Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism

DARWINIANA:

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS PERTAINING TO DARWINISM

by

ASA GRAY FISHER

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Charles Darwin

PREFACE

I. The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection [I-1]

II. Design Versus Necessity. Discussion Between Two Readers Of Darwin’s Treatise On The Origin Of Species, Upon Its Natural Theology

III. Natural Selection. Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology

IV. Species As To Variation, Geographical, Distribution, And Succession

V. Sequoia And Its History The Relations Of North American To Northeast Asian And To Tertiary Vegetation

VI. The Attitude Of Working Naturalists Toward Darwinism [VI-1]

VII. Evolution And Theology [Vii-1]

VIII. What Is Darwinism? [Viii-1]

IX. Charles Darwin: A Sketch

X. Insectivorous Plants

XI. Insectivorous And Climbing Plants [XI-1]

XII. Duration And Origination Of Race And Species— Import Of Sexual Reproduction

XIII. EvolutionaRY TELEOLOGY

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin was born on 12 February 1809, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK. He is best known for his pioneering work in evolutionary theory; establishing that all species of life have descended from common ancestors through a process of ‘natural selection’. This theory of evolution was published in the 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, a text which has become a seminal work of modern science.

Darwin was the fifth of six children of the wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and his wife Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). He was the grandson of two prominent abolitionists: Erasmus Darwin on his father’s side, and Josiah Wedgwood on his mother’s side. Darwin spent his early education in the local Shrewsbury School as a boarder, before moving to Edinburgh in 1825 to study medicine at the University. Darwin’s early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical studies however. He found the medical lectures dull, and the surgery distressing. Instead, he helped investigate marine invertebrates in the Firth of Forth with Robert Edmond Grant. This neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who sent Darwin to Christ’s College, Cambridge, in order to undertake a Bachelor of Arts degree - as the first step towards becoming an Anglican parson. As Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He successfully graduated in 1831, but continued his investigations into the natural world, particularly partaking in the popular craze for beetle collecting. On his graduation, Darwin was invited to join the voyage of the HMS Beagle, with Captain Robert FitzRoy - a journey which lasted almost five years and traversed the globe. The journal of this voyage on the HMS Beagle (published in 1839) established Darwin as a popular author; he detailed his time spent investigating geology and making natural history collections whilst on land. He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations, and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge University. When the Beagle reached Falmouth, Cornwall, on 2 October 1836, Darwin was already a celebrity in scientific circles. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations in 1838 – leading to the conception of his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, Darwin needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority. He was in the process of writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russell Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting the immediate joint publication of both of their papers.

Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life, Darwin’s work continued. Having published On the Origin of Species as an abstract of his theory in 1859, he pressed on with experiments, research, and the writing of what he saw as his magnum opus. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication of 1868 was the first part of Darwin’s planned ‘big book’, and included his unsuccessful hypothesis of pangenesis; an attempt to explain heredity. It was a moderate commercial success and was translated into many languages. This was followed by a second part, on natural selection, but it remained unpublished in his lifetime.

Darwin also examined human evolution in specific, and wrote on sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). This text was shortly followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and a series of books on botany, including Insectivorous Plants, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, and The Power of Movement in Plants. In his last book he returned to The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881). By this time, Darwin’s health was failing however, and in 1882, he was diagnosed with ‘angina pectoris’; a disease of the heart. Darwin died shortly after this diagnosis, at Down House, Kent, on 19 April 1882, and was honoured with a major ceremonial funeral. He is buried at Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton. As a result of his scientific work, Darwin has been described as one of the most influential thinkers in history.

