FOOTNOTES:
[1] A good definition of degeneracy is that of A. F. Tredgold, who says: “I venture to define degeneracy as ‘a retrograde condition of the individual resulting from a pathological variation of the germ cell.’” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 548.)
[2] The term mutation had been used long before and in a similar sense by the German palæontologist Waagen, who employed it to designate the variations of a specific type that succeed one another in successive strata, a thing which rarely occurs. (Cf. Waagen’s Die Formenreihe des Ammonites subradiatus, Geognost. paläont. Beitr., Berlin, 1869.)
[3] It may be remarked, in passing, that experimental genetics and mutation furnish no clue to the origin of adaptive characters. The Lamarckian idea alone gives promise in this direction. Orthogenesis leaves unsolved the mystery of preadaptation; yet only orthogenetic systems of evolution can be constructed on the basis of genetical facts. “Mutations and Mendelism,” says Kellogg, “may explain the origin of new species in some measure, but they do not explain adaptation in the slightest degree.” (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1924, pp. 488, 489.) We have seen in the previous chapter that they are impotent to explain in any measure the origin of new species.
[4] Rev. Erich Wasmann, S. J., accepts the evolutionary inference from homology as regards plants and animals. When it comes to man, however, he attempts to draw the line, and argues painstakingly against the assumption of a bestial origin of the human body.
[5] This transitory lymphatic, or tracheal venation appearing in the appendages at the stenogastric stage may not have the particular significance that Father Wasmann assigns. Such venation, even if vestigial and aborted, need not necessarily be a vestige of former wing venation. To demonstrate the validity of the atavistic interpretation, all other possible interpretations would have to be definitively excluded.
[6] Vernon Kellogg has expressed this same view in a recent article, though he frankly admits that it is an as yet unrealized desideratum. “Altogether,” he says, “it must be fairly confessed that evolutionists would welcome the discovery of the actual possibility and the mechanism of transferring into the heredity of organisms such adaptive changes as can be acquired by individuals in their lifetime. It would give them an explanation of evolution, especially of adaptation, much more satisfactory than any other explanation at present claiming the acceptance of biologists.” (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1924, p. 488.)
[7] See Addenda.
[8] “It is a common occurrence,” says Charles Schuchert, “on the Canadian Shield to find the Archæozoic formations overlain by the most recent Pleistocene glacial deposits, and even these may be absent. It appears as if in such places no rocks had been deposited, either by the sea or by the forces of the land, since Archæozoic time, and yet geologists know that the shield has been variously covered by sheets of sediments formed at sundry times in the Proterozoic, Palæozoic, and, to a more limited extent, in the Mesozoic.” (“Textbook of Geology,” ed. of 1920, II, p. 569.) It may be remarked that, when geologists “know” such things, they know them in spite of the facts!
[9] Thus, to explain away “wrong sequences” of fossils, Heim and Rothpletz postulate the great Glaurus overthrust in the Alps, Geikie the great overthrust in Scotland, McConnell, Campbell, and Willis a great overthrust along the eastern front of the Rockies in Montana and Alberta, while Hayes recognizes numerous overthrusts in the southern Appalachians. “The deciphering of such great displacements,” says Pirrson, speaking of thrust faults, “is one of the greatest triumphs of modern geological research.” (“Textbook of Geology,” 1920, I, p. 367.) Desperate measures are evidently justifiable, when it is a question of saving the time-value of fossils!
[10] “All that geology can prove,” says Huxley, “is local order of succession.” (“Discourses Biological and Geological,” pp. 279-288.)
[11] Recently, by means of photography with short-length light waves, the bacteria of “Foot-and-mouth disease,” invisible to the highest power microscope, have been revealed as rods about 100 submicrons (i.e. O.1 micron, or O.0001 millimeter) in length. (cf. Science, May 30, 1924, Supplement X.) Germs of this dimension could be as easily transported by radiation as the alleged electrically charged stardust in the aurora borealis. It may be of interest, however, to note, in this connection, that the most recent theory of the aurora borealis discards stardust in favor of nitrogen snow. Lars Vegard, a Norwegian professor, ascribes the peculiar greenish tint in the Northern Lights to the action of solar radiations on nitrogen snow, which he assumes to exist at an altitude of more than 60 miles above the earth. When he condensed crystals of solid nitrogen on a copper plate by freezing with liquid hydrogen, he found that these crystals, after bombardment with cathode rays, emit a light of green color, which gives the same strong green spectrum line as the spectrum of the aurora. As the solid nitrogen evaporates, it begins to emit the reddish light characteristic of nitrogen gas. This phenomenon would explain the changes of color that occur in the aurora borealis. (cf. Science, April 18, 1924, Suppl. X.)
[12] To develop the argument drawn from rational volition for the spirituality of the human soul would carry us too far afield. Those who wish to pursue the subject further may consult Chapter VIII of Gründer’s monograph entitled “Psychology without a Soul,” also his monograph on “Free Will.”
