*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68574 ***

                          Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling,
punctuation and accents remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus =bold=.

A reference to Monism as “destructive of culture, etc.” in the index
to page 450, which does not exist, has been changed to 350.

The repetition of section titles on consecutive pages has been removed.




                      THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION


                        [publisher’s monogram]

                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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                       MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
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                                TORONTO


                           THE CASE AGAINST
                               EVOLUTION

                                  BY

                 GEORGE BARRY O’TOOLE, PH. D., S.T.D.

      PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHILOSOPHY,
              ST. VINCENT ARCHABBEY; PROFESSOR OF ANIMAL
                      BIOLOGY, SETON HILL COLLEGE

                               New York

                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

                                 1926

                         _All rights reserved_


                           COPYRIGHT, 1925,
                       BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

                       Set up and electrotyped.
                        Published April, 1925.

                       Reprinted February, 1926.


             _Printed in the United States of America by_
                J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK




                             TO MY MOTHER




                                ADDENDA


NOTE TO PAGE 23.—

As a result of recent investigations on the sex chromosomes and
chromosome numbers in mammals, Theophilus S. Painter reaches the
conclusions that polyploidy cannot be invoked to explain evolution
within this class. After giving a table of chromosome numbers for 7 out
of the 9 eutherian orders, Painter concludes: “The facts recorded above
are of especial interest in that they indicate a unity of chromosome
composition above the marsupial level and effectively dispose of the
suggestion that extensive polyploidy may have occurred within this
subclass.

“In the marsupials the chromosome number is a low one and in the
opossum is 22. At first sight it might appear that the eutherian
condition might have arisen from this by tetraploidy. There are two
objections, however. In the first place the bulk of the chromatin
in marsupials is about the same as in the eutheria, using the sex
chromosome as our measure. In the second place, polyploidy could
scarcely occur successfully in animals with X-Y sex chromosomes, as
most mammals possess, because of the complication occurring in the
sex chromosome balance” (_Science_, April 17, 1925, p. 424). As the
X-Y type of sex chromosomes occurs widely not only among vertebrates,
but also among insects, nematodes, and echinoderms, Painter’s latter
objection excludes evolution by polyploidy from a large portion of the
animal kingdom.


NOTE TO PAGE 90.—

Especially reprehensible, in this respect, are the reconstructions of
the Pithecanthropus, the Eoanthropus, and other alleged pitheco-human
links modeled by McGregor and others. These imaginative productions,
in which cranial fragments are arbitrarily completed and fancifully
overlayed with a veneering of human features, have no scientific
value or justification. It is consoling, therefore, to note that
the great French palæontologist, Marcelin Boule, in his recent book
“Les Hommes Fossiles” (Paris, 1921), has entered a timely protest
against the appearance of such reconstructions in serious scientific
works. “Dubois and Manouvrier,” he says, “have given reconstructions
of the skull and even of the head (of the Pithecanthropus). These
attempts made by medical men, are much too hypothetical, because we
do not possess a single element for the reconstruction of the basis
of the brain case, or of the jawbones. We are surprised to see that a
great palæontologist, Osborn, publishes efforts of this kind. Dubois
proceeded still farther in the realm of imagination when he exhibited
at the universal exposition of Paris a plastic and painted reproduction
of the Pithecanthropus” (_op. cit._, p. 105). And elsewhere he remarks:
“Some true savants have published portraits, covered with flesh and
hair, not only of the Neandertal Man, whose skeleton is known well
enough today, but also of the Man of Piltdown, whose remnants are so
fragmentary; of the Man of Heidelberg, of whom we have only the lower
jawbone; of the Pithecanthropus, of whom there exists only a piece of
the cranium and ... two teeth. Such reproductions may have their place
in works of the lowest popularization. But they very much deface the
books, though otherwise valuable, into which they are introduced.”
... “Men of science—and of conscience—know the difficulties of such
attempts too well to regard them as anything more than a pastime” (_op.
cit._, p. 227).