PREFACE

These papers are now collected at the request of friends and correspondents, who think that they may be useful; and two new essays are added. Most of the articles were written as occasion called for them within the past sixteen years, and contributed to various periodicals, with little thought of their forming a series, and none of ever bringing them together into a volume, although one of them (the third) was once reprinted in a pamphlet form. It is, therefore, inevitable that there should be considerable iteration in the argument, if not in the language. This could not be eliminated except by recasting the whole, which was neither practicable nor really desirable. It is better that they should record, as they do, the writer’s freely-expressed thoughts upon the subject at the time; and to many readers there may be some advantage in going more than once, in different directions, over the same ground. If these essays were to be written now, some things might be differently expressed or qualified, but probably not so as to affect materially any important point. Accordingly, they are here reprinted unchanged, except by a few merely verbal alterations made in proof-reading, and the striking out of one or two superfluous or immaterial passages. A very few additional notes or references are appended.

To the last article but one a second part is now added, and the more elaborate Article XIII is wholly new.

If it be objected that some of these pages are written in a lightness of vein not quite congruous with the gravity of the subject and the seriousness of its issues, the excuse must be that they were written with perfect freedom, most of them as anonymous contributions to popular journals, and that an argument may not be the less sound or an exposition less effective for being playful. Some of the essays, however, dealing with points of speculative scientific interest, may redress the balance, and be thought sufficiently heavy if not solid.

To the objection likely to be made, that they cover only a part of the ground, it can only be replied that they do not pretend to be systematic or complete. They are all essays relating in some way or other to the subject which has been, during these years, of paramount interest to naturalists, and not much less so to most thinking people. The first appeared between sixteen and seventeen years ago, immediately after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, as a review of that volume, which, it was then foreseen, was to initiate a revolution in general scientific opinion. Long before our last article was written, it could be affirmed that the general doctrine of the derivation of species (to put it comprehensively) has prevailed over that of specific creation, at least to the extent of being the received and presumably in some sense true conception. Far from undertaking any general discussion of evolution, several even of Mr. Darwin’s writings have not been noticed, and topics which have been much discussed elsewhere are not here adverted to. This applies especially to what may be called deductive evolution—a subject which lay beyond the writer’s immediate scope, and to which neither the bent of his mind nor the line of his studies has fitted him to do justice. If these papers are useful at all, it will be as showing how these new views of our day are regarded by a practical naturalist, versed in one department only (viz., Botany), most interested in their bearings upon its special problems, one accustomed to direct and close dealings with the facts in hand, and disposed to rise from them only to the consideration of those general questions upon which they throw or from which they receive illustration.

Then as to the natural theological questions which (owing to circumstances needless now to be recalled or explained) are here throughout brought into what most naturalists, and some other readers, may deem undue prominence, there are many who may be interested to know how these increasingly prevalent views and their tendencies are regarded by one who is scientifically, and in his own fashion, a Darwinian, philosophically a convinced theist, and religiously an acceptor of the creed commonly called the Nicene, as the exponent of the Christian faith. Truth emerges sooner from error than from confusion, says Bacon; and clearer views than commonly prevail upon the points at issue regarding religion and science are still sufficiently needed to justify these endeavors.

BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., June, 1876.

I.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION [I-1]

(American Journal of Science and Arts, March, 1860)

This book is already exciting much attention. Two American editions are announced, through which it will become familiar to many of our readers, before these pages are issued. An abstract of the argument—for the whole volume is one long argument, as the author states—is unnecessary in such a case; and it would be difficult to give by detached extracts. For the volume itself is an abstract, a prodromus of a detailed work upon which the author has been laboring for twenty years, and which will take two or three more years to complete. It is exceedingly compact; and although useful summaries are appended to the several chapters, and a general recapitulation contains the essence of the whole, yet much of the aroma escapes in the treble distillation, or is so concentrated that the flavor is lost to the general or even to the scientific reader. The volume itself—the proof-spirit—is just condensed enough for its purpose. It will be far more widely read, and perhaps will make deeper impression, than the elaborate work might have done, with all its full details of the facts upon which the author’s sweeping conclusions have been grounded. At least it is a more readable book: but all the facts that can be mustered in favor of the theory are still likely to be needed.

