Conclusions from the First Main Part of these Lectures
In finishing our chapter on inheritance, we at the same time have finished the first main part of our lectures; that part of them which has been devoted exclusively to the study of the morphogenesis of the individual, including the functioning of the adult individual form. We now turn to our second part, which is to deal with the problems of the diversities of individual forms, with morphological systematics. The end of our chapter on inheritance has already led us to the threshold of this branch of biological science.
The chief result of the first main part of our lectures has been to prove that an autonomy of life phenomena exists at least in some departments of individual morphogenesis, and probably in all of them; the real starting-point of all morphogenesis cannot be regarded as a machine, nor can the real process of differentiation, in all cases where it is based upon systems of the harmonious equipotential type. There cannot be any sort of machine in the cell from which the individual originates, because this cell, including both its protoplasm and its nucleus, has undergone a long series of divisions, all resulting in equal products, and because a machine cannot be divided and in spite of that remain what it was. There cannot be, on the other hand, any sort of machine as the real foundation of the whole of an harmonious system, including many cells and many nuclei, because the development of this system goes on normally, even if its parts are rearranged or partly removed, and because a machine would never remain what it had been in such cases.
If our analytical discussions have thus led us to establish a typical kind of vitalism, it follows that we can by no means agree with Wilhelm Roux in his denomination of the analytical science of the individual form and form-production as “Entwickelungsmechanik,” “developmental mechanics,” a title, which, of course, might easily be transformed into that of “morphogenetic mechanics,” to embrace not only normal development, but restitution and adaptation too. We feel unable to speak of “mechanics” where just the contrary of mechanics, in the proper meaning of the word, has been proved to exist.
Names of course are of comparatively small importance, but they should never be allowed to be directly misleading, as indeed the term “Entwickelungsmechanik” has already proved to be. Let us rather say, therefore, that we have finished with this lecture that part of our studies in biology which has had to deal with morphogenetic physiology or physiological morphogenesis.
Once more we repeat, at this resting-point in our discussions, that both of our proofs of life-autonomy have been based upon a careful analysis of certain facts about the distribution of morphogenetic potencies in two classes of morphogenetic systems, and upon nothing else. To recall only one point, we have not said that regeneration, merely because it is a kind of restitution of the disturbed whole, compels us to admit that biological events happen in a specific and elemental manner, but, indeed, regeneration does prove vitalism, because it is founded upon the existence of certain complex-equipotential systems, the analysis of the genesis of which leads to the understanding of life-autonomy. This distinction, in fact, is of the greatest logical importance.
PART II
SYSTEMATICS AND HISTORY
A. THE PRINCIPLES OF SYSTEMATICS
Rational Systematics
All systematics which deserves the predicate “rational” is founded upon a concept or upon a proposition, by the aid of which a totality of specific diversities may be understood. That is to say: every system claiming to be rational gives us a clue by which we are able to apprehend either that there cannot exist more than a certain number of diversities of a certain nature, or that there can be an indefinite number of them which follow a certain law with regard to the character of their differences.
Solid geometry, which states that only five regular bodies are possible, and points out the geometrical nature of these bodies, is a model of what a rational system should be. The theory of conic sections is another. Take the general equation of the second degree with two unknowns, and study all the possible forms it can assume by a variation of its constants, and you will understand that only four different types of conic sections are possible—the circle, the ellipse, the hyperbola, and the parabola.
In physics and chemistry no perfect rational systems have been established hitherto, but there are many systems approaching the ideal type in different departments of these sciences. The chemical type of the monohydric saturated alcohols, for instance, is given by the formula CnH2n+1OH, and in this formula we not only have an expression of the law of composition which all possible alcohols are to follow,—but, since we know empirically the law of quantitative relation between n and various physical properties, we also possess in our formula a general statement with respect to the totality of the properties of any primary alcohol that may be discovered or prepared in the future. But chemistry has still higher aims with regard to its systematics: all of you know that the so-called “periodic law of the elements” was the first step towards a principle that may some day give account of the relation of all the physical and chemical properties of any so-called element with its most important constant, the atomic weight, and it seems to be reserved for the present time to form a real fundamental system of the “elements” on the basis of the periodic law by the aid of the theory of electrons. Such a fundamental system of the elements would teach us that there can only be so many elements and no more, and only of such a kind. In crystallography a similar end has been reached already by means of certain hypothetic assumptions, and systematics has here accounted for the limited number and fixed character of the possible forms of crystalline symmetry.
It is not difficult to understand the general logical type of all rational systems, and logic indeed can discover it without appealing to concrete sciences or to geometry. Rational systematics is always possible whenever there exists any fundamental concept or proposition which carries with it a principle of division; or to express it somewhat differently, which would lead to contradictions, if division were to be tried in any but one particular manner. The so-called “genus,” as will easily be perceived, then embraces all its “species” in such a manner that all peculiarities of the species are represented already in properties of the genus, only in a more general form, in a form which is still unspecified. The genus is both richer in content and richer in extent than are the species, though it must be added that its richness in content is, as it were, only latent: but it may come into actuality by itself and without any help from without.
We are dealing here with some of the most remarkable properties of the so-called synthetic judgments a priori in the sense of Kant, and, indeed, it seems that rational systematics will only be possible where some concept of the categorical class or some proposition based upon such concept lies at the root of the matter or at least is connected with it in some way. In fact, all rational systems with regard to the relations of symmetry in natural bodies deal ultimately with space; or better, all systems in such fields are able to become rational only if they happen to turn into questions of spatial symmetry.
All other genera and species, whether of natural bodies or of facts, can be related only on the basis of empirical abstraction, i.e. can never attain rationality: here, indeed, the genus is richer in extent and poorer in content than are the species. The genus is transformed into the species, not by any inherent development of latent properties, but by a mere process of addition of characteristic points. It is impossible to deduce the number or law or specifications of the species from the genus. Mere “classification,” if we may reserve the honorable name of systematics for the rational type, is possible here, a mere statement in the form of a catalogue, useful for orientation but for nothing more. We may classify all varieties of hats or of tables in the same way.
Biological Systematics
At this point we return from our logical excursion to our proper subject of biology; for I am sorry to say biological systematics is at present of our second type of systematics throughout: it is classification pure and simple. We have a catalogue in our hands, but nothing more.
Such a statement of fact conveys not a particle of censure, casts not the least reflection on the gifted men who created the classification of animals or plants. It is absolutely necessary to have such a catalogue, and indeed the catalogue of the organisms can be said to have been improved enormously during the advance of empirical and descriptive biological science. Any classification improves as it becomes more “natural,” as the different possible schemes of arrangement, the different reasons of division, agree better and better in their results; and, in fact, there has been a great advance of organic classification in this direction. The “natural” system has reached such perfection, that what is related from one point of view seems nearly related also from almost all points of view which are applicable, at least from those which touch the most important characteristics. There has been a real weighing of all the possible reasons of division, and that has led to a result which seems to be to some extent final.
But, nevertheless, we do not understand the raison d’être of the system of organisms; we are not at all able to say that there must be these classes or orders or families and no others, and that they must be such as they are.
Shall we ever be able to understand that? Or will organic systematics always remain empirical classification? We cannot answer this question. If we could, indeed, we should have what we desire! As simple relations of space are certainly not the central point of any problematic rational organic systematics even of the future, the question arises, whether there could be found any principle of another type in the realm of synthetic a priori judgments which could allow an inherent sort of evolution of latent diversities, as do all judgments about spatial symmetry. At the end of the second course of these lectures, which is to be delivered next summer, we shall be able to say a few more words about this important point.
The concept of what is called “a type,” due almost wholly to Cuvier and Goethe, is the most important of all that classification has given to us. Hardly second in importance is the discovery of the “correlation of parts,” as a sort of connection which has the character of necessity without being immediately based upon causality. Rádl seems to be the only modern author who has laid some stress on this topic. The harmony which we have discovered in development is also part of this correlation. When, later on, we come to discuss analytically our well established entelechy as the ultimate basis of individual organisation, we shall be able to gain more satisfactory ideas with respect to the meaning of the non-causal but necessary connection, embraced in the concepts of type and of correlation of parts.
The type is a sort of irreducible arrangement of different parts; the correlation deals with the degree and the quality of what may be called the actual make of the parts, in relation to one another: all ruminants, for instance, are cloven-footed, the so-called dental formulae are characteristic of whole groups of mammals. Of course all such statements are empirical and have their limits: but it is important that they are possible.[142]
It has been the chief result of comparative embryology to show that the type as such is more clearly expressed in developmental stages than it is in the adults, and that therefore the embryological stages of different groups may be very much more similar to each other than are the adults: that is the truth contained in the so-called “biogenetisches Grundgesetz.” But the specific differences of the species are not wanting in any case of ontogeny, in spite of such similarities in different groups during development.
We have applied the name “systematics” or, if rationality is excluded, “classification” to all that part of a science which deals with diversities instead of generalities: in such a wide meaning systematics, of course, is not to be confused with that which is commonly called so in biology, and which describes only the exterior differences of form. Our systematics is one of the two chief parts of biology; what are called comparative anatomy and comparative embryology are its methods. For it must be well understood that these branches of research are only methods and are not sciences by themselves.
B. THE THEORY OF DESCENT
1. Generalities
It is most generally conceded at the present time that the actually existing state of all organisms whatsoever is the result of their history. What does that mean? What are the foundations upon which the assumption rests? What is the relation of systematics to history? In raising such questions and considerations we are treading the ground sacred to the theory of descent.
I well know that you prefer the name “theory of evolution” for what I am speaking of: but it may be misleading in various respects. We already know that quite a determinate meaning has been given to the word “evolutio” as applied to individual morphogenesis, “evolutio” being here opposed to “epigenesis.” Now there would be nothing against the use of the word evolution in a wider sense—indeed it is often applied nowadays to denote the fact that a something is actually “evolved” in embryology—if only our entelechy had taken the place of the machine of the mechanists. But that is the very point: there must be a real “evolving” of a something, in order that the word evolution may be justified verbally: and that is not the case in so-called phylogeny. At least we know nothing of an evolutionary character in the problematic pedigree of the organisms, as we shall see more fully hereafter. The term “theory of descent” is therefore less open to objection than is the usual English term. The word transformism, as used by the French, would also be a very good title.
The theory of descent is the hypothetic statement that the organisms are really allied by blood among each other, in spite of their diversities.[143] The question about their so-called monophyletic or polyphyletic origin is of secondary importance compared with the statement of relationship in general.
There are two different groups of facts which have suggested the idea of transformism: none of these facts can be said to be conclusive, but there certainly is a great amount of probability in the whole if taken together.