NOTE TO PAGE 342.—

A fourth possibility is suggested by the case of the so-called skull
of the Galley Hill Man, of whose importance as a prehistoric link Sir
Arthur Keith held a very high opinion, but which has since turned out
to be no skull at all, but merely an odd-shaped piece of stone.




                               CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

    FOREWORD                                                          xi


                      PART I—EVOLUTION IN GENERAL

    CHAPTER

    I THE PRESENT CRISIS IN EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT                       1

    II HOMOLOGY AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION                   31

    III FOSSIL PEDIGREES                                              66


                    PART II—THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS

    I THE ORIGIN OF LIFE                                             131

    II THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL                                  189

    III THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY                                 268

    AFTERWORD                                                        349

    GLOSSARY

    INDEX TO AUTHORS

    INDEX OF SUBJECTS




                               FOREWORD


The literature on the subject of evolution has already attained such
vast dimensions that any attempt to add to it has the appearance of
being both superfluous and presumptuous. It is, however, in the fact
that the generality of modern works are frankly partisan in their
treatment of this theme that the publication of the present work finds
justification.

For the philosophers and scientists of the day evolution is evidently
something which admits of no debate and which must be maintained at
all costs. These thinkers are too intent upon making out a plausible
case for the theory to take anything more than the mildest interest in
the facts opposed to it. If they advert to them at all, it is always
to minimize, and never to accentuate, their antagonistic force. For
the moment, at any rate, the minds of scientific writers are closed to
unfavorable, and open only to favorable, evidence, so that one must
look elsewhere than in their pages for adequate presentation of the
case against evolution.

The present work aims at setting forth the side of the question
which it is now the fashion to suppress. It refuses to be bound by
the convention which prescribes that evolution shall be leniently
criticized. It proceeds, in fact, upon the opposite assumption, namely,
that a genuinely scientific theory ought not to stand in need of
indulgence, but should be able, on the contrary, to endure the acid
test of merciless criticism.

Evolution has been termed a “necessary hypothesis.” We have no quarrel
with the phrase, provided it really means evolution as an hypothesis,
and not evolution as a dogma. For, obviously, the problem of a gradual
differentiation of organic species cannot even be investigated upon
the fixistic assumption, inasmuch as this assumption destroys the
problem at the very outset. Unless we assume the possibility, at least,
that modern species of plants and animals may have been the product of
a gradual process, there is no problem to investigate. It is, however,
a far cry from the possibility to the actuality; and the mere fact that
an hypothesis is necessary as an incentive to investigation does not
by any means imply that the result of the investigation will be the
vindication of its inspirational hypothesis. On the contrary, research
often results in the overthrow of the very hypothesis which led to its
inception. We can, therefore, quite readily admit the necessity of
evolution as an hypothesis, while rejecting its necessity as a dogma.

Assent to evolution as a dogma is advocated not only by materialists,
who see in evolutionary cosmogony proof positive of their monism and
the complete overthrow of the idea of Creation, but also by certain
Catholic scientists, who seem to fear that religion may become involved
in the anticipated ruin of fixism. Thus all resistance to the theory
of evolution is deprecated by Father Wasmann and Canon Dorlodot on the
assumption that the ultimate triumph of this theory is inevitable,
and that failure to make provision for this eventuality will lead to
just such another blunder as theologians of the sixteenth century
made in connection with the Copernican theory. Recollection of the
Galileo incident is, doubtless, salutary, in so far as it suggests
the wisdom of caution and the imperative necessity of close contact
with ascertained facts, but a consideration of this sort is no warrant
whatever for an uncritical acceptance of what still remains unverified.
History testifies that verification followed close upon the heels of
the initial proposal of the heliocentric theory, but the whole trend
of scientific discovery has been to destroy, rather than to confirm,
all definite formulations of the evolutional theory, in spite of the
immense erudition expended in revising them.