Who, upon a single perusal, shall pass judgment upon a work like this, to which twenty of the best years of the life of a most able naturalist have been devoted? And who among those naturalists who hold a position that entitles them to pronounce summarily upon the subject, can be expected to divest himself for the nonce of the influence of received and favorite systems? In fact, the controversy now opened is not likely to be settled in an off-hand way, nor is it desirable that it should be. A spirited conflict among opinions of every grade must ensue, which—to borrow an illustration from the doctrine of the book before us—may be likened to the conflict in Nature among races in the struggle for life, which Mr. Darwin describes; through which the views most favored by facts will be developed and tested by Natural Selection, the weaker ones be destroyed in the process, and the strongest in the long-run alone survive.

The duty of reviewing this volume in the American Journal of Science would naturally devolve upon the principal editor,’ whose wide observation and profound knowledge of various departments of natural history, as well as of geology, particularly qualify him for the task. But he has been obliged to lay aside his pen, and to seek in distant lands the entire repose from scientific labor so essential to the restoration of his health—a consummation devoutly to be wished, and confidently to be expected. Interested as Mr. Dana would be in this volume, he could not be expected to accept this doctrine.

Views so idealistic as those upon which his Thoughts upon Species [I-2] are grounded, will not harmonize readily with a doctrine so thoroughly naturalistic as that of Mr. Darwin. Though it is just possible that one who regards the kinds of elementary matter, such as oxygen and hydrogen, and the definite compounds of these elementary matters, and their compounds again, in the mineral kingdom, as constituting species, in the same sense, fundamentally, as that of animal and vegetable species, might admit an evolution of one species from another in the latter as well as the former case.

Between the doctrines of this volume and those of the other great naturalist whose name adorns the title-page of this journal, the widest divergence appears. It is interesting to contrast the two, and, indeed, is necessary to our purpose; for this contrast brings out most prominently, and sets in strongest light and shade, the main features of the theory of the origination of species by means of Natural Selection.

The ordinary and generally-received view assumes the independent, specific creation of each kind of plant and animal in a primitive stock, which reproduces its like from generation to generation, and so continues the species. Taking the idea of species from this perennial succession of essentially similar individuals, the chain is logically traceable back to a local origin in a single stock, a single pair, or a single individual, from which all the individuals composing the species have proceeded by natural generation. Although the similarity of progeny to parent is fundamental in the conception of species, yet the likeness is by no means absolute; all species vary more or less, and some vary remarkably—partly from the influence of altered circumstances, and partly (and more really) from unknown constitutional causes which altered conditions favor rather than originate. But these variations are supposed to be mere oscillations from a normal state, and in Nature to be limited if not transitory; so that the primordial differences between species and species at their beginning have not been effaced, nor largely obscured, by blending through variation. Consequently, whenever two reputed species are found to blend in Nature through a series of intermediate forms, community of origin is inferred, and all the forms, however diverse, are held to belong to one species. Moreover, since bisexuality is the rule in Nature (which is practically carried out, in the long-run, far more generally than has been suspected), and the heritable qualities of two distinct individuals are mingled in the offspring, it is supposed that the general sterility of hybrid progeny interposes an effectual barrier against the blending of the original species by crossing.

From this generally-accepted view the well-known theory of Agassiz and the recent one of Darwin diverge in exactly opposite directions.

That of Agassiz differs fundamentally from the ordinary view only in this, that it discards the idea of a common descent as the real bond of union among the individuals of a species, and also the idea of a local origin—supposing, instead, that each species originated simultaneously, generally speaking, over the whole geographical area it now occupies or has occupied, and in perhaps as many individuals as it numbered at any subsequent period.

Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, holds the orthodox view of the descent of all the individuals of a species not only from a local birthplace, but from a single ancestor or pair; and that each species has extended and established itself, through natural agencies, wherever it could; so that the actual geographical distribution of any species is by no means a primordial arrangement, but a natural result. He goes farther, and this volume is a protracted argument intended to prove that the species we recognize have not been independently created, as such, but have descended, like varieties, from other species. Varieties, on this view, are incipient or possible species: species are varieties of a larger growth and a wider and earlier divergence from the parent stock; the difference is one of degree, not of kind.

The ordinary view—rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s—looks to natural agencies for the actual distribution and perpetuation of species, to a supernatural for their origin.

