +but is cheaper. Money being a greater object to him than time, the clerk +decides on going to the cheaper house. He goes, is satisfied, and +returns. + +Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and—it will be +said—remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the same place +as before. But what has his memory to do with it? Suppose him to have +entirely forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from the +moment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in other respects +sound in mind and body, and unchanged generally. At half-past twelve he +would begin to be hungry; but his beginning to be hungry cannot be +connected with his remembering having begun to be hungry yesterday. He +would begin to be hungry just as much whether he remembered or no. At +one o’clock he again takes down his hat and leaves the office, not +because he remembers having done so yesterday, but because he wants his +hat to go out with. Being again in the street, and again ignorant of the +neighbourhood (for he remembers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same +policeman at the corner of the street, and asks him the same question as +before; the policeman gives him the same answer, and money being still an +object to him, the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes +there, finds the same _menu_, makes the same choice for the same reasons, +eats, is satisfied, and returns. + +What similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same time +more incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do with memory; on the +contrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his action of +the second day so exactly resembles that of the first. As long as he has +no power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat the same actions +in exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, such as his +being sent away, modify the situation. Till this or some other +modification occurs, he will day after day go down into the street +without knowing where to go; day after day he will see the same policeman +at the corner of the same street, and (for we may as well suppose that +the policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, and ask and +be answered, till he and the policeman die of old age. This similarity +of action is plainly due to that—whatever it is—which ensures that like +persons or things when placed in like circumstances shall behave in like +manner. + +Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of action +will disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to him on the +first day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification in him +in regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get his dinner. +He had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Some +modification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor, +and this is immediately observable. He wants his dinner, indeed, goes +down into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he does +not ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and what +he did, and therefore goes straight to the eating-house without wasting +time: nor does he dine off the same dish two days running, for he +remembers what he had yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarity +of action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce it +into such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes by +successive generations? The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as the +goose, are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequence +one goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water. Why +should it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds—namely, that +it is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like proportions in +the same manner? + + + + +Chapter XI + + +On Cycles. + +THE one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or +unconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like +consequents. This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable, +but except a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish +everlastingly. In the assurance of this all action is taken. + +But if this fundamental article is admitted, and it cannot be gainsaid, +it follows that if ever a complete cycle were formed, so that the whole +universe of one instant were to repeat itself absolutely in a subsequent +one, no matter after what interval of time, then the course of the events +between these two moments would go on repeating itself for ever and ever +afterwards in due order, down to the minutest detail, in an endless +series of cycles like a circulating decimal. For the universe comprises +everything; there could therefore be no disturbance from without. Once a +cycle, always a cycle. + +Let us suppose the earth, of given weight, moving with given momentum in +a given path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find itself +at any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was conditioned +at some past moment; then it must move exactly in the same path as the +one it took when at the beginning of the cycle it has just completed, and +must therefore in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and therefore +a third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance of escape than +a circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have been reproduced with +perfect accuracy. + +We see something very like this actually happen in the yearly revolutions +of the planets round the sun. But the relations between, we will say, +the earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely. These relations +deal only with a small part of the universe, and even in this small part +the relation of the parts _inter se_ has never yet been reproduced with +the perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument. They are liable, +moreover, to disturbance from events which may or may not actually occur +(as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or the sun’s coming within +a certain distance of another sun), but of which, if they do occur, no +one can foresee the effects. Nevertheless the conditions have been so +nearly repeated that there is no appreciable difference in the relations +between the earth and sun on one New Year’s Day and on another, nor is +there reason for expecting such change within any reasonable time. + +If there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the whole +universe, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. Exclude +a single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relative +positions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element of +disturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be said is +that it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearly +perfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but which +must inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition. The movement of +the series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, and convergent or +divergent at a greater or less rate according to circumstances. We +cannot conceive of all the atoms in the universe standing twice over in +absolutely the same relation each one of them to every other. There are +too many of them and they are too much mixed; but, as has been just said, +in the planets and their satellites we do see large groups of atoms whose +movements recur with some approach to precision. The same holds good +also with certain comets and with the sun himself. The result is that +our days and nights and seasons follow one another with nearly perfect +regularity from year to year, and have done so for as long time as we +know anything for certain. A vast preponderance of all the action that +takes place around us is cycular action. + +Within the great cycle of the planetary revolution of our own earth, and +as a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of the phenomena of the +seasons; these generate atmospheric cycles. Water is evaporated from the +ocean and conveyed to mountain ranges, where it is cooled, and whence it +returns again to the sea. This cycle of events is being repeated again +and again with little appreciable variation. The tides and winds in +certain latitudes go round and round the world with what amounts to +continuous regularity.—There are storms of wind and rain called cyclones. +In the case of these, the cycle is not very complete, the movement, +therefore, is spiral, and the tendency to recur is comparatively soon +lost. It is a common saying that history repeats itself, so that anarchy +will lead to despotism and despotism to anarchy; every nation can point +to instances of men’s minds having gone round and round so nearly in a +perfect cycle that many revolutions have occurred before the cessation of +a tendency to recur. Lastly, in the generation of plants and animals we +have, perhaps, the most striking and common example of the inevitable +tendency of all action to repeat itself when it has once proximately done +so. Let only one living being have once succeeded in producing a being +like itself, and thus have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a +series of generations must follow of necessity, unless some matter +interfere which had no part in the original combination, and, as it may +happen, kill the first reproductive creature or all its descendants +within a few generations. If no such mishap occurs as this, and if the +recurrence of the conditions is sufficiently perfect, a series of +generations follows with as much certainty as a series of seasons follows +upon the cycle of the relations between the earth and sun. Let the first +periodically recurring substance—we will say A—be able to recur or +reproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2, &c.; let +A also have consciousness and a sense of self-interest, which qualities +must, _ex hypothesi_, be reproduced in each one of its offspring; let +these get placed in circumstances which differ sufficiently to destroy +the cycle in theory without doing so practically—that is to say, to +reduce the rotation to a spiral, but to a spiral with so little deviation +from perfect cycularity as for each revolution to appear practically a +cycle, though after many revolutions the deviation becomes perceptible; +then some such differentiations of animal and vegetable life as we +actually see follow as matters of course. A1 and A2 have a sense of +self-interest as A had, but they are not precisely in circumstances +similar to A’s, nor, it may be, to each other’s; they will therefore act +somewhat differently, and every living being is modified by a change of +action. Having become modified, they follow the spirit of A’s action +more essentially in begetting a creature like themselves than in +begetting one like A; for the essence of A’s act was not the reproduction +of A, but the reproduction of a creature like the one from which it +sprung—that is to say, a creature bearing traces in its body of the main +influences that have worked upon its parent. + +Within the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in the life +of each individual, whether animal or plant. Observe the action of our +lungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle having been once +established, it is repeated many millions of times in an individual of +average health and longevity. Remember also that it is this +periodicity—this inevitable tendency of all atoms in combination to +repeat any combination which they have once repeated, unless forcibly +prevented from doing so—which alone renders nine-tenths of our mechanical +inventions of practical use to us. There is no internal periodicity +about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine or watermill +when once set in motion. The actions of these machines recur in a +regular series, at regular intervals, with the unerringness of +circulating decimals. + +When we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in the +world around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends its +action, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the vastest and +the smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord with our ideas of +what must inevitably happen when a like combination is placed in +circumstances like those in which it was placed before—when we bear in +mind all this, is it possible not to connect the facts together, and to +refer cycles of living generations to the same unalterableness in the +action of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter and +Saturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine move up and +down as long as the steam acts upon it? + +But who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston-rod, +to air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the earth and +planets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of the universe, +if they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can take account of? +{160} And if not, why introduce it into the embryonic development of +living beings, when there is not a particle of evidence in support of its +actual presence, when regularity of action can be ensured just as well +without it as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existing +under circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it is +supposed to be exercised without any conscious recollection? Surely a +memory which is exercised without any consciousness of recollecting is +only a periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +Refutation—Memory at once a promoter and a disturber of uniformity of +action and structure. + +TO meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do little +more than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and +developments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to a +memory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in the +parents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful +development generally is due to memory. + +This is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself into an +assertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and embryonic +development being due to memory, and a contention that the necessity of +each particular moment in each particular case is sufficient to account +for the facts without the introduction of memory. + +I will deal with these two last points briefly first. As regards the +evidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due to a +rapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in the +persons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, I must +refer my readers to “Life and Habit,” and to the translation of Professor +Hering’s lecture given in this volume. I will only repeat here that a +chrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the same person with the +chrysalis of its preceding generation, as this last is one and the same +person with the egg or caterpillar from which it sprang. You cannot deny +personal identity between two successive generations without sooner or +later denying it during the successive stages in the single life of what +we call one individual; nor can you admit personal identity through the +stages of a long and varied life (embryonic and postnatal) without +admitting it to endure through an endless series of generations. + +The personal identity of successive generations being admitted, the +possibility of the second of two generations remembering what happened to +it in the first is obvious. The _à priori_ objection, therefore, is +removed, and the question becomes one of fact—does the offspring act as +if it remembered? + +The answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but that it +is not possible to account for either its development or its early +instinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of its +remembering, and remembering exceedingly well. + +The only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living being +may display a vast and varied information concerning all manner of +details, and be able to perform most intricate operations, independently +of experience and practice. Once admit knowledge independent of +experience, and farewell to sober sense and reason from that moment. + +Firstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility for +remembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of having +remembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can be +brought forward, so as to account for the phenomena of instinct and +heredity generally, which is not easily reducible to an absurdity. +Beyond this we do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from us +who require further evidence. + +As regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will account +for likeness of result, without there being any need for introducing +memory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to likeness of +antecedents, and I grant this will hold as good with embryos as with +oxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the one will cover the other, +for time writs of the laws common to all matter run within the womb as +freely as elsewhere; but admitting that there are combinations into which +living beings enter with a faculty called memory which has its effect +upon their conduct, and admitting that such combinations are from time to +time repeated (as we observe in the case of a practised performer playing +a piece of music which he has committed to memory), then I maintain that +though, indeed, the likeness of one performance to its immediate +predecessor is due to likeness of the combinations immediately preceding +the two performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both these +combinations as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, and +therefore proper to be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say that +Herr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because he +was such and such an arrangement of matter in such and such +circumstances, resembling those under which he played without music on +some past occasion. This goes without saying; we say only that he played +the music by heart or by memory, as he had often played it before. + +To the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because it +remembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in due +course before it, but because when matter is in such a physical and +mental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assume +presently such another physical and mental state as to be called +chrysalis, and that therefore there is no memory in the case—to this +objector I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have become so +like the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter of +necessity, unless both parent and offspring had been influenced by +something that we usually call memory. For it is this very possession of +a common memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken by, +and hence to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and which +guided the parent in its turn to a state virtually identical with a +corresponding state in the existence of its own parent. To memory, +therefore, the most prominent place in the transaction is assigned +rightly. + +To deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the +development of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct has +anything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House of +Commons. What should we think of one who said that the action of these +gentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government, +but was simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical +forces at work, which being such and such, the action which we see is +inevitable, and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? We +should answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical and +mechanical action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, it +was all chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstruct +parliamentary business is involved in certain kinds of chemical and +mechanical action, and that the kinds involving this had preceded the +recent proceedings of the members in question. If asked to prove this, +we can get no further than that such action as has been taken has never +yet been seen except as following after and in consequence of a desire to +obstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more be +expected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the bidding of +a foreigner. + +A little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable to +deny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time denying their +existence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no place in the +acquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action. He will feel +that the actions, and the relation of one action to another which he +observes in embryos is such as is never seen except in association with +and as a consequence of will and memory. He will therefore say that it +is due to will and memory. To say that these are the necessary outcome +of certain antecedents is not to destroy them: granted that they are—a +man does not cease to be a man when we reflect that he has had a father +and mother, nor do will and memory cease to be will and memory on the +ground that they cannot come causeless. They are manifest minute by +minute to the perception of all sane people, and this tribunal, though +not infallible, is nevertheless our ultimate court of appeal—the final +arbitrator in all disputed cases. + +We must remember that there is no action, however original or peculiar, +which is not in respect of far the greater number of its details founded +upon memory. If a desperate man blows his brains out—an action which he +can do once in a lifetime only, and which none of his ancestors can have +done before leaving offspring—still nine hundred and ninety-nine +thousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist of +habitual movements—movements, that is to say, which were once difficult, +but which have been practised and practised by the help of memory until +they are now performed automatically. We can no more have an action than +a creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory. Ideas and +actions seem almost to resemble matter and force in respect of the +impossibility of originating or destroying them; nearly all that are, are +memories of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created, +disappearing but not perishing. + +It appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the clerk who +wanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken the +day before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him to be +guided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his taking +down his hat and going out into the street. We could not, indeed, +deprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his action. + +Nevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course of +time come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the new +forms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still arising, +and in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical inventions. But +it is only a very little new that is added at a time, and that little is +generally due to the desire to attain an end which cannot be attained by +any of the means for which there exists a perceived precedent in the +memory. When this is the case, either the memory is further ransacked +for any forgotten shreds of details, a combination of which may serve the +desired purpose; or action is taken in the dark, which sometimes succeeds +and becomes a fertile source of further combinations; or we are brought +to a dead stop. All action is random in respect of any of the minute +actions which compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, real +or supposed. So that random, or action taken in the dark, or illusion, +lies at the very root of progress. + +I will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct and +embryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch as +certain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed to +it. + +Those who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two main +classes: those which we have often repeated before by means of a regular +series of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain tolerably +well-defined point—as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, or when +we dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details of which are +indeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose are +new—as when we are being married or presented at court. + +At each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above referred +to there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to the less or +greater number of times the action has been repeated), not only of the +steps in the present and previous performances which have led up to the +particular point that may be selected, but also of the particular point +itself; there is, therefore, at each point in a habitual performance a +memory at once of like antecedents and of a like present. + +If the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were absolutely +perfect; if the vibration (according to Professor Hering) on each +repetition existed in its full original strength and without having been +interfered with by any other vibration; and if, again, the new wave +running into it from exterior objects on each repetition of the action +were absolutely identical in character with the wave that ran in upon the +last occasion, then there would be no change in the action and no +modification or improvement could take place. For though indeed the +latest performance would always have one memory more than the latest but +one to guide it, yet the memories being identical, it would not matter +how many or how few they were. + +On any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, or +both, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight variation in +each individual case, and some part of this variation is remembered, with +approbation or disapprobation as the case may be. + +The fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there is one +memory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is slightly +different from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent and, _ex +hypothesi_, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual action—and the +life of an organism should be regarded as the habitual action of a single +individual, namely, of the organism itself, and of its ancestors. This +is the key to accumulation of improvement, whether in the arts which we +assiduously practise during our single life, or in the structures and +instincts of successive generations. The memory does not complete a true +circle, but is, as it were, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom. It is +no longer a perfectly circulating decimal. Where, on the other hand, +there is no memory of a like present, where, in fact, the memory is not, +so to speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of improvement. The effect +of any variation is not transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of still +further change. + +As regards the second of the two classes of actions above referred +to—those, namely, which are not recurrent or habitual, _and at no point +of which is there a memory of a past present like the one which is +present now_—there will have been no accumulation of strong and well-knit +memory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if taken at all, +will be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual actions (our own +and those of other people) pieced together with a result more or less +satisfactory according to circumstances. + +But it does not follow that the action of two people who have had +tolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similar +circumstances should be more unlike each other in this second case than +in the first. On the contrary, nothing is more common than to observe +the same kind of people making the same kind of mistake when placed for +the first time in the same kind of new circumstances. I did not say that +there would be no sameness of action without memory of a like present. +There may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, conscious or +unconscious, of like antecedents, and _a presence only of like presents +without recollection of the same_. + +The sameness of action of like persons placed under like circumstances +for the first time, resembles the sameness of action of inorganic matter +under the same combinations. Let us for the moment suppose what we call +non-living substances to be capable of remembering their antecedents, and +that the changes they undergo are the expressions of their recollections. +Then I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, we will +say, that is about to be churned of the cream of the preceding week, but +the common absence of such memory from each week’s cream is an element of +sameness between the two. And though no cream can remember having been +churned before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identical +antecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories, and nearly the +same proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of one week is as truly the +same as the cream of another week from the same cow, pasture, &c., as +anything is ever the same with anything; for the having been subjected to +like antecedents engenders the closest similarity that we can conceive +of, if the substances were like to start with. + +The manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of like +presents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, for +example, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason for +saying that such other and far more numerous and important phenomena as +those of embryonic development are not phenomena of memory. Growth and +the diseases of old age do indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on the +same footing, but reflection shows us that the question whether a certain +result is due to memory or no must be settled not by showing that +combinations into which memory does not certainly enter may yet generate +like results, and therefore considering the memory theory disposed of, +but by the evidence we may be able to adduce in support of the fact that +the second agent has actually remembered the conduct of the first, +inasmuch as he cannot be supposed able to do what it is plain he can do, +except under the guidance of memory or experience, and can also be shown +to have had every opportunity of remembering. When either of these tests +fails, similarity of action on the part of two agents need not be +connected with memory of a like present as well as of like antecedents, +but must, or at any rate may, be referred to memory of like antecedents +only. + +Returning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said that +consciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the greater +or fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it may be +observed as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness of memory +the greater the uniformity of action, and _vice versa_. For the less +consciousness involves the memory’s being more perfect, through a larger +number (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; there is +therefore a less proportionate difference in respect of the number of +recollections of this particular act between the most recent actor and +the most recent but one. This is why very old civilisations, as those of +many insects, and the greater number of now living organisms, appear to +the eye not to change at all. + +For example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will say +by A, B, C, &c., who are similar in all respects, except that A acts +without recollection, B with recollection of A’s action, C with +recollection of both B’s and A’s, while J remembers the course taken by +A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I—the possession of a memory by B will indeed +so change his action, as compared with A’s, that it may well be hardly +recognisable. We saw this in our example of the clerk who asked the +policeman the way to the eating-house on one day, but did not ask him the +next, because he remembered; but C’s action will not be so different from +B’s as B’s from A’s, for though C will act with a memory of two occasions +on which the action has been performed, while B recollects only the +original performance by A, yet B and C both act with the guidance of a +memory and experience of some kind, while A acted without any. Thus the +clerk referred to in Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he +acted on the second—that is to say, he will see the policeman at the +corner of the street, but will not question him. + +When the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the difference +between J’s repetition of it and I’s will be due solely to the difference +between a recollection of nine past performances by J against only eight +by I, and this is so much proportionately less than the difference +between a recollection of two performances and of only one, that a less +modification of action should be expected. At the same time +consciousness concerning an action repeated for the tenth time should be +less acute than on the first repetition. Memory, therefore, though +tending to disturb similarity of action less and less continually, must +always cause some disturbance. At the same time the possession of a +memory on the successive repetitions of an action after the first, and, +perhaps, the first two or three, during which the recollection may be +supposed still imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will be +one of the elements of sameness in the agents—they both acting by the +light of experience and memory. + +During the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely under +the guidance of a practised and powerful memory of circumstances which +have been often repeated, not only in detail and piecemeal, but as a +whole, and under many slightly varying conditions; thus the performance +has become well averaged and matured in its arrangements, so as to meet +all ordinary emergencies. We therefore act with great unconsciousness +and vary our performances little. Babies are much more alike than +persons of middle age. + +Up to the average age at which our ancestors have had children during +many generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but the +variations in external circumstances begin to make themselves perceptible +in our characters. In middle life we live more and more continually upon +the piecing together of details of memory drawn from our personal +experience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; and +this resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to cream a +little time ago. It is not surprising, then, that a son who has +inherited his father’s tastes and constitution, and who lives much as his +father had done, should make the same mistakes as his father did when he +reaches his father’s age—we will say of seventy—though he cannot possibly +remember his father’s having made the mistakes. It were to be wished we +could, for then we might know better how to avoid gout, cancer, or what +not. And it is to be noticed that the developments of old age are +generally things we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to do +so. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +Conclusion. + +IF we observed the resemblance between successive generations to be as +close as that between distilled water and distilled water through all +time, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action of +living beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanical +combinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little place +among the causes of their action as it can have in anything, and that +each repetition, whether of a habit or the practice of art, or of an +embryonic process in successive generations, was an original performance, +for all that memory had to do with it. I submit, however, that in the +case of the reproductive forms of life we see just so much variety, in +spite of uniformity, as is consistent with a repetition involving not +only a nearly perfect similarity in the agents and their circumstances, +but also the little departure therefrom that is inevitably involved in +the supposition that a memory of like presents as well as of like +antecedents (as distinguished from a memory of like antecedents only) has +played a part in their development—a cyclonic memory, if the expression +may be pardoned. + +There is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our most +powerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon one side +and begin with the amœba. Let us suppose that this structureless morsel +of protoplasm is, for all its structurelessness, composed of an infinite +number of living molecules, each one of them with hopes and fears of its +own, and all dwelling together like Tekke Turcomans, of whom we read that +they live for plunder only, and that each man of them is entirely +independent, acknowledging no constituted authority, but that some among +them exercise a tacit and undefined influence over the others. Let us +suppose these molecules capable of memory, both in their capacity as +individuals, and as societies, and able to transmit their memories to +their descendants, from the traditions of the dimmest past to the +experiences of their own lifetime. Some of these societies will remain +simple, as having had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar, +and therefore striking, incidents will from time to time occur, which, +when they do not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, will leave their +impression upon it. The body or society will remember these incidents, +and be modified by them in its conduct, and therefore more or less in its +internal arrangements, which will tend inevitably to specialisation. +This memory of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain, +with Professor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which, +accumulated in countless generations, has led up from the amœba to man. +If there had been no such memory, the amœba of one generation would have +exactly resembled time amœba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle would +have been established; the modifying effects of an additional memory in +each generation have made the cycle into a spiral, and into a spiral +whose eccentricity, in the outset hardly perceptible, is becoming greater +and greater with increasing longevity and more complex social and +mechanical inventions. + +We say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which it +ultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers having +grown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it made it on +the same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is to say, +as the joint result both of desire and experience. When I say +experience, I mean experience not only of what will be wanted, but also +of the details of all the means that must be taken in order to effect +this. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken not only in +respect of the main design, but in respect also of every atomic action, +so to speak, which goes to make up the execution of this design. It is +not only the suggestion of a plan which is due to memory, but, as +Professor Hering has so well said, it is the binding power of memory +which alone renders any consolidation or coherence of action possible, +inasmuch as without this no action could have parts subordinate one to +another, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of an action, great or +small, could have reference to any other part, much less to a combination +of all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate atoms of actions could +ever happen—these bearing the same relation to such an action, we will +say, as a railway journey from London to Edinburgh as a single molecule +of hydrogen to a gallon of water. If asked how it is that the chicken +shows no sign of consciousness concerning this design, nor yet of the +steps it is taking to carry it out, we reply that such unconsciousness is +usual in all cases where an action, and the design which prompts it, have +been repeated exceedingly often. If, again, we are asked how we account +for the regularity with which each step is taken in its due order, we +answer that this too is characteristic of actions that are done +habitually—they being very rarely misplaced in respect of any part. + +When I wrote “Life and Habit,” I had arrived at the conclusion that +memory was the most essential characteristic of life, and went so far as +to say, “Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember—matter +which can remember is living.” I should perhaps have written, “Life is +the being possessed of a memory—the life of a thing at any moment is the +memories which at that moment it retains”; and I would modify the words +that immediately follow, namely, “Matter which cannot remember is dead”; +for they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember +anything at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be +the case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember a +little, and which is not living in respect of what it can remember. I do +not see how action of any kind is conceivable without the supposition +that every atom retains a memory of certain antecedents. I cannot, +however, at this point, enter upon the reasons which have compelled me to +this conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any +rate we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations +should develop from the simplicity of the amœba to the complexity of the +human body without the presence of that memory which can alone account at +once for the resemblances and the differences between successive +generations, for the arising and the accumulation of divergences—for the +tendency to differ and the tendency not to differ. + +At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom in +the universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a humble +way. He must have life eternal, as well as matter eternal; and the life +and the matter must be joined together inseparably as body and soul to +one another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who repeat +phrases conventionally, but as people who would have their words taken +according to their most natural and legitimate meaning; and he will feel +that the main difference between him and many of those who oppose him +lies in the fact that whereas both he and they use the same language, his +opponents only half mean what they say, while he means it entirely. + +The attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is in +accordance with our observation and experience. It is therefore proper +to be believed. The attempt to get it from that which has absolutely no +life is like trying to get something out of nothing. The millionth part +of a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent, will in five hundred +years become over a million pounds, and so long as we have any millionth +of a millionth of the farthing to start with, our getting as many million +pounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, but without the +initial millionth of a millionth of a millionth part, we shall get no +increment whatever. A little leaven will leaven the whole lump, but +there must be _some_ leaven. + +I will here quote two passages from an article already quoted from on +page 55 of this book. They run:— + + “We are growing conscious that our earnest and most determined + efforts to make motion produce sensation and volition have proved a + failure, and now we want to rest a little in the opposite, much less + laborious conjecture, and allow any kind of motion to start into + existence, or at least to receive its specific direction from + psychical sources; sensation and volition being for the purpose + quietly insinuated into the constitution of the ultimately moving + particles.” {177a} + +And:— + + “In this light it can remain no longer surprising that we actually + find motility and sensibility so intimately interblended in nature.” + {177b} + +We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in respect +of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than the +organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common with +the inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one’s self on the same +moral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; it is enough that +we should feel the stone to have a moral platform of its own, though that +platform embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws of +gravitation, chemical affinity, &c. As for the difficulty of conceiving +a body as living that has not got a reproductive system—we should +remember that neuter insects are living but are believed to have no +reproductive system. Again, we should bear in mind that mere +assimilation involves all the essentials of reproduction, and that both +air and water possess this power in a very high degree. The essence of a +reproductive system, then, is found low down in the scheme of nature. + +At present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on the one +hand their experiments and their theories alike teach them that +spontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they must +have an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their own +theory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this origin in no +other way than by the _Deus ex machinâ_ method, which they reject as +unproved, or a spontaneous generation of living from non-living matter, +which is no less foreign to their experience. As a general rule, they +prefer the latter alternative. So Professor Tyndall, in his celebrated +article (_Nineteenth Century_, November 1878), wrote:— + + “It is generally conceded (and seems to be a necessary inference from + the lessons of science) that _spontaneous generation must at one time + have taken place_” (italics mine). + +No inference can well be more unnecessary or unscientific. I suppose +spontaneous generation ceases to be objectionable if it was “only a very +little one,” and came off a long time ago in a foreign country. The +proper inference is, that there is a low kind of livingness in every atom +of matter. Life eternal is as inevitable a conclusion as matter eternal. + +It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion there +is life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at all times +in all things. + +The reader who takes the above position will find that he can explain the +entry of what he calls death among what he calls the living, whereas he +could by no means introduce life into his system if he started without +it. Death is deducible; life is not deducible. Death is a change of +memories; it is not the destruction of all memory. It is as the +liquidation of one company, each member of which will presently join a +new one, and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, by way of +greater aptitude for working in concert with other molecules. This is +why animals feed on grass and on each other, and cannot proselytise or +convert the rude ground before it has been tutored in the first +principles of the higher kinds of association. + +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 classified 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 +passage 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 ætiology 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 classification whatever, when we examine its +_raison d’être_ 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 God, 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 accumulation +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 +passage 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 antitypes 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 passage 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 pass 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 assertion 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 + illustrious 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. + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH + + + + +Footnotes + + +{0a} This is the date on the title-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 anticipation 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 passages +and their bearing on the Mutation Theory. + +{0i} He says in a note, “This general type of reaction was described and +illustrated in a different connection by Pfluger in ‘Pfluger’s Archiv. +f.d. ges. Physiologie,’ Bd. XV.” The essay bears the significant title +“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 substituted “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 Græcisms. + +{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. + +{8a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 1. + +{8b} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 397. + +{8c} Erasmus Darwin, by Ernest Krause, pp. 132, 133. + +{9a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 242. + +{9b} Ibid., p. 427. + +{10a} _Nineteenth Century_, November 1878; Evolution, Old and New, pp. +360. 361. + +{10b} Encyclopædia Britannica, ed. ix., art. “Evolution,” p. 748. + +{11} Ibid. + +{17} Encycl. Brit., ed. ix., art. “Evolution,” p. 750. + +{23a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., 1876, p. 206. + +{23b} Ibid., p. 233. + +{24a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 171, 1876. + +{24b} Pp. 258–260. + +{26} Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 484; Evolution, Old and New, p. 214. + +{27} “Erasmus Darwin,” by Ernest Krause, p. 211, London, 1879. + +{28a} See “Evolution, Old and New,” p. 91, and Buffon, tom. iv. p. 383, +ed. 1753. + +{28b} Evolution, Old and New, p. 104. + +{29a} Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. “Evolution,” p. 748. + +{29b} Palingénésie Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted from +Professor Huxley’s article on “Evolution,” Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., p. +745). + +{31} The note began thus: “I have taken the date of the first +publication of Lamarck from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s (Hist. Nat. +Générale tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion upon this +subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s fluctuating +conclusions upon the same subject.”—_Origin of Species_, 3d ed., 1861, p. +xiv. + +{33a} Life of Erasmus Darwin, pp. 84, 85. + +{33b} See Life and Habit, p. 264 and pp. 276, 277. + +{33c} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 159–165. + +{33d} Ibid., p. 122. + +{34} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 247, 248. + +{35a} Vestiges of Creation, ed. 1860, “Proofs, Illustrations, &c.,” p. +lxiv. + +{35b} The first announcement was in the _Examiner_, February 22, 1879. + +{36} _Saturday Review_, May 31, 1879. + +{37a} May 26, 1879. + +{37b} May 31, 1879. + +{37c} July 26, 1879. + +{37d} July 1879. + +{37e} July 1879. + +{37f} July 29, 1879. + +{37g} January 1880. + +{39} How far _Kosmos_ was “a well-known” journal, I cannot determine. +It had just entered upon its second year. + +{41} Evolution, Old and New, p. 120, line 5. + +{43} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 397. + +{44a} _Kosmos_, February 1879, p. 404. + +{44b} Page 39 of this volume. + +{50} See Appendix A. + +{52} Since published as “God the Known and God the Unknown.” Fifield, +1s. 6d. net. 1909. + +{54a} “Contemplation of Nature,” Engl. trans., Lond. 1776. Preface, p. +xxxvi. + +{54b} _Ibid._, p. xxxviii. + +{55} Life and Habit, p. 97. + +{56} “The Unity of the Organic Individual,” by Edward Montgomery, +_Mind_, October 1880, p. 466. + +{58} Life and Habit, p. 237. + +{59a} Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Lardner’s Cab. +Cyclo., vol. xcix. p. 24. + +{59b} Young’s Lectures on Natural Philosophy, ii. 627. See also Phil. +Trans., 1801–2. + +{63} The lecture is published by Karl Gerold’s Sohn, Vienna. + +{69} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. + +{70} Professor Hering is not clear here. Vibrations (if I understand +his theory rightly) should not be set up by faint _stimuli_ from within. +Whence and what are these _stimuli_? The vibrations within are already +existing, and it is they which are the _stimuli_ to action. On having +been once set up, they either continue in sufficient force to maintain +action, or they die down, and become too weak to cause further action, +and perhaps even to be perceived within the mind, until they receive an +accession of vibration from without. The only “stimulus from within” +that should be able to generate action is that which may follow when a +vibration already established in the body runs into another similar +vibration already so established. On this consciousness, and even +action, might be supposed to follow without the presence of an external +stimulus. + +{71} This expression seems hardly applicable to the overtaking of an +internal by an external vibration, but it is not inconsistent with it. +Here, however, as frequently elsewhere, I doubt how far Professor Hering +has fully realised his conception, beyond being, like myself, convinced +that the phenomena of memory and of heredity have a common source. + +{72} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. By “preserving +the memory of habitual actions” Professor Hering probably means, retains +for a long while and repeats motion of a certain character when such +motion has been once communicated to it. + +{74a} It should not be “if the central nerve system were not able to +reproduce whole series of vibrations,” but “if whole series of vibrations +do not persist though unperceived,” if Professor Hering intends what I +suppose him to intend. + +{74b} Memory was in full operation for so long a time before anything +like what we call a nervous system can be detected, that Professor Hering +must not be supposed to be intending to confine memory to a motor nerve +system. His words do not even imply that he does, but it is as well to +be on one’s guard. + +{77} It is from such passages as this, and those that follow on the next +few pages, that I collect the impression of Professor Hering’s meaning +which I have endeavoured to convey in the preceding chapter. + +{78} That is to say, “an infinitely small change in the kind of +vibration communicated from the parent to the germ.” + +{79} It may be asked what is meant by responding. I may repeat that I +understand Professor Hering to mean that there exists in the offspring +certain vibrations, which are many of them too faint to upset equilibrium +and thus generate action, until they receive an accession of force from +without by the running into them of vibrations of similar characteristics +to their own, which last vibrations have been set up by exterior objects. +On this they become strong enough to generate that corporeal earthquake +which we call action. + +This may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible; whereas much +that is written about “fraying channels” raises no definite ideas in the +mind. + +{80a} I interpret this, “We cannot wonder if often-repeated vibrations +gather strength, and become at once more lasting and requiring less +accession of vibration from without, in order to become strong enough to +generate action.” + +{80b} “Characteristics” must, I imagine, according to Professor Hering, +resolve themselves ultimately into “vibrations,” for the characteristics +depend upon the character of the vibrations. + +{81} Professor Hartog tells me that this probably refers to Fritz +Müller’s formulation of the “recapitulation process” in “Facts for +Darwin,” English edition (1869), p. 114.—R.A.S. + +{82} This is the passage which makes me suppose Professor Hering to mean +that vibrations from exterior objects run into vibrations already +existing within the living body, and that the accession to power thus +derived is his key to an explanation of the physical basis of action. + +{84} I interpret this: “There are fewer vibrations persistent within the +bodies of the lower animals; those that there are, therefore, are +stronger and more capable of generating action or upsetting the _status +in quo_. Hence also they require less accession of vibration from +without. Man is agitated by more and more varied vibrations; these, +interfering, as to some extent they must, with one another, are weaker, +and therefore require more accession from without before they can set the +mechanical adjustments of the body in motion.” + +{89} I am obliged to Mr. Sully for this excellent translation of +“Hellsehen.” + +{90a} _Westminster Review_, New Series, vol. xlix. p. 143. + +{90b} Ibid., p. 145. + +{90c} Ibid., p. 151. + +{92a} “Instinct ist zweckmässiges Handeln ohne Bewusstsein des +Zwecks.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., Berlin, 1871, p. 70. + +{92b} “1. Eine blosse Folge der körperlichen Organisation. + +“2. Ein von der Natur eingerichteter Gehirn-oder Geistesmechanismus. + +“3. Eine Folge unbewusster Geistesthiitigkeit.”—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 70. + +{97} “Hiermit ist der Annahme das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die +unbewusste Vorstellung des Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vorwiegt; denn +wollte man nun noch die Vorstellung des Geistesmechanismus festhalten so +müsste für jede Variation und Modification des Instincts, nach den +äusseren Umständen, eine besondere constante Vorrichtung . . . eingefügt +sein.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_ 3d ed., p. 74. + +{99} “Indessen glaube ich, dass die angeführten Beispiele zur Genüge +beweisen, dass es auch viele Fälle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication mit +der bewussten Ueberlegung die gewöhnliche und aussergewöhnliche Handlung +aus derselben Quelle stammen, dass sie entweder beide wirklicher +Instinct, oder beide Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung sind.”—_Philosophy +of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 76. + +{100} “Dagegen haben wir nunmehr unseren Blick noch einmal schärfer auf +den Begriff eines psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da zeigt sich, +dass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erklärt, so dunke list, dass +man sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, +3d ed., p. 76. + +{101} “Das Endglied tritt als bewusster Wille zu irgend einer Handlung +auf; beide sind aber ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der gewöhnlichen +Motivation nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin besteht, dass die +Vorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das Begehren erzeugr, erstere zu +erlangen, letztere sich fern zu halten.”—_Ibid._, p. 76. + +{102a} “Diese causale Verbindung fällt erfahrungsmässig, wie wir von +unsern menschlichen Instincten wissen, nicht in’s Bewussisein; folglich +kann dieselbe, wenn sie ein Mechanismus sein soll, nur entweder ein nicht +in’s Bewusstsein fallende mechanische Leitung und Umwandlung der +Schwingungen des vorgestellten Motivs in die Schwingungen der gewollten +Handlung im Gehirn, oder ein unbewusster geistiger Mechanismus +sein.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_ 3d ed., p. 77. + +{102b} “Man hat sich also zwischen dem bewussten Motiv, und dem Willen +zur Insticthandlung eine causale Verbindung durch unbewusstes Vorstellen +und Wollen zu denken, und ich weiss nicht, wie diese Verbindung einfacher +gedacht werden könnte, als durch den vorgestellten und gewollten Zweck. +Damit sind wir aber bei dem allen Geistern eigenthümlichen und immanenten +Mechanismus der Logik angelangt, und haben die unbewusster +Zweckvorstellung bei jeder einzelnen Instincthandlung als unentbehrliches +Glied gefunden; hiermit hat also der Begrift des todten, äusserlich +prädestinirten Geistesmechanismus sich selbst aufgehoben und in das +immanente Geistesleben der Logik umgewandelt, und wir sind bei der +letzten Möglichkeit angekommen, welche für die Auffassung eines +wirklichen Instincts übrig bleibt: der Instinct ist bewusstes Wollen des +Mittels zu einem unbewusst gewollten Zweck.”—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 78. + +{105a} “Also der Instinct ohne Hülfsmechanismus die Ursache der +Entstehung des Hülfsmechanismus ist.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d +ed., p. 79. + +{105b} “Dass auch der fertige Hülfsmechanismus das Unbewusste nicht etwa +zu dieser bestimmten Instincthandlung necessirt, sondern blosse +prädisponirt.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 79. + +{105c} “Giebt es einen wirklichen Instinct, oder sind die sogenannten +Instincthandlungen nur Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung?”—_Philosophy of +the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 79. + +{111} “Dieser Beweis ist dadurch zu führen; erstens dass die +betreffenden Thatsachen in; der Zukunft liegen, und dem Verstande die +Anhaltepunkte fehlen, um ihr zukünftiges Eintreten aus den gegenwärtigen +Verhältnissen zu erschliessen; zweitens, dass die betreffenden Thatsachen +augenscheinlich der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung verschlossen liegen, weil nur +die Erfahrung früherer Fälle über sie belehren kann, und diese laut der +Beobachtung ausgeschlossen ist. Es würde für unsere Interessen keinen +Unterschied machen, wenn, was ich wahrscheinlich halte, bei +fortschreitender physiologischer Erkenntniss alle jetzt für den ersten +Fall anzuführenden Beispiele sich als solche des zweiten Falls ausweisen +sollten, wie dies unleugbar bei vielen früher gebrauchten Beispielen +schon geschehen ist; denn ein apriorisches Wissen ohne jeden sinnlichen +Anstoss ist wohl kaum wunderbarer zu nennen, als ein Wissen, welches zwar +_bei Gelegenheit_ gewisser sinnlicher Wahrnehmung zu Tage tritt, aber mit +diesen nur durch eine solche Kette von Schlüssen und angewandten +Kenntnissen in Verbindung stehend gedacht werden könnte, dass deren +Möglichkeit bei dem Zustande der Fähigkeiten und Bildung der betreffenden +Thiere entschieden geleugnet werden muss.”—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 85. + +{113} “Man hat dieselbe jederzeit anerkannt und mit den Worten Vorgefühl +oder Ahnung bezeichnet; indess beziehen sich diese Wörte einerseits nur +auf zukünftiges, nicht auf gegenwärtiges, räumlich getrenntes +Unwahmehrnbares, anderseits bezeichnen sie nur die leise, dumpfe, +unbestimmte Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem unfehlbar bestimmten +Zustande der unbewussten Erkenntniss. Daher das Wort Vorgefühl in +Rücksicht auf die Dumpfheit und Unbestimmtheit, während doch leicht zu +sehen ist, dass das von allen, auch den unbewussten Vorstellungen +entblösste Gefühl für das Resultat gar keinen Einfluss haben kann, +sondern nur eine Vorstellung, weil diese allein Erkenntniss enthält. Die +in Bewusstsein mitklingende Ahnung kann allerdings unter Umständen +ziemlich deutlich sein, so dass sie sich beim Menschen in Gedanken und +Wort fixiren lässt; doch ist dies auch im Menschen erfahrungsmässig bei +den eigenthümlichen Instincten nicht der Fall, vielmehr ist bei diesen +die Resonanz der unbewussten Erkenntniss im Bewusstsein meistens so +schwach, dass sie sich wirklich nur in begleitenden Gefühlen oder der +Stimmung äussert, dass sie einen unendlich kleinen Bruchtheil des +Gemeingefühls bildet.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 86. + +{115a} “In der Bestimmung des Willens durch einen im Unbewussten +liegenden Process . . . für welchen sich dieser Character der +zweifellosen Selbstgewissheit in allen folgenden Untersuchungen bewähren +wird.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p. 87. + +{115b} “Sondern als unmittelbarer Besitz vorgefunden wird.”—_Philosophy +of the Unconscious_, p. 87. + +{115c} “Hellsehen.” + +{119a} “Das Hellsehon des Unbewussten hat sie den rechten Weg ahnen +lassen.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p. 90, 3d ed., 1871. + +{119b} “Man wird doch wahrlich nicht den Thieren zumuthen wollen, durch +meteorologische Schlüsse das Wetter auf Monate im Voraus zu berechnen, ja +sogar Ueberschwemmungen vorauszusehen. Vielmehr ist eine solche +Gefühlswahrnehmung gegenwärtiger atmosphärischer Einflüsse nichts weiter +als die sinnliche Wahrnehmung, welche als Motiv wirkt, und ein Motiv muss +ja doch immer vorhanden sein, wenn ein Instinct functioniren soll. Es +bleibt also trotzdem bestehen dass das Voraussehen der Witterung ein +unbewusstes Hellsehen ist, von dem der Storch, der vier Wochen früher +nach Süden aufbricht, so wenig etwas weiss, als der Hirsch, der sich vor +einem kalten Winter einen dickeren Pelz als gewöhnlich wachsen lässt. +Die Thiere haben eben einerseits das gegenwärtige Witterungsgefühl im +Bewusstsein, daraus folgt andererseits ihr Handeln gerade so, als ob sie +die Vorstellung der zukünftigen Witterung hätten; im Bewusstsein haben +sie dieselbe aber nicht, also bietet sich als einzig natürliches +Mittelglied die unbewusste Vorstellung, die nun aber immer ein Hellsehen +ist, weil sie etwas enthält, was dem Thier weder dutch sinnliche +Wahrnehmung direct gegeben ist, noch durch seine Verstandesmittel aus der +Wahrnehmung geschlossen werden kann.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, p. +91, 3d ed., 1871. + +{124} “Meistentheils tritt aber hier der höheren Bewusstseinstufe der +Menschen entsprechend eine stärkete Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem +bewussten Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr odor minder deutliche +Ahnung darstellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der grösseren +Selbstständigkeit des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese Ahnung nicht +ausschliesslich Behufs der unmittelbaren Ausführung einer Handlung +eintritt, sondern bisweilen auch unabängig von der Bedingung einer +momentan zu leistenden That als blosse Vorstellung ohne bewussten Willen +sich zeigte, wenn nur die Bedingung erfüllt ist, dass der Gegenstand +dieses Ahnens den Willen des Ahnenden im Allgemeinen in hohem Grade +interessirt.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 94. + +{126} “Häufig sind die Ahnungen, in denen das Hellsehen des Unbewussten +sich dem Bewusstsein offenbart, dunkel, unverständlich und symbolisch, +weil sie im Gehirn sinnliche Form annehmen müssen, während die unbewusste +Vorstellung an der Form der Sinnlichkeit kein Theil haben +kann.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 96. + +{128} “Ebenso weil es diese Reihe nur in gesteigerter +Bewusstseinresonanz fortsetzt, stützt es jene Aussagen der +Instincthandlungen üher ihr eigenes Wesen ebenso sehr,” &c.—_Philosophy +of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 97. + +{129} “Wir werden trotzdem diese gomeinsame Wirkung eines +Masseninstincts in der Entstehung der Sprache und den grossen politischen +und socialen Bewegungen in der Woltgeschichte deutlich wieder erkennen; +hier handelt es sich um möglichst einfache und deutliche Beispiele, und +darum greifen wir zu niederen Thieren, wo die Mittel der +Gedankenmittheilung bei fehlender Stimme, Mimik und Physiognomie so +unvollkommen sind, dass die Uebereinstimmung und das Ineinandergreifen +der einzelnen Leistungen in den Hauptsachen unmöglich der bewussten +Verständigung durch Sprache zugeschrieben werden darf.”—_Philosophy of +the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 98. + +{131a} “Und wie durch Instinct dot Plan des ganzen Stocks in unbewusstem +Hellsehen jeder einzelnen Biene einwohnt.”—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 99. + +{131b} “Indem jedes Individuum den Plan des Ganzen und Sämmtliche +gegenwartig zu ergreifende Mittel im unbewussten Hellsehen hat, wovon +aber nut das Eine, was ihm zu thun obliegt, in sein Bewusstsein +fällt.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 99. + +{132} “Der Instinct ist nicht Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicht +Folge der körperlichen Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines in der +Organisation des Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung eines dem +Geiste von aussen angeklebten todten, seinem innersten Wesen fremden +Mechanismus, sondern selbsteigene Leistung des Individuum aus seinem +innersten Wesen und Character entspringend.”—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 100. + +{133} “Häufig ist die Kenntniss des Zwecks der bewussten Erkenntniss +durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung gar nicht zugänglich; dann documentirt sich +die Eigenthümlichkeit des Unbewussten im Hellsehen, von welchem das +Bewusstsein theils nar eine verschwindend dumpfe, theils auch namentlich +beim Menschen mehr oder minder deutliche Resonanz als Ahnung +verspütt.”—_Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 100. + +{135} “Und eine so dämonische Gewalt sollte durch etwas ausgeübt werden +könnon, was als ein dem inneren Wesen fremder Mechanismus dem Geiste +aufgepfropft ist, oder gar durch eine bewusste Ueberlegung, welche doch +stets nur im kahlen Egoismus stecken bleibt,” &c.—_Philosophy of the +Unconscious_, 3d ed., p. 101. + +{139a} Page 100 of this vol. + +{139b} Pp. 106, 107 of this vol. + +{140} Page 100 of this vol. + +{141} Page 99 of this vol. + +{144a} See page 115 of this volume. + +{144b} Page 104 of this vol. + +{146} The Spirit of Nature. J. A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39. + +{149} I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, and +shall put others like them, because they are characteristic; but nothing +can become so well known as to escape being an inference. + +{153} Erewhon, chap. xxiii. + +{160} It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the mouth +of an objector. + +{177a} “The Unity of the Organic Individual,” by Edward Montgomery. +_Mind_, October 1880, p. 477. + +{177b} Ibid., p. 483. + +{179a} Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. Evolution, p. +750. + +{179b} “Hume,” by Professor Huxley, p. 45. + +{180} “The Philosophy of Crayfishes,” by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop +of Carlisle. _Nineteenth Century_ for October 1880, p. 636. + +{181a} Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360. Paris, 1800. + +{181b} Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. p. 231. Ed. M. Martin. Paris, +1873. + +{182a} Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams & +Norgate, 1858, p. 61. + +{182b} Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed., 1871, +p. 41. + +{182c} Origin of Species, p. 1, ed. 1872. + +{183a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 206. I ought in fairness to Mr. +Darwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as serious as +he once did. It is now “a serious error” only; in 1859 it was “the most +serious error.”—Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 209. + +{183b} Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 242; 6th ed., p. 233. + +{184a} I never could find what these particular points were. + +{184b} Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859. + +{184c} M. Martin’s edition of the “Philosophie Zoologique” (Paris, +1873), Introduction, p. vi. + +{184d} Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., p. 750. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY*** + + +******* This file should be named 6605-0.txt or 6605-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/6/0/6605 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Unconscious Memory + + +Author: Samuel Butler + + + +Release Date: November 4, 2014 [eBook #6605] +[This file was first posted on December 30, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>Unconscious Memory</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">By</span><br +/> +Samuel Butler</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">Author of +“Life and Habit,” “Erewhon,” “The +Way of All Flesh,” etc.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">New Edition, entirely reset, with +an Introduction<br /> +by Marcus Hartog, <span class="GutSmall">M.A.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">D.SC.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">F.L.S.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">F.R.H.S.</span>, Pro-<br /> +fessor of Zoology in University College, Cork.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Op</span>. +5</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">London<br /> +A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C.<br /> +1910</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<blockquote><p>“As this paper contains nothing which +deserves the name either of experiment or discovery, and as it +is, in fact, destitute of every species of merit, we should have +allowed it to pass among the multitude of those articles which +must always find their way into the collections of a society +which is pledged to publish two or three volumes every year. . . +. We wish to raise our feeble voice against innovations, +that can have no other effect than to check the progress of +science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination +which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her +temple.”—<i>Opening Paragraph of a Review of Dr. +Young’s Bakerian Lecture</i>. <i>Edinburgh +Review</i>, <i>January</i> 1803, p. 450.</p> +<p>“Young’s work was laid before the Royal society, +and was made the 1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before +his time. The second number of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> +contained an article levelled against him by Henry (afterwards +Lord) Brougham, and this was so severe an attack that +Young’s ideas were absolutely quenched for fifteen +years. Brougham was then only twenty-four years of +age. Young’s theory was reproduced in France by +Fresnel. In our days it is the accepted theory, and is +found to explain all the phenomena of +light.”—<i>Times Report of a Lecture by Professor +Tyndall on Light</i>, <i>April</i> 27, 1880.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">This Book</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Is inscribed to</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Richard +Garnett</span>, <span class="smcap">Esq</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">(Of the British Museum)</p> +<p style="text-align: center">In grateful acknowledgment of the +unwearying kindness<br /> +with which he has so often placed at my disposal<br /> +his varied store of information.</p> +<h2>Contents</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Note</span>. By R. A. +Streatfeild</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pageviii">viii</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Introduction</span>. By +Professor Marcus Hartog</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pageix">ix</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Author’s Preface</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pagexxxvii">xxxvii</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> I. +Introduction—General ignorance on the subject of evolution +at the time the “Origin of Species” was published in +1859</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> II. How I came to +write “Life and Habit,” and the circumstances of its +completion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> III. How I came +to write “Evolution, Old and New”—Mr +Darwin’s “brief but imperfect” sketch of the +opinions of the writers on evolution who had preceded +him—The reception which “Evolution, Old and +New,” met with</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page26">26</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IV. The manner in +which Mr. Darwin met “Evolution, Old and New”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> V. Introduction +to Professor Hering’s lecture</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page52">52</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VI. Professor +Ewald Hering “On Memory”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VII. Introduction +to a translation of the chapter upon instinct in Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> VIII. Translation +of the chapter on “The Unconscious in Instinct,” from +Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the +Unconscious”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page92">92</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> IX. Remarks upon +Von Hartmann’s position in regard to instinct</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page137">137</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> X. Recapitulation +and statement of an objection</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page146">146</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XI. On Cycles</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XII. +Refutation—Memory at once a promoter and a disturber of +uniformity of action and structure</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page161">161</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter</span> XIII. +Conclusion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>Note</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> many years a link in the chain +of Samuel Butler’s biological works has been missing. +“Unconscious Memory” was originally published thirty +years ago, but for fully half that period it has been out of +print, owing to the destruction of a large number of the unbound +sheets in a fire at the premises of the printers some years +ago. The present reprint comes, I think, at a peculiarly +fortunate moment, since the attention of the general public has +of late been drawn to Butler’s biological theories in a +marked manner by several distinguished men of science, notably by +Dr. Francis Darwin, who, in his presidential address to the +British Association in 1908, quoted from the translation of +Hering’s address on “Memory as a Universal Function +of Original Matter,” which Butler incorporated into +“Unconscious Memory,” and spoke in the highest terms +of Butler himself. It is not necessary for me to do more +than refer to the changed attitude of scientific authorities with +regard to Butler and his theories, since Professor Marcus Hartog +has most kindly consented to contribute an introduction to the +present edition of “Unconscious Memory,” summarising +Butler’s views upon biology, and defining his position in +the world of science. A word must be said as to the +controversy between Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is +concerned. I have been told that in reissuing the book at +all I am committing a grievous error of taste, that the world is +no longer interested in these “old, unhappy far-off things +and battles long ago,” and that Butler himself, by +refraining from republishing “Unconscious Memory,” +tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy to be consigned +to oblivion. This last suggestion, at any rate, has no +foundation in fact. Butler desired nothing less than that +his vindication of himself against what he considered unfair +treatment should be forgotten. He would have republished +“Unconscious Memory” himself, had not the latter +years of his life been devoted to all-engrossing work in other +fields. In issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a +wish that he expressed to me shortly before his death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. A. <span +class="smcap">Streatfeild</span>.</p> +<p><i>April</i>, 1910.</p> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>Introduction<br /> +By Marcus Hartog, <span class="GutSmall">M.A.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">D.Sc.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">F.L.S.</span>, <span +class="GutSmall">F.R.H.S.</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> reviewing Samuel Butler’s +works, “Unconscious Memory” gives us an invaluable +lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came to +write the Book of the Machines in “Erewhon” (1872), +with its foreshadowing of the later theory, “Life and +Habit,” (1878), “Evolution, Old and New” +(1879), as well as “Unconscious Memory” (1880) +itself. His fourth book on biological theory was +“Luck? or Cunning?” (1887). <a +name="citation0a"></a><a href="#footnote0a" +class="citation">[0a]</a></p> +<p>Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise +several essays: “Remarks on Romanes’ <i>Mental +Evolution in Animals</i>, contained in “Selections from +Previous Works” (1884) incorporated into “Luck? or +Cunning,” “The Deadlock in Darwinism” +(<i>Universal Review</i>, April-June, 1890), republished in the +posthumous volume of “Essays on Life, Art, and +Science” (1904), and, finally, some of the “Extracts +from the Notebooks of the late Samuel Butler,” edited by +Mr. H. Festing Jones, now in course of publication in the <i>New +Quarterly Review</i>.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Of all these, “LIFE AND HABIT” (1878) is the most +important, the main building to which the other writings are +buttresses or, at most, annexes. Its teaching has been +summarised in “Unconscious Memory” in four main +principles: “(1) the oneness of personality between parent +and offspring; (2) memory on the part of the offspring of certain +actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; (3) +the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence +of the associated ideas; (4) the unconsciousness with which +habitual actions come to be performed.” To these we +must add a fifth: the purposiveness of the actions of living +beings, as of the machines which they make or select.</p> +<p>Butler tells (“Life and Habit,” p. 33) that he +sometimes hoped “that this book would be regarded as a +valuable adjunct to Darwinism.” He was bitterly +disappointed in the event, for the book, as a whole, was received +by professional biologists as a gigantic joke—a joke, +moreover, not in the best possible taste. True, its central +ideas, largely those of Lamarck, had been presented by Hering in +1870 (as Butler found shortly after his publication); they had +been favourably received, developed by Haeckel, expounded and +praised by Ray Lankester. Coming from Butler, they met with +contumely, even from such men as Romanes, who, as Butler had no +difficulty in proving, were unconsciously inspired by the same +ideas—“<i>Nur mit ein bischen ander’n +Wörter</i>.”</p> +<p>It is easy, looking back, to see why “Life and +Habit” so missed its mark. Charles Darwin’s +presentation of the evolution theory had, for the first time, +rendered it possible for a “sound naturalist” to +accept the doctrine of common descent with divergence; and so +given a real meaning to the term “natural +relationship,” which had forced itself upon the older +naturalists, despite their belief in special and independent +creations. The immediate aim of the naturalists of the day +was now to fill up the gaps in their knowledge, so as to +strengthen the fabric of a unified biology. For this +purpose they found their actual scientific equipment so +inadequate that they were fully occupied in inventing fresh +technique, and working therewith at facts—save a few +critics, such as St. George Mivart, who was regarded as +negligible, since he evidently held a brief for a party standing +outside the scientific world.</p> +<p>Butler introduced himself as what we now call “The Man +in the Street,” far too bare of scientific clothing to +satisfy the Mrs. Grundy of the domain: lacking all recognised +tools of science and all sense of the difficulties in his way, he +proceeded to tackle the problems of science with little save the +deft pen of the literary expert in his hand. His very +failure to appreciate the difficulties gave greater power to his +work—much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended the Jungfrau and +faced successfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so long as he +believed them to be the mere “blagues de +réclame” of the wily Swiss host. His brilliant +qualities of style and irony themselves told heavily against +him. Was he not already known for having written the most +trenchant satire that had appeared since “Gulliver’s +Travels”? Had he not sneered therein at the very +foundations of society, and followed up its success by a +pseudo-biography that had taken in the “Record” and +the “Rock”? In “Life and Habit,” at +the very start, he goes out of his way to heap scorn at the +respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Goethe, Arnold of +Rugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed the lowest +opinion of the Fellows of the Royal Society. To him the +professional man of science, with self-conscious knowledge for +his ideal and aim, was a medicine-man, priest, +augur—useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be carefully +watched by all who value freedom of thought and person, lest with +opportunity he develop into a persecutor of the worst type. +Not content with blackguarding the audience to whom his work +should most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work itself and +its author in his finest vein of irony. Having argued that +our best and highest knowledge is that of whose possession we are +most ignorant, he proceeds: “Above all, let no unwary +reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I +write at all I am among the damned.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>His writing of “EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW” (1879) was +due to his conviction that scant justice had been done by Charles +Darwin and Alfred Wallace and their admirers to the pioneering +work of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck. To repair this +he gives a brilliant exposition of what seemed to him the most +valuable portion of their teachings on evolution. His +analysis of Buffon’s true meaning, veiled by the reticences +due to the conditions under which he wrote, is as masterly as the +English in which he develops it. His sense of wounded +justice explains the vigorous polemic which here, as in all his +later writings, he carries to the extreme.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, he never realised Charles Darwin’s +utter lack of sympathetic understanding of the work of his French +precursors, let alone his own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet +this practical ignorance, which to Butler was so strange as to +transcend belief, was altogether genuine, and easy to realise +when we recall the position of Natural Science in the early +thirties in Darwin’s student days at Cambridge, and for a +decade or two later. Catastropharianism was the tenet of +the day: to the last it commended itself to his Professors of +Botany and Geology,—for whom Darwin held the fervent +allegiance of the Indian scholar, or <i>chela</i>, to his +<i>guru</i>. As Geikie has recently pointed out, it was +only later, when Lyell had shown that the breaks in the +succession of the rocks were only partial and local, without +involving the universal catastrophes that destroyed all life and +rendered fresh creations thereof necessary, that any general +acceptance of a descent theory could be expected. We may be +very sure that Darwin must have received many solemn warnings +against the dangerous speculations of the “French +Revolutionary School.” He himself was far too busy at +the time with the reception and assimilation of new facts to be +awake to the deeper interest of far-reaching theories.</p> +<p>It is the more unfortunate that Butler’s lack of +appreciation on these points should have led to the enormous +proportion of bitter personal controversy that we find in the +remainder of his biological writings. Possibly, as +suggested by George Bernard Shaw, his acquaintance and admirer, +he was also swayed by philosophical resentment at that banishment +of mind from the organic universe, which was generally thought to +have been achieved by Charles Darwin’s theory. Still, +we must remember that this mindless view is not implicit in +Charles Darwin’s presentment of his own theory, nor was it +accepted by him as it has been by so many of his professed +disciples.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>“UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY” (1880).—We have already +alluded to an anticipation of Butler’s main theses. +In 1870 Dr. Ewald Hering, one of the most eminent physiologists +of the day, Professor at Vienna, gave an Inaugural Address to the +Imperial Royal Academy of Sciences: “Das Gedächtniss +als allgemeine Funktion der organisirter Substanz” +(“Memory as a Universal Function of Organised +Matter”). When “Life and Habit” was well +advanced, Francis Darwin, at the time a frequent visitor, called +Butler’s attention to this essay, which he himself only +knew from an article in “Nature.” Herein +Professor E. Ray Lankester had referred to it with admiring +sympathy in connection with its further development by Haeckel in +a pamphlet entitled “Die Perigenese der +Plastidule.” We may note, however, that in his +collected Essays, “The Advancement of Science” +(1890), Sir Ray Lankester, while including this Essay, inserts on +the blank page <a name="citation0b"></a><a href="#footnote0b" +class="citation">[0b]</a>—we had almost written “the +white sheet”—at the back of it an apology for having +ever advocated the possibility of the transmission of acquired +characters.</p> +<p>“Unconscious Memory” was largely written to show +the relation of Butler’s views to Hering’s, and +contains an exquisitely written translation of the Address. +Hering does, indeed, anticipate Butler, and that in language far +more suitable to the persuasion of the scientific public. +It contains a subsidiary hypothesis that memory has for its +mechanism special vibrations of the protoplasm, and the acquired +capacity to respond to such vibrations once felt upon their +repetition. I do not think that the theory gains anything +by the introduction of this even as a mere formal hypothesis; and +there is no evidence for its being anything more. Butler, +however, gives it a warm, nay, enthusiastic, reception in Chapter +V (Introduction to Professor Hering’s lecture), and in his +notes to the translation of the Address, which bulks so large in +this book, but points out that he was “not committed to +this hypothesis, though inclined to accept it on a <i>prima +facie</i> view.” Later on, as we shall see, he +attached more importance to it.</p> +<p>The Hering Address is followed in “Unconscious +Memory” by translations of selected passages from Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” and +annotations to explain the difference from this personification +of “<i>The Unconscious</i>” as a mighty all-ruling, +all-creating personality, and his own scientific recognition of +the great part played by <i>unconscious processes</i> in the +region of mind and memory.</p> +<p>These are the essentials of the book as a contribution to +biological philosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid +statement of objections to his theory as they might be put by a +rigid necessitarian, and a refutation of that interpretation as +applied to human action.</p> +<p>But in the second chapter Butler states his recession from the +strong logical position he had hitherto developed in his writings +from “Erewhon” onwards; so far he had not only +distinguished the living from the non-living, but distinguished +among the latter <i>machines</i> or <i>tools</i> from <i>things +at large</i>. <a name="citation0c"></a><a href="#footnote0c" +class="citation">[0c]</a> Machines or tools are the +external organs of living beings, as organs are their internal +machines: they are fashioned, assembled, or selected by the +beings for a purposes so they have a <i>future purpose</i>, as +well as a <i>past history</i>. “Things at +large” have a past history, but no purpose (so long as some +being does not convert them into tools and give them a purpose): +Machines have a Why? as well as a How?: “things at +large” have a How? only.</p> +<p>In “Unconscious Memory” the allurements of unitary +or monistic views have gained the upper hand, and Butler writes +(p. 23):—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The only thing of which I am sure is, that +the distinction between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; +that it is more coherent with our other ideas, and therefore more +acceptable, to start with every molecule as a living thing, and +then deduce death as the breaking up of an association or +corporation, than to start with inanimate molecules and smuggle +life into them; and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic +world must be regarded as up to a certain point living, and +instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness, volition, +and power of concerted action. <i>It is only of late</i>, +<i>however</i>, <i>that I have come to this +opinion</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was +more or less conscious of its irreconcilability with much of his +most characteristic doctrine. Again, in the closing +chapter, Butler writes (p. 275):—</p> +<blockquote><p>“We should endeavour to see the so-called +inorganic as living in respect of the qualities it has in common +with the organic, rather than the organic as non-living in +respect of the qualities it has in common with the +inorganic.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We conclude our survey of this book by mentioning the literary +controversial part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but +cropping up elsewhere. It refers to interpolations made in +the authorised translation of Krause’s “Life of +Erasmus Darwin.” Only one side is presented; and we +are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss the merits of +the question.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>“LUCK, OR CUNNING, as the Main Means of Organic +Modification? an Attempt to throw Additional Light upon the late +Mr. Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection” +(1887), completes the series of biological books. This is +mainly a book of strenuous polemic. It brings out still +more forcibly the Hering-Butler doctrine of continued personality +from generation to generation, and of the working of unconscious +memory throughout; and points out that, while this is implicit in +much of the teaching of Herbert Spencer, Romanes, and others, it +was nowhere—even after the appearance of “Life and +Habit”—explicitly recognised by them, but, on the +contrary, masked by inconsistent statements and teaching. +Not Luck but Cunning, not the uninspired weeding out by Natural +Selection but the intelligent striving of the organism, is at the +bottom of the useful variety of organic life. And the +parallel is drawn that not the happy accident of time and place, +but the Machiavellian cunning of Charles Darwin, succeeded in +imposing, as entirely his own, on the civilised world an +uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution wherein luck played +the leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring views of +the older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their +luck. On this controversy I am bound to say that I do not +in the very least share Butler’s opinions; and I must +ascribe them to his lack of personal familiarity with the +biologists of the day and their modes of thought and of +work. Butler everywhere undervalues the important work of +elimination played by Natural Selection in its widest sense.</p> +<p>The “Conclusion” of “Luck, or +Cunning?” shows a strong advance in monistic views, and a +yet more marked development in the vibration hypothesis of memory +given by Hering and only adopted with the greatest reserve in +“Unconscious Memory.”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Our conception, then, concerning the nature +of any matter depends solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, +that is to say, on the characteristics of the vibrations that are +going on within it. The exterior object vibrating in a +certain way imparts some of its vibrations to our brain; but if +the state of the thing itself depends upon its vibrations, it +[the thing] must be considered as to all intents and purposes the +vibrations themselves—plus, of course, the underlying +substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations, +therefore, form the substance remembered, introduce an +infinitesimal dose of it within the brain, modify the substance +remembering, and, in the course of time, create and further +modify the mechanism of both the sensory and the motor +nerves. Thought and thing are one.</p> +<p>“I commend these two last speculations to the +reader’s charitable consideration, as feeling that I am +here travelling beyond the ground on which I can safely venture. +. . . I believe they are both substantially +true.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his +notebooks (see <i>New Quarterly Review</i>, 1910, p. 116), and as +in “Luck, or Cunning?” associated them vaguely with +the unitary conceptions introduced into chemistry by Newlands and +Mendelejeff. Judging himself as an outsider, the author of +“Life and Habit” would certainly have considered the +mild expression of faith, “I believe they are both +substantially true,” equivalent to one of extreme +doubt. Thus “the fact of the Archbishop’s +recognising this as among the number of his beliefs is conclusive +evidence, with those who have devoted attention to the laws of +thought, that his mind is not yet clear” on the matter of +the belief avowed (see “Life and Habit,” pp. 24, +25).</p> +<p>To sum up: Butler’s fundamental attitude to the +vibration hypothesis was all through that taken in +“Unconscious Memory”; he played with it as a pretty +pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; but instead of +backing it for all he was worth, like the main theses of +“Life and Habit,” he put a big stake on it—and +then hedged.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The last of Butler’s biological writings is the Essay, +“THE DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM,” containing much valuable +criticism on Wallace and Weismann. It is in allusion to the +misnomer of Wallace’s book, “Darwinism,” that +he introduces the term “Wallaceism” <a +name="citation0d"></a><a href="#footnote0d" +class="citation">[0d]</a> for a theory of descent that excludes +the transmission of acquired characters. This was, indeed, +the chief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent his hypothesis +of pangenesis, which, unacceptable as it has proved, had far more +to recommend it as a formal hypothesis than the equally formal +germ-plasm hypothesis of Weismann.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The chief difficulty in accepting the main theses of Butler +and Hering is one familiar to every biologist, and not at all +difficult to understand by the layman. Everyone knows that +the complicated beings that we term “Animals” and +“Plants,” consist of a number of more or less +individualised units, the cells, each analogous to a simpler +being, a Protist—save in so far as the character of the +cell unit of the Higher being is modified in accordance with the +part it plays in that complex being as a whole. Most +people, too, are familiar with the fact that the complex being +starts as a single cell, separated from its parent; or, where +bisexual reproduction occurs, from a cell due to the fusion of +two cells, each detached from its parent. Such cells are +called “Germ-cells.” The germ-cell, whether of +single or of dual origin, starts by dividing repeatedly, so as to +form the <i>primary embryonic cells</i>, a complex mass of cells, +at first essentially similar, which, however, as they go on +multiplying, undergo differentiations and migrations, losing +their simplicity as they do so. Those cells that are +modified to take part in the proper work of the whole are called +tissue-cells. In virtue of their activities, their growth +and reproductive power are limited—much more in Animals +than in Plants, in Higher than in Lower beings. It is these +tissues, or some of them, that receive the impressions from the +outside which leave the imprint of memory. Other cells, +which may be closely associated into a continuous organ, or more +or less surrounded by tissue-cells, whose part it is to nourish +them, are called “secondary embryonic cells,” or +“germ-cells.” The germ-cells may be +differentiated in the young organism at a very early stage, but +in Plants they are separated at a much later date from the less +isolated embryonic regions that provide for the Plant’s +branching; in all cases we find embryonic and germ-cells screened +from the life processes of the complex organism, or taking no +very obvious part in it, save to form new tissues or new organs, +notably in Plants.</p> +<p>Again, in ourselves, and to a greater or less extent in all +Animals, we find a system of special tissues set apart for the +reception and storage of impressions from the outer world, and +for guiding the other organs in their appropriate +responses—the “Nervous System”; and when this +system is ill-developed or out of gear the remaining organs work +badly from lack of proper skilled guidance and +co-ordination. How can we, then, speak of +“memory” in a germ-cell which has been screened from +the experiences of the organism, which is too simple in structure +to realise them if it were exposed to them? My own answer +is that we cannot form any theory on the subject, the only +question is whether we have any right to <i>infer</i> this +“memory” from the <i>behaviour</i> of living beings; +and Butler, like Hering, Haeckel, and some more modern authors, +has shown that the inference is a very strong presumption. +Again, it is easy to over-value such complex instruments as we +possess. The possessor of an up-to-date camera, well +instructed in the function and manipulation of every part, but +ignorant of all optics save a hand-to-mouth knowledge of the +properties of his own lens, might say that <i>a priori</i> no +picture could be taken with a cigar-box perforated by a pin-hole; +and our ignorance of the mechanism of the Psychology of any +organism is greater by many times than that of my supposed +photographer. We know that Plants are able to do many +things that can only be accounted for by ascribing to them a +“psyche,” and these co-ordinated enough to satisfy +their needs; and yet they possess no central organ comparable to +the brain, no highly specialised system for intercommunication +like our nerve trunks and fibres. As Oscar Hertwig says, we +are as ignorant of the mechanism of the development of the +individual as we are of that of hereditary transmission of +acquired characters, and the absence of such mechanism in either +case is no reason for rejecting the proven fact.</p> +<p>However, the relations of germ and body just described led +Jäger, Nussbaum, Galton, Lankester, and, above all, +Weismann, to the view that the germ-cells or “stirp” +(Galton) were <i>in</i> the body, but not <i>of</i> it. +Indeed, in the body and out of it, whether as reproductive cells +set free, or in the developing embryo, they are regarded as +forming one continuous homogeneity, in contrast to the +differentiation of the body; and it is to these cells, regarded +as a continuum, that the terms stirp, germ-plasm, are especially +applied. Yet on this view, so eagerly advocated by its +supporters, we have to substitute for the hypothesis of memory, +which they declare to have no real meaning here, the far more +fantastic hypotheses of Weismann: by these they explain the +process of differentiation in the young embryo into new germ and +body; and in the young body the differentiation of its cells, +each in due time and place, into the varied tissue cells and +organs. Such views might perhaps be acceptable if it could +be shown that over each cell-division there presided a wise +all-guiding genie of transcending intellect, to which +Clerk-Maxwell’s sorting demons were mere infants. Yet +these views have so enchanted many distinguished biologists, that +in dealing with the subject they have actually ignored the +existence of equally able workers who hesitate to share the +extremest of their views. The phenomenon is one well known +in hypnotic practice. So long as the non-Weismannians deal +with matters outside this discussion, their existence and their +work is rated at its just value; but any work of theirs on this +point so affects the orthodox Weismannite (whether he accept this +label or reject it does not matter), that for the time being +their existence and the good work they have done are alike +non-existent. <a name="citation0e"></a><a href="#footnote0e" +class="citation">[0e]</a></p> +<p>Butler founded no school, and wished to found none. He +desired that what was true in his work should prevail, and he +looked forward calmly to the time when the recognition of that +truth and of his share in advancing it should give him in the +lives of others that immortality for which alone he craved.</p> +<p>Lamarckian views have never lacked defenders here and in +America. Of the English, Herbert Spencer, who however, was +averse to the vitalistic attitude, Vines and Henslow among +botanists, Cunningham among zoologists, have always resisted +Weismannism; but, I think, none of these was distinctly +influenced by Hering and Butler. In America the majority of +the great school of palæontologists have been strong +Lamarckians, notably Cope, who has pointed out, moreover, that +the transformations of energy in living beings are peculiar to +them.</p> +<p>We have already adverted to Haeckel’s acceptance and +development of Hering’s ideas in his “Perigenese der +Plastidule.” Oscar Hertwig has been a consistent +Lamarckian, like Yves Delage of the Sorbonne, and these occupy +pre-eminent positions not only as observers, but as +discriminating theorists and historians of the recent progress of +biology. We may also cite as a Lamarckian—of a +sort—Felix Le Dantec, the leader of the chemico-physical +school of the present day.</p> +<p>But we must seek elsewhere for special attention to the points +which Butler regarded as the essentials of “Life and +Habit.” In 1893 Henry P. Orr, Professor of Biology in +the University of Louisiana, published a little book entitled +“A Theory of Heredity.” Herein he insists on +the nervous control of the whole body, and on the transmission to +the reproductive cells of such stimuli, received by the body, as +will guide them on their path until they shall have acquired +adequate experience of their own in the new body they have +formed. I have found the name of neither Butler nor Hering, +but the treatment is essentially on their lines, and is both +clear and interesting.</p> +<p>In 1896 I wrote an essay on “The Fundamental Principles +of Heredity,” primarily directed to the man in the +street. This, after being held over for more than a year by +one leading review, was “declined with regret,” and +again after some weeks met the same fate from another +editor. It appeared in the pages of “Natural +Science” for October, 1897, and in the “Biologisches +Centralblatt” for the same year. I reproduce its +closing paragraph:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“This theory [Hering-Butler’s] has, +indeed, a tentative character, and lacks symmetrical +completeness, but is the more welcome as not aiming at the +impossible. A whole series of phenomena in organic beings +are correlated under the term of <i>memory</i>, <i>conscious and +unconscious</i>, <i>patent and latent</i>. . . . Of the +order of unconscious memory, latent till the arrival of the +appropriate stimulus, is all the co-operative growth and work of +the organism, including its development from the reproductive +cells. Concerning the <i>modus operandi</i> we know +nothing: the phenomena may be due, as Hering suggests, to +molecular vibrations, which must be at least as distinct from +ordinary physical disturbances as Röntgen’s rays are +from ordinary light; or it may be correlated, as we ourselves are +inclined to think, with complex chemical changes in an intricate +but orderly succession. For the present, at least, the +problem of heredity can only be elucidated by the light of +mental, and not material processes.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity of +Hering’s invocation of molecular vibrations as the +mechanism of memory, and suggest as an alternative rhythmic +chemical changes. This view has recently been put forth in +detail by J. J. Cunningham in his essay on the “Hormone <a +name="citation0f"></a><a href="#footnote0f" +class="citation">[0f]</a> Theory of Heredity,” in the +<i>Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik</i> (1909), but I have +failed to note any direct effect of my essay on the trend of +biological thought.</p> +<p>Among post-Darwinian controversies the one that has latterly +assumed the greatest prominence is that of the relative +importance of small variations in the way of more or less +“fluctuations,” and of “discontinuous +variations,” or “mutations,” as De Vries has +called them. Darwin, in the first four editions of the +“Origin of Species,” attached more importance to the +latter than in subsequent editions; he was swayed in his +attitude, as is well known, by an article of the physicist, +Fleeming Jenkin, which appeared in the <i>North British +Review</i>. The mathematics of this article were +unimpeachable, but they were founded on the assumption that +exceptional variations would only occur in single individuals, +which is, indeed, often the case among those domesticated races +on which Darwin especially studied the phenomena of +variation. Darwin was no mathematician or physicist, and we +are told in his biography that he regarded every tool-shop rule +or optician’s thermometer as an instrument of precision: so +he appears to have regarded Fleeming Jenkin’s demonstration +as a mathematical deduction which he was bound to accept without +criticism.</p> +<p>Mr. William Bateson, late Professor of Biology in the +University of Cambridge, as early as 1894 laid great stress on +the importance of discontinuous variations, collecting and +collating the known facts in his “Materials for the Study +of Variations”; but this important work, now become rare +and valuable, at the time excited so little interest as to be +‘remaindered’ within a very few years after +publication.</p> +<p>In 1901 Hugo De Vries, Professor of Botany in the University +of Amsterdam, published “Die Mutationstheorie,” +wherein he showed that mutations or discontinuous variations in +various directions may appear simultaneously in many individuals, +and in various directions. In the gardener’s phrase, +the species may take to sporting in various directions at the +same time, and each sport may be represented by numerous +specimens.</p> +<p>De Vries shows the probability that species go on for long +periods showing only fluctuations, and then suddenly take to +sporting in the way described, short periods of mutation +alternating with long intervals of relative constancy. It +is to mutations that De Vries and his school, as well as Luther +Burbank, the great former of new fruit- and flower-plants, look +for those variations which form the material of Natural +Selection. In “God the Known and God the +Unknown,” which appeared in the <i>Examiner</i> (May, June, +and July), 1879, but though then revised was only published +posthumously in 1909, Butler anticipates this +distinction:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Under these circumstances organism must act +in one or other of these two ways: it must either change slowly +and continuously with the surroundings, paying cash for +everything, meeting the smallest change with a corresponding +modification, so far as is found convenient, or it must put off +change as long as possible, and then make larger and more +sweeping changes.</p> +<p>“Both these courses are the same in principle, the +difference being one of scale, and the one being a miniature of +the other, as a ripple is an Atlantic wave in little; both have +their advantages and disadvantages, so that most organisms will +take the one course for one set of things and the other for +another. They will deal promptly with things which they can +get at easily, and which lie more upon the surface; <i>those</i>, +<i>however</i>, <i>which are more troublesome to reach</i>, +<i>and lie deeper</i>, <i>will be handled upon more cataclysmic +principles</i>, <i>being allowed longer periods of repose +followed by short periods of greater activity</i> . . . it may be +questioned whether what is called a sport is not the organic +expression of discontent which has been long felt, but which has +not been attended to, nor been met step by step by as much small +remedial modification as was found practicable: so that when a +change does come it comes by way of revolution. Or, again +(only that it comes to much the same thing), it may be compared +to one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come to us +unbidden after we have been thinking for a long time what to do, +or how to arrange our ideas, and have yet been unable to come to +any conclusion” (pp. 14, 15). <a name="citation0g"></a><a +href="#footnote0g" class="citation">[0g]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>We come to another order of mind in Hans Driesch. At the +time he began his work biologists were largely busy in a region +indicated by Darwin, and roughly mapped out by Haeckel—that +of phylogeny. From the facts of development of the +individual, from the comparison of fossils in successive strata, +they set to work at the construction of pedigrees, and strove to +bring into line the principles of classification with the more or +less hypothetical “stemtrees.” Driesch +considered this futile, since we never could reconstruct from +such evidence anything certain in the history of the past. +He therefore asserted that a more complete knowledge of the +physics and chemistry of the organic world might give a +scientific explanation of the phenomena, and maintained that the +proper work of the biologist was to deepen our knowledge in these +respects. He embodied his views, seeking the explanation on +this track, filling up gaps and tracing projected roads along +lines of probable truth in his “Analytische Theorie der +organische Entwicklung.” But his own work convinced +him of the hopelessness of the task he had undertaken, and he has +become as strenuous a vitalist as Butler. The most complete +statement of his present views is to be found in “The +Philosophy of Life” (1908–9), being the Giffold +Lectures for 1907–8. Herein he postulates a quality +(“psychoid”) in all living beings, directing energy +and matter for the purpose of the organism, and to this he +applies the Aristotelian designation +“Entelechy.” The question of the transmission +of acquired characters is regarded as doubtful, and he does not +emphasise—if he accepts—the doctrine of continuous +personality. His early youthful impatience with descent +theories and hypotheses has, however, disappeared.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>In the next work the influence of Hering and Butler is +definitely present and recognised. In 1906 Signor Eugenio +Rignano, an engineer keenly interested in all branches of +science, and a little later the founder of the international +review, <i>Rivistà di Scienza</i> (now simply called +<i>Scientia</i>), published in French a volume entitled +“Sur la transmissibilité des Caractères +acquis—Hypothèse d’un +Centro-épigenèse.” Into the details of +the author’s work we will not enter fully. Suffice it +to know that he accepts the Hering-Butler theory, and makes a +distinct advance on Hering’s rather crude hypothesis of +persistent vibrations by suggesting that the remembering centres +store slightly different forms of energy, to give out energy of +the same kind as they have received, like electrical +accumulators. The last chapter, “Le +Phénomène mnémonique et le +Phénomène vital,” is frankly based on +Hering.</p> +<p>In “The Lesson of Evolution” (1907, posthumous, +and only published for private circulation) Frederick Wollaston +Hutton, F.R.S., late Professor of Biology and Geology, first at +Dunedin and after at Christchurch, New Zealand, puts forward a +strongly vitalistic view, and adopts Hering’s +teaching. After stating this he adds, “The same idea +of heredity being due to unconscious memory was advocated by Mr. +Samuel Butler in his “Life and Habit.”</p> +<p>Dr. James Mark Baldwin, Stuart Professor of Psychology in +Princeton University, U.S.A., called attention early in the +90’s to a reaction characteristic of all living beings, +which he terms the “Circular Reaction.” We take +his most recent account of this from his “Development and +Evolution” (1902):—<a name="citation0h"></a><a +href="#footnote0h" class="citation">[0h]</a></p> +<blockquote><p>“The general fact is that the organism +reacts by concentration upon the locality stimulated for the +<i>continuance</i> of the conditions, movements, stimulations, +<i>which are vitally beneficial</i>, and for the cessation of the +conditions, movements, stimulations <i>which are vitally +depressing</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This amounts to saying in the terminology of Jenning (see +below) that the living organism alters its “physiological +states” either for its direct benefit, or for its indirect +benefit in the reduction of harmful conditions.</p> +<p>Again:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“This form of concentration of energy on +stimulated localities, with the resulting renewal through +movement of conditions that are pleasure-giving and beneficial, +and the consequent repetition of the movements is called +‘circular reaction.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of course, the inhibition of such movements as would be +painful on repetition is merely the negative case of the circular +reaction. We must not put too much of our own ideas into +the author’s mind; he nowhere says explicitly that the +animal or plant shows its sense and does this because it likes +the one thing and wants it repeated, or dislikes the other and +stops its repetition, as Butler would have said. Baldwin is +very strong in insisting that no full explanation can be given of +living processes, any more than of history, on purely +chemico-physical grounds.</p> +<p>The same view is put differently and independently by H. S. +Jennings, <a name="citation0i"></a><a href="#footnote0i" +class="citation">[0i]</a> who started his investigations of +living Protista, the simplest of living beings, with the idea +that only accurate and ample observation was needed to enable us +to explain all their activities on a mechanical basis, and +devised ingenious models of protoplastic movements. He was +led, like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as illusory, and has +come to the conviction that in the behaviour of these lowly +beings there is a purposive and a tentative character—a +method of “trial and error”—that can only be +interpreted by the invocation of psychology. He points out +that after stimulation the “state” of the organism +may be altered, so that the response to the same stimulus on +repetition is other. Or, as he puts it, the first stimulus +has caused the organism to pass into a new “physiological +state.” As the change of state from what we may call +the “primary indifferent state” is advantageous to +the organism, we may regard this as equivalent to the doctrine of +the “circular reaction,” and also as containing the +essence of Semon’s doctrine of “engrams” or +imprints which we are about to consider. We cite one +passage which for audacity of thought (underlying, it is true, +most guarded expression) may well compare with many of the +boldest flights in “Life and Habit”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It may be noted that regulation in the +manner we have set forth is what, in the behaviour of higher +organisms, at least, is called intelligence [the examples have +been taken from Protista, Corals, and the Lowest Worms]. If +the same method of regulation is found in other fields, there is +no reason for refusing to compare the action to +intelligence. Comparison of the regulatory processes that +are shown in internal physiological changes and in regeneration +to intelligence seems to be looked upon sometimes as heretical +and unscientific. Yet intelligence is a name applied to +processes that actually exist in the regulation of movements, and +there is, <i>a priori</i>, no reason why similar processes should +not occur in regulation in other fields. When we analyse +regulation objectively there seems indeed reason to think that +the processes are of the same character in behaviour as +elsewhere. If the term intelligence be reserved for the +subjective accompaniments of such regulation, then of course we +have no direct knowledge of its existence in any of the fields of +regulation outside of the self, and in the self perhaps only in +behaviour. But in a purely objective consideration there +seems no reason to suppose that regulation in behaviour +(intelligence) is of a fundamentally different character from +regulation elsewhere.” (“Method of +Regulation,” p. 492.)</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Jennings makes no mention of questions of the theory of +heredity. He has made some experiments on the transmission +of an acquired character in Protozoa; but it was a +mutilation-character, which is, as has been often shown, <a +name="citation0j"></a><a href="#footnote0j" +class="citation">[0j]</a> not to the point.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>One of the most obvious criticisms of Hering’s +exposition is based upon the extended use he makes of the word +“Memory”: this he had foreseen and deprecated.</p> +<blockquote><p>“We have a perfect right,” he says, +“to extend our conception of memory so as to make it +embrace involuntary [and also unconscious] reproductions of +sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we find, on +having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries that +she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and, +at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious +life.” (“Unconscious Memory,” p. 68.)</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This sentence, coupled with Hering’s omission to give to +the concept of memory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the +limitations and of the stains of habitual use, may well have been +the inspiration of the next work on our list. Richard Semon +is a professional zoologist and anthropologist of such high +status for his original observations and researches in the mere +technical sense, that in these countries he would assuredly have +been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the Royal Society who +were Samuel Butler’s special aversion. The full title +of his book is “<span class="smcap">Die Mneme</span> als +erhaltende Prinzip im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens” +(Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We may translate +it “<span class="smcap">Mneme</span>, a Principle of +Conservation in the Transformations of Organic +Existence.”</p> +<p>From this I quote in free translation the opening passage of +Chapter II:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“We have shown that in very many cases, +whether in Protist, Plant, or Animal, when an organism has passed +into an indifferent state after the reaction to a stimulus has +ceased, its irritable substance has suffered a lasting change: I +call this after-action of the stimulus its ‘imprint’ +or ‘engraphic’ action, since it penetrates and +imprints itself in the organic substance; and I term the change +so effected an ‘imprint’ or ‘engram’ of +the stimulus; and the sum of all the imprints possessed by the +organism may be called its ‘store of imprints,’ +wherein we must distinguish between those which it has inherited +from its forbears and those which it has acquired itself. +Any phenomenon displayed by an organism as the result either of a +single imprint or of a sum of them, I term a ‘mnemic +phenomenon’; and the mnemic possibilities of an organism +may be termed, collectively, its ‘<span +class="smcap">Mneme</span>.’</p> +<p>“I have selected my own terms for the concepts that I +have just defined. On many grounds I refrain from making +any use of the good German terms ‘Gedächtniss, +Erinnerungsbild.’ The first and chiefest ground is +that for my purpose I should have to employ the German words in a +much wider sense than what they usually convey, and thus leave +the door open to countless misunderstandings and idle +controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error of +fact to give to the wider concept the name already current in the +narrower sense—nay, actually limited, like +‘Erinnerungsbild,’ to phenomena of consciousness. . . +. In Animals, during the course of history, one set of +organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for the reception and +transmission of stimuli—the Nervous System. But from +this specialisation we are not justified in ascribing to the +nervous system any monopoly of the function, even when it is as +highly developed as in Man. . . . Just as the direct +excitability of the nervous system has progressed in the history +of the race, so has its capacity for receiving imprints; but +neither susceptibility nor retentiveness is its monopoly; and, +indeed, retentiveness seems inseparable from susceptibility in +living matter.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Semen here takes the instance of stimulus and imprint actions +affecting the nervous system of a dog</p> +<blockquote><p>“who has up till now never experienced aught +but kindness from the Lord of Creation, and then one day that he +is out alone is pelted with stones by a boy. . . . Here he +is affected at once by two sets of stimuli: (1) the optic +stimulus of seeing the boy stoop for stones and throw them, and +(2) the skin stimulus of the pain felt when they hit him. +Here both stimuli leave their imprints; and the organism is +permanently changed in relation to the recurrence of the +stimuli. Hitherto the sight of a human figure quickly +stooping had produced no constant special reaction. Now the +reaction is constant, and may remain so till death. . . . +The dog tucks in its tail between its legs and takes flight, +often with a howl [as of] pain.”</p> +<p>“Here we gain on one side a deeper insight into the +imprint action of stimuli. It reposes on the lasting change +in the conditions of the living matter, so that the repetition of +the immediate or synchronous reaction to its first stimulus (in +this case the stooping of the boy, the flying stones, and the +pain on the ribs), no longer demands, as in the original state of +indifference, the full stimulus <i>a</i>, but may be called forth +by a partial or different stimulus, <i>b</i> (in this case the +mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences by +which such changed reaction are rendered possible, +‘outcome-reactions,’ and when such influences assume +the form of stimuli, ‘outcome-stimuli.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They are termed “outcome” (“ecphoria”) +stimuli, because the author regards them and would have us regard +them as the outcome, manifestation, or efference of an imprint of +a previous stimulus. We have noted that the imprint is +equivalent to the changed “physiological state” of +Jennings. Again, the capacity for gaining imprints and +revealing them by outcomes favourable to the individual is the +“circular reaction” of Baldwin, but Semon gives no +reference to either author. <a name="citation0k"></a><a +href="#footnote0k" class="citation">[0k]</a></p> +<p>In the preface to his first edition (reprinted in the second) +Semon writes, after discussing the work of Hering and +Haeckel:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The problem received a more detailed +treatment in Samuel Butler’s book, ‘Life and +Habit,’ published in 1878. Though he only made +acquaintance with Hering’s essay after this publication, +Butler gave what was in many respects a more detailed view of the +coincidences of these different phenomena of organic reproduction +than did Hering. With much that is untenable, +Butler’s writings present many a brilliant idea; yet, on +the whole, they are rather a retrogression than an advance upon +Hering. Evidently they failed to exercise any marked +influence upon the literature of the day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This judgment needs a little examination. Butler +claimed, justly, that his “Life and Habit” was an +advance on Hering in its dealing with questions of hybridity, and +of longevity puberty and sterility. Since Semon’s +extended treatment of the phenomena of crosses might almost be +regarded as the rewriting of the corresponding section of +“Life and Habit” in the “Mneme” +terminology, we may infer that this view of the question was one +of Butler’s “brilliant ideas.” That +Butler shrank from accepting such a formal explanation of memory +as Hering did with his hypothesis should certainly be counted as +a distinct “advance upon Hering,” for Semon also +avoids any attempt at an explanation of +“Mneme.” I think, however, we may gather the +real meaning of Semon’s strictures from the following +passages:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I refrain here from a discussion of the +development of this theory of Lamarck’s by those +Neo-Lamarckians who would ascribe to the individual elementary +organism an equipment of complex psychical powers—so to +say, anthropomorphic perception and volitions. This +treatment is no longer directed by the scientific principle of +referring complex phenomena to simpler laws, of deducing even +human intellect and will from simpler elements. On the +contrary, they follow that most abhorrent method of taking the +most complex and unresolved as a datum, and employing it as an +explanation. The adoption of such a method, as formerly by +Samuel Butler, and recently by Pauly, I regard as a big and +dangerous step backward” (ed. 2, pp. 380–1, +note).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus Butler’s alleged retrogressions belong to the same +order of thinking that we have seen shared by Driesch, Baldwin, +and Jennings, and most explicitly avowed, as we shall see, by +Francis Darwin. Semon makes one rather candid admission, +“The impossibility of interpreting the phenomena of +physiological stimulation by those of direct reaction, and the +undeception of those who had put faith in this being possible, +have led many on the <i>backward path of +vitalism</i>.” Semon assuredly will never be able to +complete his theory of “Mneme” until, guided by the +experience of Jennings and Driesch, he forsakes the blind alley +of mechanisticism and retraces his steps to reasonable +vitalism.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>But the most notable publications bearing on our matter are +incidental to the Darwin Celebrations of 1908–9. Dr. +Francis Darwin, son, collaborator, and biographer of Charles +Darwin, was selected to preside over the Meeting of the British +Association held in Dublin in 1908, the jubilee of the first +publications on Natural Selection by his father and Alfred Russel +Wallace. In this address we find the theory of Hering, +Butler, Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place as a <i>vera +causa</i> of that variation which Natural Selection must find +before it can act, and recognised as the basis of a rational +theory of the development of the individual and of the +race. The organism is essentially purposive: the +impossibility of devising any adequate accounts of organic form +and function without taking account of the psychical side is most +strenuously asserted. And with our regret that past +misunderstandings should be so prominent in Butler’s works, +it was very pleasant to hear Francis Darwin’s quotation +from Butler’s translation of Hering <a +name="citation0l"></a><a href="#footnote0l" +class="citation">[0l]</a> followed by a personal tribute to +Butler himself.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles +Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the +“Origin of Species,” at the suggestion of the +Cambridge Philosophical Society, the University Press published +during the current year a volume entitled “Darwin and +Modern Science,” edited by Mr. A. C. Seward, Professor of +Botany in the University. Of the twenty-nine essays by men +of science of the highest distinction, one is of peculiar +interest to the readers of Samuel Butler: “Heredity and +Variation in Modern Lights,” by Professor W. Bateson, <span +class="GutSmall">F.R.S.</span>, to whose work on +“Discontinuous Variations” we have already +referred. Here once more Butler receives from an official +biologist of the first rank full recognition for his wonderful +insight and keen critical power. This is the more +noteworthy because Bateson has apparently no faith in the +transmission of acquired characters; but such a passage as this +would have commended itself to Butler’s +admiration:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“All this indicates a definiteness and +specific order in heredity, and therefore in variation. +This order cannot by the nature of the case be dependent on +Natural Selection for its existence, but must be a consequence of +the fundamental chemical and physical nature of living +things. The study of Variation had from the first shown +that an orderliness of this kind was present. The bodies +and properties of living things are cosmic, not chaotic. No +matter how low in the scale we go, never do we find the slightest +hint of a diminution in that all-pervading orderliness, nor can +we conceive an organism existing for one moment in any other +state.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We have now before us the materials to determine the problem +of Butler’s relation to biology and to biologists. He +was, we have seen, anticipated by Hering; but his attitude was +his own, fresh and original. He did not hamper his +exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis of vibrations +which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory without +giving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is +based on no objective facts, and which, as Semon has practically +demonstrated, is needless for the detailed working out of the +theory. Butler failed to impress the biologists of his day, +even those on whom, like Romanes, he might have reasonably +counted for understanding and for support. But he kept +alive Hering’s work when it bade fair to sink into the +limbo of obsolete hypotheses. To use Oliver Wendell +Holmes’s phrase, he “depolarised” evolutionary +thought. We quote the words of a young biologist, who, when +an ardent and dogmatic Weismannist of the most pronounced type, +was induced to read “Life and Habit”: “The book +was to me a transformation and an inspiration.” Such +learned writings as Semon’s or Hering’s could never +produce such an effect: they do not penetrate to the heart of +man; they cannot carry conviction to the intellect already filled +full with rival theories, and with the unreasoned faith that +to-morrow or next day a new discovery will obliterate all +distinction between Man and his makings. The mind must +needs be open for the reception of truth, for the rejection of +prejudice; and the violence of a Samuel Butler may in the future +as in the past be needed to shatter the coat of mail forged by +too exclusively professional a training.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">MARCUS HARTOG</p> +<p><i>Cork</i>, <i>April</i>, 1910</p> +<h2><a name="pagexxxvii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xxxvii</span>Author’s Preface</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Not</span> finding the “well-known +German scientific journal <i>Kosmos</i>” <a +name="citation0m"></a><a href="#footnote0m" +class="citation">[0m]</a> entered in the British Museum +Catalogue, I have presented the Museum with a copy of the number +for February 1879, which contains the article by Dr. Krause of +which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a translation, the accuracy of +which is guaranteed—so he informs us—by the +translator’s “scientific reputation together with his +knowledge of German.” <a name="citation0n"></a><a +href="#footnote0n" class="citation">[0n]</a></p> +<p>I have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance +what passages has been suppressed and where matter has been +interpolated.</p> +<p>I have also present a copy of “Erasmus +Darwin.” I have marked this too, so that the genuine +and spurious passages can be easily distinguished.</p> +<p>I understand that both the “Erasmus Darwin” and +the number of <i>Kosmos</i> have been sent to the Keeper of +Printed Books, with instructions that they shall be at once +catalogued and made accessible to readers, and do not doubt that +this will have been done before the present volume is +published. The reader, therefore, who may be sufficiently +interested in the matter to care to see exactly what has been +done will now have an opportunity of doing so.</p> +<p><i>October</i> 25, 1880.</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>Chapter +I</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Introduction—General ignorance on the +subject of evolution at the time the “Origin of +Species” was published in 1859.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are few things which strike +us with more surprise, when we review the course taken by opinion +in the last century, than the suddenness with which belief in +witchcraft and demoniacal possession came to an end. This +has been often remarked upon, but I am not acquainted with any +record of the fact as it appeared to those under whose eyes the +change was taking place, nor have I seen any contemporary +explanation of the reasons which led to the apparently sudden +overthrow of a belief which had seemed hitherto to be deeply +rooted in the minds of almost all men. As a parallel to +this, though in respect of the rapid spread of an opinion, and +not its decadence, it is probable that those of our descendants +who take an interest in ourselves will note the suddenness with +which the theory of evolution, from having been generally +ridiculed during a period of over a hundred years, came into +popularity and almost universal acceptance among educated +people.</p> +<p>It is indisputable that this has been the case; nor is it less +indisputable that the works of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace have +been the main agents in the change that has been brought about in +our opinions. The names of Cobden and Bright do not stand +more prominently forward in connection with the repeal of the +Corn Laws than do those of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace in +connection with the general acceptance of the theory of +evolution. There is no living philosopher who has anything +like Mr. Darwin’s popularity with Englishmen generally; and +not only this, but his power of fascination extends all over +Europe, and indeed in every country in which civilisation has +obtained footing: not among the illiterate masses, though these +are rapidly following the suit of the educated classes, but among +experts and those who are most capable of judging. France, +indeed—the country of Buffon and Lamarck—must be +counted an exception to the general rule, but in England and +Germany there are few men of scientific reputation who do not +accept Mr. Darwin as the founder of what is commonly called +“Darwinism,” and regard him as perhaps the most +penetrative and profound philosopher of modern times.</p> +<p>To quote an example from the last few weeks only, <a +name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2" +class="citation">[2]</a> I have observed that Professor Huxley +has celebrated the twenty-first year since the “Origin of +Species” was published by a lecture at the Royal +Institution, and am told that he described Mr. Darwin’s +candour as something actually “terrible” (I give +Professor Huxley’s own word, as reported by one who heard +it); and on opening a small book entitled +“Degeneration,” by Professor Ray Lankester, published +a few days before these lines were written, I find the following +passage amid more that is to the same purport:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Suddenly one of those great guesses which +occasionally appear in the history of science was given to the +science of biology by the imaginative insight of that greatest of +living naturalists—I would say that greatest of living +men—Charles Darwin.”—<i>Degeneration</i>, p. +10.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than +that habitually employed by the leading men of science when they +speak of Mr. Darwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 +the Germans devoted an entire number of one of their scientific +periodicals <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3" +class="citation">[3]</a> to the celebration of Mr. Darwin’s +seventieth birthday. There is no other Englishman now +living who has been able to win such a compliment as this from +foreigners, who should be disinterested judges.</p> +<p>Under these circumstances, it must seem the height of +presumption to differ from so great an authority, and to join the +small band of malcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin’s +reputation as a philosopher, though it has grown up with the +rapidity of Jonah’s gourd, will yet not be permanent. +I believe, however, that though we must always gladly and +gratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that the public +mind has been brought to accept evolution, the admiration now +generally felt for the “Origin of Species” will +appear as unaccountable to our descendants some fifty or eighty +years hence as the enthusiasm of our grandfathers for the poetry +of Dr. Erasmus Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who has +yielded to none in respect of the fascination Mr. Darwin has +exercised over him, I would fain say a few words of explanation +which may make the matter clearer to our future historians. +I do this the more readily because I can at the same time explain +thus better than in any other way the steps which led me to the +theory which I afterwards advanced in “Life and +Habit.”</p> +<p>This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier +chapters of this book. I shall presently give a translation +of a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared +ten years ago, and which contains so exactly the theory I +subsequently advocated myself, that I am half uneasy lest it +should be supposed that I knew of Professor Hering’s work +and made no reference to it. A friend to whom I submitted +my translation in MS., asking him how closely he thought it +resembled “Life and Habit,” wrote back that it gave +my own ideas almost in my own words. As far as the ideas +are concerned this is certainly the case, and considering that +Professor Hering wrote between seven and eight years before I +did, I think it due to him, and to my readers as well as to +myself, to explain the steps which led me to my conclusions, and, +while putting Professor Hering’s lecture before them, to +show cause for thinking that I arrived at an almost identical +conclusion, as it would appear, by an almost identical road, yet, +nevertheless, quite independently, I must ask the reader, +therefore, to regard these earlier chapters as in some measure a +personal explanation, as well as a contribution to the history of +an important feature in the developments of the last twenty +years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I was led +to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more +acceptable and easy of comprehension.</p> +<p>Being on my way to New Zealand when the “Origin of +Species” appeared, I did not get it till 1860 or +1861. When I read it, I found “the theory of natural +selection” repeatedly spoken of as though it were a synonym +for “the theory of descent with modification”; this +is especially the case in the recapitulation chapter of the +work. I failed to see how important it was that these two +theories—if indeed “natural selection” can be +called a theory—should not be confounded together, and that +a “theory of descent with modification” might be +true, while a “theory of descent with modification through +natural selection” <a name="citation4"></a><a +href="#footnote4" class="citation">[4]</a> might not stand being +looked into.</p> +<p>If any one had asked me to state in brief what Mr. +Darwin’s theory was, I am afraid I might have answered +“natural selection,” or “descent with +modification,” whichever came first, as though the one +meant much the same as the other. I observe that most of +the leading writers on the subject are still unable to catch +sight of the distinction here alluded to, and console myself for +my want of acumen by reflecting that, if I was misled, I was +misled in good company.</p> +<p>I—and I may add, the public generally—failed also +to see what the unaided reader who was new to the subject would +be almost certain to overlook. I mean, that, according to +Mr. Darwin, the variations whose accumulation resulted in +diversity of species and genus were indefinite, fortuitous, +attributable but in small degree to any known causes, and without +a general principle underlying them which would cause them to +appear steadily in a given direction for many successive +generations and in a considerable number of individuals at the +same time. We did not know that the theory of evolution was +one that had been quietly but steadily gaining ground during the +last hundred years. Buffon we knew by name, but he sounded +too like “buffoon” for any good to come from +him. We had heard also of Lamarck, and held him to be a +kind of French Lord Monboddo; but we knew nothing of his doctrine +save through the caricatures promulgated by his opponents, or the +misrepresentations of those who had another kind of interest in +disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we believed to be a +forgotten minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every hundred of us +had never so much as heard of the “Zoonomia.” +We were little likely, therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very +largely from Buffon, and probably also from Dr. Erasmus Darwin, +and that this last-named writer, though essentially original, was +founded upon Buffon, who was greatly more in advance of any +predecessor than any successor has been in advance of him.</p> +<p>We did not know, then, that according to the earlier writers +the variations whose accumulation results in species were not +fortuitous and definite, but were due to a known principle of +universal application—namely, “sense of +need”—or apprehend the difference between a theory of +evolution which has a backbone, as it were, in the tolerably +constant or slowly varying needs of large numbers of individuals +for long periods together, and one which has no such backbone, +but according to which the progress of one generation is always +liable to be cancelled and obliterated by that of the next. +We did not know that the new theory in a quiet way professed to +tell us less than the old had done, and declared that it could +throw little if any light upon the matter which the earlier +writers had endeavoured to illuminate as the central point in +their system. We took it for granted that more light must +be being thrown instead of less; and reading in perfect good +faith, we rose from our perusal with the impression that Mr. +Darwin was advocating the descent of all existing forms of life +from a single, or from, at any rate, a very few primordial types; +that no one else had done this hitherto, or that, if they had, +they had got the whole subject into a mess, which mess, whatever +it was—for we were never told this—was now being +removed once for all by Mr. Darwin.</p> +<p>The evolution part of the story, that is to say, the fact of +evolution, remained in our minds as by far the most prominent +feature in Mr. Darwin’s book; and being grateful for it, we +were very ready to take Mr. Darwin’s work at the estimate +tacitly claimed for it by himself, and vehemently insisted upon +by reviewers in influential journals, who took much the same line +towards the earlier writers on evolution as Mr. Darwin himself +had taken. But perhaps nothing more prepossessed us in Mr. +Darwin’s favour than the air of candour that was +omnipresent throughout his work. The prominence given to +the arguments of opponents completely carried us away; it was +this which threw us off our guard. It never occurred to us +that there might be other and more dangerous opponents who were +not brought forward. Mr. Darwin did not tell us what his +grandfather and Lamarck would have had to say to this or +that. Moreover, there was an unobtrusive parade of hidden +learning and of difficulties at last overcome which was +particularly grateful to us. Whatever opinion might be +ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there +could be but one about the value of the example he had set to men +of science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness +of his work. Friends and foes alike combined to do homage +to Mr. Darwin in this respect.</p> +<p>For, brilliant as the reception of the “Origin of +Species” was, it met in the first instance with hardly less +hostile than friendly criticism. But the attacks were +ill-directed; they came from a suspected quarter, and those who +led them did not detect more than the general public had done +what were the really weak places in Mr. Darwin’s +armour. They attacked him where he was strongest; and above +all, they were, as a general rule, stamped with a +disingenuousness which at that time we believed to be peculiar to +theological writers and alien to the spirit of science. +Seeing, therefore, that the men of science ranged themselves more +and more decidedly on Mr. Darwin’s side, while his +opponents had manifestly—so far as I can remember, all the +more prominent among them—a bias to which their hostility +was attributable, we left off looking at the arguments against +“Darwinism,” as we now began to call it, and +pigeon-holed the matter to the effect that there was one +evolution, and that Mr. Darwin was its prophet.</p> +<p>The blame of our errors and oversights rests primarily with +Mr. Darwin himself. The first, and far the most important, +edition of the “Origin of Species” came out as a kind +of literary Melchisedec, without father and without mother in the +works of other people. Here is its opening +paragraph:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ +as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the +distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the +geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of +that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some +light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, +as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. +On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something +might be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and +reflecting upon all sorts of facts which could possibly have any +bearing on it. After five years’ work I allowed +myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; +these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions which +then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I +have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be +excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to +show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.” +<a name="citation8a"></a><a href="#footnote8a" +class="citation">[8a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the latest edition this passage remains unaltered, except +in one unimportant respect. What could more completely +throw us off the scent of the earlier writers? If they had +written anything worthy of our attention, or indeed if there had +been any earlier writers at all, Mr. Darwin would have been the +first to tell us about them, and to award them their due meed of +recognition. But, no; the whole thing was an original +growth in Mr. Darwin’s mind, and he had never so much as +heard of his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin.</p> +<p>Dr. Krause, indeed, thought otherwise. In the number of +<i>Kosmos</i> for February 1879 he represented Mr. Darwin as in +his youth approaching the works of his grandfather with all the +devotion which people usually feel for the writings of a renowned +poet. <a name="citation8b"></a><a href="#footnote8b" +class="citation">[8b]</a> This should perhaps be a +delicately ironical way of hinting that Mr. Darwin did not read +his grandfather’s books closely; but I hardly think that +Dr. Krause looked at the matter in this light, for he goes on to +say that “almost every single work of the younger Darwin +may be paralleled by at least a chapter in the works of his +ancestor: the mystery of heredity, adaptation, the protective +arrangements of animals and plants, sexual selection, +insectivorous plants, and the analysis of the emotions and +sociological impulses; nay, even the studies on infants are to be +found already discussed in the pages of the elder Darwin.” +<a name="citation8c"></a><a href="#footnote8c" +class="citation">[8c]</a></p> +<p>Nevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin’s opening sentence +appeared, it contained enough to have put us upon our +guard. When he informed us that, on his return from a long +voyage, “it occurred to” him that the way to make +anything out about his subject was to collect and reflect upon +the facts that bore upon it, it should have occurred to us in our +turn, that when people betray a return of consciousness upon such +matters as this, they are on the confines of that state in which +other and not less elementary matters will not “occur +to” them. The introduction of the word +“patiently” should have been conclusive. I will +not analyse more of the sentence, but will repeat the next two +lines:—“After five years of work, I allowed myself to +speculate upon the subject, and drew up some short +notes.” We read this, thousands of us, and were +blind.</p> +<p>If Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s name was not mentioned in the +first edition of the “Origin of Species,” we should +not be surprised at there being no notice taken of Buffon, or at +Lamarck’s being referred to only twice—on the first +occasion to be serenely waved aside, he and all his works; <a +name="citation9a"></a><a href="#footnote9a" +class="citation">[9a]</a> on the second, <a +name="citation9b"></a><a href="#footnote9b" +class="citation">[9b]</a> to be commended on a point of +detail. The author of the “Vestiges of +Creation” was more widely known to English readers, having +written more recently and nearer home. He was dealt with +summarily, on an early and prominent page, by a +misrepresentation, which was silently expunged in later editions +of the “Origin of Species.” In his later +editions (I believe first in his third, when 6000 copies had been +already sold), Mr. Darwin did indeed introduce a few pages in +which he gave what he designated as a “brief but imperfect +sketch” of the progress of opinion on the origin of species +prior to the appearance of his own work; but the general +impression which a book conveys to, and leaves upon, the public +is conveyed by the first edition—the one which is alone, +with rare exceptions, reviewed; and in the first edition of the +“Origin of Species” Mr. Darwin’s great +precursors were all either ignored or misrepresented. +Moreover, the “brief but imperfect sketch,” when it +did come, was so very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is +what I suppose Mr. Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it +might as well have been left unwritten for all the help it gave +the reader to see the true question at issue between the original +propounders of the theory of evolution and Mr. Charles Darwin +himself.</p> +<p>That question is this: Whether variation is in the main +attributable to a known general principle, or whether it is +not?—whether the minute variations whose accumulation +results in specific and generic differences are referable to +something which will ensure their appearing in a certain definite +direction, or in certain definite directions, for long periods +together, and in many individuals, or whether they are +not?—whether, in a word, these variations are in the main +definite or indefinite?</p> +<p>It is observable that the leading men of science seem rarely +to understand this even now. I am told that Professor +Huxley, in his recent lecture on the coming of age of the +“Origin of Species,” never so much as alluded to the +existence of any such division of opinion as this. He did +not even, I am assured, mention “natural selection,” +but appeared to believe, with Professor Tyndall, <a +name="citation10a"></a><a href="#footnote10a" +class="citation">[10a]</a> that “evolution” is +“Mr. Darwin’s theory.” In his article on +evolution in the latest edition of the “Encyclopædia +Britannica,” I find only a veiled perception of the point +wherein Mr. Darwin is at variance with his precursors. +Professor Huxley evidently knows little of these writers beyond +their names; if he had known more, it is impossible he should +have written that “Buffon contributed nothing to the +general doctrine of evolution,” <a +name="citation10b"></a><a href="#footnote10b" +class="citation">[10b]</a> and that Erasmus Darwin, “though +a zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to have made any real +advance on his predecessors.” <a name="citation11"></a><a +href="#footnote11" class="citation">[11]</a> The article is +in a high degree unsatisfactory, and betrays at once an amount of +ignorance and of perception which leaves an uncomfortable +impression.</p> +<p>If this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is +not surprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few +exceptions, have known of only one evolution, namely, that +propounded by Mr. Darwin. As a member of the general +public, at that time residing eighteen miles from the nearest +human habitation, and three days’ journey on horseback from +a bookseller’s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin’s +many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophical dialogue +(the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into +supposed unknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon +the “Origin of Species.” This production +appeared in the <i>Press</i>, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or +1862, but I have long lost the only copy I had.</p> +<h2><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>Chapter II</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">How I came to write “Life and +Habit,” and the circumstances of its completion.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was impossible, however, for Mr. +Darwin’s readers to leave the matter as Mr. Darwin had left +it. We wanted to know whence came that germ or those germs +of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, were once the +world’s only inhabitants. They could hardly have come +hither from some other world; they could not in their wet, cold, +slimy state have travelled through the dry ethereal medium which +we call space, and yet remained alive. If they travelled +slowly, they would die; if fast, they would catch fire, as +meteors do on entering the earth’s atmosphere. The +idea, again, of their having been created by a +quasi-anthropomorphic being out of the matter upon the earth was +at variance with the whole spirit of evolution, which indicated +that no such being could exist except as himself the result, and +not the cause, of evolution. Having got back from ourselves +to the monad, we were suddenly to begin again with something +which was either unthinkable, or was only ourselves again upon a +larger scale—to return to the same point as that from which +we had started, only made harder for us to stand upon.</p> +<p>There was only one other conception possible, namely, that the +germs had been developed in the course of time from some thing or +things that were not what we called living at all; that they had +grown up, in fact, out of the material substances and forces of +the world in some manner more or less analogous to that in which +man had been developed from themselves.</p> +<p>I first asked myself whether life might not, after all, +resolve itself into the complexity of arrangement of an +inconceivably intricate mechanism. Kittens think our +shoe-strings are alive when they see us lacing them, because they +see the tag at the end jump about without understanding all the +ins and outs of how it comes to do so. “Of +course,” they argue, “if we cannot understand how a +thing comes to move, it must move of itself, for there can be no +motion beyond our comprehension but what is spontaneous; if the +motion is spontaneous, the thing moving must he alive, for +nothing can move of itself or without our understanding why +unless it is alive. Everything that is alive and not too +large can be tortured, and perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring +upon the tag” and they spring upon it. Cats are above +this; yet give the cat something which presents a few more of +those appearances which she is accustomed to see whenever she +sees life, and she will fall as easy a prey to the power which +association exercises over all that lives as the kitten +itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few yards after +being wound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse being +here, there is no good cat which will not conclude that so many +of the appearances of mousehood could not be present at the same +time without the presence also of the remainder. She will, +therefore, spring upon the toy as eagerly as the kitten upon the +tag.</p> +<p>Suppose the toy more complex still, so that it might run a few +yards, stop, and run on again without an additional winding up; +and suppose it so constructed that it could imitate eating and +drinking, and could make as though the mouse were cleaning its +face with its paws. Should we not at first be taken in +ourselves, and assume the presence of the remaining facts of +life, though in reality they were not there? Query, +therefore, whether a machine so complex as to be prepared with a +corresponding manner of action for each one of the successive +emergencies of life as it arose, would not take us in for good +and all, and look so much as if it were alive that, whether we +liked it or not, we should be compelled to think it and call it +so; and whether the being alive was not simply the being an +exceedingly complicated machine, whose parts were set in motion +by the action upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in +fact, man was not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only +capable of going for seventy or eighty years, instead of half as +many seconds, and as much more versatile as he is more +durable? Of course I had an uneasy feeling that if I thus +made all plants and men into machines, these machines must have +what all other machines have if they are machines at all—a +designer, and some one to wind them up and work them; but I +thought this might wait for the present, and was perfectly ready +then, as now, to accept a designer from without, if the facts +upon examination rendered such a belief reasonable.</p> +<p>If, then, men were not really alive after all, but were only +machines of so complicated a make that it was less trouble to us +to cut the difficulty and say that that kind of mechanism was +“being alive,” why should not machines ultimately +become as complicated as we are, or at any rate complicated +enough to be called living, and to be indeed as living as it was +in the nature of anything at all to be? If it was only a +case of their becoming more complicated, we were certainly doing +our best to make them so.</p> +<p>I do not suppose I at that time saw that this view comes to +much the same as denying that there are such qualities as life +and consciousness at all, and that this, again, works round to +the assertion of their omnipresence in every molecule of matter, +inasmuch as it destroys the separation between the organic and +inorganic, and maintains that whatever the organic is the +inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much as we please, +we shall still always feel that an organic body, unless dead, is +living and conscious to a greater or less degree. +Therefore, if we once break down the wall of partition between +the organic and inorganic, the inorganic must be living and +conscious also, up to a certain point.</p> +<p>I have been at work on this subject now for nearly twenty +years, what I have published being only a small part of what I +have written and destroyed. I cannot, therefore, remember +exactly how I stood in 1863. Nor can I pretend to see far +into the matter even now; for when I think of life, I find it so +difficult, that I take refuge in death or mechanism; and when I +think of death or mechanism, I find it so inconceivable, that it +is easier to call it life again. The only thing of which I +am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and +inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other +ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every +molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking +up of an association or corporation, than to start with inanimate +molecules and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what +we call the inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain +point living, and instinct, within certain limits, with +consciousness, volition, and power of concerted action. It +is only of late, however, that I have come to this opinion.</p> +<p>One must start with a hypothesis, no matter how much one +distrusts it; so I started with man as a mechanism, this being +the strand of the knot that I could then pick at most +easily. Having worked upon it a certain time, I drew the +inference about machines becoming animate, and in 1862 or 1863 +wrote the sketch of the chapter on machines which I afterwards +rewrote in “Erewhon.” This sketch appeared in +the <i>Press</i>, Canterbury, N.Z., June 13, 1863; a copy of it +is in the British Museum.</p> +<p>I soon felt that though there was plenty of amusement to be +got out of this line, it was one that I should have to leave +sooner or later; I therefore left it at once for the view that +machines were limbs which we had made, and carried outside our +bodies instead of incorporating them with ourselves. A few +days or weeks later than June 13, 1863, I published a second +letter in the <i>Press</i> putting this view forward. Of +this letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have not seen it +for years. The first was certainly not good; the second, if +I remember rightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more +in the views it put forward than in those of the first +letter. I had lost my copy before I wrote +“Erewhon,” and therefore only gave a couple of pages +to it in that book; besides, there was more amusement in the +other view. I should perhaps say there was an intermediate +extension of the first letter which appeared in the +<i>Reasoner</i>, July 1, 1865.</p> +<p>In 1870 and 1871, when I was writing “Erewhon,” I +thought the best way of looking at machines was to see them as +limbs which we had made and carried about with us or left at home +at pleasure. I was not, however, satisfied, and should have +gone on with the subject at once if I had not been anxious to +write “The Fair Haven,” a book which is a development +of a pamphlet I wrote in New Zealand and published in London in +1865.</p> +<p>As soon as I had finished this, I returned to the old subject, +on which I had already been engaged for nearly a dozen years as +continuously as other business would allow, and proposed to +myself to see not only machines as limbs, but also limbs as +machines. I felt immediately that I was upon firmer +ground. The use of the word “organ” for a limb +told its own story; the word could not have become so current +under this meaning unless the idea of a limb as a tool or machine +had been agreeable to common sense. What would follow, +then, if we regarded our limbs and organs as things that we had +ourselves manufactured for our convenience?</p> +<p>The first question that suggested itself was, how did we come +to make them without knowing anything about it? And this +raised another, namely, how comes anybody to do anything +unconsciously? The answer “habit” was not far +to seek. But can a person be said to do a thing by force of +habit or routine when it is his ancestors, and not he, that has +done it hitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one +and the same person. Perhaps, then, they <i>are</i> the +same person after all. What is sameness? I remembered +Bishop Butler’s sermon on “Personal Identity,” +read it again, and saw very plainly that if a man of eighty may +consider himself identical with the baby from whom he has +developed, so that he may say, “I am the person who at six +months old did this or that,” then the baby may just as +fairly claim identity with its father and mother, and say to its +parents on being born, “I was you only a few months +ago.” By parity of reasoning each living form now on +the earth must be able to claim identity with each generation of +its ancestors up to the primordial cell inclusive.</p> +<p>Again, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with +the infant, the infant may certainly do so with the impregnate +ovum from which it has developed. If so, the octogenarian +will prove to have been a fish once in this his present +life. This is as certain as that he was living yesterday, +and stands on exactly the same foundation.</p> +<p>I am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He +writes: “It is not true, for example, . . . that a reptile +was ever a fish, but it is true that the reptile embryo” +(and what is said here of the reptile holds good also for the +human embryo), “at one stage of its development, is an +organism, which, if it had an independent existence, must be +classified among fishes.” <a name="citation17"></a><a +href="#footnote17" class="citation">[17]</a></p> +<p>This is like saying, “It is not true that such and such +a picture was rejected for the Academy, but it is true that it +was submitted to the President and Council of the Royal Academy, +with a view to acceptance at their next forthcoming annual +exhibition, and that the President and Council regretted they +were unable through want of space, &c., +&c.”—and as much more as the reader +chooses. I shall venture, therefore, to stick to it that +the octogenarian was once a fish, or if Professor Huxley prefers +it, “an organism which must be classified among +fishes.”</p> +<p>But if a man was a fish once, he may have been a fish a +million times over, for aught he knows; for he must admit that +his conscious recollection is at fault, and has nothing whatever +to do with the matter, which must be decided, not, as it were, +upon his own evidence as to what deeds he may or may not +recollect having executed, but by the production of his +signatures in court, with satisfactory proof that he has +delivered each document as his act and deed.</p> +<p>This made things very much simpler. The processes of +embryonic development, and instinctive actions, might be now seen +as repetitions of the same kind of action by the same individual +in successive generations. It was natural, therefore, that +they should come in the course of time to be done unconsciously, +and a consideration of the most obvious facts of memory removed +all further doubt that habit—which is based on +memory—was at the bottom of all the phenomena of +heredity.</p> +<p>I had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had +begun to write, when I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the +next year and a half did hardly any writing. The first +passage in “Life and Habit” which I can date with +certainty is the one on page 52, which runs as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It is one against legion when a man tries +to differ from his own past selves. He must yield or die if +he wants to differ widely, so as to lack natural instincts, such +as hunger or thirst, and not to gratify them. It is more +righteous in a man that he should ‘eat strange food,’ +and that his cheek should ‘so much as lank not,’ than +that he should starve if the strange food be at his +command. His past selves are living in him at this moment +with the accumulated life of centuries. ‘Do this, +this, this, which we too have done, and found out profit in +it,’ cry the souls of his forefathers within him. +Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells +wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, +urgent as an alarm of fire.