The first group of evidences which lead to the hypothesis of the real relationship of organisms consists of facts relating to the geographical distribution of animals and plants and to palæontology. As to geography, it seems to me that the results of the floral and faunal study of groups of islands are to be mentioned in the first place. If, indeed, on each of the different islands, A B C and D, forming a group, the species of a certain genus of animals or plants are different in a certain respect, and show differences also compared with the species living on the neighbouring continent, of which there is geological evidence that the islands once formed a part, whilst there is no change in the species on the continent itself for very wide areas, then, no doubt, the hypothesis that all these differing species once had a common origin, the hypothesis that there is a certain community among them all, will serve to elucidate in some way what would seem to be very abstruse without it. And the same is true of the facts of palaeontology. In the geological strata, forming a continuous series, you find a set of animals, always typical and specific for every single stratigraphical horizon, but forming a series just as do those horizons. Would not the whole aspect of these facts lose very much of its peculiarity if you were to introduce the hypothesis that the animals changed with the strata? The continuity of life, at least, would be guaranteed by such an assumption.
The geographical and geological evidences in favour of the theory of descent are facts taken from sciences which are not biology proper; they are not facts of the living but only facts about the living. That is not quite without logical importance, for it shows that not biology alone has led to the transformism hypothesis. Were it otherwise, transformism might be said to be a mere hypothesis ad hoc; but now this proves to be not the case, though we are far from pretending that transformism might be regarded as resting upon a real causa vera.
But let us study the second group of facts which support the theory of descent. It is a group of evidences supplied by biology itself that we meet here, there being indeed some features in biology which can be said to gain some light, some sort of elucidation, if the theory of descent is accepted. Of course, these facts can only be such as relate to specific diversities, and indeed are facts of systematics; in other words, there exists something in the very nature of the system of organisms that renders transformism probable. The system of animals and plants is based upon a principle which might be called the principle of similarities and diversities by gradation; its categories are not uniform but different in degree and importance, and there are different kinds of such differences. No doubt, some light would be shed upon this character of the system, if we were allowed to assume that the relation between similarities and diversities, which is gradual, corresponded to a blood-relationship, which is gradual also.
THE COVERT PRESUMPTION OF ALL THEORIES OF DESCENT
We have used very neutral and somewhat figurative words, in order to show what might be called the logical value of the theory of descent, in order to signify its value with respect to so-called “explanation.” We have spoken of the “light” or the “elucidation” which it brings, of the “peculiarity of aspect” which is destroyed by it. We have used this terminology intentionally, for it is very important to understand that a specific though hidden addition is made almost unconsciously to the mere statement of the hypothesis of descent as such, whenever this hypothesis is advocated in order to bring light or elucidation into any field of systematic facts. And this additional hypothesis indeed must be made from the very beginning, quite irrespective of the more detailed problems of the law of transformism, in order that any sort of so-called explanation by means of the theory of descent may be possible at all. Whenever the theory that, in spite of their diversities, the organisms are related by blood, is to be really useful for explanation, it must necessarily be assumed in every case that the steps of change, which have led the specific form A to become the specific form B, have been such as only to change in part that original form A. That is to say: the similarities between A and B must never have become overshadowed by their diversities.
Only on this assumption, which indeed is a newly formed additional subsidiary hypothesis, joined to the original hypothesis of descent in general—a hypothesis regarding the very nature of transformism—only on this almost hidden assumption is it possible to speak of any sort of “explanation” which might be offered by the theory of transformism to the facts of geography, geology, and biological systematics. Later on we shall study more deeply the logical nature of this “explanation”; at present it must be enough to understand this term in its quasi-popular meaning.
What is explained by the hypothesis of descent—including the additional hypothesis, that there always is a prevalence of the similarities during transformism—is the fact that in palaeontology, in the groups of island and continent faunae and florae taken as a whole, as well as in the single categories of the system, the similarities exceed the diversities. The similarities now are “explained”; that is to say, they are understood as resting on but one principle: the similarities are understood as being due to inheritance;[144] and now we have but one problem instead of an indefinite number. For this reason Wigand granted that the theory of descent affords what he calls a numerical reduction of problems.
Understanding then what is explained by the theory of descent with its necessary appendix, we also understand at once what is not elucidated by it: the diversities of the organism remain as unintelligible as they always were, even if we know that inheritance is responsible for what is similar or equal. Now there can be no doubt that the diversities are the more important point in systematics; if there were only similarities there would be no problem of systematics, for there would be no system. Let us be glad that there are similarities in the diversities, and that these similarities have been explained in some way; but let us never forget what is still awaiting its explanation. Unfortunately it has been forgotten far too often.
THE SMALL VALUE OF PURE PHYLOGENY
And so we are led to the negative side of the theory of transformism, after having discussed its positive half. The theory of descent as such, without a real knowledge of the factors which are concerned in transformism, or of the law of transformism, in other terms, leaves the problem of systematics practically where it was, and adds really nothing to its solution. That may seem very deplorable, but it is true.
Imagine so-called historical geology, without any knowledge of the physical and chemical factors which are concerned in it: what would you have except a series of facts absolutely unintelligible to you? Or suppose that some one stated the cosmogenetic theory of Kant and Laplace without there being any science of mechanics: what would the theory mean to you? Or suppose that the whole history of mankind was revealed to you, but that you had absolutely no knowledge of psychology: what would you have but facts and facts and facts again, with not a morsel of real explanation?
But such is the condition in which so-called phylogeny stands. If it is based only on the pure theory of transformism, there is nothing explained at all. It was for this reason that the philosopher Liebmann complained of phylogeny that it furnishes nothing but a “gallery of ancestors.” And this gallery of ancestors set up in phylogeny is not even certain; on the contrary, it is absolutely uncertain, and very far from being a fact. For there is no sound and rational principle underlying phylogeny; there is mere fantastic speculation. How could it be otherwise where all is based upon suppositions which themselves have no leading principle at present? I should not like to be misunderstood in my polemics against phylogeny. I fully grant you that it may be possible in a few cases to find out the phylogenetic history of smaller groups with some probability, if there is some palaeontological evidence in support of pure comparative anatomy; and I also do not hesitate to allow that such a statement would be of a certain value with regard to a future discovery of the “laws” of descent, especially if taken together with the few facts known about mutations. But it is quite another thing with phylogeny on the larger scale. Far more eloquent than any amount of polemics is the fact that vertebrates, for instance, have already been “proved” to be descended from, firstly, the amphioxus; secondly, the annelids; thirdly, the Sagitta type of worms; fourthly, from spiders; fifthly, from Limulus, a group of crayfishes; and sixthly, from echinoderm larvae. That is the extent of my acquaintance with the literature, with which I do not pretend to be specially familiar. Emil du Bois-Reymond said once that phylogeny of this sort is of about as much scientific value as are the pedigrees of the heroes of Homer, and I think we may fully endorse his opinion on this point.
HISTORY AND SYSTEMATICS
A few words should be devoted to the relations between history and systematics in biology. Is there no contradiction between historical development and a true and rational system which, we conceded, might exist some day in biological sciences, even though it does not at present? By no means. A totality of diversities is regarded from quite different points of view if taken as the material of a system, and if considered as realised in time. We have said that chemistry has come very near to proper rational systematics, at least in some of its special fields; but the compounds it deals with at the same time may be said to have originated historically also, though not, of course, by a process of propagation. It is evident at once that the geological conditions of very early times prohibited the existence of certain chemical compounds, both organic and inorganic, which are known at present. None the less these compounds occupy their proper place in the system. And there may be many substances theoretically known to chemical systematics which have never yet been produced, on account of the impossibility of arranging for their proper conditions of appearance, and nevertheless they must be said to “exist.” “Existence,” as understood in systematics, is independent of special space and of special time, as is the existence of the laws of nature: we may speak of a Platonic kind of existence here. Of course it does not contradict this sort of ideal existence if reality proper is added to it.
Thus the problem of systematics remains, no matter whether the theory of descent be right or wrong. There always remains the question about the totality of diversities in life: whether it may be understood by a general principle, and of what kind that principle would be. As, in fact, it is most probably by history, by descent, that organic systematics is brought about, it of course most probably will happen some day that the analysis of the causal factors concerned in the history will serve to discover the principle of systematics also.
Let us now glance at the different kinds of hypotheses which have been established in order to explain how the descent of the organisms might have been possible. We have seen that the theory of transformism alone is not worth very much as a whole, unless at least a hypothetical picture can be formed of the nature of the transforming factors: it is by some such reasoning that almost every author who has defended the theory of descent in its universality tries to account for the manner in which organisms have acquired their present diversities.
2. The Principles of Darwinism
There is no need in our times and particularly in this country, to explain in a full manner the theory known under the name of Darwinism. All of you know this theory, at least in its outlines, and so we may enter at once upon its analytic discussion. A few words only I beg you to allow me as to the name of “Darwinism” itself. Strange to say, Darwinism, and the opinion of Charles Darwin about the descent of organisms, are two different things. Darwin, the very type of a man devoted to science alone and not to personal interests,—Darwin was anything but dogmatic, and yet Darwinism is dogmatism in one of its purest forms. Darwin, for instance, gave the greatest latitude to the nature of the variations which form the battleground of the struggle for existence and natural selection; and he made great allowances for other causal combinations also, which may come into account besides the indirect factors of transformism. He was Lamarckian to a very far-reaching extent. And he had no definite opinion about the origin and the most intimate nature of life in general. These may seem to be defects but really are advantages of his theory. He left open the question which he could not answer, and, in fact, he may be said to be a good illustration of what Lessing says, that it is not the possession of truth but the searching after it, that gives happiness to man. It was but an outcome of this mental condition that Darwin’s polemics never left the path of true scientific discussions, that he never in all his life abused any one who found reason to combat his hypotheses, and that he never turned a logical problem into a question of morality.
How different is this from what many of Darwin’s followers have made out of his doctrines, especially in Germany; how far is “Darwinism” removed from Darwin’s own teaching and character!
It is to Darwinism of the dogmatic kind, however, that our next discussions are to relate, for, thanks to its dogmatism, it has the advantage of allowing the very sharp formulation of a few causal factors, which a priori might be thought to be concerned in organic transformism, though we are bound to say that a really searching analysis of these factors ought to have led to their rejection from the very beginning.
The logical structure of dogmatic Darwinism reveals two different parts, which have nothing at all to do with one another.
NATURAL SELECTION
We shall first study that part of it which is known under the title of natural selection, irrespective of the nature of the causes of primary differences, or, in other words, the nature of variability. This part may be said to belong to Darwin’s personal teachings and not only to “Darwinism.” The offspring of a certain number of adults show differences compared with each other; there are more individuals in the offspring than can grow up under the given conditions, therefore there will be a struggle for existence amongst them, which only the fittest will survive; these survivors may be said to have been “selected” by natural means.
