The great difficulty in Mr. Darwin's works is the fact that he starts with variations ready made, without trying, as a rule, to account for them, and then shows that if these varieties are beneficial the possessor has a better chance in the great struggle for existence, and the accumulation of such variations will give rise to new species. This is what he means by the title of his work, "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." But this tells us nothing whatever about the origin of species. As Butler puts it, "Suppose that it is an advantage to a horse to have an especially broad and hard hoof: then a horse born with such a hoof will, indeed, probably survive in the struggle for existence; but he was not born with the larger and harder hoof because of his subsequently surviving. He survived because he was born fit—not he was born fit because he survived. The variation must arise first and be preserved afterwards." [3]
Mr. Butler works out with admirable force the arguments, first, that habitual action begets unconsciousness; second, that there is a unity of personality between parent and offspring; third, that there is a memory of the oft-repeated acts of past existences, and, lastly, that there is a latency of that memory until it is re-kindled by the presence of associated ideas.
As to the first point, we need say no more, for daily experience confirms it; but the other points must be dealt with more fully.
Mr. Butler argues for the absolute identity of the parent and offspring; and, indeed, this is a necessity. Personal identity is a phrase, very convenient, it is true, but still only a provisional mode of naming something we cannot define. In our own bodies we say that our identity remains the same from birth to death, though we know that our bodily particles are ever changing, that our habits, thoughts, aspirations, even our features, change—that we are no more really the same person than the ripple over a pebble in a brook is the same from moment to moment, though its form remains. If our personal identity thus elude our search in active life, it certainly becomes no more tangible if we trace existence back into pre-natal states. We are, in one sense, the same individual; but, what is equally important, we were part of our mother, as absolutely as her limbs are part of her. There is no break of continuity between offspring and parent—the river of life is a continuous stream. We judge of our own identity by the continuity which we see and appreciate; but that greater continuity reaching backwards beyond the womb to the origin of life itself is no less a fact which should be constantly kept in view. The individual, in reality, never dies; for the lamp of life never goes out.
For a full exposition of this problem, Mr. Butler's "Life and Habit" must be consulted, where the reader will find it treated in a masterly way.
This point was very early appreciated in our work; and in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute [4] in the year 1879, but not published, this continuity was insisted upon by means of diagrams, both of animal and plant life, and its connection with heredity was clearly shown, though its relation to memory was only dimly seen. From this paper the following passage may be quoted: "If, as I believe, the origin of form and decoration is due to a process similar to the visualising of object-thoughts in the human mind, the power of this visualising must commence with the life of the being. It would seem that this power may be best understood by a correct insight into biological development. It has always excited wonder that a child, a separate individual, should inherit and reproduce the characters of its parents, and, indeed, of its ancestors; and the tendency of modern scientific writing is often to make this obscure subject still darker. But if we remember that the great law of all living matter is, that the child is not a separate individual, but a part of the living body of the parent, up to a certain date, when it assumes a separate existence, then we can comprehend how living beings inherit ancestral characters, for they are parts of one continuous series in which not a single break has existed or can ever take place. Just as the wave-form over a pebble in a stream remains constant, though the particles of water which compose it are ever changing, so the wave-form of life, which is heredity, remains constant, though the bodies which exhibit it are continually changing. The retrospection of heredity and memory, and the prospection of thought, are well shown in Mrs. Meritt's beautiful diagram."
This passage illustrates how parallel our thoughts were to Mr. Butler's, whose work we did not then know. What we did not see at the time was, that the power of thinking or memory might antedate birth. It is quite impossible adequately to express our sense of admiration of Mr. Butler's work.
Granting then the physical identity of offspring and parent, the doctrine of heredity becomes plain. The child becomes like the parent, because it is placed in almost identical circumstances to those of its parent, and is indeed part of that parent. If memory be possessed by all living matter, and this is what we now believe, we can clearly see how heredity acts. The embryo develops into a man like its parent, because human embryos have gone through this process many times—till they are unconscious of the action, they know how to proceed so thoroughly.
Darwin, after deeply pondering over the phenomena of growth, repair of waste and injury, heredity and kindred matters, advanced what he wisely called a provisional hypothesis—pangenesis.
"I have been led," he remarks, "or, rather, forced, to form a view which to a certain extent, connects these facts by a tangible method. Everyone would wish to explain to himself even in an imperfect manner, how it is possible for a character possessed by some remote ancestor suddenly to reappear in the offspring; how the effects of increased or decreased use of a limb can be transmitted to the child; how the male sexual element can act, not solely on the ovules, but occasionally on the mother form; how a hybrid can be produced by the union of the cellular tissue of two plants independently of the organs of generation; how a limb can be reproduced on the exact line of amputation, with neither too much nor too little added; how the same organism may be produced by such widely different processes as budding and true seminal generation; and, lastly, how of two allied forms, one passes in the course of its development through the most complex metamorphoses, and the other does not do so, though when mature both are alike in every detail of structure. I am aware that my view is merely a provisional hypothesis or speculation; but until a better one be advanced, it will serve to bring together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by any efficient cause." [5]