There is, in brief, no parity at all between Transformism and the
Copernican theory. Among other points of difference, Tuccimei notes
especially the following: “The Copernican system,” he remarks,
“explains _that which is_, whereas evolution attempts to explain _that
which was_; it enters, in other words, into the problem of origins, an
insoluble problem in the estimation of many illustrious evolutionists,
according to whom no experimental verification is possible, given
the processes and factors in conjunction with which the theory was
proposed. But what is of still greater significance for those who
desire to see a parallelism between the two theories is the fact
that the Copernican system became, with the discoveries of Newton, a
demonstrated thesis, scarcely fifty years after the death of Galileo;
the theory of evolution, on the other hand, is at the present day no
longer able to hold its own even as an hypothesis, so numerous are its
incoherencies and the objections to it raised by its own partisans.”
(“La Decadenza di una Teoria,” 1908, p. 11.)

The prospect, then, of a renewal of the Galileo episode is exceedingly
remote. Far more imminent to the writer seems the danger that the
well-intentioned rescuers of religion may be obliged to perform a
most humiliating _volte face_, after having accepted all too hastily
a doctrine favored only for the time being in scientific circles. It
is, in fact, by no means inconceivable that the scientific world will
eventually discard the now prevalent dogma of evolution. In that case
those who have seen fit to reconcile religion with evolution will have
the questionable pleasure of unreconciling it in response to this
reversal of scientific opinion.

On the whole, the safest attitude toward evolution is the agnostic
one. It commits us to no uncertain position. It does not compromise
our intellectual sincerity by requiring us to accept the dogmatism
of scientific orthodoxy as a substitute for objective evidence. It
precludes the possible embarrassment of having to unsay what we
formerly said. And last, but not least, it is the attitude of simple
truth; for the truest thing that Science is, or ever will be, able to
say concerning the problem of organic origins is that she knows nothing
about it.

In the present work, we shall endeavor to show that Evolution has long
since degenerated into a dogma, which is believed in spite of the
facts, and not on account of them. The first three chapters deal with
the theory in general, discussing in turn its genetical, morphological,
and geological aspects. The last three chapters are devoted to the
problem of origins, and treat of the genesis of life, of the human
soul, and of the human body, respectively.

While this book is in no sense a work of “popular science,” I have
sought to broaden its scope and interest by combining the scientific
with the philosophic viewpoint. Certain portions of the text are
unavoidably technical, but there is much, besides, that the general
reader will be able to follow without difficulty. Students, especially
of biology, geology, and experimental psychology, may use it to
advantage as supplementary reading in connection with their textbooks.

I wish to acknowledge herewith my indebtedness to the Editor of the
_Catholic Educational Review_, Rev. George Johnson, Ph. D., to whose
suggestion and encouragement the inception of this work was largely
due. I desire also to express my sincere appreciation of the services
rendered in the revision of the manuscript by the Rev. Edward Wenstrup,
O.S.B., Professor of Zoölogy, St. Vincent College, Pennsylvania.

                                                        BARRY O’TOOLE.

    ST. VINCENT ARCHABBEY,
    January 30, 1925.




                                PART I

                         EVOLUTION IN GENERAL




                               CHAPTER I

              THE PRESENT CRISIS IN EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT


Three prominent men, a scientist, a publicist, and an orator, have
recently made pronouncements on the theory of Evolution. The trio, of
course, to whom allusion is made, are Bateson, Wells, and Bryan. As
a result of their utterances, there has been a general reawakening
of interest in the problem to which they drew attention. Again and
again, in popular as well as scientific publications, men are raising
and answering the question: “Is Darwinism dead?” Manifold and various
are the answers given, but none of them appears to take the form
of an unqualified affirmation or negation. Some reply by drawing a
distinction between Darwinism, as a synonym for the theory of evolution
in general, and Darwinism, in the sense of the particular form of that
theory which had Darwin for its author. Modern research, they assure
us, has not affected the former, but has necessitated a revision of
ideas with respect to the latter. There are other forms of evolution
besides Darwinism, and, as a matter of fact, not Darwin, but Lamarck
was the originator of the scientific theory of evolution. Others,
though imitating the prudence of the first group in their avoidance of
a categorical answer, prefer to reply by means of a distinction based
upon their interpretation of the realities of the problem rather than
upon any mere terminological consideration.

