The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer

"It must be confessed that repeated discoveries have now left faint hope that exact and gradual links will ever be forthcoming between most of the families and genera. The 'imperfection of the record,' of course, may still render some of the negative evidence untrustworthy; but even approximate links would be much commoner in collections than they actually are if the doctrine of gradual evolution were correct. Palæontology, indeed, is clearly in favour of the theory of discontinuous mutation, or advance by sudden changes, which has lately received so much support from the botanical experiments of H. de Vries.

"Further results obtained from the study of fossils have a bearing even on the deepest problems of Biology, namely, those connected with the nature of life itself. For instance, it is allowable to infer, from the statements already made, that the main factor in the evolution of organisms is some inherent impulse – the 'bathmic force' of Cope – which acts with unerring certainty whatever be the conditions of the moment."

E. Pedigree of the Horse

Some recent evidence on this subject certainly does not clear away the difficulties set forth in the text.

From Nature, Sept. 8, 1904, p. 474.

"Professor Osborn (in a lecture before the British Association) mentioned that more than a hundred more or less complete skeletons of horses and horse-like animals had been found in North America. He thought he had established the fact that horses were polyphyletic, there being four or five contemporary series in the Miocene, but that the direct origin of the genus Equus in North America was not established with certainty."

Professor Sedgwick, Student's Text Book of Zoology, p. 599.

"Much has been written on the ancestry of the horse. It has been maintained by many authors that a continuous series of forms connecting it with the four-toed, brachyodont Hyracothoridæ of the Eocene has been discovered, and that here if anywhere a demonstrative historical proof has been obtained of the doctrine of organic evolution. Without desiring in the smallest degree to impugn that doctrine, it may be permitted us here to examine rather closely the view that the series of forms which recent palæontological research has undoubtedly brought to light constitute that historical proof which has been claimed for them."

[After an examination of the structural characters of these intermediate forms, viz., Pliohippus, Protohippus, Desmathippus, Miohippus, Mesohippus, Orohippus, and Hyracotherium, the author proceeds]:

"So far as the characters mentioned are concerned, we have here a very remarkable series of forms which at first sight seem to constitute a linear series with no cross-connections. Whether, however, they really do this is a difficult point to decide. There are flaws in the chain of evidence, which require careful and detailed consideration. For instance, the genus Equus appears in the Upper Siwalik beds, which have been ascribed to the Miocene age. It has, however, been maintained that these beds are in reality Lower Pliocene, or even Upper Pliocene. It is clear that the decision of this question is of the utmost importance. If Equus really existed in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to some of its supposed ancestors. Again in the series of equine forms, Mesohippus, Miohippus, Desmathippus, Protohippus, which are generally regarded as coming into the direct line of equine descent, Scott333 points out that each genus is, in some respect or other, less modified than its predecessor. In other words, it would appear that in this succession of North American forms the earlier genera show, in some points, closer resemblance to the modern Equus than to their immediate successors. It is possible that these difficulties and others of the same kind will be overcome with the growth of knowledge, but it is necessary to take note of them, for in the search after truth nothing is gained by ignoring such apparent discrepancies between theory and fact."

Besides the structure of limbs and teeth, another argument for the descent of the horse has been drawn from certain phenomena of colouration. Stripings are found not unfrequently to occur in the legs and withers, which Darwin took for a reversion to the character of a very remote ancestor, the common parent, in fact, of horses and asses, which he supposed to have been striped all over like a zebra. Like other such common ancestors, this hypothetical animal had never been seen, but was thought to be most nearly represented by the Kathiwar horse, with stripes on a dun ground, a specimen of which is exhibited as illustrating the hypothesis in the National Museum of Zoology.

Recently, however, Professor Ridgeway, who has devoted special attention to the problem, has satisfied himself that there is no sufficient foundation for these suppositions. He thus sums up the evidence which he has been able to collect:334

"Darwin's view that the original ancestor of the Equidæ was a dun-coloured animal, striped all over, was based, not merely on the occurrence of stripes in horses, but on his belief that such stripes were common in dun horses, and that there was a tendency in horses to revert to dun colour. But it must be confessed that the facts do not warrant his conclusion… It is clear that stripes are at least as often a concomitant of dark as of dun colour. Moreover, if Darwin's hypothesis of a dun-coloured ancestor with stripes is sound, dark colours such as bay and brown must be of more recent origin, and accordingly there ought to be a great readiness on the part of a progeny of a light-coloured animal when mated with a dark to revert to the light. But Professor Ewart's zebra stallion has never been able to stamp his own peculiar pattern or his own colours on his hybrid offspring. The ground colour has been determined by the dams of the hybrids."