It must be certain from the very beginning of analysis that natural selection, as defined here, can only eliminate what cannot survive, what cannot stand the environment in the broadest sense, but that natural selection never is able to create diversities. It always acts negatively only, never positively. And therefore it can “explain”—if you will allow me to make use of this ambiguous word—it can “explain” only why certain types of organic specifications, imaginable a priori, do not actually exist, but it never explains at all the existence of the specifications of animal and vegetable forms that are actually found. In speaking of an “explanation” of the origin of the living specific forms by natural selection one therefore confuses the sufficient reason for the non-existence of what there is not, with the sufficient reason for the existence of what there is. To say that a man has explained some organic character by natural selection is, in the words of Nägeli, the same as if some one who is asked the question, “Why is this tree covered with these leaves,” were to answer “Because the gardener did not cut them away.” Of course that would explain why there are no more leaves than those actually there, but it never would account for the existence and nature of the existing leaves as such. Or do we understand in the least why there are white bears in the Polar Regions if we are told that bears of other colours could not survive?
In denying any real explanatory value to the concept of natural selection I am far from denying the action of natural selection. On the contrary, natural selection, to some degree, is self-evident; at least as far as it simply states that what is incompatible with permanent existence cannot exist permanently, it being granted that the originating of organic individuals is not in itself a guarantee of permanency. Chemical compounds, indeed, which decompose very rapidly under the conditions existing at the time when they originated may also be said to have been eliminated by “natural selection.” It is another question, of course, whether in fact all eliminations among organic diversities are exclusively due to the action of natural selection in the proper Darwinian sense. It has been pointed out already by several critics of Darwinism and most clearly by Gustav Wolff, that there are many cases in which an advantage with regard to situation will greatly outweigh any advantage in organisation or physiology. In a railway accident, for instance, the passengers that survive are not those who have the strongest bones, but those who occupied the best seats; and the eliminating effect of epidemics is determined at least as much by localities, e.g. special houses or special streets, as by the degree of immunity. But, certainly, natural selection is a causa vera in many other cases.
We now may sum up our discussion of the first half of Darwinism. Natural selection is a negative, an eliminating factor in transformism; its action is self-evident to a very large degree, for it simply states that things do not exist if their continuance under the given conditions is impossible. To consider natural selection as a positive factor in descent would be to confound the sufficient reason for the non-existence of what is not, with the sufficient reason of what is.
Natural selection has a certain important logical bearing on systematics, as a science of the future, which has scarcely ever been alluded to. Systematics of course has to deal with the totality of the possible, not only of the actual diversities; it therefore must remember that more forms may be possible than are actual, the word “possible” having reference in this connection to originating, not to surviving. Moreover, systematics is concerned not only with what has been eliminated by selection, but also with all that might have originated from the eliminated types. By such reasoning natural selection gains a very important aspect—but a logical aspect only.
FLUCTUATING VARIATION THE ALLEGED CAUSE OF ORGANIC DIVERSITY
The second doctrine of dogmatic Darwinism states that all the given diversities among the organisms that natural selection has to work upon are offered to natural selection by so-called fluctuating variation; that is, by variation as studied by means of statistics. This sort of variation, indeed, is maintained to be indefinite in direction and amount, at least by the most conservative Darwinians; it has occasionally been called a real differential; in any case it is looked upon as being throughout contingent with regard to some unity or totality; which, of course, is not to mean that it has not had a sufficient reason for occurring.
It could hardly be said to be beyond the realm of possibility that such differences among organic species as only relate to degree or quantity and perhaps to numerical conditions also, might have been “selected” out of given contingent variations, if but one postulate could be regarded as fulfilled. This postulate may appropriately be stated as the fixation of new averages of variation by inheritance. Let the average value of a variation, with regard to a given property of a given species be n and let the value n + m—m being variable—which is represented in fewer individuals of course than is n, be such as to offer advantages in the struggle for existence; then the individuals marked by n + m will have the greater chance of surviving. Our postulate now states that, in order that a permanent increase of the average value of the variation in question may be reached, n + m in any of its variable forms must be able to become the average value of the second generation, as n was the average value of the first. Out of the second generation again it would be the few individuals marked by n + m + o, which would be selected; n + m + o would be the new average; afterwards n + m + o + p would be selected, would become the new average, and so on. A black variety for instance might be selected by such a series of processes out of a grey-coloured one without difficulty.
But our postulate is not beyond all doubt: certain experiments, at least, which have been carried out about the summation of variations of the true fluctuating type by any kind of selection seem to show that there may be a real progress for a few generations, but that this progress is always followed by a reversion. Of course our experience is by no means complete on this subject, and, indeed, it may be shown in the future that positive transforming effects of fluctuating variability, in connection with selective principles, are possible in the case of new quantitative differences (in the widest sense), but we are not entitled to say so at present.
And this is the only condition on which we can give credit to the second doctrine of dogmatic Darwinism. Its second principle, indeed, proves to be absolutely inadequate to explain the origin of any other kind of specific properties whatever.
I cannot enter here into the whole subject of Darwinian criticism.[145] Our aims are of a positive character, they desiderate construction and only use destruction where it is not to be avoided. So I shall only mention that dogmatic Darwinism has been found to be unable to explain every kind of mutual adaptations, e.g. those existing between plants and insects; that it can never account for the origin of those properties that are indifferent to the life of their bearer, being mere features of organisation as an arrangement of parts; that it fails in the face of all portions of organisation which are composed of many different parts—like the eye—and nevertheless are functional units in any passive or active way; and that, last not least, it has been found to be quite inadequate to explain the first origin of all newly formed constituents of organisation even if they are not indifferent: for how could any rudiment of an organ, which is not functioning at all, not only be useful to its bearer, but be useful in such a degree as to decide about life or death?
It is only for one special feature that I should like to show, by a more full analysis, that dogmatic Darwinism does not satisfy the requirements of the case. The special strength of Darwinism is said to lie in its explaining everything that is useful in and for organisms; the competitive factor it introduces does indeed seem to secure at least a relative sort of adaptedness between the organism and its needs. But in spite of that, we shall now see that Darwinism fails absolutely to explain those most intimate organic phenomena which may be said to be the most useful of all.
Darwinism in its dogmatic form is not able to explain the origin of any sort of organic restitution; it is altogether impossible to account for the restitutive power of organisms by the simple means of fluctuating variation and natural selection in the struggle for existence. Here we have the logical experimentum crucis of Darwinism.
Let us try to study in the Darwinian style the origin of the regenerative faculty, as shown in the restitution of the leg of a newt. All individuals of a given species of the newt, say Triton taeniatus, are endowed with this faculty; all of them therefore must have originated from ancestors which acquired it at some time or other. But this necessary supposition implies that all of these ancestors must have lost their legs in some way, and not only one, but all four of them, as they could not have acquired the restitutive faculty otherwise. We are thus met at the very beginning of our argument by what must be called a real absurdity, which is hardly lessened by the assumption that regeneration was acquired not by all four legs together, but by one after the other. But it is absolutely inevitable to assume that all the ancestors of our Triton must have lost one leg, or more correctly, that only those of them survived which had lost one! Otherwise not all newts at the present day could possess the faculty of regeneration! But a second absurdity follows the first one; out of the ancestors of our newt, which survived the others by reason of having lost one of their legs, there were selected only those which showed at least a very small amount of healing of their wound. It must be granted that such a step in the process of selection, taken by itself, would not at all seem to be impossible; since healing of wounds protects the animals against infection. But the process continues. In every succeeding stage of it there must have survived only those individuals which formed just a little more of granulative tissue than did the rest: though neither they themselves nor the rest could use the leg, which indeed was not present! That is the second absurdity we meet in our attempt at a Darwinian explanation of the faculty of regeneration; but I believe the first one alone was sufficient.
If we were to study the “selection” of the faculty of one of the isolated blastomeres of the egg of the sea-urchin to form a whole larva only of smaller size, the absurdities would increase. At the very beginning we should encounter the absurdity, that of all the individuals there survived only those which were not whole but half; for all sea-urchins are capable of the ontogenetical restitution in question, all of their ancestors therefore must have acquired it, and they could do that only if they became halved at first by some accident during early embryology. But we shall not insist any further on this instance, for it would not be fair to turn into ridicule a theory which bears the name of a man who is not at all responsible for its dogmatic form. Indeed, we are speaking against Darwinism of the most dogmatic form only, not against Darwin himself. He never analysed the phenomena of regeneration or of embryonic restitution—they lay in a field very unfamiliar to him and to his time. I venture to say that if he had taken them into consideration, he would have agreed with us in stating that his theory was not at all able to cover them; for he was prepared to make great concessions, to Lamarckism for instance, in other branches of biology, and he did not pretend, to know what life itself is.
Darwin was not a decided materialist, though materialism has made great capital out of his doctrines, especially in Germany. His book, as is well known, is entitled “The Origin of Species,” that is of organic diversities, and he himself possibly might have regarded all restitution as belonging to the original properties of life, anterior to the originating of diversities. Personally he might possibly be called even a vitalist. Thus dogmatic “Darwinism” in fact is driven into all the absurdities mentioned above, whilst the “doctrine of Darwin” can only be said to be wrong on account of its failing to explain mutual adaptation, the origin of new organs, and some other features in organic diversities; the original properties of life were left unexplained by it intentionally.
DARWINISM FAILS ALL ALONG THE LINE
The result of our discussion then must be this: selection has proved to be a negative factor only, and fluctuating variation as the only way in which new properties of the organisms might have arisen has proved to fail in the most marked manner, except perhaps for a few merely quantitative instances. Such a result betokens the complete collapse of dogmatic Darwinism as a general theory of descent: the most typical features of all organisms remain as unexplained as ever.
What then shall we put in the place of pure Darwinism? Let us first try a method of explanation which was also adopted occasionally by Darwin himself: let us study that form of transformation theories which is commonly known under the title of Lamarckism.
3. The Principles of Lamarckism.
As the word “Darwinism” does not signify the proper theoretical system of Charles Darwin, so Lamarckism as commonly understood nowadays is a good deal removed from the original views of Jean Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarckism is generally regarded as reducing all organic diversities to differences in the needs of individual life, but Lamarck himself, as must be emphasised from the very beginning, did not at all maintain the opinion that the great characteristics of the types were only due to such accidental factors. He supposed a sort of law of organisation to be at the root of systematics, as developed in history, and the needs of life were only responsible, according to him, for splitting the given types of organisation into their ultimate branches. Thus Lamarck, to a great extent at any rate, belongs to a group of authors that we shall have to study afterwards: authors who regard an unknown law of phylogenetic development as the real basis of transformism. Modern so-called Neo-Lamarckism, on the other hand, has indeed conceded the principle of needs to be the sole principle of transformism. Let us then study Lamarckism in its dogmatic modern form.