The theory of Agassiz regards the origin of species and their present general distribution over the world as equally primordial, equally supernatural; that of Darwin, as equally derivative, equally natural.

The theory of Agassiz, referring as it does the phenomena both of origin and distribution directly to the Divine will—thus removing the latter with the former out of the domain of inductive science (in which efficient cause is not the first, but the last word)—may be said to be theistic to excess. The contrasted theory is not open to this objection. Studying the facts and phenomena in reference to proximate causes, and endeavoring to trace back the series of cause and effect as far as possible, Darwin’s aim and processes are strictly scientific, and his endeavor, whether successful or futile, must be regarded as a legitimate attempt to extend the domain of natural or physical science. For, though it well may be that organic forms have no physical or secondary cause, yet this can be proved only indirectly, by the failure of every attempt to refer the phenomena in question to causal laws. But, however originated, and whatever be thought of Mr. Darwin’s arduous undertaking in this respect, it is certain that plants and animals are subject from their birth to physical influences, to which they have to accommodate themselves as they can. How literally they are born to trouble, and how incessant and severe the struggle for life generally is, the present volume graphically describes. Few will deny that such influences must have gravely affected the range and the association of individuals and species on the earth’s surface. Mr. Darwin thinks that, acting upon an inherent predisposition to vary, they have sufficed even to modify the species themselves and produce the present diversity. Mr. Agassiz believes that they have not even affected the geographical range and the actual association of species, still less their forms; but that every adaptation of species to climate, and of species to species, is as aboriginal, and therefore as inexplicable, as are the organic forms themselves.

Who shall decide between such extreme views so ably maintained on either hand, and say how much of truth there may be in each? The present reviewer has not the presumption to undertake such a task. Having no prepossession in favor of naturalistic theories, but struck with the eminent ability of Mr. Darwin’s work, and charmed with its fairness, our humbler duty will be performed if, laying aside prejudice as much as we can, we shall succeed in giving a fair account of its method and argument, offering by the way a few suggestions, such as might occur to any naturalist of an inquiring mind. An editorial character for this article must in justice be disclaimed. The plural pronoun is employed not to give editorial weight, but to avoid even the appearance of egotism, and also the circumlocution which attends a rigorous adherence to the impersonal style.

We have contrasted these two extremely divergent theories, in their broad statements. It must not be inferred that they have no points nor ultimate results in common.

In the first place, they practically agree in upsetting, each in its own way, the generally-received definition of species, and in sweeping away the ground of their objective existence in Nature. The orthodox conception of species is that of lineal descent: all the descendants of a common parent, and no other, constitute a species; they have a certain identity because of their descent, by which they are supposed to be recognizable. So naturalists had a distinct idea of what they meant by the term species, and a practical rule, which was hardly the less useful because difficult to apply in many cases, and because its application was indirect: that is, the community of origin had to be inferred from the likeness; such degree of similarity, and such only, being held to be con-specific as could be shown or reasonably inferred to be compatible with a common origin. And the usual concurrence of the whole body of naturalists (having the same data before them) as to what forms are species attests the value of the rule, and also indicates some real foundation for it in Nature. But if species were created in numberless individuals over broad spaces of territory, these individuals are connected only in idea, and species differ from varieties on the one hand, and from genera, tribes, etc., on the other, only in degree; and no obvious natural reason remains for fixing upon this or that degree as specific, at least no natural standard, by which the opinions of different naturalists may be correlated. Species upon this view are enduring, but subjective and ideal. Any three or more of the human races, for example, are species or not species, according to the bent of the naturalist’s mind. Darwin’s theory brings us the other way to the same result. In his view, not only all the individuals of a species are descendants of a common parent, but of all the related species also. Affinity, relationship, all the terms which naturalists use figuratively to express an underived, unexplained resemblance among species, have a literal meaning upon Darwin’s system, which they little suspected, namely, that of inheritance. Varieties are the latest offshoots of the genealogical tree in an unlineal order; species, those of an earlier date, but of no definite distinction; genera, more ancient species, and so on. The human races, upon this view, likewise may or may not be species according to the notions of each naturalist as to what differences are specific; but, if not species already, those races that last long enough are sure to become so. It is only a question of time.