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June +1874. I was on Montreal mountain for the first time, and +was struck with its extreme beauty. It was a magnificent +Summer’s evening; the noble St. Lawrence flowed almost +immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of country beyond it +was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot surpass. +Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for “Life +and Habit,” of which I was then continually thinking, and +had written the first few lines of the above, when the bells of +Notre Dame in Montreal began to ring, and their sound was carried +to and fro in a remarkably beautiful manner. I took +advantage of the incident to insert then and there the last lines +of the piece just quoted. I kept the whole passage with +hardly any alteration, and am thus able to date it +accurately.</p> +<p>Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was +impossible, I nevertheless got many notes together for future +use. I left Canada at the end of 1875, and early in 1876 +began putting these notes into more coherent form. I did +this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of which a +pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I find two +dates among them—the first, “Sunday, Feb. 6, +1876”; and the second, at the end of the notes, “Feb. +12, 1876.”</p> +<p>From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory +contained in “Life and Habit” completely before me, +with the four main principles which it involves, namely, the +oneness of personality between parents and offspring; memory on +the part of offspring of certain actions which it did when in the +persons of its forefathers; the latency of that memory until it +is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated ideas; and the +unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be +performed.</p> +<p>The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and +runs thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Those habits and functions which we have in +common with the lower animals come mainly within the womb, or are +done involuntarily, as our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and +our power of digesting food, &c. . . .</p> +<p>“We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as +soon as it is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it +was hatched?</p> +<p>“It knew how to make a great many things before it was +hatched.</p> +<p>“It grew eyes and feathers and bones.</p> +<p>“Yet we say it knew nothing about all this.</p> +<p>“After it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its +bones larger, and develops a reproductive system.</p> +<p>“Again we say it knows nothing about all this.</p> +<p>“What then does it know?</p> +<p>“Whatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious +of knowing it.</p> +<p>“Knowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty.</p> +<p>“When we are very certain, we do not know that we +know. When we will very strongly, we do not know that we +will.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I then began my book, but considering myself still a painter +by profession, I gave comparatively little time to writing, and +got on but slowly. I left England for North Italy in the +middle of May 1876 and returned early in August. It was +perhaps thus that I failed to hear of the account of Professor +Hering’s lecture given by Professor Ray Lankester in +<i>Nature</i>, July 13 1876; though, never at that time seeing +<i>Nature</i>, I should probably have missed it under any +circumstances. On my return I continued slowly +writing. By August 1877 I considered that I had to all +intents and purposes completed my book. My first proof +bears date October 13, 1877.</p> +<p>At this time I had not been able to find that anything like +what I was advancing had been said already. I asked many +friends, but not one of them knew of anything more than I did; to +them, as to me, it seemed an idea so new as to be almost +preposterous; but knowing how things turn up after one has +written, of the existence of which one had not known before, I +was particularly careful to guard against being supposed to claim +originality. I neither claimed it nor wished for it; for if +a theory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur to +several people much about the same time, and a reasonable person +will look upon his work with great suspicion unless he can +confirm it with the support of others who have gone before +him. Still I knew of nothing in the least resembling it, +and was so afraid of what I was doing, that though I could see no +flaw in the argument, nor any loophole for escape from the +conclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put it forward with +the seriousness and sobriety with which I should have treated the +subject if I had not been in continual fear of a mine being +sprung upon me from some unexpected quarter. I am +exceedingly glad now that I knew nothing of Professor +Hering’s lecture, for it is much better that two people +should think a thing out as far as they can independently before +they become aware of each other’s works but if I had seen +it, I should either, as is most likely, not have written at all, +or I should have pitched my book in another key.</p> +<p>Among the additions I intended making while the book was in +the press, was a chapter on Mr. Darwin’s provisional theory +of Pangenesis, which I felt convinced must be right if it was Mr. +Darwin’s, and which I was sure, if I could once understand +it, must have an important bearing on “Life and +Habit.” I had not as yet seen that the principle I +was contending for was Darwinian, not Neo-Darwinian. My +pages still teemed with allusions to “natural +selection,” and I sometimes allowed myself to hope that +“Life and Habit” was going to be an adjunct to +Darwinism which no one would welcome more gladly than Mr. Darwin +himself. At this time I had a visit from a friend, who +kindly called to answer a question of mine, relative, if I +remember rightly, to “Pangenesis.” He came, +September 26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, +that the theory which had pleased him more than anything he had +heard of for some time was one referring all life to +memory. I said that was exactly what I was doing myself, +and inquired where he had met with his theory. He replied +that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in +<i>Nature</i> some time ago, but he could not remember exactly +when, and had given extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald +Hering, who had originated the theory. I said I should not +look at it, as I had completed that part of my work, and was on +the point of going to press. I could not recast my work if, +as was most likely, I should find something, when I saw what +Professor Hering had said, which would make me wish to rewrite my +own book; it was too late in the day and I did not feel equal to +making any radical alteration; and so the matter ended with very +little said upon either side. I wrote, however, afterwards +to my friend asking him to tell me the number of <i>Nature</i> +which contained the lecture if he could find it, but he was +unable to do so, and I was well enough content.</p> +<p>A few days before this I had met another friend, and had +explained to him what I was doing. He told me I ought to +read Professor Mivart’s “Genesis of Species,” +and that if I did so I should find there were two sides to +“natural selection.” Thinking, as so many +people do—and no wonder—that “natural +selection” and evolution were much the same thing, and +having found so many attacks upon evolution produce no effect +upon me, I declined to read it. I had as yet no idea that a +writer could attack Neo-Darwinism without attacking +evolution. But my friend kindly sent me a copy; and when I +read it, I found myself in the presence of arguments different +from those I had met with hitherto, and did not see my way to +answering them. I had, however, read only a small part of +Professor Mivart’s work, and was not fully awake to the +position, when the friend referred to in the preceding paragraph +called on me.</p> +<p>When I had finished the “Genesis of Species,” I +felt that something was certainly wanted which should give a +definite aim to the variations whose accumulation was to amount +ultimately to specific and generic differences, and that without +this there could have been no progress in organic +development. I got the latest edition of the “Origin +of Species” in order to see how Mr. Darwin met Professor +Mivart, and found his answers in many respects +unsatisfactory. I had lost my original copy of the +“Origin of Species,” and had not read the book for +some years. I now set about reading it again, and came to +the chapter on instinct, where I was horrified to find the +following passage:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“But 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 the +succeeding generations. It can be clearly shown that the +most wonderful instincts with which we are acquainted, namely, +those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not possibly have +been acquired by habit.” <a name="citation23a"></a><a +href="#footnote23a" class="citation">[23a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>This showed that, according to Mr. Darwin, I had fallen into +serious error, and my faith in him, though somewhat shaken, was +far too great to be destroyed by a few days’ course of +Professor Mivart, the full importance of whose work I had not yet +apprehended. I continued to read, and when I had finished +the chapter felt sure that I must indeed have been +blundering. The concluding words, “I am surprised +that no one has hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of +neuter insects against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit +as advanced by Lamarck,” <a name="citation23b"></a><a +href="#footnote23b" class="citation">[23b]</a> were positively +awful. There was a quiet consciousness of strength about +them which was more convincing than any amount of more detailed +explanation. This was the first I had heard of any doctrine +of inherited habit as having been propounded by Lamarck (the +passage stands in the first edition, “the well-known +doctrine of Lamarck,” p. 242); and now to find that I had +been only busying myself with a stale theory of this long-since +exploded charlatan—with my book three parts written and +already in the press—it was a serious scare.</p> +<p>On reflection, however, I was again met with the overwhelming +weight of the evidence in favour of structure and habit being +mainly due to memory. I accordingly gathered as much as I +could second-hand of what Lamarck had said, reserving a study of +his “Philosophie Zoologique” for another occasion, +and read as much about ants and bees as I could find in readily +accessible works. In a few days I saw my way again; and +now, reading the “Origin of Species” more closely, +and I may say more sceptically, the antagonism between Mr. Darwin +and Lamarck became fully apparent to me, and I saw how incoherent +and unworkable in practice the later view was in comparison with +the earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin’s answers to +miscellaneous objections, and was met, and this time brought up, +by the passage beginning “In the earlier editions of this +work,” <a name="citation24a"></a><a href="#footnote24a" +class="citation">[24a]</a> &c., on which I wrote very +severely in “Life and Habit”; <a +name="citation24b"></a><a href="#footnote24b" +class="citation">[24b]</a> for I felt by this time that the +difference of opinion between us was radical, and that the matter +must be fought out according to the rules of the game. +After this I went through the earlier part of my book, and cut +out the expressions which I had used inadvertently, and which +were inconsistent with a teleological view. This +necessitated only verbal alterations; for, though I had not known +it, the spirit of the book was throughout teleological.</p> +<p>I now saw that I had got my hands full, and abandoned my +intention of touching upon “Pangenesis.” I took +up the words of Mr. Darwin quoted above, to the effect that it +would be a serious error to ascribe the greater number of +instincts to transmitted habit. I wrote chapter xi. of +“Life and Habit,” which is headed “Instincts as +Inherited Memory”; I also wrote the four subsequent +chapters, “Instincts of Neuter Insects,” +“Lamarck and Mr. Darwin,” “Mr. Mivart and Mr. +Darwin,” and the concluding chapter, all of them in the +month of October and the early part of November 1877, the +complete book leaving the binder’s hands December 4, 1877, +but, according to trade custom, being dated 1878. It will +be seen that these five concluding chapters were rapidly written, +and this may account in part for the directness with which I said +anything I had to say about Mr. Darwin; partly this, and partly I +felt I was in for a penny and might as well be in for a +pound. I therefore wrote about Mr. Darwin’s work +exactly as I should about any one else’s, bearing in mind +the inestimable services he had undoubtedly—and must always +be counted to have—rendered to evolution.</p> +<h2><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>Chapter III</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">How I came to write “Evolution, Old and +New”—Mr Darwin’s “brief but +imperfect” sketch of the opinions of the writers on +evolution who had preceded him—The reception which +“Evolution, Old and New,” met with.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Though</span> my book was out in 1877, it +was not till January 1878 that I took an opportunity of looking +up Professor Ray Lankester’s account of Professor +Hering’s lecture. I can hardly say how relieved I was +to find that it sprung no mine upon me, but that, so far as I +could gather, Professor Hering and I had come to pretty much the +same conclusion. I had already found the passage in Dr. +Erasmus Darwin which I quoted in “Evolution, Old and +New,” but may perhaps as well repeat it here. It +runs—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Owing to the imperfection of language, the +offspring is termed a new animal; but is, in truth, a branch or +elongation of the parent, since a part of the embryon animal is +or was a part of the parent, and, therefore, in strict language, +cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production, +and, therefore, it may retain some of the habits of the parent +system.” <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26" +class="citation">[26]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>When, then, the <i>Athenæum</i> reviewed “Life and +Habit” (January 26, 1878), I took the opportunity to write +to that paper, calling attention to Professor Hering’s +lecture, and also to the passage just quoted from Dr. Erasmus +Darwin. The editor kindly inserted my letter in his issue +of February 9, 1878. I felt that I had now done all in the +way of acknowledgment to Professor Hering which it was, for the +time, in my power to do.</p> +<p>I again took up Mr. Darwin’s “Origin of +Species,” this time, I admit, in a spirit of +scepticism. I read his “brief but imperfect” +sketch of the progress of opinion on the origin of species, and +turned to each one of the writers he had mentioned. First, +I read all the parts of the “Zoonomia” that were not +purely medical, and was astonished to find that, as Dr. Krause +has since said in his essay on Erasmus Darwin, “<i>he was +the first who proposed and persistently carried out a +well-rounded theory with regard to the development of the living +world</i>” <a name="citation27"></a><a href="#footnote27" +class="citation">[27]</a> (italics in original).</p> +<p>This is undoubtedly the case, and I was surprised at finding +Professor Huxley say concerning this very eminent man that he +could “hardly be said to have made any real advance upon +his predecessors.” Still more was I surprised at +remembering that, in the first edition of the “Origin of +Species,” Dr. Erasmus Darwin had never been so much as +named; while in the “brief but imperfect” sketch he +was dismissed with a line of half-contemptuous patronage, as +though the mingled tribute of admiration and curiosity which +attaches to scientific prophecies, as distinguished from +discoveries, was the utmost he was entitled to. “It +is curious,” says Mr. Darwin innocently, in the middle of a +note in the smallest possible type, “how largely my +grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and +erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his +‘Zoonomia’ (vol. i. pp. 500–510), published in +1794”; this was all he had to say about the founder of +“Darwinism,” until I myself unearthed Dr. Erasmus +Darwin, and put his work fairly before the present generation in +“Evolution, Old and New.” Six months after I +had done this, I had the satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin +had woke up to the propriety of doing much the same thing, and +that he had published an interesting and charmingly written +memoir of his grandfather, of which more anon.</p> +<p>Not that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete +theory of evolution. Buffon was the first to point out +that, in view of the known modifications which had been effected +among our domesticated animals and cultivated plants, the ass and +the horse should be considered as, in all probability, descended +from a common ancestor; yet, if this is so, he writes—if +the point “were once gained that among animals and +vegetables there had been, I do not say several species, but even +a single one, which had been produced in the course of direct +descent from another species; if, for example, it could be once +shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse, then +there is no further limit to be set to the power of Nature, and +we should not be wrong in supposing that, with sufficient time, +she has evolved all other organised forms from one primordial +type” <a name="citation28a"></a><a href="#footnote28a" +class="citation">[28a]</a> (<i>et l’on n’auroit pas +tort de supposer</i>, <i>que d’un seul être elle a su +tirer avec le temps tous les autres êtres +organisés</i>).</p> +<p>This, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley’s dictum, +is contributing a good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; +for though Descartes and Leibnitz may have thrown out hints +pointing more or less broadly in the direction of evolution, some +of which Professor Huxley has quoted, he has adduced nothing +approaching to the passage from Buffon given above, either in +respect of the clearness with which the conclusion intended to be +arrived at is pointed out, or the breadth of view with which the +whole ground of animal and vegetable nature is covered. The +passage referred to is only one of many to the same effect, and +must be connected with one quoted in “Evolution, Old and +New,” <a name="citation28b"></a><a href="#footnote28b" +class="citation">[28b]</a> from p. 13 of Buffon’s first +volume, which appeared in 1749, and than which nothing can well +point more plainly in the direction of evolution. It is not +easy, therefore, to understand why Professor Huxley should give +1753–78 as the date of Buffon’s work, nor yet why he +should say that Buffon was “at first a partisan of the +absolute immutability of species,” <a +name="citation29a"></a><a href="#footnote29a" +class="citation">[29a]</a> unless, indeed, we suppose he has been +content to follow that very unsatisfactory writer, Isidore +Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into this error, and says that +Buffon’s first volume on animals appeared 1753), without +verifying him, and without making any reference to him.</p> +<p>Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the +“Palingénésie Philosophique” of Bonnet, +of which he says that, making allowance for his peculiar views on +the subject of generation, they bear no small resemblance to what +is understood by “evolution” at the present +day. The most important parts of the passage quoted are as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Should I be going too far if I were to +conjecture that the plants and animals of the present day have +arisen by a sort of natural evolution from the organised beings +which peopled the world in its original state as it left the +hands of the Creator? . . . In the outset organised beings +were probably very different from what they are now—as +different as the original world is from our present one. We +have no means of estimating the amount of these differences, but +it is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted +to the original world, would entirely fail to recognise our +plants and animals therein.” <a name="citation29b"></a><a +href="#footnote29b" class="citation">[29b]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not +appear till 1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for +fully twenty years with the eyes of scientific Europe upon +him. Whatever concession to the opinion of Buffon Bonnet +may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 1764, when he +published his “Contemplation de la Nature,” and in +1762 when his “Considérations sur les Corps +Organes” appeared, he cannot be considered to have been a +supporter of evolution. I went through these works in 1878 +when I was writing “Evolution, Old and New,” to see +whether I could claim him as on my side; but though frequently +delighted with his work, I found it impossible to press him into +my service.</p> +<p>The pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father +of the modern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably +disputed, though he was doubtless led to his conclusions by the +works of Descartes and Leibnitz, of both of whom he was an avowed +and very warm admirer. His claim does not rest upon a +passage here or there, but upon the spirit of forty quartos +written over a period of about as many years. Nevertheless +he wrote, as I have shown in “Evolution, Old and +New,” of set purpose enigmatically, whereas there was no +beating about the bush with Dr. Darwin. He speaks straight +out, and Dr. Krause is justified in saying of him “<i>that +he was the first who proposed and persistently carried out a +well-rounded theory</i>” of evolution.</p> +<p>I now turned to Lamarck. I read the first volume of the +“Philosophie Zoologique,” analysed it and translated +the most important parts. The second volume was beside my +purpose, dealing as it does rather with the origin of life than +of species, and travelling too fast and too far for me to be able +to keep up with him. Again I was astonished at the little +mention Mr. Darwin had made of this illustrious writer, at the +manner in which he had motioned him away, as it were, with his +hand in the first edition of the “Origin of Species,” +and at the brevity and imperfection of the remarks made upon him +in the subsequent historical sketch.</p> +<p>I got Isidore Geoffroy’s “Histoire Naturelle +Générale,” which Mr. Darwin commends in the +note on the second page of the historical sketch, as giving +“an excellent history of opinion” upon the subject of +evolution, and a full account of Buffon’s conclusions upon +the same subject. This at least is what I supposed Mr. +Darwin to mean. What he said was that Isidore Geoffroy +gives an excellent history of opinion on the subject of the date +of the first publication of Lamarck, and that in his work there +is a full account of Buffon’s fluctuating conclusions upon +<i>the same subject</i>. <a name="citation31"></a><a +href="#footnote31" class="citation">[31]</a> But Mr. Darwin +is a more than commonly puzzling writer. I read what M. +Geoffroy had to say upon Buffon, and was surprised to find that, +after all, according to M. Geoffroy, Buffon, and not Lamarck, was +the founder of the theory of evolution. His name, as I have +already said, was never mentioned in the first edition of the +“Origin of Species.”</p> +<p>M. Geoffroy goes into the accusations of having fluctuated in +his opinions, which he tells us have been brought against Buffon, +and comes to the conclusion that they are unjust, as any one else +will do who turns to Buffon himself. Mr. Darwin, however, +in the “brief but imperfect sketch,” catches at the +accusation, and repeats it while saying nothing whatever about +the defence. The following is still all he says: “The +first author who in modern times has treated” evolution +“in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his +opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does +not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of +species, I need not here enter on details.” On the +next page, in the note last quoted, Mr. Darwin originally +repeated the accusation of Buffon’s having been fluctuating +in his opinions, and appeared to give it the imprimatur of +Isidore Geoffroy’s approval; the fact being that Isidore +Geoffroy only quoted the accusation in order to refute it; and +though, I suppose, meaning well, did not make half the case he +might have done, and abounds with misstatements. My readers +will find this matter particularly dealt with in +“Evolution, Old and New,” Chapter X.</p> +<p>I gather that some one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of +his saying that Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of +Buffon’s “fluctuating conclusions” concerning +evolution, when he was doing all he knew to maintain that +Buffon’s conclusions did not fluctuate; for I see that in +the edition of 1876 the word “fluctuating” has +dropped out of the note in question, and we now learn that +Isidore Geoffroy gives “a full account of Buffon’s +conclusions,” without the “fluctuating.” +But Buffon has not taken much by this, for his opinions are still +left fluctuating greatly at different periods on the preceding +page, and though he still was the first to treat evolution in a +scientific spirit, he still does not enter upon the causes or +means of the transformation of species. No one can +understand Mr. Darwin who does not collate the different editions +of the “Origin of Species” with some attention. +When he has done this, he will know what Newton meant by saying +he felt like a child playing with pebbles upon the seashore.</p> +<p>One word more upon this note before I leave it. Mr. +Darwin speaks of Isidore Geoffroy’s history of opinion as +“excellent,” and his account of Buffon’s +opinions as “full.” I wonder how well qualified +he is to be a judge of these matters? If he knows much +about the earlier writers, he is the more inexcusable for having +said so little about them. If little, what is his opinion +worth?</p> +<p>To return to the “brief but imperfect +sketch.” I do not think I can ever again be surprised +at anything Mr. Darwin may say or do, but if I could, I should +wonder how a writer who did not “enter upon the causes or +means of the transformation of species,” and whose opinions +“fluctuated greatly at different periods,” can be +held to have treated evolution “in a scientific +spirit.” Nevertheless, when I reflect upon the +scientific reputation Mr. Darwin has attained, and the means by +which he has won it, I suppose the scientific spirit must be much +what he here implies. I see Mr. Darwin says of his own +father, Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, that he does not +consider him to have had a scientific mind. Mr. Darwin +cannot tell why he does not think his father’s mind to have +been fitted for advancing science, “for he was fond of +theorising, and was incomparably the best observer” Mr. +Darwin ever knew. <a name="citation33a"></a><a +href="#footnote33a" class="citation">[33a]</a> From the +hint given in the “brief but imperfect sketch,” I +fancy I can help Mr. Darwin to see why he does not think his +father’s mind to have been a scientific one. It is +possible that Dr. Robert Darwin’s opinions did not +fluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin +considered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or +means of the transformation of species. Certainly those who +read Mr. Darwin’s own works attentively will find no lack +of fluctuation in his case; and reflection will show them that a +theory of evolution which relies mainly on the accumulation of +accidental variations comes very close to not entering upon the +causes or means of the transformation of species. <a +name="citation33b"></a><a href="#footnote33b" +class="citation">[33b]</a></p> +<p>I have shown, however, in “Evolution, Old and +New,” that the assertion that Buffon does not enter on the +causes or means of the transformation of species is absolutely +without foundation, and that, on the contrary, he is continually +dealing with this very matter, and devotes to it one of his +longest and most important chapters, <a name="citation33c"></a><a +href="#footnote33c" class="citation">[33c]</a> but I admit that +he is less satisfactory on this head than either Dr. Erasmus +Darwin or Lamarck.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, Buffon is much more of a Neo-Darwinian +than either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, for with him the +variations are sometimes fortuitous. In the case of the +dog, he speaks of them as making their appearance “<i>by +some chance</i> common enough with Nature,” <a +name="citation33d"></a><a href="#footnote33d" +class="citation">[33d]</a> and being perpetuated by man’s +selection. This is exactly the “if any slight +favourable variation <i>happen</i> to arise” of Mr. Charles +Darwin. Buffon also speaks of the variations among pigeons +arising “<i>par hasard</i>.” But these +expressions are only ships; his main cause of variation is the +direct action of changed conditions of existence, while with Dr. +Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck the action of the conditions of +existence is indirect, the direct action being that of the +animals or plants themselves, in consequence of changed sense of +need under changed conditions.</p> +<p>I should say that the sketch so often referred to is at first +sight now no longer imperfect in Mr. Darwin’s +opinion. It was “brief but imperfect” in 1861 +and in 1866, but in 1876 I see that it is brief only. Of +course, discovering that it was no longer imperfect, I expected +to find it briefer. What, then, was my surprise at finding +that it had become rather longer? I have found no perfectly +satisfactory explanation of this inconsistency, but, on the +whole, incline to think that the “greatest of living +men” felt himself unequal to prolonging his struggle with +the word “but,” and resolved to lay that conjunction +at all hazards, even though the doing so might cost him the +balance of his adjectives; for I think he must know that his +sketch is still imperfect.</p> +<p>From Isidore Geoffroy I turned to Buffon himself, and had not +long to wait before I felt that I was now brought into +communication with the master-mind of all those who have up to +the present time busied themselves with evolution. For a +brief and imperfect sketch of him, I must refer my readers to +“Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p>I have no great respect for the author of the “Vestiges +of Creation,” who behaved hardly better to the writers upon +whom his own work was founded than Mr. Darwin himself has +done. Nevertheless, I could not forget the gravity of the +misrepresentation with which he was assailed on page 3 of the +first edition of the “Origin of Species,” nor impugn +the justice of his rejoinder in the following year, <a +name="citation34"></a><a href="#footnote34" +class="citation">[34]</a> when he replied that it was to be +regretted Mr. Darwin had read his work “almost as much +amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he had an interest in +misrepresenting it.” <a name="citation35a"></a><a +href="#footnote35a" class="citation">[35a]</a> I could not, +again, forget that, though Mr. Darwin did not venture to stand by +the passage in question, it was expunged without a word of +apology or explanation of how it was that he had come to write +it. A writer with any claim to our consideration will never +fall into serious error about another writer without hastening to +make a public apology as soon as he becomes aware of what he has +done.</p> +<p>Reflecting upon the substance of what I have written in the +last few pages, I thought it right that people should have a +chance of knowing more about the earlier writers on evolution +than they were likely to hear from any of our leading scientists +(no matter how many lectures they may give on the coming of age +of the “Origin of Species”) except Professor +Mivart. A book pointing the difference between teleological +and non-teleological views of evolution seemed likely to be +useful, and would afford me the opportunity I wanted for giving a +<i>résumé</i> of the views of each one of the three +chief founders of the theory, and of contrasting them with those +of Mr. Charles Darwin, as well as for calling attention to +Professor Hering’s lecture. I accordingly wrote +“Evolution, Old and New,” which was prominently +announced in the leading literary periodicals at the end of +February, or on the very first days of March 1879, <a +name="citation35b"></a><a href="#footnote35b" +class="citation">[35b]</a> as “a comparison of the theories +of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, with that of Mr. +Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the works of the three +first-named writers.” In this book I was hardly able +to conceal the fact that, in spite of the obligations under which +we must always remain to Mr. Darwin, I had lost my respect for +him and for his work.</p> +<p>I should point out that this announcement, coupled with what I +had written in “Life and Habit,” would enable Mr. +Darwin and his friends to form a pretty shrewd guess as to what I +was likely to say, and to quote from Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my +forthcoming book. The announcement, indeed, would tell +almost as much as the book itself to those who knew the works of +Erasmus Darwin.</p> +<p>As may be supposed, “Evolution, Old and New,” met +with a very unfavourable reception at the hands of many of its +reviewers. The <i>Saturday Review</i> was furious. +“When a writer,” it exclaimed, “who has not +given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, +is not content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but +assumes to criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a +young schoolmaster looking over a boy’s theme, it is +difficult not to take him more seriously than he deserves or +perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was the +travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the +pert speculator who takes all his facts at secondhand.” <a +name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36" +class="citation">[36]</a></p> +<p>The lady or gentleman who writes in such a strain as this +should not be too hard upon others whom she or he may consider to +write like schoolmasters. It is true I have +travelled—not much, but still as much as many others, and +have endeavoured to keep my eyes open to the facts before me; but +I cannot think that I made any reference to my travels in +“Evolution, Old and New.” I did not quite see +what that had to do with the matter. A man may get to know +a good deal without ever going beyond the four-mile radius from +Charing Cross. Much less did I imply that Mr. Darwin was +pert: pert is one of the last words that can be applied to Mr. +Darwin. Nor, again, had I blamed him for taking his facts +at secondhand; no one is to be blamed for this, provided he takes +well-established facts and acknowledges his sources. Mr. +Darwin has generally gone to good sources. The ground of +complaint against him is that he muddied the water after he had +drawn it, and tacitly claimed to be the rightful owner of the +spring, on the score of the damage he had effected.</p> +<p>Notwithstanding, however, the generally hostile, or more or +less contemptuous, reception which “Evolution, Old and +New,” met with, there were some reviews—as, for +example, those in the <i>Field</i>, <a name="citation37a"></a><a +href="#footnote37a" class="citation">[37a]</a> the <i>Daily +Chronicle</i>, <a name="citation37b"></a><a href="#footnote37b" +class="citation">[37b]</a> the <i>Athenæum</i>, <a +name="citation37c"></a><a href="#footnote37c" +class="citation">[37c]</a> the <i>Journal of Science</i>, <a +name="citation37d"></a><a href="#footnote37d" +class="citation">[37d]</a> the <i>British Journal of +Homæopathy</i>, <a name="citation37e"></a><a +href="#footnote37e" class="citation">[37e]</a> the <i>Daily +News</i>, <a name="citation37f"></a><a href="#footnote37f" +class="citation">[37f]</a> the <i>Popular Science Review</i> <a +name="citation37g"></a><a href="#footnote37g" +class="citation">[37g]</a>—which were all I could expect or +wish.</p> +<h2><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>Chapter IV</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">The manner in which Mr. Darwin met +“Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">By</span> far the most important notice of +“Evolution, Old and New,” was that taken by Mr. +Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in believing that +Dr. Krause’s article would have been allowed to repose +unaltered in the pages of the well-known German scientific +journal, <i>Kosmos</i>, unless something had happened to make Mr. +Darwin feel that his reticence concerning his grandfather must +now be ended.</p> +<p>Mr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to +understand that this is not the case. At the beginning of +this year he wrote to me, in a letter which I will presently give +in full, that he had obtained Dr. Krause’s consent for a +translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas, before my book was +“announced.” “I remember this,” he +continues, “because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the +advertisement.” But Mr. Darwin is not a clear writer, +and it is impossible to say whether he is referring to the +announcement of “Evolution, Old and New”—in +which case he means that the arrangements for the translation of +Dr. Krause’s article were made before the end of February +1879, and before any public intimation could have reached him as +to the substance of the book on which I was then engaged—or +to the advertisements of its being now published, which appeared +at the beginning of May; in which case, as I have said above, Mr. +Darwin and his friends had for some time had full opportunity of +knowing what I was about. I believe, however, Mr. Darwin to +intend that he remembered the arrangements having been made +before the beginning of May—his use of the word +“announced,” instead of “advertised,” +being an accident; but let this pass.</p> +<p>Some time after Mr. Darwin’s work appeared in November +1879, I got it, and looking at the last page of the book, I read +as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“They” (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) +“explain the adaptation to purpose of organisms by an +obscure impulse or sense of what is purpose-like; yet even with +regard to man we are in the habit of saying, that one can never +know what so-and-so is good for. The purpose-like is that +which approves itself, and not always that which is struggled for +by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same way the +beautiful is what pleases.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above +might have had “Evolution, Old and New,” in his mind, +but went on to the next sentence, which ran—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself +a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his +grandson has opened up for us, but to wish to revive it at the +present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a +weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can +envy.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“That’s me,” said I to myself +promptly. I noticed also the position in which the sentence +stood, which made it both one of the first that would be likely +to catch a reader’s eye, and the last he would carry away +with him. I therefore expected to find an open reply to +some parts of “Evolution, Old and New,” and turned to +Mr. Darwin’s preface.</p> +<p>To my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading +could not by any possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“In the February number of a well-known +German scientific journal, <i>Kosmos</i>, <a +name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39" +class="citation">[39]</a> Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of +the ‘Life of Erasmus Darwin,’ the author of the +‘Zoonomia,’ ‘Botanic Garden,’ and other +works. This article bears the title of a +‘Contribution to the History of the Descent Theory’; +and Dr. Krause has kindly allowed my brother Erasmus and myself +to have a translation made of it for publication in this +country.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then came a note as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, +and his scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of +German, is a guarantee for its accuracy.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much +consciousness of accuracy, but I did not. However this may +be, Mr. Darwin pins himself down with every circumstance of +preciseness to giving Dr. Krause’s article as it appeared +in <i>Kosmos</i>,—the whole article, and nothing but the +article. No one could know this better than Mr. Darwin.</p> +<p>On the second page of Mr. Darwin’s preface there is a +small-type note saying that my work, “Evolution, Old and +New,” had appeared since the publication of Dr. +Krause’s article. Mr. Darwin thus distinctly +precludes his readers from supposing that any passage they might +meet with could have been written in reference to, or by the +light of, my book. If anything appeared condemnatory of +that book, it was an undesigned coincidence, and would show how +little worthy of consideration I must be when my opinions were +refuted in advance by one who could have no bias in regard to +them.</p> +<p>Knowing that if the article I was about to read appeared in +February, it must have been published before my book, which was +not out till three months later, I saw nothing in Mr. +Darwin’s preface to complain of, and felt that this was +only another instance of my absurd vanity having led me to rush +to conclusions without sufficient grounds,—as if it was +likely, indeed, that Mr. Darwin should think what I had said of +sufficient importance to be affected by it. It was plain +that some one besides myself, of whom I as yet knew nothing, had +been writing about the elder Darwin, and had taken much the same +line concerning him that I had done. It was for the benefit +of this person, then, that Dr. Krause’s paragraph was +intended. I returned to a becoming sense of my own +insignificance, and began to read what I supposed to be an +accurate translation of Dr. Krause’s article as it +originally appeared, before “Evolution, Old and New,” +was published.</p> +<p>On pp. 3 and 4 of Dr. Krause’s part of Mr. +Darwin’s book (pp. 133 and 134 of the book itself), I +detected a sub-apologetic tone which a little surprised me, and a +notice of the fact that Coleridge when writing on Stillingfleet +had used the word “Darwinising.” Mr. R. Garnett +had called my attention to this, and I had mentioned it in +“Evolution, Old and New,” but the paragraph only +struck me as being a little odd.</p> +<p>When I got a few pages farther on (p. 147 of Mr. +Darwin’s book), I found a long quotation from Buffon about +rudimentary organs, which I had quoted in “Evolution, Old +and New.” I observed that Dr. Krause used the same +edition of Buffon that I did, and began his quotation two lines +from the beginning of Buffon’s paragraph, exactly as I had +done; also that he had taken his nominative from the omitted part +of the sentence across a full stop, as I had myself taken +it. A little lower I found a line of Buffon’s omitted +which I had given, but I found that at that place I had +inadvertently left two pair of inverted commas which ought to +have come out, <a name="citation41"></a><a href="#footnote41" +class="citation">[41]</a> having intended to end my quotation, +but changed my mind and continued it without erasing the +commas. It seemed to me that these commas had bothered Dr. +Krause, and made him think it safer to leave something out, for +the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that he +translated “Mais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter +à un certain but,” “But we, always wishing to +refer,” &c., while I had it, “But we, ever on the +look-out to refer,” &c.; and “Nous ne faisons pas +attention que nous altérons la philosophie,” +“We fail to see that thus we deprive philosophy of her true +character,” whereas I had “We fail to see that we +thus rob philosophy of her true character.” This last +was too much; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had +quoted this passage before I had done so, had used the same +edition as I had, had begun two lines from the beginning of a +paragraph as I had done, and that the later resemblances were +merely due to Mr. Dallas having compared Dr. Krause’s +German translation of Buffon with my English, and very properly +made use of it when he thought fit, it looked <i>primâ +facie</i> more as though my quotation had been copied in English +as it stood, and then altered, but not quite altered +enough. This, in the face of the preface, was incredible; +but so many points had such an unpleasant aspect, that I thought +it better to send for <i>Kosmos</i> and see what I could make +out.</p> +<p>At this time I knew not one word of German. On the same +day, therefore, that I sent for <i>Kosmos</i> I began acquire +that language, and in the fortnight before <i>Kosmos</i> came had +got far enough forward for all practical purposes—that is +to say, with the help of a translation and a dictionary, I could +see whether or no a German passage was the same as what purported +to be its translation.</p> +<p>When <i>Kosmos</i> came I turned to the end of the article to +see how the sentence about mental anachronism and weakness of +thought looked in German. I found nothing of the kind, the +original article ended with some innocent rhyming doggerel about +somebody going on and exploring something with eagle eye; but ten +lines from the end I found a sentence which corresponded with one +six pages from the end of the English translation. After +this there could be little doubt that the whole of these last six +English pages were spurious matter. What little doubt +remained was afterwards removed by my finding that they had no +place in any part of the genuine article. I looked for the +passage about Coleridge’s using the word +“Darwinising”; it was not to be found in the +German. I looked for the piece I had quoted from Buffon +about rudimentary organs; but there was nothing of it, nor indeed +any reference to Buffon. It was plain, therefore, that the +article which Mr. Darwin had given was not the one he professed +to be giving. I read Mr. Darwin’s preface over again +to see whether he left himself any loophole. There was not +a chink or cranny through which escape was possible. The +only inference that could be drawn was either that some one had +imposed upon Mr. Darwin, or that Mr. Darwin, although it was not +possible to suppose him ignorant of the interpolations that had +been made, nor of the obvious purpose of the concluding sentence, +had nevertheless palmed off an article which had been added to +and made to attack “Evolution, Old and New,” as +though it were the original article which appeared before that +book was written. I could not and would not believe that +Mr. Darwin had condescended to this. Nevertheless, I saw it +was necessary to sift the whole matter, and began to compare the +German and the English articles paragraph by paragraph.</p> +<p>On the first page I found a passage omitted from the English, +which with great labour I managed to get through, and can now +translate as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Alexander Von Humboldt used to take +pleasure in recounting how powerfully Forster’s pictures of +the South Sea Islands and St. Pierre’s illustrations of +Nature had provoked his ardour for travel and influenced his +career as a scientific investigator. How much more +impressively must the works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with their +reiterated foreshadowing of a more lofty interpretation of +Nature, have affected his grandson, who in his youth assuredly +approached them with the devotion due to the works of a renowned +poet.” <a name="citation43"></a><a href="#footnote43" +class="citation">[43]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I then came upon a passage common to both German and English, +which in its turn was followed in the English by the +sub-apologetic paragraph which I had been struck with on first +reading, and which was not in the German, its place being taken +by a much longer passage which had no place in the English. +A little farther on I was amused at coming upon the following, +and at finding it wholly transformed in the supposed accurate +translation:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“How must this early and penetrating +explanation of rudimentary organs have affected the grandson when +he read the poem of his ancestor! But indeed the biological +remarks of this accurate observer in regard to certain definite +natural objects must have produced a still deeper impression upon +him, pointing, as they do, to questions which hay attained so +great a prominence at the present day; such as, Why is any +creature anywhere such as we actually see it and nothing +else? Why has such and such a plant poisonous juices? +Why has such and such another thorns? Why have birds and +fishes light-coloured breasts and dark backs, and, Why does every +creature resemble the one from which it sprung?” <a +name="citation44a"></a><a href="#footnote44a" +class="citation">[44a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I will not weary the reader with further details as to the +omissions from and additions to the German text. Let it +suffice that the so-called translation begins on p. 131 and ends +on p. 216 of Mr. Darwin’s book. There is new matter +on each one of the pp. 132–139, while almost the whole of +pp. 147–152 inclusive, and the whole of pp. 211–216 +inclusive, are spurious—that is to say, not what the +purport to be, not translations from an article that was +published in February 1879, and before “Evolution, Old and +New,” but interpolations not published till six months +after that book.</p> +<p>Bearing in mind the contents of two of the added passages and +the tenor of the concluding sentence quoted above, <a +name="citation44b"></a><a href="#footnote44b" +class="citation">[44b]</a> I could no longer doubt that the +article had been altered by the light of and with a view to +“Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p>The steps are perfectly clear. First Dr. Krause +published his article in <i>Kosmos</i> and my book was announced +(its purport being thus made obvious), both in the month of +February 1879. Soon afterwards arrangements were made for a +translation of Dr. Krause’s essay, and were completed by +the end of April. Then my book came out, and in some way or +other Dr. Krause happened to get hold of it. He helped +himself—not to much, but to enough; made what other +additions to and omissions from his article he thought would best +meet “Evolution, Old and New,” and then fell to +condemning that book in a finale that was meant to be +crushing. Nothing was said about the revision which Dr. +Krause’s work had undergone, but it was expressly and +particularly declared in the preface that the English translation +was an accurate version of what appeared in the February number +of <i>Kosmos</i>, and no less expressly and particularly stated +that my book was published subsequently to this. Both these +statements are untrue; they are in Mr. Darwin’s favour and +prejudicial to myself.</p> +<p>All this was done with that well-known “happy +simplicity” of which the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, December +12, 1879, declared that Mr. Darwin was “a +master.” The final sentence, about the +“weakness of thought and mental anachronism which no one +can envy,” was especially successful. The reviewer in +the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> just quoted from gave it in full, +and said that it was thoroughly justified. He then mused +forth a general gnome that the “confidence of writers who +deal in semi-scientific paradoxes is commonly in inverse +proportion to their grasp of the subject.” Again my +vanity suggested to me that I was the person for whose benefit +this gnome was intended. My vanity, indeed, was well fed by +the whole transaction; for I saw that not only did Mr. Darwin, +who should be the best judge, think my work worth notice, but +that he did not venture to meet it openly. As for Dr. +Krause’s concluding sentence, I thought that when a +sentence had been antedated the less it contained about +anachronism the better.</p> +<p>Only one of the reviews that I saw of Mr. Darwin’s +“Life of Erasmus Darwin” showed any knowledge of the +facts. The <i>Popular Science Review</i> for January 1880, +in flat contradiction to Mr. Darwin’s preface, said that +only part of Dr. Krause’s article was being given by Mr. +Darwin. This reviewer had plainly seen both <i>Kosmos</i> +and Mr. Darwin’s book.</p> +<p>In the same number of the <i>Popular Science Review</i>, and +immediately following the review of Mr. Darwin’s book, +there is a review of “Evolution, Old and New.” +The writer of this review quotes the passage about mental +anachronism as quoted by the reviewer in the <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i>, and adds immediately: “This anachronism has +been committed by Mr. Samuel Butler in a . . . little volume now +before us, and it is doubtless to this, <i>which appeared while +his own work was in progress</i> [italics mine] that Dr. Krause +alludes in the foregoing passage.” Considering that +the editor of the <i>Popular Science Review</i> and the +translator of Dr. Krause’s article for Mr. Darwin are one +and the same person, it is likely the <i>Popular Science +Review</i> is well informed in saying that my book appeared +before Dr. Krause’s article had been transformed into its +present shape, and that my book was intended by the passage in +question.</p> +<p>Unable to see any way of escaping from a conclusion which I +could not willingly adopt, I thought it best to write to Mr. +Darwin, stating the facts as they appeared to myself, and asking +an explanation, which I would have gladly strained a good many +points to have accepted. It is better, perhaps, that I +should give my letter and Darwin’s answer in full. My +letter ran thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><i>January</i> 2, +1880.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Charles Darwin</span>, <span +class="smcap">Esq</span>., F.R.S., &c.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Will you kindly +refer me to the edition of <i>Kosmos</i> which contains the text +of Dr. Krause’s article on Dr. Erasmus Darwin, as +translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas?</p> +<p>I have before me the last February number of <i>Kosmos</i>, +which appears by your preface to be the one from which Mr. Dallas +has translated, but his translation contains long and important +passages which are not in the February number of <i>Kosmos</i>, +while many passages in the original article are omitted in the +translation.</p> +<p>Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the +English article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the +position I have taken as regards Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my book, +“Evolution, Old and New,” and which I believe I was +the first to take. The concluding, and therefore, perhaps, +most prominent sentence of the translation you have given to the +public stands thus:—</p> +<p>“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most +significant first step in the path of knowledge which his +grandson has opened up for us, but to wish to revive it at the +present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a +weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no man can +envy.”</p> +<p>The <i>Kosmos</i> which has been sent me from Germany contains +no such passage.</p> +<p>As you have stated in your preface that my book, +“Evolution, Old and New,” appeared subsequently to +Dr. Krause’s article, and as no intimation is given that +the article has been altered and added to since its original +appearance, while the accuracy of the translation as though from +the February number of <i>Kosmos</i> is, as you expressly say, +guaranteed by Mr. Dallas’s “scientific reputation +together with his knowledge of German,” your readers will +naturally suppose that all they read in the translation appeared +in February last, and therefore before “Evolution, Old and +New,” was written, and therefore independently of, and +necessarily without reference to, that book.</p> +<p>I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have +failed to obtain the edition which contains the passage above +referred to, and several others which appear in the +translation.</p> +<p>I have a personal interest in this matter, and venture, +therefore, to ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you +will readily give me.—Yours faithfully, S. <span +class="smcap">Butler</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following is Mr. Darwin’s answer:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><i>January</i> 3, +1880.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,—Dr. Krause, soon +after the appearance of his article in <i>Kosmos</i> told me that +he intended to publish it separately and to alter it +considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas for +translation. This is so common a practice that it never +occurred to me to state that the article had been modified; but +now I much regret that I did not do so. The original will +soon appear in German, and I believe will be a much larger book +than the English one; for, with Dr. Krause’s consent, many +long extracts from Miss Seward were omitted (as well as much +other matter), from being in my opinion superfluous for the +English reader. I believe that the omitted parts will +appear as notes in the German edition. Should there be a +reprint of the English Life I will state that the original as it +appeared in <i>Kosmos</i> was modified by Dr. Krause before it +was translated. I may add that I had obtained Dr. +Krause’s consent for a translation, and had arranged with +Mr. Dallas before your book was announced. I remember this +because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement.—I +remain, yours faithfully, C. <span +class="smcap">Darwin</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This was not a letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had +said that by some inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or +account for, a blunder had been made which he would at once +correct so far as was in his power by a letter to the +<i>Times</i> or the <i>Athenæum</i>, and that a notice of +the erratum should be printed on a flyleaf and pasted into all +unsold copies of the “Life of Erasmus Darwin,” there +would have been no more heard about the matter from me; but when +Mr. Darwin maintained that it was a common practice to take +advantage of an opportunity of revising a work to interpolate a +covert attack upon an opponent, and at the same time to misdate +the interpolated matter by expressly stating that it appeared +months sooner than it actually did, and prior to the work which +it attacked; when he maintained that what was being done was +“so common a practice that it never occurred,” to +him—the writer of some twenty volumes—to do what all +literary men must know to be inexorably requisite, I thought this +was going far beyond what was permissible in honourable warfare, +and that it was time, in the interests of literary and scientific +morality, even more than in my own, to appeal to public +opinion. I was particularly struck with the use of the +words “it never occurred to me,” and felt how +completely of a piece it was with the opening paragraph of the +“Origin of Species.” It was not merely that it +did not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been +modified since it was written—this would have been bad +enough under the circumstances but that it did occur to him to go +out of his way to say what was not true. There was no +necessity for him to have said anything about my book. It +appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me that if a reprint of +the English Life was wanted (which might or might not be the +case, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of the shoulders, +and I must make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might perhaps +silently omit his note about my book, as he omitted his +misrepresentation of the author of the “Vestiges of +Creation,” and put the words “revised and corrected +by the author” on his title-page.</p> +<p>No matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he +may have unquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general +well-being that he should be allowed to set aside the fundamental +principles of straightforwardness and fair play. When I +thought of Buffon, of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, of Lamarck and even of +the author of the “Vestiges of Creation,” to all of +whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he was now +dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now dumb, +who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels +had been filched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. +Darwin had been abetted by those who should have been the first +to detect the fallacy which had misled him; of the hotbed of +intrigue which science has now become; of the disrepute into +which we English must fall as a nation if such practices as Mr. +Darwin had attempted in this case were to be +tolerated;—when I thought of all this, I felt that though +prayers for the repose of dead men’s souls might be +unavailing, yet a defence of their work and memory, no matter +against what odds, might avail the living, and resolved that I +would do my utmost to make my countrymen aware of the spirit now +ruling among those whom they delight to honour.</p> +<p>At first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence +privately with Mr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was +insufficient, but on reflection I felt that little good was +likely to come of a second letter, if what I had already written +was not enough. I therefore wrote to the +<i>Athenæum</i> and gave a condensed account of the facts +contained in the last ten or a dozen pages. My letter +appeared January 31, 1880. <a name="citation50"></a><a +href="#footnote50" class="citation">[50]</a></p> +<p>The accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very +public place. I gave my name; I adduced the strongest +<i>primâ facie</i> grounds for the acceptance of my +statements; but there was no rejoinder, and for the best of all +reasons—that no rejoinder was possible. Besides, what +is the good of having a reputation for candour if one may not +stand upon it at a pinch? I never yet knew a person with an +especial reputation for candour without finding sooner or later +that he had developed it as animals develop their organs, through +“sense of need.” Not only did Mr. Darwin remain +perfectly quiet, but all reviewers and <i>littérateurs</i> +remained perfectly quiet also. It seemed—though I do +not for a moment believe that this is so—as if public +opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin had done, and of his +silence than otherwise. I saw the “Life of Erasmus +Darwin” more frequently and more prominently advertised now +than I had seen it hitherto—perhaps in the hope of selling +off the adulterated copies, and being able to reprint the work +with a corrected title page. Presently I saw Professor +Huxley hastening to the rescue with his lecture on the coming of +age of the “Origin of Species,” and by May it was +easy for Professor Ray Lankester to imply that Mr. Darwin was the +greatest of living men. I have since noticed two or three +other controversies raging in the <i>Athenæum</i> and +<i>Times</i>; in each of these cases I saw it assumed that the +defeated party, when proved to have publicly misrepresented his +adversary, should do his best to correct in public the injury +which he had publicly inflicted, but I noticed that in none of +them had the beaten side any especial reputation for +candour. This probably made all the difference. But +however this may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of the +field, in the hope, doubtless, that the matter would blow +over—which it apparently soon did. Whether it has +done so in reality or no, is a matter which remains to be +seen. My own belief is that people paid no attention to +what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that when +they come to know that it is true, they will think as I do +concerning it.</p> +<p>From ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no +expectations. There is no conduct so dishonourable that +people will not deny it or explain it away, if it has been +committed by one whom they recognise as of their own +persuasion. It must be remembered that facts cannot be +respected by the scientist in the same way as by other +people. It is his business to familiarise himself with +facts, and, as we all know, the path from familiarity to contempt +is an easy one.</p> +<p>Here, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. +If it appears that I have used language such as is rarely seen in +controversy, let the reader remember that the occasion is, so far +as I know, unparalleled for the cynicism and audacity with which +the wrong complained of was committed and persisted in. I +trust, however, that, though not indifferent to this, my +indignation has been mainly roused, as when I wrote +“Evolution, Old and New,” before Mr. Darwin had given +me personal ground of complaint against him, by the wrongs he has +inflicted on dead men, on whose behalf I now fight, as I trust +that some one—whom I thank by anticipation—may one +day fight on mine.</p> +<h2><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>Chapter V</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Introduction to Professor Hering’s +lecture.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">After</span> I had finished +“Evolution, Old and New,” I wrote some articles for +the <i>Examiner</i>, <a name="citation52"></a><a +href="#footnote52" class="citation">[52]</a> in which I carried +out the idea put forward in “Life and Habit,” that we +are one person with our ancestors. It follows from this, +that all living animals and vegetables, being—as appears +likely if the theory of evolution is accepted—descended +from a common ancestor, are in reality one person, and unite to +form a body corporate, of whose existence, however, they are +unconscious. There is an obvious analogy between this and +the manner in which the component cells of our bodies unite to +form our single individuality, of which it is not likely they +have a conception, and with which they have probably only the +same partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, +have with them. In the articles above alluded to I +separated the organic from the inorganic, and when I came to +rewrite them, I found that this could not be done, and that I +must reconstruct what I had written. I was at work on +this—to which I hope to return shortly—when Dr. +Krause’s’ “Erasmus Darwin,” with its +preliminary notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and having +been compelled, as I have shown above, by Dr. Krause’s work +to look a little into the German language, the opportunity seemed +favourable for going on with it and becoming acquainted with +Professor Hering’s lecture. I therefore began to +translate his lecture at once, with the kind assistance of +friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, and found myself +well rewarded for my trouble.</p> +<p>Professor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as +men who have observed the action of living beings upon the stage +of the world, he from the point of view at once of a spectator +and of one who has free access to much of what goes on behind the +scenes, I from that of a spectator only, with none but the +vaguest notion of the actual manner in which the stage machinery +is worked. If two men so placed, after years of reflection, +arrive independently of one another at an identical conclusion as +regards the manner in which this machinery must have been +invented and perfected, it is natural that each should take a +deep interest in the arguments of the other, and be anxious to +put them forward with the utmost possible prominence. It +seems to me that the theory which Professor Hering and I are +supporting in common, is one the importance of which is hardly +inferior to that of the theory of evolution itself—for it +puts the backbone, as it were, into the theory of +evolution. I shall therefore make no apology for laying my +translation of Professor Hering’s work before my +reader.</p> +<p>Concerning the identity of the main idea put forward in +“Life and Habit” with that of Professor +Hering’s lecture, there can hardly, I think, be two +opinions. We both of us maintain that we grow our limbs as +we do, and possess the instincts we possess, because we remember +having grown our limbs in this way, and having had these +instincts in past generations when we were in the persons of our +forefathers—each individual life adding a small (but so +small, in any one lifetime, as to be hardly appreciable) amount +of new experience to the general store of memory; that we have +thus got into certain habits which we can now rarely break; and +that we do much of what we do unconsciously on the same principle +as that (whatever it is) on which we do all other habitual +actions, with the greater ease and unconsciousness the more often +we repeat them. Not only is the main idea the same, but I +was surprised to find how often Professor Hering and I had taken +the same illustrations with which to point our meaning.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, we have each of us left undealt with some points +which the other has treated of. Professor Hering, for +example, goes into the question of what memory is, and this I did +not venture to do. I confined myself to saying that +whatever memory was, heredity was also. Professor Hering +adds that memory is due to vibrations of the molecules of the +nerve fibres, which under certain circumstances recur, and bring +about a corresponding recurrence of visible action.</p> +<p>This approaches closely to the theory concerning the physics +of memory which has been most generally adopted since the time of +Bonnet, who wrote as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The soul never has a new sensation but by +the inter position of the senses. This sensation has been +originally attached to the motion of certain fibres. Its +reproduction or recollection by the senses will then be likewise +connected with these same fibres.” . . . <a +name="citation54a"></a><a href="#footnote54a" +class="citation">[54a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>And again:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It appeared to me that since this memory is +connected with the body, it must depend upon some change which +must happen to the primitive state of the sensible fibres by the +action of objects. I have, therefore, admitted as probable +that the state of the fibres on which an object has acted is not +precisely the same after this action as it was before I have +conjectured that the sensible fibres experience more or less +durable modifications, which constitute the physics of memory and +recollection.” <a name="citation54b"></a><a +href="#footnote54b" class="citation">[54b]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Professor Hering comes near to endorsing this view, and uses +it for the purpose of explaining personal identity. This, +at least, is what he does in fact, though perhaps hardly in +words. I did not say more upon the essence of personality +than that it was inseparable from the idea that the various +phases of our existence should have flowed one out of the other, +“in what we see as a continuous, though it may be at times +a very troubled, stream” <a name="citation55"></a><a +href="#footnote55" class="citation">[55]</a> but I maintained +that the identity between two successive generations was of +essentially the same kind as that existing between an infant and +an octogenarian. I thus left personal identity unexplained, +though insisting that it was the key to two apparently distinct +sets of phenomena, the one of which had been hitherto considered +incompatible with our ideas concerning it. Professor Hering +insists on this too, but he gives us farther insight into what +personal identity is, and explains how it is that the phenomena +of heredity are phenomena also of personal identity.</p> +<p>He implies, though in the short space at his command he has +hardly said so in express terms, that personal identity as we +commonly think of it—that is to say, as confined to the +single life of the individual—consists in the +uninterruptedness of a sufficient number of vibrations, which +have been communicated from molecule to molecule of the nerve +fibres, and which go on communicating each one of them its own +peculiar characteristic elements to the new matter which we +introduce into the body by way of nutrition. These +vibrations may be so gentle as to be imperceptible for years +together; but they are there, and may become perceived if they +receive accession through the running into them of a wave going +the same way as themselves, which wave has been set up in the +ether by exterior objects and has been communicated to the organs +of sense.</p> +<p>As these pages are on the point of leaving my hands, I see the +following remarkable passage in <i>Mind</i> for the current +month, and introduce it parenthetically here:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I followed the sluggish current of hyaline +material issuing from globules of most primitive living +substance. Persistently it followed its way into space, +conquering, at first, the manifold resistances opposed to it by +its watery medium. Gradually, however, its energies became +exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed, it stopped, an +immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity. Thus +for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such rays +of some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By +degrees, then, or perhaps quite suddenly, <i>help would come to +it from foreign but congruous sources</i>. <i>It would seem +to combine with outside complemental matter</i> drifted to it at +random. Slowly it would regain thereby its vital +mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually completely +restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life, it was +ready to take part again in the progressive flow of a new +ray.” <a name="citation56"></a><a href="#footnote56" +class="citation">[56]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>To return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If +this is so—but I should warn the reader that Professor +Hering is not responsible for this suggestion, though it seems to +follow so naturally from what he has said that I imagine he +intended the inference to be drawn,—if this is so, +assimilation is nothing else than the communication of its own +rhythms from the assimilating to the assimilated substance, to +the effacement of the vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing +in this last; and suitability for food will depend upon whether +the rhythms of the substance eaten are such as to flow +harmoniously into and chime in with those of the body which has +eaten it, or whether they will refuse to act in concert with the +new rhythms with which they have become associated, and will +persist obstinately in pursuing their own course. In this +case they will either be turned out of the body at once, or will +disconcert its arrangements, with perhaps fatal +consequences. This comes round to the conclusion I arrived +at in “Life and Habit,” that assimilation was nothing +but the imbuing of one thing with the memories of another. +(See “Life and Habit,” pp. 136, 137, 140, +&c.)</p> +<p>It will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity +into phenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, +so Professor Hering resolves the phenomena of personal identity +into the phenomena of a living mechanism whose equilibrium is +disturbed by vibrations of a certain character—and leaves +it there. We now want to understand more about the +vibrations.</p> +<p>But if, according to Professor Hering, the personal identity +of the single life consists in the uninterruptedness of +vibrations, so also do the phenomena of heredity. For not +only may vibrations of a certain violence or character be +persistent unperceived for many years in a living body, and +communicate themselves to the matter it has assimilated, but they +may, and will, under certain circumstances, extend to the +particle which is about to leave the parent body as the germ of +its future offspring. In this minute piece of matter there +must, if Professor Hering is right, be an infinity of rhythmic +undulations incessantly vibrating with more or less activity, and +ready to be set in more active agitation at a moment’s +warning, under due accession of vibration from exterior +objects. On the occurrence of such stimulus, that is to +say, when a vibration of a suitable rhythm from without concurs +with one within the body so as to augment it, the agitation may +gather such strength that the touch, as it were, is given to a +house of cards, and the whole comes toppling over. This +toppling over is what we call action; and when it is the result +of the disturbance of certain usual arrangements in certain usual +ways, we call it the habitual development and instinctive +characteristics of the race. In either case, then, whether +we consider the continued identity of the individual in what we +call his single life, or those features in his offspring which we +refer to heredity, the same explanation of the phenomena is +applicable. It follows from this as a matter of course, +that the continuation of life or personal identity in the +individual and the race are fundamentally of the same kind, or, +in other words, that there is a veritable prolongation of +identity or oneness of personality between parents and +offspring. Professor Hering reaches his conclusion by +physical methods, while I reached mine, as I am told, by +metaphysical. I never yet could understand what +“metaphysics” and “metaphysical” mean; +but I should have said I reached it by the exercise of a little +common sense while regarding certain facts which are open to +every one. There is, however, so far as I can see, no +difference in the conclusion come to.</p> +<p>The view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to +throw light upon that difficult question, the manner in which +neuter bees acquire structures and instincts, not one of which +was possessed by any of their direct ancestors. Those who +have read “Life and Habit” may remember, I suggested +that the food prepared in the stomachs of the nurse-bees, with +which the neuter working bees are fed, might thus acquire a +quasi-seminal character, and be made a means of communicating the +instincts and structures in question. <a name="citation58"></a><a +href="#footnote58" class="citation">[58]</a> If +assimilation be regarded as the receiving by one substance of the +rhythms or undulations from another, the explanation just +referred to receives an accession of probability.</p> +<p>If it is objected that Professor Hering’s theory as to +continuity of vibrations being the key to memory and heredity +involves the action of more wheels within wheels than our +imagination can come near to comprehending, and also that it +supposes this complexity of action as going on within a compass +which no unaided eye can detect by reason of its littleness, so +that we are carried into a fairy land with which sober people +should have nothing to do, it may be answered that the case of +light affords us an example of our being truly aware of a +multitude of minute actions, the hundred million millionth part +of which we should have declared to be beyond our ken, could we +not incontestably prove that we notice and count them all with a +very sufficient and creditable accuracy.</p> +<p>“Who would not,” <a name="citation59a"></a><a +href="#footnote59a" class="citation">[59a]</a> says Sir John +Herschel, “ask for demonstration when told that a +gnat’s wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred +times in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly +organised beings many thousands of whose bodies laid close +together would not extend to an inch? But what are these to +the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have +disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through +which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of +periodical movements, recurring regularly at equal intervals, no +less than five hundred millions of millions of times in a second; +that it is by such movements communicated to the nerves of our +eyes that we see; nay, more, that it is the <i>difference</i> in +the frequency of their recurrence which affects us with the sense +of the diversity of colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the +sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred and +eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five +hundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of +violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times per +second? <a name="citation59b"></a><a href="#footnote59b" +class="citation">[59b]</a> Do not such things sound more +like the ravings of madmen than the sober conclusions of people +in their waking senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions +to which any one may most certainly arrive who will only be at +the pains of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have +been obtained.”</p> +<p>A man counting as hard as he can repeat numbers one after +another, and never counting more than a hundred, so that he shall +have no long words to repeat, may perhaps count ten thousand, or +a hundred a hundred times over, in an hour. At this rate, +counting night and day, and allowing no time for rest or +refreshment, he would count one million in four days and four +hours, or say four days only. To count a million a million +times over, he would require four million days, or roughly ten +thousand years; for five hundred millions of millions, he must +have the utterly unrealisable period of five million years. +Yet he actually goes through this stupendous piece of reckoning +unconsciously hour after hour, day after day, it may be for +eighty years, <i>often in each second</i> of daylight; and how +much more by artificial or subdued light I do not know. He +knows whether his eye is being struck five hundred millions of +millions of times, or only four hundred and eighty-two millions +of millions of times. He thus shows that he estimates or +counts each set of vibrations, and registers them according to +his results. If a man writes upon the back of a British +Museum blotting-pad of the common <i>nonpareil</i> pattern, on +which there are some thousands of small spaces each differing in +colour from that which is immediately next to it, his eye will, +nevertheless, without an effort assign its true colour to each +one of these spaces. This implies that he is all the time +counting and taking tally of the difference in the numbers of the +vibrations from each one of the small spaces in question. +Yet the mind that is capable of such stupendous computations as +these so long as it knows nothing about them, makes no little +fuss about the conscious adding together of such almost +inconceivably minute numbers as, we will say, 2730169 and +5790135—or, if these be considered too large, as 27 and +19. Let the reader remember that he cannot by any effort +bring before his mind the units, not in ones, <i>but in millions +of millions</i> of the processes which his visual organs are +undergoing second after second from dawn till dark, and then let +him demur if he will to the possibility of the existence in a +germ, of currents and undercurrents, and rhythms and counter +rhythms, also by the million of millions—each one of which, +on being overtaken by the rhythm from without that chimes in with +and stimulates it, may be the beginning of that unsettlement of +equilibrium which results in the crash of action, unless it is +timely counteracted.</p> +<p>If another objector maintains that the vibrations within the +germ as above supposed must be continually crossing and +interfering with one another in such a manner as to destroy the +continuity of any one series, it may be replied that the +vibrations of the light proceeding from the objects that surround +us traverse one another by the millions of millions every second +yet in no way interfere with one another. Nevertheless, it +must be admitted that the difficulties of the theory towards +which I suppose Professor Hering to incline are like those of all +other theories on the same subject—almost inconceivably +great.</p> +<p>In “Life and Habit” I did not touch upon these +vibrations, knowing nothing about them. Here, then, is one +important point of difference, not between the conclusions +arrived at, but between the aim and scope of the work that +Professor Hering and I severally attempted. Another +difference consists in the points at which we have left +off. Professor Hering, having established his main thesis, +is content. I, on the other hand, went on to maintain that +if vigour was due to memory, want of vigour was due to want of +memory. Thus I was led to connect memory with the phenomena +of hybridism and of old age; to show that the sterility of +certain animals under domestication is only a phase of, and of a +piece with, the very common sterility of hybrids—phenomena +which at first sight have no connection either with each other or +with memory, but the connection between which will never be lost +sight of by those who have once laid hold of it. I also +pointed out how exactly the phenomena of development agreed with +those of the abeyance and recurrence of memory, and the rationale +of the fact that puberty in so many animals and plants comes +about the end of development. The principle underlying +longevity follows as a matter of course. I have no idea how +far Professor Hering would agree with me in the position I have +taken in respect of these phenomena, but there is nothing in the +above at variance with his lecture.</p> +<p>Another matter on which Professor Hering has not touched is +the bearing of his theory on that view of evolution which is now +commonly accepted. It is plain he accepts evolution, but it +does not appear that he sees how fatal his theory is to any view +of evolution except a teleological one—the purpose residing +within the animal and not without it. There is, however, +nothing in his lecture to indicate that he does not see this.</p> +<p>It should be remembered that the question whether memory is +due to the persistence within the body of certain vibrations, +which have been already set up within the bodies of its +ancestors, is true or no, will not affect the position I took up +in “Life and Habit.” In that book I have +maintained nothing more than that whatever memory is heredity is +also. I am not committed to the vibration theory of memory, +though inclined to accept it on a <i>primâ facie</i> +view. All I am committed to is, that if memory is due to +persistence of vibrations, so is heredity; and if memory is not +so due, then no more is heredity.</p> +<p>Finally, I may say that Professor Hering’s lecture, the +passage quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of this volume, +and a few hints in the extracts from Mr. Patrick Mathew which I +have quoted in “Evolution, Old and New,” are all that +I yet know of in other writers as pointing to the conclusion that +the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also of memory.</p> +<h2><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>Chapter VI</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Professor Ewald Hering “On +Memory.”</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">will</span> now lay before the reader a +translation of Professor Hering’s own words. I have +had it carefully revised throughout by a gentleman whose native +language is German, but who has resided in England for many years +past. The original lecture is entitled “On Memory as +a Universal Function of Organised Matter,” and was +delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Imperial Academy of +Sciences at Vienna, May 30, 1870. <a name="citation63"></a><a +href="#footnote63" class="citation">[63]</a> It is as +follows:—</p> +<p>“When the student of Nature quits the narrow workshop of +his own particular inquiry, and sets out upon an excursion into +the vast kingdom of philosophical investigation, he does so, +doubtless, in the hope of finding the answer to that great +riddle, to the solution of a small part of which he devotes his +life. Those, however, whom he leaves behind him still +working at their own special branch of inquiry, regard his +departure with secret misgivings on his behalf, while the born +citizens of the kingdom of speculation among whom he would +naturalise himself, receive him with well-authorised +distrust. He is likely, therefore, to lose ground with the +first, while not gaining it with the second.</p> +<p>The subject to the consideration of which I would now solicit +your attention does certainly appear likely to lure us on towards +the flattering land of speculation, but bearing in mind what I +have just said, I will beware of quitting the department of +natural science to which I have devoted myself hitherto. I +shall, however, endeavour to attain its highest point, so as to +take a freer view of the surrounding territory.</p> +<p>It will soon appear that I should fail in this purpose if my +remarks were to confine themselves solely to physiology. I +hope to show how far psychological investigations also afford not +only permissible, but indispensable, aid to physiological +inquiries.</p> +<p>Consciousness is an accompaniment of that animal and human +organisation and of that material mechanism which it is the +province of physiology to explore; and as long as the atoms of +the brain follow their due course according to certain definite +laws, there arises an inner life which springs from sensation and +idea, from feeling and will.</p> +<p>We feel this in our own cases; it strikes us in our converse +with other people; we can see it plainly in the more highly +organised animals; even the lowest forms of life bear traces of +it; and who can draw a line in the kingdom of organic life, and +say that it is here the soul ceases?</p> +<p>With what eyes, then, is physiology to regard this two-fold +life of the organised world? Shall she close them entirely +to one whole side of it, that she may fix them more intently on +the other?</p> +<p>So long as the physiologist is content to be a physicist, and +nothing more—using the word “physicist” in its +widest signification—his position in regard to the organic +world is one of extreme but legitimate one-sidedness. As +the crystal to the mineralogist or the vibrating string to the +acoustician, so from this point of view both man and the lower +animals are to the physiologist neither more nor less than the +matter of which they consist. That animals feel desire and +repugnance, that the material mechanism of the human frame is in +chose connection with emotions of pleasure or pain, and with the +active idea-life of consciousness—this cannot, in the eyes +of the physicist, make the animal or human body into anything +more than what it actually is. To him it is a combination +of matter, subjected to the same inflexible laws as stones and +plants—a material combination, the outward and inward +movements of which interact as cause and effect, and are in as +close connection with each other and with their surroundings as +the working of a machine with the revolutions of the wheels that +compose it.</p> +<p>Neither sensation, nor idea, nor yet conscious will, can form +a link in this chain of material occurrences which make up the +physical life of an organism. If I am asked a question and +reply to it, the material process which the nerve fibre conveys +from the organ of hearing to the brain must travel through my +brain as an actual and material process before it can reach the +nerves which will act upon my organs of speech. It cannot, +on reaching a given place in the brain, change then and there +into an immaterial something, and turn up again some time +afterwards in another part of the brain as a material +process. The traveller in the desert might as well hope, +before he again goes forth into the wilderness of reality, to +take rest and refreshment in the oasis with which the Fata +Morgana illudes him; or as well might a prisoner hope to escape +from his prison through a door reflected in a mirror.</p> +<p>So much for the physiologist in his capacity of pure +physicist. As long as he remains behind the scenes in +painful exploration of the details of the machinery—as long +as he only observes the action of the players from behind the +stage—so long will he miss the spirit of the performance, +which is, nevertheless, caught easily by one who sees it from the +front. May he not, then, for once in a way, be allowed to +change his standpoint? True, he came not to see the +representation of an imaginary world; he is in search of the +actual; but surely it must help him to a comprehension of the +dramatic apparatus itself, and of the manner in which it is +worked, if he were to view its action from in front as well as +from behind, or at least allow himself to hear what sober-minded +spectators can tell him upon the subject.</p> +<p>There can be no question as to the answer; and hence it comes +that psychology is such an indispensable help to physiology, +whose fault it only in small part is that she has hitherto made +such little use of this assistance; for psychology has been late +in beginning to till her fertile field with the plough of the +inductive method, and it is only from ground so tilled that +fruits can spring which can be of service to physiology.</p> +<p>If, then, the student of nervous physiology takes his stand +between the physicist and the psychologist, and if the first of +these rightly makes the unbroken causative continuity of all +material processes an axiom of his system of investigation, the +prudent psychologist, on the other hand, will investigate the +laws of conscious life according to the inductive method, and +will hence, as much as the physicist, make the existence of fixed +laws his initial assumption. If, again, the most +superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his +conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of +his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain +limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one +assumption more, namely, <i>that this mutual interdependence +between the spiritual and the material is itself also dependent +on law</i>, and he has discovered the bond by which the science +of matter and the science of consciousness are united into a +single whole.</p> +<p>Thus regarded, the phenomena of consciousness become functions +of the material changes of organised substance, and +inversely—though this is involved in the use of the word +“function”—the material processes of brain +substance become functions of the phenomena of +consciousness. For when two variables are so dependent upon +one another in the changes they undergo in accordance with fixed +laws that a change in either involves simultaneous and +corresponding change in the other, the one is called a function +of the other.</p> +<p>This, then, by no means implies that the two variables +above-named—matter and consciousness—stand in the +relation of cause and effect, antecedent and consequence, to one +another. For on this subject we know nothing.</p> +<p>The materialist regards consciousness as a product or result +of matter, while the idealist holds matter to be a result of +consciousness, and a third maintains that matter and spirit are +identical; with all this the physiologist, as such, has nothing +whatever to do; his sole concern is with the fact that matter and +consciousness are functions one of the other.</p> +<p>By the help of this hypothesis of the functional +interdependence of matter and spirit, modern physiology is +enabled to bring the phenomena of consciousness within the domain +of her investigations without leaving the <i>terra firma</i> of +scientific methods. The physiologist, as physicist, can +follow the ray of light and the wave of sound or heat till they +reach the organ of sense. He can watch them entering upon +the ends of the nerves, and finding their way to the cells of the +brain by means of the series of undulations or vibrations which +they establish in the nerve filaments. Here, however, he +loses all trace of them. On the other hand, still looking +with the eyes of a pure physicist, he sees sound waves of speech +issue from the mouth of a speaker; he observes the motion of his +own limbs, and finds how this is conditional upon muscular +contractions occasioned by the motor nerves, and how these nerves +are in their turn excited by the cells of the central +organ. But here again his knowledge comes to an end. +True, he sees indications of the bridge which is to carry him +from excitation of the sensory to that of the motor nerves in the +labyrinth of intricately interwoven nerve cells, but he knows +nothing of the inconceivably complex process which is introduced +at this stage. Here the physiologist will change his +standpoint; what matter will not reveal to his inquiry, he will +find in the mirror, as it were, of consciousness; by way of a +reflection, indeed, only, but a reflection, nevertheless, which +stands in intimate relation to the object of his inquiry. +When at this point he observes how one idea gives rise to +another, how closely idea is connected with sensation and +sensation with will, and how thought, again, and feeling are +inseparable from one another, he will be compelled to suppose +corresponding successions of material processes, which generate +and are closely connected with one another, and which attend the +whole machinery of conscious life, according to the law of the +functional interdependence of matter and consciousness.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>After this explanation I shall venture to regard under a +single aspect a great series of phenomena which apparently have +nothing to do with one another, and which belong partly to the +conscious and partly to the unconscious life of organised +beings. I shall regard them as the outcome of one and the +same primary force of organised matter—namely, its memory +or power of reproduction.</p> +<p>The word “memory” is often understood as though it +meant nothing more than our faculty of intentionally reproducing +ideas or series of ideas. But when the figures and events +of bygone days rise up again unbidden in our minds, is not this +also an act of recollection or memory? We have a perfect +right to extend our conception of memory so as to make it embrace +involuntary reproductions, of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and +efforts; but we find, on having done so, that we have so far +enlarged her boundaries that she proves to be an ultimate and +original power, the source, and at the same time the unifying +bond, of our whole conscious life.</p> +<p>We know that when an impression, or a series of impressions, +has been made upon our senses for a long time, and always in the +same way, it may come to impress itself in such a manner upon the +so-called sense-memory that hours afterwards, and though a +hundred other things have occupied our attention meanwhile, it +will yet return suddenly to our consciousness with all the force +and freshness of the original sensation. A whole group of +sensations is sometimes reproduced in its due sequence as regards +time and space, with so much reality that it illudes us, as +though things were actually present which have long ceased to be +so. We have here a striking proof of the fact that after +both conscious sensation and perception have been extinguished, +their material vestiges yet remain in our nervous system by way +of a change in its molecular or atomic disposition, <a +name="citation69"></a><a href="#footnote69" +class="citation">[69]</a> that enables the nerve substance to +reproduce all the physical processes of the original sensation, +and with these the corresponding psychical processes of sensation +and perception.</p> +<p>Every hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present with each +one of us, but in a less degree than this. We are all at +times aware of a host of more or less faded recollections of +earlier impressions, which we either summon intentionally or +which come upon us involuntarily. Visions of absent people +come and go before us as faint and fleeting shadows, and the +notes of long-forgotten melodies float around us, not actually +heard, but yet perceptible.</p> +<p>Some things and occurrences, especially if they have happened +to us only once and hurriedly, will be reproducible by the memory +in respect only of a few conspicuous qualities; in other cases +those details alone will recur to us which we have met with +elsewhere, and for the reception of which the brain is, so to +speak, attuned. These last recollections find themselves in +fuller accord with our consciousness, and enter upon it more +easily and energetically; hence also their aptitude for +reproduction is enhanced; so that what is common to many things, +and is therefore felt and perceived with exceptional frequency, +becomes reproduced so easily that eventually the actual presence +of the corresponding external <i>stimuli</i> is no longer +necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations set up by faint +<i>stimuli</i> from within. <a name="citation70"></a><a +href="#footnote70" class="citation">[70]</a> Sensations +arising in this way from within, as, for example, an idea of +whiteness, are not, indeed, perceived with the full freshness of +those raised by the actual presence of white light without us, +but they are of the same kind; they are feeble repetitions of one +and the same material brain process—of one and the same +conscious sensation. Thus the idea of whiteness arises in +our mind as a faint, almost extinct, sensation.</p> +<p>In this way those qualities which are common to many things +become separated, as it were, in our memory from the objects with +which they were originally associated, and attain an independent +existence in our consciousness as <i>ideas</i> and +<i>conceptions</i>, and thus the whole rich superstructure of our +ideas and conceptions is built up from materials supplied by +memory.</p> +<p>On examining more closely, we see plainly that memory is a +faculty not only of our conscious states, but also, and much more +so, of our unconscious ones. I was conscious of this or +that yesterday, and am again conscious of it to-day. Where +has it been meanwhile? It does not remain continuously +within my consciousness, nevertheless it returns after having +quitted it. Our ideas tread but for a moment upon the stage +of consciousness, and then go back again behind the scenes, to +make way for others in their place. As the player is only a +king when he is on the stage, so they too exist as ideas so long +only as they are recognised. How do they live when they are +off the stage? For we know that they are living somewhere; +give them their cue and they reappear immediately. They do +not exist continuously as ideas; what is continuous is the +special disposition of nerve substance in virtue of which this +substance gives out to-day the same sound which it gave yesterday +if it is rightly struck. <a name="citation71"></a><a +href="#footnote71" class="citation">[71]</a> Countless +reproductions of organic processes of our brain connect +themselves orderly together, so that one acts as a stimulus to +the next, but a phenomenon of consciousness is not necessarily +attached to every link in the chain. From this it arises +that a series of ideas may appear to disregard the order that +would be observed in purely material processes of brain substance +unaccompanied by consciousness; but on the other hand it becomes +possible for a long chain of recollections to have its due +development without each link in the chain being necessarily +perceived by ourselves. One may emerge from the bosom of +our unconscious thoughts without fully entering upon the stage of +conscious perception; another dies away in unconsciousness, +leaving no successor to take its place. 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. Who can hope +after this to disentangle the infinite intricacy of our inner +life? For we can only follow its threads so far as they +have strayed over within the bounds of consciousness. We +might as well hope to familiarise ourselves with the world of +forms that teem within the bosom of the sea by observing the few +that now and again come to the surface and soon return into the +deep.</p> +<p>The bond of union, therefore, which connects the individual +phenomena of our consciousness lies in our unconscious world; and +as we know nothing of this but what investigation into the laws +of matter teach us—as, in fact, for purely experimental +purposes, “matter” and the “unconscious” +must be one and the same thing—so the physiologist has a +full right to denote memory as, in the wider sense of the word, a +function of brain substance, whose results, it is true, fall, as +regards one part of them, into the domain of consciousness, while +another and not less essential part escapes unperceived as purely +material processes.</p> +<p>The perception of a body in space is a very complicated +process. I see suddenly before me, for example, a white +ball. This has the effect of conveying to me more than a +mere sensation of whiteness. I deduce the spherical +character of the ball from the gradations of light and shade upon +its surface. I form a correct appreciation of its distance +from my eye, and hence again I deduce an inference as to the size +of the ball. What an expenditure of sensations, ideas, and +inferences is found to be necessary before all this can be +brought about; yet the production of a correct perception of the +ball was the work only of a few seconds, and I was unconscious of +the individual processes by means of which it was effected, the +result as a whole being alone present in my consciousness.</p> +<p>The nerve substance preserves faithfully the memory of +habitual actions. <a name="citation72"></a><a href="#footnote72" +class="citation">[72]</a> Perceptions which were once long +and difficult, requiring constant and conscious attention, come +to reproduce themselves in transient and abridged guise, without +such duration and intensity that each link has to pass over the +threshold of our consciousness.</p> +<p>We have chains of material nerve processes to which eventually +a link becomes attached that is attended with conscious +perception. This is sufficiently established from the +standpoint of the physiologist, and is also proved by our +unconsciousness of many whole series of ideas and of the +inferences we draw from them. If the soul is not to ship +through the fingers of physiology, she must hold fast to the +considerations suggested by our unconscious states. As far, +however, as the investigations of the pure physicist are +concerned, the unconscious and matter are one and the same thing, +and the physiology of the unconscious is no “philosophy of +the unconscious.”</p> +<p>By far the greater number of our movements are the result of +long and arduous practice. The harmonious cooperation of +the separate muscles, the finely adjusted measure of +participation which each contributes to the working of the whole, +must, as a rule, have been laboriously acquired, in respect of +most of the movements that are necessary in order to effect +it. How long does it not take each note to find its way +from the eyes to the fingers of one who is beginning to learn the +pianoforte; and, on the other hand, what an astonishing +performance is the playing of the professional pianist. The +sight of each note occasions the corresponding movement of the +fingers with the speed of thought—a hurried glance at the +page of music before him suffices to give rise to a whole series +of harmonies; nay, when a melody has been long practised, it can +be played even while the player’s attention is being given +to something of a perfectly different character over and above +his music.</p> +<p>The will need now no longer wend its way to each individual +finger before the desired movements can be extorted from it; no +longer now does a sustained attention keep watch over the +movements of each limb; the will need exercise a supervising +control only. At the word of command the muscles become +active, with a due regard to time and proportion, and go on +working, so long as they are bidden to keep in their accustomed +groove, while a slight hint on the part of the will, will +indicate to them their further journey. How could all this +be if every part of the central nerve system, by means of which +movement is effected, were not able <a name="citation74a"></a><a +href="#footnote74a" class="citation">[74a]</a> to reproduce whole +series of vibrations, which at an earlier date required the +constant and continuous participation of consciousness, but which +are now set in motion automatically on a mere touch, as it were, +from consciousness—if it were not able to reproduce them +the more quickly and easily in proportion to the frequency of the +repetitions—if, in fact, there was no power of recollecting +earlier performances? Our perceptive faculties must have +remained always at their lowest stage if we had been compelled to +build up consciously every process from the details of the +sensation-causing materials tendered to us by our senses; nor +could our voluntary movements have got beyond the helplessness of +the child, if the necessary impulses could only be imparted to +every movement through effort of the will and conscious +reproduction of all the corresponding ideas—if, in a word, +the motor nerve system had not also its memory, <a +name="citation74b"></a><a href="#footnote74b" +class="citation">[74b]</a> though that memory is unperceived by +ourselves. The power of this memory is what is called +“the force of habit.”</p> +<p>It seems, then, that we owe to memory almost all that we +either have or are; that our ideas and conceptions are its work, +and that our every perception, thought, and movement is derived +from this source. Memory collects the countless phenomena +of our existence into a single whole; and as our bodies would be +scattered into the dust of their component atoms if they were not +held together by the attraction of matter, so our consciousness +would be broken up into as many fragments as we had lived seconds +but for the binding and unifying force of memory.</p> +<p>We have already repeatedly seen that the reproductions of +organic processes, brought about by means of the memory of the +nervous system, enter but partly within the domain of +consciousness, remaining unperceived in other and not less +important respects. This is also confirmed by numerous +facts in the life of that part of the nervous system which +ministers almost exclusively to our unconscious life +processes. For the memory of the so-called sympathetic +ganglionic system is no less rich than that of the brain and +spinal marrow, and a great part of the medical art consists in +making wise use of the assistance thus afforded us.</p> +<p>To bring, however, this part of my observations to a close, I +will take leave of the nervous system, and glance hurriedly at +other phases of organised matter, where we meet with the same +powers of reproduction, but in simpler guise.</p> +<p>Daily experience teaches us that a muscle becomes the stronger +the more we use it. The muscular fibre, which in the first +instance may have answered but feebly to the stimulus conducted +to it by the motor nerve, does so with the greater energy the +more often it is stimulated, provided, of course, that reasonable +times are allowed for repose. After each individual action +it becomes more capable, more disposed towards the same kind of +work, and has a greater aptitude for repetition of the same +organic processes. It gains also in weight, for it +assimilates more matter than when constantly at rest. We +have here, in its simplest form, and in a phase which comes home +most closely to the comprehension of the physicist, the same +power of reproduction which we encountered when we were dealing +with nerve substance, but under such far more complicated +conditions. And what is known thus certainly from muscle +substance holds good with greater or less plainness for all our +organs. More especially may we note the fact, that after +increased use, alternated with times of repose, there accrues to +the organ in all animal economy an increased power of execution +with an increased power of assimilation and a gain in size.</p> +<p>This gain in size consists not only in the enlargement of the +individual cells or fibres of which the organ is composed, but in +the multiplication of their number; for when cells have grown to +a certain size they give rise to others, which inherit more or +less completely the qualities of those from which they came, and +therefore appear to be repetitions of the same cell. This +growth, and multiplication of cells is only a special phase of +those manifold functions which characterise organised matter, and +which consist not only in what goes on within the cell substance +as alterations or undulatory movement of the molecular +disposition, but also in that which becomes visible outside the +cells as change of shape, enlargement, or subdivision. +Reproduction of performance, therefore, manifests itself to us as +reproduction of the cells themselves, as may be seen most plainly +in the case of plants, whose chief work consists in growth, +whereas with animal organism other faculties greatly +preponderate.</p> +<p>Let us now take a brief survey of a class of facts in the case +of which we may most abundantly observe the power of memory in +organised matter. We have ample evidence of the fact that +characteristics of an organism may descend to offspring which the +organism did not inherit, but which it acquired owing to the +special circumstances under which it lived; and that, in +consequence, every organism imparts to the germ that issues from +it a small heritage of acquisitions which it has added during its +own lifetime to the gross inheritance of its race.</p> +<p>When we reflect that we are dealing with the heredity of +acquired qualities which came to development in the most diverse +parts of the parent organism, it must seem in a high degree +mysterious how those parts can have any kind of influence upon a +germ which develops itself in an entirely different place. +Many mystical theories have been propounded for the elucidation +of this question, but the following reflections may serve to +bring the cause nearer to the comprehension of the +physiologist.</p> +<p>The nerve substance, in spite of its thousandfold subdivision +as cells and fibres, forms, nevertheless, a united whole, which +is present directly in all organs—nay, as more recent +histology conjectures, in each cell of the more important +organs—or is at least in ready communication with them by +means of the living, irritable, and therefore highly conductive +substance of other cells. Through the connection thus +established all organs find themselves in such a condition of +more or less mutual interdependence upon one another, that events +which happen to one are repeated in others, and a notification, +however slight, of a vibration set up <a name="citation77"></a><a +href="#footnote77" class="citation">[77]</a> in one quarter is at +once conveyed even to the farthest parts of the body. With +this easy and rapid intercourse between all parts is associated +the more difficult communication that goes on by way of the +circulation of sap or blood.</p> +<p>We see, further, that the process of the development of all +germs that are marked out for independent existence causes a +powerful reaction, even from the very beginning of that +existence, on both the conscious and unconscious life of the +whole organism. We may see this from the fact that the +organ of reproduction stands in closer and more important +relation to the remaining parts, and especially to the nervous +system, than do the other organs; and, inversely, that both the +perceived and unperceived events affecting the whole organism +find a more marked response in the reproductive system than +elsewhere.</p> +<p>We can now see with sufficient plainness in what the material +connection is established between the acquired peculiarities of +an organism, and the proclivity on the part of the germ in virtue +of which it develops the special characteristics of its +parent.</p> +<p>The microscope teaches us that no difference can be perceived +between one germ and another; it cannot, however, be objected on +this account that the determining cause of its ulterior +development must be something immaterial, rather than the +specific kind of its material constitution.</p> +<p>The curves and surfaces which the mathematician conceives, or +finds conceivable, are more varied and infinite than the forms of +animal life. Let us suppose an infinitely small segment to +be taken from every possible curve; each one of these will appear +as like every other as one germ is to another, yet the whole of +every curve lies dormant, as it were, in each of them, and if the +mathematician chooses to develop it, it will take the path +indicated by the elements of each segment.</p> +<p>It is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine +distinctions as physiology must assume lie beyond the limits of +what is conceivable by the human mind. An infinitely small +change of position on the part of a point, or in the relations of +the parts of a segment of a curve to one another, suffices to +alter the law of its whole path, and so in like manner an +infinitely small influence exercised by the parent organism on +the molecular disposition of the germ <a name="citation78"></a><a +href="#footnote78" class="citation">[78]</a> may suffice to +produce a determining effect upon its whole farther +development.</p> +<p>What is the descent of special peculiarities but a +reproduction on the part of organised matter of processes in +which it once took part as a germ in the germ-containing organs +of its parent, and of which it seems still to retain a +recollection that reappears when time and the occasion serve, +inasmuch as it responds to the same or like stimuli in a like way +to that in which the parent organism responded, of which it was +once part, and in the events of whose history it was itself also +an accomplice? <a name="citation79"></a><a href="#footnote79" +class="citation">[79]</a> When an action through long habit +or continual practice has become so much a second nature to any +organisation that its effects will penetrate, though ever so +faintly, into the germ that lies within it, and when this last +comes to find itself in a new sphere, to extend itself, and +develop into a new creature—(the individual parts of which +are still always the creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so +that what is reproduced is the same being as that in company with +which the germ once lived, and of which it was once actually a +part)—all this is as wonderful as when a grey-haired man +remembers the events of his own childhood; but it is not more +so. Whether we say that the same organised substance is +again reproducing its past experience, or whether we prefer to +hold that an offshoot or part of the original substance has waxed +and developed itself since separation from the parent stock, it +is plain that this will constitute a difference of degree, not +kind.</p> +<p>When we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired +characteristics can be reproduced in offspring, we are apt to +forget that offspring is only a full-sized reproduction of the +parent—a reproduction, moreover, that goes as far as +possible into detail. We are so accustomed to consider +family resemblance a matter of course, that we are sometimes +surprised when a child is in some respect unlike its parent; +surely, however, the infinite number of points in respect of +which parents and children resemble one another is a more +reasonable ground for our surprise.</p> +<p>But if the substance of the germ can reproduce characteristics +acquired by the parent during its single life, how much more will +it not be able to reproduce those that were congenital to the +parent, and which have happened through countless generations to +the organised matter of which the germ of to-day is a +fragment? We cannot wonder that action already taken on +innumerable past occasions by organised matter is more deeply +impressed upon the recollection of the germ to which it gives +rise than action taken once only during a single lifetime. <a +name="citation80a"></a><a href="#footnote80a" +class="citation">[80a]</a></p> +<p>We must bear in mind that every organised being now in +existence represents the last link of an inconceivably long +series of organisms, which come down in a direct line of descent, +and of which each has inherited a part of the acquired +characteristics of its predecessor. Everything, +furthermore, points in the direction of our believing that at the +beginning of this chain there existed an organism of the very +simplest kind, something, in fact, like those which we call +organised germs. The chain of living beings thus appears to +be the magnificent achievement of the reproductive power of the +original organic structure from which they have all +descended. As this subdivided itself and transmitted its +characteristics <a name="citation80b"></a><a href="#footnote80b" +class="citation">[80b]</a> to its descendants, these acquired new +ones, and in their turn transmitted them—all new germs +transmitting the chief part of what had happened to their +predecessors, while the remaining part lapsed out of their +memory, circumstances not stimulating it to reproduce itself.</p> +<p>An organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of +the unconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever +increasing and ever dividing itself, ever assimilating new matter +and returning it in changed shape to the inorganic world, ever +receiving some new thing into its memory, and transmitting its +acquisitions by the way of reproduction, grows continually richer +and richer the longer it lives.</p> +<p>Thus regarded, the development of one of the more highly +organised animals represents a continuous series of organised +recollections concerning the past development of the great chain +of living forms, the last link of which stands before us in the +particular animal we may be considering. As a complicated +perception may arise by means of a rapid and superficial +reproduction of long and laboriously practised brain processes, +so a germ in the course of its development hurries through a +series of phases, hinting at them only. Often and long +foreshadowed in theories of varied characters, this conception +has only now found correct exposition from a naturalist of our +own time. <a name="citation81"></a><a href="#footnote81" +class="citation">[81]</a> For Truth hides herself under +many disguises from those who seek her, but in the end stands +unveiled before the eyes of him whom she has chosen.</p> +<p>Not only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner +conformation of body, organs, and cells, but the habitual actions +of the parent are also reproduced. The chicken on emerging +from the eggshell runs off as its mother ran off before it; yet +what an extraordinary complication of emotions and sensations is +necessary in order to preserve equilibrium in running. +Surely the supposition of an inborn capacity for the reproduction +of these intricate actions can alone explain the facts. As +habitual practice becomes a second nature to the individual +during his single lifetime, so the often-repeated action of each +generation becomes a second nature to the race.</p> +<p>The chicken not only displays great dexterity in the +performance of movements for the effecting of which it has an +innate capacity, but it exhibits also a tolerably high perceptive +power. It immediately picks up any grain that may be thrown +to it. Yet, in order to do this, more is wanted than a mere +visual perception of the grains; there must be an accurate +apprehension of the direction and distance of the precise spot in +which each grain is lying, and there must be no less accuracy in +the adjustment of the movements of the head and of the whole +body. The chicken cannot have gained experience in these +respects while it was still in the egg. It gained it rather +from the thousands of thousands of beings that have lived before +it, and from which it is directly descended.</p> +<p>The memory of organised substance displays itself here in the +most surprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of the light +proceeding from the grain that affects the retina of the chicken, +<a name="citation82"></a><a href="#footnote82" +class="citation">[82]</a> gives occasion for the reproduction of +a many-linked chain of sensations, perceptions, and emotions, +which were never yet brought together in the case of the +individual before us. We are accustomed to regard these +surprising performances of animals as manifestations of what we +call instinct, and the mysticism of natural philosophy has ever +shown a predilection for this theme; but if we regard instinct as +the outcome of the memory or reproductive power of organised +substance, and if we ascribe a memory to the race as we already +ascribe it to the individual, then instinct becomes at once +intelligible, and the physiologist at the same time finds a point +of contact which will bring it into connection with the great +series of facts indicated above as phenomena of the reproductive +faculty. Here, then, we have a physical explanation which +has not, indeed, been given yet, but the time for which appears +to be rapidly approaching.</p> +<p>When, in accordance with its instinct, the caterpillar becomes +a chrysalis, or the bird builds its nest, or the bee its cell, +these creatures act consciously and not as blind machines. +They know how to vary their proceedings within certain limits in +conformity with altered circumstances, and they are thus liable +to make mistakes. They feel pleasure when their work +advances and pain if it is hindered; they learn by the experience +thus acquired, and build on a second occasion better than on the +first; but that even in the outset they hit so readily upon the +most judicious way of achieving their purpose, and that their +movements adapt themselves so admirably and automatically to the +end they have in view—surely this is owing to the inherited +acquisitions of the memory of their nerve substance, which +requires but a touch and it will fall at once to the most +appropriate kind of activity, thinking always, and directly, of +whatever it is that may be wanted.</p> +<p>Man can readily acquire surprising kinds of dexterity if he +confines his attention to their acquisition. Specialisation +is the mother of proficiency. He who marvels at the skill +with which the spider weaves her web should bear in mind that she +did not learn her art all on a sudden, but that innumerable +generations of spiders acquired it toilsomely and step by +step—this being about all that, as a general rule, they did +acquire. Man took to bows and arrows if his nets failed +him—the spider starved. Thus we see the body +and—what most concerns us—the whole nervous system of +the new-born animal constructed beforehand, and, as it were, +ready attuned for intercourse with the outside world in which it +is about to play its part, by means of its tendency to respond to +external stimuli in the same manner as it has often heretofore +responded in the persons of its ancestors.</p> +<p>We naturally ask whether the brain and nervous system of the +human infant are subjected to the principles we have laid down +above? Man certainly finds it difficult to acquire arts of +which the lower animals are born masters; but the brain of man at +birth is much farther from its highest development than is the +brain of an animal. It not only grows for a longer time, +but it becomes stronger than that of other living beings. +The brain of man may be said to be exceptionally young at +birth. The lower animal is born precocious, and acts +precociously; it resembles those infant prodigies whose brain, as +it were, is born old into the world, but who, in spite of, or +rather in addition to, their rich endowment at birth, in after +life develop as much mental power as others who were less +splendidly furnished to start with, but born with greater +freshness of youth. Man’s brain, and indeed his whole +body, affords greater scope for individuality, inasmuch as a +relatively greater part of it is of post-natal growth. It +develops under the influence of impressions made by the +environment upon its senses, and thus makes its acquisitions in a +more special and individual manner, whereas the animal receives +them ready made, and of a more final, stereotyped character.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain +and body of the new-born infant a far-reaching power of +remembering or reproducing things which have already come to +their development thousands of times over in the persons of its +ancestors. It is in virtue of this that it acquires +proficiency in the actions necessary for its existence—so +far as it was not already at birth proficient in them—much +more quickly and easily than would be otherwise possible; but +what we call instinct in the case of animals takes in man the +looser form of aptitude, talent, and genius. <a +name="citation84"></a><a href="#footnote84" +class="citation">[84]</a> Granted that certain ideas are +not innate, yet the fact of their taking form so easily and +certainly from out of the chaos of his sensations, is due not to +his own labour, but to that of the brain substance of the +thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is +descended. Theories concerning the development of +individual consciousness which deny heredity or the power of +transmission, and insist upon an entirely fresh start for every +human soul, as though the infinite number of generations that +have gone before us might as well have never lived for all the +effect they have had upon ourselves,—such theories will +contradict the facts of our daily experience at every touch and +turn.</p> +<p>The brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which +ennoble man in the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient +history than those connected with his physical needs. +Hunger and the reproductive instinct affected the oldest and +simplest forms of the organic world. It is in respect of +these instincts, therefore, and of the means to gratify them, +that the memory of organised substance is strongest—the +impulses and instincts that arise hence having still paramount +power over the minds of men. The spiritual life has been +superadded slowly; its most splendid outcome belongs to the +latest epoch in the history of organised matter, nor has any very +great length of time elapsed since the nervous system was first +crowned with the glory of a large and well-developed brain.</p> +<p>Oral tradition and written history have been called the memory +of man, and this is not without its truth. But there is +another and a living memory in the innate reproductive power of +brain substance, and without this both writings and oral +tradition would be without significance to posterity. The +most sublime ideas, though never so immortalised in speech or +letters, are yet nothing for heads that are out of harmony with +them; they must be not only heard, but reproduced; and both +speech and writing would be in vain were there not an inheritance +of inward and outward brain development, growing in +correspondence with the inheritance of ideas that are handed down +from age to age, and did not an enhanced capacity for their +reproduction on the part of each succeeding generation accompany +the thoughts that have been preserved in writing. +Man’s conscious memory comes to an end at death, but the +unconscious memory of Nature is true and ineradicable: whoever +succeeds in stamping upon her the impress of his work, she will +remember him to the end of time.</p> +<h2><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>Chapter VII</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Introduction to a translation of the chapter +upon instinct in Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the +Unconscious.”</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">am</span> afraid my readers will find +the chapter on instinct from Von Hartmann’s +“Philosophy of the Unconscious,” which will now +follow, as distasteful to read as I did to translate, and would +gladly have spared it them if I could. At present, the +works of Mr. Sully, who has treated of the “Philosophy of +the Unconscious” both in the <i>Westminster Review</i> +(vol. xlix. <span class="GutSmall">N.S.</span>) and in his work +“Pessimism,” are the best source to which English +readers can have recourse for information concerning Von +Hartmann. Giving him all credit for the pains he has taken +with an ungrateful, if not impossible subject, I think that a +sufficient sample of Von Hartmann’s own words will be a +useful adjunct to Mr. Sully’s work, and may perhaps save +some readers trouble by resolving them to look no farther into +the “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” Over and +above this, I have been so often told that the views concerning +unconscious action contained in the foregoing lecture and in +“Life and Habit” are only the very fallacy of Von +Hartmann over again, that I should like to give the public an +opportunity of seeing whether this is so or no, by placing the +two contending theories of unconscious action side by side. +I hope that it will thus be seen that neither Professor Hering +nor I have fallen into the fallacy of Von Hartmann, but that +rather Von Hartmann has fallen into his fallacy through failure +to grasp the principle which Professor Hering has insisted upon, +and to connect heredity with memory.</p> +<p>Professor Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious is of +extreme simplicity. He rests upon a fact of daily and +hourly experience, namely, that practice makes things easy that +were once difficult, and often results in their being done +without any consciousness of effort. But if the repetition +of an act tends ultimately, under certain circumstances, to its +being done unconsciously, so also is the fact of an intricate and +difficult action being done unconsciously an argument that it +must have been done repeatedly already. As I said in +“Life and Habit,” it is more easy to suppose that +occasions on which such an action has been performed have not +been wanting, even though we do not see when and where they were, +than that the facility which we observe should have been attained +without practice and memory (p. 56).</p> +<p>There can be nothing better established or more easy, whether +to understand or verify, than the unconsciousness with which +habitual actions come to be performed. If, however, it is +once conceded that it is the manner of habitual action generally, +then all <i>à priori</i> objection to Professor +Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious is at an end. +The question becomes one of fact in individual cases, and of +degree.</p> +<p>How far, then, does the principle of the convertibility, as it +were, of practice and unconsciousness extend? Can any line +be drawn beyond which it shall cease to operate? If not, +may it not have operated and be operating to a vast and hitherto +unsuspected extent? This is all, and certainly it is +sufficiently simple. I sometimes think it has found its +greatest stumbling-block in its total want of mystery, as though +we must be like those conjurers whose stock in trade is a small +deal table and a kitchen-chair with bare legs, and who, with +their parade of “no deception” and “examine +everything for yourselves,” deceive worse than others who +make use of all manner of elaborate paraphernalia. It is +true we require no paraphernalia, and we produce unexpected +results, but we are not conjuring.</p> +<p>To turn now to Von Hartmann. When I read Mr. +Sully’s article in the <i>Westminster Review</i>, I did not +know whether the sense of mystification which it produced in me +was wholly due to Von Hartmann or no; but on making acquaintance +with Von Hartmann himself, I found that Mr. Sully has erred, if +at all, in making him more intelligible than he actually +is. Von Hartmann has not got a meaning. Give him +Professor Hering’s key and he might get one, but it would +be at the expense of seeing what approach he had made to a system +fallen to pieces. Granted that in his details and +subordinate passages he often both has and conveys a meaning, +there is, nevertheless, no coherence between these details, and +the nearest approach to a broad conception covering the work +which the reader can carry away with him is at once so +incomprehensible and repulsive, that it is difficult to write +about it without saying more perhaps than those who have not seen +the original will accept as likely to be true. The idea to +which I refer is that of an unconscious clairvoyance, which, from +the language continually used concerning it, must be of the +nature of a person, and which is supposed to take possession of +living beings so fully as to be the very essence of their nature, +the promoter of their embryonic development, and the instigator +of their instinctive actions. This approaches closely to +the personal God of Mosaic and Christian theology, with the +exception that the word “clairvoyance” <a +name="citation89"></a><a href="#footnote89" +class="citation">[89]</a> is substituted for God, and that the +God is supposed to be unconscious.</p> +<p>Mr. Sully says:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“When we grasp it [the philosophy of Von +Hartmann] as a whole, it amounts to nothing more than this, that +all or nearly all the phenomena of the material and spiritual +world rest upon and result from a mysterious, unconscious being, +though to call it being is really to add on an idea not +immediately contained within the all-sufficient principle. +But what difference is there between this and saying that the +phenomena of the world at large come we know not whence? . . . +The unconscious, therefore, tends to be simple phrase and nothing +more . . . No doubt there are a number of mental processes . . . +of which we are unconscious . . . but to infer from this that +they are due to an unconscious power, and to proceed to +demonstrate them in the presence of the unconscious through all +nature, is to make an unwarrantable <i>saltus</i> in +reasoning. What, in fact, is this ‘unconscious’ +but a high-sounding name to veil our ignorance? Is the +unconscious any better explanation of phenomena we do not +understand than the ‘devil-devil’ by which Australian +tribes explain the Leyden jar and its phenomena? Does it +increase our knowledge to know that we do not know the origin of +language or the cause of instinct? . . . Alike in organic +creation and the evolution of history ‘performances and +actions’—the words are those of Strauss—are +ascribed to an unconscious, which can only belong to a conscious +being. <a name="citation90a"></a><a href="#footnote90a" +class="citation">[90a]</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">. . . . .</p> +<p>“The difficulties of the system advance as we proceed. +<a name="citation90b"></a><a href="#footnote90b" +class="citation">[90b]</a> Subtract this questionable +factor—the unconscious from Hartmann’s ‘Biology +and Psychology,’ and the chapters remain pleasant and +instructive reading. But with the third part of his +work—the Metaphysic of the Unconscious—our feet are +clogged at every step. We are encircled by the merest play +of words, the most unsatisfactory demonstrations, and most +inconsistent inferences. The theory of final causes has +been hitherto employed to show the wisdom of the world; with our +Pessimist philosopher it shows nothing but its irrationality and +misery. Consciousness has been generally supposed to be the +condition of all happiness and interest in life; here it simply +awakens us to misery, and the lower an animal lies in the scale +of conscious life, the better and the pleasanter its lot.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">. . . . .</p> +<p>“Thus, then, the universe, as an emanation of the +unconscious, has been constructed. <a name="citation90c"></a><a +href="#footnote90c" class="citation">[90c]</a> Throughout +it has been marked by design, by purpose, by finality; throughout +a wonderful adaptation of means to ends, a wonderful adjustment +and relativity in different portions has been noticed—and +all this for what conclusion? Not, as in the hands of the +natural theologians of the eighteenth century, to show that the +world is the result of design, of an intelligent, beneficent +Creator, but the manifestation of a Being whose only predicates +are negatives, whose very essence is to be unconscious. It +is not only like ancient Athens, to an unknown, but to an +unknowing God, that modern Pessimism rears its altar. Yet +surely the fact that the motive principle of existence moves in a +mysterious way outside our consciousness no way requires that the +All-one Being should be himself unconscious.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I believe the foregoing to convey as correct an idea of Von +Hartmann’s system as it is possible to convey, and will +leave it to the reader to say how much in common there is between +this and the lecture given in the preceding chapter, beyond the +fact that both touch upon unconscious actions. The extract +which will form my next chapter is only about a thirtieth part of +the entire “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” but it +will, I believe, suffice to substantiate the justice of what Mr. +Sully has said in the passages above quoted.</p> +<p>As regards the accuracy of the translation, I have submitted +all passages about which I was in the least doubtful to the same +gentleman who revised my translation of Professor Hering’s +lecture; I have also given the German wherever I thought the +reader might be glad to see it.</p> +<h2><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>Chapter VIII</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Translation of the chapter on “The +Unconscious in Instinct,” from Von Hartmann’s +“Philosophy of the Unconscious.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Von Hartmann’s</span> chapter on +instinct is as follows:—</p> +<p>Instinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose but without +conscious perception of what the purpose is. <a +name="citation92a"></a><a href="#footnote92a" +class="citation">[92a]</a></p> +<p>A purposive action, with consciousness of the purpose and +where the course taken is the result of deliberation is not said +to be instinctive; nor yet, again, is blind aimless action, such +as outbreaks of fury on the part of offended or otherwise enraged +animals. I see no occasion for disturbing the commonly +received definition of instinct as given above; for those who +think they can refer all the so-called ordinary instincts of +animals to conscious deliberation <i>ipso facto</i> deny that +there is such a thing as instinct at all, and should strike the +word out of their vocabulary. But of this more +hereafter.</p> +<p>Assuming, then, the existence of instinctive action as above +defined, it can be explained as—</p> +<p>I. A mere necessary consequence of bodily organisation. +<a name="citation92b"></a><a href="#footnote92b" +class="citation">[92b]</a></p> +<p>II. A mechanism of brain or mind contrived by +nature.</p> +<p>III. The outcome of an unconscious activity of mind.</p> +<p>In neither of the two first cases is there any scope for the +idea of purpose; in the third, purpose must be present +immediately before the action. In the two first cases, +action is supposed to be brought about by means of an initial +arrangement, either of bodily or mental mechanism, purpose being +conceived of as existing on a single occasion only—that is +to say, in the determination of the initial arrangement. In +the third, purpose is conceived as present in every individual +instance. Let us proceed to the consideration of these +three cases.</p> +<p>Instinct is not a mere consequence of bodily organisation; +for—</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>.) Bodies may be alike, yet they may be endowed +with different instincts.</p> +<p>All spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind +weaves radiating webs, another irregular ones, while a third +makes none at all, but lives in holes, whose walls it overspins, +and whose entrance it closes with a door. Almost all birds +have a like organisation for the construction of their nests (a +beak and feet), but how infinitely do their nests vary in +appearance, mode of construction, attachment to surrounding +objects (they stand, are glued on, hang, &c.), selection of +site (caves, holes, corners, forks of trees, shrubs, the ground), +and excellence of workmanship; how often, too, are they not +varied in the species of a single genus, as of +<i>parus</i>. Many birds, moreover, build no nest at +all. The difference in the songs of birds are in like +manner independent of the special construction of their voice +apparatus, nor do the modes of nest construction that obtain +among ants and bees depend upon their bodily organisation. +Organisation, as a general rule, only renders the bird capable of +singing, as giving it an apparatus with which to sing at all, but +it has nothing to do with the specific character of the execution +. . . The nursing, defence, and education of offspring cannot be +considered as in any way more dependent upon bodily organisation; +nor yet the sites which insects choose for the laying of their +eggs; nor, again, the selection of deposits of spawn, of their +own species, by male fish for impregnation. The rabbit +burrows, the hare does not, though both have the same burrowing +apparatus. The hare, however, has less need of a +subterranean place of refuge by reason of its greater +swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers of flight, are +nevertheless stationary in their habits, as the secretary falcon +and certain other birds of prey; while even such moderate fliers +as quails are sometimes known to make very distant +migrations.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>.) Like instincts may be found associated with +unlike organs.</p> +<p>Birds with and without feet adapted for climbing live in +trees; so also do monkeys with and without flexible tails, +squirrels, sloths, pumas, &c. Mole-crickets dig with a +well-pronounced spade upon their fore-feet, while the +burying-beetle does the same thing though it has no special +apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender +in pockets, an inch wide, long and half an inch wide within its +cheeks; the field-mouse does so without the help of any such +contrivance. The migratory instinct displays itself with +equal strength in animals of widely different form, by whatever +means they may pursue their journey, whether by water, land, or +air.</p> +<p>It is clear, therefore, that instinct is in great measure +independent of bodily organisation. Granted, indeed, that a +certain amount of bodily apparatus is a <i>sine quâ non</i> +for any power of execution at all—as, for example, that +there would be no ingenious nest without organs more or less +adapted for its construction, no spinning of a web without +spinning glands—nevertheless, it is impossible to maintain +that instinct is a consequence of organisation. The mere +existence of the organ does not constitute even the smallest +incentive to any corresponding habitual activity. A +sensation of pleasure must at least accompany the use of the +organ before its existence can incite to its employment. +And even so when a sensation of pleasure has given the impulse +which is to render it active, it is only the fact of there being +activity at all, and not the special characteristics of the +activity, that can be due to organisation. The reason for +the special mode of the activity is the very problem that we have +to solve. No one will call the action of the spider +instinctive in voiding the fluid from her spinning gland when it +is too full, and therefore painful to her; nor that of the male +fish when it does what amounts to much the same thing as +this. The instinct and the marvel lie in the fact that the +spider spins threads, and proceeds to weave her web with them, +and that the male fish will only impregnate ova of his own +species.</p> +<p>Another proof that the pleasure felt in the employment of an +organ is wholly inadequate to account for this employment is to +be found in the fact that the moral greatness of instinct, the +point in respect of which it most commands our admiration, +consists in the obedience paid to its behests, to the +postponement of all personal well-being, and at the cost, it may +be, of life itself. If the mere pleasure of relieving +certain glands from overfulness were the reason why caterpillars +generally spin webs, they would go on spinning until they had +relieved these glands, but they would not repair their work as +often as any one destroyed it, and do this again and again until +they die of exhaustion. The same holds good with the other +instincts that at first sight appear to be inspired only by a +sensation of pleasure; for if we change the circumstances, so as +to put self-sacrifice in the place of self-interest, it becomes +at once apparent that they have a higher source than this. +We think, for example, that birds pair for the sake of mere +sexual gratification; why, then, do they leave off pairing as +soon as they have laid the requisite number of eggs? That +there is a reproductive instinct over and above the desire for +sexual gratification appears from the fact that if a man takes an +egg out of the nest, the birds will come together again and the +hen will lay another egg; or, if they belong to some of the more +wary species, they will desert their nest, and make preparation +for an entirely new brood. A female wryneck, whose nest was +daily robbed of the egg she laid in it, continued to lay a new +one, which grew smaller and smaller, till, when she had laid her +twenty-ninth egg, she was found dead upon her nest. If an +instinct cannot stand the test of self-sacrifice—if it is +the simple outcome of a desire for bodily +gratification—then it is no true instinct, and is only so +called erroneously.</p> +<p>Instinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in +living beings by nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action +without any, even unconscious, activity of mind, and with no +conception concerning the purpose of the action, would be +executed mechanically, the purpose having been once for all +thought out by Nature or Providence, which has so organised the +individual that it acts henceforth as a purely mechanical +medium. We are now dealing with a psychical organisation as +the cause instinct, as we were above dealing with a +physical. A psychical organisation would be a conceivable +explanation and we need look no farther if every instinct once +belonging to an animal discharged its functions in an unvarying +manner. But this is never found to be the case, for +instincts vary when there arises a sufficient motive for varying +them. This proves that special exterior circumstances enter +into the matter, and that these circumstances are the very things +that render the attainment of the purpose possible through means +selected by the instinct. Here first do we find instinct +acting as though it were actually design with action following at +its heels, for until the arrival of the motive, the instinct +remains late and discharges no function whatever. The +motive enters by way of an idea received into the mind through +the instrumentality of the senses, and there is a constant +connection between instinct in action and all sensual images +which give information that an opportunity has arisen for +attaining the ends proposed to itself by the instinct.</p> +<p>The psychical mechanism of this constant connection must also +be looked for. It may help us here to turn to the piano for +an illustration. The struck keys are the motives, the notes +that sound in consequence are the instincts in action. This +illustration might perhaps be allowed to pass (if we also suppose +that entirely different keys can give out the same sound) if +instincts could only be compared with <i>distinctly tuned</i> +notes, so that one and the same instinct acted always in the same +manner on the rising of the motive which should set it in +action. This, however, is not so; for it is the blind +unconscious purpose of the instinct that is alone constant, the +instinct itself—that is to say, the will to make use of +certain means—varying as the means that can be most +suitably employed vary under varying circumstances.</p> +<p>In this we condemn the theory which refuses to recognise +unconscious purpose as present in each individual case of +instinctive action. For he who maintains instinct to be the +result of a mechanism of mind, must suppose a special and +constant mechanism for each variation and modification of the +instinct in accordance with exterior circumstances, <a +name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97" +class="citation">[97]</a> that is to say, a new string giving a +note with a new tone must be inserted, and this would involve the +mechanism in endless complication. But the fact that the +purpose is constant notwithstanding all manner of variation in +the means chosen by the instinct, proves that there is no +necessity for the supposition of such an elaborate mental +mechanism—the presence of an unconscious purpose being +sufficient to explain the facts. The purpose of the bird, +for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, and consists in +the desire to bring her young to maturity. When the +temperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits +upon her eggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest +countries; the mammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment +of its instinctive purpose without any co-operation on its own +part. In warm climates many birds only sit by night, and +small exotic birds that have built in aviaries kept at a high +temperature sit little upon their eggs or not at all. How +inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism that impels the +bird to sit as soon as the temperature falls below a certain +height! How clear and simple, on the other hand, is the +view that there is an unconscious purpose constraining the +volition of the bird to the use of the fitting means, of which +process, however, only the last link, that is to say, the will +immediately preceding the action falls within the consciousness +of the bird!</p> +<p>In South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as +a defence against apes and serpents. The eggs of the +cuckoo, as regards size, colour, and marking, invariably resemble +those of the birds in whose nests she lays. Sylvia +<i>ruja</i>, for example, lays a white egg with violet spots; +<i>Sylvia hippolais</i>, a red one with black spots; <i>Regulus +ignicapellus</i>, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo’s egg is in +each case so deceptive an imitation of its model, that it can +hardly be distinguished except by the structure of its shell.</p> +<p>Huber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in +their usual instinctive manner, beginning from above and working +downwards; on this they began building from below, and again +horizontally. The outermost cells that spring from the top +of the hive or abut against its sides are not hexagonal, but +pentagonal, so as to gain in strength, being attached with one +base instead of two sides. In autumn bees lengthen their +existing honey cells if these are insufficient, but in the +ensuing spring they again shorten them in order to get greater +roadway between the combs. When the full combs have become +too heavy, they strengthen the walls of the uppermost or bearing +cells by thickening them with wax and propolis. If +larvæ of working bees are introduced into the cells set +apart for drones, the working bees will cover these cells with +the flat lids usual for this kind of larvæ, and not with +the round ones that are proper for drones. In autumn, as a +general rule, bees kill their drones, but they refrain from doing +this when they have lost their queen, and keep them to fertilise +the young queen, who will be developed from larvæ that +would otherwise have become working bees. Huber observed +that they defend the entrance of their hive against the inroads +of the sphinx moth by means of skilful constructions made of wax +and propolis. They only introduce propolis when they want +it for the execution of repairs, or for some other special +purpose. Spiders and caterpillars also display marvellous +dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been damaged, +and this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite +for the construction of a new one.</p> +<p>The above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they +are sufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not +capacities rolled, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according +to an invariable system, but that they adapt themselves most +closely to the circumstances of each case, and are capable of +such great modification and variation that at times they almost +appear to cease to be instinctive.</p> +<p>Many will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious +deliberation on the part of the animals themselves, and it is +impossible to deny that in the case of the more intellectually +gifted animals there may be such a thing as a combination of +instinctive faculty and conscious reflection. I think, +however, the examples already cited are enough to show that often +where the normal and the abnormal action springs from the same +source, without any complication with conscious deliberation, +they are either both instinctive or both deliberative. <a +name="citation99"></a><a href="#footnote99" +class="citation">[99]</a> Or is that which prompts the bee +to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb something of +an actually distinct character from that which impels her to +build pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate +kinds of thing, one of which induces birds under certain +circumstances to sit upon their eggs, while another leads them +under certain other circumstances to refrain from doing so? +And does this hold good also with bees when they at one time kill +their brethren without mercy and at another grant them their +lives? Or with birds when they construct the kind of nest +peculiar to their race, and, again, any special provision which +they may think fit under certain circumstances to take? If +it is once granted that the normal and the abnormal +manifestations of instinct—and they are often incapable of +being distinguished—spring from a single source, then the +objection that the modification is due to conscious knowledge +will be found to be a suicidal one later on, so far as it is +directed against instinct generally. It may be sufficient +here to point out, in anticipation of remarks that will be found +in later chapters, that instinct and the power of organic +development involve the same essential principle, though +operating under different circumstances—the two melting +into one another without any definite boundary between +them. Here, then, we have conclusive proof that instinct +does not depend upon organisation of body or brain, but that, +more truly, the organisation is due to the nature and manner of +the instinct.</p> +<p>On the other hand, we must now return to a closer +consideration of the conception of a psychical mechanism. <a +name="citation100"></a><a href="#footnote100" +class="citation">[100]</a> And here we find that this +mechanism, in spite of its explaining so much, is itself so +obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it. The +motive enters the mind by way of a conscious sensual impression; +this is the first link of the process; the last link <a +name="citation101"></a><a href="#footnote101" +class="citation">[101]</a> appears as the conscious motive of an +action. Both, however, are entirely unlike, and neither has +anything to do with ordinary motivation, which consists +exclusively in the desire that springs from a conception either +of pleasure or dislike—the former prompting to the +attainment of any object, the latter to its avoidance. In +the case of instinct, pleasure is for the most part a concomitant +phenomenon; but it is not so always, as we have already seen, +inasmuch as the consummation and highest moral development of +instinct displays itself in self-sacrifice.</p> +<p>The true problem, however, lies far deeper than this. +For every conception of a pleasure proves that we have +experienced this pleasure already. But it follows from +this, that when the pleasure was first felt there must have been +will present, in the gratification of which will the pleasure +consisted; the question, therefore, arises, whence did the will +come before the pleasure that would follow on its gratification +was known, and before bodily pain, as, for example, of hunger, +rendered relief imperative? Yet we may see that even though +an animal has grown up apart from any others of its kind, it will +yet none the less manifest the instinctive impulses of its race, +though experience can have taught it nothing whatever concerning +the pleasure that will ensue upon their gratification. As +regards instinct, therefore, there must be a causal connection +between the motivating sensual conception and the will to perform +the instinctive action, and the pleasure of the subsequent +gratification has nothing to do with the matter. We know by +the experience of our own instincts that this causal connection +does not lie within our consciousness; <a +name="citation102a"></a><a href="#footnote102a" +class="citation">[102a]</a> therefore, if it is to be a mechanism +of any kind, it can only be either an unconscious mechanical +induction and metamorphosis of the vibrations of the conceived +motive into the vibrations of the conscious action in the brain, +or an unconscious spiritual mechanism.</p> +<p>In the first case, it is surely strange that this process +should go on unconsciously, though it is so powerful in its +effects that the will resulting from it overpowers every other +consideration, every other kind of will, and that vibrations of +this kind, when set up in the brain, become always consciously +perceived; nor is it easy to conceive in what way this +metamorphosis can take place so that the constant purpose can be +attained under varying circumstances by the resulting will in +modes that vary with variation of the special features of each +individual case.</p> +<p>But if we take the other alternative, and suppose an +unconscious mental mechanism, we cannot legitimately conceive of +the process going on in this as other than what prevails in all +mental mechanism, namely, than as by way of idea and will. +We are, therefore, compelled to imagine a causal connection +between the consciously recognised motive and the will to do the +instinctive action, through unconscious idea and will; nor do I +know how this connection can be conceived as being brought about +more simply than through a conceived and willed purpose. <a +name="citation102b"></a><a href="#footnote102b" +class="citation">[102b]</a> Arrived at this point, however, +we have attained the logical mechanism peculiar to and +inseparable from all mind, and find unconscious purpose to be an +indispensable link in every instinctive action. With this, +therefore, the conception of a mental mechanism, dead and +predestined from without, has disappeared, and has become +transformed into the spiritual life inseparable from logic, so +that we have reached the sole remaining requirement for the +conception of an actual instinct, which proves to be a conscious +willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed +purpose. This conception explains clearly and without +violence all the problems which instinct presents to us; or more +truly, all that was problematical about instinct disappears when +its true nature has been thus declared. If this work were +confined to the consideration of instinct alone, the conception +of an unconscious activity of mind might excite opposition, +inasmuch as it is one with which our educated public is not yet +familiar; but in a work like the present, every chapter of which +adduces fresh facts in support of the existence of such an +activity and of its remarkable consequences, the novelty of the +theory should be taken no farther into consideration.</p> +<p>Though I so confidently deny that instinct is the simple +action of a mechanism which has been contrived once for all, I by +no means exclude the supposition that in the constitution of the +brain, the ganglia, and the whole body, in respect of +morphological as well as molecular-physiological condition, +certain predispositions can be established which direct the +unconscious intermediaries more readily into one channel than +into another. This predisposition is either the result of a +habit which keeps continually cutting for itself a deeper and +deeper channel, until in the end it leaves indelible traces +whether in the individual or in the race, or it is expressly +called into being by the unconscious formative principle in +generation, so as to facilitate action in a given +direction. This last will be the case more frequently in +respect of exterior organisation—as, for example, with the +weapons or working organs of animals—while to the former +must be referred the molecular condition of brain and ganglia +which bring about the perpetually recurring elements of an +instinct such as the hexagonal shape of the cells of bees. +We shall presently see that by individual character we mean the +sum of the individual methods of reaction against all possible +motives, and that this character depends essentially upon a +constitution of mind and body acquired in some measure through +habit by the individual, but for the most part inherited. +But an instinct is also a mode of reaction against certain +motives; here, too, then, we are dealing with character, though +perhaps not so much with that of the individual as of the race; +for by character in regard to instinct we do not intend the +differences that distinguish individuals, but races from one +another. If any one chooses to maintain that such a +predisposition for certain kinds of activity on the part of brain +and body constitutes a mechanism, this may in one sense be +admitted; but as against this view it must be remarked—</p> +<p>1. That such deviations from the normal scheme of an +instinct as cannot be referred to conscious deliberation are not +provided for by any predisposition in this mechanism.</p> +<p>2. That heredity is only possible under the +circumstances of a constant superintendence of the embryonic +development by a purposive unconscious activity of growth. +It must be admitted, however, that this is influenced in return +by the predisposition existing in the germ.</p> +<p>3. That the impressing of the predisposition upon the +individual from whom it is inherited can only be effected by long +practice, consequently the instinct without auxiliary mechanism +<a name="citation105a"></a><a href="#footnote105a" +class="citation">[105a]</a> is the originating cause of the +auxiliary mechanism.</p> +<p>4. That none of those instinctive actions that are +performed rarely, or perhaps once only, in the lifetime of any +individual—as, for example, those connected with the +propagation and metamorphoses of the lower forms of life, and +none of those instinctive omissions of action, neglect of which +necessarily entails death—can be conceived as having become +engrained into the character through habit; the ganglionic +constitution, therefore, that predisposes the animal towards them +must have been fashioned purposively.</p> +<p>5. That even the presence of an auxiliary mechanism <a +name="citation105b"></a><a href="#footnote105b" +class="citation">[105b]</a> does not compel the unconscious to a +particular corresponding mode of instinctive action, but only +predisposes it. This is shown by the possibility of +departure from the normal type of action, so that the unconscious +purpose is always stronger than the ganglionic constitution, and +takes any opportunity of choosing from several similar possible +courses the one that is handiest and most convenient to the +constitution of the individual.</p> +<p>We now approach the question that I have reserved for our +final one,—Is there, namely, actually such a thing as +instinct, <a name="citation105c"></a><a href="#footnote105c" +class="citation">[105c]</a> or are all so-called instinctive +actions only the results of conscious deliberation?</p> +<p>In support of the second of these two views, it may be alleged +that the more limited is the range of the conscious mental +activity of any living being, the more fully developed in +proportion to its entire mental power is its performance commonly +found to be in respect of its own limited and special instinctive +department. This holds as good with the lower animals as +with men, and is explained by the fact that perfection of +proficiency is only partly dependent upon natural capacity, but +is in great measure due to practice and cultivation of the +original faculty. A philologist, for example, is unskilled +in questions of jurisprudence; a natural philosopher or +mathematician, in philology; an abstract philosopher, in poetical +criticism. Nor has this anything to do with the natural +talents of the several persons, but follows as a consequence of +their special training. The more special, therefore, is the +direction in which the mental activity of any living being is +exercised, the more will the whole developing and practising +power of the mind be brought to bear upon this one branch, so +that it is not surprising if the special power comes ultimately +to bear an increased proportion to the total power of the +individual, through the contraction of the range within which it +is exercised.