ADAPTATION AS THE STARTING-POINT
All facts of morphological adaptations—facts which we have analysed already from a different point of view, as being among the most typical phenomena of organic regulation—form the starting-point of this theory, and it must be granted that they form a very solid foundation, for they are facts. The theory only has to enlarge hypothetically the realm of these facts, or rather the realm of the law that governs them. Indeed, it is assumed by Lamarckism that the organism is endowed with the faculty of responding to any change of the environment which may change its function by a morphologically expressed alteration of its functional state and form, which is adapted to the state of conditions imposed from without. Of course, as stated in this most general form, the assumption is not true, but it is true within certain limits, as we know; and there seems to be no reason why we should not believe that there are many more cases of adaptation than we actually know at present, or that, in former phylogenetic times, the organisms were more capable of active adaptation than they are now. So to a certain extent, at least, Lamarckism can be said to rest upon a causa vera.
It is important to notice that this causa vera would imply vitalistic causality when taken in the wide meaning which Lamarckism allows to it: indeed, the power of active adaptation to indefinite changes would imply a sort of causal connection that is nowhere known except in the organism. Lamarck himself is not very clear about this point, he seems to be afraid of certain types of uncritical vitalism in vogue in his days; but modern writers have most clearly seen what the logical assumptions of pure Lamarckism are. Next to Cope, August Pauly[146] may be said to be the most conscious representative of a sort of so-called psychological vitalism, which indeed Lamarckism as a general and all-embracing theory must have as its basis.
THE ACTIVE STORING OF CONTINGENT VARIATIONS AS A HYPOTHETIC PRINCIPLE
This point will come out more fully, if now we turn to study a certain group of principles, upon which dogmatic Lamarckism rests: I say principles and not facts, for there are no facts but only hypothetic assumptions in this group of statements. We do know a little about adaptations, at least to a certain extent, and it was only about the sphere of the validity of a law, which was known to be at work in certain cases, that hypothetical additions were made. In the second group of the foundations of Lamarckism we know absolutely nothing; accidental variations of form are supposed to occur, and the organism is said to possess the faculty of keeping and storing these variations and of handing them down to the next generation, if they happen to satisfy any of its needs.
But these needs are not of the actual type, brought forth by a change of the functional state of the individual, as in the case of adaptations: they are of a somewhat mysterious nature. A glance at the theory of the origin of the movements which are called acts of volition in the human child may serve to elucidate what is meant.
Acts of volition are said thus to originate in random movements of the new-born infant: certain of these accidental motions which happen to relieve some pain or to afford some pleasure are “remembered,” and are used another time quite consciously to bring forth what is liked or to remove what is disliked. So much for the present on a very difficult subject, which will occupy us next year at much greater length. It is clear that at least three fundamental phenomena are concerned in this theory of the origin of acts of volition: the liking and disliking, the keeping in mind, and the volition itself. The real act of volition, indeed, is always based upon a connection of all these factors, these factors now being connected in such a way that even their kind of connection may be said to be a fourth fundamental principle. In order that the particular effect may be obtained which is wanted because it is liked, the possible ways leading to it, which appeared among the random movements in the very beginning, are now regarded as “means” and may now be said to be “used.” But that is as much as to say that the “means” are judged with respect to their usefulness for the actual purpose, and therefore judgment is the fourth foundation of the act of volition.
In fact, Pauly does not hesitate to attribute judgment, along with the other psychological elements, to the organisms whilst undergoing their transformation. There has been formed, for instance, by accidental variation some pigment which by its chemical nature brings the organism into a closer connection with the light of the medium; the individual likes that, keeps the pigment for itself and produces it again in the next generation; and indeed it will safeguard any sort of improvement which chance may effect in this primitive “eye.” Such a view is said to hold well with respect to the origin of every new organ. And this psychological argument is also said to afford the real explanation of adaptation proper. Adaptation also is regarded not as a truly primary faculty of the organism, but as a retention or provoking of metabolic states which occurred by accident originally and were then found to be useful; now they are reproduced either in every single case of individual morphogenesis, without regard to actual requirements, or else only in response to such: in the first case they are “inherited,” in the second they only occur as regulations. Thus the process of judgment, together with all the other elemental factors of psychical life concerned in it, has been made to account for adaptation proper. The whole theory has accordingly become very uniform and simple.
CRITICISM OF THE “INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS” ASSUMED BY LAMARCKISM
In addressing ourselves to the criticism of Neo-Lamarckism we shall neglect as far as possible all the different psychological principles concerned in it—which in any case would need rather a great amount of epistemological sifting—and shall keep to those hypothetic facts which are supposed to be such as may be actually observed in nature.
All of you know that the so-called inheritance of acquired characters lies at the root of Lamarckism; and from this hypothesis our critical analysis is to start, disregarding a larger or smaller number of psychological principles that are brought into the field.
The name of “acquired characters” may a priori be given to three different types of phenomena: firstly, variations including mutations; secondly, disease or injuries; and thirdly, the results of the actual process of adaptation of every kind.
In the first of these groups, the true problem of the inheritance of “acquired” characters appears only with certain restrictions. All variations and mutations are indeed “acquired” by one generation so far as the earlier generation did not possess them, but mutations, at least, cannot be said to be acquired by the actual adult personality: they are innate in it from its very beginning, and therefore may better be called congenital.[147] Congenital properties of the mutation type are, in fact, known to be inherited: their inheritance does not present any problem of its own, but is included in the changes of the hereditary condition to which they are due altogether.[148] All properties of the variation type, on the other hand, having been studied statistically, are known to be inherited, to a certain small extent, as we have seen already whilst studying Darwinism, though they are possibly always liable to reversion. Modern science, as we know,[149] regards them as due to changes of nutrition, in the most general meaning of the word. Under such a view variations might indeed be said to belong to the acquired group of organic specifications; their inheritance, as will be seen later on, would hardly be quite a pure instance of what we are searching for. In no case can true variations claim to be of great importance in problems of transformism.
But what is known about the inheritance of those properties which beyond any doubt may be said to have originated in the adult individual as such, and of which lesions and adaptations proper, as shown for instance among amphibious plants, are instances of the two most typical groups?[150] Weismann did good service by putting an end to the scientific credulity which prevailed with regard to this subject. Weismann was led by his theory of the germ plasm to deny the inheritance of acquired characters of the typical kinds. He could not imagine how the effect of any agent upon the adult, be it of the merely passive or of the adaptive kind, could have such an influence upon the germ as to force it to produce the same effect in spite of the absence of that agent. In fact, that is what the inheritance of acquired characters would render necessary, and a very strange phenomenon it would be, no doubt. But, of course, taken alone, it could never be a decisive argument against such inheritance. I fully agree, that science is obliged to explain new facts by what is known already, as long as it is possible; but if it is no longer possible, the theory of course has to be changed, and not the facts. On this principle one would not neglect the fact of an inheritance of acquired properties, but on the contrary one perhaps might use it as a new evidence of vitalism.
But are there any facts?
At this point we come to speak about the second group of Weismann’s reasonings. He not only saw the difficulty of understanding inheritance of acquired characters on the principles of the science of his time, but he also criticised the supposed facts; and scarcely any of them stood the test of his criticism. Indeed, it must fairly be granted that not one case is known which really proves the inheritance of acquired characters, and that injuries certainly are never found to be inherited. In spite of that, I do not believe that we are entitled to deny the possibility of the inheritance of a certain group of acquired characters in an absolute and dogmatic manner, for there are a few facts which seem at least to tend in the direction of such an inheritance, and which seem to show that it might be discovered perhaps one day, if the experimental conditions were changed.
I am not referring here to the few cases in which bacteria were made colourless or non-virulent by outside factors, or in which certain fungi were forced to permanent agamic reproduction by abnormal external conditions and were shown to retain their “acquired properties” after the external conditions had been restored. In these cases only reproduction by simple division occurred, and that does not imply the true problem of inheritance. Nor am I referring to the few cases of non-adaptive “modifications” found by Standfuss and Fischer, in which butterflies that had assumed an abnormal kind of pigmentation under the influence of abnormal temperature acting upon the pupa, were seen to form this same kind of pigmentation in the next generation under normal conditions of temperature. These cases, though important in themselves, are capable perhaps of a rather simple explanation, as in fact has been suggested. Some necessary means both of inheritance and of morphogenesis, the former being present in the propagation cells, may be said to have been changed or destroyed by heat, and therefore, what seems to be inherited after the change of the body only, would actually be the effect of a direct influence of the temperature upon the germ itself.[151] Let me be clearly understood: I do not say that it is so, but it may be so. What seems to me to be more important than everything and to have a direct bearing on the real discovery of the inheritance of acquired characters in the future, is this. In some instances plants which had been forced from without to undergo certain typical morphological adaptations, or at least changes through many generations, though they did not keep the acquired characters permanently in spite of the conditions being changed to another type, were yet found to lose the acquired adaptations not suddenly but only in the course of three or more generations. A certain fern, Adiantum, is known to assume a very typical modification of form and structure, if grown on serpentine; now Sadebeck,[152] while cultivating this serpentine modification of Adiantum on ordinary ground, found that the first generation grown in the ordinary conditions loses only a little of its typical serpentine character, and that the next generation loses a little more, so that it is not before the fifth generation that all the characters of the serpentine modification have disappeared. There are a few more cases of a similar type relating to plants grown in the plains or on the mountains. There also it was found to take time, or rather to take the course of several generations, until what was required by the new conditions was reached. Of course these cases are very very few compared with those in which a sudden change of the adaptive character, corresponding to the actual conditions, sets in; but it is enough that they do exist.
Would it not be possible at least that adaptations which last for thousands of generations or more might in fact change the adaptive character into a congenital one? Then we not only should have inheritance of acquired characters, but should have a sort of explanation at the same time for the remarkable fact that certain histological structures of a very adapted kind are formed ontogenetically before any function exists, as is known to be the case with the structures in the bones of vertebrates, for instance. Experiments are going on at Paris, and perhaps in other places of scientific research also, which, it is hoped, will show that animals reared in absolute darkness for many generations will lose their perfectly formed eyes, and that animals from the dark with very rudimentary eyes will be endowed with properly functioning ones, after they have been reared in the light for generations. Such a result indeed would account for the many animals, of the most different groups, which live in dark caves and possess only rudiments of eyes: functional adaptation is no longer necessary, so-called atrophy by inactivity sets in, and the results “acquired” by it are inherited.[153]
But enough of possibilities. Let us be content at present to know at least a few real instances with regard to the slowness of the process of what might be said to be “re-adaptation” in some plants. This process shows us a way by which our problem may some day be solved; it allows us to introduce inheritance of acquired characters as a legitimate hypothesis at least, which not only will explain many of the diversities in systematics historically, but also can be called, though not a causa vera, yet certainly more than a mere fiction.