1

Collected Essays, i. 35.

2

Lectures on Evolution, Cheap Edition, p. 16.

3

Conservation of Energy, § 210, p. 153.

4

F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., The Lesson of Evolution (1902), pp. 9-11.

5

Nineteenth Century, February, 1889. p. 173.

6

This term is now applied almost exclusively to physical science, or that whose province is the observation of phenomena and inferences directly deducible from them. To avoid confusion, this sense of the word "Science" will be here adopted: it is nevertheless objectionable inasmuch as it implies that – as Professor Huxley following Hume would have it – sound knowledge is restricted, outside the field of mathematics, to "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence." But although all premisses or data of inference come to us first through the gates of sense, there is much, beyond the limits within which sensible experience is confined, to a knowledge of which inference can lead us, and of which we become certain before experience can verify what we have thus learnt. Thus a chipped flint or a fragment of pottery is universally recognized as evidencing the work of man: a single page of Virgil would suffice – apart from all other information – to prove its author to have been both a poet and a scholar: the shipwrecked mariner cast on an unknown shore argued soundly from the sight of a gibbet that he had reached a civilized land ruled by law. But more than this, Science herself proceeds on this principle to the recognition not only of forces, the character of which is known by previous experience, but of others concerning which she knows nothing at all, except through the very effects from which she argues. Thus, as all bodies left free are found to draw towards one another in a certain mode, it is concluded with absolute confidence that there is a force making them do so, although this is in itself utterly imperceptible, and is known only by the way in which bodies behave under what must be its influence. Yet, who questions the existence of Gravitation? In like manner, the phenomena of light force us to admit the existence of the Ether, as the medium through which its waves are transmitted. Yet, we are compelled to attribute to this medium qualities apparently so incompatible that, as the late Lord Salisbury said, Ether remains, "a half discovered entity." But little as we can realize its nature, we have no doubt that such a medium exists.

7

"Value of the Natural History Sciences" (Lay Sermons), p. 75.

8

Italics his.

9

Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, English translation, 1903, Preface, p. vii.

10

Riddle of the Universe, Cheap English Edition, p. 2.

11

ibid., p. 85.

12

And also, it should be added, travelling bodily through space with a movement of "translation."

13

Ibid.

14

Ibid., p. 2.

15

The 15th Chapter of Haeckel's Natural History of Creation is devoted to this point.

16

Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, p. 32.

17

Riddle of the Universe, p. 5.

18

Ibid., p. 78.

19

Ibid., p. 86.

20

Ibid., 134.

21

An Easy Outline of Evolution, by Dennis Hird, M.A., Principal of Ruskin Hall, Oxford, p. 230.

22

Presidential Address, Section D, Zoology, Leeds, 1890.

23

Riddle of the Universe, p. 2.

24

Ibid., p. 83.

25

"Pseudo-Scientific Realism," Collected Essays, i, 68, 74-78.

26

Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 72. A "Law of Nature," as has already been said, is simply a statement of what de facto has always been found to occur under certain conditions, and may consequently be expected again. It is obvious however that such expectation is implicitly based on the existence of some cause capable of ensuring the result.

27

"The Teaching of Natural Philosophy," Contemporary Review, Jan., 1878.

28

Lay Sermons, p. 83.

29

Riddle of the Universe, p. 6.

30

See Wasmann "Gedanken zur Entwicklungslehre," Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. 63, p. 298.

31

Contemporary Review, ut sup., p. 301.

32

Professor Weldon, F.R.S., in the Dictionary of National Biography.

33

Collected Essays, v. 41.

34

Riddle of the Universe, p. 75.

35

Professor Garnett in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. By "Force" is understood "any cause which tends to alter a body's natural state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line." Of the nature of such causes science professes to know very little, and as Clerk-Maxwell, who knew as much as most men, sang apropos of a lecture of Professor Tait's:

… Tait writes in lucid symbols clear one small equation;

And Force becomes of Energy a mere space-variation.

36

Balfour Stewart, Conservation of Energy, § 115; by Clerk-Maxwell, apud Garnett, ut sup.

37

Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 5th Edition, p. 23.

38

Conservation of Energy, § 209.

39

Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin.

40

March 29, 1888.