</p> +<p>Those, however, who apply this to the elucidation of instinct +should not forget the words, “in proportion to the entire +mental power of the animal in question,” and should bear in +mind that the entire mental power becomes less and less +continually as we descend the scale of animal life, whereas +proficiency in the performance of an instinctive action seems to +be much of a muchness in all grades of the animal world. +As, therefore, those performances which indisputably proceed from +conscious deliberation decrease proportionately with decrease of +mental power, while nothing of the kind is observable in the case +of instinct—it follows that instinct must involve some +other principle than that of conscious intelligence. We +see, moreover, that actions which have their source in conscious +intelligence are of one and the same kind, whether among the +lower animals or with mankind—that is to say, that they are +acquired by apprenticeship or instruction and perfected by +practice; so that the saying, “Age brings wisdom,” +holds good with the brutes as much as with ourselves. +Instinctive actions, on the contrary, have a special and distinct +character, in that they are performed with no less proficiency by +animals that have been reared in solitude than by those that have +been instructed by their parents, the first essays of a hitherto +unpractised animal being as successful as its later ones. +There is a difference in principle here which cannot be +mistaken. Again, we know by experience that the feebler and +more limited an intelligence is, the more slowly do ideas act +upon it, that is to say, the slower and more laborious is its +conscious thought. So long as instinct does not come into +play, this holds good both in the case of men of different powers +of comprehension and with animals; but with instinct all is +changed, for it is the speciality of instinct never to hesitate +or loiter, but to take action instantly upon perceiving that the +stimulating motive has made its appearance. This rapidity +in arriving at a resolution is common to the instinctive actions +both of the highest and the lowest animals, and indicates an +essential difference between instinct and conscious +deliberation.</p> +<p>Finally, as regards perfection of the power of execution, a +glance will suffice to show the disproportion that exists between +this and the grade of intellectual activity on which an animal +may be standing. Take, for instance, the caterpillar of the +emperor moth (<i>Saturnia pavonia minor</i>). It eats the +leaves of the bush upon which it was born; at the utmost has just +enough sense to get on to the lower sides of the leaves if it +begins to rain, and from time to time changes its skin. +This is its whole existence, which certainly does not lead us to +expect a display of any, even the most limited, intellectual +power. When, however, the time comes for the larva of this +moth to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a double cocoon, +fortified with bristles that point outwards, so that it can be +opened easily from within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable +from without. If this contrivance were the result of +conscious reflection, we should have to suppose some such +reasoning process as the following to take place in the mind of +the caterpillar:—“I am about to become a chrysalis, +and, motionless as I must be, shall be exposed to many different +kinds of attack. I must therefore weave myself a web. +But when I am a moth I shall not be able, as some moths are, to +find my way out of it by chemical or mechanical means; therefore +I must leave a way open for myself. In order, however, that +my enemies may not take advantage of this, I will close it with +elastic bristles, which I can easily push asunder from within, +but which, upon the principle of the arch, will resist all +pressure from without.” Surely this is asking rather +too much from a poor caterpillar; yet the whole of the foregoing +must be thought out if a correct result is to be arrived at.</p> +<p>This theoretical separation of instinct from conscious +intelligence can be easily misrepresented by opponents of my +theory, as though a separation in practice also would be +necessitated in consequence. This is by no means my +intention. On the contrary, I have already insisted at some +length that both the two kinds of mental activity may co-exist in +all manner of different proportions, so that there may be every +degree of combination, from pure instinct to pure +deliberation. We shall see, however, in a later chapter, +that even in the highest and most abstract activity of human +consciousness there are forces at work that are of the highest +importance, and are essentially of the same kind as instinct.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the most marvellous displays of instinct +are to be found not only in plants, but also in those lowest +organisms of the simplest bodily form which are partly +unicellular, and in respect of conscious intelligence stand far +below the higher plants—to which, indeed, any kind of +deliberative faculty is commonly denied. Even in the case +of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our attempts to +classify them either as animals or vegetables, we are still +compelled to admire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which +goes far beyond a mere reflex responsive to a stimulus from +without; all doubt, therefore, concerning the actual existence of +an instinct must be at an end, and the attempt to deduce it as a +consequence of conscious deliberation be given up as +hopeless. I will here adduce an instance as extraordinary +as any we yet know of, showing, as it does, that many different +purposes, which in the case of the higher animals require a +complicated system of organs of motion, can be attained with +incredibly simple means.</p> +<p><i>Arcella vulgaris</i> is a minute morsel of protoplasm, +which lives in a concave-convex, brown, finely reticulated shell, +through a circular opening in the concave side of which it can +project itself by throwing out <i>pseudopodia</i>. If we +look through the microscope at a drop of water containing living +<i>arcellæ</i>, we may happen to see one of them lying on +its back at the bottom of the drop, and making fruitless efforts +for two or three minutes to lay hold of some fixed point by means +of a <i>pseudopodium</i>. After this there will appear +suddenly from two to five, but sometimes more, dark points in the +protoplasm at a small distance from the circumference, and, as a +rule, at regular distances from one another. These rapidly +develop themselves into well-defined spherical air vesicles, and +come presently to fill a considerable part of the hollow of the +shell, thereby driving part of the protoplasm outside it. +After from five to twenty minutes, the specific gravity of the +<i>arcella</i> is so much lessened that it is lifted by the water +with its <i>pseudopodia</i>, and brought up against the upper +surface of the water-drop, on which it is able to travel. +In from five to ten minutes the vesicles will now disappear, the +last small point vanishing with a jerk. If, however, the +creature has been accidentally turned over during its journey, +and reaches the top of the water-drop with its back uppermost, +the vesicles will continue growing only on one side, while they +diminish on the other; by this means the shell is brought first +into an oblique and then into a vertical position, until one of +the <i>pseudopodia</i> obtains a footing and the whole turns +over. From the moment the animal has obtained foothold, the +bladders become immediately smaller, and after they have +disappeared the experiment may be repeated at pleasure.</p> +<p>The positions of the protoplasm which the vesicles fashion +change continually; only the grainless protoplasm of the +<i>pseudopodia</i> develops no air. After long and +fruitless efforts a manifest fatigue sets in; the animal gives up +the attempt for a time, and resumes it after an interval of +repose.</p> +<p>Engelmann, the discoverer of these phenomena, says +(Pflüger’s Archiv für Physologie, Bd. II.): +“The changes in volume in all the vesicles of the same +animal are for the most part synchronous, effected in the same +manner, and of like size. There are, however, not a few +exceptions; it often happens that some of them increase or +diminish in volume much faster than others; sometimes one may +increase while another diminishes; all the changes, however, are +throughout unquestionably intentional. The object of the +air-vesicles is to bring the animal into such a position that it +can take fast hold of something with its +<i>pseudopodia</i>. When this has been obtained, the air +disappears without our being able to discover any other reason +for its disappearance than the fact that it is no longer needed. +. . . If we bear these circumstances in mind, we can almost +always tell whether an <i>arcella</i> will develop air-vesicles +or no; and if it has already developed them, we can tell whether +they will increase or diminish . . . The <i>arcellæ</i>, in +fact, in this power of altering their specific gravity possess a +mechanism for raising themselves to the top of the water, or +lowering themselves to the bottom at will. They use this +not only in the abnormal circumstances of their being under +microscopical observation, but at all times, as may be known by +our being always able to find some specimens with air-bladders at +the top of the water in which they live.”</p> +<p>If what has been already advanced has failed to convince the +reader of the hopelessness of attempting to explain instinct as a +mode of conscious deliberation, he must admit that the following +considerations are conclusive. It is most certain that +deliberation and conscious reflection can only take account of +such data as are consciously perceived; if, then, it can be shown +that data absolutely indispensable for the arrival at a just +conclusion cannot by any possibility have been known consciously, +the result can no longer be held as having had its source in +conscious deliberation. It is admitted that the only way in +which consciousness can arrive at a knowledge of exterior facts +is by way of an impression made upon the senses. We must, +therefore, prove that a knowledge of the facts indispensable for +arrival at a just conclusion could not have been thus +acquired. This may be done as follows: <a +name="citation111"></a><a href="#footnote111" +class="citation">[111]</a> for, Firstly, the facts in question +lie in the future, and the present gives no ground for +conjecturing the time and manner of their subsequent +development.</p> +<p>Secondly, they are manifestly debarred from the category of +perceptions perceived through the senses, inasmuch as no +information can be derived concerning them except through +experience of similar occurrences in time past, and such +experience is plainly out of the question.</p> +<p>It would not affect the argument if, as I think likely, it +were to turn out, with the advance of our physiological +knowledge, that all the examples of the first case that I am +about to adduce reduce themselves to examples of the second, as +must be admitted to have already happened in respect of many that +I have adduced hitherto. For it is hardly more difficult to +conceive of <i>à priori</i> knowledge, disconnected from +any impression made upon the senses, than of knowledge which, it +is true, does at the present day manifest itself upon the +occasion of certain general perceptions, but which can only be +supposed to be connected with these by means of such a chain of +inferences and judiciously applied knowledge as cannot be +believed to exist when we have regard to the capacity and +organisation of the animal we may be considering.</p> +<p>An example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the +stag-beetle in its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in +which to become a chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole +exactly her own size, but the male makes one as long again as +himself, so as to allow for the growth of his horns, which will +be about the same length as his body. A knowledge of this +circumstance is indispensable if the result achieved is to be +considered as due to reflection, yet the actual present of the +larva affords it no ground for conjecturing beforehand the +condition in which it will presently find itself.</p> +<p>As regards the second case, ferrets and buzzards fall +forthwith upon blind worms or other non-poisonous snakes, and +devour them then and there. But they exhibit the greatest +caution in laying hold of adders, even though they have never +before seen one, and will endeavour first to bruise their heads, +so as to avoid being bitten. As there is nothing in any +other respect alarming in the adder, a conscious knowledge of the +danger of its bite is indispensable, if the conduct above +described is to be referred to conscious deliberation. But +this could only have been acquired through experience, and the +possibility of such experience may be controlled in the case of +animals that have been kept in captivity from their youth up, so +that the knowledge displayed can be ascertained to be independent +of experience. On the other hand, both the above +illustrations afford evidence of an unconscious perception of the +facts, and prove the existence of a direct knowledge underivable +from any sensual impression or from consciousness.</p> +<p>This has always been recognised, <a name="citation113"></a><a +href="#footnote113" class="citation">[113]</a> and has been +described under the words “presentiment” or +“foreboding.” These words, however, refer, on +the one hand, only to an unknowable in the future, separated from +us by space, and not to one that is actually present; on the +other hand, they denote only the faint, dull, indefinite echo +returned by consciousness to an invariably distinct state of +unconscious knowledge. Hence the word +“presentiment,” which carries with it an idea of +faintness and indistinctness, while, however, it may be easily +seen that sentiment destitute of all, even unconscious, ideas can +have no influence upon the result, for knowledge can only follow +upon an idea. A presentiment that sounds in consonance with +our consciousness can indeed, under certain circumstances, become +tolerably definite, so that in the case of man it can be +expressed in thought and language; but experience teaches us that +even among ourselves this is not so when instincts special to the +human race come into play; we see rather that the echo of our +unconscious knowledge which finds its way into our consciousness +is so weak that it manifests itself only in the accompanying +feelings or frame of mind, and represents but an infinitely small +fraction of the sum of our sensations. It is obvious that +such a faintly sympathetic consciousness cannot form a sufficient +foundation for a superstructure of conscious deliberation; on the +other hand, conscious deliberation would be unnecessary, inasmuch +as the process of thinking must have been already gone through +unconsciously, for every faint presentiment that obtrudes itself +upon our consciousness is in fact only the consequence of a +distinct unconscious knowledge, and the knowledge with which it +is concerned is almost always an idea of the purpose of some +instinctive action, or of one most intimately connected +therewith. Thus, in the case of the stag-beetle, the +purpose consists in the leaving space for the growth of the +horns; the means, in the digging the hole of a sufficient size; +and the unconscious knowledge, in prescience concerning the +future development of the horns.</p> +<p>Lastly, all instinctive actions give us an impression of +absolute security and infallibility. With instinct the will +is never hesitating or weak, as it is when inferences are being +drawn consciously. We never find instinct making mistakes; +we cannot, therefore, ascribe a result which is so invariably +precise to such an obscure condition of mind as is implied when +the word presentiment is used; on the contrary, this absolute +certainty is so characteristic a feature of instinctive actions, +that it constitutes almost the only well-marked point of +distinction between these and actions that are done upon +reflection. But from this it must again follow that some +principle lies at the root of instinct other than that which +underlies reflective action, and this can only be looked for in a +determination of the will through a process that lies in the +unconscious, <a name="citation115a"></a><a href="#footnote115a" +class="citation">[115a]</a> to which this character of +unhesitating infallibility will attach itself in all our future +investigations.</p> +<p>Many will be surprised at my ascribing to instinct an +unconscious knowledge, arising out of no sensual impression, and +yet invariably accurate. This, however, is not a +consequence of my theory concerning instinct; it is the +foundation on which that theory is based, and is forced upon us +by facts. I must therefore adduce examples. And to +give a name to the unconscious knowledge, which is not acquired +through impression made upon the senses, but which will be found +to be in our possession, though attained without the +instrumentality of means, <a name="citation115b"></a><a +href="#footnote115b" class="citation">[115b]</a> I prefer the +word “clairvoyance” <a name="citation115c"></a><a +href="#footnote115c" class="citation">[115c]</a> to +“presentiment,” which, for reasons already given, +will not serve me. This word, therefore, will be here +employed throughout, as above defined.</p> +<p>Let us now consider examples of the instincts of +self-preservation, subsistence, migration, and the continuation +of the species. Most animals know their natural enemies +prior to experience of any hostile designs upon themselves. +A flight of young pigeons, even though they have no old birds +with them, will become shy, and will separate from one another on +the approach of a bird of prey. Horses and cattle that come +from countries where there are no lions become unquiet and +display alarm as soon as they are aware that a lion is +approaching them in the night. Horses going along a +bridle-path that used to leave the town at the back of the old +dens of the carnivora in the Berlin Zoological Gardens were often +terrified by the propinquity of enemies who were entirely unknown +to them. Sticklebacks will swim composedly among a number +of voracious pike, knowing, as they do, that the pike will not +touch them. For if a pike once by mistake swallows a +stickleback, the stickleback will stick in its throat by reason +of the spine it carries upon its back, and the pike must starve +to death without being able to transmit his painful experience to +his descendants. In some countries there are people who by +choice eat dog’s flesh; dogs are invariably savage in the +presence of these persons, as recognising in them enemies at +whose hands they may one day come to harm. This is the more +wonderful inasmuch as dog’s fat applied externally (as when +rubbed upon boots) attracts dogs by its smell. Grant saw a +young chimpanzee throw itself into convulsions of terror at the +sight of a large snake; and even among ourselves a Gretchen can +often detect a Mephistopheles. An insect of the genius +<i>bombyx</i> will seize another of the genus +<i>parnopæa</i>, and kill it wherever it finds it, without +making any subsequent use of the body; but we know that the +last-named insect lies in wait for the eggs of the first, and is +therefore the natural enemy of its race. The phenomenon +known to stockdrivers and shepherds as “das Biesen des +Viehes” affords another example. For when a +“dassel” or “bies” fly draws near the +herd, the cattle become unmanageable and run about among one +another as though they were mad, knowing, as they do, that the +larvæ from the eggs which the fly will lay upon them will +presently pierce their hides and occasion them painful +sores. These “dassel” flies—which have no +sting—closely resemble another kind of gadfly which has a +sting. Nevertheless, this last kind is little feared by +cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate extent. The +laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite painless, +and no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that we +cannot suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference +concerning the connection that exists between the two. I +have already spoken of the foresight shown by ferrets and +buzzards in respect of adders; in like manner a young +honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first time, +immediately devoured it after having squeezed the sting from its +body. No animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by +unnatural habits, will eat poisonous plants. Even when apes +have contracted bad habits through their having been brought into +contact with mankind, they can still be trusted to show us +whether certain fruits found in their native forests are +poisonous or no; for if poisonous fruits are offered them they +will refuse them with loud cries. Every animal will choose +for its sustenance exactly those animal or vegetable substances +which agree best with its digestive organs, without having +received any instruction on the matter, and without testing them +beforehand. Even, indeed, though we assume that the power +of distinguishing the different kinds of food is due to sight and +not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious how the animal +can know what it is that will agree with it. Thus the kid +which Galen took prematurely from its mother smelt at all the +different kinds of food that were set before it, but drank only +the milk without touching anything else. The cherry-finch +opens a cherry-stone by turning it so that her beak can hit the +part where the two sides join, and does this as much with the +first stone she cracks as with the last. Fitchets, martens, +and weasels make small holes on the opposite sides of an egg +which they are about to suck, so that the air may come in while +they are sucking. Not only do animals know the food that +will suit them best, but they find out the most suitable remedies +when they are ill, and constantly form a correct diagnosis of +their malady with a therapeutical knowledge which they cannot +possibly have acquired. Dogs will often eat a great +quantity of grass—particularly couch-grass—when they +are unwell, especially after spring, if they have worms, which +thus pass from them entangled in the grass, or if they want to +get fragments of bone from out of their stomachs. As a +purgative they make use of plants that sting. Hens and +pigeons pick lime from walls and pavements if their food does not +afford them lime enough to make their eggshells with. +Little children eat chalk when suffering from acidity of the +stomach, and pieces of charcoal if they are troubled with +flatulence. We may observe these same instincts for certain +kinds of food or drugs even among grown-up people, under +circumstances in which their unconscious nature has unusual +power; as, for example, among women when they are pregnant, whose +capricious appetites are probably due to some special condition +of the fœtus, which renders a certain state of the blood +desirable. Field-mice bite off the germs of the corn which +they collect together, in order to prevent its growing during the +winter. Some days before the beginning of cold weather the +squirrel is most assiduous in augmenting its store, and then +closes its dwelling. Birds of passage betake themselves to +warmer countries at times when there is still no scarcity of food +for them here, and when the temperature is considerably warmer +than it will be when they return to us. The same holds good +of the time when animals begin to prepare their winter quarters, +which beetles constantly do during the very hottest days of +autumn. When swallows and storks find their way back to +their native places over distances of hundreds of miles, and +though the aspect of the country is reversed, we say that this is +due to the acuteness of their perception of locality; but the +same cannot be said of dogs, which, though they have been carried +in a bag from one place to another that they do not know, and +have been turned round and round twenty times over, have still +been known to find their way home. Here we can say no more +than that their instinct has conducted them—that the +clairvoyance of the unconscious has allowed them to conjecture +their way. <a name="citation119a"></a><a href="#footnote119a" +class="citation">[119a]</a></p> +<p>Before an early winter, birds of passage collect themselves in +preparation for their flight sooner than usual; but when the +winter is going to be mild, they will either not migrate at all, +or travel only a small distance southward. When a hard +winter is coming, tortoises will make their burrows deeper. +If wild geese, cranes, etc., soon return from the countries to +which they had betaken themselves at the beginning of spring, it +is a sign that a hot and dry summer is about to ensue in those +countries, and that the drought will prevent their being able to +rear their young. In years of flood, beavers construct +their dwellings at a higher level than usual, and shortly before +an inundation the field-mice in Kamtschatka come out of their +holes in large bands. If the summer is going to be dry, +spiders may be seen in May and April, hanging from the ends of +threads several feet in length. If in winter spiders are +seen running about much, fighting with one another and preparing +new webs, there will be cold weather within the next nine days, +or from that to twelve: when they again hide themselves there +will be a thaw. I have no doubt that much of this power of +prophesying the weather is due to a perception of certain +atmospheric conditions which escape ourselves, but this +perception can only have relation to a certain actual and now +present condition of the weather; and what can the impression +made by this have to do with their idea of the weather that will +ensue? No one will ascribe to animals a power of +prognosticating the weather months beforehand by means of +inferences drawn logically from a series of observations, <a +name="citation119b"></a><a href="#footnote119b" +class="citation">[119b]</a> to the extent of being able to +foretell floods. It is far more probable that the power of +perceiving subtle differences of actual atmospheric condition is +nothing more than the sensual perception which acts as +motive—for a motive must assuredly be always +present—when an instinct comes into operation. It +continues to hold good, therefore, that the power of foreseeing +the weather is a case of unconscious clairvoyance, of which the +stork which takes its departure for the south four weeks earlier +than usual knows no more than does the stag when before a cold +winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his wont. On +the one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a +perception of the actual state of the weather; on the other, +their ensuing action is precisely such as it would be if the idea +present with them was that of the weather that is about to +come. This they cannot consciously have; the only natural +intermediate link, therefore, between their conscious knowledge +and their action is supplied by unconscious idea, which, however, +is always accurately prescient, inasmuch as it contains something +which is neither given directly to the animal through sensual +perception, nor can be deduced inferentially through the +understanding.</p> +<p>Most wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the +continuation of the species. The males always find out the +females of their own kind, but certainly not solely through their +resemblance to themselves. With many animals, as, for +example, parasitic crabs, the sexes so little resemble one +another that the male would be more likely to seek a mate from +the females of a thousand other species than from his own. +Certain butterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males +and females of the same species differ, but the females present +two distinct forms, one of which as a general rule mimics the +outward appearance of a distant but highly valued species; yet +the males will pair only with the females of their own kind, and +not with the strangers, though these may be very likely much more +like the males themselves. Among the insect species of the +<i>strepsiptera</i>, the female is a shapeless worm which lives +its whole life long in the hind body of a wasp; its head, which +is of the shape of a lentil, protrudes between two of the belly +rings of the wasp, the rest of the body being inside. The +male, which only lives for a few hours, and resembles a moth, +nevertheless recognises his mate in spite of these adverse +circumstances, and fecundates her.</p> +<p>Before any experience of parturition, the knowledge that it is +approaching drives all mammals into solitude, and bids them +prepare a nest for their young in a hole or in some other place +of shelter. The bird builds her nest as soon as she feels +the eggs coming to maturity within her. Snails, land-crabs, +tree-frogs, and toads, all of them ordinarily dwellers upon land, +now betake themselves to the water; sea-tortoises go on shore, +and many saltwater fishes come up into the rivers in order to lay +their eggs where they can alone find the requisites for their +development. Insects lay their eggs in the most varied +kinds of situations,—in sand, on leaves, under the hides +and horny substances of other animals; they often select the spot +where the larva will be able most readily to find its future +sustenance, as in autumn upon the trees that will open first in +the coming spring, or in spring upon the blossoms that will first +bear fruit in autumn, or in the insides of those caterpillars +which will soonest as chrysalides provide the parasitic larva at +once with food and with protection. Other insects select +the sites from which they will first get forwarded to the +destination best adapted for their development. Thus some +horseflies lay their eggs upon the lips of horses or upon parts +where they are accustomed to lick themselves. The eggs get +conveyed hence into the entrails, the proper place for their +development,—and are excreted upon their arrival at +maturity. The flies that infest cattle know so well how to +select the most vigorous and healthiest beasts, that +cattle-dealers and tanners place entire dependence upon them, and +prefer those beasts and hides that are most scarred by +maggots. This selection of the best cattle by the help of +these flies is no evidence in support of the conclusion that the +flies possess the power of making experiments consciously and of +reflecting thereupon, even though the men whose trade it is to do +this recognise them as their masters. The solitary wasp +makes a hole several inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and +packs along with it a number of green maggots that have no legs, +and which, being on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well +nourished and able to go a long time without food; she packs +these maggots so closely together that they cannot move nor turn +into chrysalides, and just enough of them to support the larva +until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind of bug (<i>cerceris +bupresticida</i>), which itself lives only upon pollen, lays her +eggs in an underground cell, and with each one of them she +deposits three beetles, which she has lain in wait for and +captured when they were still weak through having only just left +off being chrysalides. She kills these beetles, and appears +to smear them with a fluid whereby she preserves them fresh and +suitable for food. Many kinds of wasps open the cells in +which their larvæ are confined when these must have +consumed the provision that was left with them. They supply +them with more food, and again close the cell. Ants, again, +hit always upon exactly the right moment for opening the cocoons +in which their larvæ are confined and for setting them +free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the +life of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single +breeding season. What then can they know about the contents +of their eggs and the fittest place for their development? +What can they know about the kind of food the larva will want +when it leaves the egg—a food so different from their +own? What, again, can they know about the quantity of food +that will be necessary? How much of all this at least can +they know consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they +take, and the importance they evidently attach to these matters, +prove that they have a foreknowledge of the future: this +knowledge therefore can only be an unconscious +clairvoyance. For clairvoyance it must certainly be that +inspires the will of an animal to open cells and cocoons at the +very moment that the larva is either ready for more food or fit +for leaving the cocoon. The eggs of the cuckoo do not take +only from two to three days to mature in her ovaries, as those of +most birds do, but require from eleven to twelve; the cuckoo, +therefore, cannot sit upon her own eggs, for her first egg would +be spoiled before the last was laid. She therefore lays in +other birds’ nests—of course laying each egg in a +different nest. But in order that the birds may not +perceive her egg to be a stranger and turn it out of the nest, +not only does she lay an egg much smaller than might be expected +from a bird of her size (for she only finds her opportunity among +small birds), but, as already said, she imitates the other eggs +in the nest she has selected with surprising accuracy in respect +both of colour and marking. As the cuckoo chooses the nest +some days beforehand, it may be thought, if the nest is an open +one, that the cuckoo looks upon the colour of the eggs within it +while her own is in process of maturing inside her, and that it +is thus her egg comes to assume the colour of the others; but +this explanation will not hold good for nests that are made in +the holes of trees, as that of <i>sylvia phænicurus</i>, or +which are oven-shaped with a narrow entrance, as with <i>sylvia +rufa</i>. In these cases the cuckoo can neither slip in nor +look in, and must therefore lay her egg outside the nest and push +it inside with her beak; she can therefore have no means of +perceiving through her senses what the eggs already in the nest +are like. If, then, in spite of all this, her egg closely +resembles the others, this can only have come about through an +unconscious clairvoyance which directs the process that goes on +within the ovary in respect of colour and marking.</p> +<p>An important argument in support of the existence of a +clairvoyance in the instincts of animals is to be found in the +series of facts which testify to the existence of a like +clairvoyance, under certain circumstances, even among human +beings, while the self-curative instincts of children and of +pregnant women have been already mentioned. Here, however, +<a name="citation124"></a><a href="#footnote124" +class="citation">[124]</a> in correspondence with the higher +stage of development which human consciousness has attained, a +stronger echo of the unconscious clairvoyance commonly resounds +within consciousness itself, and this is represented by a more or +less definite presentiment of the consequences that will +ensue. It is also in accord with the greater independence +of the human intellect that this kind of presentiment is not felt +exclusively immediately before the carrying out of an action, but +is occasionally disconnected from the condition that an action +has to be performed immediately, and displays itself simply as an +idea independently of conscious will, provided only that the +matter concerning which the presentiment is felt is one which in +a high degree concerns the will of the person who feels it. +In the intervals of an intermittent fever or of other illness, it +not unfrequently happens that sick persons can accurately +foretell the day of an approaching attack and how long it will +last. The same thing occurs almost invariably in the case +of spontaneous, and generally in that of artificial, +somnambulism; certainly the Pythia, as is well known, used to +announce the date of her next ecstatic state. In like +manner the curative instinct displays itself in somnambulists, +and they have been known to select remedies that have been no +less remarkable for the success attending their employment than +for the completeness with which they have run counter to received +professional opinion. The indication of medicinal remedies +is the only use which respectable electro-biologists will make of +the half-sleeping, half-waking condition of those whom they are +influencing. “People in perfectly sound health have +been known, before childbirth or at the commencement of an +illness, to predict accurately their own approaching death. +The accomplishment of their predictions can hardly be explained +as the result of mere chance, for if this were all, the prophecy +should fail at least as often as not, whereas the reverse is +actually the case. Many of these persons neither desire +death nor fear it, so that the result cannot be ascribed to +imagination.” So writes the celebrated physiologist, +Burdach, from whose chapter on presentiment in his work +“Bhicke in’s Leben” a great part of my most +striking examples is taken. This presentiment of deaths, +which is the exception among men, is quite common with animals, +even though they do not know nor understand what death is. +When they become aware that their end is approaching, they steal +away to outlying and solitary places. This is why in cities +we so rarely see the dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can +only suppose that the unconscious clairvoyance, which is of +essentially the same kind whether in man or beast, calls forth +presentiments of different degrees of definiteness, so that the +cat is driven to withdraw herself through a mere instinct without +knowing why she does so, while in man a definite perception is +awakened of the fact that he is about to die. Not only do +people have presentiments concerning their own death, but there +are many instances on record in which they have become aware of +that of those near and dear to them, the dying person having +appeared in a dream to friend or wife or husband. Stories +to this effect prevail among all nations, and unquestionably +contain much truth. Closely connected with this is the +power of second sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and +still does so in the Danish islands. This power enables +certain people without any ecstasy, but simply through their +keener perception, to foresee coming events, or to tell what is +going on in foreign countries on matters in which they are deeply +interested, such as deaths, battles, conflagrations (Swedenborg +foretold the burning of Stockholm), the arrival or the doings of +friends who are at a distance. With many persons this +clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of their +acquaintances or fellow-townspeople. There have been a +great many instances of such death-prophetesses, and, what is +most important, some cases have been verified in courts of +law. I may say, in passing, that this power of second sight +is found in persons who are in ecstatic states, in the +spontaneous or artificially induced somnambulism of the higher +kinds of waking dreams, as well as in lucid moments before +death. These prophetic glimpses, by which the clairvoyance +of the unconscious reveals itself to consciousness, <a +name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126" +class="citation">[126]</a> are commonly obscure because in the +brain they must assume a form perceptible by the senses, whereas +the unconscious idea can have nothing to do with any form of +sensual impression: it is for this reason that humours, dreams, +and the hallucinations of sick persons can so easily have a false +signification attached to them. The chances of error and +self-deception that arise from this source, the ease with which +people may be deceived intentionally, and the mischief which, as +a general rule, attends a knowledge of the future, these +considerations place beyond all doubt the practical unwisdom of +attempts to arrive at certainty concerning the future. +This, however, cannot affect the weight which in theory should be +attached to phenomena of this kind, and must not prevent us from +recognising the positive existence of the clairvoyance whose +existence I am maintaining, though it is often hidden under a +chaos of madness and imposture.</p> +<p>The materialistic and rationalistic tendencies of the present +day lead most people either to deny facts of this kind <i>in +toto</i>, or to ignore them, inasmuch as they are inexplicable +from a materialistic standpoint, and cannot be established by the +inductive or experimental method—as though this last were +not equally impossible in the case of morals, social science, and +politics. A mind of any candour will only be able to deny +the truths of this entire class of phenomena so long as it +remains in ignorance of the facts that have been related +concerning them; but, again, a continuance in this ignorance can +only arise from unwillingness to be convinced. I am +satisfied that many of those who deny all human power of +divination would come to another, and, to say the least, more +cautious conclusion if they would be at the pains of further +investigation; and I hold that no one, even at the present day, +need be ashamed of joining in with an opinion which was +maintained by all the great spirits of antiquity except +Epicurus—an opinion whose possible truth hardly one of our +best modern philosophers has ventured to contravene, and which +the champions of German enlightenment were so little disposed to +relegate to the domain of old wives’ tales, that Goethe +furnishes us with an example of second sight that fell within his +own experience, and confirms it down to its minutest details.</p> +<p>Although I am far from believing that the kind of phenomena +above referred to form in themselves a proper foundation for a +superstructure of scientific demonstration, I nevertheless find +them valuable as a completion and further confirmation of the +series of phenomena presented to us by the clairvoyance which we +observe in human and animal instinct. Even though they only +continue this series <a name="citation128"></a><a +href="#footnote128" class="citation">[128]</a> through the echo +that is awakened within our consciousness, they as powerfully +support the account which instinctive actions give concerning +their own nature, as they are themselves supported by the analogy +they present to the clairvoyance observable in instinct. +This, then, as well as my desire not to lose an opportunity of +protesting against a modern prejudice, must stand as my reason +for having allowed myself to refer, in a scientific work, to a +class of phenomena which has fallen at present into so much +discredit.</p> +<p>I will conclude with a few words upon a special kind of +instinct which has a very instructive bearing upon the subject +generally, and shows how impossible it is to evade the +supposition of an unconscious clairvoyance on the part of +instinct. In the examples adduced hitherto, the action of +each individual has been done on the individual’s own +behalf, except in the case of instincts connected with the +continuation of the species, where the action benefits +others—that is to say, the offspring of the creature +performing it.</p> +<p>We must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of +instinct is found to exist between several individuals, so that, +on the one hand, the action of each redounds to the common +welfare, and, on the other, it becomes possible for a useful +purpose to be achieved through the harmonious association of +individual workers. This community of instinct exists also +among the higher animals, but here it is harder to distinguish +from associations originating through conscious will, inasmuch as +speech supplies the means of a more perfect intercommunication of +aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely recognise <a +name="citation129"></a><a href="#footnote129" +class="citation">[129]</a> this general effect of a universal +instinct in the origin of speech and in the great political and +social movements in the history of the world. Here we are +concerned only with the simplest and most definite examples that +can be found anywhere, and therefore we will deal in preference +with the lower animals, among which, in the absence of voice, the +means of communicating thought, mimicry, and physiognomy, are so +imperfect that the harmony and interconnection of the individual +actions cannot in its main points be ascribed to an understanding +arrived at through speech. Huber observed that when a new +comb was being constructed a number of the largest working-bees, +that were full of honey, took no part in the ordinary business of +the others, but remained perfectly aloof. Twenty-four hours +afterwards small plates of wax had formed under their +bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, +masticated them, and made them into a band. The small +plates of wax thus prepared were then glued to the roof of the +hive one on the top of the other. When one of the bees of +this kind had used up her plates of wax, another followed her and +carried the same work forward in the same way. A thin rough +vertical wall, half a line in thickness and fastened to the sides +of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, one of the +smaller working-bees whose belly was empty came, and after +surveying the wall, made a flat half-oval excavation in the +middle of one of its sides; she piled up the wax thus excavated +round the edge of the excavation. After a short time she +was relieved by another like herself, till more than twenty +followed one another in this way. Meanwhile another bee +began to make a similar hollow on the other side of the wall, but +corresponding only with the rim of the excavation on this +side. Presently another bee began a second hollow upon the +same side, each bee being continually relieved by others. +Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies plates +of wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small wall of +wax. In this, new bees were constantly excavating the +ground for more cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring +those already begun into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at +the same time continued building up the prismatic walls between +them. Thus the bees worked on opposite sides of the wall of +wax, always on the same plan and in the closest correspondence +with those upon the other side, until eventually the cells on +both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity and +harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those standing side +by side, but also as regards those which were upon the other side +of their pyramidal base.</p> +<p>Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to +confer together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which +they may be pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold +diversity of opinion; let him reflect how often something has to +be undone, destroyed, and done over again; how at one time too +many hands come forward, and at another too few; what running to +and fro there is before each has found his right place; how often +too many, and again too few, present themselves for a relief +gang; and how we find all this in the concerted works of men, who +stand so far higher than bees in the scale of organisation. +We see nothing of the kind among bees. A survey of their +operations leaves rather the impression upon us as though an +invisible master-builder had prearranged a scheme of action for +the entire community, and had impressed it upon each individual +member, as though each class of workers had learnt their +appointed work by heart, knew their places and the numbers in +which they should relieve each other, and were informed +instantaneously by a secret signal of the moment when their +action was wanted. This, however, is exactly the manner in +which an instinct works; and as the intention of the entire +community is instinctively present in the unconscious +clairvoyance <a name="citation131a"></a><a href="#footnote131a" +class="citation">[131a]</a> of each individual bee, so the +possession of this common instinct impels each one of them to the +discharge of her special duties when the right moment has +arrived. It is only thus that the wonderful tranquillity +and order which we observe could be attained. What we are +to think concerning this common instinct must be reserved for +explanation later on, but the possibility of its existence is +already evident, inasmuch <a name="citation131b"></a><a +href="#footnote131b" class="citation">[131b]</a> as each +individual has an unconscious insight concerning the plan +proposed to itself by the community, and also concerning the +means immediately to be adopted through concerted action—of +which, however, only the part requiring his own co-operation is +present in the consciousness of each. Thus, for example, +the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in which it +is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with its +lid of wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which +the larva can become a chrysalis must be present in the minds of +each of these two parties to the transaction, but neither of them +acts under the influence of conscious will, except in regard to +his own particular department. I have already mentioned the +fact that the larva, after its metamorphosis, must be freed from +its cell by other bees, and have told how the working-bees in +autumn kill the drones, so that they may not have to feed a +number of useless mouths throughout the winter, and how they only +spare them when they are wanted in order to fecundate a new +queen. Furthermore, the working-bees build cells in which +the eggs laid by the queen may come to maturity, and, as a +general rule, make just as many chambers as the queen lays eggs; +they make these, moreover, in the same order as that in which the +queen lays her eggs, namely, first for the working-bees, then for +the drones, and lastly for the queens. In the polity of the +bees, the working and the sexual capacities, which were once +united, are now personified in three distinct kinds of +individual, and these combine with an inner, unconscious, +spiritual union, so as to form a single body politic, as the +organs of a living body combine to form the body itself.</p> +<p>In this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following +conclusions:—</p> +<p>Instinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; <a +name="citation132"></a><a href="#footnote132" +class="citation">[132]</a> it is not a consequence of bodily +organisation; it is not a mere result of a mechanism which lies +in the organisation of the brain; it is not the operation of dead +mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, and foreign to its +inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action of the +individual, springing from his most essential nature and +character. The purpose to which any particular kind of +instinctive action is subservient is not the purpose of a soul +standing outside the individual and near akin to +Providence—a purpose once for all thought out, and now +become a matter of necessity to the individual, so that he can +act in no other way, though it is engrafted into his nature from +without, and not natural to it. The purpose of the instinct +is in each individual case thought out and willed unconsciously +by the individual, and afterwards the choice of means adapted to +each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A +knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable <a +name="citation133"></a><a href="#footnote133" +class="citation">[133]</a> by conscious knowledge through sensual +perception. Then does the peculiarity of the unconscious +display itself in the clairvoyance of which consciousness +perceives partly only a faint and dull, and partly, as in the +case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of sentiment, +whereas the instinctive action itself—the carrying out of +the means necessary for the achievement of the unconscious +purpose—falls always more clearly within consciousness, +inasmuch as due performance of what is necessary would be +otherwise impossible. Finally, the clairvoyance makes +itself perceived in the concerted action of several individuals +combining to carry out a common but unconscious purpose.</p> +<p>Up to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact +which we observe but cannot explain, and the reader may say that +he prefers to take his stand here, and be content with regarding +instinct simply as a matter of fact, the explanation of which is +at present beyond our reach. Against this it must be urged, +firstly, that clairvoyance is not confined to instinct, but is +found also in man; secondly, that clairvoyance is by no means +present in all instincts, and that therefore our experience shows +us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct +things—clairvoyance being of great use in explaining +instinct, but instinct serving nothing to explain clairvoyance; +thirdly and lastly, that the clairvoyance of the individual will +not continue to be so incomprehensible to us, but will be +perfectly well explained in the further course of our +investigation, while we must give up all hope of explaining +instinct in any other way.</p> +<p>The conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard +instinct as the innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living +being. That this is actually the case is shown by the +instincts of self-preservation and of the continuation of the +species which we observe throughout creation, and by the heroic +self-abandonment with which the individual will sacrifice +welfare, and even life, at the bidding of instinct. We see +this when we think of the caterpillar, and how she repairs her +cocoon until she yields to exhaustion; of the bird, and how she +will lay herself to death; of the disquiet and grief displayed by +all migratory animals if they are prevented from migrating. +A captive cuckoo will always die at the approach of winter +through despair at being unable to fly away; so will the vineyard +snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest +mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, +and suffer death cheerfully for her offspring’s sake. +Every year we see fresh cases of people who have been unfortunate +going mad or committing suicide. Women who have survived +the Cæsarian operation allow themselves so little to be +deterred from further childbearing through fear of this frightful +and generally fatal operation, that they will undergo it no less +than three times. Can we suppose that what so closely +resembles demoniacal possession can have come about through +something engrafted on to the soul as a mechanism foreign to its +inner nature, <a name="citation135"></a><a href="#footnote135" +class="citation">[135]</a> or through conscious deliberation +which adheres always to a bare egoism, and is utterly incapable +of such self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring as is displayed +by the procreative and maternal instincts?</p> +<p>We have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the +instincts of any animal species are so similar within the limits +of that species—a circumstance which has not a little +contributed to the engrafted-mechanism theory. But it is +plain that like causes will be followed by like effects; and this +should afford sufficient explanation. The bodily mechanism, +for example, of all the individuals of a species is alike; so +again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their conscious +intelligence—though this, indeed, is not the case with man, +nor in some measure even with the highest animals; and it is +through this want of uniformity that there is such a thing as +individuality. The external conditions of all the +individuals of a species are also tolerably similar, and when +they differ essentially, the instincts are likewise +different—a fact in support of which no examples are +necessary. From like conditions of mind and body (and this +includes like predispositions of brain and ganglia) and like +exterior circumstances, like desires will follow as a necessary +logical consequence. Again, from like desires and like +inward and outward circumstances, a like choice of +means—that is to say, like instincts—must +ensue. These last two steps would not be conceded without +restriction if the question were one involving conscious +deliberation, but as these logical consequences are supposed to +follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step +unfailingly without vacillation or delay so long as the premises +are similar, the ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the +means for their gratification will be similar also.</p> +<p>Thus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains +the very last point which it may be thought worth while to bring +forward in support of the opinions of our opponents.</p> +<p>I will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: +“Thoughtful minds will hold the phenomena of animal +instinct to belong to the most important of all phenomena, and to +be the true touchstone of a durable philosophy.”</p> +<h2><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>Chapter IX</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Remarks upon Von Hartmann’s position in +regard to instinct.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Uncertain</span> how far the foregoing +chapter is not better left without comment of any kind, I +nevertheless think that some of my readers may be helped by the +following extracts from the notes I took while translating. +I will give them as they come, without throwing them into +connected form.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Von Hartmann defines instinct as action done with a purpose, +but without consciousness of purpose.</p> +<p>The building of her nest by a bird is an instinctive action; +it is done with a purpose, but it is arbitrary to say that the +bird has no knowledge of that purpose. Some hold that birds +when they are building their nest know as well that they mean to +bring up a family in it as a young married couple do when they +build themselves a house. This is the conclusion which +would be come to by a plain person on a <i>primâ facie</i> +view of the facts, and Von Hartmann shows no reason for modifying +it.</p> +<p>A better definition of instinct would be that it is inherited +knowledge in respect of certain facts, and of the most suitable +manner in which to deal with them.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Von Hartmann speaks of “a mechanism of brain or +mind” contrived by nature, and again of “a psychical +organisation,” as though it were something distinct from a +physical organisation.</p> +<p>We can conceive of such a thing as mechanism of brain, for we +have seen brain and handled it; but until we have seen a mind and +handled it, or at any rate been enabled to draw inferences which +will warrant us in conceiving of it as a material substance apart +from bodily substance, we cannot infer that it has an +organisation apart from bodily organisation. Does Von +Hartmann mean that we have two bodies—a body-body, and a +soul-body?</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>He says that no one will call the action of the spider +instinctive in voiding the fluids from its glands when they are +too full. Why not?</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>He is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the +“ends proposed to itself by the instinct,” of +“the blind unconscious purpose of the instinct,” of +“an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the +bird,” of “each variation and modification of the +instinct,” as though instinct, purpose, and, later on, +clairvoyance, were persons, and not words characterising a +certain class of actions. The ends are proposed to itself +by the animal, not by the instinct. Nothing but mischief +can come of a mode of expression which does not keep this clearly +in view.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>It must not be supposed that the same cuckoo is in the habit +of laying in the nests of several different species, and of +changing the colour of her eggs according to that of the eggs of +the bird in whose nest she lays. I have inquired from Mr. +R. Bowdler Sharpe of the ornithological department at the British +Museum, who kindly gives it me as his opinion that though cuckoos +do imitate the eggs of the species on whom they foist their young +ones, yet one cuckoo will probably lay in the nests of one +species also, and will stick to that species for life. If +so, the same race of cuckoos may impose upon the same species for +generations together. The instinct will even thus remain a +very wonderful one, but it is not at all inconsistent with the +theory put forward by Professor Hering and myself.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Returning to the idea of psychical mechanism, he admits that +“it is itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea +concerning it,” <a name="citation139a"></a><a +href="#footnote139a" class="citation">[139a]</a> and then goes on +to claim for it that it explains a great many other things. +This must have been the passage which Mr. Sully had in view when +he very justly wrote that Von Hartmann “dogmatically closes +the field of physical inquiry, and takes refuge in a phantom +which explains everything, simply because it is itself incapable +of explanation.”</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>According to Von Hartmann <a name="citation139b"></a><a +href="#footnote139b" class="citation">[139b]</a> the unpractised +animal manifests its instinct as perfectly as the +practised. This is not the case. The young animal +exhibits marvellous proficiency, but it gains by +experience. I have watched sparrows, which I can hardly +doubt to be young ones, spend a whole month in trying to build +their nest, and give it up in the end as hopeless. I have +watched three such cases this spring in a tree not twenty feet +from my own window and on a level with my eye, so that I have +been able to see what was going on at all hours of the day. +In each case the nest was made well and rapidly up to a certain +point, and then got top-heavy and tumbled over, so that little +was left on the tree: it was reconstructed and reconstructed over +and over again, always with the same result, till at last in all +three cases the birds gave up in despair. I believe the +older and stronger birds secure the fixed and best sites, driving +the younger birds to the trees, and that the art of building +nests in trees is dying out among house-sparrows.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>He declares that instinct is not due to organisation so much +as organisation to instinct. <a name="citation140"></a><a +href="#footnote140" class="citation">[140]</a> The fact is, +that neither can claim precedence of or pre-eminence over the +other. Instinct and organisation are only mind and body, or +mind and matter; and these are not two separable things, but one +and inseparable, with, as it were, two sides; the one of which is +a function of the other. There was never yet either matter +without mind, however low, nor mind, however high, without a +material body of some sort; there can be no change in one without +a corresponding change in the other; neither came before the +other; neither can either cease to change or cease to be; for +“to be” is to continue changing, so that “to +be” and “to change” are one.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Whence, he asks, comes the desire to gratify an instinct +before experience of the pleasure that will ensue on +gratification? This is a pertinent question, but it is met +by Professor Hering with the answer that this is due to +memory—to the continuation in the germ of vibrations that +were vibrating in the body of the parent, and which, when +stimulated by vibrations of a suitable rhythm, become more and +more powerful till they suffice to set the body in visible +action. For my own part I only venture to maintain that it +is due to memory, that is to say, to an enduring sense on the +part of the germ of the action it took when in the persons of its +ancestors, and of the gratification which ensued thereon. +This meets Von Hartmann’s whole difficulty.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>The glacier is not snow. It is snow packed tight into a +small compass, and has thus lost all trace of its original +form. How incomplete, however, would be any theory of +glacial action which left out of sight the origin of the glacier +in snow! Von Hartmann loses sight of the origin of +instinctive in deliberative actions because the two classes of +action are now in many respects different. His philosophy +of the unconscious fails to consider what is the normal process +by means of which such common actions as we can watch, and whose +history we can follow, have come to be done unconsciously.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>He says, <a name="citation141"></a><a href="#footnote141" +class="citation">[141]</a> “How inconceivable is the +supposition of a mechanism, &c., &c.; how clear and +simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is an +unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the +use of the fitting means.” Does he mean that there is +an actual thing—an unconscious purpose—something +outside the bird, as it were a man, which lays hold of the bird +and makes it do this or that, as a master makes a servant do his +bidding? If so, he again personifies the purpose itself, +and must therefore embody it, or be talking in a manner which +plain people cannot understand. If, on the other hand, he +means “how simple is the view that the bird acts +unconsciously,” this is not more simple than supposing it +to act consciously; and what ground has he for supposing that the +bird is unconscious? It is as simple, and as much in +accordance with the facts, to suppose that the bird feels the air +to be colder, and knows that she must warm her eggs if she is to +hatch them, as consciously as a mother knows that she must not +expose her new-born infant to the cold.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>On page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying that if it +is once granted that the normal and abnormal manifestations of +instinct spring from a single source, then the objection that the +modification is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a +suicidal one later on, in so far as it is directed against +instinct generally. I understand him to mean that if we +admit instinctive action, and the modifications of that action +which more nearly resemble results of reason, to be actions of +the same ultimate kind differing in degree only, and if we thus +attempt to reduce instinctive action to the prophetic strain +arising from old experience, we shall be obliged to admit that +the formation of the embryo is ultimately due to +reflection—which he seems to think is a <i>reductio ad +absurdum</i> of the argument.</p> +<p>Therefore, he concludes, if there is to be only one source, +the source must be unconscious, and not conscious. We +reply, that we do not see the absurdity of the position which we +grant we have been driven to. We hold that the formation of +the embryo <i>is</i> ultimately due to reflection and design.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>The writer of an article in the <i>Times</i>, April 1, 1880, +says that servants must be taught their calling before they can +practise it; but, in fact, they can only be taught their calling +by practising it. So Von Hartmann says animals must feel +the pleasure consequent on gratification of an instinct before +they can be stimulated to act upon the instinct by a knowledge of +the pleasure that will ensue. This sounds logical, but in +practice a little performance and a little teaching—a +little sense of pleasure and a little connection of that pleasure +with this or that practice,—come up simultaneously from +something that we cannot see, the two being so small and so much +abreast, that we do not know which is first, performance or +teaching; and, again, action, or pleasure supposed as coming from +the action.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>“Geistes-mechanismus” comes as near to +“disposition of mind,” or, more shortly, +“disposition,” as so unsatisfactory a word can come +to anything. Yet, if we translate it throughout by +“disposition,” we shall see how little we are being +told.</p> +<p>We find on page 114 that “all instinctive actions give +us an impression of absolute security and infallibility”; +that “the will is never weak or hesitating, as it is when +inferences are being drawn consciously.” “We +never,” Von Hartmann continues, “find instinct making +mistakes.” Passing over the fact that instinct is +again personified, the statement is still incorrect. +Instinctive actions are certainly, as a general rule, performed +with less uncertainty than deliberative ones; this is explicable +by the fact that they have been more often practised, and thus +reduced more completely to a matter of routine; but nothing is +more certain than that animals acting under the guidance of +inherited experience or instinct frequently make mistakes which +with further practice they correct. Von Hartmann has +abundantly admitted that the manner of an instinctive action is +often varied in correspondence with variation in external +circumstances. It is impossible to see how this does not +involve both possibility of error and the connection of instinct +with deliberation at one and the same time. The fact is +simply this—when an animal finds itself in a like position +with that in which it has already often done a certain thing in +the persons of its forefathers, it will do this thing well and +easily: when it finds the position somewhat, but not +unrecognisably, altered through change either in its own person +or in the circumstances exterior to it, it will vary its action +with greater or less ease according to the nature of the change +in the position: when the position is gravely altered the animal +either bungles or is completely thwarted.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Not only does Von Hartmann suppose that instinct may, and +does, involve knowledge antecedent to, and independent of, +experience—an idea as contrary to the tendency of modern +thought as that of spontaneous generation, with which indeed it +is identical though presented in another shape—but he +implies by his frequent use of the word “unmittelbar” +that a result can come about without any cause whatever. So +he says, “Um für die unbewusster Erkenntniss, welche +nicht durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung erworben, <i>sondern als +unmittelbar Besitz</i>,” &c. <a +name="citation144a"></a><a href="#footnote144a" +class="citation">[144a]</a> Because he does not see where +the experience can have been gained, he cuts the knot, and denies +that there has been experience. We say, Look more +attentively and you will discover the time and manner in which +the experience was gained.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Again, he continually assumes that animals low down in the +scale of life cannot know their own business because they show no +sign of knowing ours. See his remarks on <i>Saturnia +pavonia minor</i> (page 107), and elsewhere on cattle and +gadflies. The question is not what can they know, but what +does their action prove to us that they do know. With each +species of animal or plant there is one profession only, and it +is hereditary. With us there are many professions, and they +are not hereditary; so that they cannot become instinctive, as +they would otherwise tend to do.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>He attempts <a name="citation144b"></a><a href="#footnote144b" +class="citation">[144b]</a> to draw a distinction between the +causes that have produced the weapons and working instruments of +animals, on the one hand, and those that lead to the formation of +hexagonal cells by bees, &c., on the other. No such +distinction can be justly drawn.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>The ghost-stories which Von Hartmann accepts will hardly be +accepted by people of sound judgment. There is one +well-marked distinctive feature between the knowledge manifested +by animals when acting instinctively and the supposed knowledge +of seers and clairvoyants. In the first case, the animal +never exhibits knowledge except upon matters concerning which its +race has been conversant for generations; in the second, the seer +is supposed to do so. In the first case, a new feature is +invariably attended with disturbance of the performance and the +awakening of consciousness and deliberation, unless the new +matter is too small in proportion to the remaining features of +the case to attract attention, or unless, though really new, it +appears so similar to an old feature as to be at first mistaken +for it; with the second, it is not even professed that the +seer’s ancestors have had long experience upon the matter +concerning which the seer is supposed to have special insight, +and I can imagine no more powerful <i>à priori</i> +argument against a belief in such stories.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Close upon the end of his chapter Von Hartmann touches upon +the one matter which requires consideration. He refers the +similarity of instinct that is observable among all species to +the fact that like causes produce like effects; and I gather, +though he does not expressly say so, that he considers similarity +of instinct in successive generations to be referable to the same +cause as similarity of instinct between all the contemporary +members of a species. He thus raises the one objection +against referring the phenomena of heredity to memory which I +think need be gone into with any fulness. I will, however, +reserve this matter for my concluding chapters.</p> +<p>Von Hartmann concludes his chapter with a quotation from +Schelling, to the effect that the phenomena of animal instinct +are the true touchstone of a durable philosophy; by which I +suppose it is intended to say that if a system or theory deals +satisfactorily with animal instinct, it will stand, but not +otherwise. I can wish nothing better than that the +philosophy of the unconscious advanced by Von Hartmann be tested +by this standard.</p> +<h2><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>Chapter X</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Recapitulation and statement of an +objection.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> true theory of unconscious +action, then, is that of Professor Hering, from whose lecture it +is no strained conclusion to gather that he holds the action of +all living beings, from the moment of their conception to that of +their fullest development, to be founded in volition and design, +though these have been so long lost sight of that the work is now +carried on, as it were, departmentally and in due course +according to an official routine which can hardly now be departed +from.</p> +<p>This involves the older “Darwinism” and the theory +of Lamarck, according to which the modification of living forms +has been effected mainly through the needs of the living forms +themselves, which vary with varying conditions, the survival of +the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B. Baildon has just said, +“sometimes comes to mean merely the survival of the +survivors” <a name="citation146"></a><a href="#footnote146" +class="citation">[146]</a>) being taken almost as a matter of +course. According to this view of evolution, there is a +remarkable analogy between the development of living organs or +tools and that of those organs or tools external to the body +which has been so rapid during the last few thousand years.</p> +<p>Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided +throughout their development, and preserve the due order in each +step which they take, through memory of the course they took on +past occasions when in the persons of their ancestors. I am +afraid I have already too often said that if this memory remains +for long periods together latent and without effect, it is +because the undulations of the molecular substance of the body +which are its supposed explanation are during these periods too +feeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force +through an accession of suitable undulations issuing from +exterior objects; or, in other words, until recollection is +stimulated by a return of the associated ideas. On this the +eternal agitation becomes so much enhanced, that equilibrium is +visibly disturbed, and the action ensues which is proper to the +vibration of the particular substance under the particular +conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose Professor +Hering to intend.</p> +<p>Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining +ourselves to the fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just +hatched is supposed, according to this theory, to lose its memory +of the time it was in the egg, and to be stimulated by an intense +but unconscious recollection of the action taken by its ancestors +when they were first hatched. It is guided in the course it +takes by the experience it can thus command. Each step it +takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through its +development as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar +leading his recollection to the bar that should next follow.</p> +<p>In “Life and Habit” will be found examples of the +manner in which this view solves a number of difficulties for the +explanation of which the leading men of science express +themselves at a loss. The following from Professor +Huxley’s recent work upon the crayfish may serve for an +example. Professor Huxley writes:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It is a widely received notion that the +energies of living matter have a tendency to decline and finally +disappear, and that the death of the body as a whole is a +necessary correlate of its life. That all living beings +sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it would be +difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that they +needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or +later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its +parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is +continually renewed and repaired; and though it is true that +individual components of the body are constantly dying, yet their +places are taken by vigorous successors. A city remains +notwithstanding the constant death-rate of its inhabitants; and +such an organism as a crayfish is only a corporate unity, made up +of innumerable partially independent +individualities.”—<i>The Crayfish</i>, p. 127.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Surely the theory which I have indicated above makes the +reason plain why no organism can permanently outlive its +experience of past lives. The death of such a body +corporate as the crayfish is due to the social condition becoming +more complex than there is memory of past experience to deal +with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, and +decay. The crayfish dies as a state dies, and all states +that we have heard of die sooner or later. There are some +savages who have not yet arrived at the conception that death is +the necessary end of all living beings, and who consider even the +gentlest death from old age as violent and abnormal; so Professor +Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing that though a city +commonly outlives many generations of its citizens, yet cities +and states are in the end no less mortal than individuals. +“The city,” he says, “remains.” +Yes, but not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a +city that will last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does +not last for ever.</p> +<p>I have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet +bring forward in support of Professor Hering’s theory; it +now remains for me to meet the most troublesome objection to it +that I have been able to think of—an objection which I had +before me when I wrote “Life and Habit,” but which +then as now I believe to be unsound. Seeing, however, as I +have pointed out at the end of the preceding chapter, that Von +Hartmann has touched upon it, and being aware that a plausible +case can be made out for it, I will state it and refute it +here. When I say refute it, I do not mean that I shall have +done with it—for it is plain that it opens up a vaster +question in the relations between the so-called organic and +inorganic worlds—but that I will refute the supposition +that it any way militates against Professor Hering’s +theory.</p> +<p>Why, it may be asked, should we go out of our way to invent +unconscious memory—the existence of which must at the best +remain an inference <a name="citation149"></a><a +href="#footnote149" class="citation">[149]</a>—when the +observed fact that like antecedents are invariably followed by +like consequents should be sufficient for our purpose? Why +should the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a given +condition will always become a butterfly within a certain time be +connected with memory, when it is not pretended that memory has +anything to do with the invariableness with which oxygen and +hydrogen when mixed in certain proportions make water?</p> +<p>We assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed +into its component parts, and if these were brought together +again, and again decomposed and again brought together any number +of times over, the results would be invariably the same, whether +decomposition or combination, yet no one will refer the +invariableness of the action during each repetition, to +recollection by the gaseous molecules of the course taken when +the process was last repeated. On the contrary, we are +assured that molecules in some distant part of the world, which +had never entered into such and such a known combination +themselves, nor held concert with other molecules that had been +so combined, and which, therefore, could have had no experience +and no memory, would none the less act upon one another in that +one way in which other like combinations of atoms have acted +under like circumstances, as readily as though they had been +combined and separated and recombined again a hundred or a +hundred thousand times. It is this assumption, tacitly made +by every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all +time and in every action of their lives, that has made any action +possible, lying, as it does, at the root of all experience.</p> +<p>As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do +not suppose an alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule +at any moment during the process of their combination. This +process is, in all probability, an exceedingly complicated one, +involving a multitude of actions and subordinate processes, which +follow one upon the other, and each one of which has a beginning, +a middle, and an end, though they all come to pass in what +appears to be an instant of time. Yet at no point do we +conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or +left of a determined course, but invest each one of them with so +much of the divine attributes as that with it there shall be no +variableness, neither shadow of turning.</p> +<p>We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the +necessity of things, as determined by the nature of the atoms and +the circumstances in which they are placed. We say that +only one proximate result can ever arise from any given +combination. If, then, so great uniformity of action as +nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one will +impute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the +only way of accounting for regularity of action in living +beings? Sameness of action may be seen abundantly where +there is no room for anything that we can consistently call +memory. In these cases we say that it is due to sameness of +substance in same circumstances.</p> +<p>The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that +it is no more possible for living action to have more than one +set of proximate consequents at any given time than for oxygen +and hydrogen when mixed in the proportions proper for the +formation of water. Why, then, not recognise this fact, and +ascribe repeated similarity of living action to the reproduction +of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense of connection +between the steps in the action, or memory of similar action +taken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen +molecules between the several occasions on which they may have +been disunited and reunited?</p> +<p>A boy catches the measles not because he remembers having +caught them in the persons of his father and mother, but because +he is a fit soil for a certain kind of seed to grow upon. +In like manner he should be said to grow his nose because he is a +fit combination for a nose to spring from. Dr. +X—’s father died of <i>angina pectoris</i> at the age +of forty-nine; so did Dr. X—. Can it be pretended +that Dr. X— remembered having died of <i>angina +pectoris</i> at the age of forty-nine when in the person of his +father, and accordingly, when he came to be forty-nine years old +himself, died also? For this to hold, Dr. X—’s +father must have begotten him after he was dead; for the son +could not remember the father’s death before it +happened.</p> +<p>As for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, +they are developed for the most part not only long after the +average age of reproduction, but at a time when no appreciable +amount of memory of any previous existence can remain; for a man +will not have many male ancestors who become parents at over +sixty years old, nor female ancestors who did so at over +forty. By our own showing, therefore, recollection can have +nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can doubt that gout +is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In what +respects do the two things differ so that we should refer the +inheritance of eyes and noses to memory, while denying any +connection between memory and gout? We may have a ghost of +a pretence for saying that a man grew a nose by rote, or even +that he catches the measles or whooping-cough by rote during his +boyhood; but do we mean to say that he develops the gout by rote +in his old age if he comes of a gouty family? If, then, +rote and red-tape have nothing to do with the one, why should +they with the other?</p> +<p>Remember also the cases in which aged females develop male +characteristics. Here are growths, often of not +inconsiderable extent, which make their appearance during the +decay of the body, and grow with greater and greater vigour in +the extreme of old age, and even for days after death +itself. It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendency +to develop these characteristics runs as an inheritance in +certain families; here then is perhaps the best case that can be +found of a development strictly inherited, but having clearly +nothing whatever to do with memory. Why should not all +development stand upon the same footing?</p> +<p>A friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, +concluded with the following words:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“If you cannot be content with the similar +action of similar substances (living or non-living) under similar +circumstances—if you cannot accept this as an ultimate +fact, but consider it necessary to connect repetition of similar +action with memory before you can rest in it and be +thankful—be consistent, and introduce this memory which you +find so necessary into the inorganic world also. Either say +that a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it is the thing that +it is, and, being that kind of thing, must act in such and such a +manner and in such a manner only, so that the act of one +generation has no more to do with the act of the next than the +fact of cream being churned into butter in a dairy one day has to +do with other cream being churnable into butter in the following +week—either say this, or else develop some mental +condition—which I have no doubt you will be very well able +to do if you feel the want of it—in which you can make out +a case for saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought +together, and cream on being churned, are in some way acquainted +with, and mindful of, action taken by other cream and other +oxygen and hydrogen on past occasions.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with +being able to develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, +for his own ingenious attack on my position, and indeed every +action of his life was but an example of this omnipresent +principle.</p> +<p>When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been +saying. I endeavoured to see how far I could get on without +volition and memory, and reasoned as follows:—A repetition +of like antecedents will be certainly followed by a repetition of +like consequents, whether the agents be men and women or chemical +substances. “If there be two cowards perfectly +similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a perfectly +similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves +perfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect +similarity in the running away, even though ten thousand years +intervene between the original combination and its +repetition.” <a name="citation153"></a><a +href="#footnote153" class="citation">[153]</a> Here +certainly there is no coming into play of memory, more than in +the pan of cream on two successive churning days, yet the action +is similar.</p> +<p>A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for +dinner. About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at +once he takes down his hat and leaves the office. He does +not yet know the neighbourhood, and on getting down into the +street asks a policeman at the corner which is the best +eating-house within easy distance. The policeman tells him +of three houses, one of which is a little farther off than the +other two, but is cheaper. Money being a greater object to +him than time, the clerk decides on going to the cheaper +house. He goes, is satisfied, and returns.</p> +<p>Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and—it +will be said—remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, +will go to the same place as before. But what has his +memory to do with it? Suppose him to have entirely +forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from the +moment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in other +respects sound in mind and body, and unchanged generally. +At half-past twelve he would begin to be hungry; but his +beginning to be hungry cannot be connected with his remembering +having begun to be hungry yesterday. He would begin to be +hungry just as much whether he remembered or no. At one +o’clock he again takes down his hat and leaves the office, +not because he remembers having done so yesterday, but because he +wants his hat to go out with. Being again in the street, +and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (for he remembers nothing +of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at the corner of the +street, and asks him the same question as before; the policeman +gives him the same answer, and money being still an object to +him, the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes there, +finds the same <i>menu</i>, makes the same choice for the same +reasons, eats, is satisfied, and returns.</p> +<p>What similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the +same time more incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do +with memory; on the contrary, it is just because the clerk has no +memory that his action of the second day so exactly resembles +that of the first. As long as he has no power of +recollecting, he will day after day repeat the same actions in +exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, such as +his being sent away, modify the situation. Till this or +some other modification occurs, he will day after day go down +into the street without knowing where to go; day after day he +will see the same policeman at the corner of the same street, and +(for we may as well suppose that the policeman has no memory too) +he will ask and be answered, and ask and be answered, till he and +the policeman die of old age. This similarity of action is +plainly due to that—whatever it is—which ensures that +like persons or things when placed in like circumstances shall +behave in like manner.</p> +<p>Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity +of action will disappear; for the fact of remembering what +happened to him on the first day he went out in search of dinner +will be a modification in him in regard to his then condition +when he next goes out to get his dinner. He had no such +memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Some +modification of action must ensue upon this modification of the +actor, and this is immediately observable. He wants his +dinner, indeed, goes down into the street, and sees the policeman +as yesterday, but he does not ask the policeman; he remembers +what the policeman told him and what he did, and therefore goes +straight to the eating-house without wasting time: nor does he +dine off the same dish two days running, for he remembers what he +had yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarity of +action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce +it into such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes +by successive generations? The embryos of a well-fixed +breed, such as the goose, are almost as much alike as water is to +water, and by consequence one goose comes to be almost as like +another as water to water. Why should it not be supposed to +become so upon the same grounds—namely, that it is made of +the same stuffs, and put together in like proportions in the same +manner?</p> +<h2><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>Chapter XI</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">On Cycles.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> one faith on which all normal +living beings consciously or unconsciously act, is that like +antecedents will be followed by like consequents. This is +the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable, but except a +living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish +everlastingly. In the assurance of this all action is +taken.</p> +<p>But if this fundamental article is admitted, and it cannot be +gainsaid, it follows that if ever a complete cycle were formed, +so that the whole universe of one instant were to repeat itself +absolutely in a subsequent one, no matter after what interval of +time, then the course of the events between these two moments +would go on repeating itself for ever and ever afterwards in due +order, down to the minutest detail, in an endless series of +cycles like a circulating decimal. For the universe +comprises everything; there could therefore be no disturbance +from without. Once a cycle, always a cycle.</p> +<p>Let us suppose the earth, of given weight, moving with given +momentum in a given path, and under given conditions in every +respect, to find itself at any one time conditioned in all these +respects as it was conditioned at some past moment; then it must +move exactly in the same path as the one it took when at the +beginning of the cycle it has just completed, and must therefore +in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and therefore a +third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance of escape +than a circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have been +reproduced with perfect accuracy.</p> +<p>We see something very like this actually happen in the yearly +revolutions of the planets round the sun. But the relations +between, we will say, the earth and the sun are not reproduced +absolutely. These relations deal only with a small part of +the universe, and even in this small part the relation of the +parts <i>inter se</i> has never yet been reproduced with the +perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument. They are +liable, moreover, to disturbance from events which may or may not +actually occur (as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or +the sun’s coming within a certain distance of another sun), +but of which, if they do occur, no one can foresee the +effects. Nevertheless the conditions have been so nearly +repeated that there is no appreciable difference in the relations +between the earth and sun on one New Year’s Day and on +another, nor is there reason for expecting such change within any +reasonable time.</p> +<p>If there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the +whole universe, it is plain that not one single atom must be +excluded. Exclude a single molecule of hydrogen from the +ring, or vary the relative positions of two molecules only, and +the charm is broken; an element of disturbance has been +introduced, of which the utmost that can be said is that it may +not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearly perfect +cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but which +must inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition. +The movement of the series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, +and convergent or divergent at a greater or less rate according +to circumstances. We cannot conceive of all the atoms in +the universe standing twice over in absolutely the same relation +each one of them to every other. There are too many of them +and they are too much mixed; but, as has been just said, in the +planets and their satellites we do see large groups of atoms +whose movements recur with some approach to precision. The +same holds good also with certain comets and with the sun +himself. The result is that our days and nights and seasons +follow one another with nearly perfect regularity from year to +year, and have done so for as long time as we know anything for +certain. A vast preponderance of all the action that takes +place around us is cycular action.</p> +<p>Within the great cycle of the planetary revolution of our own +earth, and as a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of +the phenomena of the seasons; these generate atmospheric +cycles. Water is evaporated from the ocean and conveyed to +mountain ranges, where it is cooled, and whence it returns again +to the sea. This cycle of events is being repeated again +and again with little appreciable variation. The tides and +winds in certain latitudes go round and round the world with what +amounts to continuous regularity.—There are storms of wind +and rain called cyclones. In the case of these, the cycle +is not very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, and the +tendency to recur is comparatively soon lost. It is a +common saying that history repeats itself, so that anarchy will +lead to despotism and despotism to anarchy; every nation can +point to instances of men’s minds having gone round and +round so nearly in a perfect cycle that many revolutions have +occurred before the cessation of a tendency to recur. +Lastly, in the generation of plants and animals we have, perhaps, +the most striking and common example of the inevitable tendency +of all action to repeat itself when it has once proximately done +so. Let only one living being have once succeeded in +producing a being like itself, and thus have returned, so to +speak, upon itself, and a series of generations must follow of +necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no part in the +original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the first +reproductive creature or all its descendants within a few +generations. If no such mishap occurs as this, and if the +recurrence of the conditions is sufficiently perfect, a series of +generations follows with as much certainty as a series of seasons +follows upon the cycle of the relations between the earth and +sun. Let the first periodically recurring +substance—we will say A—be able to recur or reproduce +itself, not once only, but many times over, as A<sup>1</sup>, +A<sup>2</sup>, &c.; let A also have consciousness and a sense +of self-interest, which qualities must, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, be +reproduced in each one of its offspring; let these get placed in +circumstances which differ sufficiently to destroy the cycle in +theory without doing so practically—that is to say, to +reduce the rotation to a spiral, but to a spiral with so little +deviation from perfect cycularity as for each revolution to +appear practically a cycle, though after many revolutions the +deviation becomes perceptible; then some such differentiations of +animal and vegetable life as we actually see follow as matters of +course. A<sup>1</sup> and A<sup>2</sup> have a sense of +self-interest as A had, but they are not precisely in +circumstances similar to A’s, nor, it may be, to each +other’s; they will therefore act somewhat differently, and +every living being is modified by a change of action. +Having become modified, they follow the spirit of A’s +action more essentially in begetting a creature like themselves +than in begetting one like A; for the essence of A’s act +was not the reproduction of A, but the reproduction of a creature +like the one from which it sprung—that is to say, a +creature bearing traces in its body of the main influences that +have worked upon its parent.</p> +<p>Within the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles +in the life of each individual, whether animal or plant. +Observe the action of our lungs and heart, how regular it is, and +how a cycle having been once established, it is repeated many +millions of times in an individual of average health and +longevity. Remember also that it is this +periodicity—this inevitable tendency of all atoms in +combination to repeat any combination which they have once +repeated, unless forcibly prevented from doing so—which +alone renders nine-tenths of our mechanical inventions of +practical use to us. There is no internal periodicity about +a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine or watermill +when once set in motion. The actions of these machines +recur in a regular series, at regular intervals, with the +unerringness of circulating decimals.</p> +<p>When we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency +in the world around us, the absolute freedom from exception which +attends its action, the manner in which it holds equally good +upon the vastest and the smallest scale, and the completeness of +its accord with our ideas of what must inevitably happen when a +like combination is placed in circumstances like those in which +it was placed before—when we bear in mind all this, is it +possible not to connect the facts together, and to refer cycles +of living generations to the same unalterableness in the action +of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter and +Saturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine +move up and down as long as the steam acts upon it?</p> +<p>But who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a +piston-rod, to air or water in a storm or in course of +evaporation, to the earth and planets in their circuits round the +sun, or to the atoms of the universe, if they too be moving in a +cycle vaster than we can take account of? <a +name="citation160"></a><a href="#footnote160" +class="citation">[160]</a> And if not, why introduce it +into the embryonic development of living beings, when there is +not a particle of evidence in support of its actual presence, +when regularity of action can be ensured just as well without it +as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existing +under circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as +it is supposed to be exercised without any conscious +recollection? Surely a memory which is exercised without +any consciousness of recollecting is only a periphrasis for the +absence of any memory at all.</p> +<h2><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span>Chapter XII</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Refutation—Memory at once a promoter and +a disturber of uniformity of action and structure.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">To</span> meet the objections in the two +foregoing chapters, I need do little more than show that the fact +of certain often inherited diseases and developments, whether of +youth or old age, being obviously not due to a memory on the part +of offspring of like diseases and developments in the parents, +does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful +development generally is due to memory.</p> +<p>This is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves +itself into an assertion that there is no evidence in support of +instinct and embryonic development being due to memory, and a +contention that the necessity of each particular moment in each +particular case is sufficient to account for the facts without +the introduction of memory.</p> +<p>I will deal with these two last points briefly first. As +regards the evidence in support of the theory that instinct and +growth are due to a rapid unconscious memory of past experiences +and developments in the persons of the ancestors of the living +form in which they appear, I must refer my readers to “Life +and Habit,” and to the translation of Professor +Hering’s lecture given in this volume. I will only +repeat here that a chrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the +same person with the chrysalis of its preceding generation, as +this last is one and the same person with the egg or caterpillar +from which it sprang. You cannot deny personal identity +between two successive generations without sooner or later +denying it during the successive stages in the single life of +what we call one individual; nor can you admit personal identity +through the stages of a long and varied life (embryonic and +postnatal) without admitting it to endure through an endless +series of generations.</p> +<p>The personal identity of successive generations being +admitted, the possibility of the second of two generations +remembering what happened to it in the first is obvious. +The <i>à priori</i> objection, therefore, is removed, and +the question becomes one of fact—does the offspring act as +if it remembered?</p> +<p>The answer to this question is not only that it does so act, +but that it is not possible to account for either its development +or its early instinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than +that of its remembering, and remembering exceedingly well.</p> +<p>The only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a +living being may display a vast and varied information concerning +all manner of details, and be able to perform most intricate +operations, independently of experience and practice. Once +admit knowledge independent of experience, and farewell to sober +sense and reason from that moment.</p> +<p>Firstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility +for remembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of +having remembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except +memory can be brought forward, so as to account for the phenomena +of instinct and heredity generally, which is not easily reducible +to an absurdity. Beyond this we do not care to go, and must +allow those to differ from us who require further evidence.</p> +<p>As regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will +account for likeness of result, without there being any need for +introducing memory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due +to likeness of antecedents, and I grant this will hold as good +with embryos as with oxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the +one will cover the other, for time writs of the laws common to +all matter run within the womb as freely as elsewhere; but +admitting that there are combinations into which living beings +enter with a faculty called memory which has its effect upon +their conduct, and admitting that such combinations are from time +to time repeated (as we observe in the case of a practised +performer playing a piece of music which he has committed to +memory), then I maintain that though, indeed, the likeness of one +performance to its immediate predecessor is due to likeness of +the combinations immediately preceding the two performances, yet +memory plays so important a part in both these combinations as to +make it a distinguishing feature in them, and therefore proper to +be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say that Herr +Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because +he was such and such an arrangement of matter in such and such +circumstances, resembling those under which he played without +music on some past occasion. This goes without saying; we +say only that he played the music by heart or by memory, as he +had often played it before.</p> +<p>To the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not +because it remembers and takes the action taken by its fathers +and mothers in due course before it, but because when matter is +in such a physical and mental state as to be called caterpillar, +it must perforce assume presently such another physical and +mental state as to be called chrysalis, and that therefore there +is no memory in the case—to this objector I rejoin that the +offspring caterpillar would not have become so like the parent as +to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter of necessity, unless +both parent and offspring had been influenced by something that +we usually call memory. For it is this very possession of a +common memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken +by, and hence to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and +which guided the parent in its turn to a state virtually +identical with a corresponding state in the existence of its own +parent. To memory, therefore, the most prominent place in +the transaction is assigned rightly.</p> +<p>To deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the +development of embryos seems like denying that a desire to +obstruct has anything to do with the recent conduct of certain +members in the House of Commons. What should we think of +one who said that the action of these gentlemen had nothing to do +with a desire to embarrass the Government, but was simply the +necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical forces at work, +which being such and such, the action which we see is inevitable, +and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? We +should answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical +and mechanical action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew +or cared, it was all chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a +desire to obstruct parliamentary business is involved in certain +kinds of chemical and mechanical action, and that the kinds +involving this had preceded the recent proceedings of the members +in question. If asked to prove this, we can get no further +than that such action as has been taken has never yet been seen +except as following after and in consequence of a desire to +obstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more +be expected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the +bidding of a foreigner.</p> +<p>A little reflection will convince the reader that he will be +unable to deny will and memory to the embryo without at the same +time denying their existence everywhere, and maintaining that +they have no place in the acquisition of a habit, nor indeed in +any human action. He will feel that the actions, and the +relation of one action to another which he observes in embryos is +such as is never seen except in association with and as a +consequence of will and memory. He will therefore say that +it is due to will and memory. To say that these are the +necessary outcome of certain antecedents is not to destroy them: +granted that they are—a man does not cease to be a man when +we reflect that he has had a father and mother, nor do will and +memory cease to be will and memory on the ground that they cannot +come causeless. They are manifest minute by minute to the +perception of all sane people, and this tribunal, though not +infallible, is nevertheless our ultimate court of +appeal—the final arbitrator in all disputed cases.</p> +<p>We must remember that there is no action, however original or +peculiar, which is not in respect of far the greater number of +its details founded upon memory. If a desperate man blows +his brains out—an action which he can do once in a lifetime +only, and which none of his ancestors can have done before +leaving offspring—still nine hundred and ninety-nine +thousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist +of habitual movements—movements, that is to say, which were +once difficult, but which have been practised and practised by +the help of memory until they are now performed +automatically. We can no more have an action than a +creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory. +Ideas and actions seem almost to resemble matter and force in +respect of the impossibility of originating or destroying them; +nearly all that are, are memories of other ideas and actions, +transmitted but not created, disappearing but not perishing.</p> +<p>It appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the +clerk who wanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action +he had taken the day before, we still, without perhaps perceiving +it, supposed him to be guided by memory in all the details of his +action, such as his taking down his hat and going out into the +street. We could not, indeed, deprive him of all memory +without absolutely paralysing his action.</p> +<p>Nevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the +course of time come about, the living expressions of which we may +see in the new forms of life which from time to time have arisen +and are still arising, and in the increase of our own knowledge +and mechanical inventions. But it is only a very little new +that is added at a time, and that little is generally due to the +desire to attain an end which cannot be attained by any of the +means for which there exists a perceived precedent in the +memory. When this is the case, either the memory is further +ransacked for any forgotten shreds of details, a combination of +which may serve the desired purpose; or action is taken in the +dark, which sometimes succeeds and becomes a fertile source of +further combinations; or we are brought to a dead stop. All +action is random in respect of any of the minute actions which +compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, real or +supposed. So that random, or action taken in the dark, or +illusion, lies at the very root of progress.</p> +<p>I will now consider the objection that the phenomena of +instinct and embryonic development ought not to be ascribed to +memory, inasmuch as certain other phenomena of heredity, such as +gout, cannot be ascribed to it.</p> +<p>Those who object in this way forget that our actions fall into +two main classes: those which we have often repeated before by +means of a regular series of subordinate actions beginning and +ending at a certain tolerably well-defined point—as when +Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, or when we dress or +undress ourselves; and actions the details of which are indeed +guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose +are new—as when we are being married or presented at +court.</p> +<p>At each point in any action of the first of the two kinds +above referred to there is a memory (conscious or unconscious +according to the less or greater number of times the action has +been repeated), not only of the steps in the present and previous +performances which have led up to the particular point that may +be selected, but also of the particular point itself; there is, +therefore, at each point in a habitual performance a memory at +once of like antecedents and of a like present.</p> +<p>If the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were +absolutely perfect; if the vibration (according to Professor +Hering) on each repetition existed in its full original strength +and without having been interfered with by any other vibration; +and if, again, the new wave running into it from exterior objects +on each repetition of the action were absolutely identical in +character with the wave that ran in upon the last occasion, then +there would be no change in the action and no modification or +improvement could take place. For though indeed the latest +performance would always have one memory more than the latest but +one to guide it, yet the memories being identical, it would not +matter how many or how few they were.</p> +<p>On any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or +internal, or both, never are absolutely identical: there is some +slight variation in each individual case, and some part of this +variation is remembered, with approbation or disapprobation as +the case may be.</p> +<p>The fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action +there is one memory more than on the last but one, and that this +memory is slightly different from its predecessor, is seen to be +an inherent and, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, necessarily disturbing +factor in all habitual action—and the life of an organism +should be regarded as the habitual action of a single individual, +namely, of the organism itself, and of its ancestors. This +is the key to accumulation of improvement, whether in the arts +which we assiduously practise during our single life, or in the +structures and instincts of successive generations. The +memory does not complete a true circle, but is, as it were, a +spiral slightly divergent therefrom. It is no longer a +perfectly circulating decimal. Where, on the other hand, +there is no memory of a like present, where, in fact, the memory +is not, so to speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of +improvement. The effect of any variation is not +transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of still further +change.</p> +<p>As regards the second of the two classes of actions above +referred to—those, namely, which are not recurrent or +habitual, <i>and at no point of which is there a memory of a past +present like the one which is present now</i>—there will +have been no accumulation of strong and well-knit memory as +regards the action as a whole, but action, if taken at all, will +be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual actions (our own +and those of other people) pieced together with a result more or +less satisfactory according to circumstances.</p> +<p>But it does not follow that the action of two people who have +had tolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably +similar circumstances should be more unlike each other in this +second case than in the first. On the contrary, nothing is +more common than to observe the same kind of people making the +same kind of mistake when placed for the first time in the same +kind of new circumstances. I did not say that there would +be no sameness of action without memory of a like present. +There may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, +conscious or unconscious, of like antecedents, and <i>a presence +only of like presents without recollection of the same</i>.</p> +<p>The sameness of action of like persons placed under like +circumstances for the first time, resembles the sameness of +action of inorganic matter under the same combinations. Let +us for the moment suppose what we call non-living substances to +be capable of remembering their antecedents, and that the changes +they undergo are the expressions of their recollections. +Then I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, +we will say, that is about to be churned of the cream of the +preceding week, but the common absence of such memory from each +week’s cream is an element of sameness between the +two. And though no cream can remember having been churned +before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identical +antecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories, and +nearly the same proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of +one week is as truly the same as the cream of another week from +the same cow, pasture, &c., as anything is ever the same with +anything; for the having been subjected to like antecedents +engenders the closest similarity that we can conceive of, if the +substances were like to start with.</p> +<p>The manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of +like presents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such +as, for example, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no +valid reason for saying that such other and far more numerous and +important phenomena as those of embryonic development are not +phenomena of memory. Growth and the diseases of old age do +indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on the same footing, but +reflection shows us that the question whether a certain result is +due to memory or no must be settled not by showing that +combinations into which memory does not certainly enter may yet +generate like results, and therefore considering the memory +theory disposed of, but by the evidence we may be able to adduce +in support of the fact that the second agent has actually +remembered the conduct of the first, inasmuch as he cannot be +supposed able to do what it is plain he can do, except under the +guidance of memory or experience, and can also be shown to have +had every opportunity of remembering. When either of these +tests fails, similarity of action on the part of two agents need +not be connected with memory of a like present as well as of like +antecedents, but must, or at any rate may, be referred to memory +of like antecedents only.</p> +<p>Returning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said +that consciousness of memory would be less or greater according +to the greater or fewer number of times that the act had been +repeated, it may be observed as a corollary to this, that the +less consciousness of memory the greater the uniformity of +action, and <i>vice versa</i>. For the less consciousness +involves the memory’s being more perfect, through a larger +number (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; +there is therefore a less proportionate difference in respect of +the number of recollections of this particular act between the +most recent actor and the most recent but one. This is why +very old civilisations, as those of many insects, and the greater +number of now living organisms, appear to the eye not to change +at all.</p> +<p>For example, if an action has been performed only ten times, +we will say by A, B, C, &c., who are similar in all respects, +except that A acts without recollection, B with recollection of +A’s action, C with recollection of both B’s and +A’s, while J remembers the course taken by A, B, C, D, E, +F, G, H, and I—the possession of a memory by B will indeed +so change his action, as compared with A’s, that it may +well be hardly recognisable. We saw this in our example of +the clerk who asked the policeman the way to the eating-house on +one day, but did not ask him the next, because he remembered; but +C’s action will not be so different from B’s as +B’s from A’s, for though C will act with a memory of +two occasions on which the action has been performed, while B +recollects only the original performance by A, yet B and C both +act with the guidance of a memory and experience of some kind, +while A acted without any. Thus the clerk referred to in +Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he acted on the +second—that is to say, he will see the policeman at the +corner of the street, but will not question him.</p> +<p>When the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the +difference between J’s repetition of it and I’s will +be due solely to the difference between a recollection of nine +past performances by J against only eight by I, and this is so +much proportionately less than the difference between a +recollection of two performances and of only one, that a less +modification of action should be expected. At the same time +consciousness concerning an action repeated for the tenth time +should be less acute than on the first repetition. Memory, +therefore, though tending to disturb similarity of action less +and less continually, must always cause some disturbance. +At the same time the possession of a memory on the successive +repetitions of an action after the first, and, perhaps, the first +two or three, during which the recollection may be supposed still +imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will be one of +the elements of sameness in the agents—they both acting by +the light of experience and memory.</p> +<p>During the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost +entirely under the guidance of a practised and powerful memory of +circumstances which have been often repeated, not only in detail +and piecemeal, but as a whole, and under many slightly varying +conditions; thus the performance has become well averaged and +matured in its arrangements, so as to meet all ordinary +emergencies. We therefore act with great unconsciousness +and vary our performances little. Babies are much more +alike than persons of middle age.</p> +<p>Up to the average age at which our ancestors have had children +during many generations, we are still guided in great measure by +memory; but the variations in external circumstances begin to +make themselves perceptible in our characters. In middle +life we live more and more continually upon the piecing together +of details of memory drawn from our personal experience, that is +to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; and this +resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to cream +a little time ago. It is not surprising, then, that a son +who has inherited his father’s tastes and constitution, and +who lives much as his father had done, should make the same +mistakes as his father did when he reaches his father’s +age—we will say of seventy—though he cannot possibly +remember his father’s having made the mistakes. It +were to be wished we could, for then we might know better how to +avoid gout, cancer, or what not. And it is to be noticed +that the developments of old age are generally things we should +be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to do so.</p> +<h2><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>Chapter XIII</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Conclusion.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> we observed the resemblance +between successive generations to be as close as that between +distilled water and distilled water through all time, and if we +observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action of living +beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanical +combinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little +place among the causes of their action as it can have in +anything, and that each repetition, whether of a habit or the +practice of art, or of an embryonic process in successive +generations, was an original performance, for all that memory had +to do with it. I submit, however, that in the case of the +reproductive forms of life we see just so much variety, in spite +of uniformity, as is consistent with a repetition involving not +only a nearly perfect similarity in the agents and their +circumstances, but also the little departure therefrom that is +inevitably involved in the supposition that a memory of like +presents as well as of like antecedents (as distinguished from a +memory of like antecedents only) has played a part in their +development—a cyclonic memory, if the expression may be +pardoned.</p> +<p>There is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which +our most powerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this +upon one side and begin with the amœba. Let us +suppose that this structureless morsel of protoplasm is, for all +its structurelessness, composed of an infinite number of living +molecules, each one of them with hopes and fears of its own, and +all dwelling together like Tekke Turcomans, of whom we read that +they live for plunder only, and that each man of them is entirely +independent, acknowledging no constituted authority, but that +some among them exercise a tacit and undefined influence over the +others. Let us suppose these molecules capable of memory, +both in their capacity as individuals, and as societies, and able +to transmit their memories to their descendants, from the +traditions of the dimmest past to the experiences of their own +lifetime. Some of these societies will remain simple, as +having had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar, and +therefore striking, incidents will from time to time occur, +which, when they do not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, +will leave their impression upon it. The body or society +will remember these incidents, and be modified by them in its +conduct, and therefore more or less in its internal arrangements, +which will tend inevitably to specialisation. This memory +of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain, with +Professor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which, +accumulated in countless generations, has led up from the +amœba to man. If there had been no such memory, the +amœba of one generation would have exactly resembled time +amœba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle would have been +established; the modifying effects of an additional memory in +each generation have made the cycle into a spiral, and into a +spiral whose eccentricity, in the outset hardly perceptible, is +becoming greater and greater with increasing longevity and more +complex social and mechanical inventions.</p> +<p>We say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with +which it ultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it +remembers having grown it before, and the use it made of +it. We say that it made it on the same principles as a man +makes a spade or a hammer, that is to say, as the joint result +both of desire and experience. When I say experience, I +mean experience not only of what will be wanted, but also of the +details of all the means that must be taken in order to effect +this. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken +not only in respect of the main design, but in respect also of +every atomic action, so to speak, which goes to make up the +execution of this design. It is not only the suggestion of +a plan which is due to memory, but, as Professor Hering has so +well said, it is the binding power of memory which alone renders +any consolidation or coherence of action possible, inasmuch as +without this no action could have parts subordinate one to +another, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of an action, +great or small, could have reference to any other part, much less +to a combination of all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate +atoms of actions could ever happen—these bearing the same +relation to such an action, we will say, as a railway journey +from London to Edinburgh as a single molecule of hydrogen to a +gallon of water. If asked how it is that the chicken shows +no sign of consciousness concerning this design, nor yet of the +steps it is taking to carry it out, we reply that such +unconsciousness is usual in all cases where an action, and the +design which prompts it, have been repeated exceedingly +often. If, again, we are asked how we account for the +regularity with which each step is taken in its due order, we +answer that this too is characteristic of actions that are done +habitually—they being very rarely misplaced in respect of +any part.</p> +<p>When I wrote “Life and Habit,” I had arrived at +the conclusion that memory was the most essential characteristic +of life, and went so far as to say, “Life is that property +of matter whereby it can remember—matter which can remember +is living.” I should perhaps have written, +“Life is the being possessed of a memory—the life of +a thing at any moment is the memories which at that moment it +retains”; and I would modify the words that immediately +follow, namely, “Matter which cannot remember is +dead”; for they imply that there is such a thing as matter +which cannot remember anything at all, and this on fuller +consideration I do not believe to be the case; I can conceive of +no matter which is not able to remember a little, and which is +not living in respect of what it can remember. I do not see +how action of any kind is conceivable without the supposition +that every atom retains a memory of certain antecedents. I +cannot, however, at this point, enter upon the reasons which have +compelled me to this conclusion. Whether these would be +deemed sufficient or no, at any rate we cannot believe that a +system of self-reproducing associations should develop from the +simplicity of the amœba to the complexity of the human body +without the presence of that memory which can alone account at +once for the resemblances and the differences between successive +generations, for the arising and the accumulation of +divergences—for the tendency to differ and the tendency not +to differ.</p> +<p>At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see +every atom in the universe as living and able to feel and to +remember, but in a humble way. He must have life eternal, +as well as matter eternal; and the life and the matter must be +joined together inseparably as body and soul to one +another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who +repeat phrases conventionally, but as people who would have their +words taken according to their most natural and legitimate +meaning; and he will feel that the main difference between him +and many of those who oppose him lies in the fact that whereas +both he and they use the same language, his opponents only half +mean what they say, while he means it entirely.</p> +<p>The attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is +in accordance with our observation and experience. It is +therefore proper to be believed. The attempt to get it from +that which has absolutely no life is like trying to get something +out of nothing. The millionth part of a farthing put out to +interest at ten per cent, will in five hundred years become over +a million pounds, and so long as we have any millionth of a +millionth of the farthing to start with, our getting as many +million pounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, +but without the initial millionth of a millionth of a millionth +part, we shall get no increment whatever. A little leaven +will leaven the whole lump, but there must be <i>some</i> +leaven.</p> +<p>I will here quote two passages from an article already quoted +from on page 55 of this book. They run:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“We are growing conscious that our earnest +and most determined efforts to make motion produce sensation and +volition have proved a failure, and now we want to rest a little +in the opposite, much less laborious conjecture, and allow any +kind of motion to start into existence, or at least to receive +its specific direction from psychical sources; sensation and +volition being for the purpose quietly insinuated into the +constitution of the ultimately moving particles.” <a +name="citation177a"></a><a href="#footnote177a" +class="citation">[177a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>And:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“In this light it can remain no longer +surprising that we actually find motility and sensibility so +intimately interblended in nature.” <a +name="citation177b"></a><a href="#footnote177b" +class="citation">[177b]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, +in respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, +rather than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities +it has in common with the inorganic. True, it would be hard +to place one’s self on the same moral platform as a stone, +but this is not necessary; it is enough that we should feel the +stone to have a moral platform of its own, though that platform +embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws of +gravitation, chemical affinity, &c. As for the +difficulty of conceiving a body as living that has not got a +reproductive system—we should remember that neuter insects +are living but are believed to have no reproductive system. +Again, we should bear in mind that mere assimilation involves all +the essentials of reproduction, and that both air and water +possess this power in a very high degree. The essence of a +reproductive system, then, is found low down in the scheme of +nature.</p> +<p>At present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; +on the one hand their experiments and their theories alike teach +them that spontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the +other, they must have an origin for the life of the living forms, +which, by their own theory, have been evolved, and they can at +present get this origin in no other way than by the <i>Deus ex +machinâ</i> method, which they reject as unproved, or a +spontaneous generation of living from non-living matter, which is +no less foreign to their experience. As a general rule, +they prefer the latter alternative. So Professor Tyndall, +in his celebrated article (<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, November +1878), wrote:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It is generally conceded (and seems to be a +necessary inference from the lessons of science) that +<i>spontaneous generation must at one time have taken +place</i>” (italics mine).</p> +</blockquote> +<p>No inference can well be more unnecessary or +unscientific. I suppose spontaneous generation ceases to be +objectionable if it was “only a very little one,” and +came off a long time ago in a foreign country. The proper +inference is, that there is a low kind of livingness in every +atom of matter. Life eternal is as inevitable a conclusion +as matter eternal.</p> +<p>It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or +motion there is life and memory, and that there is vibration and +motion at all times in all things.</p> +<p>The reader who takes the above position will find that he can +explain the entry of what he calls death among what he calls the +living, whereas he could by no means introduce life into his +system if he started without it. Death is deducible; life +is not deducible. Death is a change of memories; it is not +the destruction of all memory. It is as the liquidation of +one company, each member of which will presently join a new one, +and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, by way of +greater aptitude for working in concert with other +molecules. This is why animals feed on grass and on each +other, and cannot proselytise or convert the rude ground before +it has been tutored in the first principles of the higher kinds +of association.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 classified among +fishes,” instead of “fish,” <a +name="citation179a"></a><a href="#footnote179a" +class="citation">[179a]</a> and then proclaiming that they have +“an ineradicable tendency to try to make things +clear.” <a name="citation179b"></a><a href="#footnote179b" +class="citation">[179b]</a></p> +<p>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 passage I refer to runs +thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“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 <i>the ætiology 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</i>? 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.” <a name="citation180"></a><a href="#footnote180" +class="citation">[180]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 +<i>most</i> living part of an organism, as the most capable of +retaining vibrations, but this is the utmost that can be claimed +for it.</p> +<p>Having mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the +breakdown of that school of philosophy which divided the +<i>ego</i> from the <i>non ego</i>. The protoplasmists, on +the one hand, are whittling away at the <i>ego</i>, 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.</p> +<p>Others, again, are so unifying the <i>ego</i> and the <i>non +ego</i>, that with them there will soon be as little of the +<i>non ego</i> left as there is of the <i>ego</i> 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.</p> +<p>The truth is, that all classification whatever, when we +examine its <i>raison d’être</i> 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 God, and the action of the +universe as a whole.</p> +<p>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 accumulation 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 <i>Trapa natans</i>, <a +name="citation181a"></a><a href="#footnote181a" +class="citation">[181a]</a> and Lamarck’s kindred passage +on the descent of <i>Ranunculus hederaceus</i> from <i>Ranunculus +aquatilis</i> <a name="citation181b"></a><a href="#footnote181b" +class="citation">[181b]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“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 +antitypes with a longer neck than usual <i>at once secured a +fresh range of pasture over the same ground as their +shorter-necked companions</i>, <i>and on the first scarcity of +food were thereby enabled to outlive them</i>” (italics in +original). <a name="citation182a"></a><a href="#footnote182a" +class="citation">[182a]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 <a +name="citation182b"></a><a href="#footnote182b" +class="citation">[182b]</a> 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.”</p> +<p>Mr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself +to saying that Mr. Wallace has arrived at <i>almost</i> (italics +mine) the same general conclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; +<a name="citation182c"></a><a href="#footnote182c" +class="citation">[182c]</a> 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,” <a name="citation183a"></a><a +href="#footnote183a" class="citation">[183a]</a> and he still +comprehensively condemns the “well-known doctrine of +inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck.” <a +name="citation183b"></a><a href="#footnote183b" +class="citation">[183b]</a></p> +<p>As for the statement in the passage 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 pass muster with those whom public opinion is sure in the end +to follow.</p> +<p>Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, “repeatedly and +easily refute” Lamarck’s hypothesis in his brilliant +article in the <i>Leader</i>, 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!</p> +<p>Does Isidore Geoffroy, again, bear Mr. Wallace’s +assertion out better? In 1859—that is to say, but a +short time after Mr. Wallace had written—he wrote as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="citation184a"></a><a +href="#footnote184a" class="citation">[184a]</a>—with at +any rate the respect due to one of the most illustrious 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.” <a name="citation184b"></a><a +href="#footnote184b" class="citation">[184b]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.” <a name="citation184c"></a><a +href="#footnote184c" class="citation">[184c]</a></p> +<p>Professor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less +cavalier than Mr. Wallace. He writes:—<a +name="citation184d"></a><a href="#footnote184d" +class="citation">[184d]</a></p> +<blockquote><p>“Lamarck introduced the conception of the +action of an animal on itself as a factor in producing +modification.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>[Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and Dr. +Darwin who introduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin.]</p> +<blockquote><p>“But <i>a little consideration +showed</i>” (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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WILLIAM +BRENDON AND SON, LTD.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH</span></p> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a name="footnote0a"></a><a href="#citation0a" +class="footnote">[0a]</a> This is the date on the +title-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 <i>New Quarterly +Review</i> (1909).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0b"></a><a href="#citation0b" +class="footnote">[0b]</a> I.e. after p. 285: it bears no +number of its own!</p> +<p><a name="footnote0c"></a><a href="#citation0c" +class="footnote">[0c]</a> The distinction was merely +implicit in his published writings, but has been printed since +his death from his “Notebooks,” <i>New +Quarterly Review</i>, April, 1908. I had developed this +thesis, without knowing of Butler’s explicit anticipation +in an article then in the press: “Mechanism and +Life,” <i>Contemporary Review</i>, May, 1908.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0d"></a><a href="#citation0d" +class="footnote">[0d]</a> The term has recently been +revived by Prof. Hubrecht and by myself (<i>Contemporary +Review</i>, November 1908).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0e"></a><a href="#citation0e" +class="footnote">[0e]</a> See <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, +February 1908, and <i>Contemporary Review</i>, September and +November 1909. Since these publications the hypnosis seems +to have somewhat weakened.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0f"></a><a href="#citation0f" +class="footnote">[0f]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0g"></a><a href="#citation0g" +class="footnote">[0g]</a> Mr. H. Festing Jones first +directed my attention to these passages and their bearing on the +Mutation Theory.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0i"></a><a href="#citation0i" +class="footnote">[0i]</a> He says in a note, “This +general type of reaction was described and illustrated in a +different connection by Pfluger in ‘Pfluger’s Archiv. +f.d. ges. Physiologie,’ Bd. XV.” +The essay bears the significant title “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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0j"></a><a href="#citation0j" +class="footnote">[0j]</a> “Contributions to the Study +of the Lower Animals” (1904), “Modifiability in +Behaviour” and “Method of Regulability in Behaviour +and in other Fields,” in <i>Journ. Experimental +Zoology</i>, vol. ii. (1905).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0h"></a><a href="#citation0h" +class="footnote">[0h]</a> See “The Hereditary +Transmission of Acquired Characters” in <i>Contemporary +Review</i>, September and November 1908, in which references are +given to earlier statements.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0k"></a><a href="#citation0k" +class="footnote">[0k]</a> 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 +substituted “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 +Græcisms.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0l"></a><a href="#citation0l" +class="footnote">[0l]</a> “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.”—<i>Unconscious Memory</i>, p. 71.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0m"></a><a href="#citation0m" +class="footnote">[0m]</a> Preface by Mr. Charles Darwin to +“Erasmus Darwin.” The Museum has copies of a +<i>Kosmos</i> that was published 1857–60 and then +discontinued; but this is clearly not the <i>Kosmos</i> referred +to by Mr. Darwin, which began to appear in 1878.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0n"></a><a href="#citation0n" +class="footnote">[0n]</a> Preface to “Erasmus +Darwin.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2" +class="footnote">[2]</a> May 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, February 1879, +Leipsic.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4" +class="footnote">[4]</a> Origin of Species, ed. i., p. +459.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8a"></a><a href="#citation8a" +class="footnote">[8a]</a> Origin of Species, ed. i., p. +1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8b"></a><a href="#citation8b" +class="footnote">[8b]</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, February 1879, p. +397.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8c"></a><a href="#citation8c" +class="footnote">[8c]</a> Erasmus Darwin, by Ernest Krause, +pp. 132, 133.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9a"></a><a href="#citation9a" +class="footnote">[9a]</a> Origin of Species, ed. i., p. +242.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9b"></a><a href="#citation9b" +class="footnote">[9b]</a> Ibid., p. 427.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10a"></a><a href="#citation10a" +class="footnote">[10a]</a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, +November 1878; Evolution, Old and New, pp. 360. 361.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10b"></a><a href="#citation10b" +class="footnote">[10b]</a> Encyclopædia Britannica, +ed. ix., art. “Evolution,” p. 748.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11" +class="footnote">[11]</a> Ibid.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17" +class="footnote">[17]</a> Encycl. Brit., ed. ix., +art. “Evolution,” p. 750.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23a"></a><a href="#citation23a" +class="footnote">[23a]</a> Origin of Species, 6th ed., +1876, p. 206.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23b"></a><a href="#citation23b" +class="footnote">[23b]</a> Ibid., p. 233.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24a"></a><a href="#citation24a" +class="footnote">[24a]</a> Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. +171, 1876.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24b"></a><a href="#citation24b" +class="footnote">[24b]</a> Pp. 258–260.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26" +class="footnote">[26]</a> Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 484; +Evolution, Old and New, p. 214.</p> +<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27" +class="footnote">[27]</a> “Erasmus Darwin,” by +Ernest Krause, p. 211, London, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28a"></a><a href="#citation28a" +class="footnote">[28a]</a> See “Evolution, Old and +New,” p. 91, and Buffon, tom. iv. p. 383, ed. 1753.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28b"></a><a href="#citation28b" +class="footnote">[28b]</a> Evolution, Old and New, p. +104.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29a"></a><a href="#citation29a" +class="footnote">[29a]</a> Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., +art. “Evolution,” p. 748.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29b"></a><a href="#citation29b" +class="footnote">[29b]</a> Palingénésie +Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted from Professor +Huxley’s article on “Evolution,” Encycl. Brit., +9th ed., p. 745).</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31" +class="footnote">[31]</a> The note began thus: “I +have taken the date of the first publication of Lamarck from +Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s (Hist. Nat. +Générale tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history +of opinion upon this subject. In this work a full account +is given of Buffon’s fluctuating conclusions upon the same +subject.”—<i>Origin of Species</i>, 3d ed., 1861, p. +xiv.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33a"></a><a href="#citation33a" +class="footnote">[33a]</a> Life of Erasmus Darwin, pp. 84, +85.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33b"></a><a href="#citation33b" +class="footnote">[33b]</a> See Life and Habit, p. 264 and +pp. 276, 277.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33c"></a><a href="#citation33c" +class="footnote">[33c]</a> See Evolution, Old and New, pp. +159–165.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33d"></a><a href="#citation33d" +class="footnote">[33d]</a> Ibid., p. 122.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34" +class="footnote">[34]</a> See Evolution, Old and New, pp. +247, 248.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35a"></a><a href="#citation35a" +class="footnote">[35a]</a> Vestiges of Creation, ed. 1860, +“Proofs, Illustrations, &c.,” p. lxiv.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35b"></a><a href="#citation35b" +class="footnote">[35b]</a> The first announcement was in +the <i>Examiner</i>, February 22, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36" +class="footnote">[36]</a> <i>Saturday Review</i>, May 31, +1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37a"></a><a href="#citation37a" +class="footnote">[37a]</a> May 26, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37b"></a><a href="#citation37b" +class="footnote">[37b]</a> May 31, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37c"></a><a href="#citation37c" +class="footnote">[37c]</a> July 26, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37d"></a><a href="#citation37d" +class="footnote">[37d]</a> July 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37e"></a><a href="#citation37e" +class="footnote">[37e]</a> July 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37f"></a><a href="#citation37f" +class="footnote">[37f]</a> July 29, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37g"></a><a href="#citation37g" +class="footnote">[37g]</a> January 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39" +class="footnote">[39]</a> How far <i>Kosmos</i> was +“a well-known” journal, I cannot determine. It +had just entered upon its second year.</p> +<p><a name="footnote41"></a><a href="#citation41" +class="footnote">[41]</a> Evolution, Old and New, p. 120, +line 5.</p> +<p><a name="footnote43"></a><a href="#citation43" +class="footnote">[43]</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, February 1879, p. +397.</p> +<p><a name="footnote44a"></a><a href="#citation44a" +class="footnote">[44a]</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, February 1879, p. +404.</p> +<p><a name="footnote44b"></a><a href="#citation44b" +class="footnote">[44b]</a> Page 39 of this volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50" +class="footnote">[50]</a> See Appendix A.</p> +<p><a name="footnote52"></a><a href="#citation52" +class="footnote">[52]</a> Since published as “God the +Known and God the Unknown.” Fifield, 1s. 6d. +net. 1909.</p> +<p><a name="footnote54a"></a><a href="#citation54a" +class="footnote">[54a]</a> “Contemplation of +Nature,” Engl. trans., Lond. 1776. Preface, p. +xxxvi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote54b"></a><a href="#citation54b" +class="footnote">[54b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. xxxviii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote55"></a><a href="#citation55" +class="footnote">[55]</a> Life and Habit, p. 97.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56"></a><a href="#citation56" +class="footnote">[56]</a> “The Unity of the Organic +Individual,” by Edward Montgomery, <i>Mind</i>, October +1880, p. 466.</p> +<p><a name="footnote58"></a><a href="#citation58" +class="footnote">[58]</a> Life and Habit, p. 237.</p> +<p><a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a" +class="footnote">[59a]</a> Discourse on the Study of +Natural Philosophy. Lardner’s Cab. Cyclo., vol. xcix. +p. 24.</p> +<p><a name="footnote59b"></a><a href="#citation59b" +class="footnote">[59b]</a> Young’s Lectures on +Natural Philosophy, ii. 627. See also Phil. Trans., +1801–2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote63"></a><a href="#citation63" +class="footnote">[63]</a> The lecture is published by Karl +Gerold’s Sohn, Vienna.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69"></a><a href="#citation69" +class="footnote">[69]</a> See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 +of this volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70" +class="footnote">[70]</a> Professor Hering is not clear +here. Vibrations (if I understand his theory rightly) +should not be set up by faint <i>stimuli</i> from within. +Whence and what are these <i>stimuli</i>? The vibrations +within are already existing, and it is they which are the +<i>stimuli</i> to action. On having been once set up, they +either continue in sufficient force to maintain action, or they +die down, and become too weak to cause further action, and +perhaps even to be perceived within the mind, until they receive +an accession of vibration from without. The only +“stimulus from within” that should be able to +generate action is that which may follow when a vibration already +established in the body runs into another similar vibration +already so established. On this consciousness, and even +action, might be supposed to follow without the presence of an +external stimulus.</p> +<p><a name="footnote71"></a><a href="#citation71" +class="footnote">[71]</a> This expression seems hardly +applicable to the overtaking of an internal by an external +vibration, but it is not inconsistent with it. Here, +however, as frequently elsewhere, I doubt how far Professor +Hering has fully realised his conception, beyond being, like +myself, convinced that the phenomena of memory and of heredity +have a common source.</p> +<p><a name="footnote72"></a><a href="#citation72" +class="footnote">[72]</a> See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 +of this volume. By “preserving the memory of habitual +actions” Professor Hering probably means, retains for a +long while and repeats motion of a certain character when such +motion has been once communicated to it.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74a"></a><a href="#citation74a" +class="footnote">[74a]</a> It should not be “if the +central nerve system were not able to reproduce whole series of +vibrations,” but “if whole series of vibrations do +not persist though unperceived,” if Professor Hering +intends what I suppose him to intend.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74b"></a><a href="#citation74b" +class="footnote">[74b]</a> Memory was in full operation for +so long a time before anything like what we call a nervous system +can be detected, that Professor Hering must not be supposed to be +intending to confine memory to a motor nerve system. His +words do not even imply that he does, but it is as well to be on +one’s guard.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77"></a><a href="#citation77" +class="footnote">[77]</a> It is from such passages as this, +and those that follow on the next few pages, that I collect the +impression of Professor Hering’s meaning which I have +endeavoured to convey in the preceding chapter.</p> +<p><a name="footnote78"></a><a href="#citation78" +class="footnote">[78]</a> That is to say, “an +infinitely small change in the kind of vibration communicated +from the parent to the germ.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote79"></a><a href="#citation79" +class="footnote">[79]</a> It may be asked what is meant by +responding. I may repeat that I understand Professor Hering +to mean that there exists in the offspring certain vibrations, +which are many of them too faint to upset equilibrium and thus +generate action, until they receive an accession of force from +without by the running into them of vibrations of similar +characteristics to their own, which last vibrations have been set +up by exterior objects. On this they become strong enough +to generate that corporeal earthquake which we call action.</p> +<p>This may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible; +whereas much that is written about “fraying channels” +raises no definite ideas in the mind.</p> +<p><a name="footnote80a"></a><a href="#citation80a" +class="footnote">[80a]</a> I interpret this, “We +cannot wonder if often-repeated vibrations gather strength, and +become at once more lasting and requiring less accession of +vibration from without, in order to become strong enough to +generate action.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote80b"></a><a href="#citation80b" +class="footnote">[80b]</a> “Characteristics” +must, I imagine, according to Professor Hering, resolve +themselves ultimately into “vibrations,” for the +characteristics depend upon the character of the vibrations.</p> +<p><a name="footnote81"></a><a href="#citation81" +class="footnote">[81]</a> Professor Hartog tells me that +this probably refers to Fritz Müller’s formulation of +the “recapitulation process” in “Facts for +Darwin,” English edition (1869), p. 114.—R.A.S.</p> +<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82" +class="footnote">[82]</a> This is the passage which makes +me suppose Professor Hering to mean that vibrations from exterior +objects run into vibrations already existing within the living +body, and that the accession to power thus derived is his key to +an explanation of the physical basis of action.</p> +<p><a name="footnote84"></a><a href="#citation84" +class="footnote">[84]</a> I interpret this: “There +are fewer vibrations persistent within the bodies of the lower +animals; those that there are, therefore, are stronger and more +capable of generating action or upsetting the <i>status in +quo</i>. Hence also they require less accession of +vibration from without. Man is agitated by more and more +varied vibrations; these, interfering, as to some extent they +must, with one another, are weaker, and therefore require more +accession from without before they can set the mechanical +adjustments of the body in motion.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote89"></a><a href="#citation89" +class="footnote">[89]</a> I am obliged to Mr. Sully for +this excellent translation of “Hellsehen.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote90a"></a><a href="#citation90a" +class="footnote">[90a]</a> <i>Westminster Review</i>, New +Series, vol. xlix. p. 143.</p> +<p><a name="footnote90b"></a><a href="#citation90b" +class="footnote">[90b]</a> Ibid., p. 145.</p> +<p><a name="footnote90c"></a><a href="#citation90c" +class="footnote">[90c]</a> Ibid., p. 151.</p> +<p><a name="footnote92a"></a><a href="#citation92a" +class="footnote">[92a]</a> “Instinct ist +zweckmässiges Handeln ohne Bewusstsein des +Zwecks.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d +ed., Berlin, 1871, p. 70.</p> +<p><a name="footnote92b"></a><a href="#citation92b" +class="footnote">[92b]</a> “1. Eine blosse +Folge der körperlichen Organisation.</p> +<p>“2. Ein von der Natur eingerichteter Gehirn-oder +Geistesmechanismus.</p> +<p>“3. Eine Folge unbewusster +Geistesthiitigkeit.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 70.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97" +class="footnote">[97]</a> “Hiermit ist der Annahme +das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die unbewusste Vorstellung des +Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vorwiegt; denn wollte man nun +noch die Vorstellung des Geistesmechanismus festhalten so +müsste für jede Variation und Modification des +Instincts, nach den äusseren Umständen, eine besondere +constante Vorrichtung . . . eingefügt +sein.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i> 3d ed., +p. 74.</p> +<p><a name="footnote99"></a><a href="#citation99" +class="footnote">[99]</a> “Indessen glaube ich, dass +die angeführten Beispiele zur Genüge beweisen, dass es +auch viele Fälle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication mit der +bewussten Ueberlegung die gewöhnliche und +aussergewöhnliche Handlung aus derselben Quelle stammen, +dass sie entweder beide wirklicher Instinct, oder beide Resultate +bewusster Ueberlegung sind.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote100"></a><a href="#citation100" +class="footnote">[100]</a> “Dagegen haben wir nunmehr +unseren Blick noch einmal schärfer auf den Begriff eines +psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da zeigt sich, dass +derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erklärt, so dunke +list, dass man sich kaum etwas dabei denken +kann.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., +p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote101"></a><a href="#citation101" +class="footnote">[101]</a> “Das Endglied tritt als +bewusster Wille zu irgend einer Handlung auf; beide sind aber +ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der gewöhnlichen Motivation +nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin besteht, dass die +Vorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das Begehren erzeugr, +erstere zu erlangen, letztere sich fern zu +halten.”—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote102a"></a><a href="#citation102a" +class="footnote">[102a]</a> “Diese causale Verbindung +fällt erfahrungsmässig, wie wir von unsern menschlichen +Instincten wissen, nicht in’s Bewussisein; folglich kann +dieselbe, wenn sie ein Mechanismus sein soll, nur entweder ein +nicht in’s Bewusstsein fallende mechanische Leitung und +Umwandlung der Schwingungen des vorgestellten Motivs in die +Schwingungen der gewollten Handlung im Gehirn, oder ein +unbewusster geistiger Mechanismus +sein.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i> 3d ed., +p. 77.</p> +<p><a name="footnote102b"></a><a href="#citation102b" +class="footnote">[102b]</a> “Man hat sich also +zwischen dem bewussten Motiv, und dem Willen zur Insticthandlung +eine causale Verbindung durch unbewusstes Vorstellen und Wollen +zu denken, und ich weiss nicht, wie diese Verbindung einfacher +gedacht werden könnte, als durch den vorgestellten und +gewollten Zweck. Damit sind wir aber bei dem allen Geistern +eigenthümlichen und immanenten Mechanismus der Logik +angelangt, und haben die unbewusster Zweckvorstellung bei jeder +einzelnen Instincthandlung als unentbehrliches Glied gefunden; +hiermit hat also der Begrift des todten, äusserlich +prädestinirten Geistesmechanismus sich selbst aufgehoben und +in das immanente Geistesleben der Logik umgewandelt, und wir sind +bei der letzten Möglichkeit angekommen, welche für die +Auffassung eines wirklichen Instincts übrig bleibt: der +Instinct ist bewusstes Wollen des Mittels zu einem unbewusst +gewollten Zweck.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 78.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105a"></a><a href="#citation105a" +class="footnote">[105a]</a> “Also der Instinct ohne +Hülfsmechanismus die Ursache der Entstehung des +Hülfsmechanismus ist.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105b"></a><a href="#citation105b" +class="footnote">[105b]</a> “Dass auch der fertige +Hülfsmechanismus das Unbewusste nicht etwa zu dieser +bestimmten Instincthandlung necessirt, sondern blosse +prädisponirt.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105c"></a><a href="#citation105c" +class="footnote">[105c]</a> “Giebt es einen +wirklichen Instinct, oder sind die sogenannten Instincthandlungen +nur Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung?”—<i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111"></a><a href="#citation111" +class="footnote">[111]</a> “Dieser Beweis ist dadurch +zu führen; erstens dass die betreffenden Thatsachen in; der +Zukunft liegen, und dem Verstande die Anhaltepunkte fehlen, um +ihr zukünftiges Eintreten aus den gegenwärtigen +Verhältnissen zu erschliessen; zweitens, dass die +betreffenden Thatsachen augenscheinlich der sinnlichen +Wahrnehmung verschlossen liegen, weil nur die Erfahrung +früherer Fälle über sie belehren kann, und diese +laut der Beobachtung ausgeschlossen ist. Es würde +für unsere Interessen keinen Unterschied machen, wenn, was +ich wahrscheinlich halte, bei fortschreitender physiologischer +Erkenntniss alle jetzt für den ersten Fall +anzuführenden Beispiele sich als solche des zweiten Falls +ausweisen sollten, wie dies unleugbar bei vielen früher +gebrauchten Beispielen schon geschehen ist; denn ein apriorisches +Wissen ohne jeden sinnlichen Anstoss ist wohl kaum wunderbarer zu +nennen, als ein Wissen, welches zwar <i>bei Gelegenheit</i> +gewisser sinnlicher Wahrnehmung zu Tage tritt, aber mit diesen +nur durch eine solche Kette von Schlüssen und angewandten +Kenntnissen in Verbindung stehend gedacht werden könnte, +dass deren Möglichkeit bei dem Zustande der Fähigkeiten +und Bildung der betreffenden Thiere entschieden geleugnet werden +muss.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., +p. 85.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113"></a><a href="#citation113" +class="footnote">[113]</a> “Man hat dieselbe +jederzeit anerkannt und mit den Worten Vorgefühl oder Ahnung +bezeichnet; indess beziehen sich diese Wörte einerseits nur +auf zukünftiges, nicht auf gegenwärtiges, räumlich +getrenntes Unwahmehrnbares, anderseits bezeichnen sie nur die +leise, dumpfe, unbestimmte Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem +unfehlbar bestimmten Zustande der unbewussten Erkenntniss. +Daher das Wort Vorgefühl in Rücksicht auf die Dumpfheit +und Unbestimmtheit, während doch leicht zu sehen ist, dass +das von allen, auch den unbewussten Vorstellungen entblösste +Gefühl für das Resultat gar keinen Einfluss haben kann, +sondern nur eine Vorstellung, weil diese allein Erkenntniss +enthält. Die in Bewusstsein mitklingende Ahnung kann +allerdings unter Umständen ziemlich deutlich sein, so dass +sie sich beim Menschen in Gedanken und Wort fixiren lässt; +doch ist dies auch im Menschen erfahrungsmässig bei den +eigenthümlichen Instincten nicht der Fall, vielmehr ist bei +diesen die Resonanz der unbewussten Erkenntniss im Bewusstsein +meistens so schwach, dass sie sich wirklich nur in begleitenden +Gefühlen oder der Stimmung äussert, dass sie einen +unendlich kleinen Bruchtheil des Gemeingefühls +bildet.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d +ed., p. 86.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115a"></a><a href="#citation115a" +class="footnote">[115a]</a> “In der Bestimmung des +Willens durch einen im Unbewussten liegenden Process . . . +für welchen sich dieser Character der zweifellosen +Selbstgewissheit in allen folgenden Untersuchungen bewähren +wird.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, p. +87.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115b"></a><a href="#citation115b" +class="footnote">[115b]</a> “Sondern als +unmittelbarer Besitz vorgefunden wird.”—<i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, p. 87.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115c"></a><a href="#citation115c" +class="footnote">[115c]</a> “Hellsehen.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote119a"></a><a href="#citation119a" +class="footnote">[119a]</a> “Das Hellsehon des +Unbewussten hat sie den rechten Weg ahnen +lassen.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, p. 90, +3d ed., 1871.</p> +<p><a name="footnote119b"></a><a href="#citation119b" +class="footnote">[119b]</a> “Man wird doch wahrlich +nicht den Thieren zumuthen wollen, durch meteorologische +Schlüsse das Wetter auf Monate im Voraus zu berechnen, ja +sogar Ueberschwemmungen vorauszusehen. Vielmehr ist eine +solche Gefühlswahrnehmung gegenwärtiger +atmosphärischer Einflüsse nichts weiter als die +sinnliche Wahrnehmung, welche als Motiv wirkt, und ein Motiv muss +ja doch immer vorhanden sein, wenn ein Instinct functioniren +soll. Es bleibt also trotzdem bestehen dass das Voraussehen +der Witterung ein unbewusstes Hellsehen ist, von dem der Storch, +der vier Wochen früher nach Süden aufbricht, so wenig +etwas weiss, als der Hirsch, der sich vor einem kalten Winter +einen dickeren Pelz als gewöhnlich wachsen lässt. +Die Thiere haben eben einerseits das gegenwärtige +Witterungsgefühl im Bewusstsein, daraus folgt andererseits +ihr Handeln gerade so, als ob sie die Vorstellung der +zukünftigen Witterung hätten; im Bewusstsein haben sie +dieselbe aber nicht, also bietet sich als einzig natürliches +Mittelglied die unbewusste Vorstellung, die nun aber immer ein +Hellsehen ist, weil sie etwas enthält, was dem Thier weder +dutch sinnliche Wahrnehmung direct gegeben ist, noch durch seine +Verstandesmittel aus der Wahrnehmung geschlossen werden +kann.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, p. 91, +3d ed., 1871.</p> +<p><a name="footnote124"></a><a href="#citation124" +class="footnote">[124]</a> “Meistentheils tritt aber +hier der höheren Bewusstseinstufe der Menschen entsprechend +eine stärkete Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem bewussten +Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr odor minder deutliche Ahnung +darstellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der grösseren +Selbstständigkeit des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese +Ahnung nicht ausschliesslich Behufs der unmittelbaren +Ausführung einer Handlung eintritt, sondern bisweilen auch +unabängig von der Bedingung einer momentan zu leistenden +That als blosse Vorstellung ohne bewussten Willen sich zeigte, +wenn nur die Bedingung erfüllt ist, dass der Gegenstand +dieses Ahnens den Willen des Ahnenden im Allgemeinen in hohem +Grade interessirt.