How well the simile of a genealogical tree illustrates the main ideas of Darwin’s theory the following extract from the summary of the fourth chapter shows:

"It is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity—that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group, in the manner which we everywhere behold—namely, varieties of the same species most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes, and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem rather to be clustered round points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles. On the view that each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation of this great fact in the classification of all organic beings; but, to the best of my judgment, it is explained through inheritance and the complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction and divergence of character, as we have seen illustrated in the diagram.

The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few now have living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera, which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin, straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favored and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramification.

It may also be noted that there is a significant correspondence between the rival theories as to the main facts employed. Apparently every capital fact in the one view is a capital fact in the other. The difference is in the interpretation. To run the parallel ready made to our hands: [I-4]

The simultaneous existence of the most diversified types under identical circumstances . . . the repetition of similar types under the most diversified circumstances . . . the unity of plan in otherwise highly-diversified types of animals . . . the correspondence, now generally known as special homologies, in the details of structure otherwise entirely disconnected, down to the most minute peculiarities . . . the various degrees and different kinds of relationship among animals which (apparently) can have no genealogical connection . . . the simultaneous existence in the earliest geological periods, . . . of representatives of all the great types of the animal kingdom . . . the gradation based upon complications of structure which may be traced among animals built upon the same plan; the distribution of some types over the most extensive range of surface of the globe, while others are limited to particular geographical areas . . . the identity of structures of these types, notwithstanding their wide geographical distribution . . . the community of structure in certain respects of animals otherwise entirely different, but living within the same geographical area . . . the connection by series of special structures observed in animals widely scattered over the surface of the globe . . . the definite relations in which animals stand to the surrounding world, . . . the relations in which individuals of the same species stand to one another . . . the limitation of the range of changes which animals undergo during their growth . . . the return to a definite norm of animals which multiply in various ways . . . the order of succession of the different types of animals and plants characteristic of the different geological epochs, . . . the localization of some types of animals upon the same points of the surface of the globe during several successive geological periods . . . the parallelism between the order of succession of animals and plants in geological times, and the gradation among their living representatives . . . the parallelism between the order of succession of animals in geological times and the changes their living representatives undergo during their embryological growth, [I-5] . . . the combination in many extinct types of characters which in later ages appear disconnected in different types, . . . the parallelism between the gradation among animals and the changes they undergo during their growth, . . . the relations existing between these different series and the geographical distribution of animals, . . . the connection of all the known features of Nature into one system—

In a word, the whole relations of animals, etc., to surrounding Nature and to each other, are regarded under the one view as ultimate facts, or in the ultimate aspect, and interpreted theologically; under the other as complex facts, to be analyzed and interpreted scientifically. The one naturalist, perhaps too largely assuming the scientifically unexplained to be inexplicable, views the phenomena only in their supposed relation to the Divine mind. The other, naturally expecting many of these phenomena to be resolvable under investigation, views them in their relations to one another, and endeavors to explain them as far as he can (and perhaps farther) through natural causes.

But does the one really exclude the other? Does the investigation of physical causes stand opposed to the theological view and the study of the harmonies between mind and Nature? More than this, is it not most presumable that an intellectual conception realized in Nature would be realized through natural agencies? Mr. Agassiz answers these questions affirmatively when he declares that the task of science is to investigate what has been done, to inquire if possible how it has been done, rather than to ask what is possible for the Deity, since we can know that only by what actually exists; and also when he extends the argument for the intervention in Nature of a creative mind to its legitimate application in the inorganic world; which, he remarks, considered in the same light, would not fail also to exhibit unexpected evidence of thought, in the character of the laws regulating the chemical combinations, the action of physical forces, etc., etc. [I-6] Mr. Agassiz, however, pronounces that the connection between the facts is only intellectual—an opinion which the analogy of the inorganic world, just referred to, does not confirm, for there a material connection between the facts is justly held to be consistent