G. H. Parker of Harvard, though admitting the fact of human freedom, tries to explain it away in terms of materialism. The following is the description which he gives of his theory: “It is a materialist view which, however, recognizes in certain types of organized matter a degree of free action consistent with human behavior and the resultant responsibility.” (Science, June 13, 1924, p. 520.) Freedom, in other words, “emerges” from matter having a peculiar “type of organization.”
This view must be interpreted in the light of the philosophy of “Emergent Evolution,” which Parker holds in common with C. Lloyd Morgan and R. W. Sellars. The philosophy in question recognizes in nature an ascending scale of more and more complexly organized units, starting with protons and electrons, at the bottom, and culminating in the human organism, at the top. At each higher level of this cosmic scale we find higher units formed by coalescence of the simpler units of a lower level. These higher units, however, are something more than a mere summation of the lower units; for, in addition to additive properties that can be predicted from a knowledge of the components, they exhibit genuinely new properties which, not being mere sums of the properties of the component units, are unpredictable on that basis. Given, for example, the weight of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, we could predict an additive property such as the weight of the compound, i.e. the water, formed by their combination. Other properties, of the compound, however, such as liquidity, are not foreshadowed by the properties of the component gases. Similarly, the weight of carbon disulphid (CS2) is an additive function of the combining weights of sulphur and carbon, but the other properties of this mobile liquid are not predictable on the basis of the properties of sulphur and carbon. Hence two kinds of properties are distinguished: (1) additive (quantitative) properties called resultants, which are predictable; (2) specificative (qualitative) properties called emergents, which are unprecedented and unpredictable. Freedom and intelligence, accordingly, are pronounced to be emergents of matter organized to that degree of complexity which we find in man.
This dualism of resultance and emergence is merely a new verbal vesture for the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle. The additive properties (resultants) are based on matter, which is the principle of continuity. The specificative (constituitive or qualitative) properties called emergents are rooted in entelechy (form), which is the principle of novelty. In fact, entelechy (form) itself is an emergent of matter just as the specificative properties are emergents of matter, with the sole difference that entelechy is the primary emergent of matter, whereas the specificative or qualitative properties are secondary emergents. For in Aristotelian philosophy, entelechy is not, as it is in Neo-vitalism, “an alien principle inserted into matter” abruptly and capriciously “at the level of life,” but a primary emergent and constituent of matter both living and non-living. In fine, entelechy is an emergent of matter in all the units of nature from the simplest atom to the most complex plant or animal organism. The only entelechy, which is not an emergent, but an insert into matter, is the spiritual human soul. Neither the human soul nor the superorganic functions rooted in it, namely, abstraction, reflection, and election, are emergents. Here we have novelty without continuity, and therefore not emergence (eduction), but insertion (infusion).
In his “Emergent Evolution,” 1923, Lloyd Morgan lays it down as axiomatic that emergence involves continuity—“There may often be resultants,” he says, “without emergence; but there are no emergents that do not involve resultant effects also. Resultants give quantitative continuity which underlies new constitutive steps in emergence.” (Op. cit., p. 5.) Now our proofs for human spirituality consist precisely in the complete exclusion of quantitative continuity between organic functions (e. g. sensation) and superorganic functions (e. g. conceptual thought and free volition). Hence, by the very axiom which Morgan himself formulates, the human soul and its superorganic functions are excluded from the category of material emergents. If there can be no emergence without quantitative continuity, then the human soul is not an emergent from, but an insert into, matter. Free choice, too, it is needless to say, is not an emergent of matter, but an expression of the supermaterial nature of the human soul. So much for the new-old dualism of emergence and resultance.
[13] Title of a horse’s autobiography by Anna Sewall, the horse’s alter ego.
[14] J. Henri Fabre and Erich Wasmann, S.J., have formulated very sound and critical views on the subject of instinct. The works of these authors are now available in English. (Cf. de Mattos’ translation of the Souvenirs etymologiques: “The Mason Bees,” Ch. VII; “The Bramble Bees,” Ch. VI; “The Hunting Wasps,” Chs. IX, X, XX; cf. also Wasmann’s Instinct and Intelligence, and Psychology of Ants and of Higher Animals, Engl. translation by Gummersbach.)
[15] Cf. Nelson’s Encyclopedia, v. 6, p. 452.
[16] Haeckel’s “Biogenetisches Grundgesetz,” which he formulates thus: “Die Ontogenie (Keimesgeschichte) ist eine kurze Wiederholung der Phylogenie (Stammesgeschichte),” 1874.
[17] The objection may be raised that a purely embryonic organ like the pronephros, which is functional in but few vertebrate adults and which originates in vertebrate embryos only to undergo atrophy, can have no other explanation than that of “recapitulation.” The objection, however, fails to take into account the possibility of the organ being serviceable to the embryo, in which it may be a provisory solution of the excretory problem and not a vestige of past ancestry.
[18] See Addenda.