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 94.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126" +class="footnote">[126]</a> “Häufig sind die +Ahnungen, in denen das Hellsehen des Unbewussten sich dem +Bewusstsein offenbart, dunkel, unverständlich und +symbolisch, weil sie im Gehirn sinnliche Form annehmen +müssen, während die unbewusste Vorstellung an der Form +der Sinnlichkeit kein Theil haben +kann.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., +p. 96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128" +class="footnote">[128]</a> “Ebenso weil es diese +Reihe nur in gesteigerter Bewusstseinresonanz fortsetzt, +stützt es jene Aussagen der Instincthandlungen üher ihr +eigenes Wesen ebenso sehr,” &c.—<i>Philosophy of +the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 97.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129"></a><a href="#citation129" +class="footnote">[129]</a> “Wir werden trotzdem diese +gomeinsame Wirkung eines Masseninstincts in der Entstehung der +Sprache und den grossen politischen und socialen Bewegungen in +der Woltgeschichte deutlich wieder erkennen; hier handelt es sich +um möglichst einfache und deutliche Beispiele, und darum +greifen wir zu niederen Thieren, wo die Mittel der +Gedankenmittheilung bei fehlender Stimme, Mimik und Physiognomie +so unvollkommen sind, dass die Uebereinstimmung und das +Ineinandergreifen der einzelnen Leistungen in den Hauptsachen +unmöglich der bewussten Verständigung durch Sprache +zugeschrieben werden darf.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 98.</p> +<p><a name="footnote131a"></a><a href="#citation131a" +class="footnote">[131a]</a> “Und wie durch Instinct +dot Plan des ganzen Stocks in unbewusstem Hellsehen jeder +einzelnen Biene einwohnt.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote131b"></a><a href="#citation131b" +class="footnote">[131b]</a> “Indem jedes Individuum +den Plan des Ganzen und Sämmtliche gegenwartig zu +ergreifende Mittel im unbewussten Hellsehen hat, wovon aber nut +das Eine, was ihm zu thun obliegt, in sein Bewusstsein +fällt.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d +ed., p. 99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote132"></a><a href="#citation132" +class="footnote">[132]</a> “Der Instinct ist nicht +Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicht Folge der körperlichen +Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines in der Organisation +des Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung eines dem Geiste +von aussen angeklebten todten, seinem innersten Wesen fremden +Mechanismus, sondern selbsteigene Leistung des Individuum aus +seinem innersten Wesen und Character +entspringend.”—<i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, +3d ed., p. 100.</p> +<p><a name="footnote133"></a><a href="#citation133" +class="footnote">[133]</a> “Häufig ist die +Kenntniss des Zwecks der bewussten Erkenntniss durch sinnliche +Wahrnehmung gar nicht zugänglich; dann documentirt sich die +Eigenthümlichkeit des Unbewussten im Hellsehen, von welchem +das Bewusstsein theils nar eine verschwindend dumpfe, theils auch +namentlich beim Menschen mehr oder minder deutliche Resonanz als +Ahnung verspütt.”—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 100.</p> +<p><a name="footnote135"></a><a href="#citation135" +class="footnote">[135]</a> “Und eine so +dämonische Gewalt sollte durch etwas ausgeübt werden +könnon, was als ein dem inneren Wesen fremder Mechanismus +dem Geiste aufgepfropft ist, oder gar durch eine bewusste +Ueberlegung, welche doch stets nur im kahlen Egoismus stecken +bleibt,” &c.—<i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 101.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139a"></a><a href="#citation139a" +class="footnote">[139a]</a> Page 100 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139b"></a><a href="#citation139b" +class="footnote">[139b]</a> Pp. 106, 107 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140"></a><a href="#citation140" +class="footnote">[140]</a> Page 100 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141"></a><a href="#citation141" +class="footnote">[141]</a> Page 99 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144a"></a><a href="#citation144a" +class="footnote">[144a]</a> See page 115 of this +volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144b"></a><a href="#citation144b" +class="footnote">[144b]</a> Page 104 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146"></a><a href="#citation146" +class="footnote">[146]</a> The Spirit of Nature. J. +A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39.</p> +<p><a name="footnote149"></a><a href="#citation149" +class="footnote">[149]</a> I have put these words into the +mouth of my supposed objector, and shall put others like them, +because they are characteristic; but nothing can become so well +known as to escape being an inference.</p> +<p><a name="footnote153"></a><a href="#citation153" +class="footnote">[153]</a> Erewhon, chap. xxiii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote160"></a><a href="#citation160" +class="footnote">[160]</a> It must be remembered that this +passage is put as if in the mouth of an objector.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177a"></a><a href="#citation177a" +class="footnote">[177a]</a> “The Unity of the Organic +Individual,” by Edward Montgomery. <i>Mind</i>, +October 1880, p. 477.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177b"></a><a href="#citation177b" +class="footnote">[177b]</a> Ibid., p. 483.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179a"></a><a href="#citation179a" +class="footnote">[179a]</a> Professor Huxley, Encycl. +Brit., 9th ed., art. Evolution, p. 750.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179b"></a><a href="#citation179b" +class="footnote">[179b]</a> “Hume,” by +Professor Huxley, p. 45.</p> +<p><a name="footnote180"></a><a href="#citation180" +class="footnote">[180]</a> “The Philosophy of +Crayfishes,” by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of +Carlisle. <i>Nineteenth Century</i> for October 1880, p. +636.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181a"></a><a href="#citation181a" +class="footnote">[181a]</a> Les Amours des Plantes, p. +360. Paris, 1800.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181b"></a><a href="#citation181b" +class="footnote">[181b]</a> Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. +p. 231. Ed. M. Martin. Paris, 1873.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182a"></a><a href="#citation182a" +class="footnote">[182a]</a> Journal of the Proceedings of +the Linnean Society. Williams & Norgate, 1858, p. +61.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182b"></a><a href="#citation182b" +class="footnote">[182b]</a> Contributions to the Theory of +Natural Selection, 2d ed., 1871, p. 41.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182c"></a><a href="#citation182c" +class="footnote">[182c]</a> Origin of Species, p. 1, ed. +1872.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183a"></a><a href="#citation183a" +class="footnote">[183a]</a> Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. +206. I ought in fairness to Mr. Darwin to say that he does +not hold the error to be quite as serious as he once did. +It is now “a serious error” only; in 1859 it was +“the most serious error.”—Origin of Species, +1st ed., p. 209.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183b"></a><a href="#citation183b" +class="footnote">[183b]</a> Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. +242; 6th ed., p. 233.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184a"></a><a href="#citation184a" +class="footnote">[184a]</a> I never could find what these +particular points were.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184b"></a><a href="#citation184b" +class="footnote">[184b]</a> Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. +Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184c"></a><a href="#citation184c" +class="footnote">[184c]</a> M. Martin’s edition of +the “Philosophie Zoologique” (Paris, 1873), +Introduction, p. vi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184d"></a><a href="#citation184d" +class="footnote">[184d]</a> Encyclopædia Britannica, +9th ed., p. 750.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 6605-h.htm or 6605-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/6/0/6605 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Unconscious Memory + +Author: Samuel Butler + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6605] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 30, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1910 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY + + + + +"As this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of +experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every +species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the +multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the +collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three +volumes every year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against +innovations, that can have no other effect than to check the progress +of science, and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination +which Bacon and Newton put to flight from her temple."--Opening +Paragraph of a Review of Dr. Young's Bakerian Lecture. Edinburgh +Review, January 1803, p. 450. + +"Young's work was laid before the Royal society, and was made the +1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. The second +number of the Edinburgh Review contained an article levelled against +him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was so severe an +attack that Young's ideas were absolutely quenched for fifteen years. +Brougham was then only twenty-four years of age. Young's theory was +reproduced in France by Fresnel. In our days it is the accepted +theory, and is found to explain all the phenomena of light."--Times +Report of a Lecture by Professor Tyndall on Light, April 27, 1880. + + +This Book +Is inscribed to +RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ. +(Of the British Museum) +In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying kindness with which he +has so often placed at my disposal his varied store of information. + + + +Contents: + Note by R. A. Streatfeild + Introduction by Marcus Hartog + Author's Preface + Unconscious Memory + + + +NOTE + + + +For many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butler's biological +works has been missing. "Unconscious Memory" was originally +published thirty years ago, but for fully half that period it has +been out of print, owing to the destruction of a large number of the +unbound sheets in a fire at the premises of the printers some years +ago. The present reprint comes, I think, at a peculiarly fortunate +moment, since the attention of the general public has of late been +drawn to Butler's biological theories in a marked manner by several +distinguished men of science, notably by Dr. Francis Darwin, who, in +his presidential address to the British Association in 1908, quoted +from the translation of Hering's address on "Memory as a Universal +Function of Original Matter," which Butler incorporated into +"Unconscious Memory," and spoke in the highest terms of Butler +himself. It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to the +changed attitude of scientific authorities with regard to Butler and +his theories, since Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consented +to contribute an introduction to the present edition of "Unconscious +Memory," summarising Butler's views upon biology, and defining his +position in the world of science. A word must be said as to the +controversy between Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is +concerned. I have been told that in reissuing the book at all I am +committing a grievous error of taste, that the world is no longer +interested in these "old, unhappy far-off things and battles long +ago," and that Butler himself, by refraining from republishing +"Unconscious Memory," tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy +to be consigned to oblivion. This last suggestion, at any rate, has +no foundation in fact. Butler desired nothing less than that his +vindication of himself against what he considered unfair treatment +should be forgotten. He would have republished "Unconscious Memory" +himself, had not the latter years of his life been devoted to all- +engrossing work in other fields. In issuing the present edition I am +fulfilling a wish that he expressed to me shortly before his death. + +R. A. STREATFEILD. +April, 1910. + + + +INTRODUCTION By Marcus Hartog, M.A. D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R.H.S. + + + +In reviewing Samuel Butler's works, "Unconscious Memory" gives us an +invaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the author came +to write the Book of the Machines in "Erewhon" (1872), with its +foreshadowing of the later theory, "Life and Habit," (1878), +"Evolution, Old and New" (1879), as well as "Unconscious Memory" +(1880) itself. His fourth book on biological theory was "Luck? or +Cunning?" (1887). {0a} + +Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several +essays: "Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, contained +in "Selections from Previous Works" (1884) incorporated into "Luck? +or Cunning," "The Deadlock in Darwinism" (Universal Review, April- +June, 1890), republished in the posthumous volume of "Essays on Life, +Art, and Science" (1904), and, finally, some of the "Extracts from +the Notebooks of the late Samuel Butler," edited by Mr. H. Festing +Jones, now in course of publication in the New Quarterly Review. + + +Of all these, "LIFE AND HABIT" (1878) is the most important, the main +building to which the other writings are buttresses or, at most, +annexes. Its teaching has been summarised in "Unconscious Memory" in +four main principles: "(1) the oneness of personality between parent +and offspring; (2) memory on the part of the offspring of certain +actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; (3) the +latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the +associated ideas; (4) the unconsciousness with which habitual actions +come to be performed." To these we must add a fifth: the +purposiveness of the actions of living beings, as of the machines +which they make or select. + +Butler tells ("Life and Habit," p. 33) that he sometimes hoped "that +this book would be regarded as a valuable adjunct to Darwinism." He +was bitterly disappointed in the event, for the book, as a whole, was +received by professional biologists as a gigantic joke--a joke, +moreover, not in the best possible taste. True, its central ideas, +largely those of Lamarck, had been presented by Hering in 1870 (as +Butler found shortly after his publication); they had been favourably +received, developed by Haeckel, expounded and praised by Ray +Lankester. Coming from Butler, they met with contumely, even from +such men as Romanes, who, as Butler had no difficulty in proving, +were unconsciously inspired by the same ideas--"Nur mit ein bischen +ander'n Worter." + +It is easy, looking back, to see why "Life and Habit" so missed its +mark. Charles Darwin's presentation of the evolution theory had, for +the first time, rendered it possible for a "sound naturalist" to +accept the doctrine of common descent with divergence; and so given a +real meaning to the term "natural relationship," which had forced +itself upon the older naturalists, despite their belief in special +and independent creations. The immediate aim of the naturalists of +the day was now to fill up the gaps in their knowledge, so as to +strengthen the fabric of a unified biology. For this purpose they +found their actual scientific equipment so inadequate that they were +fully occupied in inventing fresh technique, and working therewith at +facts--save a few critics, such as St. George Mivart, who was +regarded as negligible, since he evidently held a brief for a party +standing outside the scientific world. + +Butler introduced himself as what we now call "The Man in the +Street," far too bare of scientific clothing to satisfy the Mrs. +Grundy of the domain: lacking all recognised tools of science and +all sense of the difficulties in his way, he proceeded to tackle the +problems of science with little save the deft pen of the literary +expert in his hand. His very failure to appreciate the difficulties +gave greater power to his work--much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended +the Jungfrau and faced successfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so +long as he believed them to be the mere "blagues de reclame" of the +wily Swiss host. His brilliant qualities of style and irony +themselves told heavily against him. Was he not already known for +having written the most trenchant satire that had appeared since +"Gulliver's Travels"? Had he not sneered therein at the very +foundations of society, and followed up its success by a pseudo- +biography that had taken in the "Record" and the "Rock"? In "Life +and Habit," at the very start, he goes out of his way to heap scorn +at the respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Goethe, Arnold +of Rugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed the lowest opinion +of the Fellows of the Royal Society. To him the professional man of +science, with self-conscious knowledge for his ideal and aim, was a +medicine-man, priest, augur--useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be +carefully watched by all who value freedom of thought and person, +lest with opportunity he develop into a persecutor of the worst type. +Not content with blackguarding the audience to whom his work should +most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work itself and its author +in his finest vein of irony. Having argued that our best and highest +knowledge is that of whose possession we are most ignorant, he +proceeds: "Above all, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of +believing in me. In that I write at all I am among the damned." + + +His writing of "EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW" (1879) was due to his +conviction that scant justice had been done by Charles Darwin and +Alfred Wallace and their admirers to the pioneering work of Buffon, +Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck. To repair this he gives a brilliant +exposition of what seemed to him the most valuable portion of their +teachings on evolution. His analysis of Buffon's true meaning, +veiled by the reticences due to the conditions under which he wrote, +is as masterly as the English in which he develops it. His sense of +wounded justice explains the vigorous polemic which here, as in all +his later writings, he carries to the extreme. + +As a matter of fact, he never realised Charles Darwin's utter lack of +sympathetic understanding of the work of his French precursors, let +alone his own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet this practical ignorance, +which to Butler was so strange as to transcend belief, was altogether +genuine, and easy to realise when we recall the position of Natural +Science in the early thirties in Darwin's student days at Cambridge, +and for a decade or two later. Catastropharianism was the tenet of +the day: to the last it commended itself to his Professors of Botany +and Geology,--for whom Darwin held the fervent allegiance of the +Indian scholar, or chela, to his guru. As Geikie has recently +pointed out, it was only later, when Lyell had shown that the breaks +in the succession of the rocks were only partial and local, without +involving the universal catastrophes that destroyed all life and +rendered fresh creations thereof necessary, that any general +acceptance of a descent theory could be expected. We may be very +sure that Darwin must have received many solemn warnings against the +dangerous speculations of the "French Revolutionary School." He +himself was far too busy at the time with the reception and +assimilation of new facts to be awake to the deeper interest of far- +reaching theories. + +It is the more unfortunate that Butler's lack of appreciation on +these points should have led to the enormous proportion of bitter +personal controversy that we find in the remainder of his biological +writings. Possibly, as suggested by George Bernard Shaw, his +acquaintance and admirer, he was also swayed by philosophical +resentment at that banishment of mind from the organic universe, +which was generally thought to have been achieved by Charles Darwin's +theory. Still, we must remember that this mindless view is not +implicit in Charles Darwin's presentment of his own theory, nor was +it accepted by him as it has been by so many of his professed +disciples. + + +"UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY" (1880).--We have already alluded to an +anticipation of Butler's main theses. In 1870 Dr. Ewald Hering, one +of the most eminent physiologists of the day, Professor at Vienna, +gave an Inaugural Address to the Imperial Royal Academy of Sciences: +"Das Gedachtniss als allgemeine Funktion der organisirter Substanz" +("Memory as a Universal Function of Organised Matter"). When "Life +and Habit" was well advanced, Francis Darwin, at the time a frequent +visitor, called Butler's attention to this essay, which he himself +only knew from an article in "Nature." Herein Professor E. Ray +Lankester had referred to it with admiring sympathy in connection +with its further development by Haeckel in a pamphlet entitled "Die +Perigenese der Plastidule." We may note, however, that in his +collected Essays, "The Advancement of Science" (1890), Sir Ray +Lankester, while including this Essay, inserts on the blank page +{0b}--we had almost written "the white sheet"--at the back of it an +apology for having ever advocated the possibility of the transmission +of acquired characters. + +"Unconscious Memory" was largely written to show the relation of +Butler's views to Hering's, and contains an exquisitely written +translation of the Address. Hering does, indeed, anticipate Butler, +and that in language far more suitable to the persuasion of the +scientific public. It contains a subsidiary hypothesis that memory +has for its mechanism special vibrations of the protoplasm, and the +acquired capacity to respond to such vibrations once felt upon their +repetition. I do not think that the theory gains anything by the +introduction of this even as a mere formal hypothesis; and there is +no evidence for its being anything more. Butler, however, gives it a +warm, nay, enthusiastic, reception in Chapter V (Introduction to +Professor Hering's lecture), and in his notes to the translation of +the Address, which bulks so large in this book, but points out that +he was "not committed to this hypothesis, though inclined to accept +it on a prima facie view." Later on, as we shall see, he attached +more importance to it. + +The Hering Address is followed in "Unconscious Memory" by +translations of selected passages from Von Hartmann's "Philosophy of +the Unconscious," and annotations to explain the difference from this +personification of "The Unconscious" as a mighty all-ruling, all- +creating personality, and his own scientific recognition of the great +part played by UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES in the region of mind and +memory. + +These are the essentials of the book as a contribution to biological +philosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid statement of +objections to his theory as they might be put by a rigid +necessitarian, and a refutation of that interpretation as applied to +human action. + +But in the second chapter Butler states his recession from the strong +logical position he had hitherto developed in his writings from +"Erewhon" onwards; so far he had not only distinguished the living +from the non-living, but distinguished among the latter MACHINES or +TOOLS from THINGS AT LARGE. {0c} Machines or tools are the external +organs of living beings, as organs are their internal machines: they +are fashioned, assembled, or selected by the beings for a purposes so +they have a FUTURE PURPOSE, as well as a PAST HISTORY. "Things at +large" have a past history, but no purpose (so long as some being +does not convert them into tools and give them a purpose): Machines +have a Why? as well as a How?: "things at large" have a How? only. + +In "Unconscious Memory" the allurements of unitary or monistic views +have gained the upper hand, and Butler writes (p. 23):- + + +"The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between +the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with +our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every +molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up +of an association or corporation, than to start with inanimate +molecules and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what we +call the inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain point +living, and instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness, +volition, and power of concerted action. IT IS ONLY OF LATE, +HOWEVER, THAT I HAVE COME TO THIS OPINION." + + +I have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was more or +less conscious of its irreconcilability with much of his most +characteristic doctrine. Again, in the closing chapter, Butler +writes (p. 275):- + + +"We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living in +respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather +than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in +common with the inorganic." + + +We conclude our survey of this book by mentioning the literary +controversial part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but cropping up +elsewhere. It refers to interpolations made in the authorised +translation of Krause's "Life of Erasmus Darwin." Only one side is +presented; and we are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss +the merits of the question. + + +"LUCK, OR CUNNING, as the Main Means of Organic Modification? an +Attempt to throw Additional Light upon the late Mr. Charles Darwin's +Theory of Natural Selection" (1887), completes the series of +biological books. This is mainly a book of strenuous polemic. It +brings out still more forcibly the Hering-Butler doctrine of +continued personality from generation to generation, and of the +working of unconscious memory throughout; and points out that, while +this is implicit in much of the teaching of Herbert Spencer, Romanes, +and others, it was nowhere--even after the appearance of "Life and +Habit"--explicitly recognised by them, but, on the contrary, masked +by inconsistent statements and teaching. Not Luck but Cunning, not +the uninspired weeding out by Natural Selection but the intelligent +striving of the organism, is at the bottom of the useful variety of +organic life. And the parallel is drawn that not the happy accident +of time and place, but the Machiavellian cunning of Charles Darwin, +succeeded in imposing, as entirely his own, on the civilised world an +uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution wherein luck played the +leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring views of the +older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their luck. On +this controversy I am bound to say that I do not in the very least +share Butler's opinions; and I must ascribe them to his lack of +personal familiarity with the biologists of the day and their modes +of thought and of work. Butler everywhere undervalues the important +work of elimination played by Natural Selection in its widest sense. + +The "Conclusion" of "Luck, or Cunning?" shows a strong advance in +monistic views, and a yet more marked development in the vibration +hypothesis of memory given by Hering and only adopted with the +greatest reserve in "Unconscious Memory." + + +"Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter depends +solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on the +characteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. The +exterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its +vibrations to our brain; but if the state of the thing itself depends +upon its vibrations, it [the thing] must be considered as to all +intents and purposes the vibrations themselves--plus, of course, the +underlying substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations, +therefore, form the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal +dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and, +in the course of time, create and further modify the mechanism of +both the sensory and the motor nerves. Thought and thing are one. + +"I commend these two last speculations to the reader's charitable +consideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond the ground +on which I can safely venture. . . . I believe they are both +substantially true." + + +In 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his notebooks +(see New Quarterly Review, 1910, p. 116), and as in "Luck, or +Cunning?" associated them vaguely with the unitary conceptions +introduced into chemistry by Newlands and Mendelejeff. Judging +himself as an outsider, the author of "Life and Habit" would +certainly have considered the mild expression of faith, "I believe +they are both substantially true," equivalent to one of extreme +doubt. Thus "the fact of the Archbishop's recognising this as among +the number of his beliefs is conclusive evidence, with those who have +devoted attention to the laws of thought, that his mind is not yet +clear" on the matter of the belief avowed (see "Life and Habit," pp. +24, 25). + +To sum up: Butler's fundamental attitude to the vibration hypothesis +was all through that taken in "Unconscious Memory"; he played with it +as a pretty pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; but +instead of backing it for all he was worth, like the main theses of +"Life and Habit," he put a big stake on it--and then hedged. + + +The last of Butler's biological writings is the Essay, "THE DEADLOCK +IN DARWINISM," containing much valuable criticism on Wallace and +Weismann. It is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace's book, +"Darwinism," that he introduces the term "Wallaceism" {0d} for a +theory of descent that excludes the transmission of acquired +characters. This was, indeed, the chief factor that led Charles +Darwin to invent his hypothesis of pangenesis, which, unacceptable as +it has proved, had far more to recommend it as a formal hypothesis +than the equally formal germ-plasm hypothesis of Weismann. + + +The chief difficulty in accepting the main theses of Butler and +Hering is one familiar to every biologist, and not at all difficult +to understand by the layman. Everyone knows that the complicated +beings that we term "Animals" and "Plants," consist of a number of +more or less individualised units, the cells, each analogous to a +simpler being, a Protist--save in so far as the character of the cell +unit of the Higher being is modified in accordance with the part it +plays in that complex being as a whole. Most people, too, are +familiar with the fact that the complex being starts as a single +cell, separated from its parent; or, where bisexual reproduction +occurs, from a cell due to the fusion of two cells, each detached +from its parent. Such cells are called "Germ-cells." The germ-cell, +whether of single or of dual origin, starts by dividing repeatedly, +so as to form the PRIMARY EMBRYONIC CELLS, a complex mass of cells, +at first essentially similar, which, however, as they go on +multiplying, undergo differentiations and migrations, losing their +simplicity as they do so. Those cells that are modified to take part +in the proper work of the whole are called tissue-cells. In virtue +of their activities, their growth and reproductive power are limited- +-much more in Animals than in Plants, in Higher than in Lower beings. +It is these tissues, or some of them, that receive the impressions +from the outside which leave the imprint of memory. Other cells, +which may be closely associated into a continuous organ, or more or +less surrounded by tissue-cells, whose part it is to nourish them, +are called "secondary embryonic cells," or "germ-cells." The germ- +cells may be differentiated in the young organism at a very early +stage, but in Plants they are separated at a much later date from the +less isolated embryonic regions that provide for the Plant's +branching; in all cases we find embryonic and germ-cells screened +from the life processes of the complex organism, or taking no very +obvious part in it, save to form new tissues or new organs, notably +in Plants. + + +Again, in ourselves, and to a greater or less extent in all Animals, +we find a system of special tissues set apart for the reception and +storage of impressions from the outer world, and for guiding the +other organs in their appropriate responses--the "Nervous System"; +and when this system is ill-developed or out of gear the remaining +organs work badly from lack of proper skilled guidance and co- +ordination. How can we, then, speak of "memory" in a germ-cell which +has been screened from the experiences of the organism, which is too +simple in structure to realise them if it were exposed to them? My +own answer is that we cannot form any theory on the subject, the only +question is whether we have any right to INFER this "memory" from the +BEHAVIOUR of living beings; and Butler, like Hering, Haeckel, and +some more modern authors, has shown that the inference is a very +strong presumption. Again, it is easy to over-value such complex +instruments as we possess. The possessor of an up-to-date camera, +well instructed in the function and manipulation of every part, but +ignorant of all optics save a hand-to-mouth knowledge of the +properties of his own lens, might say that a priori no picture could +be taken with a cigar-box perforated by a pin-hole; and our ignorance +of the mechanism of the Psychology of any organism is greater by many +times than that of my supposed photographer. We know that Plants are +able to do many things that can only be accounted for by ascribing to +them a "psyche," and these co-ordinated enough to satisfy their +needs; and yet they possess no central organ comparable to the brain, +no highly specialised system for intercommunication like our nerve +trunks and fibres. As Oscar Hertwig says, we are as ignorant of the +mechanism of the development of the individual as we are of that of +hereditary transmission of acquired characters, and the absence of +such mechanism in either case is no reason for rejecting the proven +fact. + +However, the relations of germ and body just described led Jager, +Nussbaum, Galton, Lankester, and, above all, Weismann, to the view +that the germ-cells or "stirp" (Galton) were IN the body, but not OF +it. Indeed, in the body and out of it, whether as reproductive cells +set free, or in the developing embryo, they are regarded as forming +one continuous homogeneity, in contrast to the differentiation of the +body; and it is to these cells, regarded as a continuum, that the +terms stirp, germ-plasm, are especially applied. Yet on this view, +so eagerly advocated by its supporters, we have to substitute for the +hypothesis of memory, which they declare to have no real meaning +here, the far more fantastic hypotheses of Weismann: by these they +explain the process of differentiation in the young embryo into new +germ and body; and in the young body the differentiation of its +cells, each in due time and place, into the varied tissue cells and +organs. Such views might perhaps be acceptable if it could be shown +that over each cell-division there presided a wise all-guiding genie +of transcending intellect, to which Clerk-Maxwell's sorting demons +were mere infants. Yet these views have so enchanted many +distinguished biologists, that in dealing with the subject they have +actually ignored the existence of equally able workers who hesitate +to share the extremest of their views. The phenomenon is one well +known in hypnotic practice. So long as the non-Weismannians deal +with matters outside this discussion, their existence and their work +is rated at its just value; but any work of theirs on this point so +affects the orthodox Weismannite (whether he accept this label or +reject it does not matter), that for the time being their existence +and the good work they have done are alike non-existent. {0e} + +Butler founded no school, and wished to found none. He desired that +what was true in his work should prevail, and he looked forward +calmly to the time when the recognition of that truth and of his +share in advancing it should give him in the lives of others that +immortality for which alone he craved. + +Lamarckian views have never lacked defenders here and in America. Of +the English, Herbert Spencer, who however, was averse to the +vitalistic attitude, Vines and Henslow among botanists, Cunningham +among zoologists, have always resisted Weismannism; but, I think, +none of these was distinctly influenced by Hering and Butler. In +America the majority of the great school of palaeontologists have +been strong Lamarckians, notably Cope, who has pointed out, moreover, +that the transformations of energy in living beings are peculiar to +them. + +We have already adverted to Haeckel's acceptance and development of +Hering's ideas in his "Perigenese der Plastidule." Oscar Hertwig has +been a consistent Lamarckian, like Yves Delage of the Sorbonne, and +these occupy pre-eminent positions not only as observers, but as +discriminating theorists and historians of the recent progress of +biology. We may also cite as a Lamarckian--of a sort--Felix Le +Dantec, the leader of the chemico-physical school of the present day. + +But we must seek elsewhere for special attention to the points which +Butler regarded as the essentials of "Life and Habit." In 1893 Henry +P. Orr, Professor of Biology in the University of Louisiana, +published a little book entitled "A Theory of Heredity." Herein he +insists on the nervous control of the whole body, and on the +transmission to the reproductive cells of such stimuli, received by +the body, as will guide them on their path until they shall have +acquired adequate experience of their own in the new body they have +formed. I have found the name of neither Butler nor Hering, but the +treatment is essentially on their lines, and is both clear and +interesting. + +In 1896 I wrote an essay on "The Fundamental Principles of Heredity," +primarily directed to the man in the street. This, after being held +over for more than a year by one leading review, was "declined with +regret," and again after some weeks met the same fate from another +editor. It appeared in the pages of "Natural Science" for October, +1897, and in the "Biologisches Centralblatt" for the same year. I +reproduce its closing paragraph:- + + +"This theory [Hering-Butler's] has, indeed, a tentative character, +and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the more welcome as not +aiming at the impossible. A whole series of phenomena in organic +beings are correlated under the term of MEMORY, CONSCIOUS AND +UNCONSCIOUS, PATENT AND LATENT. . . . Of the order of unconscious +memory, latent till the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, is all +the co-operative growth and work of the organism, including its +development from the reproductive cells. Concerning the modus +operandi we know nothing: the phenomena may be due, as Hering +suggests, to molecular vibrations, which must be at least as distinct +from ordinary physical disturbances as Rontgen's rays are from +ordinary light; or it may be correlated, as we ourselves are inclined +to think, with complex chemical changes in an intricate but orderly +succession. For the present, at least, the problem of heredity can +only be elucidated by the light of mental, and not material +processes." + + +It will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity of Hering's +invocation of molecular vibrations as the mechanism of memory, and +suggest as an alternative rhythmic chemical changes. This view has +recently been put forth in detail by J. J. Cunningham in his essay on +the "Hormone {0f} Theory of Heredity," in the Archiv fur +Entwicklungsmechanik (1909), but I have failed to note any direct +effect of my essay on the trend of biological thought. + +Among post-Darwinian controversies the one that has latterly assumed +the greatest prominence is that of the relative importance of small +variations in the way of more or less "fluctuations," and of +"discontinuous variations," or "mutations," as De Vries has called +them. Darwin, in the first four editions of the "Origin of Species," +attached more importance to the latter than in subsequent editions; +he was swayed in his attitude, as is well known, by an article of the +physicist, Fleeming Jenkin, which appeared in the North British +Review. The mathematics of this article were unimpeachable, but they +were founded on the assumption that exceptional variations would only +occur in single individuals, which is, indeed, often the case among +those domesticated races on which Darwin especially studied the +phenomena of variation. Darwin was no mathematician or physicist, +and we are told in his biography that he regarded every tool-shop +rule or optician's thermometer as an instrument of precision: so he +appears to have regarded Fleeming Jenkin's demonstration as a +mathematical deduction which he was bound to accept without +criticism. + +Mr. William Bateson, late Professor of Biology in the University of +Cambridge, as early as 1894 laid great stress on the importance of +discontinuous variations, collecting and collating the known facts in +his "Materials for the Study of Variations"; but this important work, +now become rare and valuable, at the time excited so little interest +as to be 'remaindered' within a very few years after publication. + +In 1901 Hugo De Vries, Professor of Botany in the University of +Amsterdam, published "Die Mutationstheorie," wherein he showed that +mutations or discontinuous variations in various directions may +appear simultaneously in many individuals, and in various directions. +In the gardener's phrase, the species may take to sporting in various +directions at the same time, and each sport may be represented by +numerous specimens. + +De Vries shows the probability that species go on for long periods +showing only fluctuations, and then suddenly take to sporting in the +way described, short periods of mutation alternating with long +intervals of relative constancy. It is to mutations that De Vries +and his school, as well as Luther Burbank, the great former of new +fruit- and flower-plants, look for those variations which form the +material of Natural Selection. In "God the Known and God the +Unknown," which appeared in the Examiner (May, June, and July), 1879, +but though then revised was only published posthumously in 1909, +Butler anticipates this distinction:- + + +"Under these circumstances organism must act in one or other of these +two ways: it must either change slowly and continuously with the +surroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change +with a corresponding modification, so far as is found convenient, or +it must put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and +more sweeping changes. + +"Both these courses are the same in principle, the difference being +one of scale, and the one being a miniature of the other, as a ripple +is an Atlantic wave in little; both have their advantages and +disadvantages, so that most organisms will take the one course for +one set of things and the other for another. They will deal promptly +with things which they can get at easily, and which lie more upon the +surface; THOSE, HOWEVER, WHICH ARE MORE TROUBLESOME TO REACH, AND LIE +DEEPER, WILL BE HANDLED UPON MORE CATACLYSMIC PRINCIPLES, BEING +ALLOWED LONGER PERIODS OF REPOSE FOLLOWED BY SHORT PERIODS OF GREATER +ACTIVITY . . . it may be questioned whether what is called a sport is +not the organic expression of discontent which has been long felt, +but which has not been attended to, nor been met step by step by as +much small remedial modification as was found practicable: so that +when a change does come it comes by way of revolution. Or, again +(only that it comes to much the same thing), it may be compared to +one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come to us unbidden after +we have been thinking for a long time what to do, or how to arrange +our ideas, and have yet been unable to come to any conclusion" (pp. +14, 15). {0g} + +We come to another order of mind in Hans Driesch. At the time he +began his work biologists were largely busy in a region indicated by +Darwin, and roughly mapped out by Haeckel--that of phylogeny. From +the facts of development of the individual, from the comparison of +fossils in successive strata, they set to work at the construction of +pedigrees, and strove to bring into line the principles of +classification with the more or less hypothetical "stemtrees." +Driesch considered this futile, since we never could reconstruct from +such evidence anything certain in the history of the past. He +therefore asserted that a more complete knowledge of the physics and +chemistry of the organic world might give a scientific explanation of +the phenomena, and maintained that the proper work of the biologist +was to deepen our knowledge in these respects. He embodied his +views, seeking the explanation on this track, filling up gaps and +tracing projected roads along lines of probable truth in his +"Analytische Theorie der organische Entwicklung." But his own work +convinced him of the hopelessness of the task he had undertaken, and +he has become as strenuous a vitalist as Butler. The most complete +statement of his present views is to be found in "The Philosophy of +Life" (1908-9), being the Giffold Lectures for 1907-8. Herein he +postulates a quality ("psychoid") in all living beings, directing +energy and matter for the purpose of the organism, and to this he +applies the Aristotelian designation "Entelechy." The question of +the transmission of acquired characters is regarded as doubtful, and +he does not emphasise--if he accepts--the doctrine of continuous +personality. His early youthful impatience with descent theories and +hypotheses has, however, disappeared. + +In the next work the influence of Hering and Butler is definitely +present and recognised. In 1906 Signor Eugenio Rignano, an engineer +keenly interested in all branches of science, and a little later the +founder of the international review, Rivista di Scienza (now simply +called Scientia), published in French a volume entitled "Sur la +transmissibilite des Caracteres acquis--Hypothese d'un Centro- +epigenese." Into the details of the author's work we will not enter +fully. Suffice it to know that he accepts the Hering-Butler theory, +and makes a distinct advance on Hering's rather crude hypothesis of +persistent vibrations by suggesting that the remembering centres +store slightly different forms of energy, to give out energy of the +same kind as they have received, like electrical accumulators. The +last chapter, "Le Phenomene mnemonique et le Phenomene vital," is +frankly based on Hering. + +In "The Lesson of Evolution" (1907, posthumous, and only published +for private circulation) Frederick Wollaston Hutton, F.R.S., late +Professor of Biology and Geology, first at Dunedin and after at +Christchurch, New Zealand, puts forward a strongly vitalistic view, +and adopts Hering's teaching. After stating this he adds, "The same +idea of heredity being due to unconscious memory was advocated by Mr. +Samuel Butler in his "Life and Habit." + +Dr. James Mark Baldwin, Stuart Professor of Psychology in Princeton +University, U.S.A., called attention early in the 90's to a reaction +characteristic of all living beings, which he terms the "Circular +Reaction." We take his most recent account of this from his +"Development and Evolution" (1902):- {0h} + + +"The general fact is that the organism reacts by concentration upon +the locality stimulated for the CONTINUANCE of the conditions, +movements, stimulations, WHICH ARE VITALLY BENEFICIAL, and for the +cessation of the conditions, movements, stimulations WHICH ARE +VITALLY DEPRESSING." + + +This amounts to saying in the terminology of Jenning (see below) that +the living organism alters its "physiological states" either for its +direct benefit, or for its indirect benefit in the reduction of +harmful conditions. + +Again:- + + +"This form of concentration of energy on stimulated localities, with +the resulting renewal through movement of conditions that are +pleasure-giving and beneficial, and the consequent repetition of the +movements is called 'circular reaction.'" + + +Of course, the inhibition of such movements as would be painful on +repetition is merely the negative case of the circular reaction. We +must not put too much of our own ideas into the author's mind; he +nowhere says explicitly that the animal or plant shows its sense and +does this because it likes the one thing and wants it repeated, or +dislikes the other and stops its repetition, as Butler would have +said. Baldwin is very strong in insisting that no full explanation +can be given of living processes, any more than of history, on purely +chemico-physical grounds. + +The same view is put differently and independently by H. S. Jennings, +{0i} who started his investigations of living Protista, the simplest +of living beings, with the idea that only accurate and ample +observation was needed to enable us to explain all their activities +on a mechanical basis, and devised ingenious models of protoplastic +movements. He was led, like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as +illusory, and has come to the conviction that in the behaviour of +these lowly beings there is a purposive and a tentative character--a +method of "trial and error"--that can only be interpreted by the +invocation of psychology. He points out that after stimulation the +"state" of the organism may be altered, so that the response to the +same stimulus on repetition is other. Or, as he puts it, the first +stimulus has caused the organism to pass into a new "physiological +state." As the change of state from what we may call the "primary +indifferent state" is advantageous to the organism, we may regard +this as equivalent to the doctrine of the "circular reaction," and +also as containing the essence of Semon's doctrine of "engrams" or +imprints which we are about to consider. We cite one passage which +for audacity of thought (underlying, it is true, most guarded +expression) may well compare with many of the boldest flights in +"Life and Habit":- + + +"It may be noted that regulation in the manner we have set forth is +what, in the behaviour of higher organisms, at least, is called +intelligence [the examples have been taken from Protista, Corals, and +the Lowest Worms]. If the same method of regulation is found in +other fields, there is no reason for refusing to compare the action +to intelligence. Comparison of the regulatory processes that are +shown in internal physiological changes and in regeneration to +intelligence seems to be looked upon sometimes as heretical and +unscientific. Yet intelligence is a name applied to processes that +actually exist in the regulation of movements, and there is, a +priori, no reason why similar processes should not occur in +regulation in other fields. When we analyse regulation objectively +there seems indeed reason to think that the processes are of the same +character in behaviour as elsewhere. If the term intelligence be +reserved for the subjective accompaniments of such regulation, then +of course we have no direct knowledge of its existence in any of the +fields of regulation outside of the self, and in the self perhaps +only in behaviour. But in a purely objective consideration there +seems no reason to suppose that regulation in behaviour +(intelligence) is of a fundamentally different character from +regulation elsewhere." ("Method of Regulation," p. 492.) + + +Jennings makes no mention of questions of the theory of heredity. He +has made some experiments on the transmission of an acquired +character in Protozoa; but it was a mutilation-character, which is, +as has been often shown, {0j} not to the point. + + +One of the most obvious criticisms of Hering's exposition is based +upon the extended use he makes of the word "Memory": this he had +foreseen and deprecated. + + +"We have a perfect right," he says, "to extend our conception of +memory so as to make it embrace involuntary [and also unconscious] +reproductions of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we +find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries +that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and, +at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious life." +("Unconscious Memory," p. 68.) + + +This sentence, coupled with Hering's omission to give to the concept +of memory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the limitations and +of the stains of habitual use, may well have been the inspiration of +the next work on our list. Richard Semon is a professional zoologist +and anthropologist of such high status for his original observations +and researches in the mere technical sense, that in these countries +he would assuredly have been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the +Royal Society who were Samuel Butler's special aversion. The full +title of his book is "DIE MNEME als erhaltende Prinzip im Wechsel des +organischen Geschehens" (Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; Ed. 2, 1908). We may +translate it "MNEME, a Principle of Conservation in the +Transformations of Organic Existence." + +From this I quote in free translation the opening passage of Chapter +II:- + + +"We have shown that in very many cases, whether in Protist, Plant, or +Animal, when an organism has passed into an indifferent state after +the reaction to a stimulus has ceased, its irritable substance has +suffered a lasting change: I call this after-action of the stimulus +its 'imprint' or 'engraphic' action, since it penetrates and imprints +itself in the organic substance; and I term the change so effected an +'imprint' or 'engram' of the stimulus; and the sum of all the +imprints possessed by the organism may be called its 'store of +imprints,' wherein we must distinguish between those which it has +inherited from its forbears and those which it has acquired itself. +Any phenomenon displayed by an organism as the result either of a +single imprint or of a sum of them, I term a 'mnemic phenomenon'; and +the mnemic possibilities of an organism may be termed, collectively, +its 'MNEME.' + +"I have selected my own terms for the concepts that I have just +defined. On many grounds I refrain from making any use of the good +German terms 'Gedachtniss, Erinnerungsbild.' The first and chiefest +ground is that for my purpose I should have to employ the German +words in a much wider sense than what they usually convey, and thus +leave the door open to countless misunderstandings and idle +controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error of fact to +give to the wider concept the name already current in the narrower +sense--nay, actually limited, like 'Erinnerungsbild,' to phenomena of +consciousness. . . . In Animals, during the course of history, one +set of organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for the reception +and transmission of stimuli--the Nervous System. But from this +specialisation we are not justified in ascribing to the nervous +system any monopoly of the function, even when it is as highly +developed as in Man. . . . Just as the direct excitability of the +nervous system has progressed in the history of the race, so has its +capacity for receiving imprints; but neither susceptibility nor +retentiveness is its monopoly; and, indeed, retentiveness seems +inseparable from susceptibility in living matter." + + +Semen here takes the instance of stimulus and imprint actions +affecting the nervous system of a dog + + +"who has up till now never experienced aught but kindness from the +Lord of Creation, and then one day that he is out alone is pelted +with stones by a boy. . . . Here he is affected at once by two sets +of stimuli: (1) the optic stimulus of seeing the boy stoop for +stones and throw them, and (2) the skin stimulus of the pain felt +when they hit him. Here both stimuli leave their imprints; and the +organism is permanently changed in relation to the recurrence of the +stimuli. Hitherto the sight of a human figure quickly stooping had +produced no constant special reaction. Now the reaction is constant, +and may remain so till death. . . . The dog tucks in its tail +between its legs and takes flight, often with a howl [as of] pain." + +"Here we gain on one side a deeper insight into the imprint action of +stimuli. It reposes on the lasting change in the conditions of the +living matter, so that the repetition of the immediate or synchronous +reaction to its first stimulus (in this case the stooping of the boy, +the flying stones, and the pain on the ribs), no longer demands, as +in the original state of indifference, the full stimulus a, but may +be called forth by a partial or different stimulus, b (in this case +the mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences by which +such changed reaction are rendered possible, 'outcome-reactions,' and +when such influences assume the form of stimuli, 'outcome-stimuli.' + + +They are termed "outcome" ("ecphoria") stimuli, because the author +regards them and would have us regard them as the outcome, +manifestation, or efference of an imprint of a previous stimulus. We +have noted that the imprint is equivalent to the changed +"physiological state" of Jennings. Again, the capacity for gaining +imprints and revealing them by outcomes favourable to the individual +is the "circular reaction" of Baldwin, but Semon gives no reference +to either author. {0k} + +In the preface to his first edition (reprinted in the second) Semon +writes, after discussing the work of Hering and Haeckel:- + + +"The problem received a more detailed treatment in Samuel Butler's +book, 'Life and Habit,' published in 1878. Though he only made +acquaintance with Hering's essay after this publication, Butler gave +what was in many respects a more detailed view of the coincidences of +these different phenomena of organic reproduction than did Hering. +With much that is untenable, Butler's writings present many a +brilliant idea; yet, on the whole, they are rather a retrogression +than an advance upon Hering. Evidently they failed to exercise any +marked influence upon the literature of the day." + + +This judgment needs a little examination. Butler claimed, justly, +that his "Life and Habit" was an advance on Hering in its dealing +with questions of hybridity, and of longevity puberty and sterility. +Since Semon's extended treatment of the phenomena of crosses might +almost be regarded as the rewriting of the corresponding section of +"Life and Habit" in the "Mneme" terminology, we may infer that this +view of the question was one of Butler's "brilliant ideas." That +Butler shrank from accepting such a formal explanation of memory as +Hering did with his hypothesis should certainly be counted as a +distinct "advance upon Hering," for Semon also avoids any attempt at +an explanation of "Mneme." I think, however, we may gather the real +meaning of Semon's strictures from the following passages:- + + +"I refrain here from a discussion of the development of this theory +of Lamarck's by those Neo-Lamarckians who would ascribe to the +individual elementary organism an equipment of complex psychical +powers--so to say, anthropomorphic perception and volitions. This +treatment is no longer directed by the scientific principle of +referring complex phenomena to simpler laws, of deducing even human +intellect and will from simpler elements. On the contrary, they +follow that most abhorrent method of taking the most complex and +unresolved as a datum, and employing it as an explanation. The +adoption of such a method, as formerly by Samuel Butler, and recently +by Pauly, I regard as a big and dangerous step backward" (ed. 2, pp. +380-1, note). + + +Thus Butler's alleged retrogressions belong to the same order of +thinking that we have seen shared by Driesch, Baldwin, and Jennings, +and most explicitly avowed, as we shall see, by Francis Darwin. +Semon makes one rather candid admission, "The impossibility of +interpreting the phenomena of physiological stimulation by those of +direct reaction, and the undeception of those who had put faith in +this being possible, have led many on the BACKWARD PATH OF VITALISM." +Semon assuredly will never be able to complete his theory of "Mneme" +until, guided by the experience of Jennings and Driesch, he forsakes +the blind alley of mechanisticism and retraces his steps to +reasonable vitalism. + + +But the most notable publications bearing on our matter are +incidental to the Darwin Celebrations of 1908-9. Dr. Francis Darwin, +son, collaborator, and biographer of Charles Darwin, was selected to +preside over the Meeting of the British Association held in Dublin in +1908, the jubilee of the first publications on Natural Selection by +his father and Alfred Russel Wallace. In this address we find the +theory of Hering, Butler, Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place +as a vera causa of that variation which Natural Selection must find +before it can act, and recognised as the basis of a rational theory +of the development of the individual and of the race. The organism +is essentially purposive: the impossibility of devising any adequate +accounts of organic form and function without taking account of the +psychical side is most strenuously asserted. And with our regret +that past misunderstandings should be so prominent in Butler's works, +it was very pleasant to hear Francis Darwin's quotation from Butler's +translation of Hering {0l} followed by a personal tribute to Butler +himself. + +In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and +of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the "Origin of +Species," at the suggestion of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, +the University Press published during the current year a volume +entitled "Darwin and Modern Science," edited by Mr. A. C. Seward, +Professor of Botany in the University. Of the twenty-nine essays by +men of science of the highest distinction, one is of peculiar +interest to the readers of Samuel Butler: "Heredity and Variation in +Modern Lights," by Professor W. Bateson, F.R.S., to whose work on +"Discontinuous Variations" we have already referred. Here once more +Butler receives from an official biologist of the first rank full +recognition for his wonderful insight and keen critical power. This +is the more noteworthy because Bateson has apparently no faith in the +transmission of acquired characters; but such a passage as this would +have commended itself to Butler's admiration:- + + +"All this indicates a definiteness and specific order in heredity, +and therefore in variation. This order cannot by the nature of the +case be dependent on Natural Selection for its existence, but must be +a consequence of the fundamental chemical and physical nature of +living things. The study of Variation had from the first shown that +an orderliness of this kind was present. The bodies and properties +of living things are cosmic, not chaotic. No matter how low in the +scale we go, never do we find the slightest hint of a diminution in +that all-pervading orderliness, nor can we conceive an organism +existing for one moment in any other state." + + +We have now before us the materials to determine the problem of +Butler's relation to biology and to biologists. He was, we have +seen, anticipated by Hering; but his attitude was his own, fresh and +original. He did not hamper his exposition, like Hering, by a +subsidiary hypothesis of vibrations which may or may not be true, +which burdens the theory without giving it greater carrying power or +persuasiveness, which is based on no objective facts, and which, as +Semon has practically demonstrated, is needless for the detailed +working out of the theory. Butler failed to impress the biologists +of his day, even those on whom, like Romanes, he might have +reasonably counted for understanding and for support. But he kept +alive Hering's work when it bade fair to sink into the limbo of +obsolete hypotheses. To use Oliver Wendell Holmes's phrase, he +"depolarised" evolutionary thought. We quote the words of a young +biologist, who, when an ardent and dogmatic Weismannist of the most +pronounced type, was induced to read "Life and Habit": "The book was +to me a transformation and an inspiration." Such learned writings as +Semon's or Hering's could never produce such an effect: they do not +penetrate to the heart of man; they cannot carry conviction to the +intellect already filled full with rival theories, and with the +unreasoned faith that to-morrow or next day a new discovery will +obliterate all distinction between Man and his makings. The mind +must needs be open for the reception of truth, for the rejection of +prejudice; and the violence of a Samuel Butler may in the future as +in the past be needed to shatter the coat of mail forged by too +exclusively professional a training. + + +MARCUS HARTOG +Cork, April, 1910 + + + +AUTHOR'S PREFACE + + + +Not finding the "well-known German scientific journal Kosmos" {0m} +entered in the British Museum Catalogue, I have presented the Museum +with a copy of the number for February 1879, which contains the +article by Dr. Krause of which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a +translation, the accuracy of which is guaranteed--so he informs us-- +by the translator's "scientific reputation together with his +knowledge of German." {0n} + +I have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance what +passages has been suppressed and where matter has been interpolated. + +I have also present a copy of "Erasmus Darwin." I have marked this +too, so that the genuine and spurious passages can be easily +distinguished. + +I understand that both the "Erasmus Darwin" and the number of Kosmos +have been sent to the Keeper of Printed Books, with instructions that +they shall be at once catalogued and made accessible to readers, and +do not doubt that this will have been done before the present volume +is published. The reader, therefore, who may be sufficiently +interested in the matter to care to see exactly what has been done +will now have an opportunity of doing so. + +October 25, 1880. + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +Introduction--General ignorance on the subject of evolution at the +time the "Origin of Species" was published in 1859. + +There are few things which strike us with more surprise, when we +review the course taken by opinion in the last century, than the +suddenness with which belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession +came to an end. This has been often remarked upon, but I am not +acquainted with any record of the fact as it appeared to those under +whose eyes the change was taking place, nor have I seen any +contemporary explanation of the reasons which led to the apparently +sudden overthrow of a belief which had seemed hitherto to be deeply +rooted in the minds of almost all men. As a parallel to this, though +in respect of the rapid spread of an opinion, and not its decadence, +it is probable that those of our descendants who take an interest in +ourselves will note the suddenness with which the theory of +evolution, from having been generally ridiculed during a period of +over a hundred years, came into popularity and almost universal +acceptance among educated people. + +It is indisputable that this has been the case; nor is it less +indisputable that the works of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace have been +the main agents in the change that has been brought about in our +opinions. The names of Cobden and Bright do not stand more +prominently forward in connection with the repeal of the Corn Laws +than do those of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace in connection with the +general acceptance of the theory of evolution. There is no living +philosopher who has anything like Mr. Darwin's popularity with +Englishmen generally; and not only this, but his power of fascination +extends all over Europe, and indeed in every country in which +civilisation has obtained footing: not among the illiterate masses, +though these are rapidly following the suit of the educated classes, +but among experts and those who are most capable of judging. France, +indeed--the country of Buffon and Lamarck--must be counted an +exception to the general rule, but in England and Germany there are +few men of scientific reputation who do not accept Mr. Darwin as the +founder of what is commonly called "Darwinism," and regard him as +perhaps the most penetrative and profound philosopher of modern +times. + +To quote an example from the last few weeks only, {2} I have observed +that Professor Huxley has celebrated the twenty-first year since the +"Origin of Species" was published by a lecture at the Royal +Institution, and am told that he described Mr. Darwin's candour as +something actually "terrible" (I give Professor Huxley's own word, as +reported by one who heard it); and on opening a small book entitled +"Degeneration," by Professor Ray Lankester, published a few days +before these lines were written, I find the following passage amid +more that is to the same purport:- + + +"Suddenly one of those great guesses which occasionally appear in the +history of science was given to the science of biology by the +imaginative insight of that greatest of living naturalists--I would +say that greatest of living men--Charles Darwin."--Degeneration, p. +10. + + +This is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than that +habitually employed by the leading men of science when they speak of +Mr. Darwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 the Germans +devoted an entire number of one of their scientific periodicals {3} +to the celebration of Mr. Darwin's seventieth birthday. There is no +other Englishman now living who has been able to win such a +compliment as this from foreigners, who should be disinterested +judges. + +Under these circumstances, it must seem the height of presumption to +differ from so great an authority, and to join the small band of +malcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin's reputation as a philosopher, +though it has grown up with the rapidity of Jonah's gourd, will yet +not be permanent. I believe, however, that though we must always +gladly and gratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that the +public mind has been brought to accept evolution, the admiration now +generally felt for the "Origin of Species" will appear as +unaccountable to our descendants some fifty or eighty years hence as +the enthusiasm of our grandfathers for the poetry of Dr. Erasmus +Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who has yielded to none in +respect of the fascination Mr. Darwin has exercised over him, I would +fain say a few words of explanation which may make the matter clearer +to our future historians. I do this the more readily because I can +at the same time explain thus better than in any other way the steps +which led me to the theory which I afterwards advanced in "Life and +Habit." + +This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier +chapters of this book. I shall presently give a translation of a +lecture by Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years +ago, and which contains so exactly the theory I subsequently +advocated myself, that I am half uneasy lest it should be supposed +that I knew of Professor Hering's work and made no reference to it. +A friend to whom I submitted my translation in MS., asking him how +closely he thought it resembled "Life and Habit," wrote back that it +gave my own ideas almost in my own words. As far as the ideas are +concerned this is certainly the case, and considering that Professor +Hering wrote between seven and eight years before I did, I think it +due to him, and to my readers as well as to myself, to explain the +steps which led me to my conclusions, and, while putting Professor +Hering's lecture before them, to show cause for thinking that I +arrived at an almost identical conclusion, as it would appear, by an +almost identical road, yet, nevertheless, quite independently, I must +ask the reader, therefore, to regard these earlier chapters as in +some measure a personal explanation, as well as a contribution to the +history of an important feature in the developments of the last +twenty years. I hope also, by showing the steps by which I was led +to my conclusions, to make the conclusions themselves more acceptable +and easy of comprehension. + +Being on my way to New Zealand when the "Origin of Species" appeared, +I did not get it till 1860 or 1861. When I read it, I found "the +theory of natural selection" repeatedly spoken of as though it were a +synonym for "the theory of descent with modification"; this is +especially the case in the recapitulation chapter of the work. I +failed to see how important it was that these two theories--if indeed +"natural selection" can be called a theory--should not be confounded +together, and that a "theory of descent with modification" might be +true, while a "theory of descent with modification through natural +selection" {4} might not stand being looked into. + +If any one had asked me to state in brief what Mr. Darwin's theory +was, I am afraid I might have answered "natural selection," or +"descent with modification," whichever came first, as though the one +meant much the same as the other. I observe that most of the leading +writers on the subject are still unable to catch sight of the +distinction here alluded to, and console myself for my want of acumen +by reflecting that, if I was misled, I was misled in good company. + +I--and I may add, the public generally--failed also to see what the +unaided reader who was new to the subject would be almost certain to +overlook. I mean, that, according to Mr. Darwin, the variations +whose accumulation resulted in diversity of species and genus were +indefinite, fortuitous, attributable but in small degree to any known +causes, and without a general principle underlying them which would +cause them to appear steadily in a given direction for many +successive generations and in a considerable number of individuals at +the same time. We did not know that the theory of evolution was one +that had been quietly but steadily gaining ground during the last +hundred years. Buffon we knew by name, but he sounded too like +"buffoon" for any good to come from him. We had heard also of +Lamarck, and held him to be a kind of French Lord Monboddo; but we +knew nothing of his doctrine save through the caricatures promulgated +by his opponents, or the misrepresentations of those who had another +kind of interest in disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we believed +to be a forgotten minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every hundred of +us had never so much as heard of the "Zoonomia." We were little +likely, therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very largely from +Buffon, and probably also from Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and that this +last-named writer, though essentially original, was founded upon +Buffon, who was greatly more in advance of any predecessor than any +successor has been in advance of him. + +We did not know, then, that according to the earlier writers the +variations whose accumulation results in species were not fortuitous +and definite, but were due to a known principle of universal +application--namely, "sense of need"--or apprehend the difference +between a theory of evolution which has a backbone, as it were, in +the tolerably constant or slowly varying needs of large numbers of +individuals for long periods together, and one which has no such +backbone, but according to which the progress of one generation is +always liable to be cancelled and obliterated by that of the next. +We did not know that the new theory in a quiet way professed to tell +us less than the old had done, and declared that it could throw +little if any light upon the matter which the earlier writers had +endeavoured to illuminate as the central point in their system. We +took it for granted that more light must be being thrown instead of +less; and reading in perfect good faith, we rose from our perusal +with the impression that Mr. Darwin was advocating the descent of all +existing forms of life from a single, or from, at any rate, a very +few primordial types; that no one else had done this hitherto, or +that, if they had, they had got the whole subject into a mess, which +mess, whatever it was--for we were never told this--was now being +removed once for all by Mr. Darwin. + +The evolution part of the story, that is to say, the fact of +evolution, remained in our minds as by far the most prominent feature +in Mr. Darwin's book; and being grateful for it, we were very ready +to take Mr. Darwin's work at the estimate tacitly claimed for it by +himself, and vehemently insisted upon by reviewers in influential +journals, who took much the same line towards the earlier writers on +evolution as Mr. Darwin himself had taken. But perhaps nothing more +prepossessed us in Mr. Darwin's favour than the air of candour that +was omnipresent throughout his work. The prominence given to the +arguments of opponents completely carried us away; it was this which +threw us off our guard. It never occurred to us that there might be +other and more dangerous opponents who were not brought forward. Mr. +Darwin did not tell us what his grandfather and Lamarck would have +had to say to this or that. Moreover, there was an unobtrusive +parade of hidden learning and of difficulties at last overcome which +was particularly grateful to us. Whatever opinion might be +ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there could be +but one about the value of the example he had set to men of science +generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work. +Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to Mr. Darwin in this +respect. + +For, brilliant as the reception of the "Origin of Species" was, it +met in the first instance with hardly less hostile than friendly +criticism. But the attacks were ill-directed; they came from a +suspected quarter, and those who led them did not detect more than +the general public had done what were the really weak places in Mr. +Darwin's armour. They attacked him where he was strongest; and above +all, they were, as a general rule, stamped with a disingenuousness +which at that time we believed to be peculiar to theological writers +and alien to the spirit of science. Seeing, therefore, that the men +of science ranged themselves more and more decidedly on Mr. Darwin's +side, while his opponents had manifestly--so far as I can remember, +all the more prominent among them--a bias to which their hostility +was attributable, we left off looking at the arguments against +"Darwinism," as we now began to call it, and pigeon-holed the matter +to the effect that there was one evolution, and that Mr. Darwin was +its prophet. + +The blame of our errors and oversights rests primarily with Mr. +Darwin himself. The first, and far the most important, edition of +the "Origin of Species" came out as a kind of literary Melchisedec, +without father and without mother in the works of other people. Here +is its opening paragraph:- + + +"When on board H.M.S. 'Beagle' as naturalist, I was much struck with +certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South +America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past +inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw +some light on the origin of species--that mystery of mysteries, as it +has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return +home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might be made out on +this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting upon all sorts +of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five +years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up +some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the +conclusions which then seemed to me probable: from that period to +the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that +I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give +them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision." +{8a} + + +In the latest edition this passage remains unaltered, except in one +unimportant respect. What could more completely throw us off the +scent of the earlier writers? If they had written anything worthy of +our attention, or indeed if there had been any earlier writers at +all, Mr. Darwin would have been the first to tell us about them, and +to award them their due meed of recognition. But, no; the whole +thing was an original growth in Mr. Darwin's mind, and he had never +so much as heard of his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. + +Dr. Krause, indeed, thought otherwise. In the number of Kosmos for +February 1879 he represented Mr. Darwin as in his youth approaching +the works of his grandfather with all the devotion which people +usually feel for the writings of a renowned poet. {8b} This should +perhaps be a delicately ironical way of hinting that Mr. Darwin did +not read his grandfather's books closely; but I hardly think that Dr. +Krause looked at the matter in this light, for he goes on to say that +"almost every single work of the younger Darwin may be paralleled by +at least a chapter in the works of his ancestor: the mystery of +heredity, adaptation, the protective arrangements of animals and +plants, sexual selection, insectivorous plants, and the analysis of +the emotions and sociological impulses; nay, even the studies on +infants are to be found already discussed in the pages of the elder +Darwin." {8c} + +Nevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin's opening sentence appeared, it +contained enough to have put us upon our guard. When he informed us +that, on his return from a long voyage, "it occurred to" him that the +way to make anything out about his subject was to collect and reflect +upon the facts that bore upon it, it should have occurred to us in +our turn, that when people betray a return of consciousness upon such +matters as this, they are on the confines of that state in which +other and not less elementary matters will not "occur to" them. The +introduction of the word "patiently" should have been conclusive. I +will not analyse more of the sentence, but will repeat the next two +lines:- "After five years of work, I allowed myself to speculate upon +the subject, and drew up some short notes." We read this, thousands +of us, and were blind. + +If Dr. Erasmus Darwin's name was not mentioned in the first edition +of the "Origin of Species," we should not be surprised at there being +no notice taken of Buffon, or at Lamarck's being referred to only +twice--on the first occasion to be serenely waved aside, he and all +his works; {9a} on the second, {9b} to be commended on a point of +detail. The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" was more widely +known to English readers, having written more recently and nearer +home. He was dealt with summarily, on an early and prominent page, +by a misrepresentation, which was silently expunged in later editions +of the "Origin of Species." In his later editions (I believe first +in his third, when 6000 copies had been already sold), Mr. Darwin did +indeed introduce a few pages in which he gave what he designated as a +"brief but imperfect sketch" of the progress of opinion on the origin +of species prior to the appearance of his own work; but the general +impression which a book conveys to, and leaves upon, the public is +conveyed by the first edition--the one which is alone, with rare +exceptions, reviewed; and in the first edition of the "Origin of +Species" Mr. Darwin's great precursors were all either ignored or +misrepresented. Moreover, the "brief but imperfect sketch," when it +did come, was so very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is what +I suppose Mr. Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it might as +well have been left unwritten for all the help it gave the reader to +see the true question at issue between the original propounders of +the theory of evolution and Mr. Charles Darwin himself. + +That question is this: Whether variation is in the main attributable +to a known general principle, or whether it is not?--whether the +minute variations whose accumulation results in specific and generic +differences are referable to something which will ensure their +appearing in a certain definite direction, or in certain definite +directions, for long periods together, and in many individuals, or +whether they are not?--whether, in a word, these variations are in +the main definite or indefinite? + +It is observable that the leading men of science seem rarely to +understand this even now. I am told that Professor Huxley, in his +recent lecture on the coming of age of the "Origin of Species," never +so much as alluded to the existence of any such division of opinion +as this. He did not even, I am assured, mention "natural selection," +but appeared to believe, with Professor Tyndall, {10a} that +"evolution" is "Mr. Darwin's theory." In his article on evolution in +the latest edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," I find only a +veiled perception of the point wherein Mr. Darwin is at variance with +his precursors. Professor Huxley evidently knows little of these +writers beyond their names; if he had known more, it is impossible he +should have written that "Buffon contributed nothing to the general +doctrine of evolution," {10b} and that Erasmus Darwin, "though a +zealous evolutionist, can hardly be said to have made any real +advance on his predecessors." {11} The article is in a high degree +unsatisfactory, and betrays at once an amount of ignorance and of +perception which leaves an uncomfortable impression. + +If this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is not +surprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few +exceptions, have known of only one evolution, namely, that propounded +by Mr. Darwin. As a member of the general public, at that time +residing eighteen miles from the nearest human habitation, and three +days' journey on horseback from a bookseller's shop, I became one of +Mr. Darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophical +dialogue (the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel +into supposed unknown countries, that even literature can assume) +upon the "Origin of Species." This production appeared in the Press, +Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or 1862, but I have long lost the +only copy I had. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +How I came to write "Life and Habit," and the circumstances of its +completion. + +It was impossible, however, for Mr. Darwin's readers to leave the +matter as Mr. Darwin had left it. We wanted to know whence came that +germ or those germs of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, were once +the world's only inhabitants. They could hardly have come hither +from some other world; they could not in their wet, cold, slimy state +have travelled through the dry ethereal medium which we call space, +and yet remained alive. If they travelled slowly, they would die; if +fast, they would catch fire, as meteors do on entering the earth's +atmosphere. The idea, again, of their having been created by a +quasi-anthropomorphic being out of the matter upon the earth was at +variance with the whole spirit of evolution, which indicated that no +such being could exist except as himself the result, and not the +cause, of evolution. Having got back from ourselves to the monad, we +were suddenly to begin again with something which was either +unthinkable, or was only ourselves again upon a larger scale--to +return to the same point as that from which we had started, only made +harder for us to stand upon. + +There was only one other conception possible, namely, that the germs +had been developed in the course of time from some thing or things +that were not what we called living at all; that they had grown up, +in fact, out of the material substances and forces of the world in +some manner more or less analogous to that in which man had been +developed from themselves. + +I first asked myself whether life might not, after all, resolve +itself into the complexity of arrangement of an inconceivably +intricate mechanism. Kittens think our shoe-strings are alive when +they see us lacing them, because they see the tag at the end jump +about without understanding all the ins and outs of how it comes to +do so. "Of course," they argue, "if we cannot understand how a thing +comes to move, it must move of itself, for there can be no motion +beyond our comprehension but what is spontaneous; if the motion is +spontaneous, the thing moving must he alive, for nothing can move of +itself or without our understanding why unless it is alive. +Everything that is alive and not too large can be tortured, and +perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring upon the tag" and they spring +upon it. Cats are above this; yet give the cat something which +presents a few more of those appearances which she is accustomed to +see whenever she sees life, and she will fall as easy a prey to the +power which association exercises over all that lives as the kitten +itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few yards after being +wound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse being here, there +is no good cat which will not conclude that so many of the +appearances of mousehood could not be present at the same time +without the presence also of the remainder. She will, therefore, +spring upon the toy as eagerly as the kitten upon the tag. + +Suppose the toy more complex still, so that it might run a few yards, +stop, and run on again without an additional winding up; and suppose +it so constructed that it could imitate eating and drinking, and +could make as though the mouse were cleaning its face with its paws. +Should we not at first be taken in ourselves, and assume the presence +of the remaining facts of life, though in reality they were not +there? Query, therefore, whether a machine so complex as to be +prepared with a corresponding manner of action for each one of the +successive emergencies of life as it arose, would not take us in for +good and all, and look so much as if it were alive that, whether we +liked it or not, we should be compelled to think it and call it so; +and whether the being alive was not simply the being an exceedingly +complicated machine, whose parts were set in motion by the action +upon them of exterior circumstances; whether, in fact, man was not a +kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a man, only capable of going for +seventy or eighty years, instead of half as many seconds, and as much +more versatile as he is more durable? Of course I had an uneasy +feeling that if I thus made all plants and men into machines, these +machines must have what all other machines have if they are machines +at all--a designer, and some one to wind them up and work them; but I +thought this might wait for the present, and was perfectly ready +then, as now, to accept a designer from without, if the facts upon +examination rendered such a belief reasonable. + +If, then, men were not really alive after all, but were only machines +of so complicated a make that it was less trouble to us to cut the +difficulty and say that that kind of mechanism was "being alive," why +should not machines ultimately become as complicated as we are, or at +any rate complicated enough to be called living, and to be indeed as +living as it was in the nature of anything at all to be? If it was +only a case of their becoming more complicated, we were certainly +doing our best to make them so. + +I do not suppose I at that time saw that this view comes to much the +same as denying that there are such qualities as life and +consciousness at all, and that this, again, works round to the +assertion of their omnipresence in every molecule of matter, inasmuch +as it destroys the separation between the organic and inorganic, and +maintains that whatever the organic is the inorganic is also. Deny +it in theory as much as we please, we shall still always feel that an +organic body, unless dead, is living and conscious to a greater or +less degree. Therefore, if we once break down the wall of partition +between the organic and inorganic, the inorganic must be living and +conscious also, up to a certain point. + +I have been at work on this subject now for nearly twenty years, what +I have published being only a small part of what I have written and +destroyed. I cannot, therefore, remember exactly how I stood in +1863. Nor can I pretend to see far into the matter even now; for +when I think of life, I find it so difficult, that I take refuge in +death or mechanism; and when I think of death or mechanism, I find it +so inconceivable, that it is easier to call it life again. The only +thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic +and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our other +ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule as +a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up of an +association or corporation, than to start with inanimate molecules +and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what we call the +inorganic world must be regarded as up to a certain point living, and +instinct, within certain limits, with consciousness, volition, and +power of concerted action. It is only of late, however, that I have +come to this opinion. + +One must start with a hypothesis, no matter how much one distrusts +it; so I started with man as a mechanism, this being the strand of +the knot that I could then pick at most easily. Having worked upon +it a certain time, I drew the inference about machines becoming +animate, and in 1862 or 1863 wrote the sketch of the chapter on +machines which I afterwards rewrote in "Erewhon." This sketch +appeared in the Press, Canterbury, N.Z., June 13, 1863; a copy of it +is in the British Museum. + +I soon felt that though there was plenty of amusement to be got out +of this line, it was one that I should have to leave sooner or later; +I therefore left it at once for the view that machines were limbs +which we had made, and carried outside our bodies instead of +incorporating them with ourselves. A few days or weeks later than +June 13, 1863, I published a second letter in the Press putting this +view forward. Of this letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have +not seen it for years. The first was certainly not good; the second, +if I remember rightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more +in the views it put forward than in those of the first letter. I had +lost my copy before I wrote "Erewhon," and therefore only gave a +couple of pages to it in that book; besides, there was more amusement +in the other view. I should perhaps say there was an intermediate +extension of the first letter which appeared in the Reasoner, July 1, +1865. + +In 1870 and 1871, when I was writing "Erewhon," I thought the best +way of looking at machines was to see them as limbs which we had made +and carried about with us or left at home at pleasure. I was not, +however, satisfied, and should have gone on with the subject at once +if I had not been anxious to write "The Fair Haven," a book which is +a development of a pamphlet I wrote in New Zealand and published in +London in 1865. + +As soon as I had finished this, I returned to the old subject, on +which I had already been engaged for nearly a dozen years as +continuously as other business would allow, and proposed to myself to +see not only machines as limbs, but also limbs as machines. I felt +immediately that I was upon firmer ground. The use of the word +"organ" for a limb told its own story; the word could not have become +so current under this meaning unless the idea of a limb as a tool or +machine had been agreeable to common sense. What would follow, then, +if we regarded our limbs and organs as things that we had ourselves +manufactured for our convenience? + +The first question that suggested itself was, how did we come to make +them without knowing anything about it? And this raised another, +namely, how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer +"habit" was not far to seek. But can a person be said to do a thing +by force of habit or routine when it is his ancestors, and not he, +that has done it hitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors are one +and the same person. Perhaps, then, they ARE the same person after +all. What is sameness? I remembered Bishop Butler's sermon on +"Personal Identity," read it again, and saw very plainly that if a +man of eighty may consider himself identical with the baby from whom +he has developed, so that he may say, "I am the person who at six +months old did this or that," then the baby may just as fairly claim +identity with its father and mother, and say to its parents on being +born, "I was you only a few months ago." By parity of reasoning each +living form now on the earth must be able to claim identity with each +generation of its ancestors up to the primordial cell inclusive. + +Again, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with the +infant, the infant may certainly do so with the impregnate ovum from +which it has developed. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have +been a fish once in this his present life. This is as certain as +that he was living yesterday, and stands on exactly the same +foundation. + +I am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He writes: +"It is not true, for example, . . . that a reptile was ever a fish, +but it is true that the reptile embryo" (and what is said here of the +reptile holds good also for the human embryo), "at one stage of its +development, is an organism, which, if it had an independent +existence, must be classified among fishes." {17} + +This is like saying, "It is not true that such and such a picture was +rejected for the Academy, but it is true that it was submitted to the +President and Council of the Royal Academy, with a view to acceptance +at their next forthcoming annual exhibition, and that the President +and Council regretted they were unable through want of space, &c., +&c." --and as much more as the reader chooses. I shall venture, +therefore, to stick to it that the octogenarian was once a fish, or +if Professor Huxley prefers it, "an organism which must be classified +among fishes." + +But if a man was a fish once, he may have been a fish a million times +over, for aught he knows; for he must admit that his conscious +recollection is at fault, and has nothing whatever to do with the +matter, which must be decided, not, as it were, upon his own evidence +as to what deeds he may or may not recollect having executed, but by +the production of his signatures in court, with satisfactory proof +that he has delivered each document as his act and deed. + +This made things very much simpler. The processes of embryonic +development, and instinctive actions, might be now seen as +repetitions of the same kind of action by the same individual in +successive generations. It was natural, therefore, that they should +come in the course of time to be done unconsciously, and a +consideration of the most obvious facts of memory removed all further +doubt that habit--which is based on memory--was at the bottom of all +the phenomena of heredity. + +I had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had begun to +write, when I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the next year +and a half did hardly any writing. The first passage in "Life and +Habit" which I can date with certainty is the one on page 52, which +runs as follows:- + + +"It is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his own +past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so +as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to +gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should 'eat +strange food,' and that his cheek should 'so much as lank not,' than +that he should starve if the strange food be at his command. His +past selves are living in him at this moment with the accumulated +life of centuries. 'Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and +found out profit in it,' cry the souls of his forefathers within him. +Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted +on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an +alarm of fire." + + +This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. I +was on Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its +extreme beauty. It was a magnificent Summer's evening; the noble St. +Lawrence flowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of +country beyond it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot +surpass. Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for "Life +and Habit," of which I was then continually thinking, and had written +the first few lines of the above, when the bells of Notre Dame in +Montreal began to ring, and their sound was carried to and fro in a +remarkably beautiful manner. I took advantage of the incident to +insert then and there the last lines of the piece just quoted. I +kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration, and am thus able +to date it accurately. + +Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, I +nevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left Canada +at the end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes into +more coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely written +matter, of which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. I +find two dates among them--the first, "Sunday, Feb. 6, 1876"; and the +second, at the end of the notes, "Feb. 12, 1876." + +From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained +in "Life and Habit" completely before me, with the four main +principles which it involves, namely, the oneness of personality +between parents and offspring; memory on the part of offspring of +certain actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; +the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of +the associated ideas; and the unconsciousness with which habitual +actions come to be performed. + +The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs +thus:- + + +"Those habits and functions which we have in common with the lower +animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, as +our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting food, +&c. . . . + +"We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon as it +is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched? + +"It knew how to make a great many things before it was hatched. + +"It grew eyes and feathers and bones. + +"Yet we say it knew nothing about all this. + +"After it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its bones larger, +and develops a reproductive system. + +"Again we say it knows nothing about all this. + +"What then does it know? + +"Whatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious of knowing +it. + +"Knowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty. + +"When we are very certain, we do not know that we know. When we will +very strongly, we do not know that we will." + + +I then began my book, but considering myself still a painter by +profession, I gave comparatively little time to writing, and got on +but slowly. I left England for North Italy in the middle of May 1876 +and returned early in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to +hear of the account of Professor Hering's lecture given by Professor +Ray Lankester in Nature, July 13 1876; though, never at that time +seeing Nature, I should probably have missed it under any +circumstances. On my return I continued slowly writing. By August +1877 I considered that I had to all intents and purposes completed my +book. My first proof bears date October 13, 1877. + +At this time I had not been able to find that anything like what I +was advancing had been said already. I asked many friends, but not +one of them knew of anything more than I did; to them, as to me, it +seemed an idea so new as to be almost preposterous; but knowing how +things turn up after one has written, of the existence of which one +had not known before, I was particularly careful to guard against +being supposed to claim originality. I neither claimed it nor wished +for it; for if a theory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to +occur to several people much about the same time, and a reasonable +person will look upon his work with great suspicion unless he can +confirm it with the support of others who have gone before him. +Still I knew of nothing in the least resembling it, and was so afraid +of what I was doing, that though I could see no flaw in the argument, +nor any loophole for escape from the conclusion it led to, yet I did +not dare to put it forward with the seriousness and sobriety with +which I should have treated the subject if I had not been in +continual fear of a mine being sprung upon me from some unexpected +quarter. I am exceedingly glad now that I knew nothing of Professor +Hering's lecture, for it is much better that two people should think +a thing out as far as they can independently before they become aware +of each other's works but if I had seen it, I should either, as is +most likely, not have written at all, or I should have pitched my +book in another key. + +Among the additions I intended making while the book was in the +press, was a chapter on Mr. Darwin's provisional theory of +Pangenesis, which I felt convinced must be right if it was Mr. +Darwin's, and which I was sure, if I could once understand it, must +have an important bearing on "Life and Habit." I had not as yet seen +that the principle I was contending for was Darwinian, not Neo- +Darwinian. My pages still teemed with allusions to "natural +selection," and I sometimes allowed myself to hope that "Life and +Habit" was going to be an adjunct to Darwinism which no one would +welcome more gladly than Mr. Darwin himself. At this time I had a +visit from a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of mine, +relative, if I remember rightly, to "Pangenesis." He came, September +26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory which +had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time was +one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly what I was +doing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. He +replied that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it in +Nature some time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, and had +given extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who had +originated the theory. I said I should not look at it, as I had +completed that part of my work, and was on the point of going to +press. I could not recast my work if, as was most likely, I should +find something, when I saw what Professor Hering had said, which +would make me wish to rewrite my own book; it was too late in the day +and I did not feel equal to making any radical alteration; and so the +matter ended with very little said upon either side. I wrote, +however, afterwards to my friend asking him to tell me the number of +Nature which contained the lecture if he could find it, but he was +unable to do so, and I was well enough content. + +A few days before this I had met another friend, and had explained to +him what I was doing. He told me I ought to read Professor Mivart's +"Genesis of Species," and that if I did so I should find there were +two sides to "natural selection." Thinking, as so many people do-- +and no wonder--that "natural selection" and evolution were much the +same thing, and having found so many attacks upon evolution produce +no effect upon me, I declined to read it. I had as yet no idea that +a writer could attack Neo-Darwinism without attacking evolution. But +my friend kindly sent me a copy; and when I read it, I found myself +in the presence of arguments different from those I had met with +hitherto, and did not see my way to answering them. I had, however, +read only a small part of Professor Mivart's work, and was not fully +awake to the position, when the friend referred to in the preceding +paragraph called on me. + +When I had finished the "Genesis of Species," I felt that something +was certainly wanted which should give a definite aim to the +variations whose accumulation was to amount ultimately to specific +and generic differences, and that without this there could have been +no progress in organic development. I got the latest edition of the +"Origin of Species" in order to see how Mr. Darwin met Professor +Mivart, and found his answers in many respects unsatisfactory. I had +lost my original copy of the "Origin of Species," and had not read +the book for some years. I now set about reading it again, and came +to the chapter on instinct, where I was horrified to find the +following passage:- + + +"But 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 the succeeding generations. It can be +clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we are +acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not +possibly have been acquired by habit." {23a} + + +This showed that, according to Mr. Darwin, I had fallen into serious +error, and my faith in him, though somewhat shaken, was far too great +to be destroyed by a few days' course of Professor Mivart, the full +importance of whose work I had not yet apprehended. I continued to +read, and when I had finished the chapter felt sure that I must +indeed have been blundering. The concluding words, "I am surprised +that no one has hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter +insects against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as +advanced by Lamarck," {23b} were positively awful. There was a quiet +consciousness of strength about them which was more convincing than +any amount of more detailed explanation. This was the first I had +heard of any doctrine of inherited habit as having been propounded by +Lamarck (the passage stands in the first edition, "the well-known +doctrine of Lamarck," p. 242); and now to find that I had been only +busying myself with a stale theory of this long-since exploded +charlatan--with my book three parts written and already in the press- +-it was a serious scare. + +On reflection, however, I was again met with the overwhelming weight +of the evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to +memory. I accordingly gathered as much as I could second-hand of +what Lamarck had said, reserving a study of his "Philosophie +Zoologique" for another occasion, and read as much about ants and +bees as I could find in readily accessible works. In a few days I +saw my way again; and now, reading the "Origin of Species" more +closely, and I may say more sceptically, the antagonism between Mr. +Darwin and Lamarck became fully apparent to me, and I saw how +incoherent and unworkable in practice the later view was in +comparison with the earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin's answers to +miscellaneous objections, and was met, and this time brought up, by +the passage beginning "In the earlier editions of this work," {24a} +&c., on which I wrote very severely in "Life and Habit"; {24b} for I +felt by this time that the difference of opinion between us was +radical, and that the matter must be fought out according to the +rules of the game. After this I went through the earlier part of my +book, and cut out the expressions which I had used inadvertently, and +which were inconsistent with a teleological view. This necessitated +only verbal alterations; for, though I had not known it, the spirit +of the book was throughout teleological. + +I now saw that I had got my hands full, and abandoned my intention of +touching upon "Pangenesis." I took up the words of Mr. Darwin quoted +above, to the effect that it would be a serious error to ascribe the +greater number of instincts to transmitted habit. I wrote chapter +xi. of "Life and Habit," which is headed "Instincts as Inherited +Memory"; I also wrote the four subsequent chapters, "Instincts of +Neuter Insects," "Lamarck and Mr. Darwin," "Mr. Mivart and Mr. +Darwin," and the concluding chapter, all of them in the month of +October and the early part of November 1877, the complete book +leaving the binder's hands December 4, 1877, but, according to trade +custom, being dated 1878. It will be seen that these five concluding +chapters were rapidly written, and this may account in part for the +directness with which I said anything I had to say about Mr. Darwin; +partly this, and partly I felt I was in for a penny and might as well +be in for a pound. I therefore wrote about Mr. Darwin's work exactly +as I should about any one else's, bearing in mind the inestimable +services he had undoubtedly--and must always be counted to have-- +rendered to evolution. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +How I came to write "Evolution, Old and New"--Mr Darwin's "brief but +imperfect" sketch of the opinions of the writers on evolution who had +preceded him--The reception which "Evolution, Old and New," met with. + +Though my book was out in 1877, it was not till January 1878 that I +took an opportunity of looking up Professor Ray Lankester's account +of Professor Hering's lecture. I can hardly say how relieved I was +to find that it sprung no mine upon me, but that, so far as I could +gather, Professor Hering and I had come to pretty much the same +conclusion. I had already found the passage in Dr. Erasmus Darwin +which I quoted in "Evolution, Old and New," but may perhaps as well +repeat it here. It runs - + + +"Owing to the imperfection of language, the offspring is termed a new +animal; but is, in truth, a branch or elongation of the parent, since +a part of the embryon animal is or was a part of the parent, and, +therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at +the time of its production, and, therefore, it may retain some of the +habits of the parent system." {26} + + +When, then, the Athenaeum reviewed "Life and Habit" (January 26, +1878), I took the opportunity to write to that paper, calling +attention to Professor Hering's lecture, and also to the passage just +quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin. The editor kindly inserted my letter +in his issue of February 9, 1878. I felt that I had now done all in +the way of acknowledgment to Professor Hering which it was, for the +time, in my power to do. + +I again took up Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species," this time, I admit, +in a spirit of scepticism. I read his "brief but imperfect" sketch +of the progress of opinion on the origin of species, and turned to +each one of the writers he had mentioned. First, I read all the +parts of the "Zoonomia" that were not purely medical, and was +astonished to find that, as Dr. Krause has since said in his essay on +Erasmus Darwin, "HE WAS THE FIRST WHO PROPOSED AND PERSISTENTLY +CARRIED OUT A WELL-ROUNDED THEORY WITH REGARD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF +THE LIVING WORLD" {27} (italics in original). + +This is undoubtedly the case, and I was surprised at finding +Professor Huxley say concerning this very eminent man that he could +"hardly be said to have made any real advance upon his predecessors." +Still more was I surprised at remembering that, in the first edition +of the "Origin of Species," Dr. Erasmus Darwin had never been so much +as named; while in the "brief but imperfect" sketch he was dismissed +with a line of half-contemptuous patronage, as though the mingled +tribute of admiration and curiosity which attaches to scientific +prophecies, as distinguished from discoveries, was the utmost he was +entitled to. "It is curious," says Mr. Darwin innocently, in the +middle of a note in the smallest possible type, "how largely my +grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous +grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his 'Zoonomia' (vol. i. pp. 500- +510), published in 1794"; this was all he had to say about the +founder of "Darwinism," until I myself unearthed Dr. Erasmus Darwin, +and put his work fairly before the present generation in "Evolution, +Old and New." Six months after I had done this, I had the +satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin had woke up to the propriety +of doing much the same thing, and that he had published an +interesting and charmingly written memoir of his grandfather, of +which more anon. + +Not that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete theory +of evolution. Buffon was the first to point out that, in view of the +known modifications which had been effected among our domesticated +animals and cultivated plants, the ass and the horse should be +considered as, in all probability, descended from a common ancestor; +yet, if this is so, he writes--if the point "were once gained that +among animals and vegetables there had been, I do not say several +species, but even a single one, which had been produced in the course +of direct descent from another species; if, for example, it could be +once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse, then +there is no further limit to be set to the power of Nature, and we +should not be wrong in supposing that, with sufficient time, she has +evolved all other organised forms from one primordial type" {28a} (et +l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer, que d'un seul etre elle a su +tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises). + +This, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley's dictum, is +contributing a good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for +though Descartes and Leibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more +or less broadly in the direction of evolution, some of which +Professor Huxley has quoted, he has adduced nothing approaching to +the passage from Buffon given above, either in respect of the +clearness with which the conclusion intended to be arrived at is +pointed out, or the breadth of view with which the whole ground of +animal and vegetable nature is covered. The passage referred to is +only one of many to the same effect, and must be connected with one +quoted in "Evolution, Old and New," {28b} from p. 13 of Buffon's +first volume, which appeared in 1749, and than which nothing can well +point more plainly in the direction of evolution. It is not easy, +therefore, to understand why Professor Huxley should give 1753-78 as +the date of Buffon's work, nor yet why he should say that Buffon was +"at first a partisan of the absolute immutability of species," {29a} +unless, indeed, we suppose he has been content to follow that very +unsatisfactory writer, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into +this error, and says that Buffon's first volume on animals appeared +1753), without verifying him, and without making any reference to +him. + +Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the "Palingenesie +Philosophique" of Bonnet, of which he says that, making allowance for +his peculiar views on the subject of generation, they bear no small +resemblance to what is understood by "evolution" at the present day. +The most important parts of the passage quoted are as follows:- + + +"Should I be going too far if I were to conjecture that the plants +and animals of the present day have arisen by a sort of natural +evolution from the organised beings which peopled the world in its +original state as it left the hands of the Creator? . . . In the +outset organised beings were probably very different from what they +are now--as different as the original world is from our present one. +We have no means of estimating the amount of these differences, but +it is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted to +the original world, would entirely fail to recognise our plants and +animals therein." {29b} + + +But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not appear till +1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for fully twenty +years with the eyes of scientific Europe upon him. Whatever +concession to the opinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to +make in 1769, in 1764, when he published his "Contemplation de la +Nature," and in 1762 when his "Considerations sur les Corps Organes" +appeared, he cannot be considered to have been a supporter of +evolution. I went through these works in 1878 when I was writing +"Evolution, Old and New," to see whether I could claim him as on my +side; but though frequently delighted with his work, I found it +impossible to press him into my service. + +The pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father of the +modern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably disputed, though he +was doubtless led to his conclusions by the works of Descartes and +Leibnitz, of both of whom he was an avowed and very warm admirer. +His claim does not rest upon a passage here or there, but upon the +spirit of forty quartos written over a period of about as many years. +Nevertheless he wrote, as I have shown in "Evolution, Old and New," +of set purpose enigmatically, whereas there was no beating about the +bush with Dr. Darwin. He speaks straight out, and Dr. Krause is +justified in saying of him "THAT HE WAS THE FIRST WHO PROPOSED AND +PERSISTENTLY CARRIED OUT A WELL-ROUNDED THEORY" of evolution. + +I now turned to Lamarck. I read the first volume of the "Philosophie +Zoologique," analysed it and translated the most important parts. +The second volume was beside my purpose, dealing as it does rather +with the origin of life than of species, and travelling too fast and +too far for me to be able to keep up with him. Again I was +astonished at the little mention Mr. Darwin had made of this +illustrious writer, at the manner in which he had motioned him away, +as it were, with his hand in the first edition of the "Origin of +Species," and at the brevity and imperfection of the remarks made +upon him in the subsequent historical sketch. + +I got Isidore Geoffroy's "Histoire Naturelle Generale," which Mr. +Darwin commends in the note on the second page of the historical +sketch, as giving "an excellent history of opinion" upon the subject +of evolution, and a full account of Buffon's conclusions upon the +same subject. This at least is what I supposed Mr. Darwin to mean. +What he said was that Isidore Geoffroy gives an excellent history of +opinion on the subject of the date of the first publication of +Lamarck, and that in his work there is a full account of Buffon's +fluctuating conclusions upon THE SAME SUBJECT. {31} But Mr. Darwin +is a more than commonly puzzling writer. I read what M. Geoffroy had +to say upon Buffon, and was surprised to find that, after all, +according to M. Geoffroy, Buffon, and not Lamarck, was the founder of +the theory of evolution. His name, as I have already said, was never +mentioned in the first edition of the "Origin of Species." + +M. Geoffroy goes into the accusations of having fluctuated in his +opinions, which he tells us have been brought against Buffon, and +comes to the conclusion that they are unjust, as any one else will do +who turns to Buffon himself. Mr. Darwin, however, in the "brief but +imperfect sketch," catches at the accusation, and repeats it while +saying nothing whatever about the defence. The following is still +all he says: "The first author who in modern times has treated" +evolution "in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions +fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on +the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here +enter on details." On the next page, in the note last quoted, Mr. +Darwin originally repeated the accusation of Buffon's having been +fluctuating in his opinions, and appeared to give it the imprimatur +of Isidore Geoffroy's approval; the fact being that Isidore Geoffroy +only quoted the accusation in order to refute it; and though, I +suppose, meaning well, did not make half the case he might have done, +and abounds with misstatements. My readers will find this matter +particularly dealt with in "Evolution, Old and New," Chapter X. + +I gather that some one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of his +saying that Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of Buffon's "fluctuating +conclusions" concerning evolution, when he was doing all he knew to +maintain that Buffon's conclusions did not fluctuate; for I see that +in the edition of 1876 the word "fluctuating" has dropped out of the +note in question, and we now learn that Isidore Geoffroy gives "a +full account of Buffon's conclusions," without the "fluctuating." +But Buffon has not taken much by this, for his opinions are still +left fluctuating greatly at different periods on the preceding page, +and though he still was the first to treat evolution in a scientific +spirit, he still does not enter upon the causes or means of the +transformation of species. No one can understand Mr. Darwin who does +not collate the different editions of the "Origin of Species" with +some attention. When he has done this, he will know what Newton +meant by saying he felt like a child playing with pebbles upon the +seashore. + +One word more upon this note before I leave it. Mr. Darwin speaks of +Isidore Geoffroy's history of opinion as "excellent," and his account +of Buffon's opinions as "full." I wonder how well qualified he is to +be a judge of these matters? If he knows much about the earlier +writers, he is the more inexcusable for having said so little about +them. If little, what is his opinion worth? + +To return to the "brief but imperfect sketch." I do not think I can +ever again be surprised at anything Mr. Darwin may say or do, but if +I could, I should wonder how a writer who did not "enter upon the +causes or means of the transformation of species," and whose opinions +"fluctuated greatly at different periods," can be held to have +treated evolution "in a scientific spirit." Nevertheless, when I +reflect upon the scientific reputation Mr. Darwin has attained, and +the means by which he has won it, I suppose the scientific spirit +must be much what he here implies. I see Mr. Darwin says of his own +father, Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, that he does not consider +him to have had a scientific mind. Mr. Darwin cannot tell why he +does not think his father's mind to have been fitted for advancing +science, "for he was fond of theorising, and was incomparably the +best observer" Mr. Darwin ever knew. {33a} From the hint given in +the "brief but imperfect sketch," I fancy I can help Mr. Darwin to +see why he does not think his father's mind to have been a scientific +one. It is possible that Dr. Robert Darwin's opinions did not +fluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin +considered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or means +of the transformation of species. Certainly those who read Mr. +Darwin's own works attentively will find no lack of fluctuation in +his case; and reflection will show them that a theory of evolution +which relies mainly on the accumulation of accidental variations +comes very close to not entering upon the causes or means of the +transformation of species. {33b} + +I have shown, however, in "Evolution, Old and New," that the +assertion that Buffon does not enter on the causes or means of the +transformation of species is absolutely without foundation, and that, +on the contrary, he is continually dealing with this very matter, and +devotes to it one of his longest and most important chapters, {33c} +but I admit that he is less satisfactory on this head than either Dr. +Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck. + +As a matter of fact, Buffon is much more of a Neo-Darwinian than +either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, for with him the variations are +sometimes fortuitous. In the case of the dog, he speaks of them as +making their appearance "BY SOME CHANCE common enough with Nature," +{33d} and being perpetuated by man's selection. This is exactly the +"if any slight favourable variation HAPPEN to arise" of Mr. Charles +Darwin. Buffon also speaks of the variations among pigeons arising +"par hasard." But these expressions are only ships; his main cause +of variation is the direct action of changed conditions of existence, +while with Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck the action of the +conditions of existence is indirect, the direct action being that of +the animals or plants themselves, in consequence of changed sense of +need under changed conditions. + +I should say that the sketch so often referred to is at first sight +now no longer imperfect in Mr. Darwin's opinion. It was "brief but +imperfect" in 1861 and in 1866, but in 1876 I see that it is brief +only. Of course, discovering that it was no longer imperfect, I +expected to find it briefer. What, then, was my surprise at finding +that it had become rather longer? I have found no perfectly +satisfactory explanation of this inconsistency, but, on the whole, +incline to think that the "greatest of living men" felt himself +unequal to prolonging his struggle with the word "but," and resolved +to lay that conjunction at all hazards, even though the doing so +might cost him the balance of his adjectives; for I think he must +know that his sketch is still imperfect. + +From Isidore Geoffroy I turned to Buffon himself, and had not long to +wait before I felt that I was now brought into communication with the +master-mind of all those who have up to the present time busied +themselves with evolution. For a brief and imperfect sketch of him, +I must refer my readers to "Evolution, Old and New." + +I have no great respect for the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," +who behaved hardly better to the writers upon whom his own work was +founded than Mr. Darwin himself has done. Nevertheless, I could not +forget the gravity of the misrepresentation with which he was +assailed on page 3 of the first edition of the "Origin of Species," +nor impugn the justice of his rejoinder in the following year, {34} +when he replied that it was to be regretted Mr. Darwin had read his +work "almost as much amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he had +an interest in misrepresenting it." {35a} I could not, again, forget +that, though Mr. Darwin did not venture to stand by the passage in +question, it was expunged without a word of apology or explanation of +how it was that he had come to write it. A writer with any claim to +our consideration will never fall into serious error about another +writer without hastening to make a public apology as soon as he +becomes aware of what he has done. + +Reflecting upon the substance of what I have written in the last few +pages, I thought it right that people should have a chance of knowing +more about the earlier writers on evolution than they were likely to +hear from any of our leading scientists (no matter how many lectures +they may give on the coming of age of the "Origin of Species") except +Professor Mivart. A book pointing the difference between +teleological and non-teleological views of evolution seemed likely to +be useful, and would afford me the opportunity I wanted for giving a +resume of the views of each one of the three chief founders of the +theory, and of contrasting them with those of Mr. Charles Darwin, as +well as for calling attention to Professor Hering's lecture. I +accordingly wrote "Evolution, Old and New," which was prominently +announced in the leading literary periodicals at the end of February, +or on the very first days of March 1879, {35b} as "a comparison of +the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, with that of +Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the works of the three +first-named writers." In this book I was hardly able to conceal the +fact that, in spite of the obligations under which we must always +remain to Mr. Darwin, I had lost my respect for him and for his work. + +I should point out that this announcement, coupled with what I had +written in "Life and Habit," would enable Mr. Darwin and his friends +to form a pretty shrewd guess as to what I was likely to say, and to +quote from Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my forthcoming book. The +announcement, indeed, would tell almost as much as the book itself to +those who knew the works of Erasmus Darwin. + +As may be supposed, "Evolution, Old and New," met with a very +unfavourable reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. The +Saturday Review was furious. "When a writer," it exclaimed, "who has +not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, +is not content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but +assumes to criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young +schoolmaster looking over a boy's theme, it is difficult not to take +him more seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would +think that Mr. Butler was the travelled and laborious observer of +Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pert speculator who takes all his facts at +secondhand." {36} + +The lady or gentleman who writes in such a strain as this should not +be too hard upon others whom she or he may consider to write like +schoolmasters. It is true I have travelled--not much, but still as +much as many others, and have endeavoured to keep my eyes open to the +facts before me; but I cannot think that I made any reference to my +travels in "Evolution, Old and New." I did not quite see what that +had to do with the matter. A man may get to know a good deal without +ever going beyond the four-mile radius from Charing Cross. Much less +did I imply that Mr. Darwin was pert: pert is one of the last words +that can be applied to Mr. Darwin. Nor, again, had I blamed him for +taking his facts at secondhand; no one is to be blamed for this, +provided he takes well-established facts and acknowledges his +sources. Mr. Darwin has generally gone to good sources. The ground +of complaint against him is that he muddied the water after he had +drawn it, and tacitly claimed to be the rightful owner of the spring, +on the score of the damage he had effected. + +Notwithstanding, however, the generally hostile, or more or less +contemptuous, reception which "Evolution, Old and New," met with, +there were some reviews--as, for example, those in the Field, {37a} +the Daily Chronicle, {37b} the Athenaeum, {37c} the Journal of +Science, {37d} the British Journal of Homaeopathy, {37e} the Daily +News, {37f} the Popular Science Review {37g}--which were all I could +expect or wish. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +The manner in which Mr. Darwin met "Evolution, Old and New." + +By far the most important notice of "Evolution, Old and New," was +that taken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in +believing that Dr. Krause's article would have been allowed to repose +unaltered in the pages of the well-known German scientific journal, +Kosmos, unless something had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel that +his reticence concerning his grandfather must now be ended + +Mr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to +understand that this is not the case. At the beginning of this year +he wrote to me, in a letter which I will presently give in full, that +he had obtained Dr. Krause's consent for a translation, and had +arranged with Mr. Dallas, before my book was "announced." "I +remember this," he continues, "because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of +the advertisement." But Mr. Darwin is not a clear writer, and it is +impossible to say whether he is referring to the announcement of +"Evolution, Old and New"--in which case he means that the +arrangements for the translation of Dr. Krause's article were made +before the end of February 1879, and before any public intimation +could have reached him as to the substance of the book on which I was +then engaged--or to the advertisements of its being now published, +which appeared at the beginning of May; in which case, as I have said +above, Mr. Darwin and his friends had for some time had full +opportunity of knowing what I was about. I believe, however, Mr. +Darwin to intend that he remembered the arrangements having been made +before the beginning of May--his use of the word "announced," instead +of "advertised," being an accident; but let this pass. + +Some time after Mr. Darwin's work appeared in November 1879, I got +it, and looking at the last page of the book, I read as follows:- + + +"They" (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) "explain the adaptation to +purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense of what is +purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit of +saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. The +purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that which +is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same +way the beautiful is what pleases." + + +I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have +had "Evolution, Old and New," in his mind, but went on to the next +sentence, which ran - + + +"Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant first step +in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but +to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been +seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental +anachronism which no one can envy." + + +"That's me," said I to myself promptly. I noticed also the position +in which the sentence stood, which made it both one of the first that +would be likely to catch a reader's eye, and the last he would carry +away with him. I therefore expected to find an open reply to some +parts of "Evolution, Old and New," and turned to Mr. Darwin's +preface. + +To my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading could not +by any possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as follows:- + + +"In the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, +Kosmos, {39} Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of the 'Life of +Erasmus Darwin,' the author of the 'Zoonomia,' 'Botanic Garden,' and +other works. This article bears the title of a 'Contribution to the +History of the Descent Theory'; and Dr. Krause has kindly allowed my +brother Erasmus and myself to have a translation made of it for +publication in this country." + + +Then came a note as follows:- + + +"Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific +reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for +its accuracy." + + +I ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much +consciousness of accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. +Darwin pins himself down with every circumstance of preciseness to +giving Dr. Krause's article as it appeared in Kosmos,--the whole +article, and nothing but the article. No one could know this better +than Mr. Darwin. + +On the second page of Mr. Darwin's preface there is a small-type note +saying that my work, "Evolution, Old and New," had appeared since the +publication of Dr. Krause's article. Mr. Darwin thus distinctly +precludes his readers from supposing that any passage they might meet +with could have been written in reference to, or by the light of, my +book. If anything appeared condemnatory of that book, it was an +undesigned coincidence, and would show how little worthy of +consideration I must be when my opinions were refuted in advance by +one who could have no bias in regard to them. + +Knowing that if the article I was about to read appeared in February, +it must have been published before my book, which was not out till +three months later, I saw nothing in Mr. Darwin's preface to complain +of, and felt that this was only another instance of my absurd vanity +having led me to rush to conclusions without sufficient grounds,--as +if it was likely, indeed, that Mr. Darwin should think what I had +said of sufficient importance to be affected by it. It was plain +that some one besides myself, of whom I as yet knew nothing, had been +writing about the elder Darwin, and had taken much the same line +concerning him that I had done. It was for the benefit of this +person, then, that Dr. Krause's paragraph was intended. I returned +to a becoming sense of my own insignificance, and began to read what +I supposed to be an accurate translation of Dr. Krause's article as +it originally appeared, before "Evolution, Old and New," was +published. + +On pp. 3 and 4 of Dr. Krause's part of Mr. Darwin's book (pp. 133 and +134 of the book itself), I detected a sub-apologetic tone which a +little surprised me, and a notice of the fact that Coleridge when +writing on Stillingfleet had used the word "Darwinising." Mr. R. +Garnett had called my attention to this, and I had mentioned it in +"Evolution, Old and New," but the paragraph only struck me as being a +little odd. + +When I got a few pages farther on (p. 147 of Mr. Darwin's book), I +found a long quotation from Buffon about rudimentary organs, which I +had quoted in "Evolution, Old and New." I observed that Dr. Krause +used the same edition of Buffon that I did, and began his quotation +two lines from the beginning of Buffon's paragraph, exactly as I had +done; also that he had taken his nominative from the omitted part of +the sentence across a full stop, as I had myself taken it. A little +lower I found a line of Buffon's omitted which I had given, but I +found that at that place I had inadvertently left two pair of +inverted commas which ought to have come out, {41} having intended to +end my quotation, but changed my mind and continued it without +erasing the commas. It seemed to me that these commas had bothered +Dr. Krause, and made him think it safer to leave something out, for +the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that he translated +"Mais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter a un certain but," +"But we, always wishing to refer," &c., while I had it, "But we, ever +on the look-out to refer," &c.; and "Nous ne faisons pas attention +que nous alterons la philosophie," "We fail to see that thus we +deprive philosophy of her true character," whereas I had "We fail to +see that we thus rob philosophy of her true character." This last +was too much; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had quoted +this passage before I had done so, had used the same edition as I +had, had begun two lines from the beginning of a paragraph as I had +done, and that the later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas +having compared Dr. Krause's German translation of Buffon with my +English, and very properly made use of it when he thought fit, it +looked prima facie more as though my quotation had been copied in +English as it stood, and then altered, but not quite altered enough. +This, in the face of the preface, was incredible; but so many points +had such an unpleasant aspect, that I thought it better to send for +Kosmos and see what I could make out. + +At this time I knew not one word of German. On the same day, +therefore, that I sent for Kosmos I began acquire that language, and +in the fortnight before Kosmos came had got far enough forward for +all practical purposes--that is to say, with the help of a +translation and a dictionary, I could see whether or no a German +passage was the same as what purported to be its translation. + +When Kosmos came I turned to the end of the article to see how the +sentence about mental anachronism and weakness of thought looked in +German. I found nothing of the kind, the original article ended with +some innocent rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring +something with eagle eye; but ten lines from the end I found a +sentence which corresponded with one six pages from the end of the +English translation. After this there could be little doubt that the +whole of these last six English pages were spurious matter. What +little doubt remained was afterwards removed by my finding that they +had no place in any part of the genuine article. I looked for the +passage about Coleridge's using the word "Darwinising"; it was not to +be found in the German. I looked for the piece I had quoted from +Buffon about rudimentary organs; but there was nothing of it, nor +indeed any reference to Buffon. It was plain, therefore, that the +article which Mr. Darwin had given was not the one he professed to be +giving. I read Mr. Darwin's preface over again to see whether he +left himself any loophole. There was not a chink or cranny through +which escape was possible. The only inference that could be drawn +was either that some one had imposed upon Mr. Darwin, or that Mr. +Darwin, although it was not possible to suppose him ignorant of the +interpolations that had been made, nor of the obvious purpose of the +concluding sentence, had nevertheless palmed off an article which had +been added to and made to attack "Evolution, Old and New," as though +it were the original article which appeared before that book was +written. I could not and would not believe that Mr. Darwin had +condescended to this. Nevertheless, I saw it was necessary to sift +the whole matter, and began to compare the German and the English +articles paragraph by paragraph. + +On the first page I found a passage omitted from the English, which +with great labour I managed to get through, and can now translate as +follows:- + + +"Alexander Von Humboldt used to take pleasure in recounting how +powerfully Forster's pictures of the South Sea Islands and St. +Pierre's illustrations of Nature had provoked his ardour for travel +and influenced his career as a scientific investigator. How much +more impressively must the works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with their +reiterated foreshadowing of a more lofty interpretation of Nature, +have affected his grandson, who in his youth assuredly approached +them with the devotion due to the works of a renowned poet." {43} + + +I then came upon a passage common to both German and English, which +in its turn was followed in the English by the sub-apologetic +paragraph which I had been struck with on first reading, and which +was not in the German, its place being taken by a much longer passage +which had no place in the English. A little farther on I was amused +at coming upon the following, and at finding it wholly transformed in +the supposed accurate translation + + +"How must this early and penetrating explanation of rudimentary +organs have affected the grandson when he read the poem of his +ancestor! But indeed the biological remarks of this accurate +observer in regard to certain definite natural objects must have +produced a still deeper impression upon him, pointing, as they do, to +questions which hay attained so great a prominence at the present +day; such as, Why is any creature anywhere such as we actually see it +and nothing else? Why has such and such a plant poisonous juices? +Why has such and such another thorns? Why have birds and fishes +light-coloured breasts and dark backs, and, Why does every creature +resemble the one from which it sprung?" {44a} + + +I will not weary the reader with further details as to the omissions +from and additions to the German text. Let it suffice that the so- +called translation begins on p. 131 and ends on p. 216 of Mr. +Darwin's book. There is new matter on each one of the pp. 132-139, +while almost the whole of pp. 147-152 inclusive, and the whole of pp. +211-216 inclusive, are spurious--that is to say, not what the purport +to be, not translations from an article that was published in +February 1879, and before "Evolution, Old and New," but +interpolations not published till six months after that book. + +Bearing in mind the contents of two of the added passages and the +tenor of the concluding sentence quoted above, {44b} I could no +longer doubt that the article had been altered by the light of and +with a view to "Evolution, Old and New." + +The steps are perfectly clear. First Dr. Krause published his +article in Kosmos and my book was announced (its purport being thus +made obvious), both in the month of February 1879. Soon afterwards +arrangements were made for a translation of Dr. Krause's essay, and +were completed by the end of April. Then my book came out, and in +some way or other Dr. Krause happened to get hold of it. He helped +himself--not to much, but to enough; made what other additions to and +omissions from his article he thought would best meet "Evolution, Old +and New," and then fell to condemning that book in a finale that was +meant to be crushing. Nothing was said about the revision which Dr. +Krause's work had undergone, but it was expressly and particularly +declared in the preface that the English translation was an accurate +version of what appeared in the February number of Kosmos, and no +less expressly and particularly stated that my book was published +subsequently to this. Both these statements are untrue; they are in +Mr. Darwin's favour and prejudicial to myself. + +All this was done with that well-known "happy simplicity" of which +the Pall Mall Gazette, December 12, 1879, declared that Mr. Darwin +was "a master." The final sentence, about the "weakness of thought +and mental anachronism which no one can envy," was especially +successful. The reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette just quoted from +gave it in full, and said that it was thoroughly justified. He then +mused forth a general gnome that the "confidence of writers who deal +in semi-scientific paradoxes is commonly in inverse proportion to +their grasp of the subject." Again my vanity suggested to me that I +was the person for whose benefit this gnome was intended. My vanity, +indeed, was well fed by the whole transaction; for I saw that not +only did Mr. Darwin, who should be the best judge, think my work +worth notice, but that he did not venture to meet it openly. As for +Dr. Krause's concluding sentence, I thought that when a sentence had +been antedated the less it contained about anachronism the better. + +Only one of the reviews that I saw of Mr. Darwin's "Life of Erasmus +Darwin" showed any knowledge of the facts. The Popular Science +Review for January 1880, in flat contradiction to Mr. Darwin's +preface, said that only part of Dr. Krause's article was being given +by Mr. Darwin. This reviewer had plainly seen both Kosmos and Mr. +Darwin's book. + +In the same number of the Popular Science Review, and immediately +following the review of Mr. Darwin's book, there is a review of +"Evolution, Old and New." The writer of this review quotes the +passage about mental anachronism as quoted by the reviewer in the +Pall Mall Gazette, and adds immediately: "This anachronism has been +committed by Mr. Samuel Butler in a . . . little volume now before +us, and it is doubtless to this, WHICH APPEARED WHILE HIS OWN WORK +WAS IN PROGRESS [italics mine] that Dr. Krause alludes in the +foregoing passage." Considering that the editor of the Popular +Science Review and the translator of Dr. Krause's article for Mr. +Darwin are one and the same person, it is likely the Popular Science +Review is well informed in saying that my book appeared before Dr. +Krause's article had been transformed into its present shape, and +that my book was intended by the passage in question. + +Unable to see any way of escaping from a conclusion which I could not +willingly adopt, I thought it best to write to Mr. Darwin, stating +the facts as they appeared to myself, and asking an explanation, +which I would have gladly strained a good many points to have +accepted. It is better, perhaps, that I should give my letter and +Darwin's answer in full. My letter ran thus:- + + +January 2, 1880. + +CHARLES DARWIN, ESQ., F.R.S., &c. + +Dear Sir,--Will you kindly refer me to the edition of Kosmos which +contains the text of Dr. Krause's article on Dr. Erasmus Darwin, as +translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas? + +I have before me the last February number of Kosmos, which appears by +your preface to be the one from which Mr. Dallas has translated, but +his translation contains long and important passages which are not in +the February number of Kosmos, while many passages in the original +article are omitted in the translation. + +Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the English +article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position I have +taken as regards Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my book, "Evolution, Old and +New," and which I believe I was the first to take. The concluding, +and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the translation +you have given to the public stands thus:- + +"Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant first step +in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but +to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been +seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental +anachronism which no man can envy." + +The Kosmos which has been sent me from Germany contains no such +passage. + +As you have stated in your preface that my book, "Evolution, Old and +New," appeared subsequently to Dr. Krause's article, and as no +intimation is given that the article has been altered and added to +since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation +as though from the February number of Kosmos is, as you expressly +say, guaranteed by Mr. Dallas's "scientific reputation together with +his knowledge of German," your readers will naturally suppose that +all they read in the translation appeared in February last, and +therefore before "Evolution, Old and New," was written, and therefore +independently of, and necessarily without reference to, that book. + +I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have failed to +obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred to, and +several others which appear in the translation. + +I have a personal interest in this matter, and venture, therefore, to +ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you will readily give +me.--Yours faithfully, + +S. BUTLER. + + +The following is Mr. Darwin's answer:- + + +January 3, 1880. + +My Dear Sir, Dr. Krause, soon after the appearance of his article in +Kosmos told me that he intended to publish it separately and to alter +it considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas for +translation. This is so common a practice that it never occurred to +me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret +that I did not do so. The original will soon appear in German, and I +believe will be a much larger book than the English one; for, with +Dr. Krause's consent, many long extracts from Miss Seward were +omitted (as well as much other matter), from being in my opinion +superfluous for the English reader. I believe that the omitted parts +will appear as notes in the German edition. Should there be a +reprint of the English Life I will state that the original as it +appeared in Kosmos was modified by Dr. Krause before it was +translated. I may add that I had obtained Dr. Krause's consent for a +translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas before your book was +announced. I remember this because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of +the advertisement.--I remain, yours faithfully, + +C. DARWIN." + + +This was not a letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said that by +some inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account for, a +blunder had been made which he would at once correct so far as was in +his power by a letter to the Times or the Athenaeum, and that a +notice of the erratum should be printed on a flyleaf and pasted into +all unsold copies of the "Life of Erasmus Darwin," there would have +been no more heard about the matter from me; but when Mr. Darwin +maintained that it was a common practice to take advantage of an +opportunity of revising a work to interpolate a covert attack upon an +opponent, and at the same time to misdate the interpolated matter by +expressly stating that it appeared months sooner than it actually +did, and prior to the work which it attacked; when he maintained that +what was being done was "so common a practice that it never +occurred," to him--the writer of some twenty volumes--to do what all +literary men must know to be inexorably requisite, I thought this was +going far beyond what was permissible in honourable warfare, and that +it was time, in the interests of literary and scientific morality, +even more than in my own, to appeal to public opinion. I was +particularly struck with the use of the words "it never occurred to +me," and felt how completely of a piece it was with the opening +paragraph of the "Origin of Species." It was not merely that it did +not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified +since it was written--this would have been bad enough under the +circumstances but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to +say what was not true. There was no necessity for him to have said +anything about my book. It appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me +that if a reprint of the English Life was wanted (which might or +might not be the case, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of +the shoulders, and I must make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might +perhaps silently omit his note about my book, as he omitted his +misrepresentation of the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," and +put the words "revised and corrected by the author" on his title- +page. + +No matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he may have +unquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general well-being that +he should be allowed to set aside the fundamental principles of +straightforwardness and fair play. When I thought of Buffon, of Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, of Lamarck and even of the author of the "Vestiges of +Creation," to all of whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which +he was now dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now +dumb, who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels +had been filched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. Darwin +had been abetted by those who should have been the first to detect +the fallacy which had misled him; of the hotbed of intrigue which +science has now become; of the disrepute into which we English must +fall as a nation if such practices as Mr. Darwin had attempted in +this case were to be tolerated;--when I thought of all this, I felt +that though prayers for the repose of dead men's souls might be +unavailing, yet a defence of their work and memory, no matter against +what odds, might avail the living, and resolved that I would do my +utmost to make my countrymen aware of the spirit now ruling among +those whom they delight to honour. + +At first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence privately +with Mr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was insufficient, +but on reflection I felt that little good was likely to come of a +second letter, if what I had already written was not enough. I +therefore wrote to the Athenaeum and gave a condensed account of the +facts contained in the last ten or a dozen pages. My letter appeared +January 31, 1880. {50} + +The accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very public +place. I gave my name; I adduced the strongest prima facie grounds +for the acceptance of my statements; but there was no rejoinder, and +for the best of all reasons--that no rejoinder was possible. +Besides, what is the good of having a reputation for candour if one +may not stand upon it at a pinch? I never yet knew a person with an +especial reputation for candour without finding sooner or later that +he had developed it as animals develop their organs, through "sense +of need." Not only did Mr. Darwin remain perfectly quiet, but all +reviewers and litterateurs remained perfectly quiet also. It seemed- +-though I do not for a moment believe that this is so--as if public +opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin had done, and of his +silence than otherwise. I saw the "Life of Erasmus Darwin" more +frequently and more prominently advertised now than I had seen it +hitherto--perhaps in the hope of selling off the adulterated copies, +and being able to reprint the work with a corrected title page. +Presently I saw Professor Huxley hastening to the rescue with his +lecture on the coming of age of the "Origin of Species," and by May +it was easy for Professor Ray Lankester to imply that Mr. Darwin was +the greatest of living men. I have since noticed two or three other +controversies raging in the Athenaeum and Times; in each of these +cases I saw it assumed that the defeated party, when proved to have +publicly misrepresented his adversary, should do his best to correct +in public the injury which he had publicly inflicted, but I noticed +that in none of them had the beaten side any especial reputation for +candour. This probably made all the difference. But however this +may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of the field, in the hope, +doubtless, that the matter would blow over--which it apparently soon +did. Whether it has done so in reality or no, is a matter which +remains to be seen. My own belief is that people paid no attention +to what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that when they +come to know that it is true, they will think as I do concerning it. + +From ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no +expectations. There is no conduct so dishonourable that people will +not deny it or explain it away, if it has been committed by one whom +they recognise as of their own persuasion. It must be remembered +that facts cannot be respected by the scientist in the same way as by +other people. It is his business to familiarise himself with facts, +and, as we all know, the path from familiarity to contempt is an easy +one. + +Here, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. If it +appears that I have used language such as is rarely seen in +controversy, let the reader remember that the occasion is, so far as +I know, unparalleled for the cynicism and audacity with which the +wrong complained of was committed and persisted in. I trust, +however, that, though not indifferent to this, my indignation has +been mainly roused, as when I wrote "Evolution, Old and New," before +Mr. Darwin had given me personal ground of complaint against him, by +the wrongs he has inflicted on dead men, on whose behalf I now fight, +as I trust that some one--whom I thank by anticipation--may one day +fight on mine. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +Introduction to Professor Hering's lecture. + +After I had finished "Evolution, Old and New," I wrote some articles +for the Examiner, {52} in which I carried out the idea put forward in +"Life and Habit," that we are one person with our ancestors. It +follows from this, that all living animals and vegetables, being--as +appears likely if the theory of evolution is accepted--descended from +a common ancestor, are in reality one person, and unite to form a +body corporate, of whose existence, however, they are unconscious. +There is an obvious analogy between this and the manner in which the +component cells of our bodies unite to form our single individuality, +of which it is not likely they have a conception, and with which they +have probably only the same partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the +body corporate, have with them. In the articles above alluded to I +separated the organic from the inorganic, and when I came to rewrite +them, I found that this could not be done, and that I must +reconstruct what I had written. I was at work on this--to which I +hope to return shortly--when Dr. Krause's' "Erasmus Darwin," with its +preliminary notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and having been +compelled, as I have shown above, by Dr. Krause's work to look a +little into the German language, the opportunity seemed favourable +for going on with it and becoming acquainted with Professor Hering's +lecture. I therefore began to translate his lecture at once, with +the kind assistance of friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, +and found myself well rewarded for my trouble. + +Professor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as men who +have observed the action of living beings upon the stage of the +world, he from the point of view at once of a spectator and of one +who has free access to much of what goes on behind the scenes, I from +that of a spectator only, with none but the vaguest notion of the +actual manner in which the stage machinery is worked. If two men so +placed, after years of reflection, arrive independently of one +another at an identical conclusion as regards the manner in which +this machinery must have been invented and perfected, it is natural +that each should take a deep interest in the arguments of the other, +and be anxious to put them forward with the utmost possible +prominence. It seems to me that the theory which Professor Hering +and I are supporting in common, is one the importance of which is +hardly inferior to that of the theory of evolution itself--for it +puts the backbone, as it were, into the theory of evolution. I shall +therefore make no apology for laying my translation of Professor +Hering's work before my reader. + +Concerning the identity of the main idea put forward in "Life and +Habit" with that of Professor Hering's lecture, there can hardly, I +think, be two opinions. We both of us maintain that we grow our +limbs as we do, and possess the instincts we possess, because we +remember having grown our limbs in this way, and having had these +instincts in past generations when we were in the persons of our +forefathers--each individual life adding a small (but so small, in +any one lifetime, as to be hardly appreciable) amount of new +experience to the general store of memory; that we have thus got into +certain habits which we can now rarely break; and that we do much of +what we do unconsciously on the same principle as that (whatever it +is) on which we do all other habitual actions, with the greater ease +and unconsciousness the more often we repeat them. Not only is the +main idea the same, but I was surprised to find how often Professor +Hering and I had taken the same illustrations with which to point our +meaning. + +Nevertheless, we have each of us left undealt with some points which +the other has treated of. Professor Hering, for example, goes into +the question of what memory is, and this I did not venture to do. I +confined myself to saying that whatever memory was, heredity was +also. Professor Hering adds that memory is due to vibrations of the +molecules of the nerve fibres, which under certain circumstances +recur, and bring about a corresponding recurrence of visible action. + +This approaches closely to the theory concerning the physics of +memory which has been most generally adopted since the time of +Bonnet, who wrote as follows:- + + +"The soul never has a new sensation but by the inter position of the +senses. This sensation has been originally attached to the motion of +certain fibres. Its reproduction or recollection by the senses will +then be likewise connected with these same fibres." . . . {54a} + + +And again:- + + +"It appeared to me that since this memory is connected with the body, +it must depend upon some change which must happen to the primitive +state of the sensible fibres by the action of objects. I have, +therefore, admitted as probable that the state of the fibres on which +an object has acted is not precisely the same after this action as it +was before I have conjectured that the sensible fibres experience +more or less durable modifications, which constitute the physics of +memory and recollection." {54b} + + +Professor Hering comes near to endorsing this view, and uses it for +the purpose of explaining personal identity. This, at least, is what +he does in fact, though perhaps hardly in words. I did not say more +upon the essence of personality than that it was inseparable from the +idea that the various phases of our existence should have flowed one +out of the other, "in what we see as a continuous, though it may be +at times a very troubled, stream" {55} but I maintained that the +identity between two successive generations was of essentially the +same kind as that existing between an infant and an octogenarian. I +thus left personal identity unexplained, though insisting that it was +the key to two apparently distinct sets of phenomena, the one of +which had been hitherto considered incompatible with our ideas +concerning it. Professor Hering insists on this too, but he gives us +farther insight into what personal identity is, and explains how it +is that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also of personal +identity. + +He implies, though in the short space at his command he has hardly +said so in express terms, that personal identity as we commonly think +of it--that is to say, as confined to the single life of the +individual--consists in the uninterruptedness of a sufficient number +of vibrations, which have been communicated from molecule to molecule +of the nerve fibres, and which go on communicating each one of them +its own peculiar characteristic elements to the new matter which we +introduce into the body by way of nutrition. These vibrations may be +so gentle as to be imperceptible for years together; but they are +there, and may become perceived if they receive accession through the +running into them of a wave going the same way as themselves, which +wave has been set up in the ether by exterior objects and has been +communicated to the organs of sense. + +As these pages are on the point of leaving my hands, I see the +following remarkable passage in Mind for the current month, and +introduce it parenthetically here:- + + +"I followed the sluggish current of hyaline material issuing from +globules of most primitive living substance. Persistently it +followed its way into space, conquering, at first, the manifold +resistances opposed to it by its watery medium. Gradually, however, +its energies became exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed, +it stopped, an immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity. +Thus for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such +rays of some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By degrees, +then, or perhaps quite suddenly, HELP WOULD COME TO IT FROM FOREIGN +BUT CONGRUOUS SOURCES. IT WOULD SEEM TO COMBINE WITH OUTSIDE +COMPLEMENTAL MATTER drifted to it at random. Slowly it would regain +thereby its vital mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually +completely restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life, +it was ready to take part again in the progressive flow of a new +ray." {56} + + +To return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If this is so-- +but I should warn the reader that Professor Hering is not responsible +for this suggestion, though it seems to follow so naturally from what +he has said that I imagine he intended the inference to be drawn,--if +this is so, assimilation is nothing else than the communication of +its own rhythms from the assimilating to the assimilated substance, +to the effacement of the vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing in +this last; and suitability for food will depend upon whether the +rhythms of the substance eaten are such as to flow harmoniously into +and chime in with those of the body which has eaten it, or whether +they will refuse to act in concert with the new rhythms with which +they have become associated, and will persist obstinately in pursuing +their own course. In this case they will either be turned out of the +body at once, or will disconcert its arrangements, with perhaps fatal +consequences. This comes round to the conclusion I arrived at in +"Life and Habit," that assimilation was nothing but the imbuing of +one thing with the memories of another. (See "Life and Habit," pp. +136, 137, 140, &c.) + +It will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity into +phenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, so +Professor Hering resolves the phenomena of personal identity into the +phenomena of a living mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by +vibrations of a certain character--and leaves it there. We now want +to understand more about the vibrations. + +But if, according to Professor Hering, the personal identity of the +single life consists in the uninterruptedness of vibrations, so also +do the phenomena of heredity. For not only may vibrations of a +certain violence or character be persistent unperceived for many +years in a living body, and communicate themselves to the matter it +has assimilated, but they may, and will, under certain circumstances, +extend to the particle which is about to leave the parent body as the +germ of its future offspring. In this minute piece of matter there +must, if Professor Hering is right, be an infinity of rhythmic +undulations incessantly vibrating with more or less activity, and +ready to be set in more active agitation at a moment's warning, under +due accession of vibration from exterior objects. On the occurrence +of such stimulus, that is to say, when a vibration of a suitable +rhythm from without concurs with one within the body so as to augment +it, the agitation may gather such strength that the touch, as it +were, is given to a house of cards, and the whole comes toppling +over. This toppling over is what we call action; and when it is the +result of the disturbance of certain usual arrangements in certain +usual ways, we call it the habitual development and instinctive +characteristics of the race. In either case, then, whether we +consider the continued identity of the individual in what we call his +single life, or those features in his offspring which we refer to +heredity, the same explanation of the phenomena is applicable. It +follows from this as a matter of course, that the continuation of +life or personal identity in the individual and the race are +fundamentally of the same kind, or, in other words, that there is a +veritable prolongation of identity or oneness of personality between +parents and offspring. Professor Hering reaches his conclusion by +physical methods, while I reached mine, as I am told, by +metaphysical. I never yet could understand what "metaphysics" and +"metaphysical" mean; but I should have said I reached it by the +exercise of a little common sense while regarding certain facts which +are open to every one. There is, however, so far as I can see, no +difference in the conclusion come to. + +The view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to throw +light upon that difficult question, the manner in which neuter bees +acquire structures and instincts, not one of which was possessed by +any of their direct ancestors. Those who have read "Life and Habit" +may remember, I suggested that the food prepared in the stomachs of +the nurse-bees, with which the neuter working bees are fed, might +thus acquire a quasi-seminal character, and be made a means of +communicating the instincts and structures in question. {58} If +assimilation be regarded as the receiving by one substance of the +rhythms or undulations from another, the explanation just referred to +receives an accession of probability. + +If it is objected that Professor Hering's theory as to continuity of +vibrations being the key to memory and heredity involves the action +of more wheels within wheels than our imagination can come near to +comprehending, and also that it supposes this complexity of action as +going on within a compass which no unaided eye can detect by reason +of its littleness, so that we are carried into a fairy land with +which sober people should have nothing to do, it may be answered that +the case of light affords us an example of our being truly aware of a +multitude of minute actions, the hundred million millionth part of +which we should have declared to be beyond our ken, could we not +incontestably prove that we notice and count them all with a very +sufficient and creditable accuracy. + +"Who would not," {59a} says Sir John Herschel, "ask for demonstration +when told that a gnat's wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many +hundred times in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly +organised beings many thousands of whose bodies laid close together +would not extend to an inch? But what are these to the astonishing +truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us +that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes is +affected with a succession of periodical movements, recurring +regularly at equal intervals, no less than five hundred millions of +millions of times in a second; that it is by such movements +communicated to the nerves of our eyes that we see; nay, more, that +it is the DIFFERENCE in the frequency of their recurrence which +affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour; that, for +instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are +affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times; +of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of +times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of +times per second? {59b} Do not such things sound more like the +ravings of madmen than the sober conclusions of people in their +waking senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one +may most certainly arrive who will only be at the pains of examining +the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained." + +A man counting as hard as he can repeat numbers one after another, +and never counting more than a hundred, so that he shall have no long +words to repeat, may perhaps count ten thousand, or a hundred a +hundred times over, in an hour. At this rate, counting night and +day, and allowing no time for rest or refreshment, he would count one +million in four days and four hours, or say four days only. To count +a million a million times over, he would require four million days, +or roughly ten thousand years; for five hundred millions of millions, +he must have the utterly unrealisable period of five million years. +Yet he actually goes through this stupendous piece of reckoning +unconsciously hour after hour, day after day, it may be for eighty +years, OFTEN IN EACH SECOND of daylight; and how much more by +artificial or subdued light I do not know. He knows whether his eye +is being struck five hundred millions of millions of times, or only +four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times. He thus +shows that he estimates or counts each set of vibrations, and +registers them according to his results. If a man writes upon the +back of a British Museum blotting-pad of the common nonpareil +pattern, on which there are some thousands of small spaces each +differing in colour from that which is immediately next to it, his +eye will, nevertheless, without an effort assign its true colour to +each one of these spaces. This implies that he is all the time +counting and taking tally of the difference in the numbers of the +vibrations from each one of the small spaces in question. Yet the +mind that is capable of such stupendous computations as these so long +as it knows nothing about them, makes no little fuss about the +conscious adding together of such almost inconceivably minute numbers +as, we will say, 2730169 and 5790135--or, if these be considered too +large, as 27 and 19. Let the reader remember that he cannot by any +effort bring before his mind the units, not in ones, BUT IN MILLIONS +OF MILLIONS of the processes which his visual organs are undergoing +second after second from dawn till dark, and then let him demur if he +will to the possibility of the existence in a germ, of currents and +undercurrents, and rhythms and counter rhythms, also by the million +of millions--each one of which, on being overtaken by the rhythm from +without that chimes in with and stimulates it, may be the beginning +of that unsettlement of equilibrium which results in the crash of +action, unless it is timely counteracted. + +If another objector maintains that the vibrations within the germ as +above supposed must be continually crossing and interfering with one +another in such a manner as to destroy the continuity of any one +series, it may be replied that the vibrations of the light proceeding +from the objects that surround us traverse one another by the +millions of millions every second yet in no way interfere with one +another. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the difficulties of +the theory towards which I suppose Professor Hering to incline are +like those of all other theories on the same subject--almost +inconceivably great. + +In "Life and Habit" I did not touch upon these vibrations, knowing +nothing about them. Here, then, is one important point of +difference, not between the conclusions arrived at, but between the +aim and scope of the work that Professor Hering and I severally +attempted. Another difference consists in the points at which we +have left off. Professor Hering, having established his main thesis, +is content. I, on the other hand, went on to maintain that if vigour +was due to memory, want of vigour was due to want of memory. Thus I +was led to connect memory with the phenomena of hybridism and of old +age; to show that the sterility of certain animals under +domestication is only a phase of, and of a piece with, the very +common sterility of hybrids--phenomena which at first sight have no +connection either with each other or with memory, but the connection +between which will never be lost sight of by those who have once laid +hold of it. I also pointed out how exactly the phenomena of +development agreed with those of the abeyance and recurrence of +memory, and the rationale of the fact that puberty in so many animals +and plants comes about the end of development. The principle +underlying longevity follows as a matter of course. I have no idea +how far Professor Hering would agree with me in the position I have +taken in respect of these phenomena, but there is nothing in the +above at variance with his lecture. + +Another matter on which Professor Hering has not touched is the +bearing of his theory on that view of evolution which is now commonly +accepted. It is plain he accepts evolution, but it does not appear +that he sees how fatal his theory is to any view of evolution except +a teleological one--the purpose residing within the animal and not +without it. There is, however, nothing in his lecture to indicate +that he does not see this. + +It should be remembered that the question whether memory is due to +the persistence within the body of certain vibrations, which have +been already set up within the bodies of its ancestors, is true or +no, will not affect the position I took up in "Life and Habit." In +that book I have maintained nothing more than that whatever memory is +heredity is also. I am not committed to the vibration theory of +memory, though inclined to accept it on a prima facie view. All I am +committed to is, that if memory is due to persistence of vibrations, +so is heredity; and if memory is not so due, then no more is +heredity. + +Finally, I may say that Professor Hering's lecture, the passage +quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of this volume, and a few +hints in the extracts from Mr. Patrick Mathew which I have quoted in +"Evolution, Old and New," are all that I yet know of in other writers +as pointing to the conclusion that the phenomena of heredity are +phenomena also of memory. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +Professor Ewald Hering "On Memory." + +I will now lay before the reader a translation of Professor Hering's +own words. I have had it carefully revised throughout by a gentleman +whose native language is German, but who has resided in England for +many years past. The original lecture is entitled "On Memory as a +Universal Function of Organised Matter," and was delivered at the +anniversary meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, +May 30, 1870. {63} It is as follows:- + +"When the student of Nature quits the narrow workshop of his own +particular inquiry, and sets out upon an excursion into the vast +kingdom of philosophical investigation, he does so, doubtless, in the +hope of finding the answer to that great riddle, to the solution of a +small part of which he devotes his life. Those, however, whom he +leaves behind him still working at their own special branch of +inquiry, regard his departure with secret misgivings on his behalf, +while the born citizens of the kingdom of speculation among whom he +would naturalise himself, receive him with well-authorised distrust. +He is likely, therefore, to lose ground with the first, while not +gaining it with the second. + +The subject to the consideration of which I would now solicit your +attention does certainly appear likely to lure us on towards the +flattering land of speculation, but bearing in mind what I have just +said, I will beware of quitting the department of natural science to +which I have devoted myself hitherto. I shall, however, endeavour to +attain its highest point, so as to take a freer view of the +surrounding territory. + +It will soon appear that I should fail in this purpose if my remarks +were to confine themselves solely to physiology. I hope to show how +far psychological investigations also afford not only permissible, +but indispensable, aid to physiological inquiries. + +Consciousness is an accompaniment of that animal and human +organisation and of that material mechanism which it is the province +of physiology to explore; and as long as the atoms of the brain +follow their due course according to certain definite laws, there +arises an inner life which springs from sensation and idea, from +feeling and will. + +We feel this in our own cases; it strikes us in our converse with +other people; we can see it plainly in the more highly organised +animals; even the lowest forms of life bear traces of it; and who can +draw a line in the kingdom of organic life, and say that it is here +the soul ceases? + +With what eyes, then, is physiology to regard this two-fold life of +the organised world? Shall she close them entirely to one whole side +of it, that she may fix them more intently on the other? + +So long as the physiologist is content to be a physicist, and nothing +more--using the word "physicist" in its widest signification--his +position in regard to the organic world is one of extreme but +legitimate one-sidedness. As the crystal to the mineralogist or the +vibrating string to the acoustician, so from this point of view both +man and the lower animals are to the physiologist neither more nor +less than the matter of which they consist. That animals feel desire +and repugnance, that the material mechanism of the human frame is in +chose connection with emotions of pleasure or pain, and with the +active idea-life of consciousness--this cannot, in the eyes of the +physicist, make the animal or human body into anything more than what +it actually is. To him it is a combination of matter, subjected to +the same inflexible laws as stones and plants--a material +combination, the outward and inward movements of which interact as +cause and effect, and are in as close connection with each other and +with their surroundings as the working of a machine with the +revolutions of the wheels that compose it. + +Neither sensation, nor idea, nor yet conscious will, can form a link +in this chain of material occurrences which make up the physical life +of an organism. If I am asked a question and reply to it, the +material process which the nerve fibre conveys from the organ of +hearing to the brain must travel through my brain as an actual and +material process before it can reach the nerves which will act upon +my organs of speech. It cannot, on reaching a given place in the +brain, change then and there into an immaterial something, and turn +up again some time afterwards in another part of the brain as a +material process. The traveller in the desert might as well hope, +before he again goes forth into the wilderness of reality, to take +rest and refreshment in the oasis with which the Fata Morgana illudes +him; or as well might a prisoner hope to escape from his prison +through a door reflected in a mirror. + +So much for the physiologist in his capacity of pure physicist. As +long as he remains behind the scenes in painful exploration of the +details of the machinery--as long as he only observes the action of +the players from behind the stage--so long will he miss the spirit of +the performance, which is, nevertheless, caught easily by one who +sees it from the front. May he not, then, for once in a way, be +allowed to change his standpoint? True, he came not to see the +representation of an imaginary world; he is in search of the actual; +but surely it must help him to a comprehension of the dramatic +apparatus itself, and of the manner in which it is worked, if he were +to view its action from in front as well as from behind, or at least +allow himself to hear what sober-minded spectators can tell him upon +the subject. + +There can be no question as to the answer; and hence it comes that +psychology is such an indispensable help to physiology, whose fault +it only in small part is that she has hitherto made such little use +of this assistance; for psychology has been late in beginning to till +her fertile field with the plough of the inductive method, and it is +only from ground so tilled that fruits can spring which can be of +service to physiology. + +If, then, the student of nervous physiology takes his stand between +the physicist and the psychologist, and if the first of these rightly +makes the unbroken causative continuity of all material processes an +axiom of his system of investigation, the prudent psychologist, on +the other hand, will investigate the laws of conscious life according +to the inductive method, and will hence, as much as the physicist, +make the existence of fixed laws his initial assumption. If, again, +the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his +conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his +body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain +limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one +assumption more, namely, THAT THIS MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN THE +SPIRITUAL AND THE MATERIAL IS ITSELF ALSO DEPENDENT ON LAW, and he +has discovered the bond by which the science of matter and the +science of consciousness are united into a single whole. + +Thus regarded, the phenomena of consciousness become functions of the +material changes of organised substance, and inversely--though this +is involved in the use of the word "function"--the material processes +of brain substance become functions of the phenomena of +consciousness. For when two variables are so dependent upon one +another in the changes they undergo in accordance with fixed laws +that a change in either involves simultaneous and corresponding +change in the other, the one is called a function of the other. + +This, then, by no means implies that the two variables above-named-- +matter and consciousness--stand in the relation of cause and effect, +antecedent and consequence, to one another. For on this subject we +know nothing. + +The materialist regards consciousness as a product or result of +matter, while the idealist holds matter to be a result of +consciousness, and a third maintains that matter and spirit are +identical; with all this the physiologist, as such, has nothing +whatever to do; his sole concern is with the fact that matter and +consciousness are functions one of the other. + +By the help of this hypothesis of the functional interdependence of +matter and spirit, modern physiology is enabled to bring the +phenomena of consciousness within the domain of her investigations +without leaving the terra firma of scientific methods. The +physiologist, as physicist, can follow the ray of light and the wave +of sound or heat till they reach the organ of sense. He can watch +them entering upon the ends of the nerves, and finding their way to +the cells of the brain by means of the series of undulations or +vibrations which they establish in the nerve filaments. Here, +however, he loses all trace of them. On the other hand, still +looking with the eyes of a pure physicist, he sees sound waves of +speech issue from the mouth of a speaker; he observes the motion of +his own limbs, and finds how this is conditional upon muscular +contractions occasioned by the motor nerves, and how these nerves are +in their turn excited by the cells of the central organ. But here +again his knowledge comes to an end. True, he sees indications of +the bridge which is to carry him from excitation of the sensory to +that of the motor nerves in the labyrinth of intricately interwoven +nerve cells, but he knows nothing of the inconceivably complex +process which is introduced at this stage. Here the physiologist +will change his standpoint; what matter will not reveal to his +inquiry, he will find in the mirror, as it were, of consciousness; by +way of a reflection, indeed, only, but a reflection, nevertheless, +which stands in intimate relation to the object of his inquiry. When +at this point he observes how one idea gives rise to another, how +closely idea is connected with sensation and sensation with will, and +how thought, again, and feeling are inseparable from one another, he +will be compelled to suppose corresponding successions of material +processes, which generate and are closely connected with one another, +and which attend the whole machinery of conscious life, according to +the law of the functional interdependence of matter and +consciousness. + + +After this explanation I shall venture to regard under a single +aspect a great series of phenomena which apparently have nothing to +do with one another, and which belong partly to the conscious and +partly to the unconscious life of organised beings. I shall regard +them as the outcome of one and the same primary force of organised +matter--namely, its memory or power of reproduction. + +The word "memory" is often understood as though it meant nothing more +than our faculty of intentionally reproducing ideas or series of +ideas. But when the figures and events of bygone days rise up again +unbidden in our minds, is not this also an act of recollection or +memory? We have a perfect right to extend our conception of memory +so as to make it embrace involuntary reproductions, of sensations, +ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we find, on having done so, that +we have so far enlarged her boundaries that she proves to be an +ultimate and original power, the source, and at the same time the +unifying bond, of our whole conscious life. + +We know that when an impression, or a series of impressions, has been +made upon our senses for a long time, and always in the same way, it +may come to impress itself in such a manner upon the so-called sense- +memory that hours afterwards, and though a hundred other things have +occupied our attention meanwhile, it will yet return suddenly to our +consciousness with all the force and freshness of the original +sensation. A whole group of sensations is sometimes reproduced in +its due sequence as regards time and space, with so much reality that +it illudes us, as though things were actually present which have long +ceased to be so. We have here a striking proof of the fact that +after both conscious sensation and perception have been extinguished, +their material vestiges yet remain in our nervous system by way of a +change in its molecular or atomic disposition, {69} that enables the +nerve substance to reproduce all the physical processes of the +original sensation, and with these the corresponding psychical +processes of sensation and perception. + +Every hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present with each one of +us, but in a less degree than this. We are all at times aware of a +host of more or less faded recollections of earlier impressions, +which we either summon intentionally or which come upon us +involuntarily. Visions of absent people come and go before us as +faint and fleeting shadows, and the notes of long-forgotten melodies +float around us, not actually heard, but yet perceptible. + +Some things and occurrences, especially if they have happened to us +only once and hurriedly, will be reproducible by the memory in +respect only of a few conspicuous qualities; in other cases those +details alone will recur to us which we have met with elsewhere, and +for the reception of which the brain is, so to speak, attuned. These +last recollections find themselves in fuller accord with our +consciousness, and enter upon it more easily and energetically; hence +also their aptitude for reproduction is enhanced; so that what is +common to many things, and is therefore felt and perceived with +exceptional frequency, becomes reproduced so easily that eventually +the actual presence of the corresponding external stimuli is no +longer necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations set up by faint +stimuli from within. {70} Sensations arising in this way from +within, as, for example, an idea of whiteness, are not, indeed, +perceived with the full freshness of those raised by the actual +presence of white light without us, but they are of the same kind; +they are feeble repetitions of one and the same material brain +process--of one and the same conscious sensation. Thus the idea of +whiteness arises in our mind as a faint, almost extinct, sensation. + +In this way those qualities which are common to many things become +separated, as it were, in our memory from the objects with which they +were originally associated, and attain an independent existence in +our consciousness as IDEAS and CONCEPTIONS, and thus the whole rich +superstructure of our ideas and conceptions is built up from +materials supplied by memory. + +On examining more closely, we see plainly that memory is a faculty +not only of our conscious states, but also, and much more so, of our +unconscious ones. I was conscious of this or that yesterday, and am +again conscious of it to-day. Where has it been meanwhile? It does +not remain continuously within my consciousness, nevertheless it +returns after having quitted it. Our ideas tread but for a moment +upon the stage of consciousness, and then go back again behind the +scenes, to make way for others in their place. As the player is only +a king when he is on the stage, so they too exist as ideas so long +only as they are recognised. How do they live when they are off the +stage? For we know that they are living somewhere; give them their +cue and they reappear immediately. They do not exist continuously as +ideas; what is continuous is the special disposition of nerve +substance in virtue of which this substance gives out to-day the same +sound which it gave yesterday if it is rightly struck. {71} +Countless reproductions of organic processes of our brain connect +themselves orderly together, so that one acts as a stimulus to the +next, but a phenomenon of consciousness is not necessarily attached +to every link in the chain. From this it arises that a series of +ideas may appear to disregard the order that would be observed in +purely material processes of brain substance unaccompanied by +consciousness; but on the other hand it becomes possible for a long +chain of recollections to have its due development without each link +in the chain being necessarily perceived by ourselves. One may +emerge from the bosom of our unconscious thoughts without fully +entering upon the stage of conscious perception; another dies away in +unconsciousness, leaving no successor to take its place. 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. Who can hope after this to disentangle the infinite +intricacy of our inner life? For we can only follow its threads so +far as they have strayed over within the bounds of consciousness. We +might as well hope to familiarise ourselves with the world of forms +that teem within the bosom of the sea by observing the few that now +and again come to the surface and soon return into the deep. + +The bond of union, therefore, which connects the individual phenomena +of our consciousness lies in our unconscious world; and as we know +nothing of this but what investigation into the laws of matter teach +us--as, in fact, for purely experimental purposes, "matter" and the +"unconscious" must be one and the same thing--so the physiologist has +a full right to denote memory as, in the wider sense of the word, a +function of brain substance, whose results, it is true, fall, as +regards one part of them, into the domain of consciousness, while +another and not less essential part escapes unperceived as purely +material processes. + +The perception of a body in space is a very complicated process. I +see suddenly before me, for example, a white ball. This has the +effect of conveying to me more than a mere sensation of whiteness. I +deduce the spherical character of the ball from the gradations of +light and shade upon its surface. I form a correct appreciation of +its distance from my eye, and hence again I deduce an inference as to +the size of the ball. What an expenditure of sensations, ideas, and +inferences is found to be necessary before all this can be brought +about; yet the production of a correct perception of the ball was the +work only of a few seconds, and I was unconscious of the individual +processes by means of which it was effected, the result as a whole +being alone present in my consciousness. + +The nerve substance preserves faithfully the memory of habitual +actions. {72} Perceptions which were once long and difficult, +requiring constant and conscious attention, come to reproduce +themselves in transient and abridged guise, without such duration and +intensity that each link has to pass over the threshold of our +consciousness. + +We have chains of material nerve processes to which eventually a link +becomes attached that is attended with conscious perception. This is +sufficiently established from the standpoint of the physiologist, and +is also proved by our unconsciousness of many whole series of ideas +and of the inferences we draw from them. If the soul is not to ship +through the fingers of physiology, she must hold fast to the +considerations suggested by our unconscious states. As far, however, +as the investigations of the pure physicist are concerned, the +unconscious and matter are one and the same thing, and the physiology +of the unconscious is no "philosophy of the unconscious." + +By far the greater number of our movements are the result of long and +arduous practice. The harmonious cooperation of the separate +muscles, the finely adjusted measure of participation which each +contributes to the working of the whole, must, as a rule, have been +laboriously acquired, in respect of most of the movements that are +necessary in order to effect it. How long does it not take each note +to find its way from the eyes to the fingers of one who is beginning +to learn the pianoforte; and, on the other hand, what an astonishing +performance is the playing of the professional pianist. The sight of +each note occasions the corresponding movement of the fingers with +the speed of thought--a hurried glance at the page of music before +him suffices to give rise to a whole series of harmonies; nay, when a +melody has been long practised, it can be played even while the +player's attention is being given to something of a perfectly +different character over and above his music. + +The will need now no longer wend its way to each individual finger +before the desired movements can be extorted from it; no longer now +does a sustained attention keep watch over the movements of each +limb; the will need exercise a supervising control only. At the word +of command the muscles become active, with a due regard to time and +proportion, and go on working, so long as they are bidden to keep in +their accustomed groove, while a slight hint on the part of the will, +will indicate to them their further journey. How could all this be +if every part of the central nerve system, by means of which movement +is effected, were not able {74a} to reproduce whole series of +vibrations, which at an earlier date required the constant and +continuous participation of consciousness, but which are now set in +motion automatically on a mere touch, as it were, from consciousness- +-if it were not able to reproduce them the more quickly and easily in +proportion to the frequency of the repetitions--if, in fact, there +was no power of recollecting earlier performances? Our perceptive +faculties must have remained always at their lowest stage if we had +been compelled to build up consciously every process from the details +of the sensation-causing materials tendered to us by our senses; nor +could our voluntary movements have got beyond the helplessness of the +child, if the necessary impulses could only be imparted to every +movement through effort of the will and conscious reproduction of all +the corresponding ideas--if, in a word, the motor nerve system had +not also its memory, {74b} though that memory is unperceived by +ourselves. The power of this memory is what is called "the force of +habit." + +It seems, then, that we owe to memory almost all that we either have +or are; that our ideas and conceptions are its work, and that our +every perception, thought, and movement is derived from this source. +Memory collects the countless phenomena of our existence into a +single whole; and as our bodies would be scattered into the dust of +their component atoms if they were not held together by the +attraction of matter, so our consciousness would be broken up into as +many fragments as we had lived seconds but for the binding and +unifying force of memory. + +We have already repeatedly seen that the reproductions of organic +processes, brought about by means of the memory of the nervous +system, enter but partly within the domain of consciousness, +remaining unperceived in other and not less important respects. This +is also confirmed by numerous facts in the life of that part of the +nervous system which ministers almost exclusively to our unconscious +life processes. For the memory of the so-called sympathetic +ganglionic system is no less rich than that of the brain and spinal +marrow, and a great part of the medical art consists in making wise +use of the assistance thus afforded us. + +To bring, however, this part of my observations to a close, I will +take leave of the nervous system, and glance hurriedly at other +phases of organised matter, where we meet with the same powers of +reproduction, but in simpler guise. + +Daily experience teaches us that a muscle becomes the stronger the +more we use it. The muscular fibre, which in the first instance may +have answered but feebly to the stimulus conducted to it by the motor +nerve, does so with the greater energy the more often it is +stimulated, provided, of course, that reasonable times are allowed +for repose. After each individual action it becomes more capable, +more disposed towards the same kind of work, and has a greater +aptitude for repetition of the same organic processes. It gains also +in weight, for it assimilates more matter than when constantly at +rest. We have here, in its simplest form, and in a phase which comes +home most closely to the comprehension of the physicist, the same +power of reproduction which we encountered when we were dealing with +nerve substance, but under such far more complicated conditions. And +what is known thus certainly from muscle substance holds good with +greater or less plainness for all our organs. More especially may we +note the fact, that after increased use, alternated with times of +repose, there accrues to the organ in all animal economy an increased +power of execution with an increased power of assimilation and a gain +in size. + +This gain in size consists not only in the enlargement of the +individual cells or fibres of which the organ is composed, but in the +multiplication of their number; for when cells have grown to a +certain size they give rise to others, which inherit more or less +completely the qualities of those from which they came, and therefore +appear to be repetitions of the same cell. This growth, and +multiplication of cells is only a special phase of those manifold +functions which characterise organised matter, and which consist not +only in what goes on within the cell substance as alterations or +undulatory movement of the molecular disposition, but also in that +which becomes visible outside the cells as change of shape, +enlargement, or subdivision. Reproduction of performance, therefore, +manifests itself to us as reproduction of the cells themselves, as +may be seen most plainly in the case of plants, whose chief work +consists in growth, whereas with animal organism other faculties +greatly preponderate. + +Let us now take a brief survey of a class of facts in the case of +which we may most abundantly observe the power of memory in organised +matter. We have ample evidence of the fact that characteristics of +an organism may descend to offspring which the organism did not +inherit, but which it acquired owing to the special circumstances +under which it lived; and that, in consequence, every organism +imparts to the germ that issues from it a small heritage of +acquisitions which it has added during its own lifetime to the gross +inheritance of its race. + +When we reflect that we are dealing with the heredity of acquired +qualities which came to development in the most diverse parts of the +parent organism, it must seem in a high degree mysterious how those +parts can have any kind of influence upon a germ which develops +itself in an entirely different place. Many mystical theories have +been propounded for the elucidation of this question, but the +following reflections may serve to bring the cause nearer to the +comprehension of the physiologist. + +The nerve substance, in spite of its thousandfold subdivision as +cells and fibres, forms, nevertheless, a united whole, which is +present directly in all organs--nay, as more recent histology +conjectures, in each cell of the more important organs--or is at +least in ready communication with them by means of the living, +irritable, and therefore highly conductive substance of other cells. +Through the connection thus established all organs find themselves in +such a condition of more or less mutual interdependence upon one +another, that events which happen to one are repeated in others, and +a notification, however slight, of a vibration set up {77} in one +quarter is at once conveyed even to the farthest parts of the body. +With this easy and rapid intercourse between all parts is associated +the more difficult communication that goes on by way of the +circulation of sap or blood. + +We see, further, that the process of the development of all germs +that are marked out for independent existence causes a powerful +reaction, even from the very beginning of that existence, on both the +conscious and unconscious life of the whole organism. We may see +this from the fact that the organ of reproduction stands in closer +and more important relation to the remaining parts, and especially to +the nervous system, than do the other organs; and, inversely, that +both the perceived and unperceived events affecting the whole +organism find a more marked response in the reproductive system than +elsewhere. + +We can now see with sufficient plainness in what the material +connection is established between the acquired peculiarities of an +organism, and the proclivity on the part of the germ in virtue of +which it develops the special characteristics of its parent. + +The microscope teaches us that no difference can be perceived between +one germ and another; it cannot, however, be objected on this account +that the determining cause of its ulterior development must be +something immaterial, rather than the specific kind of its material +constitution. + +The curves and surfaces which the mathematician conceives, or finds +conceivable, are more varied and infinite than the forms of animal +life. Let us suppose an infinitely small segment to be taken from +every possible curve; each one of these will appear as like every +other as one germ is to another, yet the whole of every curve lies +dormant, as it were, in each of them, and if the mathematician +chooses to develop it, it will take the path indicated by the +elements of each segment. + +It is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine distinctions as +physiology must assume lie beyond the limits of what is conceivable +by the human mind. An infinitely small change of position on the +part of a point, or in the relations of the parts of a segment of a +curve to one another, suffices to alter the law of its whole path, +and so in like manner an infinitely small influence exercised by the +parent organism on the molecular disposition of the germ {78} may +suffice to produce a determining effect upon its whole farther +development. + +What is the descent of special peculiarities but a reproduction on +the part of organised matter of processes in which it once took part +as a germ in the germ-containing organs of its parent, and of which +it seems still to retain a recollection that reappears when time and +the occasion serve, inasmuch as it responds to the same or like +stimuli in a like way to that in which the parent organism responded, +of which it was once part, and in the events of whose history it was +itself also an accomplice? {79} When an action through long habit or +continual practice has become so much a second nature to any +organisation that its effects will penetrate, though ever so faintly, +into the germ that lies within it, and when this last comes to find +itself in a new sphere, to extend itself, and develop into a new +creature--(the individual parts of which are still always the +creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so that what is reproduced is +the same being as that in company with which the germ once lived, and +of which it was once actually a part)--all this is as wonderful as +when a grey-haired man remembers the events of his own childhood; but +it is not more so. Whether we say that the same organised substance +is again reproducing its past experience, or whether we prefer to +hold that an offshoot or part of the original substance has waxed and +developed itself since separation from the parent stock, it is plain +that this will constitute a difference of degree, not kind. + +When we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired +characteristics can be reproduced in offspring, we are apt to forget +that offspring is only a full-sized reproduction of the parent--a +reproduction, moreover, that goes as far as possible into detail. We +are so accustomed to consider family resemblance a matter of course, +that we are sometimes surprised when a child is in some respect +unlike its parent; surely, however, the infinite number of points in +respect of which parents and children resemble one another is a more +reasonable ground for our surprise. + +But if the substance of the germ can reproduce characteristics +acquired by the parent during its single life, how much more will it +not be able to reproduce those that were congenital to the parent, +and which have happened through countless generations to the +organised matter of which the germ of to-day is a fragment? We +cannot wonder that action already taken on innumerable past occasions +by organised matter is more deeply impressed upon the recollection of +the germ to which it gives rise than action taken once only during a +single lifetime. {80a} + +We must bear in mind that every organised being now in existence +represents the last link of an inconceivably long series of +organisms, which come down in a direct line of descent, and of which +each has inherited a part of the acquired characteristics of its +predecessor. Everything, furthermore, points in the direction of our +believing that at the beginning of this chain there existed an +organism of the very simplest kind, something, in fact, like those +which we call organised germs. The chain of living beings thus +appears to be the magnificent achievement of the reproductive power +of the original organic structure from which they have all descended. +As this subdivided itself and transmitted its characteristics {80b} +to its descendants, these acquired new ones, and in their turn +transmitted them--all new germs transmitting the chief part of what +had happened to their predecessors, while the remaining part lapsed +out of their memory, circumstances not stimulating it to reproduce +itself. + +An organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of the +unconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever increasing and +ever dividing itself, ever assimilating new matter and returning it +in changed shape to the inorganic world, ever receiving some new +thing into its memory, and transmitting its acquisitions by the way +of reproduction, grows continually richer and richer the longer it +lives. + +Thus regarded, the development of one of the more highly organised +animals represents a continuous series of organised recollections +concerning the past development of the great chain of living forms, +the last link of which stands before us in the particular animal we +may be considering. As a complicated perception may arise by means +of a rapid and superficial reproduction of long and laboriously +practised brain processes, so a germ in the course of its development +hurries through a series of phases, hinting at them only. Often and +long foreshadowed in theories of varied characters, this conception +has only now found correct exposition from a naturalist of our own +time. {81} For Truth hides herself under many disguises from those +who seek her, but in the end stands unveiled before the eyes of him +whom she has chosen. + +Not only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner +conformation of body, organs, and cells, but the habitual actions of +the parent are also reproduced. The chicken on emerging from the +eggshell runs off as its mother ran off before it; yet what an +extraordinary complication of emotions and sensations is necessary in +order to preserve equilibrium in running. Surely the supposition of +an inborn capacity for the reproduction of these intricate actions +can alone explain the facts. As habitual practice becomes a second +nature to the individual during his single lifetime, so the often- +repeated action of each generation becomes a second nature to the +race. + +The chicken not only displays great dexterity in the performance of +movements for the effecting of which it has an innate capacity, but +it exhibits also a tolerably high perceptive power. It immediately +picks up any grain that may be thrown to it. Yet, in order to do +this, more is wanted than a mere visual perception of the grains; +there must be an accurate apprehension of the direction and distance +of the precise spot in which each grain is lying, and there must be +no less accuracy in the adjustment of the movements of the head and +of the whole body. The chicken cannot have gained experience in +these respects while it was still in the egg. It gained it rather +from the thousands of thousands of beings that have lived before it, +and from which it is directly descended. + +The memory of organised substance displays itself here in the most +surprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of the light proceeding from +the grain that affects the retina of the chicken, {82} gives occasion +for the reproduction of a many-linked chain of sensations, +perceptions, and emotions, which were never yet brought together in +the case of the individual before us. We are accustomed to regard +these surprising performances of animals as manifestations of what we +call instinct, and the mysticism of natural philosophy has ever shown +a predilection for this theme; but if we regard instinct as the +outcome of the memory or reproductive power of organised substance, +and if we ascribe a memory to the race as we already ascribe it to +the individual, then instinct becomes at once intelligible, and the +physiologist at the same time finds a point of contact which will +bring it into connection with the great series of facts indicated +above as phenomena of the reproductive faculty. Here, then, we have +a physical explanation which has not, indeed, been given yet, but the +time for which appears to be rapidly approaching. + +When, in accordance with its instinct, the caterpillar becomes a +chrysalis, or the bird builds its nest, or the bee its cell, these +creatures act consciously and not as blind machines. They know how +to vary their proceedings within certain limits in conformity with +altered circumstances, and they are thus liable to make mistakes. +They feel pleasure when their work advances and pain if it is +hindered; they learn by the experience thus acquired, and build on a +second occasion better than on the first; but that even in the outset +they hit so readily upon the most judicious way of achieving their +purpose, and that their movements adapt themselves so admirably and +automatically to the end they have in view--surely this is owing to +the inherited acquisitions of the memory of their nerve substance, +which requires but a touch and it will fall at once to the most +appropriate kind of activity, thinking always, and directly, of +whatever it is that may be wanted. + +Man can readily acquire surprising kinds of dexterity if he confines +his attention to their acquisition. Specialisation is the mother of +proficiency. He who marvels at the skill with which the spider +weaves her web should bear in mind that she did not learn her art all +on a sudden, but that innumerable generations of spiders acquired it +toilsomely and step by step--this being about all that, as a general +rule, they did acquire. Man took to bows and arrows if his nets +failed him--the spider starved. Thus we see the body and--what most +concerns us--the whole nervous system of the new-born animal +constructed beforehand, and, as it were, ready attuned for +intercourse with the outside world in which it is about to play its +part, by means of its tendency to respond to external stimuli in the +same manner as it has often heretofore responded in the persons of +its ancestors. + +We naturally ask whether the brain and nervous system of the human +infant are subjected to the principles we have laid down above? Man +certainly finds it difficult to acquire arts of which the lower +animals are born masters; but the brain of man at birth is much +farther from its highest development than is the brain of an animal. +It not only grows for a longer time, but it becomes stronger than +that of other living beings. The brain of man may be said to be +exceptionally young at birth. The lower animal is born precocious, +and acts precociously; it resembles those infant prodigies whose +brain, as it were, is born old into the world, but who, in spite of, +or rather in addition to, their rich endowment at birth, in after +life develop as much mental power as others who were less splendidly +furnished to start with, but born with greater freshness of youth. +Man's brain, and indeed his whole body, affords greater scope for +individuality, inasmuch as a relatively greater part of it is of +post-natal growth. It develops under the influence of impressions +made by the environment upon its senses, and thus makes its +acquisitions in a more special and individual manner, whereas the +animal receives them ready made, and of a more final, stereotyped +character. + +Nevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain and body +of the new-born infant a far-reaching power of remembering or +reproducing things which have already come to their development +thousands of times over in the persons of its ancestors. It is in +virtue of this that it acquires proficiency in the actions necessary +for its existence--so far as it was not already at birth proficient +in them--much more quickly and easily than would be otherwise +possible; but what we call instinct in the case of animals takes in +man the looser form of aptitude, talent, and genius. {84} Granted +that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of their taking form +so easily and certainly from out of the chaos of his sensations, is +due not to his own labour, but to that of the brain substance of the +thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is descended. +Theories concerning the development of individual consciousness which +deny heredity or the power of transmission, and insist upon an +entirely fresh start for every human soul, as though the infinite +number of generations that have gone before us might as well have +never lived for all the effect they have had upon ourselves,--such +theories will contradict the facts of our daily experience at every +touch and turn. + +The brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble man +in the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than those +connected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive +instinct affected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world. +It is in respect of these instincts, therefore, and of the means to +gratify them, that the memory of organised substance is strongest-- +the impulses and instincts that arise hence having still paramount +power over the minds of men. The spiritual life has been superadded +slowly; its most splendid outcome belongs to the latest epoch in the +history of organised matter, nor has any very great length of time +elapsed since the nervous system was first crowned with the glory of +a large and well-developed brain. + +Oral tradition and written history have been called the memory of +man, and this is not without its truth. But there is another and a +living memory in the innate reproductive power of brain substance, +and without this both writings and oral tradition would be without +significance to posterity. The most sublime ideas, though never so +immortalised in speech or letters, are yet nothing for heads that are +out of harmony with them; they must be not only heard, but +reproduced; and both speech and writing would be in vain were there +not an inheritance of inward and outward brain development, growing +in correspondence with the inheritance of ideas that are handed down +from age to age, and did not an enhanced capacity for their +reproduction on the part of each succeeding generation accompany the +thoughts that have been preserved in writing. Man's conscious memory +comes to an end at death, but the unconscious memory of Nature is +true and ineradicable: whoever succeeds in stamping upon her the +impress of his work, she will remember him to the end of time. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +Introduction to a translation of the chapter upon instinct in Von +Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious." + +I am afraid my readers will find the chapter on instinct from Von +Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious," which will now follow, as +distasteful to read as I did to translate, and would gladly have +spared it them if I could. At present, the works of Mr. Sully, who +has treated of the "Philosophy of the Unconscious" both in the +Westminster Review (vol. xlix. N.S.) and in his work "Pessimism," are +the best source to which English readers can have recourse for +information concerning Von Hartmann. Giving him all credit for the +pains he has taken with an ungrateful, if not impossible subject, I +think that a sufficient sample of Von Hartmann's own words will be a +useful adjunct to Mr. Sully's work, and may perhaps save some readers +trouble by resolving them to look no farther into the "Philosophy of +the Unconscious." Over and above this, I have been so often told +that the views concerning unconscious action contained in the +foregoing lecture and in "Life and Habit" are only the very fallacy +of Von Hartmann over again, that I should like to give the public an +opportunity of seeing whether this is so or no, by placing the two +contending theories of unconscious action side by side. I hope that +it will thus be seen that neither Professor Hering nor I have fallen +into the fallacy of Von Hartmann, but that rather Von Hartmann has +fallen into his fallacy through failure to grasp the principle which +Professor Hering has insisted upon, and to connect heredity with +memory. + +Professor Hering's philosophy of the unconscious is of extreme +simplicity. He rests upon a fact of daily and hourly experience, +namely, that practice makes things easy that were once difficult, and +often results in their being done without any consciousness of +effort. But if the repetition of an act tends ultimately, under +certain circumstances, to its being done unconsciously, so also is +the fact of an intricate and difficult action being done +unconsciously an argument that it must have been done repeatedly +already. As I said in "Life and Habit," it is more easy to suppose +that occasions on which such an action has been performed have not +been wanting, even though we do not see when and where they were, +than that the facility which we observe should have been attained +without practice and memory (p. 56). + +There can be nothing better established or more easy, whether to +understand or verify, than the unconsciousness with which habitual +actions come to be performed. If, however, it is once conceded that +it is the manner of habitual action generally, then all a priori +objection to Professor Hering's philosophy of the unconscious is at +an end. The question becomes one of fact in individual cases, and of +degree. + +How far, then, does the principle of the convertibility, as it were, +of practice and unconsciousness extend? Can any line be drawn beyond +which it shall cease to operate? If not, may it not have operated +and be operating to a vast and hitherto unsuspected extent? This is +all, and certainly it is sufficiently simple. I sometimes think it +has found its greatest stumbling-block in its total want of mystery, +as though we must be like those conjurers whose stock in trade is a +small deal table and a kitchen-chair with bare legs, and who, with +their parade of "no deception" and "examine everything for +yourselves," deceive worse than others who make use of all manner of +elaborate paraphernalia. It is true we require no paraphernalia, and +we produce unexpected results, but we are not conjuring. + +To turn now to Von Hartmann. When I read Mr. Sully's article in the +Westminster Review, I did not know whether the sense of mystification +which it produced in me was wholly due to Von Hartmann or no; but on +making acquaintance with Von Hartmann himself, I found that Mr. Sully +has erred, if at all, in making him more intelligible than he +actually is. Von Hartmann has not got a meaning. Give him Professor +Hering's key and he might get one, but it would be at the expense of +seeing what approach he had made to a system fallen to pieces. +Granted that in his details and subordinate passages he often both +has and conveys a meaning, there is, nevertheless, no coherence +between these details, and the nearest approach to a broad conception +covering the work which the reader can carry away with him is at once +so incomprehensible and repulsive, that it is difficult to write +about it without saying more perhaps than those who have not seen the +original will accept as likely to be true. The idea to which I refer +is that of an unconscious clairvoyance, which, from the language +continually used concerning it, must be of the nature of a person, +and which is supposed to take possession of living beings so fully as +to be the very essence of their nature, the promoter of their +embryonic development, and the instigator of their instinctive +actions. This approaches closely to the personal God of Mosaic and +Christian theology, with the exception that the word "clairvoyance" +{89} is substituted for God, and that the God is supposed to be +unconscious. + +Mr. Sully says:- + + +"When we grasp it [the philosophy of Von Hartmann] as a whole, it +amounts to nothing more than this, that all or nearly all the +phenomena of the material and spiritual world rest upon and result +from a mysterious, unconscious being, though to call it being is +really to add on an idea not immediately contained within the all- +sufficient principle. But what difference is there between this and +saying that the phenomena of the world at large come we know not +whence? . . . The unconscious, therefore, tends to be simple phrase +and nothing more . . . No doubt there are a number of mental +processes . . . of which we are unconscious . . . but to infer from +this that they are due to an unconscious power, and to proceed to +demonstrate them in the presence of the unconscious through all +nature, is to make an unwarrantable saltus in reasoning. What, in +fact, is this 'unconscious' but a high-sounding name to veil our +ignorance? Is the unconscious any better explanation of phenomena we +do not understand than the 'devil-devil' by which Australian tribes +explain the Leyden jar and its phenomena? Does it increase our +knowledge to know that we do not know the origin of language or the +cause of instinct? . . . Alike in organic creation and the evolution +of history 'performances and actions'--the words are those of +Strauss--are ascribed to an unconscious, which can only belong to a +conscious being. {90a} + +. . . . . + +"The difficulties of the system advance as we proceed. {90b} +Subtract this questionable factor--the unconscious from Hartmann's +'Biology and Psychology,' and the chapters remain pleasant and +instructive reading. But with the third part of his work--the +Metaphysic of the Unconscious--our feet are clogged at every step. +We are encircled by the merest play of words, the most unsatisfactory +demonstrations, and most inconsistent inferences. The theory of +final causes has been hitherto employed to show the wisdom of the +world; with our Pessimist philosopher it shows nothing but its +irrationality and misery. Consciousness has been generally supposed +to be the condition of all happiness and interest in life; here it +simply awakens us to misery, and the lower an animal lies in the +scale of conscious life, the better and the pleasanter its lot. + +. . . . . + +"Thus, then, the universe, as an emanation of the unconscious, has +been constructed. {90c} Throughout it has been marked by design, by +purpose, by finality; throughout a wonderful adaptation of means to +ends, a wonderful adjustment and relativity in different portions has +been noticed--and all this for what conclusion? Not, as in the hands +of the natural theologians of the eighteenth century, to show that +the world is the result of design, of an intelligent, beneficent +Creator, but the manifestation of a Being whose only predicates are +negatives, whose very essence is to be unconscious. It is not only +like ancient Athens, to an unknown, but to an unknowing God, that +modern Pessimism rears its altar. Yet surely the fact that the +motive principle of existence moves in a mysterious way outside our +consciousness no way requires that the All-one Being should be +himself unconscious. + + +I believe the foregoing to convey as correct an idea of Von +Hartmann's system as it is possible to convey, and will leave it to +the reader to say how much in common there is between this and the +lecture given in the preceding chapter, beyond the fact that both +touch upon unconscious actions. The extract which will form my next +chapter is only about a thirtieth part of the entire "Philosophy of +the Unconscious," but it will, I believe, suffice to substantiate the +justice of what Mr. Sully has said in the passages above quoted. + +As regards the accuracy of the translation, I have submitted all +passages about which I was in the least doubtful to the same +gentleman who revised my translation of Professor Hering's lecture; I +have also given the German wherever I thought the reader might be +glad to see it. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +Translation of the chapter on "The Unconscious in Instinct," from Von +Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious." + +Von Hartmann's chapter on instinct is as follows:- + +Instinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose but without +conscious perception of what the purpose is. {92a} + +A purposive action, with consciousness of the purpose and where the +course taken is the result of deliberation is not said to be +instinctive; nor yet, again, is blind aimless action, such as +outbreaks of fury on the part of offended or otherwise enraged +animals. I see no occasion for disturbing the commonly received +definition of instinct as given above; for those who think they can +refer all the so-called ordinary instincts of animals to conscious +deliberation ipso facto deny that there is such a thing as instinct +at all, and should strike the word out of their vocabulary. But of +this more hereafter. + +Assuming, then, the existence of instinctive action as above defined, +it can be explained as - + +I. A mere necessary consequence of bodily organisation. {92b} + +II. A mechanism of brain or mind contrived by nature. + +III. The outcome of an unconscious activity of mind. + +In neither of the two first cases is there any scope for the idea of +purpose; in the third, purpose must be present immediately before the +action. In the two first cases, action is supposed to be brought +about by means of an initial arrangement, either of bodily or mental +mechanism, purpose being conceived of as existing on a single +occasion only--that is to say, in the determination of the initial +arrangement. In the third, purpose is conceived as present in every +individual instance. Let us proceed to the consideration of these +three cases. + +Instinct is not a mere consequence of bodily organisation; for - + +(a.) Bodies may be alike, yet they may be endowed with different +instincts. + +All spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind weaves +radiating webs, another irregular ones, while a third makes none at +all, but lives in holes, whose walls it overspins, and whose entrance +it closes with a door. Almost all birds have a like organisation for +the construction of their nests (a beak and feet), but how infinitely +do their nests vary in appearance, mode of construction, attachment +to surrounding objects (they stand, are glued on, hang, &c.), +selection of site (caves, holes, corners, forks of trees, shrubs, the +ground), and excellence of workmanship; how often, too, are they not +varied in the species of a single genus, as of parus. Many birds, +moreover, build no nest at all. The difference in the songs of birds +are in like manner independent of the special construction of their +voice apparatus, nor do the modes of nest construction that obtain +among ants and bees depend upon their bodily organisation. +Organisation, as a general rule, only renders the bird capable of +singing, as giving it an apparatus with which to sing at all, but it +has nothing to do with the specific character of the execution . . . +The nursing, defence, and education of offspring cannot be considered +as in any way more dependent upon bodily organisation; nor yet the +sites which insects choose for the laying of their eggs; nor, again, +the selection of deposits of spawn, of their own species, by male +fish for impregnation. The rabbit burrows, the hare does not, though +both have the same burrowing apparatus. The hare, however, has less +need of a subterranean place of refuge by reason of its greater +swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers of flight, are +nevertheless stationary in their habits, as the secretary falcon and +certain other birds of prey; while even such moderate fliers as +quails are sometimes known to make very distant migrations. + +(b.) Like instincts may be found associated with unlike organs. + +Birds with and without feet adapted for climbing live in trees; so +also do monkeys with and without flexible tails, squirrels, sloths, +pumas, &c. Mole-crickets dig with a well-pronounced spade upon their +fore-feet, while the burying-beetle does the same thing though it has +no special apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender +in pockets, an inch wide, long and half an inch wide within its +cheeks; the field-mouse does so without the help of any such +contrivance. The migratory instinct displays itself with equal +strength in animals of widely different form, by whatever means they +may pursue their journey, whether by water, land, or air. + +It is clear, therefore, that instinct is in great measure independent +of bodily organisation. Granted, indeed, that a certain amount of +bodily apparatus is a sine qua non for any power of execution at all- +-as, for example, that there would be no ingenious nest without +organs more or less adapted for its construction, no spinning of a +web without spinning glands--nevertheless, it is impossible to +maintain that instinct is a consequence of organisation. The mere +existence of the organ does not constitute even the smallest +incentive to any corresponding habitual activity. A sensation of +pleasure must at least accompany the use of the organ before its +existence can incite to its employment. And even so when a sensation +of pleasure has given the impulse which is to render it active, it is +only the fact of there being activity at all, and not the special +characteristics of the activity, that can be due to organisation. +The reason for the special mode of the activity is the very problem +that we have to solve. No one will call the action of the spider +instinctive in voiding the fluid from her spinning gland when it is +too full, and therefore painful to her; nor that of the male fish +when it does what amounts to much the same thing as this. The +instinct and the marvel lie in the fact that the spider spins +threads, and proceeds to weave her web with them, and that the male +fish will only impregnate ova of his own species. + +Another proof that the pleasure felt in the employment of an organ is +wholly inadequate to account for this employment is to be found in +the fact that the moral greatness of instinct, the point in respect +of which it most commands our admiration, consists in the obedience +paid to its behests, to the postponement of all personal well-being, +and at the cost, it may be, of life itself. If the mere pleasure of +relieving certain glands from overfulness were the reason why +caterpillars generally spin webs, they would go on spinning until +they had relieved these glands, but they would not repair their work +as often as any one destroyed it, and do this again and again until +they die of exhaustion. The same holds good with the other instincts +that at first sight appear to be inspired only by a sensation of +pleasure; for if we change the circumstances, so as to put self- +sacrifice in the place of self-interest, it becomes at once apparent +that they have a higher source than this. We think, for example, +that birds pair for the sake of mere sexual gratification; why, then, +do they leave off pairing as soon as they have laid the requisite +number of eggs? That there is a reproductive instinct over and above +the desire for sexual gratification appears from the fact that if a +man takes an egg out of the nest, the birds will come together again +and the hen will lay another egg; or, if they belong to some of the +more wary species, they will desert their nest, and make preparation +for an entirely new brood. A female wryneck, whose nest was daily +robbed of the egg she laid in it, continued to lay a new one, which +grew smaller and smaller, till, when she had laid her twenty-ninth +egg, she was found dead upon her nest. If an instinct cannot stand +the test of self-sacrifice--if it is the simple outcome of a desire +for bodily gratification--then it is no true instinct, and is only so +called erroneously. + +Instinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in living +beings by nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action without +any, even unconscious, activity of mind, and with no conception +concerning the purpose of the action, would be executed mechanically, +the purpose having been once for all thought out by Nature or +Providence, which has so organised the individual that it acts +henceforth as a purely mechanical medium. We are now dealing with a +psychical organisation as the cause instinct, as we were above +dealing with a physical. psychical organisation would be a +conceivable explanation and we need look no farther if every instinct +once belonging to an animal discharged its functions in an unvarying +manner. But this is never found to be the case, for instincts vary +when there arises a sufficient motive for varying them. This proves +that special exterior circumstances enter into the matter, and that +these circumstances are the very things that render the attainment of +the purpose possible through means selected by the instinct. Here +first do we find instinct acting as though it were actually design +with action following at its heels, for until the arrival of the +motive, the instinct remains late and discharges no function +whatever. The motive enters by way of an idea received into the mind +through the instrumentality of the senses, and there is a constant +connection between instinct in action and all sensual images which +give information that an opportunity has arisen for attaining the +ends proposed to itself by the instinct. + +The psychical mechanism of this constant connection must also be +looked for. It may help us here to turn to the piano for an +illustration. The struck keys are the motives, the notes that sound +in consequence are the instincts in action. This illustration might +perhaps be allowed to pass (if we also suppose that entirely +different keys can give out the same sound) if instincts could only +be compared with DISTINCTLY TUNED notes, so that one and the same +instinct acted always in the same manner on the rising of the motive +which should set it in action. This, however, is not so; for it is +the blind unconscious purpose of the instinct that is alone constant, +the instinct itself--that is to say, the will to make use of certain +means--varying as the means that can be most suitably employed vary +under varying circumstances. + +In this we condemn the theory which refuses to recognise unconscious +purpose as present in each individual case of instinctive action. +For he who maintains instinct to be the result of a mechanism of +mind, must suppose a special and constant mechanism for each +variation and modification of the instinct in accordance with +exterior circumstances, {97} that is to say, a new string giving a +note with a new tone must be inserted, and this would involve the +mechanism in endless complication. But the fact that the purpose is +constant notwithstanding all manner of variation in the means chosen +by the instinct, proves that there is no necessity for the +supposition of such an elaborate mental mechanism--the presence of an +unconscious purpose being sufficient to explain the facts. The +purpose of the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, +and consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. When the +temperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits upon +her eggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest countries; +the mammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment of its +instinctive purpose without any co-operation on its own part. In +warm climates many birds only sit by night, and small exotic birds +that have built in aviaries kept at a high temperature sit little +upon their eggs or not at all. How inconceivable is the supposition +of a mechanism that impels the bird to sit as soon as the temperature +falls below a certain height! How clear and simple, on the other +hand, is the view that there is an unconscious purpose constraining +the volition of the bird to the use of the fitting means, of which +process, however, only the last link, that is to say, the will +immediately preceding the action falls within the consciousness of +the bird! + +In South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as a +defence against apes and serpents. The eggs of the cuckoo, as +regards size, colour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the +birds in whose nests she lays. Sylvia ruja, for example, lays a +white egg with violet spots; Sylvia hippolais, a red one with black +spots; Regulus ignicapellus, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo's egg is in +each case so deceptive an imitation of its model, that it can hardly +be distinguished except by the structure of its shell. + +Huber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in their +usual instinctive manner, beginning from above and working downwards; +on this they began building from below, and again horizontally. The +outermost cells that spring from the top of the hive or abut against +its sides are not hexagonal, but pentagonal, so as to gain in +strength, being attached with one base instead of two sides. In +autumn bees lengthen their existing honey cells if these are +insufficient, but in the ensuing spring they again shorten them in +order to get greater roadway between the combs. When the full combs +have become too heavy, they strengthen the walls of the uppermost or +bearing cells by thickening them with wax and propolis. If larvae of +working bees are introduced into the cells set apart for drones, the +working bees will cover these cells with the flat lids usual for this +kind of larvae, and not with the round ones that are proper for +drones. In autumn, as a general rule, bees kill their drones, but +they refrain from doing this when they have lost their queen, and +keep them to fertilise the young queen, who will be developed from +larvae that would otherwise have become working bees. Huber observed +that they defend the entrance of their hive against the inroads of +the sphinx moth by means of skilful constructions made of wax and +propolis. They only introduce propolis when they want it for the +execution of repairs, or for some other special purpose. Spiders and +caterpillars also display marvellous dexterity in the repair of their +webs if they have been damaged, and this requires powers perfectly +distinct from those requisite for the construction of a new one. + +The above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they are +sufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not capacities +rolled, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an +invariable system, but that they adapt themselves most closely to the +circumstances of each case, and are capable of such great +modification and variation that at times they almost appear to cease +to be instinctive. + +Many will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious +deliberation on the part of the animals themselves, and it is +impossible to deny that in the case of the more intellectually gifted +animals there may be such a thing as a combination of instinctive +faculty and conscious reflection. I think, however, the examples +already cited are enough to show that often where the normal and the +abnormal action springs from the same source, without any +complication with conscious deliberation, they are either both +instinctive or both deliberative. {99} Or is that which prompts the +bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb something of +an actually distinct character from that which impels her to build +pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate kinds of thing, +one of which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit upon +their eggs, while another leads them under certain other +circumstances to refrain from doing so? And does this hold good also +with bees when they at one time kill their brethren without mercy and +at another grant them their lives? Or with birds when they construct +the kind of nest peculiar to their race, and, again, any special +provision which they may think fit under certain circumstances to +take? If it is once granted that the normal and the abnormal +manifestations of instinct--and they are often incapable of being +distinguished--spring from a single source, then the objection that +the modification is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a +suicidal one later on, so far as it is directed against instinct +generally. It may be sufficient here to point out, in anticipation +of remarks that will be found in later chapters, that instinct and +the power of organic development involve the same essential +principle, though operating under different circumstances--the two +melting into one another without any definite boundary between them. +Here, then, we have conclusive proof that instinct does not depend +upon organisation of body or brain, but that, more truly, the +organisation is due to the nature and manner of the instinct. + +On the other hand, we must now return to a closer consideration of +the conception of a psychical mechanism. {100} And here we find that +this mechanism, in spite of its explaining so much, is itself so +obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it. The motive +enters the mind by way of a conscious sensual impression; this is the +first link of the process; the last link {101} appears as the +conscious motive of an action. Both, however, are entirely unlike, +and neither has anything to do with ordinary motivation, which +consists exclusively in the desire that springs from a conception +either of pleasure or dislike--the former prompting to the attainment +of any object, the latter to its avoidance. In the case of instinct, +pleasure is for the most part a concomitant phenomenon; but it is not +so always, as we have already seen, inasmuch as the consummation and +highest moral development of instinct displays itself in self- +sacrifice. + +The true problem, however, lies far deeper than this. For every +conception of a pleasure proves that we have experienced this +pleasure already. But it follows from this, that when the pleasure +was first felt there must have been will present, in the +gratification of which will the pleasure consisted; the question, +therefore, arises, whence did the will come before the pleasure that +would follow on its gratification was known, and before bodily pain, +as, for example, of hunger, rendered relief imperative? Yet we may +see that even though an animal has grown up apart from any others of +its kind, it will yet none the less manifest the instinctive impulses +of its race, though experience can have taught it nothing whatever +concerning the pleasure that will ensue upon their gratification. As +regards instinct, therefore, there must be a causal connection +between the motivating sensual conception and the will to perform the +instinctive action, and the pleasure of the subsequent gratification +has nothing to do with the matter. We know by the experience of our +own instincts that this causal connection does not lie within our +consciousness; {102a} therefore, if it is to be a mechanism of any +kind, it can only be either an unconscious mechanical induction and +metamorphosis of the vibrations of the conceived motive into the +vibrations of the conscious action in the brain, or an unconscious +spiritual mechanism. + +In the first case, it is surely strange that this process should go +on unconsciously, though it is so powerful in its effects that the +will resulting from it overpowers every other consideration, every +other kind of will, and that vibrations of this kind, when set up in +the brain, become always consciously perceived; nor is it easy to +conceive in what way this metamorphosis can take place so that the +constant purpose can be attained under varying circumstances by the +resulting will in modes that vary with variation of the special +features of each individual case. + +But if we take the other alternative, and suppose an unconscious +mental mechanism, we cannot legitimately conceive of the process +going on in this as other than what prevails in all mental mechanism, +namely, than as by way of idea and will. We are, therefore, +compelled to imagine a causal connection between the consciously +recognised motive and the will to do the instinctive action, through +unconscious idea and will; nor do I know how this connection can be +conceived as being brought about more simply than through a conceived +and willed purpose. {102b} Arrived at this point, however, we have +attained the logical mechanism peculiar to and inseparable from all +mind, and find unconscious purpose to be an indispensable link in +every instinctive action. With this, therefore, the conception of a +mental mechanism, dead and predestined from without, has disappeared, +and has become transformed into the spiritual life inseparable from +logic, so that we have reached the sole remaining requirement for the +conception of an actual instinct, which proves to be a conscious +willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed purpose. This +conception explains clearly and without violence all the problems +which instinct presents to us; or more truly, all that was +problematical about instinct disappears when its true nature has been +thus declared. If this work were confined to the consideration of +instinct alone, the conception of an unconscious activity of mind +might excite opposition, inasmuch as it is one with which our +educated public is not yet familiar; but in a work like the present, +every chapter of which adduces fresh facts in support of the +existence of such an activity and of its remarkable consequences, the +novelty of the theory should be taken no farther into consideration. + +Though I so confidently deny that instinct is the simple action of a +mechanism which has been contrived once for all, I by no means +exclude the supposition that in the constitution of the brain, the +ganglia, and the whole body, in respect of morphological as well as +molecular-physiological condition, certain predispositions can be +established which direct the unconscious intermediaries more readily +into one channel than into another. This predisposition is either +the result of a habit which keeps continually cutting for itself a +deeper and deeper channel, until in the end it leaves indelible +traces whether in the individual or in the race, or it is expressly +called into being by the unconscious formative principle in +generation, so as to facilitate action in a given direction. This +last will be the case more frequently in respect of exterior +organisation--as, for example, with the weapons or working organs of +animals--while to the former must be referred the molecular condition +of brain and ganglia which bring about the perpetually recurring +elements of an instinct such as the hexagonal shape of the cells of +bees. We shall presently see that by individual character we mean +the sum of the individual methods of reaction against all possible +motives, and that this character depends essentially upon a +constitution of mind and body acquired in some measure through habit +by the individual, but for the most part inherited. But an instinct +is also a mode of reaction against certain motives; here, too, then, +we are dealing with character, though perhaps not so much with that +of the individual as of the race; for by character in regard to +instinct we do not intend the differences that distinguish +individuals, but races from one another. If any one chooses to +maintain that such a predisposition for certain kinds of activity on +the part of brain and body constitutes a mechanism, this may in one +sense be admitted; but as against this view it must be remarked - + +1. That such deviations from the normal scheme of an instinct as +cannot be referred to conscious deliberation are not provided for by +any predisposition in this mechanism. + +2. That heredity is only possible under the circumstances of a +constant superintendence of the embryonic development by a purposive +unconscious activity of growth. It must be admitted, however, that +this is influenced in return by the predisposition existing in the +germ. + +3. That the impressing of the predisposition upon the individual +from whom it is inherited can only be effected by long practice, +consequently the instinct without auxiliary mechanism {105a} is the +originating cause of the auxiliary mechanism. + +4. That none of those instinctive actions that are performed rarely, +or perhaps once only, in the lifetime of any individual--as, for +example, those connected with the propagation and metamorphoses of +the lower forms of life, and none of those instinctive omissions of +action, neglect of which necessarily entails death--can be conceived +as having become engrained into the character through habit; the +ganglionic constitution, therefore, that predisposes the animal +towards them must have been fashioned purposively. + +5. That even the presence of an auxiliary mechanism {105b} does not +compel the unconscious to a particular corresponding mode of +instinctive action, but only predisposes it. This is shown by the +possibility of departure from the normal type of action, so that the +unconscious purpose is always stronger than the ganglionic +constitution, and takes any opportunity of choosing from several +similar possible courses the one that is handiest and most convenient +to the constitution of the individual. + +We now approach the question that I have reserved for our final one,- +-Is there, namely, actually such a thing as instinct, {105c} or are +all so-called instinctive actions only the results of conscious +deliberation? + +In support of the second of these two views, it may be alleged that +the more limited is the range of the conscious mental activity of any +living being, the more fully developed in proportion to its entire +mental power is its performance commonly found to be in respect of +its own limited and special instinctive department. This holds as +good with the lower animals as with men, and is explained by the fact +that perfection of proficiency is only partly dependent upon natural +capacity, but is in great measure due to practice and cultivation of +the original faculty. A philologist, for example, is unskilled in +questions of jurisprudence; a natural philosopher or mathematician, +in philology; an abstract philosopher, in poetical criticism. Nor +has this anything to do with the natural talents of the several +persons, but follows as a consequence of their special training. The +more special, therefore, is the direction in which the mental +activity of any living being is exercised, the more will the whole +developing and practising power of the mind be brought to bear upon +this one branch, so that it is not surprising if the special power +comes ultimately to bear an increased proportion to the total power +of the individual, through the contraction of the range within which +it is exercised. + +Those, however, who apply this to the elucidation of instinct should +not forget the words, "in proportion to the entire mental power of +the animal in question," and should bear in mind that the entire +mental power becomes less and less continually as we descend the +scale of animal life, whereas proficiency in the performance of an +instinctive action seems to be much of a muchness in all grades of +the animal world. As, therefore, those performances which +indisputably proceed from conscious deliberation decrease +proportionately with decrease of mental power, while nothing of the +kind is observable in the case of instinct--it follows that instinct +must involve some other principle than that of conscious +intelligence. We see, moreover, that actions which have their source +in conscious intelligence are of one and the same kind, whether among +the lower animals or with mankind--that is to say, that they are +acquired by apprenticeship or instruction and perfected by practice; +so that the saying, "Age brings wisdom," holds good with the brutes +as much as with ourselves. Instinctive actions, on the contrary, +have a special and distinct character, in that they are performed +with no less proficiency by animals that have been reared in solitude +than by those that have been instructed by their parents, the first +essays of a hitherto unpractised animal being as successful as its +later ones. There is a difference in principle here which cannot be +mistaken. Again, we know by experience that the feebler and more +limited an intelligence is, the more slowly do ideas act upon it, +that is to say, the slower and more laborious is its conscious +thought. So long as instinct does not come into play, this holds +good both in the case of men of different powers of comprehension and +with animals; but with instinct all is changed, for it is the +speciality of instinct never to hesitate or loiter, but to take +action instantly upon perceiving that the stimulating motive has made +its appearance. This rapidity in arriving at a resolution is common +to the instinctive actions both of the highest and the lowest +animals, and indicates an essential difference between instinct and +conscious deliberation. + +Finally, as regards perfection of the power of execution, a glance +will suffice to show the disproportion that exists between this and +the grade of intellectual activity on which an animal may be +standing. Take, for instance, the caterpillar of the emperor moth +(Saturnia pavonia minor). It eats the leaves of the bush upon which +it was born; at the utmost has just enough sense to get on to the +lower sides of the leaves if it begins to rain, and from time to time +changes its skin. This is its whole existence, which certainly does +not lead us to expect a display of any, even the most limited, +intellectual power. When, however, the time comes for the larva of +this moth to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a double cocoon, +fortified with bristles that point outwards, so that it can be opened +easily from within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable from +without. If this contrivance were the result of conscious +reflection, we should have to suppose some such reasoning process as +the following to take place in the mind of the caterpillar:- "I am +about to become a chrysalis, and, motionless as I must be, shall be +exposed to many different kinds of attack. I must therefore weave +myself a web. But when I am a moth I shall not be able, as some +moths are, to find my way out of it by chemical or mechanical means; +therefore I must leave a way open for myself. In order, however, +that my enemies may not take advantage of this, I will close it with +elastic bristles, which I can easily push asunder from within, but +which, upon the principle of the arch, will resist all pressure from +without." Surely this is asking rather too much from a poor +caterpillar; yet the whole of the foregoing must be thought out if a +correct result is to be arrived at. + +This theoretical separation of instinct from conscious intelligence +can be easily misrepresented by opponents of my theory, as though a +separation in practice also would be necessitated in consequence. +This is by no means my intention. On the contrary, I have already +insisted at some length that both the two kinds of mental activity +may co-exist in all manner of different proportions, so that there +may be every degree of combination, from pure instinct to pure +deliberation. We shall see, however, in a later chapter, that even +in the highest and most abstract activity of human consciousness +there are forces at work that are of the highest importance, and are +essentially of the same kind as instinct. + +On the other hand, the most marvellous displays of instinct are to be +found not only in plants, but also in those lowest organisms of the +simplest bodily form which are partly unicellular, and in respect of +conscious intelligence stand far below the higher plants--to which, +indeed, any kind of deliberative faculty is commonly denied. Even in +the case of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our +attempts to classify them either as animals or vegetables, we are +still compelled to admire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which +goes far beyond a mere reflex responsive to a stimulus from without; +all doubt, therefore, concerning the actual existence of an instinct +must be at an end, and the attempt to deduce it as a consequence of +conscious deliberation be given up as hopeless. I will here adduce +an instance as extraordinary as any we yet know of, showing, as it +does, that many different purposes, which in the case of the higher +animals require a complicated system of organs of motion, can be +attained with incredibly simple means. + +Arcella vulgaris is a minute morsel of protoplasm, which lives in a +concave-convex, brown, finely reticulated shell, through a circular +opening in the concave side of which it can project itself by +throwing out pseudopodia. If we look through the microscope at a +drop of water containing living arcellae, we may happen to see one of +them lying on its back at the bottom of the drop, and making +fruitless efforts for two or three minutes to lay hold of some fixed +point by means of a pseudopodium. After this there will appear +suddenly from two to five, but sometimes more, dark points in the +protoplasm at a small distance from the circumference, and, as a +rule, at regular distances from one another. These rapidly develop +themselves into well-defined spherical air vesicles, and come +presently to fill a considerable part of the hollow of the shell, +thereby driving part of the protoplasm outside it. After from five +to twenty minutes, the specific gravity of the arcella is so much +lessened that it is lifted by the water with its pseudopodia, and +brought up against the upper surface of the water-drop, on which it +is able to travel. In from five to ten minutes the vesicles will now +disappear, the last small point vanishing with a jerk. If, however, +the creature has been accidentally turned over during its journey, +and reaches the top of the water-drop with its back uppermost, the +vesicles will continue growing only on one side, while they diminish +on the other; by this means the shell is brought first into an +oblique and then into a vertical position, until one of the +pseudopodia obtains a footing and the whole turns over. From the +moment the animal has obtained foothold, the bladders become +immediately smaller, and after they have disappeared the experiment +may be repeated at pleasure. + +The positions of the protoplasm which the vesicles fashion change +continually; only the grainless protoplasm of the pseudopodia +develops no air. After long and fruitless efforts a manifest fatigue +sets in; the animal gives up the attempt for a time, and resumes it +after an interval of repose. + +Engelmann, the discoverer of these phenomena, says (Pfluger's Archiv +fur Physologie, Bd. II.): "The changes in volume in all the vesicles +of the same animal are for the most part synchronous, effected in the +same manner, and of like size. There are, however, not a few +exceptions; it often happens that some of them increase or diminish +in volume much faster than others; sometimes one may increase while +another diminishes; all the changes, however, are throughout +unquestionably intentional. The object of the air-vesicles is to +bring the animal into such a position that it can take fast hold of +something with its pseudopodia. When this has been obtained, the air +disappears without our being able to discover any other reason for +its disappearance than the fact that it is no longer needed. . . . +If we bear these circumstances in mind, we can almost always tell +whether an arcella will develop air-vesicles or no; and if it has +already developed them, we can tell whether they will increase or +diminish . . . The arcellae, in fact, in this power of altering their +specific gravity possess a mechanism for raising themselves to the +top of the water, or lowering themselves to the bottom at will. They +use this not only in the abnormal circumstances of their being under +microscopical observation, but at all times, as may be known by our +being always able to find some specimens with air-bladders at the top +of the water in which they live." + +If what has been already advanced has failed to convince the reader +of the hopelessness of attempting to explain instinct as a mode of +conscious deliberation, he must admit that the following +considerations are conclusive. It is most certain that deliberation +and conscious reflection can only take account of such data as are +consciously perceived; if, then, it can be shown that data absolutely +indispensable for the arrival at a just conclusion cannot by any +possibility have been known consciously, the result can no longer be +held as having had its source in conscious deliberation. It is +admitted that the only way in which consciousness can arrive at a +knowledge of exterior facts is by way of an impression made upon the +senses. We must, therefore, prove that a knowledge of the facts +indispensable for arrival at a just conclusion could not have been +thus acquired. This may be done as follows: {111} for, Firstly, the +facts in question lie in the future, and the present gives no ground +for conjecturing the time and manner of their subsequent development. + +Secondly, they are manifestly debarred from the category of +perceptions perceived through the senses, inasmuch as no information +can be derived concerning them except through experience of similar +occurrences in time past, and such experience is plainly out of the +question. + +It would not affect the argument if, as I think likely, it were to +turn out, with the advance of our physiological knowledge, that all +the examples of the first case that I am about to adduce reduce +themselves to examples of the second, as must be admitted to have +already happened in respect of many that I have adduced hitherto. +For it is hardly more difficult to conceive of a priori knowledge, +disconnected from any impression made upon the senses, than of +knowledge which, it is true, does at the present day manifest itself +upon the occasion of certain general perceptions, but which can only +be supposed to be connected with these by means of such a chain of +inferences and judiciously applied knowledge as cannot be believed to +exist when we have regard to the capacity and organisation of the +animal we may be considering. + +An example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the stag- +beetle in its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in which to +become a chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole exactly her own +size, but the male makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow +for the growth of his horns, which will be about the same length as +his body. A knowledge of this circumstance is indispensable if the +result achieved is to be considered as due to reflection, yet the +actual present of the larva affords it no ground for conjecturing +beforehand the condition in which it will presently find itself. + +As regards the second case, ferrets and buzzards fall forthwith upon +blind worms or other non-poisonous snakes, and devour them then and +there. But they exhibit the greatest caution in laying hold of +adders, even though they have never before seen one, and will +endeavour first to bruise their heads, so as to avoid being bitten. +As there is nothing in any other respect alarming in the adder, a +conscious knowledge of the danger of its bite is indispensable, if +the conduct above described is to be referred to conscious +deliberation. But this could only have been acquired through +experience, and the possibility of such experience may be controlled +in the case of animals that have been kept in captivity from their +youth up, so that the knowledge displayed can be ascertained to be +independent of experience. On the other hand, both the above +illustrations afford evidence of an unconscious perception of the +facts, and prove the existence of a direct knowledge underivable from +any sensual impression or from consciousness. + +This has always been recognised, {113} and has been described under +the words "presentiment" or "foreboding." These words, however, +refer, on the one hand, only to an unknowable in the future, +separated from us by space, and not to one that is actually present; +on the other hand, they denote only the faint, dull, indefinite echo +returned by consciousness to an invariably distinct state of +unconscious knowledge. Hence the word "presentiment," which carries +with it an idea of faintness and indistinctness, while, however, it +may be easily seen that sentiment destitute of all, even unconscious, +ideas can have no influence upon the result, for knowledge can only +follow upon an idea. A presentiment that sounds in consonance with +our consciousness can indeed, under certain circumstances, become +tolerably definite, so that in the case of man it can be expressed in +thought and language; but experience teaches us that even among +ourselves this is not so when instincts special to the human race +come into play; we see rather that the echo of our unconscious +knowledge which finds its way into our consciousness is so weak that +it manifests itself only in the accompanying feelings or frame of +mind, and represents but an infinitely small fraction of the sum of +our sensations. It is obvious that such a faintly sympathetic +consciousness cannot form a sufficient foundation for a +superstructure of conscious deliberation; on the other hand, +conscious deliberation would be unnecessary, inasmuch as the process +of thinking must have been already gone through unconsciously, for +every faint presentiment that obtrudes itself upon our consciousness +is in fact only the consequence of a distinct unconscious knowledge, +and the knowledge with which it is concerned is almost always an idea +of the purpose of some instinctive action, or of one most intimately +connected therewith. Thus, in the case of the stag-beetle, the +purpose consists in the leaving space for the growth of the horns; +the means, in the digging the hole of a sufficient size; and the +unconscious knowledge, in prescience concerning the future +development of the horns. + +Lastly, all instinctive actions give us an impression of absolute +security and infallibility. With instinct the will is never +hesitating or weak, as it is when inferences are being drawn +consciously. We never find instinct making mistakes; we cannot, +therefore, ascribe a result which is so invariably precise to such an +obscure condition of mind as is implied when the word presentiment is +used; on the contrary, this absolute certainty is so characteristic a +feature of instinctive actions, that it constitutes almost the only +well-marked point of distinction between these and actions that are +done upon reflection. But from this it must again follow that some +principle lies at the root of instinct other than that which +underlies reflective action, and this can only be looked for in a +determination of the will through a process that lies in the +unconscious, {115a} to which this character of unhesitating +infallibility will attach itself in all our future investigations. + +Many will be surprised at my ascribing to instinct an unconscious +knowledge, arising out of no sensual impression, and yet invariably +accurate. This, however, is not a consequence of my theory +concerning instinct; it is the foundation on which that theory is +based, and is forced upon us by facts. I must therefore adduce +examples. And to give a name to the unconscious knowledge, which is +not acquired through impression made upon the senses, but which will +be found to be in our possession, though attained without the +instrumentality of means, {115b} I prefer the word "clairvoyance" +{115c} to "presentiment," which, for reasons already given, will not +serve me. This word, therefore, will be here employed throughout, as +above defined. + +Let us now consider examples of the instincts of self-preservation, +subsistence, migration, and the continuation of the species. Most +animals know their natural enemies prior to experience of any hostile +designs upon themselves. A flight of young pigeons, even though they +have no old birds with them, will become shy, and will separate from +one another on the approach of a bird of prey. Horses and cattle +that come from countries where there are no lions become unquiet and +display alarm as soon as they are aware that a lion is approaching +them in the night. Horses going along a bridle-path that used to +leave the town at the back of the old dens of the carnivora in the +Berlin Zoological Gardens were often terrified by the propinquity of +enemies who were entirely unknown to them. Sticklebacks will swim +composedly among a number of voracious pike, knowing, as they do, +that the pike will not touch them. For if a pike once by mistake +swallows a stickleback, the stickleback will stick in its throat by +reason of the spine it carries upon its back, and the pike must +starve to death without being able to transmit his painful experience +to his descendants. In some countries there are people who by choice +eat dog's flesh; dogs are invariably savage in the presence of these +persons, as recognising in them enemies at whose hands they may one +day come to harm. This is the more wonderful inasmuch as dog's fat +applied externally (as when rubbed upon boots) attracts dogs by its +smell. Grant saw a young chimpanzee throw itself into convulsions of +terror at the sight of a large snake; and even among ourselves a +Gretchen can often detect a Mephistopheles. An insect of the genius +bombyx will seize another of the genus parnopaea, and kill it +wherever it finds it, without making any subsequent use of the body; +but we know that the last-named insect lies in wait for the eggs of +the first, and is therefore the natural enemy of its race. The +phenomenon known to stockdrivers and shepherds as "das Biesen des +Viehes" affords another example. For when a "dassel" or "bies" fly +draws near the herd, the cattle become unmanageable and run about +among one another as though they were mad, knowing, as they do, that +the larvae from the eggs which the fly will lay upon them will +presently pierce their hides and occasion them painful sores. These +"dassel" flies--which have no sting--closely resemble another kind of +gadfly which has a sting. Nevertheless, this last kind is little +feared by cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate extent. The +laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite painless, and +no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that we cannot +suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference concerning the +connection that exists between the two. I have already spoken of the +foresight shown by ferrets and buzzards in respect of adders; in like +manner a young honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first +time, immediately devoured it after having squeezed the sting from +its body. No animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by +unnatural habits, will eat poisonous plants. Even when apes have +contracted bad habits through their having been brought into contact +with mankind, they can still be trusted to show us whether certain +fruits found in their native forests are poisonous or no; for if +poisonous fruits are offered them they will refuse them with loud +cries. Every animal will choose for its sustenance exactly those +animal or vegetable substances which agree best with its digestive +organs, without having received any instruction on the matter, and +without testing them beforehand. Even, indeed, though we assume that +the power of distinguishing the different kinds of food is due to +sight and not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious how the +animal can know what it is that will agree with it. Thus the kid +which Galen took prematurely from its mother smelt at all the +different kinds of food that were set before it, but drank only the +milk without touching anything else. The cherry-finch opens a +cherry-stone by turning it so that her beak can hit the part where +the two sides join, and does this as much with the first stone she +cracks as with the last. Fitchets, martens, and weasels make small +holes on the opposite sides of an egg which they are about to suck, +so that the air may come in while they are sucking. Not only do +animals know the food that will suit them best, but they find out the +most suitable remedies when they are ill, and constantly form a +correct diagnosis of their malady with a therapeutical knowledge +which they cannot possibly have acquired. Dogs will often eat a +great quantity of grass--particularly couch-grass--when they are +unwell, especially after spring, if they have worms, which thus pass +from them entangled in the grass, or if they want to get fragments of +bone from out of their stomachs. As a purgative they make use of +plants that sting. Hens and pigeons pick lime from walls and +pavements if their food does not afford them lime enough to make +their eggshells with. Little children eat chalk when suffering from +acidity of the stomach, and pieces of charcoal if they are troubled +with flatulence. We may observe these same instincts for certain +kinds of food or drugs even among grown-up people, under +circumstances in which their unconscious nature has unusual power; +as, for example, among women when they are pregnant, whose capricious +appetites are probably due to some special condition of the foetus, +which renders a certain state of the blood desirable. Field-mice +bite off the germs of the corn which they collect together, in order +to prevent its growing during the winter. Some days before the +beginning of cold weather the squirrel is most assiduous in +augmenting its store, and then closes its dwelling. Birds of passage +betake themselves to warmer countries at times when there is still no +scarcity of food for them here, and when the temperature is +considerably warmer than it will be when they return to us. The same +holds good of the time when animals begin to prepare their winter +quarters, which beetles constantly do during the very hottest days of +autumn. When swallows and storks find their way back to their native +places over distances of hundreds of miles, and though the aspect of +the country is reversed, we say that this is due to the acuteness of +their perception of locality; but the same cannot be said of dogs, +which, though they have been carried in a bag from one place to +another that they do not know, and have been turned round and round +twenty times over, have still been known to find their way home. +Here we can say no more than that their instinct has conducted them-- +that the clairvoyance of the unconscious has allowed them to +conjecture their way. {119a} + +Before an early winter, birds of passage collect themselves in +preparation for their flight sooner than usual; but when the winter +is going to be mild, they will either not migrate at all, or travel +only a small distance southward. When a hard winter is coming, +tortoises will make their burrows deeper. If wild geese, cranes, +etc., soon return from the countries to which they had betaken +themselves at the beginning of spring, it is a sign that a hot and +dry summer is about to ensue in those countries, and that the drought +will prevent their being able to rear their young. In years of +flood, beavers construct their dwellings at a higher level than +usual, and shortly before an inundation the field-mice in Kamtschatka +come out of their holes in large bands. If the summer is going to be +dry, spiders may be seen in May and April, hanging from the ends of +threads several feet in length. If in winter spiders are seen +running about much, fighting with one another and preparing new webs, +there will be cold weather within the next nine days, or from that to +twelve: when they again hide themselves there will be a thaw. I +have no doubt that much of this power of prophesying the weather is +due to a perception of certain atmospheric conditions which escape +ourselves, but this perception can only have relation to a certain +actual and now present condition of the weather; and what can the +impression made by this have to do with their idea of the weather +that will ensue? No one will ascribe to animals a power of +prognosticating the weather months beforehand by means of inferences +drawn logically from a series of observations, {119b} to the extent +of being able to foretell floods. It is far more probable that the +power of perceiving subtle differences of actual atmospheric +condition is nothing more than the sensual perception which acts as +motive--for a motive must assuredly be always present--when an +instinct comes into operation. It continues to hold good, therefore, +that the power of foreseeing the weather is a case of unconscious +clairvoyance, of which the stork which takes its departure for the +south four weeks earlier than usual knows no more than does the stag +when before a cold winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his +wont. On the one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a +perception of the actual state of the weather; on the other, their +ensuing action is precisely such as it would be if the idea present +with them was that of the weather that is about to come. This they +cannot consciously have; the only natural intermediate link, +therefore, between their conscious knowledge and their action is +supplied by unconscious idea, which, however, is always accurately +prescient, inasmuch as it contains something which is neither given +directly to the animal through sensual perception, nor can be deduced +inferentially through the understanding. + +Most wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the +continuation of the species. The males always find out the females +of their own kind, but certainly not solely through their resemblance +to themselves. With many animals, as, for example, parasitic crabs, +the sexes so little resemble one another that the male would be more +likely to seek a mate from the females of a thousand other species +than from his own. Certain butterflies are polymorphic, and not only +do the males and females of the same species differ, but the females +present two distinct forms, one of which as a general rule mimics the +outward appearance of a distant but highly valued species; yet the +males will pair only with the females of their own kind, and not with +the strangers, though these may be very likely much more like the +males themselves. Among the insect species of the strepsiptera, the +female is a shapeless worm which lives its whole life long in the +hind body of a wasp; its head, which is of the shape of a lentil, +protrudes between two of the belly rings of the wasp, the rest of the +body being inside. The male, which only lives for a few hours, and +resembles a moth, nevertheless recognises his mate in spite of these +adverse circumstances, and fecundates her. + +Before any experience of parturition, the knowledge that it is +approaching drives all mammals into solitude, and bids them prepare a +nest for their young in a hole or in some other place of shelter. +The bird builds her nest as soon as she feels the eggs coming to +maturity within her. Snails, land-crabs, tree-frogs, and toads, all +of them ordinarily dwellers upon land, now betake themselves to the +water; sea-tortoises go on shore, and many saltwater fishes come up +into the rivers in order to lay their eggs where they can alone find +the requisites for their development. Insects lay their eggs in the +most varied kinds of situations,--in sand, on leaves, under the hides +and horny substances of other animals; they often select the spot +where the larva will be able most readily to find its future +sustenance, as in autumn upon the trees that will open first in the +coming spring, or in spring upon the blossoms that will first bear +fruit in autumn, or in the insides of those caterpillars which will +soonest as chrysalides provide the parasitic larva at once with food +and with protection. Other insects select the sites from which they +will first get forwarded to the destination best adapted for their +development. Thus some horseflies lay their eggs upon the lips of +horses or upon parts where they are accustomed to lick themselves. +The eggs get conveyed hence into the entrails, the proper place for +their development,--and are excreted upon their arrival at maturity. +The flies that infest cattle know so well how to select the most +vigorous and healthiest beasts, that cattle-dealers and tanners place +entire dependence upon them, and prefer those beasts and hides that +are most scarred by maggots. This selection of the best cattle by +the help of these flies is no evidence in support of the conclusion +that the flies possess the power of making experiments consciously +and of reflecting thereupon, even though the men whose trade it is to +do this recognise them as their masters. The solitary wasp makes a +hole several inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs along +with it a number of green maggots that have no legs, and which, being +on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well nourished and able to +go a long time without food; she packs these maggots so closely +together that they cannot move nor turn into chrysalides, and just +enough of them to support the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A +kind of bug (cerceris bupresticida), which itself lives only upon +pollen, lays her eggs in an underground cell, and with each one of +them she deposits three beetles, which she has lain in wait for and +captured when they were still weak through having only just left off +being chrysalides. She kills these beetles, and appears to smear +them with a fluid whereby she preserves them fresh and suitable for +food. Many kinds of wasps open the cells in which their larvae are +confined when these must have consumed the provision that was left +with them. They supply them with more food, and again close the +cell. Ants, again, hit always upon exactly the right moment for +opening the cocoons in which their larvae are confined and for +setting them free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet +the life of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single +breeding season. What then can they know about the contents of their +eggs and the fittest place for their development? What can they know +about the kind of food the larva will want when it leaves the egg--a +food so different from their own? What, again, can they know about +the quantity of food that will be necessary? How much of all this at +least can they know consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they +take, and the importance they evidently attach to these matters, +prove that they have a foreknowledge of the future: this knowledge +therefore can only be an unconscious clairvoyance. For clairvoyance +it must certainly be that inspires the will of an animal to open +cells and cocoons at the very moment that the larva is either ready +for more food or fit for leaving the cocoon. The eggs of the cuckoo +do not take only from two to three days to mature in her ovaries, as +those of most birds do, but require from eleven to twelve; the +cuckoo, therefore, cannot sit upon her own eggs, for her first egg +would be spoiled before the last was laid. She therefore lays in +other birds' nests--of course laying each egg in a different nest. +But in order that the birds may not perceive her egg to be a stranger +and turn it out of the nest, not only does she lay an egg much +smaller than might be expected from a bird of her size (for she only +finds her opportunity among small birds), but, as already said, she +imitates the other eggs in the nest she has selected with surprising +accuracy in respect both of colour and marking. As the cuckoo +chooses the nest some days beforehand, it may be thought, if the nest +is an open one, that the cuckoo looks upon the colour of the eggs +within it while her own is in process of maturing inside her, and +that it is thus her egg comes to assume the colour of the others; but +this explanation will not hold good for nests that are made in the +holes of trees, as that of sylvia phaenicurus, or which are oven- +shaped with a narrow entrance, as with sylvia rufa. In these cases +the cuckoo can neither slip in nor look in, and must therefore lay +her egg outside the nest and push it inside with her beak; she can +therefore have no means of perceiving through her senses what the +eggs already in the nest are like. If, then, in spite of all this, +her egg closely resembles the others, this can only have come about +through an unconscious clairvoyance which directs the process that +goes on within the ovary in respect of colour and marking. + +An important argument in support of the existence of a clairvoyance +in the instincts of animals is to be found in the series of facts +which testify to the existence of a like clairvoyance, under certain +circumstances, even among human beings, while the self-curative +instincts of children and of pregnant women have been already +mentioned. Here, however, {124} in correspondence with the higher +stage of development which human consciousness has attained, a +stronger echo of the unconscious clairvoyance commonly resounds +within consciousness itself, and this is represented by a more or +less definite presentiment of the consequences that will ensue. It +is also in accord with the greater independence of the human +intellect that this kind of presentiment is not felt exclusively +immediately before the carrying out of an action, but is occasionally +disconnected from the condition that an action has to be performed +immediately, and displays itself simply as an idea independently of +conscious will, provided only that the matter concerning which the +presentiment is felt is one which in a high degree concerns the will +of the person who feels it. In the intervals of an intermittent +fever or of other illness, it not unfrequently happens that sick +persons can accurately foretell the day of an approaching attack and +how long it will last. The same thing occurs almost invariably in +the case of spontaneous, and generally in that of artificial, +somnambulism; certainly the Pythia, as is well known, used to +announce the date of her next ecstatic state. In like manner the +curative instinct displays itself in somnambulists, and they have +been known to select remedies that have been no less remarkable for +the success attending their employment than for the completeness with +which they have run counter to received professional opinion. The +indication of medicinal remedies is the only use which respectable +electro-biologists will make of the half-sleeping, half-waking +condition of those whom they are influencing. "People in perfectly +sound health have been known, before childbirth or at the +commencement of an illness, to predict accurately their own +approaching death. The accomplishment of their predictions can +hardly be explained as the result of mere chance, for if this were +all, the prophecy should fail at least as often as not, whereas the +reverse is actually the case. Many of these persons neither desire +death nor fear it, so that the result cannot be ascribed to +imagination." So writes the celebrated physiologist, Burdach, from +whose chapter on presentiment in his work "Bhicke in's Leben" a great +part of my most striking examples is taken. This presentiment of +deaths, which is the exception among men, is quite common with +animals, even though they do not know nor understand what death is. +When they become aware that their end is approaching, they steal away +to outlying and solitary places. This is why in cities we so rarely +see the dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can only suppose that the +unconscious clairvoyance, which is of essentially the same kind +whether in man or beast, calls forth presentiments of different +degrees of definiteness, so that the cat is driven to withdraw +herself through a mere instinct without knowing why she does so, +while in man a definite perception is awakened of the fact that he is +about to die. Not only do people have presentiments concerning their +own death, but there are many instances on record in which they have +become aware of that of those near and dear to them, the dying person +having appeared in a dream to friend or wife or husband. Stories to +this effect prevail among all nations, and unquestionably contain +much truth. Closely connected with this is the power of second +sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and still does so in the +Danish islands. This power enables certain people without any +ecstasy, but simply through their keener perception, to foresee +coming events, or to tell what is going on in foreign countries on +matters in which they are deeply interested, such as deaths, battles, +conflagrations (Swedenborg foretold the burning of Stockholm), the +arrival or the doings of friends who are at a distance. With many +persons this clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of +their acquaintances or fellow-townspeople. There have been a great +many instances of such death-prophetesses, and, what is most +important, some cases have been verified in courts of law. I may +say, in passing, that this power of second sight is found in persons +who are in ecstatic states, in the spontaneous or artificially +induced somnambulism of the higher kinds of waking dreams, as well as +in lucid moments before death. These prophetic glimpses, by which +the clairvoyance of the unconscious reveals itself to consciousness, +{126} are commonly obscure because in the brain they must assume a +form perceptible by the senses, whereas the unconscious idea can have +nothing to do with any form of sensual impression: it is for this +reason that humours, dreams, and the hallucinations of sick persons +can so easily have a false signification attached to them. The +chances of error and self-deception that arise from this source, the +ease with which people may be deceived intentionally, and the +mischief which, as a general rule, attends a knowledge of the future, +these considerations place beyond all doubt the practical unwisdom of +attempts to arrive at certainty concerning the future. This, +however, cannot affect the weight which in theory should be attached +to phenomena of this kind, and must not prevent us from recognising +the positive existence of the clairvoyance whose existence I am +maintaining, though it is often hidden under a chaos of madness and +imposture. + +The materialistic and rationalistic tendencies of the present day +lead most people either to deny facts of this kind in toto, or to +ignore them, inasmuch as they are inexplicable from a materialistic +standpoint, and cannot be established by the inductive or +experimental method--as though this last were not equally impossible +in the case of morals, social science, and politics. A mind of any +candour will only be able to deny the truths of this entire class of +phenomena so long as it remains in ignorance of the facts that have +been related concerning them; but, again, a continuance in this +ignorance can only arise from unwillingness to be convinced. I am +satisfied that many of those who deny all human power of divination +would come to another, and, to say the least, more cautious +conclusion if they would be at the pains of further investigation; +and I hold that no one, even at the present day, need be ashamed of +joining in with an opinion which was maintained by all the great +spirits of antiquity except Epicurus--an opinion whose possible truth +hardly one of our best modern philosophers has ventured to +contravene, and which the champions of German enlightenment were so +little disposed to relegate to the domain of old wives' tales, that +Goethe furnishes us with an example of second sight that fell within +his own experience, and confirms it down to its minutest details. + +Although I am far from believing that the kind of phenomena above +referred to form in themselves a proper foundation for a +superstructure of scientific demonstration, I nevertheless find them +valuable as a completion and further confirmation of the series of +phenomena presented to us by the clairvoyance which we observe in +human and animal instinct. Even though they only continue this +series {128} through the echo that is awakened within our +consciousness, they as powerfully support the account which +instinctive actions give concerning their own nature, as they are +themselves supported by the analogy they present to the clairvoyance +observable in instinct. This, then, as well as my desire not to lose +an opportunity of protesting against a modern prejudice, must stand +as my reason for having allowed myself to refer, in a scientific +work, to a class of phenomena which has fallen at present into so +much discredit. + +I will conclude with a few words upon a special kind of instinct +which has a very instructive bearing upon the subject generally, and +shows how impossible it is to evade the supposition of an unconscious +clairvoyance on the part of instinct. In the examples adduced +hitherto, the action of each individual has been done on the +individual's own behalf, except in the case of instincts connected +with the continuation of the species, where the action benefits +others--that is to say, the offspring of the creature performing it. + +We must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of instinct is +found to exist between several individuals, so that, on the one hand, +the action of each redounds to the common welfare, and, on the other, +it becomes possible for a useful purpose to be achieved through the +harmonious association of individual workers. This community of +instinct exists also among the higher animals, but here it is harder +to distinguish from associations originating through conscious will, +inasmuch as speech supplies the means of a more perfect +intercommunication of aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely +recognise {129} this general effect of a universal instinct in the +origin of speech and in the great political and social movements in +the history of the world. Here we are concerned only with the +simplest and most definite examples that can be found anywhere, and +therefore we will deal in preference with the lower animals, among +which, in the absence of voice, the means of communicating thought, +mimicry, and physiognomy, are so imperfect that the harmony and +interconnection of the individual actions cannot in its main points +be ascribed to an understanding arrived at through speech. Huber +observed that when a new comb was being constructed a number of the +largest working-bees, that were full of honey, took no part in the +ordinary business of the others, but remained perfectly aloof. +Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had formed under +their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, masticated +them, and made them into a band. The small plates of wax thus +prepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the top of +the other. When one of the bees of this kind had used up her plates +of wax, another followed her and carried the same work forward in the +same way. A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness and +fastened to the sides of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, +one of the smaller working-bees whose belly was empty came, and after +surveying the wall, made a flat half-oval excavation in the middle of +one of its sides; she piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge +of the excavation. After a short time she was relieved by another +like herself, till more than twenty followed one another in this way. +Meanwhile another bee began to make a similar hollow on the other +side of the wall, but corresponding only with the rim of the +excavation on this side. Presently another bee began a second hollow +upon the same side, each bee being continually relieved by others. +Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies plates of +wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small wall of wax. +In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for more +cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already begun +into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued +building up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked +on opposite sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in +the closest correspondence with those upon the other side, until +eventually the cells on both sides were completed in all their +wonderful regularity and harmony of arrangement, not merely as +regards those standing side by side, but also as regards those which +were upon the other side of their pyramidal base. + +Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer +together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may +be pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of +opinion; let him reflect how often something has to be undone, +destroyed, and done over again; how at one time too many hands come +forward, and at another too few; what running to and fro there is +before each has found his right place; how often too many, and again +too few, present themselves for a relief gang; and how we find all +this in the concerted works of men, who stand so far higher than bees +in the scale of organisation. We see nothing of the kind among bees. +A survey of their operations leaves rather the impression upon us as +though an invisible master-builder had prearranged a scheme of action +for the entire community, and had impressed it upon each individual +member, as though each class of workers had learnt their appointed +work by heart, knew their places and the numbers in which they should +relieve each other, and were informed instantaneously by a secret +signal of the moment when their action was wanted. This, however, is +exactly the manner in which an instinct works; and as the intention +of the entire community is instinctively present in the unconscious +clairvoyance {131a} of each individual bee, so the possession of this +common instinct impels each one of them to the discharge of her +special duties when the right moment has arrived. It is only thus +that the wonderful tranquillity and order which we observe could be +attained. What we are to think concerning this common instinct must +be reserved for explanation later on, but the possibility of its +existence is already evident, inasmuch {131b} as each individual has +an unconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to itself by the +community, and also concerning the means immediately to be adopted +through concerted action--of which, however, only the part requiring +his own co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. Thus, +for example, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in +which it is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with +its lid of wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which the +larva can become a chrysalis must be present in the minds of each of +these two parties to the transaction, but neither of them acts under +the influence of conscious will, except in regard to his own +particular department. I have already mentioned the fact that the +larva, after its metamorphosis, must be freed from its cell by other +bees, and have told how the working-bees in autumn kill the drones, +so that they may not have to feed a number of useless mouths +throughout the winter, and how they only spare them when they are +wanted in order to fecundate a new queen. Furthermore, the working- +bees build cells in which the eggs laid by the queen may come to +maturity, and, as a general rule, make just as many chambers as the +queen lays eggs; they make these, moreover, in the same order as that +in which the queen lays her eggs, namely, first for the working-bees, +then for the drones, and lastly for the queens. In the polity of the +bees, the working and the sexual capacities, which were once united, +are now personified in three distinct kinds of individual, and these +combine with an inner, unconscious, spiritual union, so as to form a +single body politic, as the organs of a living body combine to form +the body itself. + +In this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following +conclusions:- + +Instinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; {132} it is not +a consequence of bodily organisation; it is not a mere result of a +mechanism which lies in the organisation of the brain; it is not the +operation of dead mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, and +foreign to its inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action of +the individual, springing from his most essential nature and +character. The purpose to which any particular kind of instinctive +action is subservient is not the purpose of a soul standing outside +the individual and near akin to Providence--a purpose once for all +thought out, and now become a matter of necessity to the individual, +so that he can act in no other way, though it is engrafted into his +nature from without, and not natural to it. The purpose of the +instinct is in each individual case thought out and willed +unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards the choice of means +adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A +knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable {133} by +conscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the +peculiarity of the unconscious display itself in the clairvoyance of +which consciousness perceives partly only a faint and dull, and +partly, as in the case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of +sentiment, whereas the instinctive action itself--the carrying out of +the means necessary for the achievement of the unconscious purpose-- +falls always more clearly within consciousness, inasmuch as due +performance of what is necessary would be otherwise impossible. +Finally, the clairvoyance makes itself perceived in the concerted +action of several individuals combining to carry out a common but +unconscious purpose. + +Up to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact which we +observe but cannot explain, and the reader may say that he prefers to +take his stand here, and be content with regarding instinct simply as +a matter of fact, the explanation of which is at present beyond our +reach. Against this it must be urged, firstly, that clairvoyance is +not confined to instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that +clairvoyance is by no means present in all instincts, and that +therefore our experience shows us clairvoyance and instinct as two +distinct things--clairvoyance being of great use in explaining +instinct, but instinct serving nothing to explain clairvoyance; +thirdly and lastly, that the clairvoyance of the individual will not +continue to be so incomprehensible to us, but will be perfectly well +explained in the further course of our investigation, while we must +give up all hope of explaining instinct in any other way. + +The conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard instinct +as the innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living being. That +this is actually the case is shown by the instincts of self- +preservation and of the continuation of the species which we observe +throughout creation, and by the heroic self-abandonment with which +the individual will sacrifice welfare, and even life, at the bidding +of instinct. We see this when we think of the caterpillar, and how +she repairs her cocoon until she yields to exhaustion; of the bird, +and how she will lay herself to death; of the disquiet and grief +displayed by all migratory animals if they are prevented from +migrating. A captive cuckoo will always die at the approach of +winter through despair at being unable to fly away; so will the +vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest +mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, and +suffer death cheerfully for her offspring's sake. Every year we see +fresh cases of people who have been unfortunate going mad or +committing suicide. Women who have survived the Caesarian operation +allow themselves so little to be deterred from further childbearing +through fear of this frightful and generally fatal operation, that +they will undergo it no less than three times. Can we suppose that +what so closely resembles demoniacal possession can have come about +through something engrafted on to the soul as a mechanism foreign to +its inner nature, {135} or through conscious deliberation which +adheres always to a bare egoism, and is utterly incapable of such +self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring as is displayed by the +procreative and maternal instincts? + +We have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the instincts of +any animal species are so similar within the limits of that species-- +a circumstance which has not a little contributed to the engrafted- +mechanism theory. But it is plain that like causes will be followed +by like effects; and this should afford sufficient explanation. The +bodily mechanism, for example, of all the individuals of a species is +alike; so again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their +conscious intelligence--though this, indeed, is not the case with +man, nor in some measure even with the highest animals; and it is +through this want of uniformity that there is such a thing as +individuality. The external conditions of all the individuals of a +species are also tolerably similar, and when they differ essentially, +the instincts are likewise different--a fact in support of which no +examples are necessary. From like conditions of mind and body (and +this includes like predispositions of brain and ganglia) and like +exterior circumstances, like desires will follow as a necessary +logical consequence. Again, from like desires and like inward and +outward circumstances, a like choice of means--that is to say, like +instincts--must ensue. These last two steps would not be conceded +without restriction if the question were one involving conscious +deliberation, but as these logical consequences are supposed to +follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step unfailingly +without vacillation or delay so long as the premises are similar, the +ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the means for their +gratification will be similar also. + +Thus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains the +very last point which it may be thought worth while to bring forward +in support of the opinions of our opponents. + +I will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: +"Thoughtful minds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to +belong to the most important of all phenomena, and to be the true +touchstone of a durable philosophy." + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +Remarks upon Von Hartmann's position in regard to instinct. + +Uncertain how far the foregoing chapter is not better left without +comment of any kind, I nevertheless think that some of my readers may +be helped by the following extracts from the notes I took while +translating. I will give them as they come, without throwing them +into connected form. + + +Von Hartmann defines instinct as action done with a purpose, but +without consciousness of purpose. + +The building of her nest by a bird is an instinctive action; it is +done with a purpose, but it is arbitrary to say that the bird has no +knowledge of that purpose. Some hold that birds when they are +building their nest know as well that they mean to bring up a family +in it as a young married couple do when they build themselves a +house. This is the conclusion which would be come to by a plain +person on a prima facie view of the facts, and Von Hartmann shows no +reason for modifying it. + +A better definition of instinct would be that it is inherited +knowledge in respect of certain facts, and of the most suitable +manner in which to deal with them. + + +Von Hartmann speaks of "a mechanism of brain or mind" contrived by +nature, and again of "a psychical organisation," as though it were +something distinct from a physical organisation. + +We can conceive of such a thing as mechanism of brain, for we have +seen brain and handled it; but until we have seen a mind and handled +it, or at any rate been enabled to draw inferences which will warrant +us in conceiving of it as a material substance apart from bodily +substance, we cannot infer that it has an organisation apart from +bodily organisation. Does Von Hartmann mean that we have two bodies- +-a body-body, and a soul-body? + + +He says that no one will call the action of the spider instinctive in +voiding the fluids from its glands when they are too full. Why not? + + +He is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the "ends +proposed to itself by the instinct," of "the blind unconscious +purpose of the instinct," of "an unconscious purpose constraining the +volition of the bird," of "each variation and modification of the +instinct," as though instinct, purpose, and, later on, clairvoyance, +were persons, and not words characterising a certain class of +actions. The ends are proposed to itself by the animal, not by the +instinct. Nothing but mischief can come of a mode of expression +which does not keep this clearly in view. + + +It must not be supposed that the same cuckoo is in the habit of +laying in the nests of several different species, and of changing the +colour of her eggs according to that of the eggs of the bird in whose +nest she lays. I have inquired from Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe of the +ornithological department at the British Museum, who kindly gives it +me as his opinion that though cuckoos do imitate the eggs of the +species on whom they foist their young ones, yet one cuckoo will +probably lay in the nests of one species also, and will stick to that +species for life. If so, the same race of cuckoos may impose upon +the same species for generations together. The instinct will even +thus remain a very wonderful one, but it is not at all inconsistent +with the theory put forward by Professor Hering and myself. + + +Returning to the idea of psychical mechanism, he admits that "it is +itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it," +{139a} and then goes on to claim for it that it explains a great many +other things. This must have been the passage which Mr. Sully had in +view when he very justly wrote that Von Hartmann "dogmatically closes +the field of physical inquiry, and takes refuge in a phantom which +explains everything, simply because it is itself incapable of +explanation." + + +According to Von Hartmann {139b} the unpractised animal manifests its +instinct as perfectly as the practised. This is not the case. The +young animal exhibits marvellous proficiency, but it gains by +experience. I have watched sparrows, which I can hardly doubt to be +young ones, spend a whole month in trying to build their nest, and +give it up in the end as hopeless. I have watched three such cases +this spring in a tree not twenty feet from my own window and on a +level with my eye, so that I have been able to see what was going on +at all hours of the day. In each case the nest was made well and +rapidly up to a certain point, and then got top-heavy and tumbled +over, so that little was left on the tree: it was reconstructed and +reconstructed over and over again, always with the same result, till +at last in all three cases the birds gave up in despair. I believe +the older and stronger birds secure the fixed and best sites, driving +the younger birds to the trees, and that the art of building nests in +trees is dying out among house-sparrows. + + +He declares that instinct is not due to organisation so much as +organisation to instinct. {140} The fact is, that neither can claim +precedence of or pre-eminence over the other. Instinct and +organisation are only mind and body, or mind and matter; and these +are not two separable things, but one and inseparable, with, as it +were, two sides; the one of which is a function of the other. There +was never yet either matter without mind, however low, nor mind, +however high, without a material body of some sort; there can be no +change in one without a corresponding change in the other; neither +came before the other; neither can either cease to change or cease to +be; for "to be" is to continue changing, so that "to be" and "to +change" are one. + + +Whence, he asks, comes the desire to gratify an instinct before +experience of the pleasure that will ensue on gratification? This is +a pertinent question, but it is met by Professor Hering with the +answer that this is due to memory--to the continuation in the germ of +vibrations that were vibrating in the body of the parent, and which, +when stimulated by vibrations of a suitable rhythm, become more and +more powerful till they suffice to set the body in visible action. +For my own part I only venture to maintain that it is due to memory, +that is to say, to an enduring sense on the part of the germ of the +action it took when in the persons of its ancestors, and of the +gratification which ensued thereon. This meets Von Hartmann's whole +difficulty. + + +The glacier is not snow. It is snow packed tight into a small +compass, and has thus lost all trace of its original form. How +incomplete, however, would be any theory of glacial action which left +out of sight the origin of the glacier in snow! Von Hartmann loses +sight of the origin of instinctive in deliberative actions because +the two classes of action are now in many respects different. His +philosophy of the unconscious fails to consider what is the normal +process by means of which such common actions as we can watch, and +whose history we can follow, have come to be done unconsciously. + + +He says, {141} "How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism, +&c., &c.; how clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that +there is an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird +to the use of the fitting means." Does he mean that there is an +actual thing--an unconscious purpose--something outside the bird, as +it were a man, which lays hold of the bird and makes it do this or +that, as a master makes a servant do his bidding? If so, he again +personifies the purpose itself, and must therefore embody it, or be +talking in a manner which plain people cannot understand. If, on the +other hand, he means "how simple is the view that the bird acts +unconsciously," this is not more simple than supposing it to act +consciously; and what ground has he for supposing that the bird is +unconscious? It is as simple, and as much in accordance with the +facts, to suppose that the bird feels the air to be colder, and knows +that she must warm her eggs if she is to hatch them, as consciously +as a mother knows that she must not expose her new-born infant to the +cold. + + +On page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying that if it is +once granted that the normal and abnormal manifestations of instinct +spring from a single source, then the objection that the modification +is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one +later on, in so far as it is directed against instinct generally. I +understand him to mean that if we admit instinctive action, and the +modifications of that action which more nearly resemble results of +reason, to be actions of the same ultimate kind differing in degree +only, and if we thus attempt to reduce instinctive action to the +prophetic strain arising from old experience, we shall be obliged to +admit that the formation of the embryo is ultimately due to +reflection--which he seems to think is a reductio ad absurdum of the +argument. + +Therefore, he concludes, if there is to be only one source, the +source must be unconscious, and not conscious. We reply, that we do +not see the absurdity of the position which we grant we have been +driven to. We hold that the formation of the embryo IS ultimately +due to reflection and design. + + +The writer of an article in the Times, April 1, 1880, says that +servants must be taught their calling before they can practise it; +but, in fact, they can only be taught their calling by practising it. +So Von Hartmann says animals must feel the pleasure consequent on +gratification of an instinct before they can be stimulated to act +upon the instinct by a knowledge of the pleasure that will ensue. +This sounds logical, but in practice a little performance and a +little teaching--a little sense of pleasure and a little connection +of that pleasure with this or that practice,--come up simultaneously +from something that we cannot see, the two being so small and so much +abreast, that we do not know which is first, performance or teaching; +and, again, action, or pleasure supposed as coming from the action. + + +"Geistes-mechanismus" comes as near to "disposition of mind," or, +more shortly, "disposition," as so unsatisfactory a word can come to +anything. Yet, if we translate it throughout by "disposition," we +shall see how little we are being told. + +We find on page 114 that "all instinctive actions give us an +impression of absolute security and infallibility"; that "the will is +never weak or hesitating, as it is when inferences are being drawn +consciously." "We never," Von Hartmann continues, "find instinct +making mistakes." Passing over the fact that instinct is again +personified, the statement is still incorrect. Instinctive actions +are certainly, as a general rule, performed with less uncertainty +than deliberative ones; this is explicable by the fact that they have +been more often practised, and thus reduced more completely to a +matter of routine; but nothing is more certain than that animals +acting under the guidance of inherited experience or instinct +frequently make mistakes which with further practice they correct. +Von Hartmann has abundantly admitted that the manner of an +instinctive action is often varied in correspondence with variation +in external circumstances. It is impossible to see how this does not +involve both possibility of error and the connection of instinct with +deliberation at one and the same time. The fact is simply this--when +an animal finds itself in a like position with that in which it has +already often done a certain thing in the persons of its forefathers, +it will do this thing well and easily: when it finds the position +somewhat, but not unrecognisably, altered through change either in +its own person or in the circumstances exterior to it, it will vary +its action with greater or less ease according to the nature of the +change in the position: when the position is gravely altered the +animal either bungles or is completely thwarted. + + +Not only does Von Hartmann suppose that instinct may, and does, +involve knowledge antecedent to, and independent of, experience--an +idea as contrary to the tendency of modern thought as that of +spontaneous generation, with which indeed it is identical though +presented in another shape--but he implies by his frequent use of the +word "unmittelbar" that a result can come about without any cause +whatever. So he says, "Um fur die unbewusster Erkenntniss, welche +nicht durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung erworben, sondern als unmittelbar +Besitz," &c. {144a} Because he does not see where the experience can +have been gained, he cuts the knot, and denies that there has been +experience. We say, Look more attentively and you will discover the +time and manner in which the experience was gained. + + +Again, he continually assumes that animals low down in the scale of +life cannot know their own business because they show no sign of +knowing ours. See his remarks on Saturnia pavonia minor (page 107), +and elsewhere on cattle and gadflies. The question is not what can +they know, but what does their action prove to us that they do know. +With each species of animal or plant there is one profession only, +and it is hereditary. With us there are many professions, and they +are not hereditary; so that they cannot become instinctive, as they +would otherwise tend to do. + + +He attempts {144b} to draw a distinction between the causes that have +produced the weapons and working instruments of animals, on the one +hand, and those that lead to the formation of hexagonal cells by +bees, &c., on the other. No such distinction can be justly drawn. + + +The ghost-stories which Von Hartmann accepts will hardly be accepted +by people of sound judgment. There is one well-marked distinctive +feature between the knowledge manifested by animals when acting +instinctively and the supposed knowledge of seers and clairvoyants. +In the first case, the animal never exhibits knowledge except upon +matters concerning which its race has been conversant for +generations; in the second, the seer is supposed to do so. In the +first case, a new feature is invariably attended with disturbance of +the performance and the awakening of consciousness and deliberation, +unless the new matter is too small in proportion to the remaining +features of the case to attract attention, or unless, though really +new, it appears so similar to an old feature as to be at first +mistaken for it; with the second, it is not even professed that the +seer's ancestors have had long experience upon the matter concerning +which the seer is supposed to have special insight, and I can imagine +no more powerful a priori argument against a belief in such stories. + + +Close upon the end of his chapter Von Hartmann touches upon the one +matter which requires consideration. He refers the similarity of +instinct that is observable among all species to the fact that like +causes produce like effects; and I gather, though he does not +expressly say so, that he considers similarity of instinct in +successive generations to be referable to the same cause as +similarity of instinct between all the contemporary members of a +species. He thus raises the one objection against referring the +phenomena of heredity to memory which I think need be gone into with +any fulness. I will, however, reserve this matter for my concluding +chapters. + +Von Hartmann concludes his chapter with a quotation from Schelling, +to the effect that the phenomena of animal instinct are the true +touchstone of a durable philosophy; by which I suppose it is intended +to say that if a system or theory deals satisfactorily with animal +instinct, it will stand, but not otherwise. I can wish nothing +better than that the philosophy of the unconscious advanced by Von +Hartmann be tested by this standard. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +Recapitulation and statement of an objection. + +The true theory of unconscious action, then, is that of Professor +Hering, from whose lecture it is no strained conclusion to gather +that he holds the action of all living beings, from the moment of +their conception to that of their fullest development, to be founded +in volition and design, though these have been so long lost sight of +that the work is now carried on, as it were, departmentally and in +due course according to an official routine which can hardly now be +departed from. + +This involves the older "Darwinism" and the theory of Lamarck, +according to which the modification of living forms has been effected +mainly through the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary +with varying conditions, the survival of the fittest (which, as I see +Mr. H. B. Baildon has just said, "sometimes comes to mean merely the +survival of the survivors" {146}) being taken almost as a matter of +course. According to this view of evolution, there is a remarkable +analogy between the development of living organs or tools and that of +those organs or tools external to the body which has been so rapid +during the last few thousand years. + +Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided +throughout their development, and preserve the due order in each step +which they take, through memory of the course they took on past +occasions when in the persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have +already too often said that if this memory remains for long periods +together latent and without effect, it is because the undulations of +the molecular substance of the body which are its supposed +explanation are during these periods too feeble to generate action, +until they are augmented in force through an accession of suitable +undulations issuing from exterior objects; or, in other words, until +recollection is stimulated by a return of the associated ideas. On +this the eternal agitation becomes so much enhanced, that equilibrium +is visibly disturbed, and the action ensues which is proper to the +vibration of the particular substance under the particular +conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose Professor Hering to +intend. + +Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining +ourselves to the fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just +hatched is supposed, according to this theory, to lose its memory of +the time it was in the egg, and to be stimulated by an intense but +unconscious recollection of the action taken by its ancestors when +they were first hatched. It is guided in the course it takes by the +experience it can thus command. Each step it takes recalls a new +recollection, and thus it goes through its development as a performer +performs a piece of music, each bar leading his recollection to the +bar that should next follow. + +In "Life and Habit" will be found examples of the manner in which +this view solves a number of difficulties for the explanation of +which the leading men of science express themselves at a loss. The +following from Professor Huxley's recent work upon the crayfish may +serve for an example. Professor Huxley writes:- + + +"It is a widely received notion that the energies of living matter +have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death +of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That +all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but +it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief +that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or +later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its +parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually +renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual +components of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are +taken by vigorous successors. A city remains notwithstanding the +constant death-rate of its inhabitants; and such an organism as a +crayfish is only a corporate unity, made up of innumerable partially +independent individualities."--The Crayfish, p. 127. + + +Surely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain +why no organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives. +The death of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the +social condition becoming more complex than there is memory of past +experience to deal with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, +and decay. The crayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we +have heard of die sooner or later. There are some savages who have +not yet arrived at the conception that death is the necessary end of +all living beings, and who consider even the gentlest death from old +age as violent and abnormal; so Professor Huxley seems to find a +difficulty in seeing that though a city commonly outlives many +generations of its citizens, yet cities and states are in the end no +less mortal than individuals. "The city," he says, "remains." Yes, +but not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a city that will +last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last for ever. + +I have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring +forward in support of Professor Hering's theory; it now remains for +me to meet the most troublesome objection to it that I have been able +to think of--an objection which I had before me when I wrote "Life +and Habit," but which then as now I believe to be unsound. Seeing, +however, as I have pointed out at the end of the preceding chapter, +that Von Hartmann has touched upon it, and being aware that a +plausible case can be made out for it, I will state it and refute it +here. When I say refute it, I do not mean that I shall have done +with it--for it is plain that it opens up a vaster question in the +relations between the so-called organic and inorganic worlds--but +that I will refute the supposition that it any way militates against +Professor Hering's theory. + +Why, it may be asked, should we go out of our way to invent +unconscious memory--the existence of which must at the best remain an +inference {149}--when the observed fact that like antecedents are +invariably followed by like consequents should be sufficient for our +purpose? Why should the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a +given condition will always become a butterfly within a certain time +be connected with memory, when it is not pretended that memory has +anything to do with the invariableness with which oxygen and hydrogen +when mixed in certain proportions make water? + +We assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into +its component parts, and if these were brought together again, and +again decomposed and again brought together any number of times over, +the results would be invariably the same, whether decomposition or +combination, yet no one will refer the invariableness of the action +during each repetition, to recollection by the gaseous molecules of +the course taken when the process was last repeated. On the +contrary, we are assured that molecules in some distant part of the +world, which had never entered into such and such a known combination +themselves, nor held concert with other molecules that had been so +combined, and which, therefore, could have had no experience and no +memory, would none the less act upon one another in that one way in +which other like combinations of atoms have acted under like +circumstances, as readily as though they had been combined and +separated and recombined again a hundred or a hundred thousand times. +It is this assumption, tacitly made by every man, beast, and plant in +the universe, throughout all time and in every action of their lives, +that has made any action possible, lying, as it does, at the root of +all experience. + +As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not +suppose an alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any +moment during the process of their combination. This process is, in +all probability, an exceedingly complicated one, involving a +multitude of actions and subordinate processes, which follow one upon +the other, and each one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an +end, though they all come to pass in what appears to be an instant of +time. Yet at no point do we conceive of any atom as swerving ever +such a little to right or left of a determined course, but invest +each one of them with so much of the divine attributes as that with +it there shall be no variableness, neither shadow of turning. + +We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity +of things, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the +circumstances in which they are placed. We say that only one +proximate result can ever arise from any given combination. If, +then, so great uniformity of action as nothing can exceed is +manifested by atoms to which no one will impute memory, why this +desire for memory, as though it were the only way of accounting for +regularity of action in living beings? Sameness of action may be +seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that we can +consistently call memory. In these cases we say that it is due to +sameness of substance in same circumstances. + +The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is +no more possible for living action to have more than one set of +proximate consequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen +when mixed in the proportions proper for the formation of water. +Why, then, not recognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity +of living action to the reproduction of the necessary antecedents, +with no more sense of connection between the steps in the action, or +memory of similar action taken before, than we suppose on the part of +oxygen and hydrogen molecules between the several occasions on which +they may have been disunited and reunited? + +A boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught them +in the persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit soil +for a certain kind of seed to grow upon. In like manner he should be +said to grow his nose because he is a fit combination for a nose to +spring from. Dr. X---'s father died of angina pectoris at the age of +forty-nine; so did Dr. X---. Can it be pretended that Dr. X--- +remembered having died of angina pectoris at the age of forty-nine +when in the person of his father, and accordingly, when he came to be +forty-nine years old himself, died also? For this to hold, Dr. X--- +'s father must have begotten him after he was dead; for the son could +not remember the father's death before it happened. + +As for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they are +developed for the most part not only long after the average age of +reproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory of +any previous existence can remain; for a man will not have many male +ancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor female +ancestors who did so at over forty. By our own showing, therefore, +recollection can have nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can +doubt that gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In +what respects do the two things differ so that we should refer the +inheritance of eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection +between memory and gout? We may have a ghost of a pretence for +saying that a man grew a nose by rote, or even that he catches the +measles or whooping-cough by rote during his boyhood; but do we mean +to say that he develops the gout by rote in his old age if he comes +of a gouty family? If, then, rote and red-tape have nothing to do +with the one, why should they with the other? + +Remember also the cases in which aged females develop male +characteristics. Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable +extent, which make their appearance during the decay of the body, and +grow with greater and greater vigour in the extreme of old age, and +even for days after death itself. It can hardly be doubted that an +especial tendency to develop these characteristics runs as an +inheritance in certain families; here then is perhaps the best case +that can be found of a development strictly inherited, but having +clearly nothing whatever to do with memory. Why should not all +development stand upon the same footing? + +A friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, +concluded with the following words:- + +"If you cannot be content with the similar action of similar +substances (living or non-living) under similar circumstances--if you +cannot accept this as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to +connect repetition of similar action with memory before you can rest +in it and be thankful--be consistent, and introduce this memory which +you find so necessary into the inorganic world also. Either say that +a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it is, +and, being that kind of thing, must act in such and such a manner and +in such a manner only, so that the act of one generation has no more +to do with the act of the next than the fact of cream being churned +into butter in a dairy one day has to do with other cream being +churnable into butter in the following week--either say this, or else +develop some mental condition--which I have no doubt you will be very +well able to do if you feel the want of it--in which you can make out +a case for saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought together, +and cream on being churned, are in some way acquainted with, and +mindful of, action taken by other cream and other oxygen and hydrogen +on past occasions." + +I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being +able to develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his +own ingenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his +life was but an example of this omnipresent principle. + +When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. I +endeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and +memory, and reasoned as follows:- A repetition of like antecedents +will be certainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, +whether the agents be men and women or chemical substances. "If +there be two cowards perfectly similar in every respect, and if they +be subjected in a perfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, +which are themselves perfectly similar, there are few who will not +expect a perfect similarity in the running away, even though ten +thousand years intervene between the original combination and its +repetition." {153} Here certainly there is no coming into play of +memory, more than in the pan of cream on two successive churning +days, yet the action is similar. + +A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner. +About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at once he takes +down his hat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the +neighbourhood, and on getting down into the street asks a policeman +at the corner which is the best eating-house within easy distance. +The policeman tells him of three houses, one of which is a little +farther off than the other two, but is cheaper. Money being a +greater object to him than time, the clerk decides on going to the +cheaper house. He goes, is satisfied, and returns. + +Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and--it will be said-- +remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the same place +as before. But what has his memory to do with it? Suppose him to +have entirely forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day +from the moment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in +other respects sound in mind and body, and unchanged generally. At +half-past twelve he would begin to be hungry; but his beginning to be +hungry cannot be connected with his remembering having begun to be +hungry yesterday. He would begin to be hungry just as much whether +he remembered or no. At one o'clock he again takes down his hat and +leaves the office, not because he remembers having done so yesterday, +but because he wants his hat to go out with. Being again in the +street, and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (for he remembers +nothing of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at the corner of +the street, and asks him the same question as before; the policeman +gives him the same answer, and money being still an object to him, +the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes there, finds the +same menu, makes the same choice for the same reasons, eats, is +satisfied, and returns. + +What similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same +time more incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do with memory; on +the contrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his +action of the second day so exactly resembles that of the first. As +long as he has no power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat +the same actions in exactly the same way, until some external +circumstances, such as his being sent away, modify the situation. +Till this or some other modification occurs, he will day after day go +down into the street without knowing where to go; day after day he +will see the same policeman at the corner of the same street, and +(for we may as well suppose that the policeman has no memory too) he +will ask and be answered, and ask and be answered, till he and the +policeman die of old age. This similarity of action is plainly due +to that--whatever it is--which ensures that like persons or things +when placed in like circumstances shall behave in like manner. + +Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of +action will disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to +him on the first day he went out in search of dinner will be a +modification in him in regard to his then condition when he next goes +out to get his dinner. He had no such memory on the first day, and +he has upon the second. Some modification of action must ensue upon +this modification of the actor, and this is immediately observable. +He wants his dinner, indeed, goes down into the street, and sees the +policeman as yesterday, but he does not ask the policeman; he +remembers what the policeman told him and what he did, and therefore +goes straight to the eating-house without wasting time: nor does he +dine off the same dish two days running, for he remembers what he had +yesterday and likes variety. If, then, similarity of action is +rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce it into such +cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes by successive +generations? The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as the goose, +are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequence one +goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water. Why +should it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds--namely, +that it is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like +proportions in the same manner? + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +On Cycles. + +The one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or +unconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like +consequents. This is the one true and catholic faith, +undemonstrable, but except a living being believe which, without +doubt it shall perish everlastingly. In the assurance of this all +action is taken. + +But if this fundamental article is admitted, and it cannot be +gainsaid, it follows that if ever a complete cycle were formed, so +that the whole universe of one instant were to repeat itself +absolutely in a subsequent one, no matter after what interval of +time, then the course of the events between these two moments would +go on repeating itself for ever and ever afterwards in due order, +down to the minutest detail, in an endless series of cycles like a +circulating decimal. For the universe comprises everything; there +could therefore be no disturbance from without. Once a cycle, always +a cycle. + +Let us suppose the earth, of given weight, moving with given momentum +in a given path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find +itself at any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was +conditioned at some past moment; then it must move exactly in the +same path as the one it took when at the beginning of the cycle it +has just completed, and must therefore in the course of time fulfil a +second cycle, and therefore a third, and so on for ever and ever, +with no more chance of escape than a circulating decimal has, if the +circumstances have been reproduced with perfect accuracy. + +We see something very like this actually happen in the yearly +revolutions of the planets round the sun. But the relations between, +we will say, the earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely. +These relations deal only with a small part of the universe, and even +in this small part the relation of the parts inter se has never yet +been reproduced with the perfection of accuracy necessary for our +argument. They are liable, moreover, to disturbance from events +which may or may not actually occur (as, for example, our being +struck by a comet, or the sun's coming within a certain distance of +another sun), but of which, if they do occur, no one can foresee the +effects. Nevertheless the conditions have been so nearly repeated +that there is no appreciable difference in the relations between the +earth and sun on one New Year's Day and on another, nor is there +reason for expecting such change within any reasonable time. + +If there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the whole +universe, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. +Exclude a single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the +relative positions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an +element of disturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that +can be said is that it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series +of very nearly perfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is +destroyed, but which must inevitably prevent absolute identity of +repetition. The movement of the series becomes no longer a cycle, +but spiral, and convergent or divergent at a greater or less rate +according to circumstances. We cannot conceive of all the atoms in +the universe standing twice over in absolutely the same relation each +one of them to every other. There are too many of them and they are +too much mixed; but, as has been just said, in the planets and their +satellites we do see large groups of atoms whose movements recur with +some approach to precision. The same holds good also with certain +comets and with the sun himself. The result is that our days and +nights and seasons follow one another with nearly perfect regularity +from year to year, and have done so for as long time as we know +anything for certain. A vast preponderance of all the action that +takes place around us is cycular action. + +Within the great cycle of the planetary revolution of our own earth, +and as a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of the +phenomena of the seasons; these generate atmospheric cycles. Water +is evaporated from the ocean and conveyed to mountain ranges, where +it is cooled, and whence it returns again to the sea. This cycle of +events is being repeated again and again with little appreciable +variation. The tides and winds in certain latitudes go round and +round the world with what amounts to continuous regularity.--There +are storms of wind and rain called cyclones. In the case of these, +the cycle is not very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, +and the tendency to recur is comparatively soon lost. It is a common +saying that history repeats itself, so that anarchy will lead to +despotism and despotism to anarchy; every nation can point to +instances of men's minds having gone round and round so nearly in a +perfect cycle that many revolutions have occurred before the +cessation of a tendency to recur. Lastly, in the generation of +plants and animals we have, perhaps, the most striking and common +example of the inevitable tendency of all action to repeat itself +when it has once proximately done so. Let only one living being have +once succeeded in producing a being like itself, and thus have +returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a series of generations must +follow of necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no part +in the original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the first +reproductive creature or all its descendants within a few +generations. If no such mishap occurs as this, and if the recurrence +of the conditions is sufficiently perfect, a series of generations +follows with as much certainty as a series of seasons follows upon +the cycle of the relations between the earth and sun. Let the first +periodically recurring substance--we will say A--be able to recur or +reproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2, &c.; +let A also have consciousness and a sense of self-interest, which +qualities must, ex hypothesi, be reproduced in each one of its +offspring; let these get placed in circumstances which differ +sufficiently to destroy the cycle in theory without doing so +practically--that is to say, to reduce the rotation to a spiral, but +to a spiral with so little deviation from perfect cycularity as for +each revolution to appear practically a cycle, though after many +revolutions the deviation becomes perceptible; then some such +differentiations of animal and vegetable life as we actually see +follow as matters of course. A1 and A2 have a sense of self-interest +as A had, but they are not precisely in circumstances similar to A's, +nor, it may be, to each other's; they will therefore act somewhat +differently, and every living being is modified by a change of +action. Having become modified, they follow the spirit of A's action +more essentially in begetting a creature like themselves than in +begetting one like A; for the essence of A's act was not the +reproduction of A, but the reproduction of a creature like the one +from which it sprung--that is to say, a creature bearing traces in +its body of the main influences that have worked upon its parent. + +Within the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in the +life of each individual, whether animal or plant. Observe the action +of our lungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle having +been once established, it is repeated many millions of times in an +individual of average health and longevity. Remember also that it is +this periodicity--this inevitable tendency of all atoms in +combination to repeat any combination which they have once repeated, +unless forcibly prevented from doing so--which alone renders nine- +tenths of our mechanical inventions of practical use to us. There is +no internal periodicity about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the +steam-engine or watermill when once set in motion. The actions of +these machines recur in a regular series, at regular intervals, with +the unerringness of circulating decimals. + +When we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in the +world around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends +its action, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the +vastest and the smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord +with our ideas of what must inevitably happen when a like combination +is placed in circumstances like those in which it was placed before-- +when we bear in mind all this, is it possible not to connect the +facts together, and to refer cycles of living generations to the same +unalterableness in the action of like matter under like circumstances +which makes Jupiter and Saturn revolve round the sun, or the piston +of a steam-engine move up and down as long as the steam acts upon it? + +But who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston- +rod, to air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the +earth and planets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of +the universe, if they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can +take account of? {160} And if not, why introduce it into the +embryonic development of living beings, when there is not a particle +of evidence in support of its actual presence, when regularity of +action can be ensured just as well without it as with it, and when at +the best it is considered as existing under circumstances which it +baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it is supposed to be exercised +without any conscious recollection? Surely a memory which is +exercised without any consciousness of recollecting is only a +periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +Refutation--Memory at once a promoter and a disturber of uniformity +of action and structure. + +To meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do +little more than show that the fact of certain often inherited +diseases and developments, whether of youth or old age, being +obviously not due to a memory on the part of offspring of like +diseases and developments in the parents, does not militate against +supposing that embryonic and youthful development generally is due to +memory. + +This is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself into +an assertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and +embryonic development being due to memory, and a contention that the +necessity of each particular moment in each particular case is +sufficient to account for the facts without the introduction of +memory. + +I will deal with these two last points briefly first. As regards the +evidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due to +a rapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in +the persons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, +I must refer my readers to "Life and Habit," and to the translation +of Professor Hering's lecture given in this volume. I will only +repeat here that a chrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the +same person with the chrysalis of its preceding generation, as this +last is one and the same person with the egg or caterpillar from +which it sprang. You cannot deny personal identity between two +successive generations without sooner or later denying it during the +successive stages in the single life of what we call one individual; +nor can you admit personal identity through the stages of a long and +varied life (embryonic and postnatal) without admitting it to endure +through an endless series of generations. + +The personal identity of successive generations being admitted, the +possibility of the second of two generations remembering what +happened to it in the first is obvious. The a priori objection, +therefore, is removed, and the question becomes one of fact--does the +offspring act as if it remembered? + +The answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but that +it is not possible to account for either its development or its early +instinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of its +remembering, and remembering exceedingly well. + +The only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living +being may display a vast and varied information concerning all manner +of details, and be able to perform most intricate operations, +independently of experience and practice. Once admit knowledge +independent of experience, and farewell to sober sense and reason +from that moment. + +Firstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility for +remembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of having +remembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can be +brought forward, so as to account for the phenomena of instinct and +heredity generally, which is not easily reducible to an absurdity. +Beyond this we do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from +us who require further evidence. + +As regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will +account for likeness of result, without there being any need for +introducing memory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to +likeness of antecedents, and I grant this will hold as good with +embryos as with oxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the one will +cover the other, for time writs of the laws common to all matter run +within the womb as freely as elsewhere; but admitting that there are +combinations into which living beings enter with a faculty called +memory which has its effect upon their conduct, and admitting that +such combinations are from time to time repeated (as we observe in +the case of a practised performer playing a piece of music which he +has committed to memory), then I maintain that though, indeed, the +likeness of one performance to its immediate predecessor is due to +likeness of the combinations immediately preceding the two +performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both these +combinations as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, and +therefore proper to be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say +that Herr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, +because he was such and such an arrangement of matter in such and +such circumstances, resembling those under which he played without +music on some past occasion. This goes without saying; we say only +that he played the music by heart or by memory, as he had often +played it before. + +To the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because it +remembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in +due course before it, but because when matter is in such a physical +and mental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assume +presently such another physical and mental state as to be called +chrysalis, and that therefore there is no memory in the case--to this +objector I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have +become so like the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a +matter of necessity, unless both parent and offspring had been +influenced by something that we usually call memory. For it is this +very possession of a common memory which has guided the offspring +into the path taken by, and hence to a virtually same condition with, +the parent, and which guided the parent in its turn to a state +virtually identical with a corresponding state in the existence of +its own parent. To memory, therefore, the most prominent place in +the transaction is assigned rightly. + +To deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the +development of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct +has anything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the +House of Commons. What should we think of one who said that the +action of these gentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to +embarrass the Government, but was simply the necessary outcome of the +chemical and mechanical forces at work, which being such and such, +the action which we see is inevitable, and has therefore nothing to +do with wilful obstruction? We should answer that there was +doubtless a great deal of chemical and mechanical action in the +matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, it was all chemical and +mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstruct parliamentary +business is involved in certain kinds of chemical and mechanical +action, and that the kinds involving this had preceded the recent +proceedings of the members in question. If asked to prove this, we +can get no further than that such action as has been taken has never +yet been seen except as following after and in consequence of a +desire to obstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no +more be expected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the +bidding of a foreigner. + +A little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable +to deny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time +denying their existence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no +place in the acquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action. +He will feel that the actions, and the relation of one action to +another which he observes in embryos is such as is never seen except +in association with and as a consequence of will and memory. He will +therefore say that it is due to will and memory. To say that these +are the necessary outcome of certain antecedents is not to destroy +them: granted that they are--a man does not cease to be a man when +we reflect that he has had a father and mother, nor do will and +memory cease to be will and memory on the ground that they cannot +come causeless. They are manifest minute by minute to the perception +of all sane people, and this tribunal, though not infallible, is +nevertheless our ultimate court of appeal--the final arbitrator in +all disputed cases. + +We must remember that there is no action, however original or +peculiar, which is not in respect of far the greater number of its +details founded upon memory. If a desperate man blows his brains +out--an action which he can do once in a lifetime only, and which +none of his ancestors can have done before leaving offspring--still +nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the movements necessary +to achieve his end consist of habitual movements--movements, that is +to say, which were once difficult, but which have been practised and +practised by the help of memory until they are now performed +automatically. We can no more have an action than a creative effort +of the imagination cut off from memory. Ideas and actions seem +almost to resemble matter and force in respect of the impossibility +of originating or destroying them; nearly all that are, are memories +of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created, disappearing +but not perishing. + +It appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the clerk who +wanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken +the day before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him +to be guided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his +taking down his hat and going out into the street. We could not, +indeed, deprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his +action. + +Nevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course +of time come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the +new forms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still +arising, and in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical +inventions. But it is only a very little new that is added at a +time, and that little is generally due to the desire to attain an end +which cannot be attained by any of the means for which there exists a +perceived precedent in the memory. When this is the case, either the +memory is further ransacked for any forgotten shreds of details, a +combination of which may serve the desired purpose; or action is +taken in the dark, which sometimes succeeds and becomes a fertile +source of further combinations; or we are brought to a dead stop. +All action is random in respect of any of the minute actions which +compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, real or +supposed. So that random, or action taken in the dark, or illusion, +lies at the very root of progress. + +I will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct and +embryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch as +certain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed +to it. + +Those who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two +main classes: those which we have often repeated before by means of +a regular series of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a +certain tolerably well-defined point--as when Herr Joachim plays a +sonata in public, or when we dress or undress ourselves; and actions +the details of which are indeed guided by memory, but which in their +general scope and purpose are new--as when we are being married or +presented at court. + +At each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above +referred to there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to +the less or greater number of times the action has been repeated), +not only of the steps in the present and previous performances which +have led up to the particular point that may be selected, but also of +the particular point itself; there is, therefore, at each point in a +habitual performance a memory at once of like antecedents and of a +like present. + +If the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were +absolutely perfect; if the vibration (according to Professor Hering) +on each repetition existed in its full original strength and without +having been interfered with by any other vibration; and if, again, +the new wave running into it from exterior objects on each repetition +of the action were absolutely identical in character with the wave +that ran in upon the last occasion, then there would be no change in +the action and no modification or improvement could take place. For +though indeed the latest performance would always have one memory +more than the latest but one to guide it, yet the memories being +identical, it would not matter how many or how few they were. + +On any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, +or both, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight +variation in each individual case, and some part of this variation is +remembered, with approbation or disapprobation as the case may be. + +The fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there is +one memory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is +slightly different from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent +and, ex hypothesi, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual +action--and the life of an organism should be regarded as the +habitual action of a single individual, namely, of the organism +itself, and of its ancestors. This is the key to accumulation of +improvement, whether in the arts which we assiduously practise during +our single life, or in the structures and instincts of successive +generations. The memory does not complete a true circle, but is, as +it were, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom. It is no longer a +perfectly circulating decimal. Where, on the other hand, there is no +memory of a like present, where, in fact, the memory is not, so to +speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of improvement. The effect +of any variation is not transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of +still further change. + +As regards the second of the two classes of actions above referred +to--those, namely, which are not recurrent or habitual, AND AT NO +POINT OF WHICH IS THERE A MEMORY OF A PAST PRESENT LIKE THE ONE WHICH +IS PRESENT NOW--there will have been no accumulation of strong and +well-knit memory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if +taken at all, will be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual +actions (our own and those of other people) pieced together with a +result more or less satisfactory according to circumstances. + +But it does not follow that the action of two people who have had +tolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similar +circumstances should be more unlike each other in this second case +than in the first. On the contrary, nothing is more common than to +observe the same kind of people making the same kind of mistake when +placed for the first time in the same kind of new circumstances. I +did not say that there would be no sameness of action without memory +of a like present. There may be sameness of action proceeding from a +memory, conscious or unconscious, of like antecedents, and A PRESENCE +ONLY OF LIKE PRESENTS WITHOUT RECOLLECTION OF THE SAME. + +The sameness of action of like persons placed under like +circumstances for the first time, resembles the sameness of action of +inorganic matter under the same combinations. Let us for the moment +suppose what we call non-living substances to be capable of +remembering their antecedents, and that the changes they undergo are +the expressions of their recollections. Then I admit, of course, +that there is not memory in any cream, we will say, that is about to +be churned of the cream of the preceding week, but the common absence +of such memory from each week's cream is an element of sameness +between the two. And though no cream can remember having been +churned before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identical +antecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories, and nearly +the same proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of one week is as +truly the same as the cream of another week from the same cow, +pasture, &c., as anything is ever the same with anything; for the +having been subjected to like antecedents engenders the closest +similarity that we can conceive of, if the substances were like to +start with. + +The manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of like +presents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, for +example, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason +for saying that such other and far more numerous and important +phenomena as those of embryonic development are not phenomena of +memory. Growth and the diseases of old age do indeed, at first +sight, appear to stand on the same footing, but reflection shows us +that the question whether a certain result is due to memory or no +must be settled not by showing that combinations into which memory +does not certainly enter may yet generate like results, and therefore +considering the memory theory disposed of, but by the evidence we may +be able to adduce in support of the fact that the second agent has +actually remembered the conduct of the first, inasmuch as he cannot +be supposed able to do what it is plain he can do, except under the +guidance of memory or experience, and can also be shown to have had +every opportunity of remembering. When either of these tests fails, +similarity of action on the part of two agents need not be connected +with memory of a like present as well as of like antecedents, but +must, or at any rate may, be referred to memory of like antecedents +only. + +Returning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said that +consciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the +greater or fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it +may be observed as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness +of memory the greater the uniformity of action, and vice versa. For +the less consciousness involves the memory's being more perfect, +through a larger number (generally) of repetitions of the act that is +remembered; there is therefore a less proportionate difference in +respect of the number of recollections of this particular act between +the most recent actor and the most recent but one. This is why very +old civilisations, as those of many insects, and the greater number +of now living organisms, appear to the eye not to change at all. + +For example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will +say by A, B, C, &c., who are similar in all respects, except that A +acts without recollection, B with recollection of A's action, C with +recollection of both B's and A's, while J remembers the course taken +by A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I--the possession of a memory by B +will indeed so change his action, as compared with A's, that it may +well be hardly recognisable. We saw this in our example of the clerk +who asked the policeman the way to the eating-house on one day, but +did not ask him the next, because he remembered; but C's action will +not be so different from B's as B's from A's, for though C will act +with a memory of two occasions on which the action has been +performed, while B recollects only the original performance by A, yet +B and C both act with the guidance of a memory and experience of some +kind, while A acted without any. Thus the clerk referred to in +Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he acted on the second-- +that is to say, he will see the policeman at the corner of the +street, but will not question him. + +When the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the difference +between J's repetition of it and I's will be due solely to the +difference between a recollection of nine past performances by J +against only eight by I, and this is so much proportionately less +than the difference between a recollection of two performances and of +only one, that a less modification of action should be expected. At +the same time consciousness concerning an action repeated for the +tenth time should be less acute than on the first repetition. +Memory, therefore, though tending to disturb similarity of action +less and less continually, must always cause some disturbance. At +the same time the possession of a memory on the successive +repetitions of an action after the first, and, perhaps, the first two +or three, during which the recollection may be supposed still +imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will be one of the +elements of sameness in the agents--they both acting by the light of +experience and memory. + +During the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely +under the guidance of a practised and powerful memory of +circumstances which have been often repeated, not only in detail and +piecemeal, but as a whole, and under many slightly varying +conditions; thus the performance has become well averaged and matured +in its arrangements, so as to meet all ordinary emergencies. We +therefore act with great unconsciousness and vary our performances +little. Babies are much more alike than persons of middle age. + +Up to the average age at which our ancestors have had children during +many generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but +the variations in external circumstances begin to make themselves +perceptible in our characters. In middle life we live more and more +continually upon the piecing together of details of memory drawn from +our personal experience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own +antecedents; and this resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically +attached to cream a little time ago. It is not surprising, then, +that a son who has inherited his father's tastes and constitution, +and who lives much as his father had done, should make the same +mistakes as his father did when he reaches his father's age--we will +say of seventy--though he cannot possibly remember his father's +having made the mistakes. It were to be wished we could, for then we +might know better how to avoid gout, cancer, or what not. And it is +to be noticed that the developments of old age are generally things +we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to do so. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + +Conclusion. + +If we observed the resemblance between successive generations to be +as close as that between distilled water and distilled water through +all time, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the +action of living beings which we see in what we call chemical and +mechanical combinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as +little place among the causes of their action as it can have in +anything, and that each repetition, whether of a habit or the +practice of art, or of an embryonic process in successive +generations, was an original performance, for all that memory had to +do with it. I submit, however, that in the case of the reproductive +forms of life we see just so much variety, in spite of uniformity, as +is consistent with a repetition involving not only a nearly perfect +similarity in the agents and their circumstances, but also the little +departure therefrom that is inevitably involved in the supposition +that a memory of like presents as well as of like antecedents (as +distinguished from a memory of like antecedents only) has played a +part in their development--a cyclonic memory, if the expression may +be pardoned. + +There is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our +most powerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon +one side and begin with the amoeba. Let us suppose that this +structureless morsel of protoplasm is, for all its structurelessness, +composed of an infinite number of living molecules, each one of them +with hopes and fears of its own, and all dwelling together like Tekke +Turcomans, of whom we read that they live for plunder only, and that +each man of them is entirely independent, acknowledging no +constituted authority, but that some among them exercise a tacit and +undefined influence over the others. Let us suppose these molecules +capable of memory, both in their capacity as individuals, and as +societies, and able to transmit their memories to their descendants, +from the traditions of the dimmest past to the experiences of their +own lifetime. Some of these societies will remain simple, as having +had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar, and therefore +striking, incidents will from time to time occur, which, when they do +not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, will leave their impression +upon it. The body or society will remember these incidents, and be +modified by them in its conduct, and therefore more or less in its +internal arrangements, which will tend inevitably to specialisation. +This memory of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I +maintain, with Professor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, +which, accumulated in countless generations, has led up from the +amoeba to man. If there had been no such memory, the amoeba of one +generation would have exactly resembled time amoeba of the preceding, +and a perfect cycle would have been established; the modifying +effects of an additional memory in each generation have made the +cycle into a spiral, and into a spiral whose eccentricity, in the +outset hardly perceptible, is becoming greater and greater with +increasing longevity and more complex social and mechanical +inventions. + +We say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which it +ultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers +having grown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it +made it on the same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, +that is to say, as the joint result both of desire and experience. +When I say experience, I mean experience not only of what will be +wanted, but also of the details of all the means that must be taken +in order to effect this. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the +chicken not only in respect of the main design, but in respect also +of every atomic action, so to speak, which goes to make up the +execution of this design. It is not only the suggestion of a plan +which is due to memory, but, as Professor Hering has so well said, it +is the binding power of memory which alone renders any consolidation +or coherence of action possible, inasmuch as without this no action +could have parts subordinate one to another, yet bearing upon a +common end; no part of an action, great or small, could have +reference to any other part, much less to a combination of all the +parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate atoms of actions could ever +happen--these bearing the same relation to such an action, we will +say, as a railway journey from London to Edinburgh as a single +molecule of hydrogen to a gallon of water. If asked how it is that +the chicken shows no sign of consciousness concerning this design, +nor yet of the steps it is taking to carry it out, we reply that such +unconsciousness is usual in all cases where an action, and the design +which prompts it, have been repeated exceedingly often. If, again, +we are asked how we account for the regularity with which each step +is taken in its due order, we answer that this too is characteristic +of actions that are done habitually--they being very rarely misplaced +in respect of any part. + +When I wrote "Life and Habit," I had arrived at the conclusion that +memory was the most essential characteristic of life, and went so far +as to say, "Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember-- +matter which can remember is living." I should perhaps have written, +"Life is the being possessed of a memory--the life of a thing at any +moment is the memories which at that moment it retains"; and I would +modify the words that immediately follow, namely, "Matter which +cannot remember is dead"; for they imply that there is such a thing +as matter which cannot remember anything at all, and this on fuller +consideration I do not believe to be the case; I can conceive of no +matter which is not able to remember a little, and which is not +living in respect of what it can remember. I do not see how action +of any kind is conceivable without the supposition that every atom +retains a memory of certain antecedents. I cannot, however, at this +point, enter upon the reasons which have compelled me to this +conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any +rate we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations +should develop from the simplicity of the amoeba to the complexity of +the human body without the presence of that memory which can alone +account at once for the resemblances and the differences between +successive generations, for the arising and the accumulation of +divergences--for the tendency to differ and the tendency not to +differ. + +At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom +in the universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a +humble way. He must have life eternal, as well as matter eternal; +and the life and the matter must be joined together inseparably as +body and soul to one another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not +as those who repeat phrases conventionally, but as people who would +have their words taken according to their most natural and legitimate +meaning; and he will feel that the main difference between him and +many of those who oppose him lies in the fact that whereas both he +and they use the same language, his opponents only half mean what +they say, while he means it entirely. + +The attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is in +accordance with our observation and experience. It is therefore +proper to be believed. The attempt to get it from that which has +absolutely no life is like trying to get something out of nothing. +The millionth part of a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent, +will in five hundred years become over a million pounds, and so long +as we have any millionth of a millionth of the farthing to start +with, our getting as many million pounds as we have a fancy for is +only a question of time, but without the initial millionth of a +millionth of a millionth part, we shall get no increment whatever. A +little leaven will leaven the whole lump, but there must be SOME +leaven. + +I will here quote two passages from an article already quoted from on +page 55 of this book. They run:- + + +"We are growing conscious that our earnest and most determined +efforts to make motion produce sensation and volition have proved a +failure, and now we want to rest a little in the opposite, much less +laborious conjecture, and allow any kind of motion to start into +existence, or at least to receive its specific direction from +psychical sources; sensation and volition being for the purpose +quietly insinuated into the constitution of the ultimately moving +particles." {177a} + + +And:- + + +"In this light it can remain no longer surprising that we actually +find motility and sensibility so intimately interblended in nature." +{177b} + + +We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in +respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather +than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in +common with the inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one's +self on the same moral platform as a stone, but this is not +necessary; it is enough that we should feel the stone to have a moral +platform of its own, though that platform embraces little more than a +profound respect for the laws of gravitation, chemical affinity, &c. +As for the difficulty of conceiving a body as living that has not got +a reproductive system--we should remember that neuter insects are +living but are believed to have no reproductive system. Again, we +should bear in mind that mere assimilation involves all the +essentials of reproduction, and that both air and water possess this +power in a very high degree. The essence of a reproductive system, +then, is found low down in the scheme of nature. + +At present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on the +one hand their experiments and their theories alike teach them that +spontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they +must have an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their +own theory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this +origin in no other way than by the Deus ex machina method, which they +reject as unproved, or a spontaneous generation of living from non- +living matter, which is no less foreign to their experience. As a +general rule, they prefer the latter alternative. So Professor +Tyndall, in his celebrated article (Nineteenth Century, November +1878), wrote:- + +"It is generally conceded (and seems to be a necessary inference from +the lessons of science) that SPONTANEOUS GENERATION MUST AT ONE TIME +HAVE TAKEN PLACE" (italics mine). + +No inference can well be more unnecessary or unscientific. I suppose +spontaneous generation ceases to be objectionable if it was "only a +very little one," and came off a long time ago in a foreign country. +The proper inference is, that there is a low kind of livingness in +every atom of matter. Life eternal is as inevitable a conclusion as +matter eternal. + +It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion +there is life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at +all times in all things. + +The reader who takes the above position will find that he can explain +the entry of what he calls death among what he calls the living, +whereas he could by no means introduce life into his system if he +started without it. Death is deducible; life is not deducible. +Death is a change of memories; it is not the destruction of all +memory. It is as the liquidation of one company, each member of +which will presently join a new one, and retain a trifle even of the +old cancelled memory, by way of greater aptitude for working in +concert with other molecules. This is why animals feed on grass and +on each other, and cannot proselytise or convert the rude ground +before it has been tutored in the first principles of the higher +kinds of association. + +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 classified 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 passage 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 classification 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 God, 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 +accumulation 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 passage 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 antitypes 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 passage 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 pass 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 assertion 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 +illustrious 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 title-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 anticipation 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 +passages and their bearing on the Mutation Theory. + +{0i} He says in a note, "This general type of reaction was described +and illustrated in a different connection by Pfluger in 'Pfluger's +Archiv. f.d. ges. Physiologie,' Bd. XV." The essay bears the +significant title "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 substituted "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. + +{8a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 1. + +{8b} Kosmos, February 1879, p. 397. + +{8c} Erasmus Darwin, by Ernest Krause, pp. 132, 133. + +{9a} Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 242. + +{9b} Ibid., p. 427. + +{10a} Nineteenth Century, November 1878; Evolution, Old and New, pp. +360. 361. + +{10b} Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. ix., art. "Evolution," p. 748. + +{11} Ibid. + +{17} Encycl. Brit., ed. ix., art. "Evolution," p. 750. + +{23a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., 1876, p. 206. + +{23b} Ibid., p. 233. + +{24a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 171, 1876. + +{24b} Pp. 258-260. + +{26} Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 484; Evolution, Old and New, p. 214. + +{27} "Erasmus Darwin," by Ernest Krause, p. 211, London, 1879. + +{28a} See "Evolution, Old and New," p. 91, and Buffon, tom. iv. p. +383, ed. 1753. + +{28b} Evolution, Old and New, p. 104. + +{29a} Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. "Evolution," p. 748. + +{29b} Palingenesie Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted from +Professor Huxley's article on "Evolution," Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., p. +745). + +{31} The note began thus: "I have taken the date of the first +publication of Lamarck from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire's (Hist. +Nat. Generale tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion +upon this subject. In this work a full account is given of Buffon's +fluctuating conclusions upon the same subject."--Origin of Species, +3d ed., 1861, p. xiv. + +{33a} Life of Erasmus Darwin, pp. 84, 85. + +{33b} See Life and Habit, p. 264 and pp. 276, 277. + +{33c} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 159-165. + +{33d} Ibid., p. 122. + +{34} See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 247, 248. + +{35a} Vestiges of Creation, ed. 1860, "Proofs, Illustrations, &c.," +p. lxiv. + +{35b} The first announcement was in the Examiner, February 22, 1879. + +{36} Saturday Review, May 31, 1879. + +{37a} May 26, 1879. + +{37b} May 31, 1879. + +{37c} July 26, 1879. + +{37d} July 1879. + +{37e} July 1879. + +{37f} July 29, 1879. + +{37g} January 1880. + +{39} How far Kosmos was "a well-known" journal, I cannot determine. +It had just entered upon its second year. + +{41} Evolution, Old and New, p. 120, line 5. + +{43} Kosmos, February 1879, p. 397. + +{44a} Kosmos, February 1879, p. 404. + +{44b} Page 39 of this volume. + +{50} See Appendix A. + +{52} Since published as "God the Known and God the Unknown." +Fifield, 1s. 6d. net. 1909. + +{54a} "Contemplation of Nature," Engl. trans., Lond. 1776. Preface, +p. xxxvi. + +{54b} Ibid., p. xxxviii. + +{55} Life and Habit, p. 97. + +{56} "The Unity of the Organic Individual," by Edward Montgomery, +Mind, October 1880, p. 466. + +{58} Life and Habit, p. 237. + +{59a} Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Lardner's Cab. +Cyclo., vol. xcix. p. 24. + +{59b} Young's Lectures on Natural Philosophy, ii. 627. See also +Phil. Trans., 1801-2. + +{63} The lecture is published by Karl Gerold's Sohn, Vienna. + +{69} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. + +{70} Professor Hering is not clear here. Vibrations (if I +understand his theory rightly) should not be set up by faint stimuli +from within. Whence and what are these stimuli? The vibrations +within are already existing, and it is they which are the stimuli to +action. On having been once set up, they either continue in +sufficient force to maintain action, or they die down, and become too +weak to cause further action, and perhaps even to be perceived within +the mind, until they receive an accession of vibration from without. +The only "stimulus from within" that should be able to generate +action is that which may follow when a vibration already established +in the body runs into another similar vibration already so +established. On this consciousness, and even action, might be +supposed to follow without the presence of an external stimulus. + +{71} This expression seems hardly applicable to the overtaking of an +internal by an external vibration, but it is not inconsistent with +it. Here, however, as frequently elsewhere, I doubt how far +Professor Hering has fully realised his conception, beyond being, +like myself, convinced that the phenomena of memory and of heredity +have a common source. + +{72} See quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. By +"preserving the memory of habitual actions" Professor Hering probably +means, retains for a long while and repeats motion of a certain +character when such motion has been once communicated to it. + +{74a} It should not be "if the central nerve system were not able to +reproduce whole series of vibrations," but "if whole series of +vibrations do not persist though unperceived," if Professor Hering +intends what I suppose him to intend. + +{74b} Memory was in full operation for so long a time before +anything like what we call a nervous system can be detected, that +Professor Hering must not be supposed to be intending to confine +memory to a motor nerve system. His words do not even imply that he +does, but it is as well to be on one's guard. + +{77} It is from such passages as this, and those that follow on the +next few pages, that I collect the impression of Professor Hering's +meaning which I have endeavoured to convey in the preceding chapter. + +{78} That is to say, "an infinitely small change in the kind of +vibration communicated from the parent to the germ." + +{79} It may be asked what is meant by responding. I may repeat that +I understand Professor Hering to mean that there exists in the +offspring certain vibrations, which are many of them too faint to +upset equilibrium and thus generate action, until they receive an +accession of force from without by the running into them of +vibrations of similar characteristics to their own, which last +vibrations have been set up by exterior objects. On this they become +strong enough to generate that corporeal earthquake which we call +action. + +This may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible; whereas +much that is written about "fraying channels" raises no definite +ideas in the mind. + +{80a} I interpret this, "We cannot wonder if often-repeated +vibrations gather strength, and become at once more lasting and +requiring less accession of vibration from without, in order to +become strong enough to generate action." + +{80b} "Characteristics" must, I imagine, according to Professor +Hering, resolve themselves ultimately into "vibrations," for the +characteristics depend upon the character of the vibrations. + +{81} Professor Hartog tells me that this probably refers to Fritz +Muller's formulation of the "recapitulation process" in "Facts for +Darwin," English edition (1869), p. 114.--R.A.S. + +{82} This is the passage which makes me suppose Professor Hering to +mean that vibrations from exterior objects run into vibrations +already existing within the living body, and that the accession to +power thus derived is his key to an explanation of the physical basis +of action. + +{84} I interpret this: "There are fewer vibrations persistent +within the bodies of the lower animals; those that there are, +therefore, are stronger and more capable of generating action or +upsetting the status in quo. Hence also they require less accession +of vibration from without. Man is agitated by more and more varied +vibrations; these, interfering, as to some extent they must, with one +another, are weaker, and therefore require more accession from +without before they can set the mechanical adjustments of the body in +motion." + +{89} I am obliged to Mr. Sully for this excellent translation of +"Hellsehen." + +{90a} Westminster Review, New Series, vol. xlix. p. 143. + +{90b} Ibid., p. 145. + +{90c} Ibid., p. 151. + +{92a} "Instinct ist zweckmassiges Handeln ohne Bewusstsein des +Zwecks."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., Berlin, 1871, p. 70. + +{92b} "1. Eine blosse Folge der korperlichen Organisation. + +"2. Ein von der Natur eingerichteter Gehirn-oder Geistesmechanismus. + +"3. Eine Folge unbewusster Geistesthiitigkeit."--Philosophy of the +Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 70. + +{97} "Hiermit ist der Annahme das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die +unbewusste Vorstellung des Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vorwiegt; +denn wollte man nun noch die Vorstellung des Geistesmechanismus +festhalten so musste fur jede Variation und Modification des +Instincts, nach den ausseren Umstanden, eine besondere constante +Vorrichtung . . . eingefugt sein."--Philosophy of the Unconscious 3d +ed., p. 74. + +{99} "Indessen glaube ich, dass die angefuhrten Beispiele zur Genuge +beweisen, dass es auch viele Falle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication +mit der bewussten Ueberlegung die gewohnliche und aussergewohnliche +Handlung aus derselben Quelle stammen, dass sie entweder beide +wirklicher Instinct, oder beide Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung +sind."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 76. + +{100} "Dagegen haben wir nunmehr unseren Blick noch einmal scharfer +auf den Begriff eines psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da +zeigt sich, dass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erklart, so +dunke list, dass man sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann."--Philosophy +of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 76. + +{101} "Das Endglied tritt als bewusster Wille zu irgend einer +Handlung auf; beide sind aber ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der +gewohnlichen Motivation nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin +besteht, dass die Vorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das +Begehren erzeugr, erstere zu erlangen, letztere sich fern zu +halten."--Ibid., p. 76. + +{102a} "Diese causale Verbindung fallt erfahrungsmassig, wie wir von +unsern menschlichen Instincten wissen, nicht in's Bewussisein; +folglich kann dieselbe, wenn sie ein Mechanismus sein soll, nur +entweder ein nicht in's Bewusstsein fallende mechanische Leitung und +Umwandlung der Schwingungen des vorgestellten Motivs in die +Schwingungen der gewollten Handlung im Gehirn, oder ein unbewusster +geistiger Mechanismus sein."--Philosophy of the Unconscious 3d ed., +p. 77. + +{102b} "Man hat sich also zwischen dem bewussten Motiv, und dem +Willen zur Insticthandlung eine causale Verbindung durch unbewusstes +Vorstellen und Wollen zu denken, und ich weiss nicht, wie diese +Verbindung einfacher gedacht werden konnte, als durch den +vorgestellten und gewollten Zweck. Damit sind wir aber bei dem allen +Geistern eigenthumlichen und immanenten Mechanismus der Logik +angelangt, und haben die unbewusster Zweckvorstellung bei jeder +einzelnen Instincthandlung als unentbehrliches Glied gefunden; +hiermit hat also der Begrift des todten, ausserlich pradestinirten +Geistesmechanismus sich selbst aufgehoben und in das immanente +Geistesleben der Logik umgewandelt, und wir sind bei der letzten +Moglichkeit angekommen, welche fur die Auffassung eines wirklichen +Instincts ubrig bleibt: der Instinct ist bewusstes Wollen des +Mittels zu einem unbewusst gewollten Zweck."--Philosophy of the +Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 78. + +{105a} "Also der Instinct ohne Hulfsmechanismus die Ursache der +Entstehung des Hulfsmechanismus ist."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, +3d ed., p. 79. + +{105b} "Dass auch der fertige Hulfsmechanismus das Unbewusste nicht +etwa zu dieser bestimmten Instincthandlung necessirt, sondern blosse +pradisponirt."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 79. + +{105c} "Giebt es einen wirklichen Instinct, oder sind die +sogenannten Instincthandlungen nur Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung?"- +-Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 79. + +{111} "Dieser Beweis ist dadurch zu fuhren; erstens dass die +betreffenden Thatsachen in; der Zukunft liegen, und dem Verstande die +Anhaltepunkte fehlen, um ihr zukunftiges Eintreten aus den +gegenwartigen Verhaltnissen zu erschliessen; zweitens, dass die +betreffenden Thatsachen augenscheinlich der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung +verschlossen liegen, weil nur die Erfahrung fruherer Falle uber sie +belehren kann, und diese laut der Beobachtung ausgeschlossen ist. Es +wurde fur unsere Interessen keinen Unterschied machen, wenn, was ich +wahrscheinlich halte, bei fortschreitender physiologischer +Erkenntniss alle jetzt fur den ersten Fall anzufuhrenden Beispiele +sich als solche des zweiten Falls ausweisen sollten, wie dies +unleugbar bei vielen fruher gebrauchten Beispielen schon geschehen +ist; denn ein apriorisches Wissen ohne jeden sinnlichen Anstoss ist +wohl kaum wunderbarer zu nennen, als ein Wissen, welches zwar BEI +GELEGENHEIT gewisser sinnlicher Wahrnehmung zu Tage tritt, aber mit +diesen nur durch eine solche Kette von Schlussen und angewandten +Kenntnissen in Verbindung stehend gedacht werden konnte, dass deren +Moglichkeit bei dem Zustande der Fahigkeiten und Bildung der +betreffenden Thiere entschieden geleugnet werden muss."--Philosophy +of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 85. + +{113} "Man hat dieselbe jederzeit anerkannt und mit den Worten +Vorgefuhl oder Ahnung bezeichnet; indess beziehen sich diese Worte +einerseits nur auf zukunftiges, nicht auf gegenwartiges, raumlich +getrenntes Unwahmehrnbares, anderseits bezeichnen sie nur die leise, +dumpfe, unbestimmte Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem unfehlbar +bestimmten Zustande der unbewussten Erkenntniss. Daher das Wort +Vorgefuhl in Rucksicht auf die Dumpfheit und Unbestimmtheit, wahrend +doch leicht zu sehen ist, dass das von allen, auch den unbewussten +Vorstellungen entblosste Gefuhl fur das Resultat gar keinen Einfluss +haben kann, sondern nur eine Vorstellung, weil diese allein +Erkenntniss enthalt. Die in Bewusstsein mitklingende Ahnung kann +allerdings unter Umstanden ziemlich deutlich sein, so dass sie sich +beim Menschen in Gedanken und Wort fixiren lasst; doch ist dies auch +im Menschen erfahrungsmassig bei den eigenthumlichen Instincten nicht +der Fall, vielmehr ist bei diesen die Resonanz der unbewussten +Erkenntniss im Bewusstsein meistens so schwach, dass sie sich +wirklich nur in begleitenden Gefuhlen oder der Stimmung aussert, dass +sie einen unendlich kleinen Bruchtheil des Gemeingefuhls bildet."-- +Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 86. + +{115a} "In der Bestimmung des Willens durch einen im Unbewussten +liegenden Process . . . fur welchen sich dieser Character der +zweifellosen Selbstgewissheit in allen folgenden Untersuchungen +bewahren wird."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, p. 87. + +{115b} "Sondern als unmittelbarer Besitz vorgefunden wird."-- +Philosophy of the Unconscious, p. 87. + +{115c} "Hellsehen." + +{119a} "Das Hellsehon des Unbewussten hat sie den rechten Weg ahnen +lassen."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, p. 90, 3d ed., 1871. + +{119b} "Man wird doch wahrlich nicht den Thieren zumuthen wollen, +durch meteorologische Schlusse das Wetter auf Monate im Voraus zu +berechnen, ja sogar Ueberschwemmungen vorauszusehen. Vielmehr ist +eine solche Gefuhlswahrnehmung gegenwartiger atmospharischer +Einflusse nichts weiter als die sinnliche Wahrnehmung, welche als +Motiv wirkt, und ein Motiv muss ja doch immer vorhanden sein, wenn +ein Instinct functioniren soll. Es bleibt also trotzdem bestehen +dass das Voraussehen der Witterung ein unbewusstes Hellsehen ist, von +dem der Storch, der vier Wochen fruher nach Suden aufbricht, so wenig +etwas weiss, als der Hirsch, der sich vor einem kalten Winter einen +dickeren Pelz als gewohnlich wachsen lasst. Die Thiere haben eben +einerseits das gegenwartige Witterungsgefuhl im Bewusstsein, daraus +folgt andererseits ihr Handeln gerade so, als ob sie die Vorstellung +der zukunftigen Witterung hatten; im Bewusstsein haben sie dieselbe +aber nicht, also bietet sich als einzig naturliches Mittelglied die +unbewusste Vorstellung, die nun aber immer ein Hellsehen ist, weil +sie etwas enthalt, was dem Thier weder dutch sinnliche Wahrnehmung +direct gegeben ist, noch durch seine Verstandesmittel aus der +Wahrnehmung geschlossen werden kann."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, +p. 91, 3d ed., 1871. + +{124} "Meistentheils tritt aber hier der hoheren Bewusstseinstufe +der Menschen entsprechend eine starkete Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit +dem bewussten Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr odor minder +deutliche Ahnung darstellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der grosseren +Selbststandigkeit des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese Ahnung +nicht ausschliesslich Behufs der unmittelbaren Ausfuhrung einer +Handlung eintritt, sondern bisweilen auch unabangig von der Bedingung +einer momentan zu leistenden That als blosse Vorstellung ohne +bewussten Willen sich zeigte, wenn nur die Bedingung erfullt ist, +dass der Gegenstand dieses Ahnens den Willen des Ahnenden im +Allgemeinen in hohem Grade interessirt."--Philosophy of the +Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 94. + +{126} "Haufig sind die Ahnungen, in denen das Hellsehen des +Unbewussten sich dem Bewusstsein offenbart, dunkel, unverstandlich +und symbolisch, weil sie im Gehirn sinnliche Form annehmen mussen, +wahrend die unbewusste Vorstellung an der Form der Sinnlichkeit kein +Theil haben kann."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 96. + +{128} "Ebenso weil es diese Reihe nur in gesteigerter +Bewusstseinresonanz fortsetzt, stutzt es jene Aussagen der +Instincthandlungen uher ihr eigenes Wesen ebenso sehr," &c.-- +Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 97. + +{129} "Wir werden trotzdem diese gomeinsame Wirkung eines +Masseninstincts in der Entstehung der Sprache und den grossen +politischen und socialen Bewegungen in der Woltgeschichte deutlich +wieder erkennen; hier handelt es sich um moglichst einfache und +deutliche Beispiele, und darum greifen wir zu niederen Thieren, wo +die Mittel der Gedankenmittheilung bei fehlender Stimme, Mimik und +Physiognomie so unvollkommen sind, dass die Uebereinstimmung und das +Ineinandergreifen der einzelnen Leistungen in den Hauptsachen +unmoglich der bewussten Verstandigung durch Sprache zugeschrieben +werden darf."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 98. + +{131a} "Und wie durch Instinct dot Plan des ganzen Stocks in +unbewusstem Hellsehen jeder einzelnen Biene einwohnt."--Philosophy of +the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 99. + +{131b} "Indem jedes Individuum den Plan des Ganzen und Sammtliche +gegenwartig zu ergreifende Mittel im unbewussten Hellsehen hat, wovon +aber nut das Eine, was ihm zu thun obliegt, in sein Bewusstsein +fallt."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 99. + +{132} "Der Instinct ist nicht Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicht +Folge der korperlichen Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines in +der Organisation des Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung +eines dem Geiste von aussen angeklebten todten, seinem innersten +Wesen fremden Mechanismus, sondern selbsteigene Leistung des +Individuum aus seinem innersten Wesen und Character entspringend."-- +Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 100. + +{133} "Haufig ist die Kenntniss des Zwecks der bewussten Erkenntniss +durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung gar nicht zuganglich; dann documentirt +sich die Eigenthumlichkeit des Unbewussten im Hellsehen, von welchem +das Bewusstsein theils nar eine verschwindend dumpfe, theils auch +namentlich beim Menschen mehr oder minder deutliche Resonanz als +Ahnung versputt."--Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 100. + +{135} "Und eine so damonische Gewalt sollte durch etwas ausgeubt +werden konnon, was als ein dem inneren Wesen fremder Mechanismus dem +Geiste aufgepfropft ist, oder gar durch eine bewusste Ueberlegung, +welche doch stets nur im kahlen Egoismus stecken bleibt," &c.-- +Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 101. + +{139a} Page 100 of this vol. + +{139b} Pp. 106, 107 of this vol. + +{140} Page 100 of this vol. + +{141} Page 99 of this vol. + +{144a} See page 115 of this volume. + +{144b} Page 104 of this vol. + +{146} The Spirit of Nature. J. A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39. + +{149} I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, +and shall put others like them, because they are characteristic; but +nothing can become so well known as to escape being an inference. + +{153} Erewhon, chap. xxiii. + +{160} It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the +mouth of an objector. + +{177a} "The Unity of the Organic Individual," by Edward Montgomery. +Mind, October 1880, p. 477. + +{177b} Ibid., p. 483. + +{179a} Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. Evolution, p. +750. + +{179b} "Hume," by Professor Huxley, p. 45. + +{180} "The Philosophy of Crayfishes," by the Right Rev. the Lord +Bishop of Carlisle. Nineteenth Century for October 1880, p. 636. + +{181a} Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360. Paris, 1800. + +{181b} Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. p. 231. Ed. M. Martin. +Paris, 1873. + +{182a} Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams +& Norgate, 1858, p. 61. + +{182b} Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed., +1871, p. 41. + +{182c} Origin of Species, p. 1, ed. 1872. + +{183a} Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 206. I ought in fairness to +Mr. Darwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as +serious as he once did. It is now "a serious error" only; in 1859 it +was "the most serious error."--Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 209. + +{183b} Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 242; 6th ed., p. 233. + +{184a} I never could find what these particular points were. + +{184b} Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859. + +{184c} M. Martin's edition of the "Philosophie Zoologique" (Paris, +1873), Introduction, p. vi. + +{184d} Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., p. 750. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY *** + +This file should be named umem10.txt or umem10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, umem11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, umem10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Fifield edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>“As this paper contains nothing which deserves the name either +of experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every +species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the multitude +of those articles which must always find their way into the collections +of a society which is pledged to publish two or three volumes every +year. . . . We wish to raise our feeble voice against innovations, +that can have no other effect than to check the progress of science, +and renew all those wild phantoms of the imagination which Bacon and +Newton put to flight from her temple.” - <i>Opening Paragraph +of a Review of</i> <i>Dr. Young’s Bakerian Lecture. Edinburgh +Review</i>, <i>January</i> 1803, p. 450.</p> +<p>“Young’s work was laid before the Royal society, and +was made the 1801 Bakerian Lecture. But he was before his time. +The second number of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> contained an article +levelled against him by Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, and this was +so severe an attack that Young’s ideas were absolutely quenched +for fifteen years. Brougham was then only twenty-four years of +age. Young’s theory was reproduced in France by Fresnel. +In our days it is the accepted theory, and is found to explain all the +phenomena of light.” - <i>Times Report of a Lecture by Professor +Tyndall on Light</i>, <i>April</i> 27, 1880.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This Book<br />Is inscribed to<br />RICHARD GARNETT, ESQ.<br />(Of +the British Museum)<br />In grateful acknowledgment of the unwearying +kindness with which he has so often placed at my disposal his varied +store of information.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents:<br /> Note by R. A. Streatfeild<br /> Introduction +by Marcus Hartog<br /> Author’s Preface<br /> Unconscious +Memory</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>NOTE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>For many years a link in the chain of Samuel Butler’s biological +works has been missing. “Unconscious Memory” was originally +published thirty years ago, but for fully half that period it has been +out of print, owing to the destruction of a large number of the unbound +sheets in a fire at the premises of the printers some years ago. +The present reprint comes, I think, at a peculiarly fortunate moment, +since the attention of the general public has of late been drawn to +Butler’s biological theories in a marked manner by several distinguished +men of science, notably by Dr. Francis Darwin, who, in his presidential +address to the British Association in 1908, quoted from the translation +of Hering’s address on “Memory as a Universal Function of +Original Matter,” which Butler incorporated into “Unconscious +Memory,” and spoke in the highest terms of Butler himself. +It is not necessary for me to do more than refer to the changed attitude +of scientific authorities with regard to Butler and his theories, since +Professor Marcus Hartog has most kindly consented to contribute an introduction +to the present edition of “Unconscious Memory,” summarising +Butler’s views upon biology, and defining his position in the +world of science. A word must be said as to the controversy between +Butler and Darwin, with which Chapter IV is concerned. I have +been told that in reissuing the book at all I am committing a grievous +error of taste, that the world is no longer interested in these “old, +unhappy far-off things and battles long ago,” and that Butler +himself, by refraining from republishing “Unconscious Memory,” +tacitly admitted that he wished the controversy to be consigned to oblivion. +This last suggestion, at any rate, has no foundation in fact. +Butler desired nothing less than that his vindication of himself against +what he considered unfair treatment should be forgotten. He would +have republished “Unconscious Memory” himself, had not the +latter years of his life been devoted to all-engrossing work in other +fields. In issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a wish +that he expressed to me shortly before his death.</p> +<p>R. A. STREATFEILD.<br /><i>April</i>, 1910.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>INTRODUCTION By Marcus Hartog, M.A. D.Sc., F.L.S., F.R.H.S.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In reviewing Samuel Butler’s works, “Unconscious Memory” +gives us an invaluable lead; for it tells us (Chaps. II, III) how the +author came to write the Book of the Machines in “Erewhon” +(1872), with its foreshadowing of the later theory, “Life and +Habit,” (1878), “Evolution, Old and New” (1879), as +well as “Unconscious Memory” (1880) itself. His fourth +book on biological theory was “Luck? or Cunning?” (1887). +<a name="citation0a"></a><a href="#footnote0a">{0a}</a></p> +<p>Besides these books, his contributions to biology comprise several +essays: “Remarks on Romanes’ <i>Mental Evolution in Animals</i>, +contained in “Selections from Previous Works” (1884) incorporated +into “Luck? or Cunning,” “The Deadlock in Darwinism” +<i>(Universal Review</i>, April-June, 1890), republished in the posthumous +volume of “Essays on Life, Art, and Science” (1904), and, +finally, some of the “Extracts from the Notebooks of the late +Samuel Butler,” edited by Mr. H. Festing Jones, now in course +of publication in the <i>New Quarterly Review.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Of all these, “LIFE AND HABIT” (1878) is the most important, +the main building to which the other writings are buttresses or, at +most, annexes. Its teaching has been summarised in “Unconscious +Memory” in four main principles: “(1) the oneness of personality +between parent and offspring; (2) memory on the part of the offspring +of certain actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; +(3) the latency of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence +of the associated ideas; (4) the unconsciousness with which habitual +actions come to be performed.” To these we must add a fifth: +the purposiveness of the actions of living beings, as of the machines +which they make or select.</p> +<p>Butler tells (“Life and Habit,” p. 33) that he sometimes +hoped “that this book would be regarded as a valuable adjunct +to Darwinism.” He was bitterly disappointed in the event, +for the book, as a whole, was received by professional biologists as +a gigantic joke - a joke, moreover, not in the best possible taste. +True, its central ideas, largely those of Lamarck, had been presented +by Hering in 1870 (as Butler found shortly after his publication); they +had been favourably received, developed by Haeckel, expounded and praised +by Ray Lankester. Coming from Butler, they met with contumely, +even from such men as Romanes, who, as Butler had no difficulty in proving, +were unconsciously inspired by the same ideas - “<i>Nur mit ein +bischen ander’n Wörter</i>.”</p> +<p>It is easy, looking back, to see why “Life and Habit” +so missed its mark. Charles Darwin’s presentation of the +evolution theory had, for the first time, rendered it possible for a +“sound naturalist” to accept the doctrine of common descent +with divergence; and so given a real meaning to the term “natural +relationship,” which had forced itself upon the older naturalists, +despite their belief in special and independent creations. The +immediate aim of the naturalists of the day was now to fill up the gaps +in their knowledge, so as to strengthen the fabric of a unified biology. +For this purpose they found their actual scientific equipment so inadequate +that they were fully occupied in inventing fresh technique, and working +therewith at facts - save a few critics, such as St. George Mivart, +who was regarded as negligible, since he evidently held a brief for +a party standing outside the scientific world.</p> +<p>Butler introduced himself as what we now call “The Man in the +Street,” far too bare of scientific clothing to satisfy the Mrs. +Grundy of the domain: lacking all recognised tools of science and all +sense of the difficulties in his way, he proceeded to tackle the problems +of science with little save the deft pen of the literary expert in his +hand. His very failure to appreciate the difficulties gave greater +power to his work - much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended the Jungfrau +and faced successfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so long as he believed +them to be the mere “blagues de réclame” of the wily +Swiss host. His brilliant qualities of style and irony themselves +told heavily against him. Was he not already known for having +written the most trenchant satire that had appeared since “Gulliver’s +Travels”? Had he not sneered therein at the very foundations +of society, and followed up its success by a pseudo-biography that had +taken in the “Record” and the “Rock”? +In “Life and Habit,” at the very start, he goes out of his +way to heap scorn at the respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, +Goethe, Arnold of Rugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed +the lowest opinion of the Fellows of the Royal Society. To him +the professional man of science, with self-conscious knowledge for his +ideal and aim, was a medicine-man, priest, augur - useful, perhaps, +in his way, but to be carefully watched by all who value freedom of +thought and person, lest with opportunity he develop into a persecutor +of the worst type. Not content with blackguarding the audience +to whom his work should most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work +itself and its author in his finest vein of irony. Having argued +that our best and highest knowledge is that of whose possession we are +most ignorant, he proceeds: “Above all, let no unwary reader do +me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at all I +am among the damned.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>His writing of “EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW” (1879) was due +to his conviction that scant justice had been done by Charles Darwin +and Alfred Wallace and their admirers to the pioneering work of Buffon, +Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck. To repair this he gives a brilliant +exposition of what seemed to him the most valuable portion of their +teachings on evolution. His analysis of Buffon’s true meaning, +veiled by the reticences due to the conditions under which he wrote, +is as masterly as the English in which he develops it. His sense +of wounded justice explains the vigorous polemic which here, as in all +his later writings, he carries to the extreme.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, he never realised Charles Darwin’s utter +lack of sympathetic understanding of the work of his French precursors, +let alone his own grandfather, Erasmus. Yet this practical ignorance, +which to Butler was so strange as to transcend belief, was altogether +genuine, and easy to realise when we recall the position of Natural +Science in the early thirties in Darwin’s student days at Cambridge, +and for a decade or two later. Catastropharianism was the tenet +of the day: to the last it commended itself to his Professors of Botany +and Geology, - for whom Darwin held the fervent allegiance of the Indian +scholar, or <i>chela</i>, to his <i>guru</i>. As Geikie has recently +pointed out, it was only later, when Lyell had shown that the breaks +in the succession of the rocks were only partial and local, without +involving the universal catastrophes that destroyed all life and rendered +fresh creations thereof necessary, that any general acceptance of a +descent theory could be expected. We may be very sure that Darwin +must have received many solemn warnings against the dangerous speculations +of the “French Revolutionary School.” He himself was +far too busy at the time with the reception and assimilation of new +facts to be awake to the deeper interest of far-reaching theories.</p> +<p>It is the more unfortunate that Butler’s lack of appreciation +on these points should have led to the enormous proportion of bitter +personal controversy that we find in the remainder of his biological +writings. Possibly, as suggested by George Bernard Shaw, his acquaintance +and admirer, he was also swayed by philosophical resentment at that +banishment of mind from the organic universe, which was generally thought +to have been achieved by Charles Darwin’s theory. Still, +we must remember that this mindless view is not implicit in Charles +Darwin’s presentment of his own theory, nor was it accepted by +him as it has been by so many of his professed disciples.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY” (1880). - We have already alluded +to an anticipation of Butler’s main theses. In 1870 Dr. +Ewald Hering, one of the most eminent physiologists of the day, Professor +at Vienna, gave an Inaugural Address to the Imperial Royal Academy of +Sciences: “Das Gedächtniss als allgemeine Funktion der organisirter +Substanz” (“Memory as a Universal Function of Organised +Matter”). When “Life and Habit” was well advanced, +Francis Darwin, at the time a frequent visitor, called Butler’s +attention to this essay, which he himself only knew from an article +in “Nature.” Herein Professor E. Ray Lankester had +referred to it with admiring sympathy in connection with its further +development by Haeckel in a pamphlet entitled “Die Perigenese +der Plastidule.” We may note, however, that in his collected +Essays, “The Advancement of Science” (1890), Sir Ray Lankester, +while including this Essay, inserts on the blank page <a name="citation0b"></a><a href="#footnote0b">{0b}</a> +- we had almost written “the white sheet” - at the back +of it an apology for having ever advocated the possibility of the transmission +of acquired characters.</p> +<p>“Unconscious Memory” was largely written to show the +relation of Butler’s views to Hering’s, and contains an +exquisitely written translation of the Address. Hering does, indeed, +anticipate Butler, and that in language far more suitable to the persuasion +of the scientific public. It contains a subsidiary hypothesis +that memory has for its mechanism special vibrations of the protoplasm, +and the acquired capacity to respond to such vibrations once felt upon +their repetition. I do not think that the theory gains anything +by the introduction of this even as a mere formal hypothesis; and there +is no evidence for its being anything more. Butler, however, gives +it a warm, nay, enthusiastic, reception in Chapter V (Introduction to +Professor Hering’s lecture), and in his notes to the translation +of the Address, which bulks so large in this book, but points out that +he was “not committed to this hypothesis, though inclined to accept +it on a <i>prima facie</i> view.” Later on, as we shall +see, he attached more importance to it.</p> +<p>The Hering Address is followed in “Unconscious Memory” +by translations of selected passages from Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy +of the Unconscious,” and annotations to explain the difference +from this personification of “<i>The Unconscious</i>” as +a mighty all-ruling, all-creating personality, and his own scientific +recognition of the great part played by <i>unconscious processes</i> +in the region of mind and memory.</p> +<p>These are the essentials of the book as a contribution to biological +philosophy. The closing chapters contain a lucid statement of +objections to his theory as they might be put by a rigid necessitarian, +and a refutation of that interpretation as applied to human action.</p> +<p>But in the second chapter Butler states his recession from the strong +logical position he had hitherto developed in his writings from “Erewhon” +onwards; so far he had not only distinguished the living from the non-living, +but distinguished among the latter <i>machines</i> or <i>tools</i> from +<i>things at large</i>. <a name="citation0c"></a><a href="#footnote0c">{0c}</a> +Machines or tools are the external organs of living beings, as organs +are their internal machines: they are fashioned, assembled, or selected +by the beings for a purposes so they have a <i>future purpose</i>, as +well as a <i>past history</i>. “Things at large” have +a past history, but no purpose (so long as some being does not convert +them into tools and give them a purpose): Machines have a Why? as well +as a How?: “things at large” have a How? only.</p> +<p>In “Unconscious Memory” the allurements of unitary or +monistic views have gained the upper hand, and Butler writes (p. 23):-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction +between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent +with our other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every +molecule as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up +of an association or corporation, than to start with inanimate molecules +and smuggle life into them; and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic +world must be regarded as up to a certain point living, and instinct, +within certain limits, with consciousness, volition, and power of concerted +action. <i>It is only of late, however, that I have come to this +opinion</i>.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I have italicised the last sentence, to show that Butler was more +or less conscious of its irreconcilability with much of his most characteristic +doctrine. Again, in the closing chapter, Butler writes (p. 275):-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living +in respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather +than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in +common with the inorganic.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We conclude our survey of this book by mentioning the literary controversial +part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but cropping up elsewhere. +It refers to interpolations made in the authorised translation of Krause’s +“Life of Erasmus Darwin.” Only one side is presented; +and we are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss the merits +of the question.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“LUCK, OR CUNNING, as the Main Means of Organic Modification? +an Attempt to throw Additional Light upon the late Mr. Charles Darwin’s +Theory of Natural Selection” (1887), completes the series of biological +books. This is mainly a book of strenuous polemic. It brings +out still more forcibly the Hering-Butler doctrine of continued personality +from generation to generation, and of the working of unconscious memory +throughout; and points out that, while this is implicit in much of the +teaching of Herbert Spencer, Romanes, and others, it was nowhere - even +after the appearance of “Life and Habit” - explicitly recognised +by them, but, on the contrary, masked by inconsistent statements and +teaching. Not Luck but Cunning, not the uninspired weeding out +by Natural Selection but the intelligent striving of the organism, is +at the bottom of the useful variety of organic life. And the parallel +is drawn that not the happy accident of time and place, but the Machiavellian +cunning of Charles Darwin, succeeded in imposing, as entirely his own, +on the civilised world an uninspired and inadequate theory of evolution +wherein luck played the leading part; while the more inspired and inspiring +views of the older evolutionists had failed by the inferiority of their +luck. On this controversy I am bound to say that I do not in the +very least share Butler’s opinions; and I must ascribe them to +his lack of personal familiarity with the biologists of the day and +their modes of thought and of work. Butler everywhere undervalues +the important work of elimination played by Natural Selection in its +widest sense.</p> +<p>The “Conclusion” of “Luck, or Cunning?” shows +a strong advance in monistic views, and a yet more marked development +in the vibration hypothesis of memory given by Hering and only adopted +with the greatest reserve in “Unconscious Memory.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Our conception, then, concerning the nature of any matter +depends solely upon its kind and degree of unrest, that is to say, on +the characteristics of the vibrations that are going on within it. +The exterior object vibrating in a certain way imparts some of its vibrations +to our brain; but if the state of the thing itself depends upon its +vibrations, it [the thing] must be considered as to all intents and +purposes the vibrations themselves - plus, of course, the underlying +substance that is vibrating. . . . The same vibrations, therefore, +form the substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal dose of it +within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and, in the course +of time, create and further modify the mechanism of both the sensory +and the motor nerves. Thought and thing are one.</p> +<p>“I commend these two last speculations to the reader’s +charitable consideration, as feeling that I am here travelling beyond +the ground on which I can safely venture. . . . I believe they +are both substantially true.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In 1885 he had written an abstract of these ideas in his notebooks +(see <i>New Quarterly Review</i>, 1910, p. 116), and as in “Luck, +or Cunning?” associated them vaguely with the unitary conceptions +introduced into chemistry by Newlands and Mendelejeff. Judging +himself as an outsider, the author of “Life and Habit” would +certainly have considered the mild expression of faith, “I believe +they are both substantially true,” equivalent to one of extreme +doubt. Thus “the fact of the Archbishop’s recognising +this as among the number of his beliefs is conclusive evidence, with +those who have devoted attention to the laws of thought, that his mind +is not yet clear” on the matter of the belief avowed (see “Life +and Habit,” pp. 24, 25).</p> +<p>To sum up: Butler’s fundamental attitude to the vibration hypothesis +was all through that taken in “Unconscious Memory”; he played +with it as a pretty pet, and fancied it more and more as time went on; +but instead of backing it for all he was worth, like the main theses +of “Life and Habit,” he put a big stake on it - and then +hedged.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The last of Butler’s biological writings is the Essay, “THE +DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM,” containing much valuable criticism on +Wallace and Weismann. It is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace’s +book, “Darwinism,” that he introduces the term “Wallaceism” +<a name="citation0d"></a><a href="#footnote0d">{0d}</a> for a theory +of descent that excludes the transmission of acquired characters. +This was, indeed, the chief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent +his hypothesis of pangenesis, which, unacceptable as it has proved, +had far more to recommend it as a formal hypothesis than the equally +formal germ-plasm hypothesis of Weismann.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The chief difficulty in accepting the main theses of Butler and Hering +is one familiar to every biologist, and not at all difficult to understand +by the layman. Everyone knows that the complicated beings that +we term “Animals” and “Plants,” consist of a +number of more or less individualised units, the cells, each analogous +to a simpler being, a Protist - save in so far as the character of the +cell unit of the Higher being is modified in accordance with the part +it plays in that complex being as a whole. Most people, too, are +familiar with the fact that the complex being starts as a single cell, +separated from its parent; or, where bisexual reproduction occurs, from +a cell due to the fusion of two cells, each detached from its parent. +Such cells are called “Germ-cells.” The germ-cell, +whether of single or of dual origin, starts by dividing repeatedly, +so as to form the <i>primary embryonic cells</i>, a complex mass of +cells, at first essentially similar, which, however, as they go on multiplying, +undergo differentiations and migrations, losing their simplicity as +they do so. Those cells that are modified to take part in the +proper work of the whole are called tissue-cells. In virtue of +their activities, their growth and reproductive power are limited - +much more in Animals than in Plants, in Higher than in Lower beings. +It is these tissues, or some of them, that receive the impressions from +the outside which leave the imprint of memory. Other cells, which +may be closely associated into a continuous organ, or more or less surrounded +by tissue-cells, whose part it is to nourish them, are called “secondary +embryonic cells,” or “germ-cells.” The germ-cells +may be differentiated in the young organism at a very early stage, but +in Plants they are separated at a much later date from the less isolated +embryonic regions that provide for the Plant’s branching; in all +cases we find embryonic and germ-cells screened from the life processes +of the complex organism, or taking no very obvious part in it, save +to form new tissues or new organs, notably in Plants.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Again, in ourselves, and to a greater or less extent in all Animals, +we find a system of special tissues set apart for the reception and +storage of impressions from the outer world, and for guiding the other +organs in their appropriate responses - the “Nervous System”; +and when this system is ill-developed or out of gear the remaining organs +work badly from lack of proper skilled guidance and co-ordination. +How can we, then, speak of “memory” in a germ-cell which +has been screened from the experiences of the organism, which is too +simple in structure to realise them if it were exposed to them? +My own answer is that we cannot form any theory on the subject, the +only question is whether we have any right to <i>infer</i> this “memory” +from the <i>behaviour</i> of living beings; and Butler, like Hering, +Haeckel, and some more modern authors, has shown that the inference +is a very strong presumption. Again, it is easy to over-value +such complex instruments as we possess. The possessor of an up-to-date +camera, well instructed in the function and manipulation of every part, +but ignorant of all optics save a hand-to-mouth knowledge of the properties +of his own lens, might say that <i>a priori</i> no picture could be +taken with a cigar-box perforated by a pin-hole; and our ignorance of +the mechanism of the Psychology of any organism is greater by many times +than that of my supposed photographer. We know that Plants are +able to do many things that can only be accounted for by ascribing to +them a “psyche,” and these co-ordinated enough to satisfy +their needs; and yet they possess no central organ comparable to the +brain, no highly specialised system for intercommunication like our +nerve trunks and fibres. As Oscar Hertwig says, we are as ignorant +of the mechanism of the development of the individual as we are of that +of hereditary transmission of acquired characters, and the absence of +such mechanism in either case is no reason for rejecting the proven +fact.</p> +<p>However, the relations of germ and body just described led Jäger, +Nussbaum, Galton, Lankester, and, above all, Weismann, to the view that +the germ-cells or “stirp” (Galton) were <i>in</i> the body, +but not <i>of</i> it. Indeed, in the body and out of it, whether +as reproductive cells set free, or in the developing embryo, they are +regarded as forming one continuous homogeneity, in contrast to the differentiation +of the body; and it is to these cells, regarded as a continuum, that +the terms stirp, germ-plasm, are especially applied. Yet on this +view, so eagerly advocated by its supporters, we have to substitute +for the hypothesis of memory, which they declare to have no real meaning +here, the far more fantastic hypotheses of Weismann: by these they explain +the process of differentiation in the young embryo into new germ and +body; and in the young body the differentiation of its cells, each in +due time and place, into the varied tissue cells and organs. Such +views might perhaps be acceptable if it could be shown that over each +cell-division there presided a wise all-guiding genie of transcending +intellect, to which Clerk-Maxwell’s sorting demons were mere infants. +Yet these views have so enchanted many distinguished biologists, that +in dealing with the subject they have actually ignored the existence +of equally able workers who hesitate to share the extremest of their +views. The phenomenon is one well known in hypnotic practice. +So long as the non-Weismannians deal with matters outside this discussion, +their existence and their work is rated at its just value; but any work +of theirs on this point so affects the orthodox Weismannite (whether +he accept this label or reject it does not matter), that for the time +being their existence and the good work they have done are alike non-existent. +<a name="citation0e"></a><a href="#footnote0e">{0e}</a></p> +<p>Butler founded no school, and wished to found none. He desired +that what was true in his work should prevail, and he looked forward +calmly to the time when the recognition of that truth and of his share +in advancing it should give him in the lives of others that immortality +for which alone he craved.</p> +<p>Lamarckian views have never lacked defenders here and in America. +Of the English, Herbert Spencer, who however, was averse to the vitalistic +attitude, Vines and Henslow among botanists, Cunningham among zoologists, +have always resisted Weismannism; but, I think, none of these was distinctly +influenced by Hering and Butler. In America the majority of the +great school of palæontologists have been strong Lamarckians, +notably Cope, who has pointed out, moreover, that the transformations +of energy in living beings are peculiar to them.</p> +<p>We have already adverted to Haeckel’s acceptance and development +of Hering’s ideas in his “Perigenese der Plastidule.” +Oscar Hertwig has been a consistent Lamarckian, like Yves Delage of +the Sorbonne, and these occupy pre-eminent positions not only as observers, +but as discriminating theorists and historians of the recent progress +of biology. We may also cite as a Lamarckian - of a sort - Felix +Le Dantec, the leader of the chemico-physical school of the present +day.</p> +<p>But we must seek elsewhere for special attention to the points which +Butler regarded as the essentials of “Life and Habit.” +In 1893 Henry P. Orr, Professor of Biology in the University of Louisiana, +published a little book entitled “A Theory of Heredity.” +Herein he insists on the nervous control of the whole body, and on the +transmission to the reproductive cells of such stimuli, received by +the body, as will guide them on their path until they shall have acquired +adequate experience of their own in the new body they have formed. +I have found the name of neither Butler nor Hering, but the treatment +is essentially on their lines, and is both clear and interesting.</p> +<p>In 1896 I wrote an essay on “The Fundamental Principles of +Heredity,” primarily directed to the man in the street. +This, after being held over for more than a year by one leading review, +was “declined with regret,” and again after some weeks met +the same fate from another editor. It appeared in the pages of +“Natural Science” for October, 1897, and in the “Biologisches +Centralblatt” for the same year. I reproduce its closing +paragraph:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“This theory [Hering-Butler’s] has, indeed, a tentative +character, and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the more welcome +as not aiming at the impossible. A whole series of phenomena in +organic beings are correlated under the term of <i>memory</i>, <i>conscious +and unconscious</i>, <i>patent and latent</i>. . . . Of the order +of unconscious memory, latent till the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, +is all the co-operative growth and work of the organism, including its +development from the reproductive cells. Concerning the <i>modus +operandi</i> we know nothing: the phenomena may be due, as Hering suggests, +to molecular vibrations, which must be at least as distinct from ordinary +physical disturbances as Röntgen’s rays are from ordinary +light; or it may be correlated, as we ourselves are inclined to think, +with complex chemical changes in an intricate but orderly succession. +For the present, at least, the problem of heredity can only be elucidated +by the light of mental, and not material processes.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It will be seen that I express doubts as to the validity of Hering’s +invocation of molecular vibrations as the mechanism of memory, and suggest +as an alternative rhythmic chemical changes. This view has recently +been put forth in detail by J. J. Cunningham in his essay on the “Hormone +<a name="citation0f"></a><a href="#footnote0f">{0f}</a> Theory of Heredity,” +in the <i>Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik</i> (1909), but I have +failed to note any direct effect of my essay on the trend of biological +thought.</p> +<p>Among post-Darwinian controversies the one that has latterly assumed +the greatest prominence is that of the relative importance of small +variations in the way of more or less “fluctuations,” and +of “discontinuous variations,” or “mutations,” +as De Vries has called them. Darwin, in the first four editions +of the “Origin of Species,” attached more importance to +the latter than in subsequent editions; he was swayed in his attitude, +as is well known, by an article of the physicist, Fleeming Jenkin, which +appeared in the <i>North British Review</i>. The mathematics of +this article were unimpeachable, but they were founded on the assumption +that exceptional variations would only occur in single individuals, +which is, indeed, often the case among those domesticated races on which +Darwin especially studied the phenomena of variation. Darwin was +no mathematician or physicist, and we are told in his biography that +he regarded every tool-shop rule or optician’s thermometer as +an instrument of precision: so he appears to have regarded Fleeming +Jenkin’s demonstration as a mathematical deduction which he was +bound to accept without criticism.</p> +<p>Mr. William Bateson, late Professor of Biology in the University +of Cambridge, as early as 1894 laid great stress on the importance of +discontinuous variations, collecting and collating the known facts in +his “Materials for the Study of Variations”; but this important +work, now become rare and valuable, at the time excited so little interest +as to be ‘remaindered’ within a very few years after publication.</p> +<p>In 1901 Hugo De Vries, Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam, +published “Die Mutationstheorie,” wherein he showed that +mutations or discontinuous variations in various directions may appear +simultaneously in many individuals, and in various directions. +In the gardener’s phrase, the species may take to sporting in +various directions at the same time, and each sport may be represented +by numerous specimens.</p> +<p>De Vries shows the probability that species go on for long periods +showing only fluctuations, and then suddenly take to sporting in the +way described, short periods of mutation alternating with long intervals +of relative constancy. It is to mutations that De Vries and his +school, as well as Luther Burbank, the great former of new fruit- and +flower-plants, look for those variations which form the material of +Natural Selection. In “God the Known and God the Unknown,” +which appeared in the <i>Examiner</i> (May, June, and July), 1879, but +though then revised was only published posthumously in 1909, Butler +anticipates this distinction:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Under these circumstances organism must act in one or other +of these two ways: it must either change slowly and continuously with +the surroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change +with a corresponding modification, so far as is found convenient, or +it must put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and +more sweeping changes.</p> +<p>“Both these courses are the same in principle, the difference +being one of scale, and the one being a miniature of the other, as a +ripple is an Atlantic wave in little; both have their advantages and +disadvantages, so that most organisms will take the one course for one +set of things and the other for another. They will deal promptly +with things which they can get at easily, and which lie more upon the +surface; <i>those, however, which are more troublesome to reach, and +lie deeper, will be handled upon more cataclysmic principles, being +allowed longer periods of repose followed by short periods of greater +activity</i> . . . it may be questioned whether what is called a sport +is not the organic expression of discontent which has been long felt, +but which has not been attended to, nor been met step by step by as +much small remedial modification as was found practicable: so that when +a change does come it comes by way of revolution. Or, again (only +that it comes to much the same thing), it may be compared to one of +those happy thoughts which sometimes come to us unbidden after we have +been thinking for a long time what to do, or how to arrange our ideas, +and have yet been unable to come to any conclusion” (pp. 14, 15). +<a name="citation0g"></a><a href="#footnote0g">{0g}</a></p> +<p>We come to another order of mind in Hans Driesch. At the time +he began his work biologists were largely busy in a region indicated +by Darwin, and roughly mapped out by Haeckel - that of phylogeny. +From the facts of development of the individual, from the comparison +of fossils in successive strata, they set to work at the construction +of pedigrees, and strove to bring into line the principles of classification +with the more or less hypothetical “stemtrees.” Driesch +considered this futile, since we never could reconstruct from such evidence +anything certain in the history of the past. He therefore asserted +that a more complete knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the organic +world might give a scientific explanation of the phenomena, and maintained +that the proper work of the biologist was to deepen our knowledge in +these respects. He embodied his views, seeking the explanation +on this track, filling up gaps and tracing projected roads along lines +of probable truth in his “Analytische Theorie der organische Entwicklung.” +But his own work convinced him of the hopelessness of the task he had +undertaken, and he has become as strenuous a vitalist as Butler. +The most complete statement of his present views is to be found in “The +Philosophy of Life” (1908-9), being the Giffold Lectures for 1907-8. +Herein he postulates a quality (“psychoid”) in all living +beings, directing energy and matter for the purpose of the organism, +and to this he applies the Aristotelian designation “Entelechy.” +The question of the transmission of acquired characters is regarded +as doubtful, and he does not emphasise - if he accepts - the doctrine +of continuous personality. His early youthful impatience with +descent theories and hypotheses has, however, disappeared.</p> +<p>In the next work the influence of Hering and Butler is definitely +present and recognised. In 1906 Signor Eugenio Rignano, an engineer +keenly interested in all branches of science, and a little later the +founder of the international review, <i>Rivistà di Scienza</i> +(now simply called <i>Scientia</i>), published in French a volume entitled +“Sur la transmissibilité des Caractères acquis - +Hypothèse d’un Centro-épigenèse.” +Into the details of the author’s work we will not enter fully. +Suffice it to know that he accepts the Hering-Butler theory, and makes +a distinct advance on Hering’s rather crude hypothesis of persistent +vibrations by suggesting that the remembering centres store slightly +different forms of energy, to give out energy of the same kind as they +have received, like electrical accumulators. The last chapter, +“Le Phénomène mnémonique et le Phénomène +vital,” is frankly based on Hering.</p> +<p>In “The Lesson of Evolution” (1907, posthumous, and only +published for private circulation) Frederick Wollaston Hutton, F.R.S., +late Professor of Biology and Geology, first at Dunedin and after at +Christchurch, New Zealand, puts forward a strongly vitalistic view, +and adopts Hering’s teaching. After stating this he adds, +“The same idea of heredity being due to unconscious memory was +advocated by Mr. Samuel Butler in his “Life and Habit.”</p> +<p>Dr. James Mark Baldwin, Stuart Professor of Psychology in Princeton +University, U.S.A., called attention early in the 90’s to a reaction +characteristic of all living beings, which he terms the “Circular +Reaction.” We take his most recent account of this from +his “Development and Evolution” (1902):- <a name="citation0h"></a><a href="#footnote0h">{0h}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The general fact is that the organism reacts by concentration +upon the locality stimulated for the <i>continuance</i> of the conditions, +movements, stimulations, <i>which are vitally beneficial</i>, and for +the cessation of the conditions, movements, stimulations <i>which are +vitally depressing</i>.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This amounts to saying in the terminology of Jenning (see below) +that the living organism alters its “physiological states” +either for its direct benefit, or for its indirect benefit in the reduction +of harmful conditions.</p> +<p>Again:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“This form of concentration of energy on stimulated localities, +with the resulting renewal through movement of conditions that are pleasure-giving +and beneficial, and the consequent repetition of the movements is called +‘circular reaction.’”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Of course, the inhibition of such movements as would be painful on +repetition is merely the negative case of the circular reaction. +We must not put too much of our own ideas into the author’s mind; +he nowhere says explicitly that the animal or plant shows its sense +and does this because it likes the one thing and wants it repeated, +or dislikes the other and stops its repetition, as Butler would have +said. Baldwin is very strong in insisting that no full explanation +can be given of living processes, any more than of history, on purely +chemico-physical grounds.</p> +<p>The same view is put differently and independently by H. S. Jennings, +<a name="citation0i"></a><a href="#footnote0i">{0i}</a> who started +his investigations of living Protista, the simplest of living beings, +with the idea that only accurate and ample observation was needed to +enable us to explain all their activities on a mechanical basis, and +devised ingenious models of protoplastic movements. He was led, +like Driesch, to renounce such efforts as illusory, and has come to +the conviction that in the behaviour of these lowly beings there is +a purposive and a tentative character - a method of “trial and +error” - that can only be interpreted by the invocation of psychology. +He points out that after stimulation the “state” of the +organism may be altered, so that the response to the same stimulus on +repetition is other. Or, as he puts it, the first stimulus has +caused the organism to pass into a new “physiological state.” +As the change of state from what we may call the “primary indifferent +state” is advantageous to the organism, we may regard this as +equivalent to the doctrine of the “circular reaction,” and +also as containing the essence of Semon’s doctrine of “engrams” +or imprints which we are about to consider. We cite one passage +which for audacity of thought (underlying, it is true, most guarded +expression) may well compare with many of the boldest flights in “Life +and Habit”:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“It may be noted that regulation in the manner we have set +forth is what, in the behaviour of higher organisms, at least, is called +intelligence [the examples have been taken from Protista, Corals, and +the Lowest Worms]. If the same method of regulation is found in +other fields, there is no reason for refusing to compare the action +to intelligence. Comparison of the regulatory processes that are +shown in internal physiological changes and in regeneration to intelligence +seems to be looked upon sometimes as heretical and unscientific. +Yet intelligence is a name applied to processes that actually exist +in the regulation of movements, and there is, <i>a priori</i>, no reason +why similar processes should not occur in regulation in other fields. +When we analyse regulation objectively there seems indeed reason to +think that the processes are of the same character in behaviour as elsewhere. +If the term intelligence be reserved for the subjective accompaniments +of such regulation, then of course we have no direct knowledge of its +existence in any of the fields of regulation outside of the self, and +in the self perhaps only in behaviour. But in a purely objective +consideration there seems no reason to suppose that regulation in behaviour +(intelligence) is of a fundamentally different character from regulation +elsewhere.” (“Method of Regulation,” p. 492.)</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Jennings makes no mention of questions of the theory of heredity. +He has made some experiments on the transmission of an acquired character +in Protozoa; but it was a mutilation-character, which is, as has been +often shown, <a name="citation0j"></a><a href="#footnote0j">{0j}</a> +not to the point.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>One of the most obvious criticisms of Hering’s exposition is +based upon the extended use he makes of the word “Memory”: +this he had foreseen and deprecated.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“We have a perfect right,” he says, “to extend +our conception of memory so as to make it embrace involuntary [and also +unconscious] reproductions of sensations, ideas, perceptions, and efforts; +but we find, on having done so, that we have so far enlarged her boundaries +that she proves to be an ultimate and original power, the source and, +at the same time, the unifying bond, of our whole conscious life.” +(“Unconscious Memory,” p. 68.)</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This sentence, coupled with Hering’s omission to give to the +concept of memory so enlarged a new name, clear alike of the limitations +and of the stains of habitual use, may well have been the inspiration +of the next work on our list. Richard Semon is a professional +zoologist and anthropologist of such high status for his original observations +and researches in the mere technical sense, that in these countries +he would assuredly have been acclaimed as one of the Fellows of the +Royal Society who were Samuel Butler’s special aversion. +The full title of his book is “DIE MNEME als erhaltende Prinzip +im Wechsel des organischen Geschehens” (Munich, Ed. 1, 1904; +Ed. 2, 1908). We may translate it “MNEME, a Principle of +Conservation in the Transformations of Organic Existence.”</p> +<p>From this I quote in free translation the opening passage of Chapter +II:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“We have shown that in very many cases, whether in Protist, +Plant, or Animal, when an organism has passed into an indifferent state +after the reaction to a stimulus has ceased, its irritable substance +has suffered a lasting change: I call this after-action of the stimulus +its ‘imprint’ or ‘engraphic’ action, since it +penetrates and imprints itself in the organic substance; and I term +the change so effected an ‘imprint’ or ‘engram’ +of the stimulus; and the sum of all the imprints possessed by the organism +may be called its ‘store of imprints,’ wherein we must distinguish +between those which it has inherited from its forbears and those which +it has acquired itself. Any phenomenon displayed by an organism +as the result either of a single imprint or of a sum of them, I term +a ‘mnemic phenomenon’; and the mnemic possibilities of an +organism may be termed, collectively, its ‘MNEME.’</p> +<p>“I have selected my own terms for the concepts that I have +just defined. On many grounds I refrain from making any use of +the good German terms ‘Gedächtniss, Erinnerungsbild.’ +The first and chiefest ground is that for my purpose I should have to +employ the German words in a much wider sense than what they usually +convey, and thus leave the door open to countless misunderstandings +and idle controversies. It would, indeed, even amount to an error +of fact to give to the wider concept the name already current in the +narrower sense - nay, actually limited, like ‘Erinnerungsbild,’ +to phenomena of consciousness. . . . In Animals, during the course +of history, one set of organs has, so to speak, specialised itself for +the reception and transmission of stimuli - the Nervous System. +But from this specialisation we are not justified in ascribing to the +nervous system any monopoly of the function, even when it is as highly +developed as in Man. . . . Just as the direct excitability of +the nervous system has progressed in the history of the race, so has +its capacity for receiving imprints; but neither susceptibility nor +retentiveness is its monopoly; and, indeed, retentiveness seems inseparable +from susceptibility in living matter.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Semen here takes the instance of stimulus and imprint actions affecting +the nervous system of a dog</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“who has up till now never experienced aught but kindness from +the Lord of Creation, and then one day that he is out alone is pelted +with stones by a boy. . . . Here he is affected at once by two +sets of stimuli: (1) the optic stimulus of seeing the boy stoop for +stones and throw them, and (2) the skin stimulus of the pain felt when +they hit him. Here both stimuli leave their imprints; and the +organism is permanently changed in relation to the recurrence of the +stimuli. Hitherto the sight of a human figure quickly stooping +had produced no constant special reaction. Now the reaction is +constant, and may remain so till death. . . . The dog tucks in +its tail between its legs and takes flight, often with a howl [as of] +pain.”</p> +<p>“Here we gain on one side a deeper insight into the imprint +action of stimuli. It reposes on the lasting change in the conditions +of the living matter, so that the repetition of the immediate or synchronous +reaction to its first stimulus (in this case the stooping of the boy, +the flying stones, and the pain on the ribs), no longer demands, as +in the original state of indifference, the full stimulus <i>a</i>, but +may be called forth by a partial or different stimulus, <i>b</i> (in +this case the mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences +by which such changed reaction are rendered possible, ‘outcome-reactions,’ +and when such influences assume the form of stimuli, ‘outcome-stimuli.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>They are termed “outcome” (“ecphoria”) stimuli, +because the author regards them and would have us regard them as the +outcome, manifestation, or efference of an imprint of a previous stimulus. +We have noted that the imprint is equivalent to the changed “physiological +state” of Jennings. Again, the capacity for gaining imprints +and revealing them by outcomes favourable to the individual is the “circular +reaction” of Baldwin, but Semon gives no reference to either author. +<a name="citation0k"></a><a href="#footnote0k">{0k}</a></p> +<p>In the preface to his first edition (reprinted in the second) Semon +writes, after discussing the work of Hering and Haeckel:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The problem received a more detailed treatment in Samuel Butler’s +book, ‘Life and Habit,’ published in 1878. Though +he only made acquaintance with Hering’s essay after this publication, +Butler gave what was in many respects a more detailed view of the coincidences +of these different phenomena of organic reproduction than did Hering. +With much that is untenable, Butler’s writings present many a +brilliant idea; yet, on the whole, they are rather a retrogression than +an advance upon Hering. Evidently they failed to exercise any +marked influence upon the literature of the day.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This judgment needs a little examination. Butler claimed, justly, +that his “Life and Habit” was an advance on Hering in its +dealing with questions of hybridity, and of longevity puberty and sterility. +Since Semon’s extended treatment of the phenomena of crosses might +almost be regarded as the rewriting of the corresponding section of +“Life and Habit” in the “Mneme” terminology, +we may infer that this view of the question was one of Butler’s +“brilliant ideas.” That Butler shrank from accepting +such a formal explanation of memory as Hering did with his hypothesis +should certainly be counted as a distinct “advance upon Hering,” +for Semon also avoids any attempt at an explanation of “Mneme.” +I think, however, we may gather the real meaning of Semon’s strictures +from the following passages:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I refrain here from a discussion of the development of this +theory of Lamarck’s by those Neo-Lamarckians who would ascribe +to the individual elementary organism an equipment of complex psychical +powers - so to say, anthropomorphic perception and volitions. +This treatment is no longer directed by the scientific principle of +referring complex phenomena to simpler laws, of deducing even human +intellect and will from simpler elements. On the contrary, they +follow that most abhorrent method of taking the most complex and unresolved +as a datum, and employing it as an explanation. The adoption of +such a method, as formerly by Samuel Butler, and recently by Pauly, +I regard as a big and dangerous step backward” (ed. 2, pp. 380-1, +note).</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Thus Butler’s alleged retrogressions belong to the same order +of thinking that we have seen shared by Driesch, Baldwin, and Jennings, +and most explicitly avowed, as we shall see, by Francis Darwin. +Semon makes one rather candid admission, “The impossibility of +interpreting the phenomena of physiological stimulation by those of +direct reaction, and the undeception of those who had put faith in this +being possible, have led many on the <i>backward path of vitalism</i>.” +Semon assuredly will never be able to complete his theory of “Mneme” +until, guided by the experience of Jennings and Driesch, he forsakes +the blind alley of mechanisticism and retraces his steps to reasonable +vitalism.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But the most notable publications bearing on our matter are incidental +to the Darwin Celebrations of 1908-9. Dr. Francis Darwin, son, +collaborator, and biographer of Charles Darwin, was selected to preside +over the Meeting of the British Association held in Dublin in 1908, +the jubilee of the first publications on Natural Selection by his father +and Alfred Russel Wallace. In this address we find the theory +of Hering, Butler, Rignano, and Semon taking its proper place as a <i>vera +causa</i> of that variation which Natural Selection must find before +it can act, and recognised as the basis of a rational theory of the +development of the individual and of the race. The organism is +essentially purposive: the impossibility of devising any adequate accounts +of organic form and function without taking account of the psychical +side is most strenuously asserted. And with our regret that past +misunderstandings should be so prominent in Butler’s works, it +was very pleasant to hear Francis Darwin’s quotation from Butler’s +translation of Hering <a name="citation0l"></a><a href="#footnote0l">{0l}</a> +followed by a personal tribute to Butler himself.</p> +<p>In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin +and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the “Origin +of Species,” at the suggestion of the Cambridge Philosophical +Society, the University Press published during the current year a volume +entitled “Darwin and Modern Science,” edited by Mr. A. C. +Seward, Professor of Botany in the University. Of the twenty-nine +essays by men of science of the highest distinction, one is of peculiar +interest to the readers of Samuel Butler: “Heredity and Variation +in Modern Lights,” by Professor W. Bateson, F.R.S., to whose work +on “Discontinuous Variations” we have already referred. +Here once more Butler receives from an official biologist of the first +rank full recognition for his wonderful insight and keen critical power. +This is the more noteworthy because Bateson has apparently no faith +in the transmission of acquired characters; but such a passage as this +would have commended itself to Butler’s admiration:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“All this indicates a definiteness and specific order in heredity, +and therefore in variation. This order cannot by the nature of +the case be dependent on Natural Selection for its existence, but must +be a consequence of the fundamental chemical and physical nature of +living things. The study of Variation had from the first shown +that an orderliness of this kind was present. The bodies and properties +of living things are cosmic, not chaotic. No matter how low in +the scale we go, never do we find the slightest hint of a diminution +in that all-pervading orderliness, nor can we conceive an organism existing +for one moment in any other state.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We have now before us the materials to determine the problem of Butler’s +relation to biology and to biologists. He was, we have seen, anticipated +by Hering; but his attitude was his own, fresh and original. He +did not hamper his exposition, like Hering, by a subsidiary hypothesis +of vibrations which may or may not be true, which burdens the theory +without giving it greater carrying power or persuasiveness, which is +based on no objective facts, and which, as Semon has practically demonstrated, +is needless for the detailed working out of the theory. Butler +failed to impress the biologists of his day, even those on whom, like +Romanes, he might have reasonably counted for understanding and for +support. But he kept alive Hering’s work when it bade fair +to sink into the limbo of obsolete hypotheses. To use Oliver Wendell +Holmes’s phrase, he “depolarised” evolutionary thought. +We quote the words of a young biologist, who, when an ardent and dogmatic +Weismannist of the most pronounced type, was induced to read “Life +and Habit”: “The book was to me a transformation and an +inspiration.” Such learned writings as Semon’s or +Hering’s could never produce such an effect: they do not penetrate +to the heart of man; they cannot carry conviction to the intellect already +filled full with rival theories, and with the unreasoned faith that +to-morrow or next day a new discovery will obliterate all distinction +between Man and his makings. The mind must needs be open for the +reception of truth, for the rejection of prejudice; and the violence +of a Samuel Butler may in the future as in the past be needed to shatter +the coat of mail forged by too exclusively professional a training.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>MARCUS HARTOG<br /><i>Cork</i>, <i>April</i>, 1910</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>AUTHOR’S PREFACE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Not finding the “well-known German scientific journal <i>Kosmos</i>” +<a name="citation0m"></a><a href="#footnote0m">{0m}</a> entered in the +British Museum Catalogue, I have presented the Museum with a copy of +the number for February 1879, which contains the article by Dr. Krause +of which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a translation, the accuracy of +which is guaranteed - so he informs us - by the translator’s “scientific +reputation together with his knowledge of German.” <a name="citation0n"></a><a href="#footnote0n">{0n}</a></p> +<p>I have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance what +passages has been suppressed and where matter has been interpolated.</p> +<p>I have also present a copy of “Erasmus Darwin.” +I have marked this too, so that the genuine and spurious passages can +be easily distinguished.</p> +<p>I understand that both the “Erasmus Darwin” and the number +of <i>Kosmos</i> have been sent to the Keeper of Printed Books, with +instructions that they shall be at once catalogued and made accessible +to readers, and do not doubt that this will have been done before the +present volume is published. The reader, therefore, who may be +sufficiently interested in the matter to care to see exactly what has +been done will now have an opportunity of doing so.</p> +<p><i>October</i> 25, 1880.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Introduction - General ignorance on the subject of evolution at the +time the “Origin of Species” was published in 1859.</p> +<p>There are few things which strike us with more surprise, when we +review the course taken by opinion in the last century, than the suddenness +with which belief in witchcraft and demoniacal possession came to an +end. This has been often remarked upon, but I am not acquainted +with any record of the fact as it appeared to those under whose eyes +the change was taking place, nor have I seen any contemporary explanation +of the reasons which led to the apparently sudden overthrow of a belief +which had seemed hitherto to be deeply rooted in the minds of almost +all men. As a parallel to this, though in respect of the rapid +spread of an opinion, and not its decadence, it is probable that those +of our descendants who take an interest in ourselves will note the suddenness +with which the theory of evolution, from having been generally ridiculed +during a period of over a hundred years, came into popularity and almost +universal acceptance among educated people.</p> +<p>It is indisputable that this has been the case; nor is it less indisputable +that the works of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace have been the main agents +in the change that has been brought about in our opinions. The +names of Cobden and Bright do not stand more prominently forward in +connection with the repeal of the Corn Laws than do those of Mr. Darwin +and Mr. Wallace in connection with the general acceptance of the theory +of evolution. There is no living philosopher who has anything +like Mr. Darwin’s popularity with Englishmen generally; and not +only this, but his power of fascination extends all over Europe, and +indeed in every country in which civilisation has obtained footing: +not among the illiterate masses, though these are rapidly following +the suit of the educated classes, but among experts and those who are +most capable of judging. France, indeed - the country of Buffon +and Lamarck - must be counted an exception to the general rule, but +in England and Germany there are few men of scientific reputation who +do not accept Mr. Darwin as the founder of what is commonly called “Darwinism,” +and regard him as perhaps the most penetrative and profound philosopher +of modern times.</p> +<p>To quote an example from the last few weeks only, <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> +I have observed that Professor Huxley has celebrated the twenty-first +year since the “Origin of Species” was published by a lecture +at the Royal Institution, and am told that he described Mr. Darwin’s +candour as something actually “terrible” (I give Professor +Huxley’s own word, as reported by one who heard it); and on opening +a small book entitled “Degeneration,” by Professor Ray Lankester, +published a few days before these lines were written, I find the following +passage amid more that is to the same purport:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Suddenly one of those great guesses which occasionally appear +in the history of science was given to the science of biology by the +imaginative insight of that greatest of living naturalists - I would +say that greatest of living men - Charles Darwin.” - <i>Degeneration</i>, +p. 10.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than that +habitually employed by the leading men of science when they speak of +Mr. Darwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 the Germans +devoted an entire number of one of their scientific periodicals <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> +to the celebration of Mr. Darwin’s seventieth birthday. +There is no other Englishman now living who has been able to win such +a compliment as this from foreigners, who should be disinterested judges.</p> +<p>Under these circumstances, it must seem the height of presumption +to differ from so great an authority, and to join the small band of +malcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin’s reputation as a philosopher, +though it has grown up with the rapidity of Jonah’s gourd, will +yet not be permanent. I believe, however, that though we must +always gladly and gratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that +the public mind has been brought to accept evolution, the admiration +now generally felt for the “Origin of Species” will appear +as unaccountable to our descendants some fifty or eighty years hence +as the enthusiasm of our grandfathers for the poetry of Dr. Erasmus +Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who has yielded to none in respect +of the fascination Mr. Darwin has exercised over him, I would fain say +a few words of explanation which may make the matter clearer to our +future historians. I do this the more readily because I can at +the same time explain thus better than in any other way the steps which +led me to the theory which I afterwards advanced in “Life and +Habit.”</p> +<p>This last, indeed, is perhaps the main purpose of the earlier chapters +of this book. I shall presently give a translation of a lecture +by Professor Ewald Hering of Prague, which appeared ten years ago, and +which contains so exactly the theory I subsequently advocated myself, +that I am half uneasy lest it should be supposed that I knew of Professor +Hering’s work and made no reference to it. A friend to whom +I submitted my translation in MS., asking him how closely he thought +it resembled “Life and Habit,” wrote back that it gave my +own ideas almost in my own words. As far as the ideas are concerned +this is certainly the case, and considering that Professor Hering wrote +between seven and eight years before I did, I think it due to him, and +to my readers as well as to myself, to explain the steps which led me +to my conclusions, and, while putting Professor Hering’s lecture +before them, to show cause for thinking that I arrived at an almost +identical conclusion, as it would appear, by an almost identical road, +yet, nevertheless, quite independently, I must ask the reader, therefore, +to regard these earlier chapters as in some measure a personal explanation, +as well as a contribution to the history of an important feature in +the developments of the last twenty years. I hope also, by showing +the steps by which I was led to my conclusions, to make the conclusions +themselves more acceptable and easy of comprehension.</p> +<p>Being on my way to New Zealand when the “Origin of Species” +appeared, I did not get it till 1860 or 1861. When I read it, +I found “the theory of natural selection” repeatedly spoken +of as though it were a synonym for “the theory of descent with +modification”; this is especially the case in the recapitulation +chapter of the work. I failed to see how important it was that +these two theories - if indeed “natural selection” can be +called a theory - should not be confounded together, and that a “theory +of descent with modification” might be true, while a “theory +of descent with modification through natural selection” <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a> +might not stand being looked into.</p> +<p>If any one had asked me to state in brief what Mr. Darwin’s +theory was, I am afraid I might have answered “natural selection,” +or “descent with modification,” whichever came first, as +though the one meant much the same as the other. I observe that +most of the leading writers on the subject are still unable to catch +sight of the distinction here alluded to, and console myself for my +want of acumen by reflecting that, if I was misled, I was misled in +good company.</p> +<p>I - and I may add, the public generally - failed also to see what +the unaided reader who was new to the subject would be almost certain +to overlook. I mean, that, according to Mr. Darwin, the variations +whose accumulation resulted in diversity of species and genus were indefinite, +fortuitous, attributable but in small degree to any known causes, and +without a general principle underlying them which would cause them to +appear steadily in a given direction for many successive generations +and in a considerable number of individuals at the same time. +We did not know that the theory of evolution was one that had been quietly +but steadily gaining ground during the last hundred years. Buffon +we knew by name, but he sounded too like “buffoon” for any +good to come from him. We had heard also of Lamarck, and held +him to be a kind of French Lord Monboddo; but we knew nothing of his +doctrine save through the caricatures promulgated by his opponents, +or the misrepresentations of those who had another kind of interest +in disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we believed to be a forgotten +minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every hundred of us had never so +much as heard of the “Zoonomia.” We were little likely, +therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very largely from Buffon, and probably +also from Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and that this last-named writer, though +essentially original, was founded upon Buffon, who was greatly more +in advance of any predecessor than any successor has been in advance +of him.</p> +<p>We did not know, then, that according to the earlier writers the +variations whose accumulation results in species were not fortuitous +and definite, but were due to a known principle of universal application +- namely, “sense of need” - or apprehend the difference +between a theory of evolution which has a backbone, as it were, in the +tolerably constant or slowly varying needs of large numbers of individuals +for long periods together, and one which has no such backbone, but according +to which the progress of one generation is always liable to be cancelled +and obliterated by that of the next. We did not know that the +new theory in a quiet way professed to tell us less than the old had +done, and declared that it could throw little if any light upon the +matter which the earlier writers had endeavoured to illuminate as the +central point in their system. We took it for granted that more +light must be being thrown instead of less; and reading in perfect good +faith, we rose from our perusal with the impression that Mr. Darwin +was advocating the descent of all existing forms of life from a single, +or from, at any rate, a very few primordial types; that no one else +had done this hitherto, or that, if they had, they had got the whole +subject into a mess, which mess, whatever it was - for we were never +told this - was now being removed once for all by Mr. Darwin.</p> +<p>The evolution part of the story, that is to say, the fact of evolution, +remained in our minds as by far the most prominent feature in Mr. Darwin’s +book; and being grateful for it, we were very ready to take Mr. Darwin’s +work at the estimate tacitly claimed for it by himself, and vehemently +insisted upon by reviewers in influential journals, who took much the +same line towards the earlier writers on evolution as Mr. Darwin himself +had taken. But perhaps nothing more prepossessed us in Mr. Darwin’s +favour than the air of candour that was omnipresent throughout his work. +The prominence given to the arguments of opponents completely carried +us away; it was this which threw us off our guard. It never occurred +to us that there might be other and more dangerous opponents who were +not brought forward. Mr. Darwin did not tell us what his grandfather +and Lamarck would have had to say to this or that. Moreover, there +was an unobtrusive parade of hidden learning and of difficulties at +last overcome which was particularly grateful to us. Whatever +opinion might be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, +there could be but one about the value of the example he had set to +men of science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness +of his work. Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to Mr. +Darwin in this respect.</p> +<p>For, brilliant as the reception of the “Origin of Species” +was, it met in the first instance with hardly less hostile than friendly +criticism. But the attacks were ill-directed; they came from a +suspected quarter, and those who led them did not detect more than the +general public had done what were the really weak places in Mr. Darwin’s +armour. They attacked him where he was strongest; and above all, +they were, as a general rule, stamped with a disingenuousness which +at that time we believed to be peculiar to theological writers and alien +to the spirit of science. Seeing, therefore, that the men of science +ranged themselves more and more decidedly on Mr. Darwin’s side, +while his opponents had manifestly - so far as I can remember, all the +more prominent among them - a bias to which their hostility was attributable, +we left off looking at the arguments against “Darwinism,” +as we now began to call it, and pigeon-holed the matter to the effect +that there was one evolution, and that Mr. Darwin was its prophet.</p> +<p>The blame of our errors and oversights rests primarily with Mr. Darwin +himself. The first, and far the most important, edition of the +“Origin of Species” came out as a kind of literary Melchisedec, +without father and without mother in the works of other people. +Here is its opening paragraph:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ as naturalist, I +was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants +of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to +the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to +me to throw some light on the origin of species - that mystery of mysteries, +as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On +my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might be +made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting upon +all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. +After five years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, +and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch +of the conclusions which then seemed to me probable: from that period +to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I +hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as +I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.” +<a name="citation8a"></a><a href="#footnote8a">{8a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In the latest edition this passage remains unaltered, except in one +unimportant respect. What could more completely throw us off the +scent of the earlier writers? If they had written anything worthy +of our attention, or indeed if there had been any earlier writers at +all, Mr. Darwin would have been the first to tell us about them, and +to award them their due meed of recognition. But, no; the whole +thing was an original growth in Mr. Darwin’s mind, and he had +never so much as heard of his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin.</p> +<p>Dr. Krause, indeed, thought otherwise. In the number of <i>Kosmos</i> +for February 1879 he represented Mr. Darwin as in his youth approaching +the works of his grandfather with all the devotion which people usually +feel for the writings of a renowned poet. <a name="citation8b"></a><a href="#footnote8b">{8b}</a> +This should perhaps be a delicately ironical way of hinting that Mr. +Darwin did not read his grandfather’s books closely; but I hardly +think that Dr. Krause looked at the matter in this light, for he goes +on to say that “almost every single work of the younger Darwin +may be paralleled by at least a chapter in the works of his ancestor: +the mystery of heredity, adaptation, the protective arrangements of +animals and plants, sexual selection, insectivorous plants, and the +analysis of the emotions and sociological impulses; nay, even the studies +on infants are to be found already discussed in the pages of the elder +Darwin.” <a name="citation8c"></a><a href="#footnote8c">{8c}</a></p> +<p>Nevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin’s opening sentence appeared, +it contained enough to have put us upon our guard. When he informed +us that, on his return from a long voyage, “it occurred to” +him that the way to make anything out about his subject was to collect +and reflect upon the facts that bore upon it, it should have occurred +to us in our turn, that when people betray a return of consciousness +upon such matters as this, they are on the confines of that state in +which other and not less elementary matters will not “occur to” +them. The introduction of the word “patiently” should +have been conclusive. I will not analyse more of the sentence, +but will repeat the next two lines:- “After five years of work, +I allowed myself to speculate upon the subject, and drew up some short +notes.” We read this, thousands of us, and were blind.</p> +<p>If Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s name was not mentioned in the first +edition of the “Origin of Species,” we should not be surprised +at there being no notice taken of Buffon, or at Lamarck’s being +referred to only twice - on the first occasion to be serenely waved +aside, he and all his works; <a name="citation9a"></a><a href="#footnote9a">{9a}</a> +on the second, <a name="citation9b"></a><a href="#footnote9b">{9b}</a> +to be commended on a point of detail. The author of the “Vestiges +of Creation” was more widely known to English readers, having +written more recently and nearer home. He was dealt with summarily, +on an early and prominent page, by a misrepresentation, which was silently +expunged in later editions of the “Origin of Species.” +In his later editions (I believe first in his third, when 6000 copies +had been already sold), Mr. Darwin did indeed introduce a few pages +in which he gave what he designated as a “brief but imperfect +sketch” of the progress of opinion on the origin of species prior +to the appearance of his own work; but the general impression which +a book conveys to, and leaves upon, the public is conveyed by the first +edition - the one which is alone, with rare exceptions, reviewed; and +in the first edition of the “Origin of Species” Mr. Darwin’s +great precursors were all either ignored or misrepresented. Moreover, +the “brief but imperfect sketch,” when it did come, was +so very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is what I suppose Mr. +Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it might as well have been +left unwritten for all the help it gave the reader to see the true question +at issue between the original propounders of the theory of evolution +and Mr. Charles Darwin himself.</p> +<p>That question is this: Whether variation is in the main attributable +to a known general principle, or whether it is not? - whether the minute +variations whose accumulation results in specific and generic differences +are referable to something which will ensure their appearing in a certain +definite direction, or in certain definite directions, for long periods +together, and in many individuals, or whether they are not? - whether, +in a word, these variations are in the main definite or indefinite?</p> +<p>It is observable that the leading men of science seem rarely to understand +this even now. I am told that Professor Huxley, in his recent +lecture on the coming of age of the “Origin of Species,” +never so much as alluded to the existence of any such division of opinion +as this. He did not even, I am assured, mention “natural +selection,” but appeared to believe, with Professor Tyndall, <a name="citation10a"></a><a href="#footnote10a">{10a}</a> +that “evolution” is “Mr. Darwin’s theory.” +In his article on evolution in the latest edition of the “Encyclopaedia +Britannica,” I find only a veiled perception of the point wherein +Mr. Darwin is at variance with his precursors. Professor Huxley +evidently knows little of these writers beyond their names; if he had +known more, it is impossible he should have written that “Buffon +contributed nothing to the general doctrine of evolution,” <a name="citation10b"></a><a href="#footnote10b">{10b}</a> +and that Erasmus Darwin, “though a zealous evolutionist, can hardly +be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors.” <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11">{11}</a> +The article is in a high degree unsatisfactory, and betrays at once +an amount of ignorance and of perception which leaves an uncomfortable +impression.</p> +<p>If this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is not +surprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few exceptions, +have known of only one evolution, namely, that propounded by Mr. Darwin. +As a member of the general public, at that time residing eighteen miles +from the nearest human habitation, and three days’ journey on +horseback from a bookseller’s shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin’s +many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophical dialogue (the +most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed +unknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon the “Origin +of Species.” This production appeared in the <i>Press</i>, +Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or 1862, but I have long lost the only +copy I had.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>How I came to write “Life and Habit,” and the circumstances +of its completion.</p> +<p>It was impossible, however, for Mr. Darwin’s readers to leave +the matter as Mr. Darwin had left it. We wanted to know whence +came that germ or those germs of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, +were once the world’s only inhabitants. They could hardly +have come hither from some other world; they could not in their wet, +cold, slimy state have travelled through the dry ethereal medium which +we call space, and yet remained alive. If they travelled slowly, +they would die; if fast, they would catch fire, as meteors do on entering +the earth’s atmosphere. The idea, again, of their having +been created by a quasi-anthropomorphic being out of the matter upon +the earth was at variance with the whole spirit of evolution, which +indicated that no such being could exist except as himself the result, +and not the cause, of evolution. Having got back from ourselves +to the monad, we were suddenly to begin again with something which was +either unthinkable, or was only ourselves again upon a larger scale +- to return to the same point as that from which we had started, only +made harder for us to stand upon.</p> +<p>There was only one other conception possible, namely, that the germs +had been developed in the course of time from some thing or things that +were not what we called living at all; that they had grown up, in fact, +out of the material substances and forces of the world in some manner +more or less analogous to that in which man had been developed from +themselves.</p> +<p>I first asked myself whether life might not, after all, resolve itself +into the complexity of arrangement of an inconceivably intricate mechanism. +Kittens think our shoe-strings are alive when they see us lacing them, +because they see the tag at the end jump about without understanding +all the ins and outs of how it comes to do so. “Of course,” +they argue, “if we cannot understand how a thing comes to move, +it must move of itself, for there can be no motion beyond our comprehension +but what is spontaneous; if the motion is spontaneous, the thing moving +must he alive, for nothing can move of itself or without our understanding +why unless it is alive. Everything that is alive and not too large +can be tortured, and perhaps eaten; let us therefore spring upon the +tag” and they spring upon it. Cats are above this; yet give +the cat something which presents a few more of those appearances which +she is accustomed to see whenever she sees life, and she will fall as +easy a prey to the power which association exercises over all that lives +as the kitten itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few +yards after being wound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse +being here, there is no good cat which will not conclude that so many +of the appearances of mousehood could not be present at the same time +without the presence also of the remainder. She will, therefore, +spring upon the toy as eagerly as the kitten upon the tag.</p> +<p>Suppose the toy more complex still, so that it might run a few yards, +stop, and run on again without an additional winding up; and suppose +it so constructed that it could imitate eating and drinking, and could +make as though the mouse were cleaning its face with its paws. +Should we not at first be taken in ourselves, and assume the presence +of the remaining facts of life, though in reality they were not there? +Query, therefore, whether a machine so complex as to be prepared with +a corresponding manner of action for each one of the successive emergencies +of life as it arose, would not take us in for good and all, and look +so much as if it were alive that, whether we liked it or not, we should +be compelled to think it and call it so; and whether the being alive +was not simply the being an exceedingly complicated machine, whose parts +were set in motion by the action upon them of exterior circumstances; +whether, in fact, man was not a kind of toy-mouse in the shape of a +man, only capable of going for seventy or eighty years, instead of half +as many seconds, and as much more versatile as he is more durable? +Of course I had an uneasy feeling that if I thus made all plants and +men into machines, these machines must have what all other machines +have if they are machines at all - a designer, and some one to wind +them up and work them; but I thought this might wait for the present, +and was perfectly ready then, as now, to accept a designer from without, +if the facts upon examination rendered such a belief reasonable.</p> +<p>If, then, men were not really alive after all, but were only machines +of so complicated a make that it was less trouble to us to cut the difficulty +and say that that kind of mechanism was “being alive,” why +should not machines ultimately become as complicated as we are, or at +any rate complicated enough to be called living, and to be indeed as +living as it was in the nature of anything at all to be? If it +was only a case of their becoming more complicated, we were certainly +doing our best to make them so.</p> +<p>I do not suppose I at that time saw that this view comes to much +the same as denying that there are such qualities as life and consciousness +at all, and that this, again, works round to the assertion of their +omnipresence in every molecule of matter, inasmuch as it destroys the +separation between the organic and inorganic, and maintains that whatever +the organic is the inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much +as we please, we shall still always feel that an organic body, unless +dead, is living and conscious to a greater or less degree. Therefore, +if we once break down the wall of partition between the organic and +inorganic, the inorganic must be living and conscious also, up to a +certain point.</p> +<p>I have been at work on this subject now for nearly twenty years, +what I have published being only a small part of what I have written +and destroyed. I cannot, therefore, remember exactly how I stood +in 1863. Nor can I pretend to see far into the matter even now; +for when I think of life, I find it so difficult, that I take refuge +in death or mechanism; and when I think of death or mechanism, I find +it so inconceivable, that it is easier to call it life again. +The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the +organic and inorganic is arbitrary; that it is more coherent with our +other ideas, and therefore more acceptable, to start with every molecule +as a living thing, and then deduce death as the breaking up of an association +or corporation, than to start with inanimate molecules and smuggle life +into them; and that, therefore, what we call the inorganic world must +be regarded as up to a certain point living, and instinct, within certain +limits, with consciousness, volition, and power of concerted action. +It is only of late, however, that I have come to this opinion.</p> +<p>One must start with a hypothesis, no matter how much one distrusts +it; so I started with man as a mechanism, this being the strand of the +knot that I could then pick at most easily. Having worked upon +it a certain time, I drew the inference about machines becoming animate, +and in 1862 or 1863 wrote the sketch of the chapter on machines which +I afterwards rewrote in “Erewhon.” This sketch appeared +in the <i>Press</i>, Canterbury, N.Z., June 13, 1863; a copy of it is +in the British Museum.</p> +<p>I soon felt that though there was plenty of amusement to be got out +of this line, it was one that I should have to leave sooner or later; +I therefore left it at once for the view that machines were limbs which +we had made, and carried outside our bodies instead of incorporating +them with ourselves. A few days or weeks later than June 13, 1863, +I published a second letter in the <i>Press</i> putting this view forward. +Of this letter I have lost the only copy I had; I have not seen it for +years. The first was certainly not good; the second, if I remember +rightly, was a good deal worse, though I believed more in the views +it put forward than in those of the first letter. I had lost my +copy before I wrote “Erewhon,” and therefore only gave a +couple of pages to it in that book; besides, there was more amusement +in the other view. I should perhaps say there was an intermediate +extension of the first letter which appeared in the <i>Reasoner</i>, +July 1, 1865.</p> +<p>In 1870 and 1871, when I was writing “Erewhon,” I thought +the best way of looking at machines was to see them as limbs which we +had made and carried about with us or left at home at pleasure. +I was not, however, satisfied, and should have gone on with the subject +at once if I had not been anxious to write “The Fair Haven,” +a book which is a development of a pamphlet I wrote in New Zealand and +published in London in 1865.</p> +<p>As soon as I had finished this, I returned to the old subject, on +which I had already been engaged for nearly a dozen years as continuously +as other business would allow, and proposed to myself to see not only +machines as limbs, but also limbs as machines. I felt immediately +that I was upon firmer ground. The use of the word “organ” +for a limb told its own story; the word could not have become so current +under this meaning unless the idea of a limb as a tool or machine had +been agreeable to common sense. What would follow, then, if we +regarded our limbs and organs as things that we had ourselves manufactured +for our convenience?</p> +<p>The first question that suggested itself was, how did we come to +make them without knowing anything about it? And this raised another, +namely, how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? The answer +“habit” was not far to seek. But can a person be said +to do a thing by force of habit or routine when it is his ancestors, +and not he, that has done it hitherto? Not unless he and his ancestors +are one and the same person. Perhaps, then, they <i>are</i> the +same person after all. What is sameness? I remembered Bishop +Butler’s sermon on “Personal Identity,” read it again, +and saw very plainly that if a man of eighty may consider himself identical +with the baby from whom he has developed, so that he may say, “I +am the person who at six months old did this or that,” then the +baby may just as fairly claim identity with its father and mother, and +say to its parents on being born, “I was you only a few months +ago.” By parity of reasoning each living form now on the +earth must be able to claim identity with each generation of its ancestors +up to the primordial cell inclusive.</p> +<p>Again, if the octogenarian may claim personal identity with the infant, +the infant may certainly do so with the impregnate ovum from which it +has developed. If so, the octogenarian will prove to have been +a fish once in this his present life. This is as certain as that +he was living yesterday, and stands on exactly the same foundation.</p> +<p>I am aware that Professor Huxley maintains otherwise. He writes: +“It is not true, for example, . . . that a reptile was ever a +fish, but it is true that the reptile embryo” (and what is said +here of the reptile holds good also for the human embryo), “at +one stage of its development, is an organism, which, if it had an independent +existence, must be classified among fishes.” <a name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17">{17}</a></p> +<p>This is like saying, “It is not true that such and such a picture +was rejected for the Academy, but it is true that it was submitted to +the President and Council of the Royal Academy, with a view to acceptance +at their next forthcoming annual exhibition, and that the President +and Council regretted they were unable through want of space, &c., +&c.” - and as much more as the reader chooses. +I shall venture, therefore, to stick to it that the octogenarian was +once a fish, or if Professor Huxley prefers it, “an organism which +must be classified among fishes.”</p> +<p>But if a man was a fish once, he may have been a fish a million times +over, for aught he knows; for he must admit that his conscious recollection +is at fault, and has nothing whatever to do with the matter, which must +be decided, not, as it were, upon his own evidence as to what deeds +he may or may not recollect having executed, but by the production of +his signatures in court, with satisfactory proof that he has delivered +each document as his act and deed.</p> +<p>This made things very much simpler. The processes of embryonic +development, and instinctive actions, might be now seen as repetitions +of the same kind of action by the same individual in successive generations. +It was natural, therefore, that they should come in the course of time +to be done unconsciously, and a consideration of the most obvious facts +of memory removed all further doubt that habit - which is based on memory +- was at the bottom of all the phenomena of heredity.</p> +<p>I had got to this point about the spring of 1874, and had begun to +write, when I was compelled to go to Canada, and for the next year and +a half did hardly any writing. The first passage in “Life +and Habit” which I can date with certainty is the one on page +52, which runs as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“It is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his +own past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, +so as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to +gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should ‘eat +strange food,’ and that his cheek should ‘so much as lank +not,’ than that he should starve if the strange food be at his +command. His past selves are living in him at this moment with +the accumulated life of centuries. ‘Do this, this, this, +which we too have done, and found out profit in it,’ cry the souls +of his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, coming +and going as the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and +clear are the near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. +I was on Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its +extreme beauty. It was a magnificent Summer’s evening; the +noble St. Lawrence flowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse +of country beyond it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot +surpass. Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for “Life +and Habit,” of which I was then continually thinking, and had +written the first few lines of the above, when the bells of Notre Dame +in Montreal began to ring, and their sound was carried to and fro in +a remarkably beautiful manner. I took advantage of the incident +to insert then and there the last lines of the piece just quoted. +I kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration, and am thus able +to date it accurately.</p> +<p>Though so occupied in Canada that writing a book was impossible, +I nevertheless got many notes together for future use. I left +Canada at the end of 1875, and early in 1876 began putting these notes +into more coherent form. I did this in thirty pages of closely +written matter, of which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book. +I find two dates among them - the first, “Sunday, Feb. 6, 1876”; +and the second, at the end of the notes, “Feb. 12, 1876.”</p> +<p>From these notes I find that by this time I had the theory contained +in “Life and Habit” completely before me, with the four +main principles which it involves, namely, the oneness of personality +between parents and offspring; memory on the part of offspring of certain +actions which it did when in the persons of its forefathers; the latency +of that memory until it is rekindled by a recurrence of the associated +ideas; and the unconsciousness with which habitual actions come to be +performed.</p> +<p>The first half-page of these notes may serve as a sample, and runs +thus:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Those habits and functions which we have in common with the +lower animals come mainly within the womb, or are done involuntarily, +as our [growth of] limbs, eyes, &c., and our power of digesting +food, &c. . . .</p> +<p>“We say of the chicken that it knows how to run about as soon +as it is hatched, . . . but had it no knowledge before it was hatched?</p> +<p>“It knew how to make a great many things before it was hatched.</p> +<p>“It grew eyes and feathers and bones.</p> +<p>“Yet we say it knew nothing about all this.</p> +<p>“After it is born it grows more feathers, and makes its bones +larger, and develops a reproductive system.</p> +<p>“Again we say it knows nothing about all this.</p> +<p>“What then does it know?</p> +<p>“Whatever it does not know so well as to be unconscious of +knowing it.</p> +<p>“Knowledge dwells upon the confines of uncertainty.</p> +<p>“When we are very certain, we do not know that we know. +When we will very strongly, we do not know that we will.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I then began my book, but considering myself still a painter by profession, +I gave comparatively little time to writing, and got on but slowly. +I left England for North Italy in the middle of May 1876 and returned +early in August. It was perhaps thus that I failed to hear of +the account of Professor Hering’s lecture given by Professor Ray +Lankester in <i>Nature</i>, July 13 1876; though, never at that time +seeing <i>Nature</i>, I should probably have missed it under any circumstances. +On my return I continued slowly writing. By August 1877 I considered +that I had to all intents and purposes completed my book. My first +proof bears date October 13, 1877.</p> +<p>At this time I had not been able to find that anything like what +I was advancing had been said already. I asked many friends, but +not one of them knew of anything more than I did; to them, as to me, +it seemed an idea so new as to be almost preposterous; but knowing how +things turn up after one has written, of the existence of which one +had not known before, I was particularly careful to guard against being +supposed to claim originality. I neither claimed it nor wished +for it; for if a theory has any truth in it, it is almost sure to occur +to several people much about the same time, and a reasonable person +will look upon his work with great suspicion unless he can confirm it +with the support of others who have gone before him. Still I knew +of nothing in the least resembling it, and was so afraid of what I was +doing, that though I could see no flaw in the argument, nor any loophole +for escape from the conclusion it led to, yet I did not dare to put +it forward with the seriousness and sobriety with which I should have +treated the subject if I had not been in continual fear of a mine being +sprung upon me from some unexpected quarter. I am exceedingly +glad now that I knew nothing of Professor Hering’s lecture, for +it is much better that two people should think a thing out as far as +they can independently before they become aware of each other’s +works but if I had seen it, I should either, as is most likely, not +have written at all, or I should have pitched my book in another key.</p> +<p>Among the additions I intended making while the book was in the press, +was a chapter on Mr. Darwin’s provisional theory of Pangenesis, +which I felt convinced must be right if it was Mr. Darwin’s, and +which I was sure, if I could once understand it, must have an important +bearing on “Life and Habit.” I had not as yet seen +that the principle I was contending for was Darwinian, not Neo-Darwinian. +My pages still teemed with allusions to “natural selection,” +and I sometimes allowed myself to hope that “Life and Habit” +was going to be an adjunct to Darwinism which no one would welcome more +gladly than Mr. Darwin himself. At this time I had a visit from +a friend, who kindly called to answer a question of mine, relative, +if I remember rightly, to “Pangenesis.” He came, September +26, 1877. One of the first things he said was, that the theory +which had pleased him more than anything he had heard of for some time +was one referring all life to memory. I said that was exactly +what I was doing myself, and inquired where he had met with his theory. +He replied that Professor Ray Lankester had written a letter about it +in <i>Nature</i> some time ago, but he could not remember exactly when, +and had given extracts from a lecture by Professor Ewald Hering, who +had originated the theory. I said I should not look at it, as +I had completed that part of my work, and was on the point of going +to press. I could not recast my work if, as was most likely, I +should find something, when I saw what Professor Hering had said, which +would make me wish to rewrite my own book; it was too late in the day +and I did not feel equal to making any radical alteration; and so the +matter ended with very little said upon either side. I wrote, +however, afterwards to my friend asking him to tell me the number of +<i>Nature</i> which contained the lecture if he could find it, but he +was unable to do so, and I was well enough content.</p> +<p>A few days before this I had met another friend, and had explained +to him what I was doing. He told me I ought to read Professor +Mivart’s “Genesis of Species,” and that if I did so +I should find there were two sides to “natural selection.” +Thinking, as so many people do - and no wonder - that “natural +selection” and evolution were much the same thing, and having +found so many attacks upon evolution produce no effect upon me, I declined +to read it. I had as yet no idea that a writer could attack Neo-Darwinism +without attacking evolution. But my friend kindly sent me a copy; +and when I read it, I found myself in the presence of arguments different +from those I had met with hitherto, and did not see my way to answering +them. I had, however, read only a small part of Professor Mivart’s +work, and was not fully awake to the position, when the friend referred +to in the preceding paragraph called on me.</p> +<p>When I had finished the “Genesis of Species,” I felt +that something was certainly wanted which should give a definite aim +to the variations whose accumulation was to amount ultimately to specific +and generic differences, and that without this there could have been +no progress in organic development. I got the latest edition of +the “Origin of Species” in order to see how Mr. Darwin met +Professor Mivart, and found his answers in many respects unsatisfactory. +I had lost my original copy of the “Origin of Species,” +and had not read the book for some years. I now set about reading +it again, and came to the chapter on instinct, where I was horrified +to find the following passage:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“But 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 the succeeding generations. +It can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which +we are acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could +not possibly have been acquired by habit.” <a name="citation23a"></a><a href="#footnote23a">{23a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This showed that, according to Mr. Darwin, I had fallen into serious +error, and my faith in him, though somewhat shaken, was far too great +to be destroyed by a few days’ course of Professor Mivart, the +full importance of whose work I had not yet apprehended. I continued +to read, and when I had finished the chapter felt sure that I must indeed +have been blundering. The concluding words, “I am surprised +that no one has hitherto advanced this demonstrative case of neuter +insects against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced +by Lamarck,” <a name="citation23b"></a><a href="#footnote23b">{23b}</a> +were positively awful. There was a quiet consciousness of strength +about them which was more convincing than any amount of more detailed +explanation. This was the first I had heard of any doctrine of +inherited habit as having been propounded by Lamarck (the passage stands +in the first edition, “the well-known doctrine of Lamarck,” +p. 242); and now to find that I had been only busying myself with a +stale theory of this long-since exploded charlatan - with my book three +parts written and already in the press - it was a serious scare.</p> +<p>On reflection, however, I was again met with the overwhelming weight +of the evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to +memory. I accordingly gathered as much as I could second-hand +of what Lamarck had said, reserving a study of his “Philosophie +Zoologique” for another occasion, and read as much about ants +and bees as I could find in readily accessible works. In a few +days I saw my way again; and now, reading the “Origin of Species” +more closely, and I may say more sceptically, the antagonism between +Mr. Darwin and Lamarck became fully apparent to me, and I saw how incoherent +and unworkable in practice the later view was in comparison with the +earlier. Then I read Mr. Darwin’s answers to miscellaneous +objections, and was met, and this time brought up, by the passage beginning +“In the earlier editions of this work,” <a name="citation24a"></a><a href="#footnote24a">{24a}</a> +&c., on which I wrote very severely in “Life and Habit”; +<a name="citation24b"></a><a href="#footnote24b">{24b}</a> for I felt +by this time that the difference of opinion between us was radical, +and that the matter must be fought out according to the rules of the +game. After this I went through the earlier part of my book, and +cut out the expressions which I had used inadvertently, and which were +inconsistent with a teleological view. This necessitated only +verbal alterations; for, though I had not known it, the spirit of the +book was throughout teleological.</p> +<p>I now saw that I had got my hands full, and abandoned my intention +of touching upon “Pangenesis.” I took up the words +of Mr. Darwin quoted above, to the effect that it would be a serious +error to ascribe the greater number of instincts to transmitted habit. +I wrote chapter xi. of “Life and Habit,” which is headed +“Instincts as Inherited Memory”; I also wrote the four subsequent +chapters, “Instincts of Neuter Insects,” “Lamarck +and Mr. Darwin,” “Mr. Mivart and Mr. Darwin,” and +the concluding chapter, all of them in the month of October and the +early part of November 1877, the complete book leaving the binder’s +hands December 4, 1877, but, according to trade custom, being dated +1878. It will be seen that these five concluding chapters were +rapidly written, and this may account in part for the directness with +which I said anything I had to say about Mr. Darwin; partly this, and +partly I felt I was in for a penny and might as well be in for a pound. +I therefore wrote about Mr. Darwin’s work exactly as I should +about any one else’s, bearing in mind the inestimable services +he had undoubtedly - and must always be counted to have - rendered to +evolution.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>How I came to write “Evolution, Old and New” - Mr Darwin’s +“brief but imperfect” sketch of the opinions of the writers +on evolution who had preceded him - The reception which “Evolution, +Old and New,” met with.</p> +<p>Though my book was out in 1877, it was not till January 1878 that +I took an opportunity of looking up Professor Ray Lankester’s +account of Professor Hering’s lecture. I can hardly say +how relieved I was to find that it sprung no mine upon me, but that, +so far as I could gather, Professor Hering and I had come to pretty +much the same conclusion. I had already found the passage in Dr. +Erasmus Darwin which I quoted in “Evolution, Old and New,” +but may perhaps as well repeat it here. It runs -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Owing to the imperfection of language, the offspring is termed +a new animal; but is, in truth, a branch or elongation of the parent, +since a part of the embryon animal is or was a part of the parent, and, +therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at +the time of its production, and, therefore, it may retain some of the +habits of the parent system.” <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26">{26}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>When, then, the <i>Athenæum</i> reviewed “Life and Habit” +(January 26, 1878), I took the opportunity to write to that paper, calling +attention to Professor Hering’s lecture, and also to the passage +just quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin. The editor kindly inserted +my letter in his issue of February 9, 1878. I felt that I had +now done all in the way of acknowledgment to Professor Hering which +it was, for the time, in my power to do.</p> +<p>I again took up Mr. Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” +this time, I admit, in a spirit of scepticism. I read his “brief +but imperfect” sketch of the progress of opinion on the origin +of species, and turned to each one of the writers he had mentioned. +First, I read all the parts of the “Zoonomia” that were +not purely medical, and was astonished to find that, as Dr. Krause has +since said in his essay on Erasmus Darwin, “<i>he was the first +who proposed and persistently carried out a well-rounded theory with +regard to the development of the living world</i>” <a name="citation27"></a><a href="#footnote27">{27}</a> +(italics in original).</p> +<p>This is undoubtedly the case, and I was surprised at finding Professor +Huxley say concerning this very eminent man that he could “hardly +be said to have made any real advance upon his predecessors.” +Still more was I surprised at remembering that, in the first edition +of the “Origin of Species,” Dr. Erasmus Darwin had never +been so much as named; while in the “brief but imperfect” +sketch he was dismissed with a line of half-contemptuous patronage, +as though the mingled tribute of admiration and curiosity which attaches +to scientific prophecies, as distinguished from discoveries, was the +utmost he was entitled to. “It is curious,” says Mr. +Darwin innocently, in the middle of a note in the smallest possible +type, “how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, anticipated +the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in his ‘Zoonomia’ +(vol. i. pp. 500-510), published in 1794”; this was all he had +to say about the founder of “Darwinism,” until I myself +unearthed Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and put his work fairly before the present +generation in “Evolution, Old and New.” Six months +after I had done this, I had the satisfaction of seeing that Mr. Darwin +had woke up to the propriety of doing much the same thing, and that +he had published an interesting and charmingly written memoir of his +grandfather, of which more anon.</p> +<p>Not that Dr. Darwin was the first to catch sight of a complete theory +of evolution. Buffon was the first to point out that, in view +of the known modifications which had been effected among our domesticated +animals and cultivated plants, the ass and the horse should be considered +as, in all probability, descended from a common ancestor; yet, if this +is so, he writes - if the point “were once gained that among animals +and vegetables there had been, I do not say several species, but even +a single one, which had been produced in the course of direct descent +from another species; if, for example, it could be once shown that the +ass was but a degeneration from the horse, then there is no further +limit to be set to the power of Nature, and we should not be wrong in +supposing that, with sufficient time, she has evolved all other organised +forms from one primordial type” <a name="citation28a"></a><a href="#footnote28a">{28a}</a> +(<i>et l’on n’auroit pas tort de supposer</i>, <i>que d’un +seul être elle a su tirer avec le temps tous les autres êtres +organisés</i>)<i>.</i></p> +<p>This, I imagine, in spite of Professor Huxley’s dictum, is +contributing a good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for though +Descartes and Leibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more or less +broadly in the direction of evolution, some of which Professor Huxley +has quoted, he has adduced nothing approaching to the passage from Buffon +given above, either in respect of the clearness with which the conclusion +intended to be arrived at is pointed out, or the breadth of view with +which the whole ground of animal and vegetable nature is covered. +The passage referred to is only one of many to the same effect, and +must be connected with one quoted in “Evolution, Old and New,” +<a name="citation28b"></a><a href="#footnote28b">{28b}</a> from p. 13 +of Buffon’s first volume, which appeared in 1749, and than which +nothing can well point more plainly in the direction of evolution. +It is not easy, therefore, to understand why Professor Huxley should +give 1753-78 as the date of Buffon’s work, nor yet why he should +say that Buffon was “at first a partisan of the absolute immutability +of species,” <a name="citation29a"></a><a href="#footnote29a">{29a}</a> +unless, indeed, we suppose he has been content to follow that very unsatisfactory +writer, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (who falls into this error, and +says that Buffon’s first volume on animals appeared 1753), without +verifying him, and without making any reference to him.</p> +<p>Professor Huxley quotes a passage from the “Palingénésie +Philosophique” of Bonnet, of which he says that, making allowance +for his peculiar views on the subject of generation, they bear no small +resemblance to what is understood by “evolution” at the +present day. The most important parts of the passage quoted are +as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Should I be going too far if I were to conjecture that the +plants and animals of the present day have arisen by a sort of natural +evolution from the organised beings which peopled the world in its original +state as it left the hands of the Creator? . . . In the outset +organised beings were probably very different from what they are now +- as different as the original world is from our present one. +We have no means of estimating the amount of these differences, but +it is possible that even our ablest naturalist, if transplanted to the +original world, would entirely fail to recognise our plants and animals +therein.” <a name="citation29b"></a><a href="#footnote29b">{29b}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not appear +till 1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for fully twenty +years with the eyes of scientific Europe upon him. Whatever concession +to the opinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, +in 1764, when he published his “Contemplation de la Nature,” +and in 1762 when his “Considérations sur les Corps Organes” +appeared, he cannot be considered to have been a supporter of evolution. +I went through these works in 1878 when I was writing “Evolution, +Old and New,” to see whether I could claim him as on my side; +but though frequently delighted with his work, I found it impossible +to press him into my service.</p> +<p>The pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father of +the modern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably disputed, though +he was doubtless led to his conclusions by the works of Descartes and +Leibnitz, of both of whom he was an avowed and very warm admirer. +His claim does not rest upon a passage here or there, but upon the spirit +of forty quartos written over a period of about as many years. +Nevertheless he wrote, as I have shown in “Evolution, Old and +New,” of set purpose enigmatically, whereas there was no beating +about the bush with Dr. Darwin. He speaks straight out, and Dr. +Krause is justified in saying of him “<i>that he was the first +who proposed and persistently carried out a well-rounded theory</i>” +of evolution.</p> +<p>I now turned to Lamarck. I read the first volume of the “Philosophie +Zoologique,” analysed it and translated the most important parts. +The second volume was beside my purpose, dealing as it does rather with +the origin of life than of species, and travelling too fast and too +far for me to be able to keep up with him. Again I was astonished +at the little mention Mr. Darwin had made of this illustrious writer, +at the manner in which he had motioned him away, as it were, with his +hand in the first edition of the “Origin of Species,” and +at the brevity and imperfection of the remarks made upon him in the +subsequent historical sketch.</p> +<p>I got Isidore Geoffroy’s “Histoire Naturelle Générale,” +which Mr. Darwin commends in the note on the second page of the historical +sketch, as giving “an excellent history of opinion” upon +the subject of evolution, and a full account of Buffon’s conclusions +upon the same subject. This at least is what I supposed Mr. Darwin +to mean. What he said was that Isidore Geoffroy gives an excellent +history of opinion on the subject of the date of the first publication +of Lamarck, and that in his work there is a full account of Buffon’s +fluctuating conclusions upon <i>the same subject</i>. <a name="citation31"></a><a href="#footnote31">{31}</a> +But Mr. Darwin is a more than commonly puzzling writer. I read +what M. Geoffroy had to say upon Buffon, and was surprised to find that, +after all, according to M. Geoffroy, Buffon, and not Lamarck, was the +founder of the theory of evolution. His name, as I have already +said, was never mentioned in the first edition of the “Origin +of Species.”</p> +<p>M. Geoffroy goes into the accusations of having fluctuated in his +opinions, which he tells us have been brought against Buffon, and comes +to the conclusion that they are unjust, as any one else will do who +turns to Buffon himself. Mr. Darwin, however, in the “brief +but imperfect sketch,” catches at the accusation, and repeats +it while saying nothing whatever about the defence. The following +is still all he says: “The first author who in modern times has +treated” evolution “in a scientific spirit was Buffon. +But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as +he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, +I need not here enter on details.” On the next page, in +the note last quoted, Mr. Darwin originally repeated the accusation +of Buffon’s having been fluctuating in his opinions, and appeared +to give it the imprimatur of Isidore Geoffroy’s approval; the +fact being that Isidore Geoffroy only quoted the accusation in order +to refute it; and though, I suppose, meaning well, did not make half +the case he might have done, and abounds with misstatements. My +readers will find this matter particularly dealt with in “Evolution, +Old and New,” Chapter X.</p> +<p>I gather that some one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of his +saying that Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of Buffon’s “fluctuating +conclusions” concerning evolution, when he was doing all he knew +to maintain that Buffon’s conclusions did not fluctuate; for I +see that in the edition of 1876 the word “fluctuating” has +dropped out of the note in question, and we now learn that Isidore Geoffroy +gives “a full account of Buffon’s conclusions,” without +the “fluctuating.” But Buffon has not taken much by +this, for his opinions are still left fluctuating greatly at different +periods on the preceding page, and though he still was the first to +treat evolution in a scientific spirit, he still does not enter upon +the causes or means of the transformation of species. No one can +understand Mr. Darwin who does not collate the different editions of +the “Origin of Species” with some attention. When +he has done this, he will know what Newton meant by saying he felt like +a child playing with pebbles upon the seashore.</p> +<p>One word more upon this note before I leave it. Mr. Darwin +speaks of Isidore Geoffroy’s history of opinion as “excellent,” +and his account of Buffon’s opinions as “full.” +I wonder how well qualified he is to be a judge of these matters? +If he knows much about the earlier writers, he is the more inexcusable +for having said so little about them. If little, what is his opinion +worth?</p> +<p>To return to the “brief but imperfect sketch.” +I do not think I can ever again be surprised at anything Mr. Darwin +may say or do, but if I could, I should wonder how a writer who did +not “enter upon the causes or means of the transformation of species,” +and whose opinions “fluctuated greatly at different periods,” +can be held to have treated evolution “in a scientific spirit.” +Nevertheless, when I reflect upon the scientific reputation Mr. Darwin +has attained, and the means by which he has won it, I suppose the scientific +spirit must be much what he here implies. I see Mr. Darwin says +of his own father, Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, that he does not +consider him to have had a scientific mind. Mr. Darwin cannot +tell why he does not think his father’s mind to have been fitted +for advancing science, “for he was fond of theorising, and was +incomparably the best observer” Mr. Darwin ever knew. <a name="citation33a"></a><a href="#footnote33a">{33a}</a> +From the hint given in the “brief but imperfect sketch,” +I fancy I can help Mr. Darwin to see why he does not think his father’s +mind to have been a scientific one. It is possible that Dr. Robert +Darwin’s opinions did not fluctuate sufficiently at different +periods, and that Mr. Darwin considered him as having in some way entered +upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. Certainly +those who read Mr. Darwin’s own works attentively will find no +lack of fluctuation in his case; and reflection will show them that +a theory of evolution which relies mainly on the accumulation of accidental +variations comes very close to not entering upon the causes or means +of the transformation of species. <a name="citation33b"></a><a href="#footnote33b">{33b}</a></p> +<p>I have shown, however, in “Evolution, Old and New,” that +the assertion that Buffon does not enter on the causes or means of the +transformation of species is absolutely without foundation, and that, +on the contrary, he is continually dealing with this very matter, and +devotes to it one of his longest and most important chapters, <a name="citation33c"></a><a href="#footnote33c">{33c}</a> +but I admit that he is less satisfactory on this head than either Dr. +Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, Buffon is much more of a Neo-Darwinian than +either Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck, for with him the variations are +sometimes fortuitous. In the case of the dog, he speaks of them +as making their appearance “<i>by some chance</i> common enough +with Nature,” <a name="citation33d"></a><a href="#footnote33d">{33d}</a> +and being perpetuated by man’s selection. This is exactly +the “if any slight favourable variation <i>happen</i> to arise” +of Mr. Charles Darwin. Buffon also speaks of the variations among +pigeons arising “<i>par hasard</i>.” But these expressions +are only ships; his main cause of variation is the direct action of +changed conditions of existence, while with Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck +the action of the conditions of existence is indirect, the direct action +being that of the animals or plants themselves, in consequence of changed +sense of need under changed conditions.</p> +<p>I should say that the sketch so often referred to is at first sight +now no longer imperfect in Mr. Darwin’s opinion. It was +“brief but imperfect” in 1861 and in 1866, but in 1876 I +see that it is brief only. Of course, discovering that it was +no longer imperfect, I expected to find it briefer. What, then, +was my surprise at finding that it had become rather longer? I +have found no perfectly satisfactory explanation of this inconsistency, +but, on the whole, incline to think that the “greatest of living +men” felt himself unequal to prolonging his struggle with the +word “but,” and resolved to lay that conjunction at all +hazards, even though the doing so might cost him the balance of his +adjectives; for I think he must know that his sketch is still imperfect.</p> +<p>From Isidore Geoffroy I turned to Buffon himself, and had not long +to wait before I felt that I was now brought into communication with +the master-mind of all those who have up to the present time busied +themselves with evolution. For a brief and imperfect sketch of +him, I must refer my readers to “Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p>I have no great respect for the author of the “Vestiges of +Creation,” who behaved hardly better to the writers upon whom +his own work was founded than Mr. Darwin himself has done. Nevertheless, +I could not forget the gravity of the misrepresentation with which he +was assailed on page 3 of the first edition of the “Origin of +Species,” nor impugn the justice of his rejoinder in the following +year, <a name="citation34"></a><a href="#footnote34">{34}</a> when he +replied that it was to be regretted Mr. Darwin had read his work “almost +as much amiss as if, like its declared opponents, he had an interest +in misrepresenting it.” <a name="citation35a"></a><a href="#footnote35a">{35a}</a> +I could not, again, forget that, though Mr. Darwin did not venture to +stand by the passage in question, it was expunged without a word of +apology or explanation of how it was that he had come to write it. +A writer with any claim to our consideration will never fall into serious +error about another writer without hastening to make a public apology +as soon as he becomes aware of what he has done.</p> +<p>Reflecting upon the substance of what I have written in the last +few pages, I thought it right that people should have a chance of knowing +more about the earlier writers on evolution than they were likely to +hear from any of our leading scientists (no matter how many lectures +they may give on the coming of age of the “Origin of Species”) +except Professor Mivart. A book pointing the difference between +teleological and non-teleological views of evolution seemed likely to +be useful, and would afford me the opportunity I wanted for giving a +<i>résumé</i> of the views of each one of the three chief +founders of the theory, and of contrasting them with those of Mr. Charles +Darwin, as well as for calling attention to Professor Hering’s +lecture. I accordingly wrote “Evolution, Old and New,” +which was prominently announced in the leading literary periodicals +at the end of February, or on the very first days of March 1879, <a name="citation35b"></a><a href="#footnote35b">{35b}</a> +as “a comparison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, +and Lamarck, with that of Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts +from the works of the three first-named writers.” In this +book I was hardly able to conceal the fact that, in spite of the obligations +under which we must always remain to Mr. Darwin, I had lost my respect +for him and for his work.</p> +<p>I should point out that this announcement, coupled with what I had +written in “Life and Habit,” would enable Mr. Darwin and +his friends to form a pretty shrewd guess as to what I was likely to +say, and to quote from Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my forthcoming book. +The announcement, indeed, would tell almost as much as the book itself +to those who knew the works of Erasmus Darwin.</p> +<p>As may be supposed, “Evolution, Old and New,” met with +a very unfavourable reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. +The <i>Saturday Review</i> was furious. “When a writer,” +it exclaimed, “who has not given as many weeks to the subject +as Mr. Darwin has given years, is not content to air his own crude though +clever fallacies, but assumes to criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness +of a young schoolmaster looking over a boy’s theme, it is difficult +not to take him more seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. +One would think that Mr. Butler was the travelled and laborious observer +of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pert speculator who takes all his facts +at secondhand.” <a name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36">{36}</a></p> +<p>The lady or gentleman who writes in such a strain as this should +not be too hard upon others whom she or he may consider to write like +schoolmasters. It is true I have travelled - not much, but still +as much as many others, and have endeavoured to keep my eyes open to +the facts before me; but I cannot think that I made any reference to +my travels in “Evolution, Old and New.” I did not +quite see what that had to do with the matter. A man may get to +know a good deal without ever going beyond the four-mile radius from +Charing Cross. Much less did I imply that Mr. Darwin was pert: +pert is one of the last words that can be applied to Mr. Darwin. +Nor, again, had I blamed him for taking his facts at secondhand; no +one is to be blamed for this, provided he takes well-established facts +and acknowledges his sources. Mr. Darwin has generally gone to +good sources. The ground of complaint against him is that he muddied +the water after he had drawn it, and tacitly claimed to be the rightful +owner of the spring, on the score of the damage he had effected.</p> +<p>Notwithstanding, however, the generally hostile, or more or less +contemptuous, reception which “Evolution, Old and New,” +met with, there were some reviews - as, for example, those in the <i>Field</i>, +<a name="citation37a"></a><a href="#footnote37a">{37a}</a> the <i>Daily +Chronicle</i>, <a name="citation37b"></a><a href="#footnote37b">{37b}</a> +the <i>Athenæum</i>, <a name="citation37c"></a><a href="#footnote37c">{37c}</a> +the <i>Journal</i> of <i>Science</i>, <a name="citation37d"></a><a href="#footnote37d">{37d}</a> +the <i>British Journal of Homæopathy</i>, <a name="citation37e"></a><a href="#footnote37e">{37e}</a> +the <i>Daily News</i>, <a name="citation37f"></a><a href="#footnote37f">{37f}</a> +the <i>Popular Science Review</i> <a name="citation37g"></a><a href="#footnote37g">{37g}</a> +- which were all I could expect or wish.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The manner in which Mr. Darwin met “Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p>By far the most important notice of “Evolution, Old and New,” +was that taken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in +believing that Dr. Krause’s article would have been allowed to +repose unaltered in the pages of the well-known German scientific journal, +<i>Kosmos</i>, unless something had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel +that his reticence concerning his grandfather must now be ended</p> +<p>Mr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to understand +that this is not the case. At the beginning of this year he wrote +to me, in a letter which I will presently give in full, that he had +obtained Dr. Krause’s consent for a translation, and had arranged +with Mr. Dallas, before my book was “announced.” “I +remember this,” he continues, “because Mr. Dallas wrote +to tell me of the advertisement.” But Mr. Darwin is not +a clear writer, and it is impossible to say whether he is referring +to the announcement of “Evolution, Old and New” - in which +case he means that the arrangements for the translation of Dr. Krause’s +article were made before the end of February 1879, and before any public +intimation could have reached him as to the substance of the book on +which I was then engaged - or to the advertisements of its being now +published, which appeared at the beginning of May; in which case, as +I have said above, Mr. Darwin and his friends had for some time had +full opportunity of knowing what I was about. I believe, however, +Mr. Darwin to intend that he remembered the arrangements having been +made before the beginning of May - his use of the word “announced,” +instead of “advertised,” being an accident; but let this +pass.</p> +<p>Some time after Mr. Darwin’s work appeared in November 1879, +I got it, and looking at the last page of the book, I read as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“They” (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) “explain +the adaptation to purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense +of what is purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit +of saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. +The purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that +which is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in +the same way the beautiful is what pleases.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have +had “Evolution, Old and New,” in his mind, but went on to +the next sentence, which ran -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant +first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up +for us, but to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually +been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism +which no one can envy.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“That’s me,” said I to myself promptly. I +noticed also the position in which the sentence stood, which made it +both one of the first that would be likely to catch a reader’s +eye, and the last he would carry away with him. I therefore expected +to find an open reply to some parts of “Evolution, Old and New,” +and turned to Mr. Darwin’s preface.</p> +<p>To my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading could +not by any possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“In the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, +<i>Kosmos</i>, <a name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39">{39}</a> +Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of the ‘Life of Erasmus Darwin,’ +the author of the ‘Zoonomia,’ ‘Botanic Garden,’ +and other works. This article bears the title of a ‘Contribution +to the History of the Descent Theory’; and Dr. Krause has kindly +allowed my brother Erasmus and myself to have a translation made of +it for publication in this country.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Then came a note as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific +reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for +its accuracy.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much consciousness +of accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. Darwin pins +himself down with every circumstance of preciseness to giving Dr. Krause’s +article as it appeared in <i>Kosmos</i>, - the whole article, and nothing +but the article. No one could know this better than Mr. Darwin.</p> +<p>On the second page of Mr. Darwin’s preface there is a small-type +note saying that my work, “Evolution, Old and New,” had +appeared since the publication of Dr. Krause’s article. +Mr. Darwin thus distinctly precludes his readers from supposing that +any passage they might meet with could have been written in reference +to, or by the light of, my book. If anything appeared condemnatory +of that book, it was an undesigned coincidence, and would show how little +worthy of consideration I must be when my opinions were refuted in advance +by one who could have no bias in regard to them.</p> +<p>Knowing that if the article I was about to read appeared in February, +it must have been published before my book, which was not out till three +months later, I saw nothing in Mr. Darwin’s preface to complain +of, and felt that this was only another instance of my absurd vanity +having led me to rush to conclusions without sufficient grounds, - as +if it was likely, indeed, that Mr. Darwin should think what I had said +of sufficient importance to be affected by it. It was plain that +some one besides myself, of whom I as yet knew nothing, had been writing +about the elder Darwin, and had taken much the same line concerning +him that I had done. It was for the benefit of this person, then, +that Dr. Krause’s paragraph was intended. I returned to +a becoming sense of my own insignificance, and began to read what I +supposed to be an accurate translation of Dr. Krause’s article +as it originally appeared, before “Evolution, Old and New,” +was published.</p> +<p>On pp. 3 and 4 of Dr. Krause’s part of Mr. Darwin’s book +(pp. 133 and 134 of the book itself), I detected a sub-apologetic tone +which a little surprised me, and a notice of the fact that Coleridge +when writing on Stillingfleet had used the word “Darwinising.” +Mr. R. Garnett had called my attention to this, and I had mentioned +it in “Evolution, Old and New,” but the paragraph only struck +me as being a little odd.</p> +<p>When I got a few pages farther on (p. 147 of Mr. Darwin’s book), +I found a long quotation from Buffon about rudimentary organs, which +I had quoted in “Evolution, Old and New.” I observed +that Dr. Krause used the same edition of Buffon that I did, and began +his quotation two lines from the beginning of Buffon’s paragraph, +exactly as I had done; also that he had taken his nominative from the +omitted part of the sentence across a full stop, as I had myself taken +it. A little lower I found a line of Buffon’s omitted which +I had given, but I found that at that place I had inadvertently left +two pair of inverted commas which ought to have come out, <a name="citation41"></a><a href="#footnote41">{41}</a> +having intended to end my quotation, but changed my mind and continued +it without erasing the commas. It seemed to me that these commas +had bothered Dr. Krause, and made him think it safer to leave something +out, for the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that +he translated “Mais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter +à un certain but,” “But we, always wishing to refer,” +&c., while I had it, “But we, ever on the look-out to refer,” +&c.; and “Nous ne faisons pas attention que nous altérons +la philosophie,” “We fail to see that thus we deprive philosophy +of her true character,” whereas I had “We fail to see that +we thus rob philosophy of her true character.” This last +was too much; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had quoted +this passage before I had done so, had used the same edition as I had, +had begun two lines from the beginning of a paragraph as I had done, +and that the later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas having +compared Dr. Krause’s German translation of Buffon with my English, +and very properly made use of it when he thought fit, it looked <i>primâ +facie</i> more as though my quotation had been copied in English as +it stood, and then altered, but not quite altered enough. This, +in the face of the preface, was incredible; but so many points had such +an unpleasant aspect, that I thought it better to send for <i>Kosmos</i> +and see what I could make out.</p> +<p>At this time I knew not one word of German. On the same day, +therefore, that I sent for <i>Kosmos</i> I began acquire that language, +and in the fortnight before <i>Kosmos</i> came had got far enough forward +for all practical purposes - that is to say, with the help of a translation +and a dictionary, I could see whether or no a German passage was the +same as what purported to be its translation.</p> +<p>When <i>Kosmos</i> came I turned to the end of the article to see +how the sentence about mental anachronism and weakness of thought looked +in German. I found nothing of the kind, the original article ended +with some innocent rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring +something with eagle eye; but ten lines from the end I found a sentence +which corresponded with one six pages from the end of the English translation. +After this there could be little doubt that the whole of these last +six English pages were spurious matter. What little doubt remained +was afterwards removed by my finding that they had no place in any part +of the genuine article. I looked for the passage about Coleridge’s +using the word “Darwinising”; it was not to be found in +the German. I looked for the piece I had quoted from Buffon about +rudimentary organs; but there was nothing of it, nor indeed any reference +to Buffon. It was plain, therefore, that the article which Mr. +Darwin had given was not the one he professed to be giving. I +read Mr. Darwin’s preface over again to see whether he left himself +any loophole. There was not a chink or cranny through which escape +was possible. The only inference that could be drawn was either +that some one had imposed upon Mr. Darwin, or that Mr. Darwin, although +it was not possible to suppose him ignorant of the interpolations that +had been made, nor of the obvious purpose of the concluding sentence, +had nevertheless palmed off an article which had been added to and made +to attack “Evolution, Old and New,” as though it were the +original article which appeared before that book was written. +I could not and would not believe that Mr. Darwin had condescended to +this. Nevertheless, I saw it was necessary to sift the whole matter, +and began to compare the German and the English articles paragraph by +paragraph.</p> +<p>On the first page I found a passage omitted from the English, which +with great labour I managed to get through, and can now translate as +follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Alexander Von Humboldt used to take pleasure in recounting +how powerfully Forster’s pictures of the South Sea Islands and +St. Pierre’s illustrations of Nature had provoked his ardour for +travel and influenced his career as a scientific investigator. +How much more impressively must the works of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with +their reiterated foreshadowing of a more lofty interpretation of Nature, +have affected his grandson, who in his youth assuredly approached them +with the devotion due to the works of a renowned poet.” <a name="citation43"></a><a href="#footnote43">{43}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I then came upon a passage common to both German and English, which +in its turn was followed in the English by the sub-apologetic paragraph +which I had been struck with on first reading, and which was not in +the German, its place being taken by a much longer passage which had +no place in the English. A little farther on I was amused at coming +upon the following, and at finding it wholly transformed in the supposed +accurate translation</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“How must this early and penetrating explanation of rudimentary +organs have affected the grandson when he read the poem of his ancestor! +But indeed the biological remarks of this accurate observer in regard +to certain definite natural objects must have produced a still deeper +impression upon him, pointing, as they do, to questions which hay attained +so great a prominence at the present day; such as, Why is any creature +anywhere such as we actually see it and nothing else? Why has +such and such a plant poisonous juices? Why has such and such +another thorns? Why have birds and fishes light-coloured breasts +and dark backs, and, Why does every creature resemble the one from which +it sprung?” <a name="citation44a"></a><a href="#footnote44a">{44a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I will not weary the reader with further details as to the omissions +from and additions to the German text. Let it suffice that the +so-called translation begins on p. 131 and ends on p. 216 of Mr. Darwin’s +book. There is new matter on each one of the pp. 132-139, while +almost the whole of pp. 147-152 inclusive, and the whole of pp. 211-216 +inclusive, are spurious - that is to say, not what the purport to be, +not translations from an article that was published in February 1879, +and before “Evolution, Old and New,” but interpolations +not published till six months after that book.</p> +<p>Bearing in mind the contents of two of the added passages and the +tenor of the concluding sentence quoted above, <a name="citation44b"></a><a href="#footnote44b">{44b}</a> +I could no longer doubt that the article had been altered by the light +of and with a view to “Evolution, Old and New.”</p> +<p>The steps are perfectly clear. First Dr. Krause published his +article in <i>Kosmos</i> and my book was announced (its purport being +thus made obvious), both in the month of February 1879. Soon afterwards +arrangements were made for a translation of Dr. Krause’s essay, +and were completed by the end of April. Then my book came out, +and in some way or other Dr. Krause happened to get hold of it. +He helped himself - not to much, but to enough; made what other additions +to and omissions from his article he thought would best meet “Evolution, +Old and New,” and then fell to condemning that book in a finale +that was meant to be crushing. Nothing was said about the revision +which Dr. Krause’s work had undergone, but it was expressly and +particularly declared in the preface that the English translation was +an accurate version of what appeared in the February number of <i>Kosmos</i>, +and no less expressly and particularly stated that my book was published +subsequently to this. Both these statements are untrue; they are +in Mr. Darwin’s favour and prejudicial to myself.</p> +<p>All this was done with that well-known “happy simplicity” +of which the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, December 12, 1879, declared that +Mr. Darwin was “a master.” The final sentence, about +the “weakness of thought and mental anachronism which no one can +envy,” was especially successful. The reviewer in the <i>Pall +Mall Gazette</i> just quoted from gave it in full, and said that it +was thoroughly justified. He then mused forth a general gnome +that the “confidence of writers who deal in semi-scientific paradoxes +is commonly in inverse proportion to their grasp of the subject.” +Again my vanity suggested to me that I was the person for whose benefit +this gnome was intended. My vanity, indeed, was well fed by the +whole transaction; for I saw that not only did Mr. Darwin, who should +be the best judge, think my work worth notice, but that he did not venture +to meet it openly. As for Dr. Krause’s concluding sentence, +I thought that when a sentence had been antedated the less it contained +about anachronism the better.</p> +<p>Only one of the reviews that I saw of Mr. Darwin’s “Life +of Erasmus Darwin” showed any knowledge of the facts. The +<i>Popular Science Review</i> for January 1880, in flat contradiction +to Mr. Darwin’s preface, said that only part of Dr. Krause’s +article was being given by Mr. Darwin. This reviewer had plainly +seen both <i>Kosmos</i> and Mr. Darwin’s book.</p> +<p>In the same number of the <i>Popular Science Review</i>, and immediately +following the review of Mr. Darwin’s book, there is a review of +“Evolution, Old and New.” The writer of this review +quotes the passage about mental anachronism as quoted by the reviewer +in the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, and adds immediately: “This anachronism +has been committed by Mr. Samuel Butler in a . . . little volume now +before us, and it is doubtless to this, <i>which appeared while his +own work was in progress</i> [italics mine] that Dr. Krause alludes +in the foregoing passage.” Considering that the editor of +the <i>Popular Science Review</i> and the translator of Dr. Krause’s +article for Mr. Darwin are one and the same person, it is likely the +<i>Popular Science Review</i> is well informed in saying that my book +appeared before Dr. Krause’s article had been transformed into +its present shape, and that my book was intended by the passage in question.</p> +<p>Unable to see any way of escaping from a conclusion which I could +not willingly adopt, I thought it best to write to Mr. Darwin, stating +the facts as they appeared to myself, and asking an explanation, which +I would have gladly strained a good many points to have accepted. +It is better, perhaps, that I should give my letter and Darwin’s +answer in full. My letter ran thus:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p><i>January 2</i>, 1880.</p> +<p>CHARLES DARWIN, ESQ., F.R.S., &c.</p> +<p>Dear Sir, - Will you kindly refer me to the edition of <i>Kosmos</i> +which contains the text of Dr. Krause’s article on Dr. Erasmus +Darwin, as translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas?</p> +<p>I have before me the last February number of <i>Kosmos</i>, which +appears by your preface to be the one from which Mr. Dallas has translated, +but his translation contains long and important passages which are not +in the February number of <i>Kosmos</i>, while many passages in the +original article are omitted in the translation.</p> +<p>Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of the English +article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position I have taken +as regards Dr. Erasmus Darwin in my book, “Evolution, Old and +New,” and which I believe I was the first to take. The concluding, +and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the translation you +have given to the public stands thus:-</p> +<p>“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant +first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up +for us, but to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually +been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism +which no man can envy.”</p> +<p>The <i>Kosmos</i> which has been sent me from Germany contains no +such passage.</p> +<p>As you have stated in your preface that my book, “Evolution, +Old and New,” appeared subsequently to Dr. Krause’s article, +and as no intimation is given that the article has been altered and +added to since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation +as though from the February number of <i>Kosmos</i> is, as you expressly +say, guaranteed by Mr. Dallas’s “scientific reputation together +with his knowledge of German,” your readers will naturally suppose +that all they read in the translation appeared in February last, and +therefore before “Evolution, Old and New,” was written, +and therefore independently of, and necessarily without reference to, +that book.</p> +<p>I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have failed to +obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred to, and +several others which appear in the translation.</p> +<p>I have a personal interest in this matter, and venture, therefore, +to ask for the explanation which I do not doubt you will readily give +me. - Yours faithfully,</p> +<p>S. BUTLER.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The following is Mr. Darwin’s answer:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p><i>January 3</i>, 1880.</p> +<p>My Dear Sir, Dr. Krause, soon after the appearance of his article +in <i>Kosmos</i> told me that he intended to publish it separately and +to alter it considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas +for translation. This is so common a practice that it never occurred +to me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret +that I did not do so. The original will soon appear in German, +and I believe will be a much larger book than the English one; for, +with Dr. Krause’s consent, many long extracts from Miss Seward +were omitted (as well as much other matter), from being in my opinion +superfluous for the English reader. I believe that the omitted +parts will appear as notes in the German edition. Should there +be a reprint of the English Life I will state that the original as it +appeared in <i>Kosmos</i> was modified by Dr. Krause before it was translated. +I may add that I had obtained Dr. Krause’s consent for a translation, +and had arranged with Mr. Dallas before your book was announced. +I remember this because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement. +- I remain, yours faithfully,</p> +<p>C. DARWIN.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This was not a letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said +that by some inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account +for, a blunder had been made which he would at once correct so far as +was in his power by a letter to the <i>Times</i> or the <i>Athenæum</i>, +and that a notice of the erratum should be printed on a flyleaf and +pasted into all unsold copies of the “Life of Erasmus Darwin,” +there would have been no more heard about the matter from me; but when +Mr. Darwin maintained that it was a common practice to take advantage +of an opportunity of revising a work to interpolate a covert attack +upon an opponent, and at the same time to misdate the interpolated matter +by expressly stating that it appeared months sooner than it actually +did, and prior to the work which it attacked; when he maintained that +what was being done was “so common a practice that it never occurred,” +to him - the writer of some twenty volumes - to do what all literary +men must know to be inexorably requisite, I thought this was going far +beyond what was permissible in honourable warfare, and that it was time, +in the interests of literary and scientific morality, even more than +in my own, to appeal to public opinion. I was particularly struck +with the use of the words “it never occurred to me,” and +felt how completely of a piece it was with the opening paragraph of +the “Origin of Species.” It was not merely that it +did not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified +since it was written - this would have been bad enough under the circumstances +but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to say what was not +true. There was no necessity for him to have said anything about +my book. It appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me that if +a reprint of the English Life was wanted (which might or might not be +the case, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of the shoulders, +and I must make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might perhaps silently omit +his note about my book, as he omitted his misrepresentation of the author +of the “Vestiges of Creation,” and put the words “revised +and corrected by the author” on his title-page.</p> +<p>No matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he may have +unquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general well-being that +he should be allowed to set aside the fundamental principles of straightforwardness +and fair play. When I thought of Buffon, of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, +of Lamarck and even of the author of the “Vestiges of Creation,” +to all of whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he was now +dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now dumb, who +had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels had been +filched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. Darwin had been +abetted by those who should have been the first to detect the fallacy +which had misled him; of the hotbed of intrigue which science has now +become; of the disrepute into which we English must fall as a nation +if such practices as Mr. Darwin had attempted in this case were to be +tolerated; - when I thought of all this, I felt that though prayers +for the repose of dead men’s souls might be unavailing, yet a +defence of their work and memory, no matter against what odds, might +avail the living, and resolved that I would do my utmost to make my +countrymen aware of the spirit now ruling among those whom they delight +to honour.</p> +<p>At first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence privately +with Mr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was insufficient, +but on reflection I felt that little good was likely to come of a second +letter, if what I had already written was not enough. I therefore +wrote to the <i>Athenæum</i> and gave a condensed account of the +facts contained in the last ten or a dozen pages. My letter appeared +January 31, 1880. <a name="citation50"></a><a href="#footnote50">{50}</a></p> +<p>The accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very public +place. I gave my name; I adduced the strongest <i>primâ +facie</i> grounds for the acceptance of my statements; but there was +no rejoinder, and for the best of all reasons - that no rejoinder was +possible. Besides, what is the good of having a reputation for +candour if one may not stand upon it at a pinch? I never yet knew +a person with an especial reputation for candour without finding sooner +or later that he had developed it as animals develop their organs, through +“sense of need.” Not only did Mr. Darwin remain perfectly +quiet, but all reviewers and <i>littérateurs</i> remained perfectly +quiet also. It seemed - though I do not for a moment believe that +this is so - as if public opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin +had done, and of his silence than otherwise. I saw the “Life +of Erasmus Darwin” more frequently and more prominently advertised +now than I had seen it hitherto - perhaps in the hope of selling off +the adulterated copies, and being able to reprint the work with a corrected +title page. Presently I saw Professor Huxley hastening to the +rescue with his lecture on the coming of age of the “Origin of +Species,” and by May it was easy for Professor Ray Lankester to +imply that Mr. Darwin was the greatest of living men. I have since +noticed two or three other controversies raging in the <i>Athenæum</i> +and <i>Times</i>; in each of these cases I saw it assumed that the defeated +party, when proved to have publicly misrepresented his adversary, should +do his best to correct in public the injury which he had publicly inflicted, +but I noticed that in none of them had the beaten side any especial +reputation for candour. This probably made all the difference. +But however this may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of the field, +in the hope, doubtless, that the matter would blow over - which it apparently +soon did. Whether it has done so in reality or no, is a matter +which remains to be seen. My own belief is that people paid no +attention to what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that +when they come to know that it is true, they will think as I do concerning +it.</p> +<p>From ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no expectations. +There is no conduct so dishonourable that people will not deny it or +explain it away, if it has been committed by one whom they recognise +as of their own persuasion. It must be remembered that facts cannot +be respected by the scientist in the same way as by other people. +It is his business to familiarise himself with facts, and, as we all +know, the path from familiarity to contempt is an easy one.</p> +<p>Here, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. If +it appears that I have used language such as is rarely seen in controversy, +let the reader remember that the occasion is, so far as I know, unparalleled +for the cynicism and audacity with which the wrong complained of was +committed and persisted in. I trust, however, that, though not +indifferent to this, my indignation has been mainly roused, as when +I wrote “Evolution, Old and New,” before Mr. Darwin had +given me personal ground of complaint against him, by the wrongs he +has inflicted on dead men, on whose behalf I now fight, as I trust that +some one - whom I thank by anticipation - may one day fight on mine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Introduction to Professor Hering’s lecture.</p> +<p>After I had finished “Evolution, Old and New,” I wrote +some articles for the <i>Examiner</i>, <a name="citation52"></a><a href="#footnote52">{52}</a> +in which I carried out the idea put forward in “Life and Habit,” +that we are one person with our ancestors. It follows from this, +that all living animals and vegetables, being - as appears likely if +the theory of evolution is accepted - descended from a common ancestor, +are in reality one person, and unite to form a body corporate, of whose +existence, however, they are unconscious. There is an obvious +analogy between this and the manner in which the component cells of +our bodies unite to form our single individuality, of which it is not +likely they have a conception, and with which they have probably only +the same partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, have +with them. In the articles above alluded to I separated the organic +from the inorganic, and when I came to rewrite them, I found that this +could not be done, and that I must reconstruct what I had written. +I was at work on this - to which I hope to return shortly - when Dr. +Krause’s’ “Erasmus Darwin,” with its preliminary +notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and having been compelled, as +I have shown above, by Dr. Krause’s work to look a little into +the German language, the opportunity seemed favourable for going on +with it and becoming acquainted with Professor Hering’s lecture. +I therefore began to translate his lecture at once, with the kind assistance +of friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, and found myself well +rewarded for my trouble.</p> +<p>Professor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as men +who have observed the action of living beings upon the stage of the +world, he from the point of view at once of a spectator and of one who +has free access to much of what goes on behind the scenes, I from that +of a spectator only, with none but the vaguest notion of the actual +manner in which the stage machinery is worked. If two men so placed, +after years of reflection, arrive independently of one another at an +identical conclusion as regards the manner in which this machinery must +have been invented and perfected, it is natural that each should take +a deep interest in the arguments of the other, and be anxious to put +them forward with the utmost possible prominence. It seems to +me that the theory which Professor Hering and I are supporting in common, +is one the importance of which is hardly inferior to that of the theory +of evolution itself - for it puts the backbone, as it were, into the +theory of evolution. I shall therefore make no apology for laying +my translation of Professor Hering’s work before my reader.</p> +<p>Concerning the identity of the main idea put forward in “Life +and Habit” with that of Professor Hering’s lecture, there +can hardly, I think, be two opinions. We both of us maintain that +we grow our limbs as we do, and possess the instincts we possess, because +we remember having grown our limbs in this way, and having had these +instincts in past generations when we were in the persons of our forefathers +- each individual life adding a small (but so small, in any one lifetime, +as to be hardly appreciable) amount of new experience to the general +store of memory; that we have thus got into certain habits which we +can now rarely break; and that we do much of what we do unconsciously +on the same principle as that (whatever it is) on which we do all other +habitual actions, with the greater ease and unconsciousness the more +often we repeat them. Not only is the main idea the same, but +I was surprised to find how often Professor Hering and I had taken the +same illustrations with which to point our meaning.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, we have each of us left undealt with some points which +the other has treated of. Professor Hering, for example, goes +into the question of what memory is, and this I did not venture to do. +I confined myself to saying that whatever memory was, heredity was also. +Professor Hering adds that memory is due to vibrations of the molecules +of the nerve fibres, which under certain circumstances recur, and bring +about a corresponding recurrence of visible action.</p> +<p>This approaches closely to the theory concerning the physics of memory +which has been most generally adopted since the time of Bonnet, who +wrote as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“The soul never has a new sensation but by the inter position +of the senses. This sensation has been originally attached to +the motion of certain fibres. Its reproduction or recollection +by the senses will then be likewise connected with these same fibres.” +. . . <a name="citation54a"></a><a href="#footnote54a">{54a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And again:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“It appeared to me that since this memory is connected with +the body, it must depend upon some change which must happen to the primitive +state of the sensible fibres by the action of objects. I have, +therefore, admitted as probable that the state of the fibres on which +an object has acted is not precisely the same after this action as it +was before I have conjectured that the sensible fibres experience more +or less durable modifications, which constitute the physics of memory +and recollection.” <a name="citation54b"></a><a href="#footnote54b">{54b}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Professor Hering comes near to endorsing this view, and uses it for +the purpose of explaining personal identity. This, at least, is +what he does in fact, though perhaps hardly in words. I did not +say more upon the essence of personality than that it was inseparable +from the idea that the various phases of our existence should have flowed +one out of the other, “in what we see as a continuous, though +it may be at times a very troubled, stream” <a name="citation55"></a><a href="#footnote55">{55}</a> +but I maintained that the identity between two successive generations +was of essentially the same kind as that existing between an infant +and an octogenarian. I thus left personal identity unexplained, +though insisting that it was the key to two apparently distinct sets +of phenomena, the one of which had been hitherto considered incompatible +with our ideas concerning it. Professor Hering insists on this +too, but he gives us farther insight into what personal identity is, +and explains how it is that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena +also of personal identity.</p> +<p>He implies, though in the short space at his command he has hardly +said so in express terms, that personal identity as we commonly think +of it - that is to say, as confined to the single life of the individual +- consists in the uninterruptedness of a sufficient number of vibrations, +which have been communicated from molecule to molecule of the nerve +fibres, and which go on communicating each one of them its own peculiar +characteristic elements to the new matter which we introduce into the +body by way of nutrition. These vibrations may be so gentle as +to be imperceptible for years together; but they are there, and may +become perceived if they receive accession through the running into +them of a wave going the same way as themselves, which wave has been +set up in the ether by exterior objects and has been communicated to +the organs of sense.</p> +<p>As these pages are on the point of leaving my hands, I see the following +remarkable passage in <i>Mind</i> for the current month, and introduce +it parenthetically here:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I followed the sluggish current of hyaline material issuing +from globules of most primitive living substance. Persistently +it followed its way into space, conquering, at first, the manifold resistances +opposed to it by its watery medium. Gradually, however, its energies +became exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed, it stopped, +an immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity. Thus +for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such rays of +some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By degrees, then, +or perhaps quite suddenly, <i>help would come to it from foreign but +congruous sources. It would seem to combine with outside complemental +matter</i> drifted to it at random. Slowly it would regain thereby +its vital mobility. Shrinking at first, but gradually completely +restored and reincorporated into the onward tide of life, it was ready +to take part again in the progressive flow of a new ray.” <a name="citation56"></a><a href="#footnote56">{56}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>To return to the end of the last paragraph but one. If this +is so - but I should warn the reader that Professor Hering is not responsible +for this suggestion, though it seems to follow so naturally from what +he has said that I imagine he intended the inference to be drawn, - +if this is so, assimilation is nothing else than the communication of +its own rhythms from the assimilating to the assimilated substance, +to the effacement of the vibrations or rhythms heretofore existing in +this last; and suitability for food will depend upon whether the rhythms +of the substance eaten are such as to flow harmoniously into and chime +in with those of the body which has eaten it, or whether they will refuse +to act in concert with the new rhythms with which they have become associated, +and will persist obstinately in pursuing their own course. In +this case they will either be turned out of the body at once, or will +disconcert its arrangements, with perhaps fatal consequences. +This comes round to the conclusion I arrived at in “Life and Habit,” +that assimilation was nothing but the imbuing of one thing with the +memories of another. (See “Life and Habit,” pp. 136, +137, 140, &c.)</p> +<p>It will be noted that, as I resolved the phenomena of heredity into +phenomena of personal identity, and left the matter there, so Professor +Hering resolves the phenomena of personal identity into the phenomena +of a living mechanism whose equilibrium is disturbed by vibrations of +a certain character - and leaves it there. We now want to understand +more about the vibrations.</p> +<p>But if, according to Professor Hering, the personal identity of the +single life consists in the uninterruptedness of vibrations, so also +do the phenomena of heredity. For not only may vibrations of a +certain violence or character be persistent unperceived for many years +in a living body, and communicate themselves to the matter it has assimilated, +but they may, and will, under certain circumstances, extend to the particle +which is about to leave the parent body as the germ of its future offspring. +In this minute piece of matter there must, if Professor Hering is right, +be an infinity of rhythmic undulations incessantly vibrating with more +or less activity, and ready to be set in more active agitation at a +moment’s warning, under due accession of vibration from exterior +objects. On the occurrence of such stimulus, that is to say, when +a vibration of a suitable rhythm from without concurs with one within +the body so as to augment it, the agitation may gather such strength +that the touch, as it were, is given to a house of cards, and the whole +comes toppling over. This toppling over is what we call action; +and when it is the result of the disturbance of certain usual arrangements +in certain usual ways, we call it the habitual development and instinctive +characteristics of the race. In either case, then, whether we +consider the continued identity of the individual in what we call his +single life, or those features in his offspring which we refer to heredity, +the same explanation of the phenomena is applicable. It follows +from this as a matter of course, that the continuation of life or personal +identity in the individual and the race are fundamentally of the same +kind, or, in other words, that there is a veritable prolongation of +identity or oneness of personality between parents and offspring. +Professor Hering reaches his conclusion by physical methods, while I +reached mine, as I am told, by metaphysical. I never yet could +understand what “metaphysics” and “metaphysical” +mean; but I should have said I reached it by the exercise of a little +common sense while regarding certain facts which are open to every one. +There is, however, so far as I can see, no difference in the conclusion +come to.</p> +<p>The view which connects memory with vibrations may tend to throw +light upon that difficult question, the manner in which neuter bees +acquire structures and instincts, not one of which was possessed by +any of their direct ancestors. Those who have read “Life +and Habit” may remember, I suggested that the food prepared in +the stomachs of the nurse-bees, with which the neuter working bees are +fed, might thus acquire a quasi-seminal character, and be made a means +of communicating the instincts and structures in question. <a name="citation58"></a><a href="#footnote58">{58}</a> +If assimilation be regarded as the receiving by one substance of the +rhythms or undulations from another, the explanation just referred to +receives an accession of probability.</p> +<p>If it is objected that Professor Hering’s theory as to continuity +of vibrations being the key to memory and heredity involves the action +of more wheels within wheels than our imagination can come near to comprehending, +and also that it supposes this complexity of action as going on within +a compass which no unaided eye can detect by reason of its littleness, +so that we are carried into a fairy land with which sober people should +have nothing to do, it may be answered that the case of light affords +us an example of our being truly aware of a multitude of minute actions, +the hundred million millionth part of which we should have declared +to be beyond our ken, could we not incontestably prove that we notice +and count them all with a very sufficient and creditable accuracy.</p> +<p>“Who would not,” <a name="citation59a"></a><a href="#footnote59a">{59a}</a> +says Sir John Herschel, “ask for demonstration when told that +a gnat’s wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred times +in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly organised beings +many thousands of whose bodies laid close together would not extend +to an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which +modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point +of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession +of periodical movements, recurring regularly at equal intervals, no +less than five hundred millions of millions of times in a second; that +it is by such movements communicated to the nerves of our eyes that +we see; nay, more, that it is the <i>difference</i> in the frequency +of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity +of colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, +our eyes are affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions +of times; of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions +of times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions +of times per second? <a name="citation59b"></a><a href="#footnote59b">{59b}</a> +Do not such things sound more like the ravings of madmen than the sober +conclusions of people in their waking senses? They are, nevertheless, +conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive who will only +be at the pains of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have +been obtained.”</p> +<p>A man counting as hard as he can repeat numbers one after another, +and never counting more than a hundred, so that he shall have no long +words to repeat, may perhaps count ten thousand, or a hundred a hundred +times over, in an hour. At this rate, counting night and day, +and allowing no time for rest or refreshment, he would count one million +in four days and four hours, or say four days only. To count a +million a million times over, he would require four million days, or +roughly ten thousand years; for five hundred millions of millions, he +must have the utterly unrealisable period of five million years. +Yet he actually goes through this stupendous piece of reckoning unconsciously +hour after hour, day after day, it may be for eighty years, <i>often +in each second</i> of daylight; and how much more by artificial or subdued +light I do not know. He knows whether his eye is being struck +five hundred millions of millions of times, or only four hundred and +eighty-two millions of millions of times. He thus shows that he +estimates or counts each set of vibrations, and registers them according +to his results. If a man writes upon the back of a British Museum +blotting-pad of the common <i>nonpareil</i> pattern, on which there +are some thousands of small spaces each differing in colour from that +which is immediately next to it, his eye will, nevertheless, without +an effort assign its true colour to each one of these spaces. +This implies that he is all the time counting and taking tally of the +difference in the numbers of the vibrations from each one of the small +spaces in question. Yet the mind that is capable of such stupendous +computations as these so long as it knows nothing about them, makes +no little fuss about the conscious adding together of such almost inconceivably +minute numbers as, we will say, 2730169 and 5790135 - or, if these be +considered too large, as 27 and 19. Let the reader remember that +he cannot by any effort bring before his mind the units, not in ones, +<i>but in millions of millions</i> of the processes which his visual +organs are undergoing second after second from dawn till dark, and then +let him demur if he will to the possibility of the existence in a germ, +of currents and undercurrents, and rhythms and counter rhythms, also +by the million of millions - each one of which, on being overtaken by +the rhythm from without that chimes in with and stimulates it, may be +the beginning of that unsettlement of equilibrium which results in the +crash of action, unless it is timely counteracted.</p> +<p>If another objector maintains that the vibrations within the germ +as above supposed must be continually crossing and interfering with +one another in such a manner as to destroy the continuity of any one +series, it may be replied that the vibrations of the light proceeding +from the objects that surround us traverse one another by the millions +of millions every second yet in no way interfere with one another. +Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the difficulties of the theory +towards which I suppose Professor Hering to incline are like those of +all other theories on the same subject - almost inconceivably great.</p> +<p>In “Life and Habit” I did not touch upon these vibrations, +knowing nothing about them. Here, then, is one important point +of difference, not between the conclusions arrived at, but between the +aim and scope of the work that Professor Hering and I severally attempted. +Another difference consists in the points at which we have left off. +Professor Hering, having established his main thesis, is content. +I, on the other hand, went on to maintain that if vigour was due to +memory, want of vigour was due to want of memory. Thus I was led +to connect memory with the phenomena of hybridism and of old age; to +show that the sterility of certain animals under domestication is only +a phase of, and of a piece with, the very common sterility of hybrids +- phenomena which at first sight have no connection either with each +other or with memory, but the connection between which will never be +lost sight of by those who have once laid hold of it. I also pointed +out how exactly the phenomena of development agreed with those of the +abeyance and recurrence of memory, and the rationale of the fact that +puberty in so many animals and plants comes about the end of development. +The principle underlying longevity follows as a matter of course. +I have no idea how far Professor Hering would agree with me in the position +I have taken in respect of these phenomena, but there is nothing in +the above at variance with his lecture.</p> +<p>Another matter on which Professor Hering has not touched is the bearing +of his theory on that view of evolution which is now commonly accepted. +It is plain he accepts evolution, but it does not appear that he sees +how fatal his theory is to any view of evolution except a teleological +one - the purpose residing within the animal and not without it. +There is, however, nothing in his lecture to indicate that he does not +see this.</p> +<p>It should be remembered that the question whether memory is due to +the persistence within the body of certain vibrations, which have been +already set up within the bodies of its ancestors, is true or no, will +not affect the position I took up in “Life and Habit.” +In that book I have maintained nothing more than that whatever memory +is heredity is also. I am not committed to the vibration theory +of memory, though inclined to accept it on a <i>primâ facie</i> +view. All I am committed to is, that if memory is due to persistence +of vibrations, so is heredity; and if memory is not so due, then no +more is heredity.</p> +<p>Finally, I may say that Professor Hering’s lecture, the passage +quoted from Dr. Erasmus Darwin on p. 26 of this volume, and a few hints +in the extracts from Mr. Patrick Mathew which I have quoted in “Evolution, +Old and New,” are all that I yet know of in other writers as pointing +to the conclusion that the phenomena of heredity are phenomena also +of memory.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Professor Ewald Hering “On Memory.”</p> +<p>I will now lay before the reader a translation of Professor Hering’s +own words. I have had it carefully revised throughout by a gentleman +whose native language is German, but who has resided in England for +many years past. The original lecture is entitled “On Memory +as a Universal Function of Organised Matter,” and was delivered +at the anniversary meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna, +May 30, 1870. <a name="citation63"></a><a href="#footnote63">{63}</a> +It is as follows:-</p> +<p>“When the student of Nature quits the narrow workshop of his +own particular inquiry, and sets out upon an excursion into the vast +kingdom of philosophical investigation, he does so, doubtless, in the +hope of finding the answer to that great riddle, to the solution of +a small part of which he devotes his life. Those, however, whom +he leaves behind him still working at their own special branch of inquiry, +regard his departure with secret misgivings on his behalf, while the +born citizens of the kingdom of speculation among whom he would naturalise +himself, receive him with well-authorised distrust. He is likely, +therefore, to lose ground with the first, while not gaining it with +the second.</p> +<p>The subject to the consideration of which I would now solicit your +attention does certainly appear likely to lure us on towards the flattering +land of speculation, but bearing in mind what I have just said, I will +beware of quitting the department of natural science to which I have +devoted myself hitherto. I shall, however, endeavour to attain +its highest point, so as to take a freer view of the surrounding territory.</p> +<p>It will soon appear that I should fail in this purpose if my remarks +were to confine themselves solely to physiology. I hope to show +how far psychological investigations also afford not only permissible, +but indispensable, aid to physiological inquiries.</p> +<p>Consciousness is an accompaniment of that animal and human organisation +and of that material mechanism which it is the province of physiology +to explore; and as long as the atoms of the brain follow their due course +according to certain definite laws, there arises an inner life which +springs from sensation and idea, from feeling and will.</p> +<p>We feel this in our own cases; it strikes us in our converse with +other people; we can see it plainly in the more highly organised animals; +even the lowest forms of life bear traces of it; and who can draw a +line in the kingdom of organic life, and say that it is here the soul +ceases?</p> +<p>With what eyes, then, is physiology to regard this two-fold life +of the organised world? Shall she close them entirely to one whole +side of it, that she may fix them more intently on the other?</p> +<p>So long as the physiologist is content to be a physicist, and nothing +more - using the word “physicist” in its widest signification +- his position in regard to the organic world is one of extreme but +legitimate one-sidedness. As the crystal to the mineralogist or +the vibrating string to the acoustician, so from this point of view +both man and the lower animals are to the physiologist neither more +nor less than the matter of which they consist. That animals feel +desire and repugnance, that the material mechanism of the human frame +is in chose connection with emotions of pleasure or pain, and with the +active idea-life of consciousness - this cannot, in the eyes of the +physicist, make the animal or human body into anything more than what +it actually is. To him it is a combination of matter, subjected +to the same inflexible laws as stones and plants - a material combination, +the outward and inward movements of which interact as cause and effect, +and are in as close connection with each other and with their surroundings +as the working of a machine with the revolutions of the wheels that +compose it.</p> +<p>Neither sensation, nor idea, nor yet conscious will, can form a link +in this chain of material occurrences which make up the physical life +of an organism. If I am asked a question and reply to it, the +material process which the nerve fibre conveys from the organ of hearing +to the brain must travel through my brain as an actual and material +process before it can reach the nerves which will act upon my organs +of speech. It cannot, on reaching a given place in the brain, +change then and there into an immaterial something, and turn up again +some time afterwards in another part of the brain as a material process. +The traveller in the desert might as well hope, before he again goes +forth into the wilderness of reality, to take rest and refreshment in +the oasis with which the Fata Morgana illudes him; or as well might +a prisoner hope to escape from his prison through a door reflected in +a mirror.</p> +<p>So much for the physiologist in his capacity of pure physicist. +As long as he remains behind the scenes in painful exploration of the +details of the machinery - as long as he only observes the action of +the players from behind the stage - so long will he miss the spirit +of the performance, which is, nevertheless, caught easily by one who +sees it from the front. May he not, then, for once in a way, be +allowed to change his standpoint? True, he came not to see the +representation of an imaginary world; he is in search of the actual; +but surely it must help him to a comprehension of the dramatic apparatus +itself, and of the manner in which it is worked, if he were to view +its action from in front as well as from behind, or at least allow himself +to hear what sober-minded spectators can tell him upon the subject.</p> +<p>There can be no question as to the answer; and hence it comes that +psychology is such an indispensable help to physiology, whose fault +it only in small part is that she has hitherto made such little use +of this assistance; for psychology has been late in beginning to till +her fertile field with the plough of the inductive method, and it is +only from ground so tilled that fruits can spring which can be of service +to physiology.</p> +<p>If, then, the student of nervous physiology takes his stand between +the physicist and the psychologist, and if the first of these rightly +makes the unbroken causative continuity of all material processes an +axiom of his system of investigation, the prudent psychologist, on the +other hand, will investigate the laws of conscious life according to +the inductive method, and will hence, as much as the physicist, make +the existence of fixed laws his initial assumption. If, again, +the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his +conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, +and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to +his will, then it only remains for him to make one assumption more, +namely, <i>that this mutual interdependence between the spiritual and +the material is itself also dependent on law</i>, and he has discovered +the bond by which the science of matter and the science of consciousness +are united into a single whole.</p> +<p>Thus regarded, the phenomena of consciousness become functions of +the material changes of organised substance, and inversely - though +this is involved in the use of the word “function” - the +material processes of brain substance become functions of the phenomena +of consciousness. For when two variables are so dependent upon +one another in the changes they undergo in accordance with fixed laws +that a change in either involves simultaneous and corresponding change +in the other, the one is called a function of the other.</p> +<p>This, then, by no means implies that the two variables above-named +- matter and consciousness - stand in the relation of cause and effect, +antecedent and consequence, to one another. For on this subject +we know nothing.</p> +<p>The materialist regards consciousness as a product or result of matter, +while the idealist holds matter to be a result of consciousness, and +a third maintains that matter and spirit are identical; with all this +the physiologist, as such, has nothing whatever to do; his sole concern +is with the fact that matter and consciousness are functions one of +the other.</p> +<p>By the help of this hypothesis of the functional interdependence +of matter and spirit, modern physiology is enabled to bring the phenomena +of consciousness within the domain of her investigations without leaving +the <i>terra firma</i> of scientific methods. The physiologist, +as physicist, can follow the ray of light and the wave of sound or heat +till they reach the organ of sense. He can watch them entering +upon the ends of the nerves, and finding their way to the cells of the +brain by means of the series of undulations or vibrations which they +establish in the nerve filaments. Here, however, he loses all +trace of them. On the other hand, still looking with the eyes +of a pure physicist, he sees sound waves of speech issue from the mouth +of a speaker; he observes the motion of his own limbs, and finds how +this is conditional upon muscular contractions occasioned by the motor +nerves, and how these nerves are in their turn excited by the cells +of the central organ. But here again his knowledge comes to an +end. True, he sees indications of the bridge which is to carry +him from excitation of the sensory to that of the motor nerves in the +labyrinth of intricately interwoven nerve cells, but he knows nothing +of the inconceivably complex process which is introduced at this stage. +Here the physiologist will change his standpoint; what matter will not +reveal to his inquiry, he will find in the mirror, as it were, of consciousness; +by way of a reflection, indeed, only, but a reflection, nevertheless, +which stands in intimate relation to the object of his inquiry. +When at this point he observes how one idea gives rise to another, how +closely idea is connected with sensation and sensation with will, and +how thought, again, and feeling are inseparable from one another, he +will be compelled to suppose corresponding successions of material processes, +which generate and are closely connected with one another, and which +attend the whole machinery of conscious life, according to the law of +the functional interdependence of matter and consciousness.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>After this explanation I shall venture to regard under a single aspect +a great series of phenomena which apparently have nothing to do with +one another, and which belong partly to the conscious and partly to +the unconscious life of organised beings. I shall regard them +as the outcome of one and the same primary force of organised matter +- namely, its memory or power of reproduction.</p> +<p>The word “memory” is often understood as though it meant +nothing more than our faculty of intentionally reproducing ideas or +series of ideas. But when the figures and events of bygone days +rise up again unbidden in our minds, is not this also an act of recollection +or memory? We have a perfect right to extend our conception of +memory so as to make it embrace involuntary reproductions, of sensations, +ideas, perceptions, and efforts; but we find, on having done so, that +we have so far enlarged her boundaries that she proves to be an ultimate +and original power, the source, and at the same time the unifying bond, +of our whole conscious life.</p> +<p>We know that when an impression, or a series of impressions, has +been made upon our senses for a long time, and always in the same way, +it may come to impress itself in such a manner upon the so-called sense-memory +that hours afterwards, and though a hundred other things have occupied +our attention meanwhile, it will yet return suddenly to our consciousness +with all the force and freshness of the original sensation. A +whole group of sensations is sometimes reproduced in its due sequence +as regards time and space, with so much reality that it illudes us, +as though things were actually present which have long ceased to be +so. We have here a striking proof of the fact that after both +conscious sensation and perception have been extinguished, their material +vestiges yet remain in our nervous system by way of a change in its +molecular or atomic disposition, <a name="citation69"></a><a href="#footnote69">{69}</a> +that enables the nerve substance to reproduce all the physical processes +of the original sensation, and with these the corresponding psychical +processes of sensation and perception.</p> +<p>Every hour the phenomena of sense-memory are present with each one +of us, but in a less degree than this. We are all at times aware +of a host of more or less faded recollections of earlier impressions, +which we either summon intentionally or which come upon us involuntarily. +Visions of absent people come and go before us as faint and fleeting +shadows, and the notes of long-forgotten melodies float around us, not +actually heard, but yet perceptible.</p> +<p>Some things and occurrences, especially if they have happened to +us only once and hurriedly, will be reproducible by the memory in respect +only of a few conspicuous qualities; in other cases those details alone +will recur to us which we have met with elsewhere, and for the reception +of which the brain is, so to speak, attuned. These last recollections +find themselves in fuller accord with our consciousness, and enter upon +it more easily and energetically; hence also their aptitude for reproduction +is enhanced; so that what is common to many things, and is therefore +felt and perceived with exceptional frequency, becomes reproduced so +easily that eventually the actual presence of the corresponding external +<i>stimuli</i> is no longer necessary, and it will recur on the vibrations +set up by faint <i>stimuli</i> from within. <a name="citation70"></a><a href="#footnote70">{70}</a> +Sensations arising in this way from within, as, for example, an idea +of whiteness, are not, indeed, perceived with the full freshness of +those raised by the actual presence of white light without us, but they +are of the same kind; they are feeble repetitions of one and the same +material brain process - of one and the same conscious sensation. +Thus the idea of whiteness arises in our mind as a faint, almost extinct, +sensation.</p> +<p>In this way those qualities which are common to many things become +separated, as it were, in our memory from the objects with which they +were originally associated, and attain an independent existence in our +consciousness as <i>ideas</i> and <i>conceptions</i>, and thus the whole +rich superstructure of our ideas and conceptions is built up from materials +supplied by memory.</p> +<p>On examining more closely, we see plainly that memory is a faculty +not only of our conscious states, but also, and much more so, of our +unconscious ones. I was conscious of this or that yesterday, and +am again conscious of it to-day. Where has it been meanwhile? +It does not remain continuously within my consciousness, nevertheless +it returns after having quitted it. Our ideas tread but for a +moment upon the stage of consciousness, and then go back again behind +the scenes, to make way for others in their place. As the player +is only a king when he is on the stage, so they too exist as ideas so +long only as they are recognised. How do they live when they are +off the stage? For we know that they are living somewhere; give +them their cue and they reappear immediately. They do not exist +continuously as ideas; what is continuous is the special disposition +of nerve substance in virtue of which this substance gives out to-day +the same sound which it gave yesterday if it is rightly struck. <a name="citation71"></a><a href="#footnote71">{71}</a> +Countless reproductions of organic processes of our brain connect themselves +orderly together, so that one acts as a stimulus to the next, but a +phenomenon of consciousness is not necessarily attached to every link +in the chain. From this it arises that a series of ideas may appear +to disregard the order that would be observed in purely material processes +of brain substance unaccompanied by consciousness; but on the other +hand it becomes possible for a long chain of recollections to have its +due development without each link in the chain being necessarily perceived +by ourselves. One may emerge from the bosom of our unconscious +thoughts without fully entering upon the stage of conscious perception; +another dies away in unconsciousness, leaving no successor to take its +place. 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. Who can hope +after this to disentangle the infinite intricacy of our inner life? +For we can only follow its threads so far as they have strayed over +within the bounds of consciousness. We might as well hope to familiarise +ourselves with the world of forms that teem within the bosom of the +sea by observing the few that now and again come to the surface and +soon return into the deep.</p> +<p>The bond of union, therefore, which connects the individual phenomena +of our consciousness lies in our unconscious world; and as we know nothing +of this but what investigation into the laws of matter teach us - as, +in fact, for purely experimental purposes, “matter” and +the “unconscious” must be one and the same thing - so the +physiologist has a full right to denote memory as, in the wider sense +of the word, a function of brain substance, whose results, it is true, +fall, as regards one part of them, into the domain of consciousness, +while another and not less essential part escapes unperceived as purely +material processes.</p> +<p>The perception of a body in space is a very complicated process. +I see suddenly before me, for example, a white ball. This has +the effect of conveying to me more than a mere sensation of whiteness. +I deduce the spherical character of the ball from the gradations of +light and shade upon its surface. I form a correct appreciation +of its distance from my eye, and hence again I deduce an inference as +to the size of the ball. What an expenditure of sensations, ideas, +and inferences is found to be necessary before all this can be brought +about; yet the production of a correct perception of the ball was the +work only of a few seconds, and I was unconscious of the individual +processes by means of which it was effected, the result as a whole being +alone present in my consciousness.</p> +<p>The nerve substance preserves faithfully the memory of habitual actions. +<a name="citation72"></a><a href="#footnote72">{72}</a> Perceptions +which were once long and difficult, requiring constant and conscious +attention, come to reproduce themselves in transient and abridged guise, +without such duration and intensity that each link has to pass over +the threshold of our consciousness.</p> +<p>We have chains of material nerve processes to which eventually a +link becomes attached that is attended with conscious perception. +This is sufficiently established from the standpoint of the physiologist, +and is also proved by our unconsciousness of many whole series of ideas +and of the inferences we draw from them. If the soul is not to +ship through the fingers of physiology, she must hold fast to the considerations +suggested by our unconscious states. As far, however, as the investigations +of the pure physicist are concerned, the unconscious and matter are +one and the same thing, and the physiology of the unconscious is no +“philosophy of the unconscious.”</p> +<p>By far the greater number of our movements are the result of long +and arduous practice. The harmonious cooperation of the separate +muscles, the finely adjusted measure of participation which each contributes +to the working of the whole, must, as a rule, have been laboriously +acquired, in respect of most of the movements that are necessary in +order to effect it. How long does it not take each note to find +its way from the eyes to the fingers of one who is beginning to learn +the pianoforte; and, on the other hand, what an astonishing performance +is the playing of the professional pianist. The sight of each +note occasions the corresponding movement of the fingers with the speed +of thought - a hurried glance at the page of music before him suffices +to give rise to a whole series of harmonies; nay, when a melody has +been long practised, it can be played even while the player’s +attention is being given to something of a perfectly different character +over and above his music.</p> +<p>The will need now no longer wend its way to each individual finger +before the desired movements can be extorted from it; no longer now +does a sustained attention keep watch over the movements of each limb; +the will need exercise a supervising control only. At the word +of command the muscles become active, with a due regard to time and +proportion, and go on working, so long as they are bidden to keep in +their accustomed groove, while a slight hint on the part of the will, +will indicate to them their further journey. How could all this +be if every part of the central nerve system, by means of which movement +is effected, were not able <a name="citation74a"></a><a href="#footnote74a">{74a}</a> +to reproduce whole series of vibrations, which at an earlier date required +the constant and continuous participation of consciousness, but which +are now set in motion automatically on a mere touch, as it were, from +consciousness - if it were not able to reproduce them the more quickly +and easily in proportion to the frequency of the repetitions - if, in +fact, there was no power of recollecting earlier performances? +Our perceptive faculties must have remained always at their lowest stage +if we had been compelled to build up consciously every process from +the details of the sensation-causing materials tendered to us by our +senses; nor could our voluntary movements have got beyond the helplessness +of the child, if the necessary impulses could only be imparted to every +movement through effort of the will and conscious reproduction of all +the corresponding ideas - if, in a word, the motor nerve system had +not also its memory, <a name="citation74b"></a><a href="#footnote74b">{74b}</a> +though that memory is unperceived by ourselves. The power of this +memory is what is called “the force of habit.”</p> +<p>It seems, then, that we owe to memory almost all that we either have +or are; that our ideas and conceptions are its work, and that our every +perception, thought, and movement is derived from this source. +Memory collects the countless phenomena of our existence into a single +whole; and as our bodies would be scattered into the dust of their component +atoms if they were not held together by the attraction of matter, so +our consciousness would be broken up into as many fragments as we had +lived seconds but for the binding and unifying force of memory.</p> +<p>We have already repeatedly seen that the reproductions of organic +processes, brought about by means of the memory of the nervous system, +enter but partly within the domain of consciousness, remaining unperceived +in other and not less important respects. This is also confirmed +by numerous facts in the life of that part of the nervous system which +ministers almost exclusively to our unconscious life processes. +For the memory of the so-called sympathetic ganglionic system is no +less rich than that of the brain and spinal marrow, and a great part +of the medical art consists in making wise use of the assistance thus +afforded us.</p> +<p>To bring, however, this part of my observations to a close, I will +take leave of the nervous system, and glance hurriedly at other phases +of organised matter, where we meet with the same powers of reproduction, +but in simpler guise.</p> +<p>Daily experience teaches us that a muscle becomes the stronger the +more we use it. The muscular fibre, which in the first instance +may have answered but feebly to the stimulus conducted to it by the +motor nerve, does so with the greater energy the more often it is stimulated, +provided, of course, that reasonable times are allowed for repose. +After each individual action it becomes more capable, more disposed +towards the same kind of work, and has a greater aptitude for repetition +of the same organic processes. It gains also in weight, for it +assimilates more matter than when constantly at rest. We have +here, in its simplest form, and in a phase which comes home most closely +to the comprehension of the physicist, the same power of reproduction +which we encountered when we were dealing with nerve substance, but +under such far more complicated conditions. And what is known +thus certainly from muscle substance holds good with greater or less +plainness for all our organs. More especially may we note the +fact, that after increased use, alternated with times of repose, there +accrues to the organ in all animal economy an increased power of execution +with an increased power of assimilation and a gain in size.</p> +<p>This gain in size consists not only in the enlargement of the individual +cells or fibres of which the organ is composed, but in the multiplication +of their number; for when cells have grown to a certain size they give +rise to others, which inherit more or less completely the qualities +of those from which they came, and therefore appear to be repetitions +of the same cell. This growth, and multiplication of cells is +only a special phase of those manifold functions which characterise +organised matter, and which consist not only in what goes on within +the cell substance as alterations or undulatory movement of the molecular +disposition, but also in that which becomes visible outside the cells +as change of shape, enlargement, or subdivision. Reproduction +of performance, therefore, manifests itself to us as reproduction of +the cells themselves, as may be seen most plainly in the case of plants, +whose chief work consists in growth, whereas with animal organism other +faculties greatly preponderate.</p> +<p>Let us now take a brief survey of a class of facts in the case of +which we may most abundantly observe the power of memory in organised +matter. We have ample evidence of the fact that characteristics +of an organism may descend to offspring which the organism did not inherit, +but which it acquired owing to the special circumstances under which +it lived; and that, in consequence, every organism imparts to the germ +that issues from it a small heritage of acquisitions which it has added +during its own lifetime to the gross inheritance of its race.</p> +<p>When we reflect that we are dealing with the heredity of acquired +qualities which came to development in the most diverse parts of the +parent organism, it must seem in a high degree mysterious how those +parts can have any kind of influence upon a germ which develops itself +in an entirely different place. Many mystical theories have been +propounded for the elucidation of this question, but the following reflections +may serve to bring the cause nearer to the comprehension of the physiologist.</p> +<p>The nerve substance, in spite of its thousandfold subdivision as +cells and fibres, forms, nevertheless, a united whole, which is present +directly in all organs - nay, as more recent histology conjectures, +in each cell of the more important organs - or is at least in ready +communication with them by means of the living, irritable, and therefore +highly conductive substance of other cells. Through the connection +thus established all organs find themselves in such a condition of more +or less mutual interdependence upon one another, that events which happen +to one are repeated in others, and a notification, however slight, of +a vibration set up <a name="citation77"></a><a href="#footnote77">{77}</a> +in one quarter is at once conveyed even to the farthest parts of the +body. With this easy and rapid intercourse between all parts is +associated the more difficult communication that goes on by way of the +circulation of sap or blood.</p> +<p>We see, further, that the process of the development of all germs +that are marked out for independent existence causes a powerful reaction, +even from the very beginning of that existence, on both the conscious +and unconscious life of the whole organism. We may see this from +the fact that the organ of reproduction stands in closer and more important +relation to the remaining parts, and especially to the nervous system, +than do the other organs; and, inversely, that both the perceived and +unperceived events affecting the whole organism find a more marked response +in the reproductive system than elsewhere.</p> +<p>We can now see with sufficient plainness in what the material connection +is established between the acquired peculiarities of an organism, and +the proclivity on the part of the germ in virtue of which it develops +the special characteristics of its parent.</p> +<p>The microscope teaches us that no difference can be perceived between +one germ and another; it cannot, however, be objected on this account +that the determining cause of its ulterior development must be something +immaterial, rather than the specific kind of its material constitution.</p> +<p>The curves and surfaces which the mathematician conceives, or finds +conceivable, are more varied and infinite than the forms of animal life. +Let us suppose an infinitely small segment to be taken from every possible +curve; each one of these will appear as like every other as one germ +is to another, yet the whole of every curve lies dormant, as it were, +in each of them, and if the mathematician chooses to develop it, it +will take the path indicated by the elements of each segment.</p> +<p>It is an error, therefore, to suppose that such fine distinctions +as physiology must assume lie beyond the limits of what is conceivable +by the human mind. An infinitely small change of position on the +part of a point, or in the relations of the parts of a segment of a +curve to one another, suffices to alter the law of its whole path, and +so in like manner an infinitely small influence exercised by the parent +organism on the molecular disposition of the germ <a name="citation78"></a><a href="#footnote78">{78}</a> +may suffice to produce a determining effect upon its whole farther development.</p> +<p>What is the descent of special peculiarities but a reproduction on +the part of organised matter of processes in which it once took part +as a germ in the germ-containing organs of its parent, and of which +it seems still to retain a recollection that reappears when time and +the occasion serve, inasmuch as it responds to the same or like stimuli +in a like way to that in which the parent organism responded, of which +it was once part, and in the events of whose history it was itself also +an accomplice? <a name="citation79"></a><a href="#footnote79">{79}</a> +When an action through long habit or continual practice has become so +much a second nature to any organisation that its effects will penetrate, +though ever so faintly, into the germ that lies within it, and when +this last comes to find itself in a new sphere, to extend itself, and +develop into a new creature - (the individual parts of which are still +always the creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so that what is reproduced +is the same being as that in company with which the germ once lived, +and of which it was once actually a part) - all this is as wonderful +as when a grey-haired man remembers the events of his own childhood; +but it is not more so. Whether we say that the same organised +substance is again reproducing its past experience, or whether we prefer +to hold that an offshoot or part of the original substance has waxed +and developed itself since separation from the parent stock, it is plain +that this will constitute a difference of degree, not kind.</p> +<p>When we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired characteristics +can be reproduced in offspring, we are apt to forget that offspring +is only a full-sized reproduction of the parent - a reproduction, moreover, +that goes as far as possible into detail. We are so accustomed +to consider family resemblance a matter of course, that we are sometimes +surprised when a child is in some respect unlike its parent; surely, +however, the infinite number of points in respect of which parents and +children resemble one another is a more reasonable ground for our surprise.</p> +<p>But if the substance of the germ can reproduce characteristics acquired +by the parent during its single life, how much more will it not be able +to reproduce those that were congenital to the parent, and which have +happened through countless generations to the organised matter of which +the germ of to-day is a fragment? We cannot wonder that action +already taken on innumerable past occasions by organised matter is more +deeply impressed upon the recollection of the germ to which it gives +rise than action taken once only during a single lifetime. <a name="citation80a"></a><a href="#footnote80a">{80a}</a></p> +<p>We must bear in mind that every organised being now in existence +represents the last link of an inconceivably long series of organisms, +which come down in a direct line of descent, and of which each has inherited +a part of the acquired characteristics of its predecessor. Everything, +furthermore, points in the direction of our believing that at the beginning +of this chain there existed an organism of the very simplest kind, something, +in fact, like those which we call organised germs. The chain of +living beings thus appears to be the magnificent achievement of the +reproductive power of the original organic structure from which they +have all descended. As this subdivided itself and transmitted +its characteristics <a name="citation80b"></a><a href="#footnote80b">{80b}</a> +to its descendants, these acquired new ones, and in their turn transmitted +them - all new germs transmitting the chief part of what had happened +to their predecessors, while the remaining part lapsed out of their +memory, circumstances not stimulating it to reproduce itself.</p> +<p>An organised being, therefore, stands before us a product of the +unconscious memory of organised matter, which, ever increasing and ever +dividing itself, ever assimilating new matter and returning it in changed +shape to the inorganic world, ever receiving some new thing into its +memory, and transmitting its acquisitions by the way of reproduction, +grows continually richer and richer the longer it lives.</p> +<p>Thus regarded, the development of one of the more highly organised +animals represents a continuous series of organised recollections concerning +the past development of the great chain of living forms, the last link +of which stands before us in the particular animal we may be considering. +As a complicated perception may arise by means of a rapid and superficial +reproduction of long and laboriously practised brain processes, so a +germ in the course of its development hurries through a series of phases, +hinting at them only. Often and long foreshadowed in theories +of varied characters, this conception has only now found correct exposition +from a naturalist of our own time. <a name="citation81"></a><a href="#footnote81">{81}</a> +For Truth hides herself under many disguises from those who seek her, +but in the end stands unveiled before the eyes of him whom she has chosen.</p> +<p>Not only is there a reproduction of form, outward and inner conformation +of body, organs, and cells, but the habitual actions of the parent are +also reproduced. The chicken on emerging from the eggshell runs +off as its mother ran off before it; yet what an extraordinary complication +of emotions and sensations is necessary in order to preserve equilibrium +in running. Surely the supposition of an inborn capacity for the +reproduction of these intricate actions can alone explain the facts. +As habitual practice becomes a second nature to the individual during +his single lifetime, so the often-repeated action of each generation +becomes a second nature to the race.</p> +<p>The chicken not only displays great dexterity in the performance +of movements for the effecting of which it has an innate capacity, but +it exhibits also a tolerably high perceptive power. It immediately +picks up any grain that may be thrown to it. Yet, in order to +do this, more is wanted than a mere visual perception of the grains; +there must be an accurate apprehension of the direction and distance +of the precise spot in which each grain is lying, and there must be +no less accuracy in the adjustment of the movements of the head and +of the whole body. The chicken cannot have gained experience in +these respects while it was still in the egg. It gained it rather +from the thousands of thousands of beings that have lived before it, +and from which it is directly descended.</p> +<p>The memory of organised substance displays itself here in the most +surprising fashion. The gentle stimulus of the light proceeding +from the grain that affects the retina of the chicken, <a name="citation82"></a><a href="#footnote82">{82}</a> +gives occasion for the reproduction of a many-linked chain of sensations, +perceptions, and emotions, which were never yet brought together in +the case of the individual before us. We are accustomed to regard +these surprising performances of animals as manifestations of what we +call instinct, and the mysticism of natural philosophy has ever shown +a predilection for this theme; but if we regard instinct as the outcome +of the memory or reproductive power of organised substance, and if we +ascribe a memory to the race as we already ascribe it to the individual, +then instinct becomes at once intelligible, and the physiologist at +the same time finds a point of contact which will bring it into connection +with the great series of facts indicated above as phenomena of the reproductive +faculty. Here, then, we have a physical explanation which has +not, indeed, been given yet, but the time for which appears to be rapidly +approaching.</p> +<p>When, in accordance with its instinct, the caterpillar becomes a +chrysalis, or the bird builds its nest, or the bee its cell, these creatures +act consciously and not as blind machines. They know how to vary +their proceedings within certain limits in conformity with altered circumstances, +and they are thus liable to make mistakes. They feel pleasure +when their work advances and pain if it is hindered; they learn by the +experience thus acquired, and build on a second occasion better than +on the first; but that even in the outset they hit so readily upon the +most judicious way of achieving their purpose, and that their movements +adapt themselves so admirably and automatically to the end they have +in view - surely this is owing to the inherited acquisitions of the +memory of their nerve substance, which requires but a touch and it will +fall at once to the most appropriate kind of activity, thinking always, +and directly, of whatever it is that may be wanted.</p> +<p>Man can readily acquire surprising kinds of dexterity if he confines +his attention to their acquisition. Specialisation is the mother +of proficiency. He who marvels at the skill with which the spider +weaves her web should bear in mind that she did not learn her art all +on a sudden, but that innumerable generations of spiders acquired it +toilsomely and step by step - this being about all that, as a general +rule, they did acquire. Man took to bows and arrows if his nets +failed him - the spider starved. Thus we see the body and - what +most concerns us - the whole nervous system of the new-born animal constructed +beforehand, and, as it were, ready attuned for intercourse with the +outside world in which it is about to play its part, by means of its +tendency to respond to external stimuli in the same manner as it has +often heretofore responded in the persons of its ancestors.</p> +<p>We naturally ask whether the brain and nervous system of the human +infant are subjected to the principles we have laid down above? +Man certainly finds it difficult to acquire arts of which the lower +animals are born masters; but the brain of man at birth is much farther +from its highest development than is the brain of an animal. It +not only grows for a longer time, but it becomes stronger than that +of other living beings. The brain of man may be said to be exceptionally +young at birth. The lower animal is born precocious, and acts +precociously; it resembles those infant prodigies whose brain, as it +were, is born old into the world, but who, in spite of, or rather in +addition to, their rich endowment at birth, in after life develop as +much mental power as others who were less splendidly furnished to start +with, but born with greater freshness of youth. Man’s brain, +and indeed his whole body, affords greater scope for individuality, +inasmuch as a relatively greater part of it is of post-natal growth. +It develops under the influence of impressions made by the environment +upon its senses, and thus makes its acquisitions in a more special and +individual manner, whereas the animal receives them ready made, and +of a more final, stereotyped character.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain and body +of the new-born infant a far-reaching power of remembering or reproducing +things which have already come to their development thousands of times +over in the persons of its ancestors. It is in virtue of this +that it acquires proficiency in the actions necessary for its existence +- so far as it was not already at birth proficient in them - much more +quickly and easily than would be otherwise possible; but what we call +instinct in the case of animals takes in man the looser form of aptitude, +talent, and genius. <a name="citation84"></a><a href="#footnote84">{84}</a> +Granted that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of their taking +form so easily and certainly from out of the chaos of his sensations, +is due not to his own labour, but to that of the brain substance of +the thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is descended. +Theories concerning the development of individual consciousness which +deny heredity or the power of transmission, and insist upon an entirely +fresh start for every human soul, as though the infinite number of generations +that have gone before us might as well have never lived for all the +effect they have had upon ourselves, - such theories will contradict +the facts of our daily experience at every touch and turn.</p> +<p>The brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble +man in the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than +those connected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive +instinct affected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world. +It is in respect of these instincts, therefore, and of the means to +gratify them, that the memory of organised substance is strongest - +the impulses and instincts that arise hence having still paramount power +over the minds of men. The spiritual life has been superadded +slowly; its most splendid outcome belongs to the latest epoch in the +history of organised matter, nor has any very great length of time elapsed +since the nervous system was first crowned with the glory of a large +and well-developed brain.</p> +<p>Oral tradition and written history have been called the memory of +man, and this is not without its truth. But there is another and +a living memory in the innate reproductive power of brain substance, +and without this both writings and oral tradition would be without significance +to posterity. The most sublime ideas, though never so immortalised +in speech or letters, are yet nothing for heads that are out of harmony +with them; they must be not only heard, but reproduced; and both speech +and writing would be in vain were there not an inheritance of inward +and outward brain development, growing in correspondence with the inheritance +of ideas that are handed down from age to age, and did not an enhanced +capacity for their reproduction on the part of each succeeding generation +accompany the thoughts that have been preserved in writing. Man’s +conscious memory comes to an end at death, but the unconscious memory +of Nature is true and ineradicable: whoever succeeds in stamping upon +her the impress of his work, she will remember him to the end of time.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Introduction to a translation of the chapter upon instinct in Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious.”</p> +<p>I am afraid my readers will find the chapter on instinct from Von +Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” which +will now follow, as distasteful to read as I did to translate, and would +gladly have spared it them if I could. At present, the works of +Mr. Sully, who has treated of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious” +both in the <i>Westminster Review</i> (vol. xlix. N.S.) and in his work +“Pessimism,” are the best source to which English readers +can have recourse for information concerning Von Hartmann. Giving +him all credit for the pains he has taken with an ungrateful, if not +impossible subject, I think that a sufficient sample of Von Hartmann’s +own words will be a useful adjunct to Mr. Sully’s work, and may +perhaps save some readers trouble by resolving them to look no farther +into the “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” Over and +above this, I have been so often told that the views concerning unconscious +action contained in the foregoing lecture and in “Life and Habit” +are only the very fallacy of Von Hartmann over again, that I should +like to give the public an opportunity of seeing whether this is so +or no, by placing the two contending theories of unconscious action +side by side. I hope that it will thus be seen that neither Professor +Hering nor I have fallen into the fallacy of Von Hartmann, but that +rather Von Hartmann has fallen into his fallacy through failure to grasp +the principle which Professor Hering has insisted upon, and to connect +heredity with memory.</p> +<p>Professor Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious is of extreme +simplicity. He rests upon a fact of daily and hourly experience, +namely, that practice makes things easy that were once difficult, and +often results in their being done without any consciousness of effort. +But if the repetition of an act tends ultimately, under certain circumstances, +to its being done unconsciously, so also is the fact of an intricate +and difficult action being done unconsciously an argument that it must +have been done repeatedly already. As I said in “Life and +Habit,” it is more easy to suppose that occasions on which such +an action has been performed have not been wanting, even though we do +not see when and where they were, than that the facility which we observe +should have been attained without practice and memory (p. 56).</p> +<p>There can be nothing better established or more easy, whether to +understand or verify, than the unconsciousness with which habitual actions +come to be performed. If, however, it is once conceded that it +is the manner of habitual action generally, then all <i>à priori</i> +objection to Professor Hering’s philosophy of the unconscious +is at an end. The question becomes one of fact in individual cases, +and of degree.</p> +<p>How far, then, does the principle of the convertibility, as it were, +of practice and unconsciousness extend? Can any line be drawn +beyond which it shall cease to operate? If not, may it not have +operated and be operating to a vast and hitherto unsuspected extent? +This is all, and certainly it is sufficiently simple. I sometimes +think it has found its greatest stumbling-block in its total want of +mystery, as though we must be like those conjurers whose stock in trade +is a small deal table and a kitchen-chair with bare legs, and who, with +their parade of “no deception” and “examine everything +for yourselves,” deceive worse than others who make use of all +manner of elaborate paraphernalia. It is true we require no paraphernalia, +and we produce unexpected results, but we are not conjuring.</p> +<p>To turn now to Von Hartmann. When I read Mr. Sully’s +article in the <i>Westminster Review</i>, I did not know whether the +sense of mystification which it produced in me was wholly due to Von +Hartmann or no; but on making acquaintance with Von Hartmann himself, +I found that Mr. Sully has erred, if at all, in making him more intelligible +than he actually is. Von Hartmann has not got a meaning. +Give him Professor Hering’s key and he might get one, but it would +be at the expense of seeing what approach he had made to a system fallen +to pieces. Granted that in his details and subordinate passages +he often both has and conveys a meaning, there is, nevertheless, no +coherence between these details, and the nearest approach to a broad +conception covering the work which the reader can carry away with him +is at once so incomprehensible and repulsive, that it is difficult to +write about it without saying more perhaps than those who have not seen +the original will accept as likely to be true. The idea to which +I refer is that of an unconscious clairvoyance, which, from the language +continually used concerning it, must be of the nature of a person, and +which is supposed to take possession of living beings so fully as to +be the very essence of their nature, the promoter of their embryonic +development, and the instigator of their instinctive actions. +This approaches closely to the personal God of Mosaic and Christian +theology, with the exception that the word “clairvoyance” +<a name="citation89"></a><a href="#footnote89">{89}</a> is substituted +for God, and that the God is supposed to be unconscious.</p> +<p>Mr. Sully says:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“When we grasp it [the philosophy of Von Hartmann] as a whole, +it amounts to nothing more than this, that all or nearly all the phenomena +of the material and spiritual world rest upon and result from a mysterious, +unconscious being, though to call it being is really to add on an idea +not immediately contained within the all-sufficient principle. +But what difference is there between this and saying that the phenomena +of the world at large come we know not whence? . . . The unconscious, +therefore, tends to be simple phrase and nothing more . . . No doubt +there are a number of mental processes . . . of which we are unconscious +. . . but to infer from this that they are due to an unconscious power, +and to proceed to demonstrate them in the presence of the unconscious +through all nature, is to make an unwarrantable <i>saltus</i> in reasoning. +What, in fact, is this ‘unconscious’ but a high-sounding +name to veil our ignorance? Is the unconscious any better explanation +of phenomena we do not understand than the ‘devil-devil’ +by which Australian tribes explain the Leyden jar and its phenomena? +Does it increase our knowledge to know that we do not know the origin +of language or the cause of instinct? . . . Alike in organic creation +and the evolution of history ‘performances and actions’ +- the words are those of Strauss - are ascribed to an unconscious, which +can only belong to a conscious being. <a name="citation90a"></a><a href="#footnote90a">{90a}</a></p> +<p>. . . . .</p> +<p>“The difficulties of the system advance as we proceed. <a name="citation90b"></a><a href="#footnote90b">{90b}</a> +Subtract this questionable factor - the unconscious from Hartmann’s +‘Biology and Psychology,’ and the chapters remain pleasant +and instructive reading. But with the third part of his work - +the Metaphysic of the Unconscious - our feet are clogged at every step. +We are encircled by the merest play of words, the most unsatisfactory +demonstrations, and most inconsistent inferences. The theory of +final causes has been hitherto employed to show the wisdom of the world; +with our Pessimist philosopher it shows nothing but its irrationality +and misery. Consciousness has been generally supposed to be the +condition of all happiness and interest in life; here it simply awakens +us to misery, and the lower an animal lies in the scale of conscious +life, the better and the pleasanter its lot.</p> +<p>. . . . .</p> +<p>“Thus, then, the universe, as an emanation of the unconscious, +has been constructed. <a name="citation90c"></a><a href="#footnote90c">{90c}</a> +Throughout it has been marked by design, by purpose, by finality; throughout +a wonderful adaptation of means to ends, a wonderful adjustment and +relativity in different portions has been noticed - and all this for +what conclusion? Not, as in the hands of the natural theologians +of the eighteenth century, to show that the world is the result of design, +of an intelligent, beneficent Creator, but the manifestation of a Being +whose only predicates are negatives, whose very essence is to be unconscious. +It is not only like ancient Athens, to an unknown, but to an unknowing +God, that modern Pessimism rears its altar. Yet surely the fact +that the motive principle of existence moves in a mysterious way outside +our consciousness no way requires that the All-one Being should be himself +unconscious.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I believe the foregoing to convey as correct an idea of Von Hartmann’s +system as it is possible to convey, and will leave it to the reader +to say how much in common there is between this and the lecture given +in the preceding chapter, beyond the fact that both touch upon unconscious +actions. The extract which will form my next chapter is only about +a thirtieth part of the entire “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” +but it will, I believe, suffice to substantiate the justice of what +Mr. Sully has said in the passages above quoted.</p> +<p>As regards the accuracy of the translation, I have submitted all +passages about which I was in the least doubtful to the same gentleman +who revised my translation of Professor Hering’s lecture; I have +also given the German wherever I thought the reader might be glad to +see it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Translation of the chapter on “The Unconscious in Instinct,” +from Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious.”</p> +<p>Von Hartmann’s chapter on instinct is as follows:-</p> +<p>Instinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose but without conscious +perception of what the purpose is. <a name="citation92a"></a><a href="#footnote92a">{92a}</a></p> +<p>A purposive action, with consciousness of the purpose and where the +course taken is the result of deliberation is not said to be instinctive; +nor yet, again, is blind aimless action, such as outbreaks of fury on +the part of offended or otherwise enraged animals. I see no occasion +for disturbing the commonly received definition of instinct as given +above; for those who think they can refer all the so-called ordinary +instincts of animals to conscious deliberation <i>ipso facto</i> deny +that there is such a thing as instinct at all, and should strike the +word out of their vocabulary. But of this more hereafter.</p> +<p>Assuming, then, the existence of instinctive action as above defined, +it can be explained as -</p> +<p>I. A mere necessary consequence of bodily organisation. <a name="citation92b"></a><a href="#footnote92b">{92b}</a></p> +<p>II. A mechanism of brain or mind contrived by nature.</p> +<p>III. The outcome of an unconscious activity of mind.</p> +<p>In neither of the two first cases is there any scope for the idea +of purpose; in the third, purpose must be present immediately before +the action. In the two first cases, action is supposed to be brought +about by means of an initial arrangement, either of bodily or mental +mechanism, purpose being conceived of as existing on a single occasion +only - that is to say, in the determination of the initial arrangement. +In the third, purpose is conceived as present in every individual instance. +Let us proceed to the consideration of these three cases.</p> +<p>Instinct is not a mere consequence of bodily organisation; for -</p> +<p>(<i>a</i>.) Bodies may be alike, yet they may be endowed with +different instincts.</p> +<p>All spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind weaves +radiating webs, another irregular ones, while a third makes none at +all, but lives in holes, whose walls it overspins, and whose entrance +it closes with a door. Almost all birds have a like organisation +for the construction of their nests (a beak and feet), but how infinitely +do their nests vary in appearance, mode of construction, attachment +to surrounding objects (they stand, are glued on, hang, &c.), selection +of site (caves, holes, corners, forks of trees, shrubs, the ground), +and excellence of workmanship; how often, too, are they not varied in +the species of a single genus, as of <i>parus</i>. Many birds, +moreover, build no nest at all. The difference in the songs of +birds are in like manner independent of the special construction of +their voice apparatus, nor do the modes of nest construction that obtain +among ants and bees depend upon their bodily organisation. Organisation, +as a general rule, only renders the bird capable of singing, as giving +it an apparatus with which to sing at all, but it has nothing to do +with the specific character of the execution . . . The nursing, defence, +and education of offspring cannot be considered as in any way more dependent +upon bodily organisation; nor yet the sites which insects choose for +the laying of their eggs; nor, again, the selection of deposits of spawn, +of their own species, by male fish for impregnation. The rabbit +burrows, the hare does not, though both have the same burrowing apparatus. +The hare, however, has less need of a subterranean place of refuge by +reason of its greater swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers +of flight, are nevertheless stationary in their habits, as the secretary +falcon and certain other birds of prey; while even such moderate fliers +as quails are sometimes known to make very distant migrations.</p> +<p>(<i>b</i>.) Like instincts may be found associated with unlike organs.</p> +<p>Birds with and without feet adapted for climbing live in trees; so +also do monkeys with and without flexible tails, squirrels, sloths, +pumas, &c. Mole-crickets dig with a well-pronounced spade +upon their fore-feet, while the burying-beetle does the same thing though +it has no special apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter +provender in pockets, an inch wide, long and half an inch wide within +its cheeks; the field-mouse does so without the help of any such contrivance. +The migratory instinct displays itself with equal strength in animals +of widely different form, by whatever means they may pursue their journey, +whether by water, land, or air.</p> +<p>It is clear, therefore, that instinct is in great measure independent +of bodily organisation. Granted, indeed, that a certain amount +of bodily apparatus is a <i>sine quâ non</i> for any power of +execution at all - as, for example, that there would be no ingenious +nest without organs more or less adapted for its construction, no spinning +of a web without spinning glands - nevertheless, it is impossible to +maintain that instinct is a consequence of organisation. The mere +existence of the organ does not constitute even the smallest incentive +to any corresponding habitual activity. A sensation of pleasure +must at least accompany the use of the organ before its existence can +incite to its employment. And even so when a sensation of pleasure +has given the impulse which is to render it active, it is only the fact +of there being activity at all, and not the special characteristics +of the activity, that can be due to organisation. The reason for +the special mode of the activity is the very problem that we have to +solve. No one will call the action of the spider instinctive in +voiding the fluid from her spinning gland when it is too full, and therefore +painful to her; nor that of the male fish when it does what amounts +to much the same thing as this. The instinct and the marvel lie +in the fact that the spider spins threads, and proceeds to weave her +web with them, and that the male fish will only impregnate ova of his +own species.</p> +<p>Another proof that the pleasure felt in the employment of an organ +is wholly inadequate to account for this employment is to be found in +the fact that the moral greatness of instinct, the point in respect +of which it most commands our admiration, consists in the obedience +paid to its behests, to the postponement of all personal well-being, +and at the cost, it may be, of life itself. If the mere pleasure +of relieving certain glands from overfulness were the reason why caterpillars +generally spin webs, they would go on spinning until they had relieved +these glands, but they would not repair their work as often as any one +destroyed it, and do this again and again until they die of exhaustion. +The same holds good with the other instincts that at first sight appear +to be inspired only by a sensation of pleasure; for if we change the +circumstances, so as to put self-sacrifice in the place of self-interest, +it becomes at once apparent that they have a higher source than this. +We think, for example, that birds pair for the sake of mere sexual gratification; +why, then, do they leave off pairing as soon as they have laid the requisite +number of eggs? That there is a reproductive instinct over and +above the desire for sexual gratification appears from the fact that +if a man takes an egg out of the nest, the birds will come together +again and the hen will lay another egg; or, if they belong to some of +the more wary species, they will desert their nest, and make preparation +for an entirely new brood. A female wryneck, whose nest was daily +robbed of the egg she laid in it, continued to lay a new one, which +grew smaller and smaller, till, when she had laid her twenty-ninth egg, +she was found dead upon her nest. If an instinct cannot stand +the test of self-sacrifice - if it is the simple outcome of a desire +for bodily gratification - then it is no true instinct, and is only +so called erroneously.</p> +<p>Instinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in living +beings by nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action without any, +even unconscious, activity of mind, and with no conception concerning +the purpose of the action, would be executed mechanically, the purpose +having been once for all thought out by Nature or Providence, which +has so organised the individual that it acts henceforth as a purely +mechanical medium. We are now dealing with a psychical organisation +as the cause instinct, as we were above dealing with a physical. psychical +organisation would be a conceivable explanation and we need look no +farther if every instinct once belonging to an animal discharged its +functions in an unvarying manner. But this is never found to be +the case, for instincts vary when there arises a sufficient motive for +varying them. This proves that special exterior circumstances +enter into the matter, and that these circumstances are the very things +that render the attainment of the purpose possible through means selected +by the instinct. Here first do we find instinct acting as though +it were actually design with action following at its heels, for until +the arrival of the motive, the instinct remains late and discharges +no function whatever. The motive enters by way of an idea received +into the mind through the instrumentality of the senses, and there is +a constant connection between instinct in action and all sensual images +which give information that an opportunity has arisen for attaining +the ends proposed to itself by the instinct.</p> +<p>The psychical mechanism of this constant connection must also be +looked for. It may help us here to turn to the piano for an illustration. +The struck keys are the motives, the notes that sound in consequence +are the instincts in action. This illustration might perhaps be +allowed to pass (if we also suppose that entirely different keys can +give out the same sound) if instincts could only be compared with <i>distinctly +tuned</i> notes, so that one and the same instinct acted always in the +same manner on the rising of the motive which should set it in action. +This, however, is not so; for it is the blind unconscious purpose of +the instinct that is alone constant, the instinct itself - that is to +say, the will to make use of certain means - varying as the means that +can be most suitably employed vary under varying circumstances.</p> +<p>In this we condemn the theory which refuses to recognise unconscious +purpose as present in each individual case of instinctive action. +For he who maintains instinct to be the result of a mechanism of mind, +must suppose a special and constant mechanism for each variation and +modification of the instinct in accordance with exterior circumstances, +<a name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97">{97}</a> that is to say, +a new string giving a note with a new tone must be inserted, and this +would involve the mechanism in endless complication. But the fact +that the purpose is constant notwithstanding all manner of variation +in the means chosen by the instinct, proves that there is no necessity +for the supposition of such an elaborate mental mechanism - the presence +of an unconscious purpose being sufficient to explain the facts. +The purpose of the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, +and consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. When +the temperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits +upon her eggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest countries; +the mammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment of its instinctive +purpose without any co-operation on its own part. In warm climates +many birds only sit by night, and small exotic birds that have built +in aviaries kept at a high temperature sit little upon their eggs or +not at all. How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism +that impels the bird to sit as soon as the temperature falls below a +certain height! How clear and simple, on the other hand, is the +view that there is an unconscious purpose constraining the volition +of the bird to the use of the fitting means, of which process, however, +only the last link, that is to say, the will immediately preceding the +action falls within the consciousness of the bird!</p> +<p>In South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as a defence +against apes and serpents. The eggs of the cuckoo, as regards +size, colour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the birds in +whose nests she lays. Sylvia<i> ruja</i>, for example, lays a +white egg with violet spots; <i>Sylvia hippolais</i>, a red one with +black spots; <i>Regulus ignicapellus</i>, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo’s +egg is in each case so deceptive an imitation of its model, that it +can hardly be distinguished except by the structure of its shell.</p> +<p>Huber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in their +usual instinctive manner, beginning from above and working downwards; +on this they began building from below, and again horizontally. +The outermost cells that spring from the top of the hive or abut against +its sides are not hexagonal, but pentagonal, so as to gain in strength, +being attached with one base instead of two sides. In autumn bees +lengthen their existing honey cells if these are insufficient, but in +the ensuing spring they again shorten them in order to get greater roadway +between the combs. When the full combs have become too heavy, +they strengthen the walls of the uppermost or bearing cells by thickening +them with wax and propolis. If larvæ of working bees are +introduced into the cells set apart for drones, the working bees will +cover these cells with the flat lids usual for this kind of larvæ, +and not with the round ones that are proper for drones. In autumn, +as a general rule, bees kill their drones, but they refrain from doing +this when they have lost their queen, and keep them to fertilise the +young queen, who will be developed from larvæ that would otherwise +have become working bees. Huber observed that they defend the +entrance of their hive against the inroads of the sphinx moth by means +of skilful constructions made of wax and propolis. They only introduce +propolis when they want it for the execution of repairs, or for some +other special purpose. Spiders and caterpillars also display marvellous +dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been damaged, and +this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite for the +construction of a new one.</p> +<p>The above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they are +sufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not capacities rolled, +as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an invariable system, +but that they adapt themselves most closely to the circumstances of +each case, and are capable of such great modification and variation +that at times they almost appear to cease to be instinctive.</p> +<p>Many will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious deliberation +on the part of the animals themselves, and it is impossible to deny +that in the case of the more intellectually gifted animals there may +be such a thing as a combination of instinctive faculty and conscious +reflection. I think, however, the examples already cited are enough +to show that often where the normal and the abnormal action springs +from the same source, without any complication with conscious deliberation, +they are either both instinctive or both deliberative. <a name="citation99"></a><a href="#footnote99">{99}</a> +Or is that which prompts the bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle +of her comb something of an actually distinct character from that which +impels her to build pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two +separate kinds of thing, one of which induces birds under certain circumstances +to sit upon their eggs, while another leads them under certain other +circumstances to refrain from doing so? And does this hold good +also with bees when they at one time kill their brethren without mercy +and at another grant them their lives? Or with birds when they +construct the kind of nest peculiar to their race, and, again, any special +provision which they may think fit under certain circumstances to take? +If it is once granted that the normal and the abnormal manifestations +of instinct - and they are often incapable of being distinguished - +spring from a single source, then the objection that the modification +is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later +on, so far as it is directed against instinct generally. It may +be sufficient here to point out, in anticipation of remarks that will +be found in later chapters, that instinct and the power of organic development +involve the same essential principle, though operating under different +circumstances - the two melting into one another without any definite +boundary between them. Here, then, we have conclusive proof that +instinct does not depend upon organisation of body or brain, but that, +more truly, the organisation is due to the nature and manner of the +instinct.</p> +<p>On the other hand, we must now return to a closer consideration of +the conception of a psychical mechanism. <a name="citation100"></a><a href="#footnote100">{100}</a> +And here we find that this mechanism, in spite of its explaining so +much, is itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning +it. The motive enters the mind by way of a conscious sensual impression; +this is the first link of the process; the last link <a name="citation101"></a><a href="#footnote101">{101}</a> +appears as the conscious motive of an action. Both, however, are +entirely unlike, and neither has anything to do with ordinary motivation, +which consists exclusively in the desire that springs from a conception +either of pleasure or dislike - the former prompting to the attainment +of any object, the latter to its avoidance. In the case of instinct, +pleasure is for the most part a concomitant phenomenon; but it is not +so always, as we have already seen, inasmuch as the consummation and +highest moral development of instinct displays itself in self-sacrifice.</p> +<p>The true problem, however, lies far deeper than this. For every +conception of a pleasure proves that we have experienced this pleasure +already. But it follows from this, that when the pleasure was +first felt there must have been will present, in the gratification of +which will the pleasure consisted; the question, therefore, arises, +whence did the will come before the pleasure that would follow on its +gratification was known, and before bodily pain, as, for example, of +hunger, rendered relief imperative? Yet we may see that even though +an animal has grown up apart from any others of its kind, it will yet +none the less manifest the instinctive impulses of its race, though +experience can have taught it nothing whatever concerning the pleasure +that will ensue upon their gratification. As regards instinct, +therefore, there must be a causal connection between the motivating +sensual conception and the will to perform the instinctive action, and +the pleasure of the subsequent gratification has nothing to do with +the matter. We know by the experience of our own instincts that +this causal connection does not lie within our consciousness; <a name="citation102a"></a><a href="#footnote102a">{102a}</a> +therefore, if it is to be a mechanism of any kind, it can only be either +an unconscious mechanical induction and metamorphosis of the vibrations +of the conceived motive into the vibrations of the conscious action +in the brain, or an unconscious spiritual mechanism.</p> +<p>In the first case, it is surely strange that this process should +go on unconsciously, though it is so powerful in its effects that the +will resulting from it overpowers every other consideration, every other +kind of will, and that vibrations of this kind, when set up in the brain, +become always consciously perceived; nor is it easy to conceive in what +way this metamorphosis can take place so that the constant purpose can +be attained under varying circumstances by the resulting will in modes +that vary with variation of the special features of each individual +case.</p> +<p>But if we take the other alternative, and suppose an unconscious +mental mechanism, we cannot legitimately conceive of the process going +on in this as other than what prevails in all mental mechanism, namely, +than as by way of idea and will. We are, therefore, compelled +to imagine a causal connection between the consciously recognised motive +and the will to do the instinctive action, through unconscious idea +and will; nor do I know how this connection can be conceived as being +brought about more simply than through a conceived and willed purpose. +<a name="citation102b"></a><a href="#footnote102b">{102b}</a> +Arrived at this point, however, we have attained the logical mechanism +peculiar to and inseparable from all mind, and find unconscious purpose +to be an indispensable link in every instinctive action. With +this, therefore, the conception of a mental mechanism, dead and predestined +from without, has disappeared, and has become transformed into the spiritual +life inseparable from logic, so that we have reached the sole remaining +requirement for the conception of an actual instinct, which proves to +be a conscious willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed +purpose. This conception explains clearly and without violence +all the problems which instinct presents to us; or more truly, all that +was problematical about instinct disappears when its true nature has +been thus declared. If this work were confined to the consideration +of instinct alone, the conception of an unconscious activity of mind +might excite opposition, inasmuch as it is one with which our educated +public is not yet familiar; but in a work like the present, every chapter +of which adduces fresh facts in support of the existence of such an +activity and of its remarkable consequences, the novelty of the theory +should be taken no farther into consideration.</p> +<p>Though I so confidently deny that instinct is the simple action of +a mechanism which has been contrived once for all, I by no means exclude +the supposition that in the constitution of the brain, the ganglia, +and the whole body, in respect of morphological as well as molecular-physiological +condition, certain predispositions can be established which direct the +unconscious intermediaries more readily into one channel than into another. +This predisposition is either the result of a habit which keeps continually +cutting for itself a deeper and deeper channel, until in the end it +leaves indelible traces whether in the individual or in the race, or +it is expressly called into being by the unconscious formative principle +in generation, so as to facilitate action in a given direction. +This last will be the case more frequently in respect of exterior organisation +- as, for example, with the weapons or working organs of animals - while +to the former must be referred the molecular condition of brain and +ganglia which bring about the perpetually recurring elements of an instinct +such as the hexagonal shape of the cells of bees. We shall presently +see that by individual character we mean the sum of the individual methods +of reaction against all possible motives, and that this character depends +essentially upon a constitution of mind and body acquired in some measure +through habit by the individual, but for the most part inherited. +But an instinct is also a mode of reaction against certain motives; +here, too, then, we are dealing with character, though perhaps not so +much with that of the individual as of the race; for by character in +regard to instinct we do not intend the differences that distinguish +individuals, but races from one another. If any one chooses to +maintain that such a predisposition for certain kinds of activity on +the part of brain and body constitutes a mechanism, this may in one +sense be admitted; but as against this view it must be remarked -</p> +<p>1. That such deviations from the normal scheme of an instinct +as cannot be referred to conscious deliberation are not provided for +by any predisposition in this mechanism.</p> +<p>2. That heredity is only possible under the circumstances of +a constant superintendence of the embryonic development by a purposive +unconscious activity of growth. It must be admitted, however, +that this is influenced in return by the predisposition existing in +the germ.</p> +<p>3. That the impressing of the predisposition upon the individual +from whom it is inherited can only be effected by long practice, consequently +the instinct without auxiliary mechanism <a name="citation105a"></a><a href="#footnote105a">{105a}</a> +is the originating cause of the auxiliary mechanism.</p> +<p>4. That none of those instinctive actions that are performed +rarely, or perhaps once only, in the lifetime of any individual - as, +for example, those connected with the propagation and metamorphoses +of the lower forms of life, and none of those instinctive omissions +of action, neglect of which necessarily entails death - can be conceived +as having become engrained into the character through habit; the ganglionic +constitution, therefore, that predisposes the animal towards them must +have been fashioned purposively.</p> +<p>5. That even the presence of an auxiliary mechanism <a name="citation105b"></a><a href="#footnote105b">{105b}</a> +does not compel the unconscious to a particular corresponding mode of +instinctive action, but only predisposes it. This is shown by +the possibility of departure from the normal type of action, so that +the unconscious purpose is always stronger than the ganglionic constitution, +and takes any opportunity of choosing from several similar possible +courses the one that is handiest and most convenient to the constitution +of the individual.</p> +<p>We now approach the question that I have reserved for our final one, +- Is there, namely, actually such a thing as instinct, <a name="citation105c"></a><a href="#footnote105c">{105c}</a> +or are all so-called instinctive actions only the results of conscious +deliberation?</p> +<p>In support of the second of these two views, it may be alleged that +the more limited is the range of the conscious mental activity of any +living being, the more fully developed in proportion to its entire mental +power is its performance commonly found to be in respect of its own +limited and special instinctive department. This holds as good +with the lower animals as with men, and is explained by the fact that +perfection of proficiency is only partly dependent upon natural capacity, +but is in great measure due to practice and cultivation of the original +faculty. A philologist, for example, is unskilled in questions +of jurisprudence; a natural philosopher or mathematician, in philology; +an abstract philosopher, in poetical criticism. Nor has this anything +to do with the natural talents of the several persons, but follows as +a consequence of their special training. The more special, therefore, +is the direction in which the mental activity of any living being is +exercised, the more will the whole developing and practising power of +the mind be brought to bear upon this one branch, so that it is not +surprising if the special power comes ultimately to bear an increased +proportion to the total power of the individual, through the contraction +of the range within which it is exercised.</p> +<p>Those, however, who apply this to the elucidation of instinct should +not forget the words, “in proportion to the entire mental power +of the animal in question,” and should bear in mind that the entire +mental power becomes less and less continually as we descend the scale +of animal life, whereas proficiency in the performance of an instinctive +action seems to be much of a muchness in all grades of the animal world. +As, therefore, those performances which indisputably proceed from conscious +deliberation decrease proportionately with decrease of mental power, +while nothing of the kind is observable in the case of instinct - it +follows that instinct must involve some other principle than that of +conscious intelligence. We see, moreover, that actions which have +their source in conscious intelligence are of one and the same kind, +whether among the lower animals or with mankind - that is to say, that +they are acquired by apprenticeship or instruction and perfected by +practice; so that the saying, “Age brings wisdom,” holds +good with the brutes as much as with ourselves. Instinctive actions, +on the contrary, have a special and distinct character, in that they +are performed with no less proficiency by animals that have been reared +in solitude than by those that have been instructed by their parents, +the first essays of a hitherto unpractised animal being as successful +as its later ones. There is a difference in principle here which +cannot be mistaken. Again, we know by experience that the feebler +and more limited an intelligence is, the more slowly do ideas act upon +it, that is to say, the slower and more laborious is its conscious thought. +So long as instinct does not come into play, this holds good both in +the case of men of different powers of comprehension and with animals; +but with instinct all is changed, for it is the speciality of instinct +never to hesitate or loiter, but to take action instantly upon perceiving +that the stimulating motive has made its appearance. This rapidity +in arriving at a resolution is common to the instinctive actions both +of the highest and the lowest animals, and indicates an essential difference +between instinct and conscious deliberation.</p> +<p>Finally, as regards perfection of the power of execution, a glance +will suffice to show the disproportion that exists between this and +the grade of intellectual activity on which an animal may be standing. +Take, for instance, the caterpillar of the emperor moth (<i>Saturnia +pavonia minor</i>). It eats the leaves of the bush upon which +it was born; at the utmost has just enough sense to get on to the lower +sides of the leaves if it begins to rain, and from time to time changes +its skin. This is its whole existence, which certainly does not +lead us to expect a display of any, even the most limited, intellectual +power. When, however, the time comes for the larva of this moth +to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a double cocoon, fortified +with bristles that point outwards, so that it can be opened easily from +within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable from without. If +this contrivance were the result of conscious reflection, we should +have to suppose some such reasoning process as the following to take +place in the mind of the caterpillar:- “I am about to become a +chrysalis, and, motionless as I must be, shall be exposed to many different +kinds of attack. I must therefore weave myself a web. But +when I am a moth I shall not be able, as some moths are, to find my +way out of it by chemical or mechanical means; therefore I must leave +a way open for myself. In order, however, that my enemies may +not take advantage of this, I will close it with elastic bristles, which +I can easily push asunder from within, but which, upon the principle +of the arch, will resist all pressure from without.” Surely +this is asking rather too much from a poor caterpillar; yet the whole +of the foregoing must be thought out if a correct result is to be arrived +at.</p> +<p>This theoretical separation of instinct from conscious intelligence +can be easily misrepresented by opponents of my theory, as though a +separation in practice also would be necessitated in consequence. +This is by no means my intention. On the contrary, I have already +insisted at some length that both the two kinds of mental activity may +co-exist in all manner of different proportions, so that there may be +every degree of combination, from pure instinct to pure deliberation. +We shall see, however, in a later chapter, that even in the highest +and most abstract activity of human consciousness there are forces at +work that are of the highest importance, and are essentially of the +same kind as instinct.