41

So of another effort in the same direction Capt. Hutton tells us: "The last champion in the field is Professor A. W. Bickerton, who thinks he has found a way in which this dismal conclusion, as he considers it, may be averted. But he is not very sure about it, and has to assume: first, that space contains now and always will contain, a large quantity of cosmic dust scattered through it with some approach to uniformity; and secondly, that the Universe consists of an infinite number of what he calls 'cosmic systems,' travelling through space, constantly throwing off dust in all directions and occasionally colliding. As all this is pure assumption and highly improbable, I cannot think that Professor Bickerton has brought forward any serious objection to the theory of the dissipation of energy, and his hypothesis must be added to the list of failures." (Lesson of Evolution, p. 14, n.)

42

Lesson of Evolution, p. 14.

43

Darwin and after Darwin, p. 17.

44

Riddle of the Universe, p. 64.

45

Über die Grenzen der Naturerkennens: Die Sieben Welträthsel, Leipzic, 1882.

46

Riddle of the Universe, p. 64.

47

Du Bois-Reymond does not say that they are soluble, but only that he cannot pronounce them "transcendental."

48

Samuel Laing, Modern Science and Modern Thought, Cheap Edition, p. 19.

49

Riddle of the Universe, p. 86.

50

Ibid.

51

P. 78.

52

P. 64.

53

Origin of the Laws of Nature, p. 23.

54

Belfast Address, 1874.

55

Lay Sermons. "On the Physical Basis of Life," p. 143.

56

Professor Tait, Properties of Matter, § 108.

57

Contemporary Review, January, 1878, p. 301.

58

Story of Creation, p. 11.

59

Edinburgh Review, October, 1903, p. 399.

60

Or "primal stuff." This looks remarkably like the old Materia Prima of the Schoolmen translated into Greek.

61

Ibid. The Revelations of Radium.

62

Ibid., p. 398.

{Note.– It is often assumed that the composite character of the atom – if fully established – must upset the Atomic Theory. This is not so; all that the new hypothesis does is to go further back in accounting for the Atomic Theory, and for all practical purposes things remain exactly as they were; except, indeed, that the dissolution of matter does away with what was held as one of the most assured conclusions of science.}

63

The Nebular Hypothesis itself is, of course, far from being an established certainty, and is not devoid of grave difficulties. Into these, however, it is not necessary now to enter.

64

Apud Gaynor, The New Materialism, p. 83.

65

Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Biology."

66

Apud Gaynor, p. 84.

67

Professor Marsh.

68

Professor Dewar at Belfast, 1902.

69

Recent Advances in Physical Science, 3rd Edition, p. 6.

70

Gaynor, p. 102.

71

Lay Sermons, p. 18.

72

Critiques and Addresses, p. 305.

73

Being the year in which this passage was written.

74

Viz. that of the derivation of life from life alone, as opposed to Abiogenesis, or its production from lifeless matter.

75

See Fragments of Science, "Spontaneous Generation," for a full account.

76

March 18, 1863. Life and Letters, i. 352.

77

April 30, 1870. Ibid. ii. 17.

78

Critiques and Addresses, p. 238.

79

Lay Sermons, p. 18.

80

Evolution and the Origin of Life, 1874, p. 23.

81

Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Biology."

82

Fragments of Science. "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."

83

Ibid. "Scientific use of the imagination."

84

Fragments of Science, "Spontaneous Generation."

85

Ibid. "Rev. James Martineau and Belfast Address."

86

Ibid. "Vitality."

87

Nineteenth Century, May, 1886, p. 769.

88

Italics mine.

89

It has been established by Pasteur and others that the highest temperature at which organic life is possible is 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit). When the globe had cooled to this point from its primitive molten condition, the epoch of terrestrial life commenced.

According to what is perhaps the latest theory, that of M. Quinton, the temperature immediately below this, 44° Centigrade, remains always the best for living things, and those creatures are highest in the scale of life, and consequently the most developed, which have contrived means of keeping their internal heat at, or about, this level, despite the refrigeration of their surroundings. In their blood-heat M. Quinton therefore finds an absolute rule for fixing the relative rank of organic forms, and the date of their appearance; those whose blood is warmest being the most recently evolved. The results of this new system are sufficiently startling. Birds are to be classed as the highest and newest of all; while man, with the other Primates, has to take a much lower place, the ungulates, including the horse and donkey, and the carnivora, as dogs and cats, being his superiors. (La Revue des Idées, January 15, 1904, pp. 29 seq.)