OTHER PRINCIPLES WANTED
We have only dealt with the probability of the inheritance of morphological or physiological[154] adaptation. If that could really be considered as one of the factors concerned in the theory of descent, many, if not all of those congenital diversities among organic species which are of the type of a true structural correspondence to their future functional life, might be regarded as explained, that is, as reduced to one and the same principle. But nothing more than an explanation of this kind of diversities is effected by our principle, and very much more remains to be done, for organic diversities not only consist in specifications and differences as to histology, but are to a much more important degree, differences of organisation proper, that is, of the arrangement of parts, in the widest sense of the word.[155]
Would it be possible to interpret the origin of this sort of systematic diversities by a reasoning similar to that by which we have understood, at least hypothetically, congenital adaptedness?
Dogmatic Lamarckism, we know, uses two principles as its foundations; one of them, adaptation and its inheritance, we have studied with what may be called a partly positive result. The other is the supposed faculty of the organism to keep, to store, and to transfer those variations or mutations of a not properly adaptive sort which, though originating by chance, happen to satisfy some needs of the organism.
CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF STORING AND HANDING DOWN CONTINGENT VARIATIONS
Strange to say, this second hypothesis of dogmatic Lamarckism, invented with the express purpose of defeating Darwinism and taking the place of its fluctuating variability, which was found not to do justice to the facts—this second hypothesis of dogmatic Lamarckism is liable to just the same objections as dogmatic Darwinism itself.
As it is important to understand well the real logical nature of our objections to both of the great transformistic theories, we think it well to interrupt our argument for a moment, in order to consider a certain point which, though very important in itself, seems of only secondary importance to us in our present discussion. Dogmatic Darwinism—I do not say the doctrine of Charles Darwin—is materialistic at bottom, and indeed has been used by many to complete their materialistic view of the universe on its organic side. The word “materialism” must not necessarily be taken here in its metaphysical sense, though most materialists are dogmatic metaphysicians. It also can be understood as forming part of a phenomenological point of view. Materialism as a doctrine of science means simply this: that whether “nature” be reality or phenomenon, in any case there is but one ultimate principle at its base, a principle relating to the movements of particles of matter. It is this point of view which dogmatic Darwinism strengthens; on the theory of natural selection and fluctuating variations, due to accidental differences of nutrition, organisms are merely arrangements of particles of matter, nothing else; and moreover, their kinds of arrangement are understood, at least in principle. Lamarckism, on the other hand, is not materialistic, but most markedly vitalistic—psychistic even; it takes life for granted when it begins its explanations.
You may tell me that Darwin did the same, that he expressly states that his theory has nothing to do with the origin of life; that the title of his work is “The Origin of Species.” It would certainly be right to say so, at least with reference to Darwin personally; but in spite of that, it must be granted that Darwin’s doctrine contains a certain germ of materialism which has been fully developed by the Darwinian dogmatists, while Lamarckism is antimaterialistic by its very nature.
Now it is very important, I think, to notice that this difference between the two theories is unable to disguise one main point which is common to both: and it is to this point, and to this point only, that our chief objections against both these theories converge at present.
The contingency of the typical organic form is maintained by Darwinism as well as by Lamarckism: both theories, therefore, break down for almost the same reasons. The term “contingency” can signify very different relations, having but little in common; but it is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that there may be distinguished roughly two main classes of contingencies, which may provisionally be called the “contingency of being,” and the “contingency of occurring.” It is with the contingency of being that criticism of Darwinism and Lamarckism of the dogmatic type has to deal. Darwinism dealt with variations occurring at random; the organic form was the result of a fixation of only one kind of such variations, all others being extinguished by selection. In other terms, the specific organised form, as understood by Darwinism, was a unit only to the extent that all its properties related to one and the same body, but for the rest it was a mere aggregation or summation. It may be objected to this statement, that by being inherited in its specificity the Darwinian form proved to be a unit in a higher sense of the word, even in the opinion of dogmatic Darwinians; and this objection, perhaps, holds good as far as inheritance is concerned. But on the other hand, it must never be forgotten that the word “unit” had quite a vague and empty meaning even then, as indeed everything the organism is made up of is regarded as being in itself due to a contingent primary process, which has no relation to its fellow-processes. “Unit,” indeed, in spite of inheritance—which, by the way, is alleged also to be a merely materialistic event—means to Darwinians no more when applied to the organism than it does when applied to mountains or islands, where of course a sort of “unit” also exists in some sense, as far as one and the same body comes into account, but where every single character of this unit, in every single feature of form or of quality, is the result of factors or agents each of which is independent of every other.
To this sort of contingency of being, as maintained by Darwinians, criticism has objected, as we know, that it is quite an impossible basis of a theory of descent, since it would explain neither the first origin of an organ, nor any sort of harmony among parts or among whole individuals, nor any sort of restitution processes.
Now Lamarckism of the dogmatic kind, as will easily be seen, only differs from Darwinism in this respect, that what according to the latter happens to the organism passively by means of selection, is according to the former performed actively by the organism, by means of a “judgment”—by the retention and handing down of chance variations. The specificity of the form as a whole is contingent also according to Lamarckism. And, indeed, criticism must reject this contingency of being in exactly the same way as it rejected the contingency of form maintained by Darwinians.
As far as the inheritance of truly adaptive characters comes into account—that is, the inheritance of characters which are due to the active faculty of adaptation possessed by the organism, bearing a vitalistic aspect throughout—hardly anything could be said against Lamarckism, except that inheritance of acquired characters is still an hypothesis of small and doubtful value at present. But that specific organisation proper is due to contingent variations, which accidentally have been found to satisfy some needs of the individual and therefore have been maintained and handed down, this reasoning is quite an impossibility of exactly the same kind as the argument of Darwinism.
The process of restitution, perfect the very first time it occurs, if it occurs at all, is again the classical instance against this new sort of contingency, which is assumed to be the basis of transformism. Here we see with our eyes that the organism can do more than simply perpetuate variations that have occurred at random and bear in themselves no relation whatever to any sort of unit or totality. There exists a faculty of a certain higher degree in the organism, and this faculty cannot possibly have originated by the process which Lamarckians[156] assume. But if their principle fails in one instance, it fails as a general theory altogether. And now, on the other hand, as we actually see the individual organism endowed with a morphogenetic power, inexplicable by Lamarckism, but far exceeding the organogenetic faculty assumed by that theory, would it not be most reasonable to conclude from such facts, that there exists a certain organising power at the root of the transformism of species also, a power which we do not understand, which we see only partially manifested in the work of restitutions, but which certainly is not even touched by any of the Lamarckian arguments? There does indeed exist what Gustav Wolff has called primary purposefulness (“primäre Zweckmässigkeit”), at least in restitutions, and this is equally unexplainable by Darwinism and by the dogmatism of the Lamarckians.
But before entering into this area of hypothesis, let us mention a few more objections to be made to the theory of the contingency of form as put forward by Lamarckians. In the first place, let us say a few words about the appropriateness of the term “contingency” as used in this connection. The forms are regarded as contingent by Lamarckians inasmuch as the variations which afterwards serve as “means” to the “needs” of the organism occur quite accidentally with regard to the whole organism. It might be said that these “needs” are not contingent but subject to an inherent destiny, but this plea is excluded by the Lamarckians themselves, when they say that the organism experiences no need until it has enjoyed the accidental fulfilment of the same. So the only thing in Lamarckian transformism which is not of a contingent character would be the psychological agent concerned in it, as being an agent endowed with the primary power of feeling needs after it has felt fulfilment, and of judging about what the means of future fulfilment are, in order to keep them whenever they offer. But these are characteristics of life itself, irrespective of all its specific forms, which alone are concerned in transformism. Now indeed, I think, we see as clearly as possible that Darwinism and Lamarckism, in spite of the great contrast of materialism and psychologism, shake hands on the common ground of the contingency of organic forms.
The whole anti-Darwinistic criticism therefore of Gustav Wolff for instance, may also be applied to Lamarckism with only a few changes of words. How could the origin of so complete an organ as the eye of vertebrates be due to contingent variations? How could that account for the harmony of the different kinds of cells in this very complicated organ with each other and with parts of the brain? And how is it to be understood, on the assumption of contingency, that there are two eyes of almost equal perfection, and that there are two feet, two ears? Islands and mountains do not show such symmetry in their structures.
We shall not repeat our deduction of the origin of restitutions, of regeneration for instance, on the dogmatic Lamarckian theory. As we have said already, it would lead to absurdities as great as in the case of dogmatic Darwinism, and indeed we already have mentioned that Lamarckians would hardly even attempt to explain these phenomena. It follows that dogmatic Lamarckism fails as a general theory about form.[157]
There is finally one group of facts often brought forward against Lamarckism by Darwinian authors[158] which may be called the logical experimentum crucis of this doctrine, an experimentum destined to prove fatal. You know that among the polymorphic groups of bees, termites, and ants, there exists one type of individuals, or even several types, endowed with some very typical features of organisation, but at the same time absolutely excluded from reproduction: how could those morphological types have originated on the plan allowed by the Lamarckians? Of what use would “judgment” about means that are offered by chance and happen to satisfy needs, be to individuals which die without offspring? Here Lamarckism becomes a simple absurdity, just as Darwinism resulted in absurdities elsewhere.
We were speaking about dogmatic Darwinism then, and it is about dogmatic Lamarckism that we are reasoning at present; both theories must fall in their dogmatic form, though a small part of both can be said to stand criticism. But these two parts which survive criticism, one offered by Lamarck, the other by Darwin, are far from being a complete theory of transformism, even if taken together: they only cover a small area of the field concerned in the theory of descent. Almost everything is still to be done, and we may here formulate, briefly at least, what we expect to be accomplished by the science of the future.
4. The Real Results and the Unsolved Problems of Transformism
What has been explained to a certain extent by the two great theories now current is only this. Systematic diversities consisting in mere differences as to intensity or number may perhaps owe their origin to ordinary variation. They may at least, if we are entitled to assume that heredity in some cases is able to hand on such variations without reversion, which, it must be again remarked, is by no means proved by the facts at present. Natural selection may share in this process by eliminating all those individuals that do not show the character which happens to be useful. That is the Darwinian part of an explanation of transformism which may be conceded as an hypothesis. On the other side, congenital histological adaptedness may be regarded hypothetically as due to an inheritance of adaptive characters which had been acquired by the organism’s activity, exerted during a great number of generations. That is the Lamarckian part in the theory of descent.