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the most marvellous displays of instinct are to +be found not only in plants, but also in those lowest organisms of the +simplest bodily form which are partly unicellular, and in respect of +conscious intelligence stand far below the higher plants - to which, +indeed, any kind of deliberative faculty is commonly denied. Even +in the case of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our attempts +to classify them either as animals or vegetables, we are still compelled +to admire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which goes far beyond +a mere reflex responsive to a stimulus from without; all doubt, therefore, +concerning the actual existence of an instinct must be at an end, and +the attempt to deduce it as a consequence of conscious deliberation +be given up as hopeless. I will here adduce an instance as extraordinary +as any we yet know of, showing, as it does, that many different purposes, +which in the case of the higher animals require a complicated system +of organs of motion, can be attained with incredibly simple means.</p> +<p><i>Arcella vulgaris</i> is a minute morsel of protoplasm, which lives +in a concave-convex, brown, finely reticulated shell, through a circular +opening in the concave side of which it can project itself by throwing +out <i>pseudopodia</i>. If we look through the microscope at a +drop of water containing living <i>arcellæ</i>, we may happen +to see one of them lying on its back at the bottom of the drop, and +making fruitless efforts for two or three minutes to lay hold of some +fixed point by means of a <i>pseudopodium</i>. After this there +will appear suddenly from two to five, but sometimes more, dark points +in the protoplasm at a small distance from the circumference, and, as +a rule, at regular distances from one another. These rapidly develop +themselves into well-defined spherical air vesicles, and come presently +to fill a considerable part of the hollow of the shell, thereby driving +part of the protoplasm outside it. After from five to twenty minutes, +the specific gravity of the <i>arcella</i> is so much lessened that +it is lifted by the water with its <i>pseudopodia</i>, and brought up +against the upper surface of the water-drop, on which it is able to +travel. In from five to ten minutes the vesicles will now disappear, +the last small point vanishing with a jerk. If, however, the creature +has been accidentally turned over during its journey, and reaches the +top of the water-drop with its back uppermost, the vesicles will continue +growing only on one side, while they diminish on the other; by this +means the shell is brought first into an oblique and then into a vertical +position, until one of the <i>pseudopodia</i> obtains a footing and +the whole turns over. From the moment the animal has obtained +foothold, the bladders become immediately smaller, and after they have +disappeared the experiment may be repeated at pleasure.</p> +<p>The positions of the protoplasm which the vesicles fashion change +continually; only the grainless protoplasm of the <i>pseudopodia</i> +develops no air. After long and fruitless efforts a manifest fatigue +sets in; the animal gives up the attempt for a time, and resumes it +after an interval of repose.</p> +<p>Engelmann, the discoverer of these phenomena, says (Pflüger’s +Archiv für Physologie, Bd. II.): “The changes in volume in +all the vesicles of the same animal are for the most part synchronous, +effected in the same manner, and of like size. There are, however, +not a few exceptions; it often happens that some of them increase or +diminish in volume much faster than others; sometimes one may increase +while another diminishes; all the changes, however, are throughout unquestionably +intentional. The object of the air-vesicles is to bring the animal +into such a position that it can take fast hold of something with its +<i>pseudopodia</i>. When this has been obtained, the air disappears +without our being able to discover any other reason for its disappearance +than the fact that it is no longer needed. . . . If we bear these +circumstances in mind, we can almost always tell whether an <i>arcella</i> +will develop air-vesicles or no; and if it has already developed them, +we can tell whether they will increase or diminish . . . The <i>arcellæ</i>, +in fact, in this power of altering their specific gravity possess a +mechanism for raising themselves to the top of the water, or lowering +themselves to the bottom at will. They use this not only in the +abnormal circumstances of their being under microscopical observation, +but at all times, as may be known by our being always able to find some +specimens with air-bladders at the top of the water in which they live.”</p> +<p>If what has been already advanced has failed to convince the reader +of the hopelessness of attempting to explain instinct as a mode of conscious +deliberation, he must admit that the following considerations are conclusive. +It is most certain that deliberation and conscious reflection can only +take account of such data as are consciously perceived; if, then, it +can be shown that data absolutely indispensable for the arrival at a +just conclusion cannot by any possibility have been known consciously, +the result can no longer be held as having had its source in conscious +deliberation. It is admitted that the only way in which consciousness +can arrive at a knowledge of exterior facts is by way of an impression +made upon the senses. We must, therefore, prove that a knowledge +of the facts indispensable for arrival at a just conclusion could not +have been thus acquired. This may be done as follows: <a name="citation111"></a><a href="#footnote111">{111}</a> +for, Firstly, the facts in question lie in the future, and the present +gives no ground for conjecturing the time and manner of their subsequent +development.</p> +<p>Secondly, they are manifestly debarred from the category of perceptions +perceived through the senses, inasmuch as no information can be derived +concerning them except through experience of similar occurrences in +time past, and such experience is plainly out of the question.</p> +<p>It would not affect the argument if, as I think likely, it were to +turn out, with the advance of our physiological knowledge, that all +the examples of the first case that I am about to adduce reduce themselves +to examples of the second, as must be admitted to have already happened +in respect of many that I have adduced hitherto. For it is hardly +more difficult to conceive of <i>à priori</i> knowledge, disconnected +from any impression made upon the senses, than of knowledge which, it +is true, does at the present day manifest itself upon the occasion of +certain general perceptions, but which can only be supposed to be connected +with these by means of such a chain of inferences and judiciously applied +knowledge as cannot be believed to exist when we have regard to the +capacity and organisation of the animal we may be considering.</p> +<p>An example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the stag-beetle +in its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in which to become +a chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole exactly her own size, +but the male makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow for +the growth of his horns, which will be about the same length as his +body. A knowledge of this circumstance is indispensable if the +result achieved is to be considered as due to reflection, yet the actual +present of the larva affords it no ground for conjecturing beforehand +the condition in which it will presently find itself.</p> +<p>As regards the second case, ferrets and buzzards fall forthwith upon +blind worms or other non-poisonous snakes, and devour them then and +there. But they exhibit the greatest caution in laying hold of +adders, even though they have never before seen one, and will endeavour +first to bruise their heads, so as to avoid being bitten. As there +is nothing in any other respect alarming in the adder, a conscious knowledge +of the danger of its bite is indispensable, if the conduct above described +is to be referred to conscious deliberation. But this could only +have been acquired through experience, and the possibility of such experience +may be controlled in the case of animals that have been kept in captivity +from their youth up, so that the knowledge displayed can be ascertained +to be independent of experience. On the other hand, both the above +illustrations afford evidence of an unconscious perception of the facts, +and prove the existence of a direct knowledge underivable from any sensual +impression or from consciousness.</p> +<p>This has always been recognised, <a name="citation113"></a><a href="#footnote113">{113}</a> +and has been described under the words “presentiment” or +“foreboding.” These words, however, refer, on the +one hand, only to an unknowable in the future, separated from us by +space, and not to one that is actually present; on the other hand, they +denote only the faint, dull, indefinite echo returned by consciousness +to an invariably distinct state of unconscious knowledge. Hence +the word “presentiment,” which carries with it an idea of +faintness and indistinctness, while, however, it may be easily seen +that sentiment destitute of all, even unconscious, ideas can have no +influence upon the result, for knowledge can only follow upon an idea. +A presentiment that sounds in consonance with our consciousness can +indeed, under certain circumstances, become tolerably definite, so that +in the case of man it can be expressed in thought and language; but +experience teaches us that even among ourselves this is not so when +instincts special to the human race come into play; we see rather that +the echo of our unconscious knowledge which finds its way into our consciousness +is so weak that it manifests itself only in the accompanying feelings +or frame of mind, and represents but an infinitely small fraction of +the sum of our sensations. It is obvious that such a faintly sympathetic +consciousness cannot form a sufficient foundation for a superstructure +of conscious deliberation; on the other hand, conscious deliberation +would be unnecessary, inasmuch as the process of thinking must have +been already gone through unconsciously, for every faint presentiment +that obtrudes itself upon our consciousness is in fact only the consequence +of a distinct unconscious knowledge, and the knowledge with which it +is concerned is almost always an idea of the purpose of some instinctive +action, or of one most intimately connected therewith. Thus, in +the case of the stag-beetle, the purpose consists in the leaving space +for the growth of the horns; the means, in the digging the hole of a +sufficient size; and the unconscious knowledge, in prescience concerning +the future development of the horns.</p> +<p>Lastly, all instinctive actions give us an impression of absolute +security and infallibility. With instinct the will is never hesitating +or weak, as it is when inferences are being drawn consciously. +We never find instinct making mistakes; we cannot, therefore, ascribe +a result which is so invariably precise to such an obscure condition +of mind as is implied when the word presentiment is used; on the contrary, +this absolute certainty is so characteristic a feature of instinctive +actions, that it constitutes almost the only well-marked point of distinction +between these and actions that are done upon reflection. But from +this it must again follow that some principle lies at the root of instinct +other than that which underlies reflective action, and this can only +be looked for in a determination of the will through a process that +lies in the unconscious, <a name="citation115a"></a><a href="#footnote115a">{115a}</a> +to which this character of unhesitating infallibility will attach itself +in all our future investigations.</p> +<p>Many will be surprised at my ascribing to instinct an unconscious +knowledge, arising out of no sensual impression, and yet invariably +accurate. This, however, is not a consequence of my theory concerning +instinct; it is the foundation on which that theory is based, and is +forced upon us by facts. I must therefore adduce examples. +And to give a name to the unconscious knowledge, which is not acquired +through impression made upon the senses, but which will be found to +be in our possession, though attained without the instrumentality of +means, <a name="citation115b"></a><a href="#footnote115b">{115b}</a> +I prefer the word “clairvoyance” <a name="citation115c"></a><a href="#footnote115c">{115c}</a> +to “presentiment,” which, for reasons already given, will +not serve me. This word, therefore, will be here employed throughout, +as above defined.</p> +<p>Let us now consider examples of the instincts of self-preservation, +subsistence, migration, and the continuation of the species. Most +animals know their natural enemies prior to experience of any hostile +designs upon themselves. A flight of young pigeons, even though +they have no old birds with them, will become shy, and will separate +from one another on the approach of a bird of prey. Horses and +cattle that come from countries where there are no lions become unquiet +and display alarm as soon as they are aware that a lion is approaching +them in the night. Horses going along a bridle-path that used +to leave the town at the back of the old dens of the carnivora in the +Berlin Zoological Gardens were often terrified by the propinquity of +enemies who were entirely unknown to them. Sticklebacks will swim +composedly among a number of voracious pike, knowing, as they do, that +the pike will not touch them. For if a pike once by mistake swallows +a stickleback, the stickleback will stick in its throat by reason of +the spine it carries upon its back, and the pike must starve to death +without being able to transmit his painful experience to his descendants. +In some countries there are people who by choice eat dog’s flesh; +dogs are invariably savage in the presence of these persons, as recognising +in them enemies at whose hands they may one day come to harm. +This is the more wonderful inasmuch as dog’s fat applied externally +(as when rubbed upon boots) attracts dogs by its smell. Grant +saw a young chimpanzee throw itself into convulsions of terror at the +sight of a large snake; and even among ourselves a Gretchen can often +detect a Mephistopheles. An insect of the genius <i>bombyx</i> +will seize another of the genus <i>parnopæa</i>, and kill it wherever +it finds it, without making any subsequent use of the body; but we know +that the last-named insect lies in wait for the eggs of the first, and +is therefore the natural enemy of its race. The phenomenon known +to stockdrivers and shepherds as “das Biesen des Viehes” +affords another example. For when a “dassel” or “bies” +fly draws near the herd, the cattle become unmanageable and run about +among one another as though they were mad, knowing, as they do, that +the larvae from the eggs which the fly will lay upon them will presently +pierce their hides and occasion them painful sores. These “dassel” +flies - which have no sting - closely resemble another kind of gadfly +which has a sting. Nevertheless, this last kind is little feared +by cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate extent. The +laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite painless, and +no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that we cannot +suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference concerning the connection +that exists between the two. I have already spoken of the foresight +shown by ferrets and buzzards in respect of adders; in like manner a +young honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first time, immediately +devoured it after having squeezed the sting from its body. No +animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by unnatural habits, will +eat poisonous plants. Even when apes have contracted bad habits +through their having been brought into contact with mankind, they can +still be trusted to show us whether certain fruits found in their native +forests are poisonous or no; for if poisonous fruits are offered them +they will refuse them with loud cries. Every animal will choose +for its sustenance exactly those animal or vegetable substances which +agree best with its digestive organs, without having received any instruction +on the matter, and without testing them beforehand. Even, indeed, +though we assume that the power of distinguishing the different kinds +of food is due to sight and not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious +how the animal can know what it is that will agree with it. Thus +the kid which Galen took prematurely from its mother smelt at all the +different kinds of food that were set before it, but drank only the +milk without touching anything else. The cherry-finch opens a +cherry-stone by turning it so that her beak can hit the part where the +two sides join, and does this as much with the first stone she cracks +as with the last. Fitchets, martens, and weasels make small holes +on the opposite sides of an egg which they are about to suck, so that +the air may come in while they are sucking. Not only do animals +know the food that will suit them best, but they find out the most suitable +remedies when they are ill, and constantly form a correct diagnosis +of their malady with a therapeutical knowledge which they cannot possibly +have acquired. Dogs will often eat a great quantity of grass - +particularly couch-grass - when they are unwell, especially after spring, +if they have worms, which thus pass from them entangled in the grass, +or if they want to get fragments of bone from out of their stomachs. +As a purgative they make use of plants that sting. Hens and pigeons +pick lime from walls and pavements if their food does not afford them +lime enough to make their eggshells with. Little children eat +chalk when suffering from acidity of the stomach, and pieces of charcoal +if they are troubled with flatulence. We may observe these same +instincts for certain kinds of food or drugs even among grown-up people, +under circumstances in which their unconscious nature has unusual power; +as, for example, among women when they are pregnant, whose capricious +appetites are probably due to some special condition of the fœtus, +which renders a certain state of the blood desirable. Field-mice +bite off the germs of the corn which they collect together, in order +to prevent its growing during the winter. Some days before the +beginning of cold weather the squirrel is most assiduous in augmenting +its store, and then closes its dwelling. Birds of passage betake +themselves to warmer countries at times when there is still no scarcity +of food for them here, and when the temperature is considerably warmer +than it will be when they return to us. The same holds good of +the time when animals begin to prepare their winter quarters, which +beetles constantly do during the very hottest days of autumn. +When swallows and storks find their way back to their native places +over distances of hundreds of miles, and though the aspect of the country +is reversed, we say that this is due to the acuteness of their perception +of locality; but the same cannot be said of dogs, which, though they +have been carried in a bag from one place to another that they do not +know, and have been turned round and round twenty times over, have still +been known to find their way home. Here we can say no more than +that their instinct has conducted them - that the clairvoyance of the +unconscious has allowed them to conjecture their way. <a name="citation119a"></a><a href="#footnote119a">{119a}</a></p> +<p>Before an early winter, birds of passage collect themselves in preparation +for their flight sooner than usual; but when the winter is going to +be mild, they will either not migrate at all, or travel only a small +distance southward. When a hard winter is coming, tortoises will +make their burrows deeper. If wild geese, cranes, etc., soon return +from the countries to which they had betaken themselves at the beginning +of spring, it is a sign that a hot and dry summer is about to ensue +in those countries, and that the drought will prevent their being able +to rear their young. In years of flood, beavers construct their +dwellings at a higher level than usual, and shortly before an inundation +the field-mice in Kamtschatka come out of their holes in large bands. +If the summer is going to be dry, spiders may be seen in May and April, +hanging from the ends of threads several feet in length. If in +winter spiders are seen running about much, fighting with one another +and preparing new webs, there will be cold weather within the next nine +days, or from that to twelve: when they again hide themselves there +will be a thaw. I have no doubt that much of this power of prophesying +the weather is due to a perception of certain atmospheric conditions +which escape ourselves, but this perception can only have relation to +a certain actual and now present condition of the weather; and what +can the impression made by this have to do with their idea of the weather +that will ensue? No one will ascribe to animals a power of prognosticating +the weather months beforehand by means of inferences drawn logically +from a series of observations, <a name="citation119b"></a><a href="#footnote119b">{119b}</a> +to the extent of being able to foretell floods. It is far more +probable that the power of perceiving subtle differences of actual atmospheric +condition is nothing more than the sensual perception which acts as +motive - for a motive must assuredly be always present - when an instinct +comes into operation. It continues to hold good, therefore, that +the power of foreseeing the weather is a case of unconscious clairvoyance, +of which the stork which takes its departure for the south four weeks +earlier than usual knows no more than does the stag when before a cold +winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his wont. On the +one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a perception of +the actual state of the weather; on the other, their ensuing action +is precisely such as it would be if the idea present with them was that +of the weather that is about to come. This they cannot consciously +have; the only natural intermediate link, therefore, between their conscious +knowledge and their action is supplied by unconscious idea, which, however, +is always accurately prescient, inasmuch as it contains something which +is neither given directly to the animal through sensual perception, +nor can be deduced inferentially through the understanding.</p> +<p>Most wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the continuation +of the species. The males always find out the females of their +own kind, but certainly not solely through their resemblance to themselves. +With many animals, as, for example, parasitic crabs, the sexes so little +resemble one another that the male would be more likely to seek a mate +from the females of a thousand other species than from his own. +Certain butterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males and females +of the same species differ, but the females present two distinct forms, +one of which as a general rule mimics the outward appearance of a distant +but highly valued species; yet the males will pair only with the females +of their own kind, and not with the strangers, though these may be very +likely much more like the males themselves. Among the insect species +of the <i>strepsiptera</i>, the female is a shapeless worm which lives +its whole life long in the hind body of a wasp; its head, which is of +the shape of a lentil, protrudes between two of the belly rings of the +wasp, the rest of the body being inside. The male, which only +lives for a few hours, and resembles a moth, nevertheless recognises +his mate in spite of these adverse circumstances, and fecundates her.</p> +<p>Before any experience of parturition, the knowledge that it is approaching +drives all mammals into solitude, and bids them prepare a nest for their +young in a hole or in some other place of shelter. The bird builds +her nest as soon as she feels the eggs coming to maturity within her. +Snails, land-crabs, tree-frogs, and toads, all of them ordinarily dwellers +upon land, now betake themselves to the water; sea-tortoises go on shore, +and many saltwater fishes come up into the rivers in order to lay their +eggs where they can alone find the requisites for their development. +Insects lay their eggs in the most varied kinds of situations, - in +sand, on leaves, under the hides and horny substances of other animals; +they often select the spot where the larva will be able most readily +to find its future sustenance, as in autumn upon the trees that will +open first in the coming spring, or in spring upon the blossoms that +will first bear fruit in autumn, or in the insides of those caterpillars +which will soonest as chrysalides provide the parasitic larva at once +with food and with protection. Other insects select the sites +from which they will first get forwarded to the destination best adapted +for their development. Thus some horseflies lay their eggs upon +the lips of horses or upon parts where they are accustomed to lick themselves. +The eggs get conveyed hence into the entrails, the proper place for +their development, - and are excreted upon their arrival at maturity. +The flies that infest cattle know so well how to select the most vigorous +and healthiest beasts, that cattle-dealers and tanners place entire +dependence upon them, and prefer those beasts and hides that are most +scarred by maggots. This selection of the best cattle by the help +of these flies is no evidence in support of the conclusion that the +flies possess the power of making experiments consciously and of reflecting +thereupon, even though the men whose trade it is to do this recognise +them as their masters. The solitary wasp makes a hole several +inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs along with it a number +of green maggots that have no legs, and which, being on the point of +becoming chrysalides, are well nourished and able to go a long time +without food; she packs these maggots so closely together that they +cannot move nor turn into chrysalides, and just enough of them to support +the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind of bug (<i>cerceris +bupresticida</i>), which itself lives only upon pollen, lays her eggs +in an underground cell, and with each one of them she deposits three +beetles, which she has lain in wait for and captured when they were +still weak through having only just left off being chrysalides. +She kills these beetles, and appears to smear them with a fluid whereby +she preserves them fresh and suitable for food. Many kinds of +wasps open the cells in which their larvæ are confined when these +must have consumed the provision that was left with them. They +supply them with more food, and again close the cell. Ants, again, +hit always upon exactly the right moment for opening the cocoons in +which their larvæ are confined and for setting them free, the +larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the life of only +a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single breeding season. +What then can they know about the contents of their eggs and the fittest +place for their development? What can they know about the kind +of food the larva will want when it leaves the egg - a food so different +from their own? What, again, can they know about the quantity +of food that will be necessary? How much of all this at least +can they know consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they take, +and the importance they evidently attach to these matters, prove that +they have a foreknowledge of the future: this knowledge therefore can +only be an unconscious clairvoyance. For clairvoyance it must +certainly be that inspires the will of an animal to open cells and cocoons +at the very moment that the larva is either ready for more food or fit +for leaving the cocoon. The eggs of the cuckoo do not take only +from two to three days to mature in her ovaries, as those of most birds +do, but require from eleven to twelve; the cuckoo, therefore, cannot +sit upon her own eggs, for her first egg would be spoiled before the +last was laid. She therefore lays in other birds’ nests +- of course laying each egg in a different nest. But in order +that the birds may not perceive her egg to be a stranger and turn it +out of the nest, not only does she lay an egg much smaller than might +be expected from a bird of her size (for she only finds her opportunity +among small birds), but, as already said, she imitates the other eggs +in the nest she has selected with surprising accuracy in respect both +of colour and marking. As the cuckoo chooses the nest some days +beforehand, it may be thought, if the nest is an open one, that the +cuckoo looks upon the colour of the eggs within it while her own is +in process of maturing inside her, and that it is thus her egg comes +to assume the colour of the others; but this explanation will not hold +good for nests that are made in the holes of trees, as that of <i>sylvia +phænicurus</i>, or which are oven-shaped with a narrow entrance, +as with <i>sylvia rufa</i>. In these cases the cuckoo can neither +slip in nor look in, and must therefore lay her egg outside the nest +and push it inside with her beak; she can therefore have no means of +perceiving through her senses what the eggs already in the nest are +like. If, then, in spite of all this, her egg closely resembles +the others, this can only have come about through an unconscious clairvoyance +which directs the process that goes on within the ovary in respect of +colour and marking.</p> +<p>An important argument in support of the existence of a clairvoyance +in the instincts of animals is to be found in the series of facts which +testify to the existence of a like clairvoyance, under certain circumstances, +even among human beings, while the self-curative instincts of children +and of pregnant women have been already mentioned. Here, however, +<a name="citation124"></a><a href="#footnote124">{124}</a> in correspondence +with the higher stage of development which human consciousness has attained, +a stronger echo of the unconscious clairvoyance commonly resounds within +consciousness itself, and this is represented by a more or less definite +presentiment of the consequences that will ensue. It is also in +accord with the greater independence of the human intellect that this +kind of presentiment is not felt exclusively immediately before the +carrying out of an action, but is occasionally disconnected from the +condition that an action has to be performed immediately, and displays +itself simply as an idea independently of conscious will, provided only +that the matter concerning which the presentiment is felt is one which +in a high degree concerns the will of the person who feels it. +In the intervals of an intermittent fever or of other illness, it not +unfrequently happens that sick persons can accurately foretell the day +of an approaching attack and how long it will last. The same thing +occurs almost invariably in the case of spontaneous, and generally in +that of artificial, somnambulism; certainly the Pythia, as is well known, +used to announce the date of her next ecstatic state. In like +manner the curative instinct displays itself in somnambulists, and they +have been known to select remedies that have been no less remarkable +for the success attending their employment than for the completeness +with which they have run counter to received professional opinion. +The indication of medicinal remedies is the only use which respectable +electro-biologists will make of the half-sleeping, half-waking condition +of those whom they are influencing. “People in perfectly +sound health have been known, before childbirth or at the commencement +of an illness, to predict accurately their own approaching death. +The accomplishment of their predictions can hardly be explained as the +result of mere chance, for if this were all, the prophecy should fail +at least as often as not, whereas the reverse is actually the case. +Many of these persons neither desire death nor fear it, so that the +result cannot be ascribed to imagination.” So writes the +celebrated physiologist, Burdach, from whose chapter on presentiment +in his work “Bhicke in’s Leben” a great part of my +most striking examples is taken. This presentiment of deaths, +which is the exception among men, is quite common with animals, even +though they do not know nor understand what death is. When they +become aware that their end is approaching, they steal away to outlying +and solitary places. This is why in cities we so rarely see the +dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can only suppose that the unconscious +clairvoyance, which is of essentially the same kind whether in man or +beast, calls forth presentiments of different degrees of definiteness, +so that the cat is driven to withdraw herself through a mere instinct +without knowing why she does so, while in man a definite perception +is awakened of the fact that he is about to die. Not only do people +have presentiments concerning their own death, but there are many instances +on record in which they have become aware of that of those near and +dear to them, the dying person having appeared in a dream to friend +or wife or husband. Stories to this effect prevail among all nations, +and unquestionably contain much truth. Closely connected with +this is the power of second sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, +and still does so in the Danish islands. This power enables certain +people without any ecstasy, but simply through their keener perception, +to foresee coming events, or to tell what is going on in foreign countries +on matters in which they are deeply interested, such as deaths, battles, +conflagrations (Swedenborg foretold the burning of Stockholm), the arrival +or the doings of friends who are at a distance. With many persons +this clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of their acquaintances +or fellow-townspeople. There have been a great many instances +of such death-prophetesses, and, what is most important, some cases +have been verified in courts of law. I may say, in passing, that +this power of second sight is found in persons who are in ecstatic states, +in the spontaneous or artificially induced somnambulism of the higher +kinds of waking dreams, as well as in lucid moments before death. +These prophetic glimpses, by which the clairvoyance of the unconscious +reveals itself to consciousness, <a name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126">{126}</a> +are commonly obscure because in the brain they must assume a form perceptible +by the senses, whereas the unconscious idea can have nothing to do with +any form of sensual impression: it is for this reason that humours, +dreams, and the hallucinations of sick persons can so easily have a +false signification attached to them. The chances of error and +self-deception that arise from this source, the ease with which people +may be deceived intentionally, and the mischief which, as a general +rule, attends a knowledge of the future, these considerations place +beyond all doubt the practical unwisdom of attempts to arrive at certainty +concerning the future. This, however, cannot affect the weight +which in theory should be attached to phenomena of this kind, and must +not prevent us from recognising the positive existence of the clairvoyance +whose existence I am maintaining, though it is often hidden under a +chaos of madness and imposture.</p> +<p>The materialistic and rationalistic tendencies of the present day +lead most people either to deny facts of this kind <i>in toto</i>, or +to ignore them, inasmuch as they are inexplicable from a materialistic +standpoint, and cannot be established by the inductive or experimental +method - as though this last were not equally impossible in the case +of morals, social science, and politics. A mind of any candour +will only be able to deny the truths of this entire class of phenomena +so long as it remains in ignorance of the facts that have been related +concerning them; but, again, a continuance in this ignorance can only +arise from unwillingness to be convinced. I am satisfied that +many of those who deny all human power of divination would come to another, +and, to say the least, more cautious conclusion if they would be at +the pains of further investigation; and I hold that no one, even at +the present day, need be ashamed of joining in with an opinion which +was maintained by all the great spirits of antiquity except Epicurus +- an opinion whose possible truth hardly one of our best modern philosophers +has ventured to contravene, and which the champions of German enlightenment +were so little disposed to relegate to the domain of old wives’ +tales, that Goethe furnishes us with an example of second sight that +fell within his own experience, and confirms it down to its minutest +details.</p> +<p>Although I am far from believing that the kind of phenomena above +referred to form in themselves a proper foundation for a superstructure +of scientific demonstration, I nevertheless find them valuable as a +completion and further confirmation of the series of phenomena presented +to us by the clairvoyance which we observe in human and animal instinct. +Even though they only continue this series <a name="citation128"></a><a href="#footnote128">{128}</a> +through the echo that is awakened within our consciousness, they as +powerfully support the account which instinctive actions give concerning +their own nature, as they are themselves supported by the analogy they +present to the clairvoyance observable in instinct. This, then, +as well as my desire not to lose an opportunity of protesting against +a modern prejudice, must stand as my reason for having allowed myself +to refer, in a scientific work, to a class of phenomena which has fallen +at present into so much discredit.</p> +<p>I will conclude with a few words upon a special kind of instinct +which has a very instructive bearing upon the subject generally, and +shows how impossible it is to evade the supposition of an unconscious +clairvoyance on the part of instinct. In the examples adduced +hitherto, the action of each individual has been done on the individual’s +own behalf, except in the case of instincts connected with the continuation +of the species, where the action benefits others - that is to say, the +offspring of the creature performing it.</p> +<p>We must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of instinct is +found to exist between several individuals, so that, on the one hand, +the action of each redounds to the common welfare, and, on the other, +it becomes possible for a useful purpose to be achieved through the +harmonious association of individual workers. This community of +instinct exists also among the higher animals, but here it is harder +to distinguish from associations originating through conscious will, +inasmuch as speech supplies the means of a more perfect intercommunication +of aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely recognise <a name="citation129"></a><a href="#footnote129">{129}</a> +this general effect of a universal instinct in the origin of speech +and in the great political and social movements in the history of the +world. Here we are concerned only with the simplest and most definite +examples that can be found anywhere, and therefore we will deal in preference +with the lower animals, among which, in the absence of voice, the means +of communicating thought, mimicry, and physiognomy, are so imperfect +that the harmony and interconnection of the individual actions cannot +in its main points be ascribed to an understanding arrived at through +speech. Huber observed that when a new comb was being constructed +a number of the largest working-bees, that were full of honey, took +no part in the ordinary business of the others, but remained perfectly +aloof. Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had formed +under their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, +masticated them, and made them into a band. The small plates of +wax thus prepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the +top of the other. When one of the bees of this kind had used up +her plates of wax, another followed her and carried the same work forward +in the same way. A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness +and fastened to the sides of the hive, was thus constructed. On +this, one of the smaller working-bees whose belly was empty came, and +after surveying the wall, made a flat half-oval excavation in the middle +of one of its sides; she piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge +of the excavation. After a short time she was relieved by another +like herself, till more than twenty followed one another in this way. +Meanwhile another bee began to make a similar hollow on the other side +of the wall, but corresponding only with the rim of the excavation on +this side. Presently another bee began a second hollow upon the +same side, each bee being continually relieved by others. Other +bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies plates of wax, +with which they heightened the edge of the small wall of wax. +In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for more cells, +while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already begun into +a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued building +up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked on opposite +sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in the closest +correspondence with those upon the other side, until eventually the +cells on both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity +and harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those standing side +by side, but also as regards those which were upon the other side of +their pyramidal base.</p> +<p>Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer +together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may +be pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of opinion; +let him reflect how often something has to be undone, destroyed, and +done over again; how at one time too many hands come forward, and at +another too few; what running to and fro there is before each has found +his right place; how often too many, and again too few, present themselves +for a relief gang; and how we find all this in the concerted works of +men, who stand so far higher than bees in the scale of organisation. +We see nothing of the kind among bees. A survey of their operations +leaves rather the impression upon us as though an invisible master-builder +had prearranged a scheme of action for the entire community, and had +impressed it upon each individual member, as though each class of workers +had learnt their appointed work by heart, knew their places and the +numbers in which they should relieve each other, and were informed instantaneously +by a secret signal of the moment when their action was wanted. +This, however, is exactly the manner in which an instinct works; and +as the intention of the entire community is instinctively present in +the unconscious clairvoyance <a name="citation131a"></a><a href="#footnote131a">{131a}</a> +of each individual bee, so the possession of this common instinct impels +each one of them to the discharge of her special duties when the right +moment has arrived. It is only thus that the wonderful tranquillity +and order which we observe could be attained. What we are to think +concerning this common instinct must be reserved for explanation later +on, but the possibility of its existence is already evident, inasmuch +<a name="citation131b"></a><a href="#footnote131b">{131b}</a> as each +individual has an unconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to +itself by the community, and also concerning the means immediately to +be adopted through concerted action - of which, however, only the part +requiring his own co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. +Thus, for example, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber +in which it is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with +its lid of wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which +the larva can become a chrysalis must be present in the minds of each +of these two parties to the transaction, but neither of them acts under +the influence of conscious will, except in regard to his own particular +department. I have already mentioned the fact that the larva, +after its metamorphosis, must be freed from its cell by other bees, +and have told how the working-bees in autumn kill the drones, so that +they may not have to feed a number of useless mouths throughout the +winter, and how they only spare them when they are wanted in order to +fecundate a new queen. Furthermore, the working-bees build cells +in which the eggs laid by the queen may come to maturity, and, as a +general rule, make just as many chambers as the queen lays eggs; they +make these, moreover, in the same order as that in which the queen lays +her eggs, namely, first for the working-bees, then for the drones, and +lastly for the queens. In the polity of the bees, the working +and the sexual capacities, which were once united, are now personified +in three distinct kinds of individual, and these combine with an inner, +unconscious, spiritual union, so as to form a single body politic, as +the organs of a living body combine to form the body itself.</p> +<p>In this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following conclusions:-</p> +<p>Instinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; <a name="citation132"></a><a href="#footnote132">{132}</a> +it is not a consequence of bodily organisation; it is not a mere result +of a mechanism which lies in the organisation of the brain; it is not +the operation of dead mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, +and foreign to its inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action +of the individual, springing from his most essential nature and character. +The purpose to which any particular kind of instinctive action is subservient +is not the purpose of a soul standing outside the individual and near +akin to Providence - a purpose once for all thought out, and now become +a matter of necessity to the individual, so that he can act in no other +way, though it is engrafted into his nature from without, and not natural +to it. The purpose of the instinct is in each individual case +thought out and willed unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards +the choice of means adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. +A knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable <a name="citation133"></a><a href="#footnote133">{133}</a> +by conscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the +peculiarity of the unconscious display itself in the clairvoyance of +which consciousness perceives partly only a faint and dull, and partly, +as in the case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of sentiment, +whereas the instinctive action itself - the carrying out of the means +necessary for the achievement of the unconscious purpose - falls always +more clearly within consciousness, inasmuch as due performance of what +is necessary would be otherwise impossible. Finally, the clairvoyance +makes itself perceived in the concerted action of several individuals +combining to carry out a common but unconscious purpose.</p> +<p>Up to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact which +we observe but cannot explain, and the reader may say that he prefers +to take his stand here, and be content with regarding instinct simply +as a matter of fact, the explanation of which is at present beyond our +reach. Against this it must be urged, firstly, that clairvoyance +is not confined to instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that +clairvoyance is by no means present in all instincts, and that therefore +our experience shows us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct things +- clairvoyance being of great use in explaining instinct, but instinct +serving nothing to explain clairvoyance; thirdly and lastly, that the +clairvoyance of the individual will not continue to be so incomprehensible +to us, but will be perfectly well explained in the further course of +our investigation, while we must give up all hope of explaining instinct +in any other way.</p> +<p>The conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard instinct +as the innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living being. That +this is actually the case is shown by the instincts of self-preservation +and of the continuation of the species which we observe throughout creation, +and by the heroic self-abandonment with which the individual will sacrifice +welfare, and even life, at the bidding of instinct. We see this +when we think of the caterpillar, and how she repairs her cocoon until +she yields to exhaustion; of the bird, and how she will lay herself +to death; of the disquiet and grief displayed by all migratory animals +if they are prevented from migrating. A captive cuckoo will always +die at the approach of winter through despair at being unable to fly +away; so will the vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. +The weakest mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, +and suffer death cheerfully for her offspring’s sake. Every +year we see fresh cases of people who have been unfortunate going mad +or committing suicide. Women who have survived the Cæsarian +operation allow themselves so little to be deterred from further childbearing +through fear of this frightful and generally fatal operation, that they +will undergo it no less than three times. Can we suppose that +what so closely resembles demoniacal possession can have come about +through something engrafted on to the soul as a mechanism foreign to +its inner nature, <a name="citation135"></a><a href="#footnote135">{135}</a> +or through conscious deliberation which adheres always to a bare egoism, +and is utterly incapable of such self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring +as is displayed by the procreative and maternal instincts?</p> +<p>We have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the instincts +of any animal species are so similar within the limits of that species +- a circumstance which has not a little contributed to the engrafted-mechanism +theory. But it is plain that like causes will be followed by like +effects; and this should afford sufficient explanation. The bodily +mechanism, for example, of all the individuals of a species is alike; +so again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their conscious +intelligence - though this, indeed, is not the case with man, nor in +some measure even with the highest animals; and it is through this want +of uniformity that there is such a thing as individuality. The +external conditions of all the individuals of a species are also tolerably +similar, and when they differ essentially, the instincts are likewise +different - a fact in support of which no examples are necessary. +From like conditions of mind and body (and this includes like predispositions +of brain and ganglia) and like exterior circumstances, like desires +will follow as a necessary logical consequence. Again, from like +desires and like inward and outward circumstances, a like choice of +means - that is to say, like instincts - must ensue. These last +two steps would not be conceded without restriction if the question +were one involving conscious deliberation, but as these logical consequences +are supposed to follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step +unfailingly without vacillation or delay so long as the premises are +similar, the ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the means for +their gratification will be similar also.</p> +<p>Thus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains the +very last point which it may be thought worth while to bring forward +in support of the opinions of our opponents.</p> +<p>I will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: “Thoughtful +minds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most +important of all phenomena, and to be the true touchstone of a durable +philosophy.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Remarks upon Von Hartmann’s position in regard to instinct.</p> +<p>Uncertain how far the foregoing chapter is not better left without +comment of any kind, I nevertheless think that some of my readers may +be helped by the following extracts from the notes I took while translating. +I will give them as they come, without throwing them into connected +form.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Von Hartmann defines instinct as action done with a purpose, but +without consciousness of purpose.</p> +<p>The building of her nest by a bird is an instinctive action; it is +done with a purpose, but it is arbitrary to say that the bird has no +knowledge of that purpose. Some hold that birds when they are +building their nest know as well that they mean to bring up a family +in it as a young married couple do when they build themselves a house. +This is the conclusion which would be come to by a plain person on a +<i>primâ facie</i> view of the facts, and Von Hartmann shows no +reason for modifying it.</p> +<p>A better definition of instinct would be that it is inherited knowledge +in respect of certain facts, and of the most suitable manner in which +to deal with them.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Von Hartmann speaks of “a mechanism of brain or mind” +contrived by nature, and again of “a psychical organisation,” +as though it were something distinct from a physical organisation.</p> +<p>We can conceive of such a thing as mechanism of brain, for we have +seen brain and handled it; but until we have seen a mind and handled +it, or at any rate been enabled to draw inferences which will warrant +us in conceiving of it as a material substance apart from bodily substance, +we cannot infer that it has an organisation apart from bodily organisation. +Does Von Hartmann mean that we have two bodies - a body-body, and a +soul-body?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He says that no one will call the action of the spider instinctive +in voiding the fluids from its glands when they are too full. +Why not?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He is continually personifying instinct; thus he speaks of the “ends +proposed to itself by the instinct,” of “the blind unconscious +purpose of the instinct,” of “an unconscious purpose constraining +the volition of the bird,” of “each variation and modification +of the instinct,” as though instinct, purpose, and, later on, +clairvoyance, were persons, and not words characterising a certain class +of actions. The ends are proposed to itself by the animal, not +by the instinct. Nothing but mischief can come of a mode of expression +which does not keep this clearly in view.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It must not be supposed that the same cuckoo is in the habit of laying +in the nests of several different species, and of changing the colour +of her eggs according to that of the eggs of the bird in whose nest +she lays. I have inquired from Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe of the ornithological +department at the British Museum, who kindly gives it me as his opinion +that though cuckoos do imitate the eggs of the species on whom they +foist their young ones, yet one cuckoo will probably lay in the nests +of one species also, and will stick to that species for life. +If so, the same race of cuckoos may impose upon the same species for +generations together. The instinct will even thus remain a very +wonderful one, but it is not at all inconsistent with the theory put +forward by Professor Hering and myself.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Returning to the idea of psychical mechanism, he admits that “it +is itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it,” +<a name="citation139a"></a><a href="#footnote139a">{139a}</a> and then +goes on to claim for it that it explains a great many other things. +This must have been the passage which Mr. Sully had in view when he +very justly wrote that Von Hartmann “dogmatically closes the field +of physical inquiry, and takes refuge in a phantom which explains everything, +simply because it is itself incapable of explanation.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>According to Von Hartmann <a name="citation139b"></a><a href="#footnote139b">{139b}</a> +the unpractised animal manifests its instinct as perfectly as the practised. +This is not the case. The young animal exhibits marvellous proficiency, +but it gains by experience. I have watched sparrows, which I can +hardly doubt to be young ones, spend a whole month in trying to build +their nest, and give it up in the end as hopeless. I have watched +three such cases this spring in a tree not twenty feet from my own window +and on a level with my eye, so that I have been able to see what was +going on at all hours of the day. In each case the nest was made +well and rapidly up to a certain point, and then got top-heavy and tumbled +over, so that little was left on the tree: it was reconstructed and +reconstructed over and over again, always with the same result, till +at last in all three cases the birds gave up in despair. I believe +the older and stronger birds secure the fixed and best sites, driving +the younger birds to the trees, and that the art of building nests in +trees is dying out among house-sparrows.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He declares that instinct is not due to organisation so much as organisation +to instinct. <a name="citation140"></a><a href="#footnote140">{140}</a> +The fact is, that neither can claim precedence of or pre-eminence over +the other. Instinct and organisation are only mind and body, or +mind and matter; and these are not two separable things, but one and +inseparable, with, as it were, two sides; the one of which is a function +of the other. There was never yet either matter without mind, +however low, nor mind, however high, without a material body of some +sort; there can be no change in one without a corresponding change in +the other; neither came before the other; neither can either cease to +change or cease to be; for “to be” is to continue changing, +so that “to be” and “to change” are one.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Whence, he asks, comes the desire to gratify an instinct before experience +of the pleasure that will ensue on gratification? This is a pertinent +question, but it is met by Professor Hering with the answer that this +is due to memory - to the continuation in the germ of vibrations that +were vibrating in the body of the parent, and which, when stimulated +by vibrations of a suitable rhythm, become more and more powerful till +they suffice to set the body in visible action. For my own part +I only venture to maintain that it is due to memory, that is to say, +to an enduring sense on the part of the germ of the action it took when +in the persons of its ancestors, and of the gratification which ensued +thereon. This meets Von Hartmann’s whole difficulty.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The glacier is not snow. It is snow packed tight into a small +compass, and has thus lost all trace of its original form. How +incomplete, however, would be any theory of glacial action which left +out of sight the origin of the glacier in snow! Von Hartmann loses +sight of the origin of instinctive in deliberative actions because the +two classes of action are now in many respects different. His +philosophy of the unconscious fails to consider what is the normal process +by means of which such common actions as we can watch, and whose history +we can follow, have come to be done unconsciously.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He says, <a name="citation141"></a><a href="#footnote141">{141}</a> +“How inconceivable is the supposition of a mechanism, &c., +&c.; how clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there +is an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the +use of the fitting means.” Does he mean that there is an +actual thing - an unconscious purpose - something outside the bird, +as it were a man, which lays hold of the bird and makes it do this or +that, as a master makes a servant do his bidding? If so, he again +personifies the purpose itself, and must therefore embody it, or be +talking in a manner which plain people cannot understand. If, +on the other hand, he means “how simple is the view that the bird +acts unconsciously,” this is not more simple than supposing it +to act consciously; and what ground has he for supposing that the bird +is unconscious? It is as simple, and as much in accordance with +the facts, to suppose that the bird feels the air to be colder, and +knows that she must warm her eggs if she is to hatch them, as consciously +as a mother knows that she must not expose her new-born infant to the +cold.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>On page 99 of this book we find Von Hartmann saying that if it is +once granted that the normal and abnormal manifestations of instinct +spring from a single source, then the objection that the modification +is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later +on, in so far as it is directed against instinct generally. I +understand him to mean that if we admit instinctive action, and the +modifications of that action which more nearly resemble results of reason, +to be actions of the same ultimate kind differing in degree only, and +if we thus attempt to reduce instinctive action to the prophetic strain +arising from old experience, we shall be obliged to admit that the formation +of the embryo is ultimately due to reflection - which he seems to think +is a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of the argument.</p> +<p>Therefore, he concludes, if there is to be only one source, the source +must be unconscious, and not conscious. We reply, that we do not +see the absurdity of the position which we grant we have been driven +to. We hold that the formation of the embryo <i>is</i> ultimately +due to reflection and design.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The writer of an article in the <i>Times</i>, April 1, 1880, says +that servants must be taught their calling before they can practise +it; but, in fact, they can only be taught their calling by practising +it. So Von Hartmann says animals must feel the pleasure consequent +on gratification of an instinct before they can be stimulated to act +upon the instinct by a knowledge of the pleasure that will ensue. +This sounds logical, but in practice a little performance and a little +teaching - a little sense of pleasure and a little connection of that +pleasure with this or that practice, - come up simultaneously from something +that we cannot see, the two being so small and so much abreast, that +we do not know which is first, performance or teaching; and, again, +action, or pleasure supposed as coming from the action.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Geistes-mechanismus” comes as near to “disposition +of mind,” or, more shortly, “disposition,” as so unsatisfactory +a word can come to anything. Yet, if we translate it throughout +by “disposition,” we shall see how little we are being told.</p> +<p>We find on page 114 that “all instinctive actions give us an +impression of absolute security and infallibility”; that “the +will is never weak or hesitating, as it is when inferences are being +drawn consciously.” “We never,” Von Hartmann +continues, “find instinct making mistakes.” Passing +over the fact that instinct is again personified, the statement is still +incorrect. Instinctive actions are certainly, as a general rule, +performed with less uncertainty than deliberative ones; this is explicable +by the fact that they have been more often practised, and thus reduced +more completely to a matter of routine; but nothing is more certain +than that animals acting under the guidance of inherited experience +or instinct frequently make mistakes which with further practice they +correct. Von Hartmann has abundantly admitted that the manner +of an instinctive action is often varied in correspondence with variation +in external circumstances. It is impossible to see how this does +not involve both possibility of error and the connection of instinct +with deliberation at one and the same time. The fact is simply +this - when an animal finds itself in a like position with that in which +it has already often done a certain thing in the persons of its forefathers, +it will do this thing well and easily: when it finds the position somewhat, +but not unrecognisably, altered through change either in its own person +or in the circumstances exterior to it, it will vary its action with +greater or less ease according to the nature of the change in the position: +when the position is gravely altered the animal either bungles or is +completely thwarted.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Not only does Von Hartmann suppose that instinct may, and does, involve +knowledge antecedent to, and independent of, experience - an idea as +contrary to the tendency of modern thought as that of spontaneous generation, +with which indeed it is identical though presented in another shape +- but he implies by his frequent use of the word “unmittelbar” +that a result can come about without any cause whatever. So he +says, “Um für die unbewusster Erkenntniss, welche nicht durch +sinnliche Wahrnehmung erworben, <i>sondern als unmittelbar Besitz</i>,” +&c. <a name="citation144a"></a><a href="#footnote144a">{144a}</a> +Because he does not see where the experience can have been gained, he +cuts the knot, and denies that there has been experience. We say, +Look more attentively and you will discover the time and manner in which +the experience was gained.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Again, he continually assumes that animals low down in the scale +of life cannot know their own business because they show no sign of +knowing ours. See his remarks on <i>Saturnia pavonia minor</i> +(page 107), and elsewhere on cattle and gadflies. The question +is not what can they know, but what does their action prove to us that +they do know. With each species of animal or plant there is one +profession only, and it is hereditary. With us there are many +professions, and they are not hereditary; so that they cannot become +instinctive, as they would otherwise tend to do.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He attempts <a name="citation144b"></a><a href="#footnote144b">{144b}</a> +to draw a distinction between the causes that have produced the weapons +and working instruments of animals, on the one hand, and those that +lead to the formation of hexagonal cells by bees, &c., on the other. +No such distinction can be justly drawn.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The ghost-stories which Von Hartmann accepts will hardly be accepted +by people of sound judgment. There is one well-marked distinctive +feature between the knowledge manifested by animals when acting instinctively +and the supposed knowledge of seers and clairvoyants. In the first +case, the animal never exhibits knowledge except upon matters concerning +which its race has been conversant for generations; in the second, the +seer is supposed to do so. In the first case, a new feature is +invariably attended with disturbance of the performance and the awakening +of consciousness and deliberation, unless the new matter is too small +in proportion to the remaining features of the case to attract attention, +or unless, though really new, it appears so similar to an old feature +as to be at first mistaken for it; with the second, it is not even professed +that the seer’s ancestors have had long experience upon the matter +concerning which the seer is supposed to have special insight, and I +can imagine no more powerful <i>à priori</i> argument against +a belief in such stories.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Close upon the end of his chapter Von Hartmann touches upon the one +matter which requires consideration. He refers the similarity +of instinct that is observable among all species to the fact that like +causes produce like effects; and I gather, though he does not expressly +say so, that he considers similarity of instinct in successive generations +to be referable to the same cause as similarity of instinct between +all the contemporary members of a species. He thus raises the +one objection against referring the phenomena of heredity to memory +which I think need be gone into with any fulness. I will, however, +reserve this matter for my concluding chapters.</p> +<p>Von Hartmann concludes his chapter with a quotation from Schelling, +to the effect that the phenomena of animal instinct are the true touchstone +of a durable philosophy; by which I suppose it is intended to say that +if a system or theory deals satisfactorily with animal instinct, it +will stand, but not otherwise. I can wish nothing better than +that the philosophy of the unconscious advanced by Von Hartmann be tested +by this standard.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Recapitulation and statement of an objection.</p> +<p>The true theory of unconscious action, then, is that of Professor +Hering, from whose lecture it is no strained conclusion to gather that +he holds the action of all living beings, from the moment of their conception +to that of their fullest development, to be founded in volition and +design, though these have been so long lost sight of that the work is +now carried on, as it were, departmentally and in due course according +to an official routine which can hardly now be departed from.</p> +<p>This involves the older “Darwinism” and the theory of +Lamarck, according to which the modification of living forms has been +effected mainly through the needs of the living forms themselves, which +vary with varying conditions, the survival of the fittest (which, as +I see Mr. H. B. Baildon has just said, “sometimes comes to mean +merely the survival of the survivors” <a name="citation146"></a><a href="#footnote146">{146}</a>) +being taken almost as a matter of course. According to this view +of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy between the development +of living organs or tools and that of those organs or tools external +to the body which has been so rapid during the last few thousand years.</p> +<p>Animals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughout +their development, and preserve the due order in each step which they +take, through memory of the course they took on past occasions when +in the persons of their ancestors. I am afraid I have already +too often said that if this memory remains for long periods together +latent and without effect, it is because the undulations of the molecular +substance of the body which are its supposed explanation are during +these periods too feeble to generate action, until they are augmented +in force through an accession of suitable undulations issuing from exterior +objects; or, in other words, until recollection is stimulated by a return +of the associated ideas. On this the eternal agitation becomes +so much enhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action +ensues which is proper to the vibration of the particular substance +under the particular conditions. This, at least, is what I suppose +Professor Hering to intend.</p> +<p>Leaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves +to the fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed, +according to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in the +egg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection +of the action taken by its ancestors when they were first hatched. +It is guided in the course it takes by the experience it can thus command. +Each step it takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through +its development as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar leading +his recollection to the bar that should next follow.</p> +<p>In “Life and Habit” will be found examples of the manner +in which this view solves a number of difficulties for the explanation +of which the leading men of science express themselves at a loss. +The following from Professor Huxley’s recent work upon the crayfish +may serve for an example. Professor Huxley writes:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“It is a widely received notion that the energies of living +matter have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the +death of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. +That all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, +but it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief +that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner +or later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its +parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually +renewed and repaired; and though it is true that individual components +of the body are constantly dying, yet their places are taken by vigorous +successors. A city remains notwithstanding the constant death-rate +of its inhabitants; and such an organism as a crayfish is only a corporate +unity, made up of innumerable partially independent individualities.” +- <i>The Crayfish</i>, p. 127.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Surely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain +why no organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives. +The death of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the social +condition becoming more complex than there is memory of past experience +to deal with. Hence social disruption, insubordination, and decay. +The crayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we have heard +of die sooner or later. There are some savages who have not yet +arrived at the conception that death is the necessary end of all living +beings, and who consider even the gentlest death from old age as violent +and abnormal; so Professor Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing +that though a city commonly outlives many generations of its citizens, +yet cities and states are in the end no less mortal than individuals. +“The city,” he says, “remains.” Yes, but +not for ever. When Professor Huxley can find a city that will +last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last for ever.</p> +<p>I have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring forward +in support of Professor Hering’s theory; it now remains for me +to meet the most troublesome objection to it that I have been able to +think of - an objection which I had before me when I wrote “Life +and Habit,” but which then as now I believe to be unsound. +Seeing, however, as I have pointed out at the end of the preceding chapter, +that Von Hartmann has touched upon it, and being aware that a plausible +case can be made out for it, I will state it and refute it here. +When I say refute it, I do not mean that I shall have done with it - +for it is plain that it opens up a vaster question in the relations +between the so-called organic and inorganic worlds - but that I will +refute the supposition that it any way militates against Professor Hering’s +theory.</p> +<p>Why, it may be asked, should we go out of our way to invent unconscious +memory - the existence of which must at the best remain an inference +<a name="citation149"></a><a href="#footnote149">{149}</a> - when the +observed fact that like antecedents are invariably followed by like +consequents should be sufficient for our purpose? Why should the +fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a given condition will always +become a butterfly within a certain time be connected with memory, when +it is not pretended that memory has anything to do with the invariableness +with which oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in certain proportions make +water?</p> +<p>We assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into +its component parts, and if these were brought together again, and again +decomposed and again brought together any number of times over, the +results would be invariably the same, whether decomposition or combination, +yet no one will refer the invariableness of the action during each repetition, +to recollection by the gaseous molecules of the course taken when the +process was last repeated. On the contrary, we are assured that +molecules in some distant part of the world, which had never entered +into such and such a known combination themselves, nor held concert +with other molecules that had been so combined, and which, therefore, +could have had no experience and no memory, would none the less act +upon one another in that one way in which other like combinations of +atoms have acted under like circumstances, as readily as though they +had been combined and separated and recombined again a hundred or a +hundred thousand times. It is this assumption, tacitly made by +every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time and +in every action of their lives, that has made any action possible, lying, +as it does, at the root of all experience.</p> +<p>As we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not +suppose an alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any +moment during the process of their combination. This process is, +in all probability, an exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude +of actions and subordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, +and each one of which has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though +they all come to pass in what appears to be an instant of time. +Yet at no point do we conceive of any atom as swerving ever such a little +to right or left of a determined course, but invest each one of them +with so much of the divine attributes as that with it there shall be +no variableness, neither shadow of turning.</p> +<p>We attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity +of things, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances +in which they are placed. We say that only one proximate result +can ever arise from any given combination. If, then, so great +uniformity of action as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to +which no one will impute memory, why this desire for memory, as though +it were the only way of accounting for regularity of action in living +beings? Sameness of action may be seen abundantly where there +is no room for anything that we can consistently call memory. +In these cases we say that it is due to sameness of substance in same +circumstances.</p> +<p>The most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it +is no more possible for living action to have more than one set of proximate +consequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed +in the proportions proper for the formation of water. Why, then, +not recognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action +to the reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense +of connection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar +action taken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen +molecules between the several occasions on which they may have been +disunited and reunited?</p> +<p>A boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught +them in the persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit +soil for a certain kind of seed to grow upon. In like manner he +should be said to grow his nose because he is a fit combination for +a nose to spring from. Dr. X---’s father died of <i>angina +pectoris</i> at the age of forty-nine; so did Dr. X---. Can it +be pretended that Dr. X--- remembered having died of <i>angina pectoris</i> +at the age of forty-nine when in the person of his father, and accordingly, +when he came to be forty-nine years old himself, died also? For +this to hold, Dr. X---’s father must have begotten him after he +was dead; for the son could not remember the father’s death before +it happened.</p> +<p>As for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they +are developed for the most part not only long after the average age +of reproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory +of any previous existence can remain; for a man will not have many male +ancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor female ancestors +who did so at over forty. By our own showing, therefore, recollection +can have nothing to do with the matter. Yet who can doubt that +gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses? In what +respects do the two things differ so that we should refer the inheritance +of eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection between memory +and gout? We may have a ghost of a pretence for saying that a +man grew a nose by rote, or even that he catches the measles or whooping-cough +by rote during his boyhood; but do we mean to say that he develops the +gout by rote in his old age if he comes of a gouty family? If, +then, rote and red-tape have nothing to do with the one, why should +they with the other?</p> +<p>Remember also the cases in which aged females develop male characteristics. +Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable extent, which make their +appearance during the decay of the body, and grow with greater and greater +vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for days after death itself. +It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendency to develop these +characteristics runs as an inheritance in certain families; here then +is perhaps the best case that can be found of a development strictly +inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to do with memory. +Why should not all development stand upon the same footing?</p> +<p>A friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, concluded +with the following words:-</p> +<p>“If you cannot be content with the similar action of similar +substances (living or non-living) under similar circumstances - if you +cannot accept this as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to +connect repetition of similar action with memory before you can rest +in it and be thankful - be consistent, and introduce this memory which +you find so necessary into the inorganic world also. Either say +that a chrysalis becomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it +is, and, being that kind of thing, must act in such and such a manner +and in such a manner only, so that the act of one generation has no +more to do with the act of the next than the fact of cream being churned +into butter in a dairy one day has to do with other cream being churnable +into butter in the following week - either say this, or else develop +some mental condition - which I have no doubt you will be very well +able to do if you feel the want of it - in which you can make out a +case for saying that oxygen and hydrogen on being brought together, +and cream on being churned, are in some way acquainted with, and mindful +of, action taken by other cream and other oxygen and hydrogen on past +occasions.”</p> +<p>I felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being +able to develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his +own ingenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his +life was but an example of this omnipresent principle.</p> +<p>When he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying. +I endeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory, +and reasoned as follows:- A repetition of like antecedents will be certainly +followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether the agents be +men and women or chemical substances. “If there be two cowards +perfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a perfectly +similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves perfectly +similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity in the +running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between the original +combination and its repetition.” <a name="citation153"></a><a href="#footnote153">{153}</a> +Here certainly there is no coming into play of memory, more than in +the pan of cream on two successive churning days, yet the action is +similar.</p> +<p>A clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner. +About half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at once he takes down +his hat and leaves the office. He does not yet know the neighbourhood, +and on getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which +is the best eating-house within easy distance. The policeman tells +him of three houses, one of which is a little farther off than the other +two, but is cheaper. Money being a greater object to him than +time, the clerk decides on going to the cheaper house. He goes, +is satisfied, and returns.</p> +<p>Next day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and - it will be said +- remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the same place +as before. But what has his memory to do with it? Suppose +him to have entirely forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding +day from the moment of his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in +other respects sound in mind and body, and unchanged generally. +At half-past twelve he would begin to be hungry; but his beginning to +be hungry cannot be connected with his remembering having begun to be +hungry yesterday. He would begin to be hungry just as much whether +he remembered or no. At one o’clock he again takes down +his hat and leaves the office, not because he remembers having done +so yesterday, but because he wants his hat to go out with. Being +again in the street, and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (for he +remembers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at the corner +of the street, and asks him the same question as before; the policeman +gives him the same answer, and money being still an object to him, the +cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes there, finds the same +<i>menu</i>, makes the same choice for the same reasons, eats, is satisfied, +and returns.</p> +<p>What similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same +time more incontrovertible? But it has nothing to do with memory; +on the contrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his +action of the second day so exactly resembles that of the first. +As long as he has no power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat +the same actions in exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, +such as his being sent away, modify the situation. Till this or +some other modification occurs, he will day after day go down into the +street without knowing where to go; day after day he will see the same +policeman at the corner of the same street, and (for we may as well +suppose that the policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, +and ask and be answered, till he and the policeman die of old age. +This similarity of action is plainly due to that - whatever it is - +which ensures that like persons or things when placed in like circumstances +shall behave in like manner.</p> +<p>Allow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of +action will disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to +him on the first day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification +in him in regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get +his dinner. He had no such memory on the first day, and he has +upon the second. Some modification of action must ensue upon this +modification of the actor, and this is immediately observable. +He wants his dinner, indeed, goes down into the street, and sees the +policeman as yesterday, but he does not ask the policeman; he remembers +what the policeman told him and what he did, and therefore goes straight +to the eating-house without wasting time: nor does he dine off the same +dish two days running, for he remembers what he had yesterday and likes +variety. If, then, similarity of action is rather hindered than +promoted by memory, why introduce it into such cases as the repetition +of the embryonic processes by successive generations? The embryos +of a well-fixed breed, such as the goose, are almost as much alike as +water is to water, and by consequence one goose comes to be almost as +like another as water to water. Why should it not be supposed +to become so upon the same grounds - namely, that it is made of the +same stuffs, and put together in like proportions in the same manner?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>On Cycles.</p> +<p>The one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or unconsciously +act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like consequents. +This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable, but except +a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish everlastingly. +In the assurance of this all action is taken.</p> +<p>But if this fundamental article is admitted, and it cannot be gainsaid, +it follows that if ever a complete cycle were formed, so that the whole +universe of one instant were to repeat itself absolutely in a subsequent +one, no matter after what interval of time, then the course of the events +between these two moments would go on repeating itself for ever and +ever afterwards in due order, down to the minutest detail, in an endless +series of cycles like a circulating decimal. For the universe +comprises everything; there could therefore be no disturbance from without. +Once a cycle, always a cycle.</p> +<p>Let us suppose the earth, of given weight, moving with given momentum +in a given path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find +itself at any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was conditioned +at some past moment; then it must move exactly in the same path as the +one it took when at the beginning of the cycle it has just completed, +and must therefore in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and +therefore a third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance +of escape than a circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have +been reproduced with perfect accuracy.</p> +<p>We see something very like this actually happen in the yearly revolutions +of the planets round the sun. But the relations between, we will +say, the earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely. These +relations deal only with a small part of the universe, and even in this +small part the relation of the parts <i>inter se</i> has never yet been +reproduced with the perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument. +They are liable, moreover, to disturbance from events which may or may +not actually occur (as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or +the sun’s coming within a certain distance of another sun), but +of which, if they do occur, no one can foresee the effects. Nevertheless +the conditions have been so nearly repeated that there is no appreciable +difference in the relations between the earth and sun on one New Year’s +Day and on another, nor is there reason for expecting such change within +any reasonable time.</p> +<p>If there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the whole +universe, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded. +Exclude a single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relative +positions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element +of disturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be +said is that it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very +nearly perfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, +but which must inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition. +The movement of the series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, and +convergent or divergent at a greater or less rate according to circumstances. +We cannot conceive of all the atoms in the universe standing twice over +in absolutely the same relation each one of them to every other. +There are too many of them and they are too much mixed; but, as has +been just said, in the planets and their satellites we do see large +groups of atoms whose movements recur with some approach to precision. +The same holds good also with certain comets and with the sun himself. +The result is that our days and nights and seasons follow one another +with nearly perfect regularity from year to year, and have done so for +as long time as we know anything for certain. A vast preponderance +of all the action that takes place around us is cycular action.</p> +<p>Within the great cycle of the planetary revolution of our own earth, +and as a consequence thereof, we have the minor cycle of the phenomena +of the seasons; these generate atmospheric cycles. Water is evaporated +from the ocean and conveyed to mountain ranges, where it is cooled, +and whence it returns again to the sea. This cycle of events is +being repeated again and again with little appreciable variation. +The tides and winds in certain latitudes go round and round the world +with what amounts to continuous regularity. - There are storms of wind +and rain called cyclones. In the case of these, the cycle is not +very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, and the tendency +to recur is comparatively soon lost. It is a common saying that +history repeats itself, so that anarchy will lead to despotism and despotism +to anarchy; every nation can point to instances of men’s minds +having gone round and round so nearly in a perfect cycle that many revolutions +have occurred before the cessation of a tendency to recur. Lastly, +in the generation of plants and animals we have, perhaps, the most striking +and common example of the inevitable tendency of all action to repeat +itself when it has once proximately done so. Let only one living +being have once succeeded in producing a being like itself, and thus +have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a series of generations +must follow of necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no +part in the original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the first +reproductive creature or all its descendants within a few generations. +If no such mishap occurs as this, and if the recurrence of the conditions +is sufficiently perfect, a series of generations follows with as much +certainty as a series of seasons follows upon the cycle of the relations +between the earth and sun. Let the first periodically recurring +substance - we will say A - be able to recur or reproduce itself, not +once only, but many times over, as A1, A2, &c.; let A also have +consciousness and a sense of self-interest, which qualities must, <i>ex +hypothesi</i>, be reproduced in each one of its offspring; let these +get placed in circumstances which differ sufficiently to destroy the +cycle in theory without doing so practically - that is to say, to reduce +the rotation to a spiral, but to a spiral with so little deviation from +perfect cycularity as for each revolution to appear practically a cycle, +though after many revolutions the deviation becomes perceptible; then +some such differentiations of animal and vegetable life as we actually +see follow as matters of course. A1 and A2 have a sense of self-interest +as A had, but they are not precisely in circumstances similar to A’s, +nor, it may be, to each other’s; they will therefore act somewhat +differently, and every living being is modified by a change of action. +Having become modified, they follow the spirit of A’s action more +essentially in begetting a creature like themselves than in begetting +one like A; for the essence of A’s act was not the reproduction +of A, but the reproduction of a creature like the one from which it +sprung - that is to say, a creature bearing traces in its body of the +main influences that have worked upon its parent.</p> +<p>Within the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in +the life of each individual, whether animal or plant. Observe +the action of our lungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle +having been once established, it is repeated many millions of times +in an individual of average health and longevity. Remember also +that it is this periodicity - this inevitable tendency of all atoms +in combination to repeat any combination which they have once repeated, +unless forcibly prevented from doing so - which alone renders nine-tenths +of our mechanical inventions of practical use to us. There is +no internal periodicity about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the +steam-engine or watermill when once set in motion. The actions +of these machines recur in a regular series, at regular intervals, with +the unerringness of circulating decimals.</p> +<p>When we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in +the world around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends +its action, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the vastest +and the smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord with our +ideas of what must inevitably happen when a like combination is placed +in circumstances like those in which it was placed before - when we +bear in mind all this, is it possible not to connect the facts together, +and to refer cycles of living generations to the same unalterableness +in the action of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter +and Saturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine move +up and down as long as the steam acts upon it?</p> +<p>But who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston-rod, +to air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the earth +and planets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of the +universe, if they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can take account +of? <a name="citation160"></a><a href="#footnote160">{160}</a> +And if not, why introduce it into the embryonic development of living +beings, when there is not a particle of evidence in support of its actual +presence, when regularity of action can be ensured just as well without +it as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existing under +circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it is supposed +to be exercised without any conscious recollection? Surely a memory +which is exercised without any consciousness of recollecting is only +a periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Refutation - Memory at once a promoter and a disturber of uniformity +of action and structure.</p> +<p>To meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do little +more than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and +developments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to +a memory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments +in the parents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and +youthful development generally is due to memory.</p> +<p>This is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself +into an assertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and +embryonic development being due to memory, and a contention that the +necessity of each particular moment in each particular case is sufficient +to account for the facts without the introduction of memory.</p> +<p>I will deal with these two last points briefly first. As regards +the evidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due +to a rapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in +the persons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, +I must refer my readers to “Life and Habit,” and to the +translation of Professor Hering’s lecture given in this volume. +I will only repeat here that a chrysalis, we will say, is as much one +and the same person with the chrysalis of its preceding generation, +as this last is one and the same person with the egg or caterpillar +from which it sprang. You cannot deny personal identity between +two successive generations without sooner or later denying it during +the successive stages in the single life of what we call one individual; +nor can you admit personal identity through the stages of a long and +varied life (embryonic and postnatal) without admitting it to endure +through an endless series of generations.</p> +<p>The personal identity of successive generations being admitted, the +possibility of the second of two generations remembering what happened +to it in the first is obvious. The <i>à priori</i> objection, +therefore, is removed, and the question becomes one of fact - does the +offspring act as if it remembered?</p> +<p>The answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but +that it is not possible to account for either its development or its +early instinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of its +remembering, and remembering exceedingly well.</p> +<p>The only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living +being may display a vast and varied information concerning all manner +of details, and be able to perform most intricate operations, independently +of experience and practice. Once admit knowledge independent of +experience, and farewell to sober sense and reason from that moment.</p> +<p>Firstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility for +remembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of having remembered; +thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can be brought forward, +so as to account for the phenomena of instinct and heredity generally, +which is not easily reducible to an absurdity. Beyond this we +do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from us who require +further evidence.</p> +<p>As regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will account +for likeness of result, without there being any need for introducing +memory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to likeness of antecedents, +and I grant this will hold as good with embryos as with oxygen and hydrogen +gas; what will cover the one will cover the other, for time writs of +the laws common to all matter run within the womb as freely as elsewhere; +but admitting that there are combinations into which living beings enter +with a faculty called memory which has its effect upon their conduct, +and admitting that such combinations are from time to time repeated +(as we observe in the case of a practised performer playing a piece +of music which he has committed to memory), then I maintain that though, +indeed, the likeness of one performance to its immediate predecessor +is due to likeness of the combinations immediately preceding the two +performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both these combinations +as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, and therefore proper +to be insisted upon. We do not, for example, say that Herr Joachim +played such and such a sonata without the music, because he was such +and such an arrangement of matter in such and such circumstances, resembling +those under which he played without music on some past occasion. +This goes without saying; we say only that he played the music by heart +or by memory, as he had often played it before.</p> +<p>To the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because +it remembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in +due course before it, but because when matter is in such a physical +and mental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assume +presently such another physical and mental state as to be called chrysalis, +and that therefore there is no memory in the case - to this objector +I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have become so like +the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter of necessity, +unless both parent and offspring had been influenced by something that +we usually call memory. For it is this very possession of a common +memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken by, and hence +to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and which guided the +parent in its turn to a state virtually identical with a corresponding +state in the existence of its own parent. To memory, therefore, +the most prominent place in the transaction is assigned rightly.</p> +<p>To deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the development +of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct has anything +to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House of Commons. +What should we think of one who said that the action of these gentlemen +had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government, but was +simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical forces at +work, which being such and such, the action which we see is inevitable, +and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction? We should +answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical and mechanical +action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, it was all +chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstruct parliamentary +business is involved in certain kinds of chemical and mechanical action, +and that the kinds involving this had preceded the recent proceedings +of the members in question. If asked to prove this, we can get +no further than that such action as has been taken has never yet been +seen except as following after and in consequence of a desire to obstruct; +that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more be expected to +change it than to change our mother tongue at the bidding of a foreigner.</p> +<p>A little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable +to deny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time denying +their existence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no place +in the acquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action. +He will feel that the actions, and the relation of one action to another +which he observes in embryos is such as is never seen except in association +with and as a consequence of will and memory. He will therefore +say that it is due to will and memory. To say that these are the +necessary outcome of certain antecedents is not to destroy them: granted +that they are - a man does not cease to be a man when we reflect that +he has had a father and mother, nor do will and memory cease to be will +and memory on the ground that they cannot come causeless. They +are manifest minute by minute to the perception of all sane people, +and this tribunal, though not infallible, is nevertheless our ultimate +court of appeal - the final arbitrator in all disputed cases.</p> +<p>We must remember that there is no action, however original or peculiar, +which is not in respect of far the greater number of its details founded +upon memory. If a desperate man blows his brains out - an action +which he can do once in a lifetime only, and which none of his ancestors +can have done before leaving offspring - still nine hundred and ninety-nine +thousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist of +habitual movements - movements, that is to say, which were once difficult, +but which have been practised and practised by the help of memory until +they are now performed automatically. We can no more have an action +than a creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory. +Ideas and actions seem almost to resemble matter and force in respect +of the impossibility of originating or destroying them; nearly all that +are, are memories of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created, +disappearing but not perishing.</p> +<p>It appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the clerk who +wanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken +the day before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him +to be guided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his +taking down his hat and going out into the street. We could not, +indeed, deprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his +action.</p> +<p>Nevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course +of time come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the +new forms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still +arising, and in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical inventions. +But it is only a very little new that is added at a time, and that little +is generally due to the desire to attain an end which cannot be attained +by any of the means for which there exists a perceived precedent in +the memory. When this is the case, either the memory is further +ransacked for any forgotten shreds of details, a combination of which +may serve the desired purpose; or action is taken in the dark, which +sometimes succeeds and becomes a fertile source of further combinations; +or we are brought to a dead stop. All action is random in respect +of any of the minute actions which compose it that are not done in consequence +of memory, real or supposed. So that random, or action taken in +the dark, or illusion, lies at the very root of progress.</p> +<p>I will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct +and embryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch +as certain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed +to it.</p> +<p>Those who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two +main classes: those which we have often repeated before by means of +a regular series of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain +tolerably well-defined point - as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in +public, or when we dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details +of which are indeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope +and purpose are new - as when we are being married or presented at court.</p> +<p>At each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above referred +to there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to the less +or greater number of times the action has been repeated), not only of +the steps in the present and previous performances which have led up +to the particular point that may be selected, but also of the particular +point itself; there is, therefore, at each point in a habitual performance +a memory at once of like antecedents and of a like present.</p> +<p>If the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were absolutely +perfect; if the vibration (according to Professor Hering) on each repetition +existed in its full original strength and without having been interfered +with by any other vibration; and if, again, the new wave running into +it from exterior objects on each repetition of the action were absolutely +identical in character with the wave that ran in upon the last occasion, +then there would be no change in the action and no modification or improvement +could take place. For though indeed the latest performance would +always have one memory more than the latest but one to guide it, yet +the memories being identical, it would not matter how many or how few +they were.</p> +<p>On any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, +or both, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight variation +in each individual case, and some part of this variation is remembered, +with approbation or disapprobation as the case may be.</p> +<p>The fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there +is one memory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is +slightly different from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent and, +<i>ex hypothesi</i>, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual action +- and the life of an organism should be regarded as the habitual action +of a single individual, namely, of the organism itself, and of its ancestors. +This is the key to accumulation of improvement, whether in the arts +which we assiduously practise during our single life, or in the structures +and instincts of successive generations. The memory does not complete +a true circle, but is, as it were, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom. +It is no longer a perfectly circulating decimal. Where, on the +other hand, there is no memory of a like present, where, in fact, the +memory is not, so to speak, spiral, there is no accumulation of improvement. +The effect of any variation is not transmitted, and is not thus pregnant +of still further change.</p> +<p>As regards the second of the two classes of actions above referred +to - those, namely, which are not recurrent or habitual, <i>and at no +point of which is there a memory of a past present like the one which +is present now</i> - there will have been no accumulation of strong +and well-knit memory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if +taken at all, will be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual +actions (our own and those of other people) pieced together with a result +more or less satisfactory according to circumstances.</p> +<p>But it does not follow that the action of two people who have had +tolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similar circumstances +should be more unlike each other in this second case than in the first. +On the contrary, nothing is more common than to observe the same kind +of people making the same kind of mistake when placed for the first +time in the same kind of new circumstances. I did not say that +there would be no sameness of action without memory of a like present. +There may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, conscious +or unconscious, of like antecedents, and <i>a presence only of like +presents without recollection of the same.</i></p> +<p>The sameness of action of like persons placed under like circumstances +for the first time, resembles the sameness of action of inorganic matter +under the same combinations. Let us for the moment suppose what +we call non-living substances to be capable of remembering their antecedents, +and that the changes they undergo are the expressions of their recollections. +Then I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, we will +say, that is about to be churned of the cream of the preceding week, +but the common absence of such memory from each week’s cream is +an element of sameness between the two. And though no cream can +remember having been churned before, yet all cream in all time has had +nearly identical antecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories, +and nearly the same proclivities. Thus, in fact, the cream of +one week is as truly the same as the cream of another week from the +same cow, pasture, &c., as anything is ever the same with anything; +for the having been subjected to like antecedents engenders the closest +similarity that we can conceive of, if the substances were like to start +with.</p> +<p>The manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of like +presents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, for example, +the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason for saying +that such other and far more numerous and important phenomena as those +of embryonic development are not phenomena of memory. Growth and +the diseases of old age do indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on +the same footing, but reflection shows us that the question whether +a certain result is due to memory or no must be settled not by showing +that combinations into which memory does not certainly enter may yet +generate like results, and therefore considering the memory theory disposed +of, but by the evidence we may be able to adduce in support of the fact +that the second agent has actually remembered the conduct of the first, +inasmuch as he cannot be supposed able to do what it is plain he can +do, except under the guidance of memory or experience, and can also +be shown to have had every opportunity of remembering. When either +of these tests fails, similarity of action on the part of two agents +need not be connected with memory of a like present as well as of like +antecedents, but must, or at any rate may, be referred to memory of +like antecedents only.</p> +<p>Returning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said that +consciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the greater +or fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it may be observed +as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness of memory the greater +the uniformity of action, and <i>vice versa</i>. For the less +consciousness involves the memory’s being more perfect, through +a larger number (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; +there is therefore a less proportionate difference in respect of the +number of recollections of this particular act between the most recent +actor and the most recent but one. This is why very old civilisations, +as those of many insects, and the greater number of now living organisms, +appear to the eye not to change at all.</p> +<p>For example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will +say by A, B, C, &c., who are similar in all respects, except that +A acts without recollection, B with recollection of A’s action, +C with recollection of both B’s and A’s, while J remembers +the course taken by A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I - the possession of +a memory by B will indeed so change his action, as compared with A’s, +that it may well be hardly recognisable. We saw this in our example +of the clerk who asked the policeman the way to the eating-house on +one day, but did not ask him the next, because he remembered; but C’s +action will not be so different from B’s as B’s from A’s, +for though C will act with a memory of two occasions on which the action +has been performed, while B recollects only the original performance +by A, yet B and C both act with the guidance of a memory and experience +of some kind, while A acted without any. Thus the clerk referred +to in Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he acted on the second +- that is to say, he will see the policeman at the corner of the street, +but will not question him.</p> +<p>When the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the difference +between J’s repetition of it and I’s will be due solely +to the difference between a recollection of nine past performances by +J against only eight by I, and this is so much proportionately less +than the difference between a recollection of two performances and of +only one, that a less modification of action should be expected. +At the same time consciousness concerning an action repeated for the +tenth time should be less acute than on the first repetition. +Memory, therefore, though tending to disturb similarity of action less +and less continually, must always cause some disturbance. At the +same time the possession of a memory on the successive repetitions of +an action after the first, and, perhaps, the first two or three, during +which the recollection may be supposed still imperfect, will tend to +ensure uniformity, for it will be one of the elements of sameness in +the agents - they both acting by the light of experience and memory.</p> +<p>During the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely +under the guidance of a practised and powerful memory of circumstances +which have been often repeated, not only in detail and piecemeal, but +as a whole, and under many slightly varying conditions; thus the performance +has become well averaged and matured in its arrangements, so as to meet +all ordinary emergencies. We therefore act with great unconsciousness +and vary our performances little. Babies are much more alike than +persons of middle age.</p> +<p>Up to the average age at which our ancestors have had children during +many generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but +the variations in external circumstances begin to make themselves perceptible +in our characters. In middle life we live more and more continually +upon the piecing together of details of memory drawn from our personal +experience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; +and this resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to +cream a little time ago. It is not surprising, then, that a son +who has inherited his father’s tastes and constitution, and who +lives much as his father had done, should make the same mistakes as +his father did when he reaches his father’s age - we will say +of seventy - though he cannot possibly remember his father’s having +made the mistakes. It were to be wished we could, for then we +might know better how to avoid gout, cancer, or what not. And +it is to be noticed that the developments of old age are generally things +we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to do so.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Conclusion.</p> +<p>If we observed the resemblance between successive generations to +be as close as that between distilled water and distilled water through +all time, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action +of living beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanical +combinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little place +among the causes of their action as it can have in anything, and that +each repetition, whether of a habit or the practice of art, or of an +embryonic process in successive generations, was an original performance, +for all that memory had to do with it. I submit, however, that +in the case of the reproductive forms of life we see just so much variety, +in spite of uniformity, as is consistent with a repetition involving +not only a nearly perfect similarity in the agents and their circumstances, +but also the little departure therefrom that is inevitably involved +in the supposition that a memory of like presents as well as of like +antecedents (as distinguished from a memory of like antecedents only) +has played a part in their development - a cyclonic memory, if the expression +may be pardoned.</p> +<p>There is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our +most powerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon one +side and begin with the amœba. Let us suppose that this +structureless morsel of protoplasm is, for all its structurelessness, +composed of an infinite number of living molecules, each one of them +with hopes and fears of its own, and all dwelling together like Tekke +Turcomans, of whom we read that they live for plunder only, and that +each man of them is entirely independent, acknowledging no constituted +authority, but that some among them exercise a tacit and undefined influence +over the others. Let us suppose these molecules capable of memory, +both in their capacity as individuals, and as societies, and able to +transmit their memories to their descendants, from the traditions of +the dimmest past to the experiences of their own lifetime. Some +of these societies will remain simple, as having had no history, but +to the greater number unfamiliar, and therefore striking, incidents +will from time to time occur, which, when they do not disturb memory +so greatly as to kill, will leave their impression upon it. The +body or society will remember these incidents, and be modified by them +in its conduct, and therefore more or less in its internal arrangements, +which will tend inevitably to specialisation. This memory of the +most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain, with Professor +Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which, accumulated in countless +generations, has led up from the amœba to man. If there +had been no such memory, the amœba of one generation would have +exactly resembled time amœba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle +would have been established; the modifying effects of an additional +memory in each generation have made the cycle into a spiral, and into +a spiral whose eccentricity, in the outset hardly perceptible, is becoming +greater and greater with increasing longevity and more complex social +and mechanical inventions.</p> +<p>We say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which +it ultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers having +grown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it made +it on the same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is +to say, as the joint result both of desire and experience. When +I say experience, I mean experience not only of what will be wanted, +but also of the details of all the means that must be taken in order +to effect this. Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken +not only in respect of the main design, but in respect also of every +atomic action, so to speak, which goes to make up the execution of this +design. It is not only the suggestion of a plan which is due to +memory, but, as Professor Hering has so well said, it is the binding +power of memory which alone renders any consolidation or coherence of +action possible, inasmuch as without this no action could have parts +subordinate one to another, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of +an action, great or small, could have reference to any other part, much +less to a combination of all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate +atoms of actions could ever happen - these bearing the same relation +to such an action, we will say, as a railway journey from London to +Edinburgh as a single molecule of hydrogen to a gallon of water. +If asked how it is that the chicken shows no sign of consciousness concerning +this design, nor yet of the steps it is taking to carry it out, we reply +that such unconsciousness is usual in all cases where an action, and +the design which prompts it, have been repeated exceedingly often. +If, again, we are asked how we account for the regularity with which +each step is taken in its due order, we answer that this too is characteristic +of actions that are done habitually - they being very rarely misplaced +in respect of any part.</p> +<p>When I wrote “Life and Habit,” I had arrived at the conclusion +that memory was the most essential characteristic of life, and went +so far as to say, “Life is that property of matter whereby it +can remember - matter which can remember is living.” I should +perhaps have written, “Life is the being possessed of a memory +- the life of a thing at any moment is the memories which at that moment +it retains”; and I would modify the words that immediately follow, +namely, “Matter which cannot remember is dead”; for they +imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember anything +at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be the +case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember a little, +and which is not living in respect of what it can remember. I +do not see how action of any kind is conceivable without the supposition +that every atom retains a memory of certain antecedents. I cannot, +however, at this point, enter upon the reasons which have compelled +me to this conclusion. Whether these would be deemed sufficient +or no, at any rate we cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing +associations should develop from the simplicity of the amœba to +the complexity of the human body without the presence of that memory +which can alone account at once for the resemblances and the differences +between successive generations, for the arising and the accumulation +of divergences - for the tendency to differ and the tendency not to +differ.</p> +<p>At parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every +atom in the universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but +in a humble way. He must have life eternal, as well as matter +eternal; and the life and the matter must be joined together inseparably +as body and soul to one another. Thus he will see God everywhere, +not as those who repeat phrases conventionally, but as people who would +have their words taken according to their most natural and legitimate +meaning; and he will feel that the main difference between him and many +of those who oppose him lies in the fact that whereas both he and they +use the same language, his opponents only half mean what they say, while +he means it entirely.</p> +<p>The attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is in +accordance with our observation and experience. It is therefore +proper to be believed. The attempt to get it from that which has +absolutely no life is like trying to get something out of nothing. +The millionth part of a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent, +will in five hundred years become over a million pounds, and so long +as we have any millionth of a millionth of the farthing to start with, +our getting as many million pounds as we have a fancy for is only a +question of time, but without the initial millionth of a millionth of +a millionth part, we shall get no increment whatever. A little +leaven will leaven the whole lump, but there must be <i>some</i> leaven.</p> +<p>I will here quote two passages from an article already quoted from +on page 55 of this book. They run:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“We are growing conscious that our earnest and most determined +efforts to make motion produce sensation and volition have proved a +failure, and now we want to rest a little in the opposite, much less +laborious conjecture, and allow any kind of motion to start into existence, +or at least to receive its specific direction from psychical sources; +sensation and volition being for the purpose quietly insinuated into +the constitution of the ultimately moving particles.” <a name="citation177a"></a><a href="#footnote177a">{177a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“In this light it can remain no longer surprising that we actually +find motility and sensibility so intimately interblended in nature.” +<a name="citation177b"></a><a href="#footnote177b">{177b}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in +respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than +the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common +with the inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one’s +self on the same moral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; +it is enough that we should feel the stone to have a moral platform +of its own, though that platform embraces little more than a profound +respect for the laws of gravitation, chemical affinity, &c. +As for the difficulty of conceiving a body as living that has not got +a reproductive system - we should remember that neuter insects are living +but are believed to have no reproductive system. Again, we should +bear in mind that mere assimilation involves all the essentials of reproduction, +and that both air and water possess this power in a very high degree. +The essence of a reproductive system, then, is found low down in the +scheme of nature.</p> +<p>At present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on +the one hand their experiments and their theories alike teach them that +spontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they +must have an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their +own theory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this origin +in no other way than by the <i>Deus ex machinâ</i> method, which +they reject as unproved, or a spontaneous generation of living from +non-living matter, which is no less foreign to their experience. +As a general rule, they prefer the latter alternative. So Professor +Tyndall, in his celebrated article (<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, November +1878), wrote:-</p> +<p>“It is generally conceded (and seems to be a necessary inference +from the lessons of science) that <i>spontaneous generation must at +one time have taken place</i>” (italics mine).</p> +<p>No inference can well be more unnecessary or unscientific. +I suppose spontaneous generation ceases to be objectionable if it was +“only a very little one,” and came off a long time ago in +a foreign country. The proper inference is, that there is a low +kind of livingness in every atom of matter. Life eternal is as +inevitable a conclusion as matter eternal.</p> +<p>It should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion +there is life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at +all times in all things.</p> +<p>The reader who takes the above position will find that he can explain +the entry of what he calls death among what he calls the living, whereas +he could by no means introduce life into his system if he started without +it. Death is deducible; life is not deducible. Death is +a change of memories; it is not the destruction of all memory. +It is as the liquidation of one company, each member of which will presently +join a new one, and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, +by way of greater aptitude for working in concert with other molecules. +This is why animals feed on grass and on each other, and cannot proselytise +or convert the rude ground before it has been tutored in the first principles +of the higher kinds of association.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 classified among fishes,” instead +of “fish,” <a name="citation179a"></a><a href="#footnote179a">{179a}</a> +and then proclaiming that they have “an ineradicable tendency +to try to make things clear.” <a name="citation179b"></a><a href="#footnote179b">{179b}</a></p> +<p>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 passage I refer to runs thus:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“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 <i>the ætiology 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</i>? 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.” <a name="citation180"></a><a href="#footnote180">{180}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>most</i> living part of an organism, +as the most capable of retaining vibrations, but this is the utmost +that can be claimed for it.</p> +<p>Having mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdown +of that school of philosophy which divided the <i>ego</i> from the <i>non +ego</i>. The protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away +at the <i>ego</i>, 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.</p> +<p>Others, again, are so unifying the <i>ego</i> and the <i>non ego</i>, +that with them there will soon be as little of the <i>non ego</i> left +as there is of the <i>ego</i> 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.</p> +<p>The truth is, that all classification whatever, when we examine its +<i>raison d’être</i> 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 God, +and the action of the universe as a whole.</p> +<p>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 accumulation +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 <i>Trapa natans</i>, +<a name="citation181a"></a><a href="#footnote181a">{181a}</a> and Lamarck’s +kindred passage on the descent of <i>Ranunculus hederaceus</i> from +<i>Ranunculus aquatilis</i> <a name="citation181b"></a><a href="#footnote181b">{181b}</a> +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.</p> +<p>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:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“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 antitypes with a longer neck than +usual <i>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</i>” (italics in original). +<a name="citation182a"></a><a href="#footnote182a">{182a}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <a name="citation182b"></a><a href="#footnote182b">{182b}</a> +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.”</p> +<p>Mr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to +saying that Mr. Wallace has arrived at <i>almost</i> (italics mine) +the same general conclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; <a name="citation182c"></a><a href="#footnote182c">{182c}</a> +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,” <a name="citation183a"></a><a href="#footnote183a">{183a}</a> +and he still comprehensively condemns the “well-known doctrine +of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck.” <a name="citation183b"></a><a href="#footnote183b">{183b}</a></p> +<p>As for the statement in the passage 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 pass muster with those whom public opinion is sure in the end +to follow.</p> +<p>Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, “repeatedly and easily +refute” Lamarck’s hypothesis in his brilliant article in +the <i>Leader</i>, 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!</p> +<p>Does Isidore Geoffroy, again, bear Mr. Wallace’s assertion +out better? In 1859 - that is to say, but a short time after Mr. +Wallace had written - he wrote as follows:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="citation184a"></a><a href="#footnote184a">{184a}</a> +- with at any rate the respect due to one of the most illustrious 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.” <a name="citation184b"></a><a href="#footnote184b">{184b}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.” <a name="citation184c"></a><a href="#footnote184c">{184c}</a></p> +<p>Professor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less cavalier +than Mr. Wallace. He writes:- <a name="citation184d"></a><a href="#footnote184d">{184d}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Lamarck introduced the conception of the action of an animal +on itself as a factor in producing modification.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>[Lamarck did nothing of the kind. It was Buffon and Dr. Darwin +who introduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin.]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“But <i>a little consideration showed</i>” (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.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote0a"></a><a href="#citation0a">{0a}</a> This +is the date on the title-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 <i>New Quarterly Review</i> +(1909).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0b"></a><a href="#citation0b">{0b}</a> I.e. +after p. 285: it bears no number of its own!</p> +<p><a name="footnote0c"></a><a href="#citation0c">{0c}</a> The +distinction was merely implicit in his published writings, but has been +printed since his death from his “Notebooks,” <i>New +Quarterly Review</i>, April, 1908. I had developed this thesis, +without knowing of Butler’s explicit anticipation in an article +then in the press: “Mechanism and Life,” <i>Contemporary +Review</i>, May, 1908.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0d"></a><a href="#citation0d">{0d}</a> The +term has recently been revived by Prof. Hubrecht and by myself (<i>Contemporary +Review</i>, November 1908).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0e"></a><a href="#citation0e">{0e}</a> See +<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, February 1908, and <i>Contemporary Review</i>, +September and November 1909. Since these publications the hypnosis +seems to have somewhat weakened.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0f"></a><a href="#citation0f">{0f}</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0g"></a><a href="#citation0g">{0g}</a> Mr. +H. Festing Jones first directed my attention to these passages and their +bearing on the Mutation Theory.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0i"></a><a href="#citation0i">{0i}</a> He +says in a note, “This general type of reaction was described and +illustrated in a different connection by Pfluger in ‘Pfluger’s +Archiv. f.d. ges. Physiologie,’ Bd. XV.” +The essay bears the significant title “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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0j"></a><a href="#citation0j">{0j}</a> “Contributions +to the Study of the Lower Animals” (1904), “Modifiability +in Behaviour” and “Method of Regulability in Behaviour and +in other Fields,” in <i>Journ. Experimental Zoology</i>, vol. +ii. (1905).</p> +<p><a name="footnote0h"></a><a href="#citation0h">{0h}</a> See +“The Hereditary Transmission of Acquired Characters” in +<i>Contemporary Review</i>, September and November 1908, in which references +are given to earlier statements.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0k"></a><a href="#citation0k">{0k}</a> 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 substituted “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 Græcisms.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0l"></a><a href="#citation0l">{0l}</a> “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.” - <i>Unconscious Memory</i>, +p. 71.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0m"></a><a href="#citation0m">{0m}</a> Preface +by Mr. Charles Darwin to “Erasmus Darwin.” The Museum +has copies of a <i>Kosmos</i> that was published 1857-60 and then discontinued; +but this is clearly not the <i>Kosmos</i> referred to by Mr. Darwin, +which began to appear in 1878.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0n"></a><a href="#citation0n">{0n}</a> Preface +to “Erasmus Darwin.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> May 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, +February 1879, Leipsic.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> Origin +of Species, ed. i., p. 459.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8a"></a><a href="#citation8a">{8a}</a> Origin +of Species, ed. i., p. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8b"></a><a href="#citation8b">{8b}</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, +February 1879, p. 397.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8c"></a><a href="#citation8c">{8c}</a> Erasmus +Darwin, by Ernest Krause, pp. 132, 133.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9a"></a><a href="#citation9a">{9a}</a> Origin +of Species, ed. i., p. 242.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9b"></a><a href="#citation9b">{9b}</a> Ibid., +p. 427.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10a"></a><a href="#citation10a">{10a}</a> +<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, November 1878; Evolution, Old and New, pp. +360. 361.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10b"></a><a href="#citation10b">{10b}</a> +Encyclopædia Britannica, ed. ix., art. “Evolution,” +p. 748.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11">{11}</a> Ibid.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17">{17}</a> Encycl. +Brit., ed. ix., art. “Evolution,” p. 750.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23a"></a><a href="#citation23a">{23a}</a> +Origin of Species, 6th ed., 1876, p. 206.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23b"></a><a href="#citation23b">{23b}</a> +Ibid., p. 233.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24a"></a><a href="#citation24a">{24a}</a> +Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 171, 1876.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24b"></a><a href="#citation24b">{24b}</a> +Pp. 258-260.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26">{26}</a> Zoonomia, +vol. i. p. 484; Evolution, Old and New, p. 214.</p> +<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27">{27}</a> “Erasmus +Darwin,” by Ernest Krause, p. 211, London, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28a"></a><a href="#citation28a">{28a}</a> +See “Evolution, Old and New,” p. 91, and Buffon, tom. iv. +p. 383, ed. 1753.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28b"></a><a href="#citation28b">{28b}</a> +Evolution, Old and New, p. 104.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29a"></a><a href="#citation29a">{29a}</a> +Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. “Evolution,” p. 748.</p> +<p><a name="footnote29b"></a><a href="#citation29b">{29b}</a> +Palingénésie Philosophique, part x. chap. ii. (quoted +from Professor Huxley’s article on “Evolution,” Encycl. +Brit., 9th ed., p. 745).</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31">{31}</a> The +note began thus: “I have taken the date of the first publication +of Lamarck from Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s (Hist. Nat. Générale +tom. ii. p. 405, 1859) excellent history of opinion upon this subject. +In this work a full account is given of Buffon’s fluctuating conclusions +upon the same subject.” - <i>Origin of Species</i>, 3d ed., 1861, +p. xiv.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33a"></a><a href="#citation33a">{33a}</a> +Life of Erasmus Darwin, pp. 84, 85.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33b"></a><a href="#citation33b">{33b}</a> +See Life and Habit, p. 264 and pp. 276, 277.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33c"></a><a href="#citation33c">{33c}</a> +See Evolution, Old and New, pp. 159-165.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33d"></a><a href="#citation33d">{33d}</a> +Ibid., p. 122.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34">{34}</a> See +Evolution, Old and New, pp. 247, 248.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35a"></a><a href="#citation35a">{35a}</a> +Vestiges of Creation, ed. 1860, “Proofs, Illustrations, &c.,” +p. lxiv.</p> +<p><a name="footnote35b"></a><a href="#citation35b">{35b}</a> +The first announcement was in the <i>Examiner</i>, February 22, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36">{36}</a> <i>Saturday +Review</i>, May 31, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37a"></a><a href="#citation37a">{37a}</a> +May 26, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37b"></a><a href="#citation37b">{37b}</a> +May 31, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37c"></a><a href="#citation37c">{37c}</a> +July 26, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37d"></a><a href="#citation37d">{37d}</a> +July 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37e"></a><a href="#citation37e">{37e}</a> +July 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37f"></a><a href="#citation37f">{37f}</a> +July 29, 1879.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37g"></a><a href="#citation37g">{37g}</a> +January 1880.</p> +<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39">{39}</a> How +far <i>Kosmos</i> was “a well-known” journal, I cannot determine. +It had just entered upon its second year.</p> +<p><a name="footnote41"></a><a href="#citation41">{41}</a> Evolution, +Old and New, p. 120, line 5.</p> +<p><a name="footnote43"></a><a href="#citation43">{43}</a> <i>Kosmos</i>, +February 1879, p. 397.</p> +<p><a name="footnote44a"></a><a href="#citation44a">{44a}</a> +<i>Kosmos</i>, February 1879, p. 404.</p> +<p><a name="footnote44b"></a><a href="#citation44b">{44b}</a> +Page 39 of this volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50">{50}</a> See +Appendix A.</p> +<p><a name="footnote52"></a><a href="#citation52">{52}</a> Since +published as “God the Known and God the Unknown.” +Fifield, 1s. 6d. net. 1909.</p> +<p><a name="footnote54a"></a><a href="#citation54a">{54a}</a> +“Contemplation of Nature,” Engl. trans., Lond. 1776. +Preface, p. xxxvi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote54b"></a><a href="#citation54b">{54b}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. xxxviii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote55"></a><a href="#citation55">{55}</a> Life +and Habit, p. 97.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56"></a><a href="#citation56">{56}</a> “The +Unity of the Organic Individual,” by Edward Montgomery, <i>Mind</i>, +October 1880, p. 466.</p> +<p><a name="footnote58"></a><a href="#citation58">{58}</a> Life +and Habit, p. 237.</p> +<p><a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a">{59a}</a> +Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Lardner’s +Cab. Cyclo., vol. xcix. p. 24.</p> +<p><a name="footnote59b"></a><a href="#citation59b">{59b}</a> +Young’s Lectures on Natural Philosophy, ii. 627. See also +Phil. Trans., 1801-2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote63"></a><a href="#citation63">{63}</a> The +lecture is published by Karl Gerold’s Sohn, Vienna.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69"></a><a href="#citation69">{69}</a> See +quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70">{70}</a> Professor +Hering is not clear here. Vibrations (if I understand his theory +rightly) should not be set up by faint <i>stimuli</i> from within. +Whence and what are these <i>stimuli</i>? The vibrations within +are already existing, and it is they which are the <i>stimuli</i> to +action. On having been once set up, they either continue in sufficient +force to maintain action, or they die down, and become too weak to cause +further action, and perhaps even to be perceived within the mind, until +they receive an accession of vibration from without. The only +“stimulus from within” that should be able to generate action +is that which may follow when a vibration already established in the +body runs into another similar vibration already so established. +On this consciousness, and even action, might be supposed to follow +without the presence of an external stimulus.</p> +<p><a name="footnote71"></a><a href="#citation71">{71}</a> This +expression seems hardly applicable to the overtaking of an internal +by an external vibration, but it is not inconsistent with it. +Here, however, as frequently elsewhere, I doubt how far Professor Hering +has fully realised his conception, beyond being, like myself, convinced +that the phenomena of memory and of heredity have a common source.</p> +<p><a name="footnote72"></a><a href="#citation72">{72}</a> See +quotation from Bonnet, p. 54 of this volume. By “preserving +the memory of habitual actions” Professor Hering probably means, +retains for a long while and repeats motion of a certain character when +such motion has been once communicated to it.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74a"></a><a href="#citation74a">{74a}</a> +It should not be “if the central nerve system were not able to +reproduce whole series of vibrations,” but “if whole series +of vibrations do not persist though unperceived,” if Professor +Hering intends what I suppose him to intend.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74b"></a><a href="#citation74b">{74b}</a> +Memory was in full operation for so long a time before anything like +what we call a nervous system can be detected, that Professor Hering +must not be supposed to be intending to confine memory to a motor nerve +system. His words do not even imply that he does, but it is as +well to be on one’s guard.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77"></a><a href="#citation77">{77}</a> It +is from such passages as this, and those that follow on the next few +pages, that I collect the impression of Professor Hering’s meaning +which I have endeavoured to convey in the preceding chapter.</p> +<p><a name="footnote78"></a><a href="#citation78">{78}</a> That +is to say, “an infinitely small change in the kind of vibration +communicated from the parent to the germ.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote79"></a><a href="#citation79">{79}</a> It +may be asked what is meant by responding. I may repeat that I +understand Professor Hering to mean that there exists in the offspring +certain vibrations, which are many of them too faint to upset equilibrium +and thus generate action, until they receive an accession of force from +without by the running into them of vibrations of similar characteristics +to their own, which last vibrations have been set up by exterior objects. +On this they become strong enough to generate that corporeal earthquake +which we call action.</p> +<p>This may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible; whereas +much that is written about “fraying channels” raises no +definite ideas in the mind.</p> +<p><a name="footnote80a"></a><a href="#citation80a">{80a}</a> +I interpret this, “We cannot wonder if often-repeated vibrations +gather strength, and become at once more lasting and requiring less +accession of vibration from without, in order to become strong enough +to generate action.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote80b"></a><a href="#citation80b">{80b}</a> +“Characteristics” must, I imagine, according to Professor +Hering, resolve themselves ultimately into “vibrations,” +for the characteristics depend upon the character of the vibrations.</p> +<p><a name="footnote81"></a><a href="#citation81">{81}</a> Professor +Hartog tells me that this probably refers to Fritz Müller’s +formulation of the “recapitulation process” in “Facts +for Darwin,” English edition (1869), p. 114. - R.A.S.</p> +<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82">{82}</a> This +is the passage which makes me suppose Professor Hering to mean that +vibrations from exterior objects run into vibrations already existing +within the living body, and that the accession to power thus derived +is his key to an explanation of the physical basis of action.</p> +<p><a name="footnote84"></a><a href="#citation84">{84}</a> I interpret +this: “There are fewer vibrations persistent within the bodies +of the lower animals; those that there are, therefore, are stronger +and more capable of generating action or upsetting the <i>status in +quo</i>. Hence also they require less accession of vibration from +without. Man is agitated by more and more varied vibrations; these, +interfering, as to some extent they must, with one another, are weaker, +and therefore require more accession from without before they can set +the mechanical adjustments of the body in motion.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote89"></a><a href="#citation89">{89}</a> I am +obliged to Mr. Sully for this excellent translation of “Hellsehen.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote90a"></a><a href="#citation90a">{90a}</a> +<i>Westminster Review</i>, New Series, vol. xlix. p. 143.</p> +<p><a name="footnote90b"></a><a href="#citation90b">{90b}</a> +Ibid., p. 145.</p> +<p><a name="footnote90c"></a><a href="#citation90c">{90c}</a> +Ibid., p. 151.</p> +<p><a name="footnote92a"></a><a href="#citation92a">{92a}</a> +“Instinct ist zweckmässiges Handeln ohne Bewusstsein des +Zwecks.”<i> - Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., Berlin, +1871, p. 70.</p> +<p><a name="footnote92b"></a><a href="#citation92b">{92b}</a> +“1. Eine blosse Folge der körperlichen Organisation.</p> +<p>“2. Ein von der Natur eingerichteter Gehirn-oder Geistesmechanismus.</p> +<p>“3. Eine Folge unbewusster Geistesthiitigkeit.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 70.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97">{97}</a> “Hiermit +ist der Annahme das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die unbewusste Vorstellung +des Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vorwiegt; denn wollte man nun noch +die Vorstellung des Geistesmechanismus festhalten so müsste für +jede Variation und Modification des Instincts, nach den äusseren +Umständen, eine besondere constante Vorrichtung . . . eingefügt +sein.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i> 3d ed., p. 74.</p> +<p><a name="footnote99"></a><a href="#citation99">{99}</a> “Indessen +glaube ich, dass die angeführten Beispiele zur Genüge beweisen, +dass es auch viele Fälle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication mit der +bewussten Ueberlegung die gewöhnliche und aussergewöhnliche +Handlung aus derselben Quelle stammen, dass sie entweder beide wirklicher +Instinct, oder beide Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung sind.”<i> +- Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote100"></a><a href="#citation100">{100}</a> +“Dagegen haben wir nunmehr unseren Blick noch einmal schärfer +auf den Begriff eines psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da zeigt +sich, dass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erklärt, so dunke +list, dass man sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann.” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote101"></a><a href="#citation101">{101}</a> +“Das Endglied tritt als bewusster Wille zu irgend einer Handlung +auf; beide sind aber ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der gewöhnlichen +Motivation nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin besteht, dass +die Vorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das Begehren erzeugr, erstere +zu erlangen, letztere sich fern zu halten.”<i> - Ibid</i>., p. +76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote102a"></a><a href="#citation102a">{102a}</a> +“Diese causale Verbindung fällt erfahrungsmässig, wie +wir von unsern menschlichen Instincten wissen, nicht in’s Bewussisein; +folglich kann dieselbe, wenn sie ein Mechanismus sein soll, nur entweder +ein nicht in’s Bewusstsein fallende mechanische Leitung und Umwandlung +der Schwingungen des vorgestellten Motivs in die Schwingungen der gewollten +Handlung im Gehirn, oder ein unbewusster geistiger Mechanismus sein.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i> 3d ed., p. 77.</p> +<p><a name="footnote102b"></a><a href="#citation102b">{102b}</a> +“Man hat sich also zwischen dem bewussten Motiv, und dem Willen +zur Insticthandlung eine causale Verbindung durch unbewusstes Vorstellen +und Wollen zu denken, und ich weiss nicht, wie diese Verbindung einfacher +gedacht werden könnte, als durch den vorgestellten und gewollten +Zweck. Damit sind wir aber bei dem allen Geistern eigenthümlichen +und immanenten Mechanismus der Logik angelangt, und haben die unbewusster +Zweckvorstellung bei jeder einzelnen Instincthandlung als unentbehrliches +Glied gefunden; hiermit hat also der Begrift des todten, äusserlich +prädestinirten Geistesmechanismus sich selbst aufgehoben und in +das immanente Geistesleben der Logik umgewandelt, und wir sind bei der +letzten Möglichkeit angekommen, welche für die Auffassung +eines wirklichen Instincts übrig bleibt: der Instinct ist bewusstes +Wollen des Mittels zu einem unbewusst gewollten Zweck.” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 78.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105a"></a><a href="#citation105a">{105a}</a> +“Also der Instinct ohne Hülfsmechanismus die Ursache der +Entstehung des Hülfsmechanismus ist.” - <i>Philosophy of +the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105b"></a><a href="#citation105b">{105b}</a> +“Dass auch der fertige Hülfsmechanismus das Unbewusste nicht +etwa zu dieser bestimmten Instincthandlung necessirt, sondern blosse +prädisponirt.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d +ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105c"></a><a href="#citation105c">{105c}</a> +“Giebt es einen wirklichen Instinct, oder sind die sogenannten +Instincthandlungen nur Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung?” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 79.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111"></a><a href="#citation111">{111}</a> +“Dieser Beweis ist dadurch zu führen; erstens dass die betreffenden +Thatsachen in; der Zukunft liegen, und dem Verstande die Anhaltepunkte +fehlen, um ihr zukünftiges Eintreten aus den gegenwärtigen +Verhältnissen zu erschliessen; zweitens, dass die betreffenden +Thatsachen augenscheinlich der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung verschlossen liegen, +weil nur die Erfahrung früherer Fälle über sie belehren +kann, und diese laut der Beobachtung ausgeschlossen ist. Es würde +für unsere Interessen keinen Unterschied machen, wenn, was ich +wahrscheinlich halte, bei fortschreitender physiologischer Erkenntniss +alle jetzt für den ersten Fall anzuführenden Beispiele sich +als solche des zweiten Falls ausweisen sollten, wie dies unleugbar bei +vielen früher gebrauchten Beispielen schon geschehen ist; denn +ein apriorisches Wissen ohne jeden sinnlichen Anstoss ist wohl kaum +wunderbarer zu nennen, als ein Wissen, welches zwar <i>bei Gelegenheit</i> +gewisser sinnlicher Wahrnehmung zu Tage tritt, aber mit diesen nur durch +eine solche Kette von Schlüssen und angewandten Kenntnissen in +Verbindung stehend gedacht werden könnte, dass deren Möglichkeit +bei dem Zustande der Fähigkeiten und Bildung der betreffenden Thiere +entschieden geleugnet werden muss.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, +3d ed., p. 85.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113"></a><a href="#citation113">{113}</a> +“Man hat dieselbe jederzeit anerkannt und mit den Worten Vorgefühl +oder Ahnung bezeichnet; indess beziehen sich diese Wörte einerseits +nur auf zukünftiges, nicht auf gegenwärtiges, räumlich +getrenntes Unwahmehrnbares, anderseits bezeichnen sie nur die leise, +dumpfe, unbestimmte Resonanz des Bewusstseins mit dem unfehlbar bestimmten +Zustande der unbewussten Erkenntniss. Daher das Wort Vorgefühl +in Rücksicht auf die Dumpfheit und Unbestimmtheit, während +doch leicht zu sehen ist, dass das von allen, auch den unbewussten Vorstellungen +entblösste Gefühl für das Resultat gar keinen Einfluss +haben kann, sondern nur eine Vorstellung, weil diese allein Erkenntniss +enthält. Die in Bewusstsein mitklingende Ahnung kann allerdings +unter Umständen ziemlich deutlich sein, so dass sie sich beim Menschen +in Gedanken und Wort fixiren lässt; doch ist dies auch im Menschen +erfahrungsmässig bei den eigenthümlichen Instincten nicht +der Fall, vielmehr ist bei diesen die Resonanz der unbewussten Erkenntniss +im Bewusstsein meistens so schwach, dass sie sich wirklich nur in begleitenden +Gefühlen oder der Stimmung äussert, dass sie einen unendlich +kleinen Bruchtheil des Gemeingefühls bildet.” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 86.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115a"></a><a href="#citation115a">{115a}</a> +“In der Bestimmung des Willens durch einen im Unbewussten liegenden +Process . . . für welchen sich dieser Character der zweifellosen +Selbstgewissheit in allen folgenden Untersuchungen bewähren wird.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, p. 87.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115b"></a><a href="#citation115b">{115b}</a> +“Sondern als unmittelbarer Besitz vorgefunden wird.” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, p. 87.</p> +<p><a name="footnote115c"></a><a href="#citation115c">{115c}</a> +“Hellsehen.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote119a"></a><a href="#citation119a">{119a}</a> +“Das Hellsehon des Unbewussten hat sie den rechten Weg ahnen lassen.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious, p</i>. 90, 3d ed., 1871.</p> +<p><a name="footnote119b"></a><a href="#citation119b">{119b}</a> +“Man wird doch wahrlich nicht den Thieren zumuthen wollen, durch +meteorologische Schlüsse das Wetter auf Monate im Voraus zu berechnen, +ja sogar Ueberschwemmungen vorauszusehen. Vielmehr ist eine solche +Gefühlswahrnehmung gegenwärtiger atmosphärischer Einflüsse +nichts weiter als die sinnliche Wahrnehmung, welche als Motiv wirkt, +und ein Motiv muss ja doch immer vorhanden sein, wenn ein Instinct functioniren +soll. Es bleibt also trotzdem bestehen dass das Voraussehen der +Witterung ein unbewusstes Hellsehen ist, von dem der Storch, der vier +Wochen früher nach Süden aufbricht, so wenig etwas weiss, +als der Hirsch, der sich vor einem kalten Winter einen dickeren Pelz +als gewöhnlich wachsen lässt. Die Thiere haben eben +einerseits das gegenwärtige Witterungsgefühl im Bewusstsein, +daraus folgt andererseits ihr Handeln gerade so, als ob sie die Vorstellung +der zukünftigen Witterung hätten; im Bewusstsein haben sie +dieselbe aber nicht, also bietet sich als einzig natürliches Mittelglied +die unbewusste Vorstellung, die nun aber immer ein Hellsehen ist, weil +sie etwas enthält, was dem Thier weder dutch sinnliche Wahrnehmung +direct gegeben ist, noch durch seine Verstandesmittel aus der Wahrnehmung +geschlossen werden kann.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, +p. 91, 3d ed., 1871.</p> +<p><a name="footnote124"></a><a href="#citation124">{124}</a> +“Meistentheils tritt aber hier der höheren Bewusstseinstufe +der Menschen entsprechend eine stärkete Resonanz des Bewusstseins +mit dem bewussten Hellsehen hervor, die sich also mehr odor minder deutliche +Ahnung darstellt. Ausserdem entspricht es der grösseren Selbstständigkeit +des menschlichen Intellects, dass diese Ahnung nicht ausschliesslich +Behufs der unmittelbaren Ausführung einer Handlung eintritt, sondern +bisweilen auch unabängig von der Bedingung einer momentan zu leistenden +That als blosse Vorstellung ohne bewussten Willen sich zeigte, wenn +nur die Bedingung erfüllt ist, dass der Gegenstand dieses Ahnens +den Willen des Ahnenden im Allgemeinen in hohem Grade interessirt.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 94.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126">{126}</a> +“Häufig sind die Ahnungen, in denen das Hellsehen des Unbewussten +sich dem Bewusstsein offenbart, dunkel, unverständlich und symbolisch, +weil sie im Gehirn sinnliche Form annehmen müssen, während +die unbewusste Vorstellung an der Form der Sinnlichkeit kein Theil haben +kann.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128">{128}</a> +“Ebenso weil es diese Reihe nur in gesteigerter Bewusstseinresonanz +fortsetzt, stützt es jene Aussagen der Instincthandlungen üher +ihr eigenes Wesen ebenso sehr,” &c. - <i>Philosophy of the +Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 97.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129"></a><a href="#citation129">{129}</a> +“Wir werden trotzdem diese gomeinsame Wirkung eines Masseninstincts +in der Entstehung der Sprache und den grossen politischen und socialen +Bewegungen in der Woltgeschichte deutlich wieder erkennen; hier handelt +es sich um möglichst einfache und deutliche Beispiele, und darum +greifen wir zu niederen Thieren, wo die Mittel der Gedankenmittheilung +bei fehlender Stimme, Mimik und Physiognomie so unvollkommen sind, dass +die Uebereinstimmung und das Ineinandergreifen der einzelnen Leistungen +in den Hauptsachen unmöglich der bewussten Verständigung durch +Sprache zugeschrieben werden darf.” - <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, +3d ed., p. 98.</p> +<p><a name="footnote131a"></a><a href="#citation131a">{131a}</a> +“Und wie durch Instinct dot Plan des ganzen Stocks in unbewusstem +Hellsehen jeder einzelnen Biene einwohnt.” - <i>Philosophy of +the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote131b"></a><a href="#citation131b">{131b}</a> +“Indem jedes Individuum den Plan des Ganzen und Sämmtliche +gegenwartig zu ergreifende Mittel im unbewussten Hellsehen hat, wovon +aber nut das Eine, was ihm zu thun obliegt, in sein Bewusstsein fällt.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 99.</p> +<p><a name="footnote132"></a><a href="#citation132">{132}</a> +“Der Instinct ist nicht Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicht +Folge der körperlichen Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines +in der Organisation des Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung +eines dem Geiste von aussen angeklebten todten, seinem innersten Wesen +fremden Mechanismus, sondern selbsteigene Leistung des Individuum aus +seinem innersten Wesen und Character entspringend.” - <i>Philosophy +of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 100.</p> +<p><a name="footnote133"></a><a href="#citation133">{133}</a> +“Häufig ist die Kenntniss des Zwecks der bewussten Erkenntniss +durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung gar nicht zugänglich; dann documentirt +sich die Eigenthümlichkeit des Unbewussten im Hellsehen, von welchem +das Bewusstsein theils nar eine verschwindend dumpfe, theils auch namentlich +beim Menschen mehr oder minder deutliche Resonanz als Ahnung verspütt.” +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 100.</p> +<p><a name="footnote135"></a><a href="#citation135">{135}</a> +“Und eine so dämonische Gewalt sollte durch etwas ausgeübt +werden könnon, was als ein dem inneren Wesen fremder Mechanismus +dem Geiste aufgepfropft ist, oder gar durch eine bewusste Ueberlegung, +welche doch stets nur im kahlen Egoismus stecken bleibt,” &c. +- <i>Philosophy of the Unconscious</i>, 3d ed., p. 101.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139a"></a><a href="#citation139a">{139a}</a> +Page 100 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139b"></a><a href="#citation139b">{139b}</a> +Pp. 106, 107 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140"></a><a href="#citation140">{140}</a> +Page 100 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141"></a><a href="#citation141">{141}</a> +Page 99 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144a"></a><a href="#citation144a">{144a}</a> +See page 115 of this volume.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144b"></a><a href="#citation144b">{144b}</a> +Page 104 of this vol.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146"></a><a href="#citation146">{146}</a> +The Spirit of Nature. J. A. Churchill & Co., 1880, p. 39.</p> +<p><a name="footnote149"></a><a href="#citation149">{149}</a> +I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, and shall +put others like them, because they are characteristic; but nothing can +become so well known as to escape being an inference.</p> +<p><a name="footnote153"></a><a href="#citation153">{153}</a> +Erewhon, chap. xxiii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote160"></a><a href="#citation160">{160}</a> +It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the mouth of +an objector.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177a"></a><a href="#citation177a">{177a}</a> +“The Unity of the Organic Individual,” by Edward Montgomery. +<i>Mind</i>, October 1880, p. 477.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177b"></a><a href="#citation177b">{177b}</a> +Ibid., p. 483.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179a"></a><a href="#citation179a">{179a}</a> +Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. Evolution, p. 750.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179b"></a><a href="#citation179b">{179b}</a> +“Hume,” by Professor Huxley, p. 45.</p> +<p><a name="footnote180"></a><a href="#citation180">{180}</a> +“The Philosophy of Crayfishes,” by the Right Rev. the Lord +Bishop of Carlisle. <i>Nineteenth Century</i> for October 1880, +p. 636.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181a"></a><a href="#citation181a">{181a}</a> +Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360. Paris, 1800.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181b"></a><a href="#citation181b">{181b}</a> +Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. p. 231. Ed. M. Martin. Paris, +1873.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182a"></a><a href="#citation182a">{182a}</a> +Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Williams & +Norgate, 1858, p. 61.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182b"></a><a href="#citation182b">{182b}</a> +Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed., 1871, p. 41.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182c"></a><a href="#citation182c">{182c}</a> +Origin of Species, p. 1, ed. 1872.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183a"></a><a href="#citation183a">{183a}</a> +Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 206. I ought in fairness to Mr. +Darwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as serious +as he once did. It is now “a serious error” only; +in 1859 it was “the most serious error.” - Origin of Species, +1st ed., p. 209.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183b"></a><a href="#citation183b">{183b}</a> +Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 242; 6th ed., p. 233.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184a"></a><a href="#citation184a">{184a}</a> +I never could find what these particular points were.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184b"></a><a href="#citation184b">{184b}</a> +Isidore Geoffroy, Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184c"></a><a href="#citation184c">{184c}</a> +M. Martin’s edition of the “Philosophie Zoologique” +(Paris, 1873), Introduction, p. vi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184d"></a><a href="#citation184d">{184d}</a> +Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., p. 750.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named umem10h.htm or umem10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, umem11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, umem10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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