Life and Habit

by Samuel Butler

According to Mr. Darwin, differentiations of structure and instinct have mainly come about through the accumulation of small, fortuitous variations without intelligence or desire upon the part of the creature varying; modification, however, through desire and sense of need, is not denied entirely, inasmuch as considerable effect is ascribed by Mr. Darwin to use and disuse, which involves, as has been already said, the modification of a structure in accordance with the wishes of its possessor.

According to Lamarck, genera and species have been evolved, in the main, by exactly the same process as that by which human inventions and civilisations are now progressing; and this involves that intelligence, ingenuity, heroism, and all the elements of romance, should have had the main share in the development of every herb and living creature around us.

I take the following brief outline of the most important part of Lamarck’s theory from vol. xxxvi. of the Naturalist’s Library (Edinburgh, 1843):—

“The more simple bodies,” says the editor, giving Lamarck’s opinion without endorsing it, “are easily formed, and this being the case, it is easy to conceive how in the lapse of time animals of a more complex structure should be produced, for it must be admitted as a fundamental law, that the production of a new organ in an animal body results from any new want or desire it may experience. The first effort of a being just beginning to develop itself must be to procure subsistence, and hence in time there comes to be produced a stomach or alimentary cavity.” (Thus we saw that the amœba is in the habit of “extemporising” a stomach when it wants one.) “Other wants occasioned by circumstances will lead to other efforts, which in their turn will generate new organs.”

Lamarck’s wonderful conception was hampered by an unnecessary adjunct, namely, a belief in an inherent tendency towards progressive development in every low organism. He was thus driven to account for the presence of many very low and very ancient organisms at the present day, and fell back upon the theory, which is not yet supported by evidence, that such low forms are still continually coming into existence from inorganic matter. But there seems no necessity to suppose that all low forms should possess an inherent tendency towards progression. It would be enough that there should occasionally arise somewhat more gifted specimens of one or more original forms. These would vary, and the ball would be thus set rolling, while the less gifted would remain in statu quo, provided they were sufficiently gifted to escape extinction.

Nor do I gather that Lamarck insisted on continued personality and memory so as to account for heredity at all, and so as to see life as a single, or as at any rate, only a few, vast compound animals, but without the connecting organism between each component item in the whole creature, which is found in animals that are strictly called compound. Until continued personality and memory are connected with the idea of heredity, heredity of any kind is little more than a term for something which one does not understand. But there seems little à priori difficulty as regards Lamarck’s main idea, now that Mr. Darwin has familiarised us with evolution, and made us feel what a vast array of facts can be brought forward in support of it.

Mr. Darwin tells us, in the preface to his last edition of the “Origin of Species,” that Lamarck was partly led to his conclusions by the analogy of domestic productions. It is rather hard to say what these words imply; they may mean anything from a baby to an apple dumpling, but if they imply that Lamarck drew inspirations from the gradual development of the mechanical inventions of man, and from the progress of man’s ideas, I would say that of all sources this would seem to be the safest and most fertile from which to draw.

Plants and animals under domestication are indeed a suggestive field for study, but machines are the manner in which man is varying at this moment. We know how our own minds work, and how our mechanical organisations—for, in all sober seriousness, this is what it comes to—have progressed hand in hand with our desires; sometimes the power a little ahead, and sometimes the desire; sometimes both combining to form an organ with almost infinite capacity for variation, and sometimes comparatively early reaching the limit of utmost development in respect of any new conception, and accordingly coming to a full stop; sometimes making leaps and bounds, and sometimes advancing sluggishly. Here we are behind the scenes, and can see how the whole thing works. We have man, the very animal which we can best understand, caught in the very act of variation, through his own needs, and not through the needs of others; the whole process is a natural one; the varying of a creature as much in a wild state as the ants and butterflies are wild. There is less occasion here for the continual “might be” and “may be,” which we are compelled to put up with when dealing with plants and animals, of the workings of whose minds we can only obscurely judge. Also, there is more prospect of pecuniary profit attaching to the careful study of machinery than can be generally hoped for from the study of the lower animals; and though I admit that this consideration should not be carried too far, a great deal of very unnecessary suffering will be spared to the lower animals; for much that passes for natural history is little better than prying into other people’s business, from no other motive than curiosity. I would, therefore, strongly advise the reader to use man, and the present races of man, and the growing inventions and conceptions of man, as his guide, if he would seek to form an independent judgement on the development of organic life. For all growth is only somebody making something.

Lamarck’s theories fell into disrepute, partly because they were too startling to be capable of ready fusion with existing ideas; they were, in fact, too wide a cross for fertility; partly because they fell upon evil times, during the reaction that followed the French Revolution; partly because, unless I am mistaken, he did not sufficiently link on the experience of the race to that of the individual, nor perceive the importance of the principle that consciousness, memory, volition, intelligence, &c., vanish, or become latent, on becoming intense. He also appears to have mixed up matter with his system, which was either plainly wrong, or so incapable of proof as to enable people to laugh at him, and pooh-pooh him; but I believe it will come to be perceived, that he has received somewhat scant justice at the hands of his successors, and that his “crude theories,” as they have been somewhat cheaply called, are far from having had their last say.

Returning to Mr. Darwin, we find, as we have already seen, that it is hard to say exactly how much Mr. Darwin differs from Lamarck, and how much he agrees with him. Mr. Darwin has always maintained that use and disuse are highly important, and this implies that the effect produced on the parent should be remembered by the offspring, in the same way as the memory of a wound is transmitted by one set of cells to succeeding ones, who long repeat the scar, though it may fade finally away. Also, after dealing with the manner in which one eye of a young flat-fish travels round the head till both eyes are on the same side of the fish, he gives (“Natural Selection,” p. 188, ed. 1875) an instance of a structure “which apparently owes its origin exclusively to use or habit.” He refers to the tail of some American monkeys “which has been converted into a wonderfully perfect prehensile organ, and serves as a fifth hand. A reviewer,” he continues, . . . “remarks on this structure—‘It is impossible to believe that in any number of ages the first slight incipient tendency to grasp, could preserve the lives of the individuals possessing it, or favour their chance of having and of rearing offspring.’ But there is no necessity for any such belief. Habit, and this almost implies that some benefit, great or small, is thus derived, would in all probability suffice for the work.” If, then, habit can do this—and it is no small thing to develop a wonderfully perfect prehensile organ which can serve as a fifth hand—how much more may not habit do, even though unaided, as Mr. Darwin supposes to have been the case in this instance, by “natural selection”? After attributing many of the structural and instinctive differences of plants and animals to the effects of use—as we may plainly do with Mr. Darwin’s own consent—after attributing a good deal more to unknown causes, and a good deal to changed conditions, which are bound, if at all important, to result either in sterility or variation—how much of the work of originating species is left for natural selection?—which, as Mr. Darwin admits (“Natural Selection,” p. 63, ed. 1876), does not induce variability, but “implies only the preservation of such variations as arise, and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life?” An important part assuredly, and one which we can never sufficiently thank Mr. Darwin for having put so forcibly before us, but an indirect part only, like the part played by time and space, and not, I think, the one which Mr. Darwin would assign to it.