"I have nothing to say to any Philosophy of Evolution. . . such a philosophy may be Attempts to construct premature." useful, but in my judgment they are . . . - HUXLEY: "Collected Essays," V. LECTURE VI- PART I ZOOLOGY, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION THE facts given in the last two lectures seem to show that we cannot expect much from the "Lamarckian factors," even if they should prove to be factors; and while this impression may be wrong, it seems to be the rational frame of mind until it has proved wrong. He who follows the current literature of zoology finds that many writers assure him, in effect, that the years which Darwin and Wallace gave to hard labor on the problem of species were thrown away, since all they tried to find out by hard work might have been deduced from the Philosophy of Evolution. We were warned, long ago, that "whoever, unable to doubt and eager to affirm, shall establish principles, and, according to the unmoved truth of these, shall reject or receive others, . . . he shall exchange things for words, reason for insanity, the world for a fable, and shall be incapable of interpreting." In "philosophy" current history is sometimes ancient history, and the ardent disciples of "philosophers" who, in modest earnestness, undertake to formulate the scientific knowledge of their day, often become bolder than their teachers, and, growing arrogant and reckless with success, find at last that they have sold their birthright in nature for what proves, when examined, to be no better than a mess of pottage. The evidence that living matter is continuous, from beginning to end, is so conclusive that it convinces all who know its value. All living things are one by birth, and the system of living nature is, historically, a unit, a consistent whole; not a collection of isolated and independent species. How does it happen, then, that at every point in its history, we find it divided into detached groups, sep arated by gaps, and characterized by fitness? Why is the system of living nature such that we cannot picture it as a circle, spreading in all directions from a common centre, and growing wider around its whole circumference? Why is it such that it is more exactly represented by a number of growing radii, independent at their outer ends? This is the problem which Darwin undertook to solve, by showing that it results from extermination according to a standard of fitness. How does the Lamarckian meet it? Sometimes by denying the existence of fitness. Sometimes by asserting, even in the same breath, that fitness is universal and necessary, and that there is no real problem. He asserts that it is the outcome or expression of a deeper principle of necessary progress or evolution, which must result in fitness. The tendency to regard natural selection as more or less unnecessary and superfluous, which is so characteristic of our day, seems to grow out of reverence for the all-sufficiency of the philosophy of evolution, and pious belief that the history of living things flows out of this philosophy as a necessary truth or axiom. "The inheritance of characters acquired during the life of the individual is an indispensable axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution." 1 The writer yields to no one in admiration of the doctrine of evolution. So far as it is a scientific generalization from our knowledge of nature, it is one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind; rivalled only by its reciprocal, the doctrine of dissolution. Experience seems to show, very clearly, that our system of nature is, on the whole, moving towards what commends itself to our minds as evolution, or progress to greater and greater perfection. While there is just as much evidence that each step in evolution is also a step toward dissolution, we have the same rational ground for expecting that this movement will continue, without any sudden radical change, that we have for other expectations which we base on knowledge of nature. So far as the doctrine of evolution is based on knowledge, it is not only a part, but one of the most valuable and suggestive parts 1 Haeckel, "Monism," p. 96. |