90

To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.

91

To Sir J. D. Hooker, March 29, 1863.

92

To V. Carus, November 21, 1866.

93

To D. Mackintosh, February 28, 1882.

94

Riddle of the Universe, p. 6.

95

As regards Protoplasm, p. 21.

96

Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Biology."

97

Printed in Lay Sermons.

98

Nature, June 5, 1902, p. 121.

99

Id. ibid.

100

Op. cit. p. 27.

101

Presidential Address, British Association, 1887.

102

Les Emules de Darwin, ii. 66.

103

Op. cit. ii. 63.

104

Darwinism, p. 474.

105

The other stages presenting similar difficulties are the 5th and 6th of Du Bois-Reymond's Enigmas, viz. the introduction of sensation or consciousness (animal life), and of rational thought and speech.

106

Contemporary Review, January, 1878, p. 298.

107

Die sieben Welträthsel, D. 82.

108

Professor Huxley, it must be remarked, speaks of Homer as a "half savage Greek" (Lay Sermons, p. 12), and intimates a mild wonder that such a being could share our feelings in presence of nature to so large an extent as his poems testify. This is undoubtedly a fine example of the good conceit of ourselves which the pursuit of science is rather apt to produce.

109

Darwinism, p. 475.

110

Descent of Man, c. ii.

111

Ibid. 54.

112

In his paper read before the British Association at Oxford in 1847.

113

Lessons from Nature, p. 89.

114

See Mivart, Origin of Human Reason, p. 166.

115

See Louis Arnould, Une âme en prison, and article "An imprisoned Soul," by the Ctesse. de Courson, The Month, January, 1902, p. 82.

116

Descent of Man, i. 57.

117

i. e. ape-like.

118

Quoted by Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man.

119

Ibid., p. 371.

120

Origin of Human Reason, p. 385.

121

Op. cit. p. 379.

122

Riddle of the Universe, p. 46.

123

"Ontogeny" signifies the genesis of the individual, "Phylogeny" that of the race. Accordingly, when rendered into ordinary language, declarations such as these, unsupported as they are by any evidence, are found to mean that the development of the individual, tells us all about the development of the individual, and the development of the race all about that of the race. Is it really supposed, as it would seem to be, that such points are scientifically settled by translating terms into Greek?

124

Lavengro, passim.

125

Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 38.

126

British Association Lecture, 1873.

127

Riddle of the Universe, p. 93.

128

Origin of Species (5th Edition), p. 226.

129

Afterwards (April 17, 1863) Mr. Darwin wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker, "I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process."

130

At a later period Mr. Darwin modified his views as to what he still termed "that wondrous organ the human eye," writing thus (Descent of Man, ii. 166): "We know what Helmholtz, the highest authority in Europe on the subject, has said about the human eye: that if an optician had sold him an instrument so carelessly made, he would have thought himself fully justified in returning it."

It is perfectly true that Helmholtz so expressed himself (Vorträge und Reden, i. 253, etc., English Edition, "Popular Scientific Lectures," pp. 219, etc.), adding that "the eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical instrument, and some which are peculiar to itself." These utterances are frequently quoted, but Helmholtz says a good deal more of which we do not usually hear. He observes, in the first place, that in speaking as above he did so "from the narrow but legitimate point of view of an optician." Having then enumerated all the defects in question, he continues – "In an artificial camera, all these irregularities would be exceedingly troublesome. In the eye they are not so, so little troublesome, indeed, that it was occasionally a matter of extreme difficulty to detect them." He adds that men in general not only are unaware of the existence of such defects, but can hardly be induced to credit it. Also that they "almost always affect those portions of the field of vision to which at the moment we are not directing our attention." What is still more to the point, he observes, that the defects noted are all theoretical, while the purpose of the eye is practical, and that if theoretically more perfect as an optical instrument, it would be practically less serviceable. To complain that the eye is not adapted for the special purposes of a microscope or telescope is like condemning the boats of a sea-going ship because they lack some of the qualities found in racing outriggers or Rob Roy canoes. "As concerns the adaptation of the eye to its functions, [adds Helmholtz,] this is most thorough, and is manifest in the very limitations set to its defects… A man of any sense would not chop firewood with a razor, and we may assume that any elaboration of the optical structure of the eye would have rendered it more liable to injury and slower in its development." Helmholtz therefore concludes that the eye is a product which "the wisest Wisdom may have pre-designed."