But nothing more is contributed to this theory either by the doctrine of Darwin or by that of Lamarck. So it follows that almost everything has still to be done; for no hypothesis at present accounts for the foundation of all systematics, viz., for the differences in organisation, in all that relates to the so-called types as such and the degree of complication in these types, both of which (types and degree of complication) are independent of histological adaptation and adaptedness.
What then do we know about any facts that might be said to bear on this problem? We have stated already at the end of our chapter devoted to the analysis of heredity that what we actually know about any deviation of inheritance proper, that is, about congenital differences between the parents and the offspring, relating to mere tectonics, is practically nothing: indeed, there are at our disposal only the few facts observed by de Vries or derived from the experience of horticulturalists and breeders. We may admit that these facts at least prove the possibility[159] of a discontinuous variation, that is of “mutation,” following certain lines of tectonics and leading to constant results; but everything else, that is everything about a real theory of phylogeny, must be left to the taste of each author who writes on the theory of the Living. You may call that a very unscientific state of affairs, but no other is possible.
And, in fact, it has been admitted by almost all who have dealt with transformism without prepossessions that such is the state of affairs. Lamarck himself, as we have mentioned already, was not blind to the fact that a sort of organisatory law must be at the base of all transformism, and it is well known that hypothetical statements about an original law of phylogeny have been attempted by Nägeli, Kölliker, Wigand, Eimer, and many others. But a full discussion of all these “laws” would hardly help us much in our theoretical endeavour, as all of them, it must be confessed, do little more than state the mere fact that some unknown principle of organisation must have been at work in phylogeny, if we are to accept the theory of descent at all.
It is important to notice that even such a convinced Darwinian as Wallace, who is well known to have been an independent discoverer of the elimination principle, admitted an exception to this principle in at least one case—with regard to the origin of man. But one exception of course destroys the generality of a principle.
As we ourselves feel absolutely incapable of adding anything specific to the general statement that there must be an unknown principle of transformism, if the hypothesis of descent is justified at all, we may here close our discussion of the subject.
5. The Logical Value of the Organic Form According to the
Different Transformistic Theories
A few words only must be added about two topics: on the character of organic forms as regarded by the different transformistic theories, and on the relation of transformism in general to our concept of entelechy.
We have learnt that both Darwinism and Lamarckism, in their dogmatic shape, regard the specific forms of animals and plants as being contingent; in fact, it was to this contingency that criticism was mainly directed. We therefore are entitled to say that to Darwinism and Lamarckism organic forms are accidental in the very sense of the forma accidentalis of the old logicians. There are indefinite forms possible, according to these theories, and there is no law relating to these forms. Systematics, under such a view, must lose, of course, any really fundamental importance. “There is no rational system about organisms”: that is the ultimate statement of Darwinism and of Lamarckism on this doubtful question. Systematics is a mere catalogue, not at present only, but for ever, by the very nature of the organisms. It is not owing to the indefinite number of possible forms that both our theories came to deny the importance of systematics, but to the want of a law relating to this indefinite number: among chemical compounds indefinite possibilities also exist in some cases, but they obey the law of the general formula. It is very strange that Darwinians of all people are in the forefront of systematic research in all countries: do they not see that what they are trying to build up can only relate to accidental phenomena? Or have they some doubts about the foundations of their own theoretical views, in spite of the dogmatic air with which they defend them? Or is it the so-called historical interest which attracts them?
A new question seems to arise at this point: Have not we ourselves neglected history in favour of systematics and laws? Our next lecture, the last of this year, will give the answer to this question.
At present we continue our study of the possible aspects of systematics. It is not difficult to find out what meaning organic forms would assume under any phylogenetic theory opposed to the theories of contingency. It was their defence of contingency, that is, their lack of any law of forms, that caused these theories to be overthrown—reduced to absurdities even—and therefore, it follows that to assume any kind of transformistic law is at the same time to deny the accidental character of the forms of living beings.
There is no forma accidentalis. Does that mean that the forma essentialis is introduced by this mere statement? And what would that assert about the character of systematics?
THE ORGANIC FORM AND ENTELECHY
This problem is not as simple as it might seem to be at the first glance, and, in fact, it is insoluble at present. It is here that the relation of the hypothetic transformistic principle to our concept of entelechy is concerned.
We know that entelechy, though not material in itself, uses material means in each individual morphogenesis, handed down by the material continuity in inheritance. What then undergoes change in phylogeny, the means or the entelechy? And what would be the logical aspect of systematics in either case?
Of course there would be a law in systematics in any case; and therefore systematics in any case would be rational in principle. But if the transformistic factor were connected with the means of morphogenesis, one could hardly say that specific form as such was a primary essence. Entelechy would be that essence, but entelechy in its generality and always remaining the same in its most intimate character, as the specific diversities would only be due to a something, which is not form, but simply means to form. But the harmony revealed to us in every typical morphogenesis, be it normal or be it regulatory, seems to forbid us to connect transformism with the means of morphogenesis. And therefore we shall close this discussion about the most problematic phenomena of biology with the declaration, that we regard it as more congruent to the general aspect of life to correlate the unknown principle concerned in descent with entelechy itself, and not with its means. Systematics of organisms therefore would be in fact systematics of entelechies, and therefore organic forms would be formae essentiales, entelechy being the very essence of form in its specificity. Of course systematics would then be able to assume a truly rational character at some future date: there might one day be found a principle to account for the totality of possible[160] forms, a principle based upon the analysis of entelechy.[161] As we have allowed that Lamarckism hypothetically explains congenital adaptedness in histology, and that Darwinism explains a few differences in quantity, and as such properties, of course, would both be of a contingent character, it follows that our future rational system would be combined with certain accidental diversities. And so it might be said to be one of the principal tasks of systematic biological science in the future to discover the really rational system among a given totality of diversities which cannot appear rational at the first glance, one sort of differences, so to speak, being superimposed upon the other.
C. THE LOGIC OF HISTORY
History, in the strictest sense of the word, is the enumeration of the things which have followed one another in order of time. History deals with the single, with regard both to time and space. Even if its facts are complex in themselves and proper to certain other kinds of human study, they are nevertheless regarded by history as single. Facts, we had better say, so far as they are regarded as single, are regarded historically, for what relates to specific time and space is called history.
Taken as a simple enumeration or registration, history, of course, cannot claim to be a “science” unless we are prepared to denude that word of all specific meaning. But that would hardly be useful. As a matter of fact, what has actually claimed to be history, has always been more than a mere enumeration, even in biology proper. So-called phylogeny implies, as we have shown, that every one of its actual forms contains some rational elements. Phylogeny always rests on the assumption that only some of the characters of the organisms were changed in transformism and that what remained unchanged may be explained by the fact of inheritance.
But this, remember, was the utmost we were able to say for phylogeny. It remains fantastic and for the most part unscientific in spite of this small degree of rationality, as to which it is generally not very clear itself. For nothing is known with regard to the positive factors of transformism, and we were only able to offer the discussion of a few possibilities in place of a real theory of the factors of descent.
In spite of that it will not be without a certain logical value to begin our analysis of history in general by the discussion of possibilities again. Biology proper would hardly allow us to do more: for the simple “fact” of history is not even a “fact” in this science, but an hypothesis, albeit one of some probability.
As discussions of mere possibilities should always rest on as broad a basis as possible, we shall begin our analysis by raising two general questions. To what kinds of realities may the concept of history reasonably be applied? And what different types of “history” would be possible a priori, if the word history is to signify more than a mere enumeration?
1. The Possible Aspects of History
Of course, we could select one definite volume in space and call all the consecutive stages which it goes through, its history: it then would be part of its history that a cloud was formed in it, or that a bird passed through it on the wing. But it would hardly be found very suggestive to write the history of space-volumes. In fact, it is to bodies in space that all history actually relates, at least indirectly, for even the history of sciences is in some respect the history of men or of books. It may suffice for our analysis to understand here the word body in its popular sense.
Now in its relation to bodies history may have the three following aspects, as far as anything more than a simple enumeration comes into account. Firstly, it may relate to one and the same body, the term body again to be understood popularly. So it is when the individual history of the organism is traced from the egg to the adult, or when the history of a cloud or of an island or of a volcano is written. Secondly, the subject-matter of history may be formed by the single units of a consecutive series of bodies following each other periodically. To this variety of history the discoveries of Mendel and his followers would belong in the strictest sense, but so does our hypothetical phylogeny and a great part of the history of mankind. And lastly, there is a rather complicated kind of sequence of which the “history” has actually been written. History can refer to bodies which are in no direct relation with one another, but which are each the effect of another body that belongs to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. This sounds rather complicated; but it is only the strict expression of what is perfectly familiar to you all. Our sentence indeed is simply part of the definition of a history of art or of literature for instance—or, say, of a phylogenetic history of the nests of birds. The single pictures are the subjects of the history of art, and nobody would deny that these pictures are the effects of their painters, and that the painters are individuals of mankind—that is, that they are bodies belonging to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. Of course, it is only improperly that we speak of a history of pictures or of books or of nests. In fact, we are dealing with painters, and with men of letters or of science, and with certain birds, and therefore the third type of history may be reduced to the second. But it was not without value to pursue our logical discrimination as far as possible.
So far we have always spoken of history as being more than a mere enumeration, but we have not ascertained what this “more” signifies. It is not very difficult to do so: in fact, there are three different types of history, each of a different degree of importance with respect to the understanding of reality.
In the first place, history may start as a mere enumeration at the beginning, and at the end, in spite of all further endeavour, may remain that and nothing more. That may occur in the first as well as in the second group of our division of history with regard to its relation to bodies. Take a cloud and describe its history from the beginning to the end: there would never be much more than pure description. Or take one pair of dogs and describe them and their offspring for four generations or more: I doubt if you will get beyond mere descriptions in this case either. The only step beyond a mere enumeration which we can be said to have advanced in these instances, consists in the conviction, gained at the end of the analysis, that nothing more than such an enumeration is in any way possible.
Quite the opposite happens when “history” deals with the individual from the egg to the adult: here the whole series of historical facts is seen to form one whole. This case therefore we shall call not history, but evolution, an evolving of something; the word “evolution” being understood here in a much wider sense than on former occasions,[162] and including, for instance, the embryological alternative “evolutio” or “epigenesis.”
And half-way between enumeration and evolution there now stands a type of history which is more than the one and less than the other: there is a kind of intelligible connection between the consecutive historical stages and yet the concept of a whole does not come in. The geological history of a mountain or of an island is a very clear instance of this class. It is easy to see here, how what has been always becomes the foundation of what will be in the next phase of the historical process. There is a sort of cumulation of consecutive phases, the later ones being impossible without the earlier. So we shall speak of the type of “historical cumulation” as standing between evolution and bare temporal sequence. By means of historical cumulations history may fairly claim to “explain” things. We “understand” a mountain or an island in all its actual characteristics, if we know its history. This “historical understanding” rests on the fact that what first appeared as an inconceivable complex has been resolved into a sequence of single events, each of which may claim to have been explained by actually existing sciences. The complex has been explained as being, though not a real “whole,” yet a sum of singularities, every element of which is familiar.
But you may tell me that my discussion of evolution and of cumulation, as the higher aspects of history, is by no means complete; nay, more—that it is altogether wrong. You would certainly not be mistaken in calling my analysis incomplete. We have called one type of history evolution, the other cumulation; but how have these higher types been reached? Has historical enumeration itself, which was supposed to stand at the beginning of all analysis, or has “history” itself in its strictest sense, as relating to the single as such, risen unaided into something more than “history”? By no means: history has grown beyond its bounds by the aid of something from without. It is unhistorical elements that have brought us from mere history to more than history. We have created the concept of evolution, not from our knowledge of the single line of events attendant on a single egg of a frog, but from our knowledge that there are billions or more of frogs’ eggs, all destined to the same “history,” which therefore is not history at all. We have created the concept of cumulation not from the historical study of a single mountain, but from our knowledge of physics and chemistry and so-called dynamical geology: by the aid of these sciences we “understood” historically, and thus our understanding came from another source than history itself.
2. Phylogenetic Possibilities
Does history always gain its importance from what it is not? Must history always lose its “historical” aspect, in order to become of importance to human knowledge? And can it always become “science” by such a transformation? We afterwards shall resume this discussion on a larger scale, but at present we shall apply what we have learned to hypothetic phylogeny. What then are the possibilities of phylogeny, to what class of history would it belong if it were complete? Of course, we shall not be able to answer this question fully; for phylogeny is not complete, and scarcely anything is known about the factors which act in it. But in spite of that, so much, it seems to me, is gained by our analysis of the possible aspects of history and of the factors possibly concerned in transformism, that we are at least able to formulate the possibilities of a phylogeny of the future in their strict logical outlines.
Darwinism and Lamarckism, regarding organic forms as contingent, must at the same time regard organic history as a cumulation; they indeed might claim to furnish an historical explanation in the realm of biology—if only their statements were unimpeachable, which as we have seen, they are not.
But any transformistic theory, which locates the very principle of phylogeny in the organism itself, and to which therefore even organic forms would be not accidental but essential, might be forced to regard the descent of organisms as a true evolution. The singularities in phylogenetic history would thus become links in one whole: history proper would become more than history. But I only say that phylogeny might be evolution, and in fact I cannot admit more than this a priori, even on the basis of an internal transformistic principle, as has been assumed. Such a principle also might lead always from one typical state of organisation to the next: but ad infinitum.[163] Then phylogeny, though containing what might in some sense be called “progress,” would not be “evolution”; it might even be called cumulation in such a case, in spite of the internal transforming principle, though, of course, cumulation from within would always mean something very different from cumulation from without.[164]
But we must leave this problem an open question, as long as our actual knowledge about transformism remains as poor as it is. We need only add, for the sake of logical interest, that phylogeny, as a true evolution, would necessarily be characterised by the possibility of being repeated.
3. The History of Mankind
We only assume hypothetically that phylogeny has happened, and we know scarcely anything about the factors concerned in it. Now, it certainly would be of great importance, if at least in a small and definite field of biology we were able to state a little more, if the mere fact of phylogeny, of “history,” were at least beyond any doubt within a certain range of our biological experience. And indeed there is one department of knowledge, where history, as we know, has happened, and where we also know at least some of the factors concerned in it.
I refer to the history of mankind; and I use the expression not at all in its anthropological or ethnographical sense, as you might expect from a biologist, but in its proper and common sense as the history of politics and of laws and of arts, of literature and of sciences: in a word, the history of civilisation. Here is the only field, where we know that there actually are historical facts: let us try to find out what these facts can teach us about their succession.
The theory of history in this narrower meaning of the word has been the subject of very numerous controversies in the last twenty years, especially in Germany, and these controversies have led very deeply into the whole philosophical view of the universe. We shall try to treat our subject as impartially as possible.
Hegel says, in the introduction to his Phänomenologie des Geistes: “Die Philosophie muss sich hüten erbaulich sein zu wollen” (“Philosophy must beware of trying to be edifying”). These words, indeed, ought to be inscribed on the lintel of the door that leads into historical methodology, for they have been sadly neglected by certain theoretical writers. Instead of analysing history in order to see what it would yield to philosophy, they have often made philosophy, especially moral philosophy, the starting-point of research, and history then has had to obey certain doctrines from the very beginning.
We shall try as far as we can not to become “erbaulich” in our discussions. We want to learn from history for the purposes of philosophy, and we want to learn from history as from a phenomenon in time and in space, just as we have learnt from all the other phenomena regarding life in nature. Every class of phenomena of course may be studied with respect to generalities as well as with respect to particulars. The particular, it is true, has not taught us much in our studies so far. Perhaps it may be successful in the domain of history proper.
If I take into consideration what the best authors of the last century have written about human history with respect to its general value, I cannot help feeling that none of them has succeeded in assigning to history a position where it would really prove to be of great importance for the aims of philosophical inquiry. Is that the fault of the authors or of human history? And what then would explain the general interest which almost every one takes, and which I myself take in history in spite of this unsatisfactory state of things?
CUMULATIONS IN HUMAN HISTORY
Let us begin our analytical studies of the value and the meaning of human history, by considering some opinions which deserve the foremost place in our discussion, not as being the first in time, but as being the first in simplicity. I refer to the views of men like Buckle, Taine, and Lamprecht, and especially Lamprecht, for he has tried the hardest to justify theoretically what he regards the only scientific aim of history to be. If we may make use of our logical scheme of the three possible aspects of history, it is clear from the beginning that the history of mankind, as understood by the three authors we have named, but most particularly by Lamprecht, is neither a mere enumeration nor a true evolution, but that it has to do with cumulations, in the clearest of their possible forms. The processes of civilisation among the different peoples are in fact to be compared logically with the origin of volcanoes or mountain-ranges in Japan, or in Italy, or in America, and show us a typical series of consecutive phases, as do these. There exists, for instance, in the sphere of any single civilisation an economic system, founded first on the exchange of natural products, and then on money. There are, or better, perhaps, there are said to be, characteristic phases succeeding one another in the arts, such as the “typical,” the “individualistic,” and the “subjective” phases. Any civilisation may be said to have its “middle ages,” and so on. All these are “laws” of course in the meaning of “rules” only, for they are far from being elemental, they are not “principles” in any sense. And there are other sorts of “rules” at work for exceptional cases: revolutions have their rules, and imperialism, for instance, has its rules also.
Now, as the consecutive phases of history have been shown to be true cumulations, it follows that the rules which are revealed by our analysis, are rules relating to the very origin of cumulations also. The real element upon which the cumulation-phases, and the cumulation-rules together rest, is the human individual as the bearer of its psychology. Nobody, it seems to me, has shown more clearly than Simmel that it is the human individual, qua individual, which is concerned in every kind of history.
History, viewed as a series of cumulations, may in fact claim to satisfy the intellect by “explaining” a good deal of historical facts. It explains by means of the elemental factor of individual psychology, which every one knows from himself, and by the simple concept that there is a cumulation, supported by language and by writing as its principal factors, which both of course rest on psychology again. Psychology, so we may say, is capable of leading to cumulation phenomena; the cumulations in history are such that we are able to understand them by our everyday psychology; and history, so far as it is of scientific value, consists exclusively of cumulations.
No doubt there is much truth in such a conception of history; but no doubt also, it puts history in the second rank as compared with psychology; just as geology stands in the second rank as compared with chemistry or physics. Geology and human history may lead to generalities in the form of rules, but these rules are known to be not elemental but only cumulative; and moreover, we know the elements concerned in them. The elements, therefore, are the real subjects for further studies in the realm of philosophy, but not the cumulations, not the rules, which are known to be due to accidental constellations. Of course, the “single” is the immediate subject of this sort of history, but the single as such is emphatically pronounced to be insignificant, and the cumulations and the cumulative rules, though “singles” in a higher sense of the word, are shown to be anything but elementalities.
Therefore, on a conception of human history such as that of Buckle, Taine, Lamprecht, and others, we, of course, ought to take an interest in history, because what is “explained” by historical research touches all of us most personally every day and every year. But our philosophy, our view of the world, would remain the same without history as it is with it. We only study history, and especially the history of our own civilisation, because it is a field of actuality which directly relates to ourselves, just as we study for practical purposes the railway time-tables of our own country, but not of Australia; just as we study the local time-table in particular.
If the mere rerum cognoscere causas is regarded as the criterium of science, history of Lamprecht’s type of course is a science, for its explanations rest upon the demonstration of the typical constellations and of the elemental factor or law from which together the next constellations are known necessarily to follow. But history of this kind is not a science in the sense of discovering den ruhenden Pol in der Erscheinungen Flucht.
HUMAN HISTORY NOT AN “EVOLUTION”
Quite another view of history has been maintained by Hegel, if his explanations about the Entwicklung des objectiven Geistes (“the development of the objective mind”) may be co-ordinated with our strictly logical categories of the possible aspects of history. But I believe we are entitled to say that it was a real evolution of mankind that Hegel was thinking of; an evolution regarding mankind as spiritual beings and having an end, at least ideally. One psychical state was considered by Hegel to generate the next, not as a mere cumulation of elemental stages, but in such a way that each of the states would represent an elementality and an irreducibility in itself; and he assumed that there was a continuous series of such stages of the mind through the course of generations. Is there any sufficient reason in historical facts for such an assumption?
The mind “evolves” itself from error to truth by what might be called a system of contradictions, according to Hegel, with respect to logic as well as to morality; the sum of such contradictions becoming smaller and less complicated with every single step of this evolution. No doubt there really occurs a process of logical and moral refining, so to say, in the individual, and no doubt also, the results of this process, as far as attained, can be handed down to the next generation by the spoken word or by books. But it is by no means clear, I think, that this process is of the type of a real evolution towards an end, so far as it relates to the actual series of generations as such. On the contrary, it seems to me that we have here simply what we meet everywhere in history—a sort of cumulation resting upon a psychological basis.
The dissatisfaction that exists at any actual stage of contradiction, both moral and logical, is one of the psychical factors concerned; the faculty of reasoning is the other. Now it is a consequence of the reasoning faculty that the dissatisfaction continually decreases, or at least changes in such a way that each partial result of the logical process brings with it the statement of new problems. The number of such problems may become less, as the logical process advances, and, indeed, there is an ideal state, both logical and moral, in which there are no more problems, but only results, though this ideal could hardly be regarded as attainable by the human mind. In the history of those sciences which are wholly or chiefly of the a priori type, this process of deliverance from contradictions is most advantageously to be seen. It is obvious in mechanics and thermodynamics, and the theory of matter is another very good instance. A certain result is reached; much seems to be gained, but suddenly another group of facts presents itself, which had been previously unknown or neglected. The first result has to be changed or enlarged; many problems of the second order arise; there are contradictions among them, which disappear after a certain alteration of what was the first fundamental result, and so on. And the same is true about morality, though the difficulties are much greater here, as a clear and well-marked standard of measurement of what is good and what is bad, is wanting, or at least, is not conceded unanimously. But even here there is a consensus on some matters: one would hardly go back to slavery again, for instance, and there are still other points in morality which are claimed as ideals at least by a great majority of moral thinkers.
But all this is not true “evolution,” and indeed, I doubt if such an evolution of mankind could be proved at present in the sense in which Hegel thought it possible. The process of logical and moral deliverance from contradictions might come to an end in one individual; at least that is a logical possibility, or it might come to an end in, say, six or ten generations. And there is, unfortunately for mankind, no guarantee that the result will not be lost again and have to be acquired a second time. All this proves that what Hegel regarded as an evolution of the race is only a cumulation. There is nothing evolutionary relating to the generations of mankind as such. At least, nothing is proved about such an evolution.[165]
You may call my view pessimistic, and indeed you may be right so far as the sum total of human beings as such is in question. But, be it pessimistic or not, we are here moving on scientific ground only, and have merely to study the probability or improbability of problematic facts, and with such a view in our mind, we are bound to say that a true logical and moral evolution of mankind is not at all supported by known facts. There is a process of logical and moral perfection, but this process is not one, is not “single” in its actuality; it is not connected with the one and single line of history, but only with a few generations each time it occurs, or even with one individual, at least ideally. And this process is not less a process of cumulation than any other sort of development or so-called “progress” in history is. Philosophers of the Middle Ages, in fact, sometimes regarded human history as one evolutionary unity, beginning with the Creation and ending with the Day of Judgment; but every one must agree, I think, that even under the dogmatic assumptions of orthodoxy history would by no means necessarily be an “evolution.” Even then the paths taken by different individuals or different branches of the human race on their way to redemption can be regarded as independent lines.
Thus Hegel’s conception of an evolution of mankind, it seems to me, fails to stand criticism. By emphasising that there are certain lines of development in history which bring with them a stimulus to perfection, and that these lines relate to all that is highest in culture, Hegel certainly rendered the most important service to the theory of history; but in spite of that he has revealed to us only a special and typical kind of cumulation process, and nothing like an evolution. We may say that the very essence of history lies in this sort of cumulation, in this “pseudo-evolution” as we might say; and if we like to become moral metaphysicians we might add, that it is for the sake of the possibility of this sort of cumulation that man lives his earthly life; the Hindoos say so, indeed, and so do many Christians. But even if we were to depart from our scientific basis in this way we should not get beyond the realm of cumulations.
All this, of course, is not to be understood to affirm that there never will be discovered any real evolutionary element in human history—in the so-called “subconscious” sphere perhaps—but at present we certainly are ignorant of such an element.
THE PROBLEM OF THE “SINGLE” AS SUCH
If history has failed to appear as a true evolution, and if, on the other hand, it reveals to us a great sum of different cumulations, some of very great importance, others of minor importance, what then remains of the importance of the single historical event in its very singleness? What importance can the description of this event have with regard to our scientific aims? We could hardly say at present that it appears to be of very much importance at all. The historical process as a whole has proved to be not a real elemental unit, as far as we know, and such elemental units as there are in it have proved to be of importance only for individual psychology but not as history. History has offered us only instances of what every psychologist knew already from his own experience, or at least might have known if he had conceived his task in the widest possible spirit.
But is no other way left by which true history might show its real importance in spite of all our former analysis? Can history be saved perhaps to philosophical science by any new sort of reasoning which we have not yet applied to it here.
As a matter of fact, such new reasoning has been tried, and Rickert,[166] in particular, has laid much stress upon the point that natural sciences have to do with generalities, while historical sciences have to do with the single in its singleness only, and, in spite of that, are of the highest philosophical importance. He does not think very highly of so-called “historical laws,” which must be mere borrowings from psychology or biology, applied to history proper, and not touching its character as “history.” We agree with these statements to a considerable extent. But what then about “history proper,” what about “the single in its very singleness”?
Let us say at first a few words about this term “single” so very often applied by us. In the ultimate meaning of the word, of course, the series of actual sensations or “presentations” is the “single” which is given “historically” to each individual, and therefore to the writer of history also, and in fact, history as understood by Rickert is based to a great extent upon this primordial meaning of single “givenness.” The word “single,” in his opinion, relates to the actual and true specification of any event, or group of events, at a given time and at a given locality in space, these events possessing an identity of their own and never being repeated without change of identity. If the subject-matter of history is defined like this, then there are, indeed, “Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung” with regard to history, for natural sciences have nothing to do with the single in such an understanding of the word.
Rickert says somewhere that history as a real evolution, as one totality of a higher order, would cease to be proper history: and he is right. History, in fact, would soon lose the character of specific attachment to a given space and to a given time, and would lose its “non-repeatability,” in the logical sense at least, if it were one unit in reality: as soon as it was that, it would have become a logical generality, an element in nature, so to say, in spite of its factual singularity. But history is not obliged to become that, Rickert states; and we may add that history in fact cannot become that, because it simply proves not to be an evolution as far as we know at present.
But what importance does Rickert attach to his history specified and non-repeatably single?
History has a logic of its own, he says; the scheme of its logic is not the syllogism, but the relation to “values.” So far as the single historical facts can be related to values, they are of historical importance, and in such a way only does history in its proper sense become important in itself and through itself at the same time. Must history always lose its historical aspect to become of importance to human knowledge? That is the question we asked whilst considering the general logical types of the “evolution” and “cumulation” that arose out of the analysis of the historical facts of problematic phylogeny. It now might seem that this question may be answered, and that it may be answered by a clear and simple “No.” The history of mankind, according to Rickert, seems to be important in itself, and without borrowing from any other branch of study. But is his reasoning altogether cogent and convincing?
Has it really been able to attribute to history in the strictest sense such an importance for philosophy, for the theory of the universe, “für die Weltanschauung,” that history proper may in fact be allowed to take its place beside science proper?
The relation to values is not to include any kind of “Bewertung” of judgment, Rickert allows. In fact, history of any kind would hardly satisfy the reader, if moral judgment were its basis. Every reader, of course, has a moral judgment of his own, but, unfortunately, almost every reader’s judgment is different from his neighbour’s, and there is no uniformity of moral principles as there is of geometrical ones. We shall come back to this point. At present we only state the fact that indeed moral judgment can never be the foundation of history, and that Rickert was very right to say so: it is enough to put the names of Tolstoy and Nietzsche together to understand how devoid of even the smallest general validity would be a history resting upon moral principles.
But what then are the “values” of Rickert to which history has to relate, if moral values in their proper sense have to be excluded? It is here that his discussions begin to become obscure and unsatisfactory, and the reason is fairly intelligible. He is trying to prove the impossible; he wants to put history beside science in its real philosophical importance, in spite of the fact that all evidence to establish this is wanting.
These “values,” to which every historical act in its singularity has to be related in order to become an element of real history, are they after all nothing but those groups of the products of civilisation which in fact absorb the interest of men? Is it to groups of cultural phenomena, such as arts, science, the State, religion, war, economics, and so on, that “historical” facts have to be related? Yes, as far as I understand our author, it is simply to these or other even less important groups of cultural effects—cultural “cumulations,” to apply our term—that a single action of a man or a group of men must bear some relation in order to become important historically.
But what does that mean? Is the relation to such “values” to be regarded as really rendering history equal to the sciences of nature in philosophical importance?
In the first place, there is no more agreement about such “values” than there is in the field of morals. Imagine, for instance, a religious enthusiast or recluse writing history! I fancy there would be very little mention of warriors and politicians: war and politics would not be “values” in any sense to such a man. And we know that there are others to whom those products of civilised life rank amongst the first. Rickert well notes that there is one great objection to his doctrine—the character of universality[167] is wanting to his history, or rather to the values forming its basis; for there cannot be, or at least there actually is not at present, a consensus omnium with regard to these “values.”
I am convinced that Rickert is right in his conception of real “history” as the knowledge of the single acts of mankind. But this conception proves just the contrary of what Rickert hoped to prove; for history in this sense is moulded by the actual products of culture, that is, by the effects which actually exist as groups of cultural processes, and it cannot be moulded by anything else; the historian correlates history with what interests him personally.
Here now we have met definitively the ambiguous word: history indeed is to end in “interest” and in being “interesting.” There is nothing like a real “value” in any sense underlying history; the word value therefore would better give place to the term “centre of interest”—a collection of stamps may be such a “centre.” History, then, as the knowledge of cultural singularities, is “interesting,” and its aspects change with the interests of the person who writes history: there is no commonly accepted foundation of history.[168]
And it follows that history as regarded by Rickert cannot serve as the preliminary to philosophy. It may be[169] of use for personal edification or for practical life: granting that the “centres of interest” as referred to are of any real ethical or at least factual importance. But you may take away from history even the greatest personalities, and your view of the universe, your philosophy, would remain the same, except of course so far as these personalities themselves have contributed to philosophy in any way.
Now, on the other hand, it is worth noticing that, even if there were generally accepted “values,” history as the doctrine of singularities would be deprived of philosophical importance. Its single cases would then be merely instances of certain types of actions and occurrences which have been proved to be “valuable,” i.e. to be centres of interest, before-hand. Rickert has observed that the relation to any judgments about moral values would render history unhistorical, for the generalities to which it is related would be the main thing in such a case. But he did not notice, as far as I can see, that history, if related to any “values” whatever—if there were any generally conceded—would become “non-historical” just as well: for the generalities as expressed in the “values” would be the main thing in this case also. In fact, there is no escape from the dilemma:—either no general centres of interest, and therefore a mere subjective “history”; or general “values,” and therefore history a mere collection of instances.
The “limits of concepts in natural sciences” then are the same as the limits of intellectual concepts in general. For intellectual, i.e. logical, “values” are the only centres of interest that can lay claim to universality. There are indeed other groups of important concepts, the ethical ones, but they are outside intellectuality and may enter philosophy only as problems, not as solutions. Therefore, history in its true sense, even if related to the ethical group of concepts, has no bearing on philosophy. Philosophically it remains a sum of contingencies, in which certain laws of cumulation and certain series of cumulation may be discovered. But these series and these laws, if taken scientifically, only offer us instances of psychological elementalities. They also might be instances of primary ethical states and relations, if there were such relations of more than a mere subjective and personal validity, which at present at least seems not to be the case.