Of the second group, some, like Osborn, distinguish between the _law_
of evolution and the theoretical _explanations_ of this law proposed by
individual scientists. The existence of the law itself, they insist, is
not open to question; it is only with respect to hypotheses explanatory
of the aforesaid law that doubt and disagreement exist. The obvious
objection to such a solution is that, if evolution is really a law of
nature, it ought to be reducible to some clear-cut mathematical formula
comparable to the formulations of the laws of constant, multiple, and
reciprocal proportion in chemistry, or of the laws of segregation,
assortment, and linkage in genetics. Assuming, then, that it is a
genuine law, how is it that today no one ventures to formulate this
evolutional law in definite and quantitative terms?

Others, comprising, perhaps, a majority, prefer to distinguish between
the _fact_ and the _causes_ of evolution. Practically all scientists,
they aver, agree in accepting evolution as an established fact; it is
only with reference to the agencies of evolution that controversy and
uncertainty are permissible. To this contention one may justly reply
that, by all the canons of linguistic usage, a fact is an observed or
experienced event, and that hitherto no one in the past or present
has ever been privileged to witness with his senses even so elemental
a phenomenon in the evolutionary process as the actual origin of a
new and genuine organic species. If, however, the admission be made
that the term “fact” is here used in an untechnical sense to denote
an inferred event postulated for the purpose of interpreting certain
natural phenomena, then the statement that the majority of modern
scientists agree as to the “fact” of evolution may be allowed to stand,
with no further comment than to note that the formidable number and
prestige of the advocates fail to intimidate us. Considerations of this
sort are wholly irrelevant, for in science no less than in philosophy
authority is worth as much as its arguments and no more.

The limited knowledge of the facts possessed by the biologists of
the nineteenth century left their imaginations perilously unfettered
and permitted them to indulge in a veritable orgy of theorizing. Now,
however, that the trail blazed by the great Augustinian Abbot, Mendel,
has been rediscovered, work of real value is being done with the seed
pan, the incubator, the microtome, etc., and the wings of irresponsible
speculation are clipped. Recent advances in this new field of Mendelian
genetics have made it possible to subject to critical examination
all that formerly went under the name of “experimental evidence” of
evolution. Even with respect to the inferential or circumstantial
evidence from palæontology, the enormous deluge of fossils unearthed
by the tireless zeal of modern investigators has annihilated, by its
sheer complexity, the hasty generalizations and facile simplifications
of a generation ago, forcing the adoption of a more critical
attitude. Formerly, a graded series of fossil genera sufficed for
the construction of a “palæontological pedigree”; now, the worker in
this field demands that the chain of descent shall be constructed
with species, instead of genera, for links—“Not till we have linked
species into lineages, can we group them into genera.” (F. A. Bather,
_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 264.) This remarkable progress in
scientific studies has tended to precipitate the crisis in evolutionary
thought, which we propose to consider in the present chapter. Before
doing so, however, it will be of advantage to formulate a clear
statement of the problem at issue.

Evolution, or transformism, as it is more properly called, may be
defined as the theory which regards the present species of plants and
animals as modified descendants of earlier forms of life. Nowadays,
therefore, the principal use of the term evolution is to denote the
developmental theory of organic species. It is, however, a word of many
senses. In the eighteenth century, for example, it was employed in a
sense at variance with the present usage, that is, to designate the
non-developmental theory of embryological encasement or preformation
as opposed to the developmental theory of epigenesis. According
to the theory of encasement, the adult organism did not arise by
the generation of new parts (epigenesis), but by a mere “unfolding”
(_evolutio_) of preëxistent parts. At present, however, evolution is
used as a synonym for transformism, though it has other meanings,
besides, being sometimes used to signify the formation of inorganic
nature as well as the transformation of organic species.

Evolution, in the sense of transformism, is opposed to fixism, the
older theory of Linné, according to whom no _specific_ change is
possible in plants and animals, all organisms being assumed to have
persisted in essential sameness of type from the dawn of organic life
down to the present day. The latter theory admits the possibility of
environmentally-induced modifications, which are non-germinal and
therefore non-inheritable. It also admits the possibility of germinal
changes of the varietal, as opposed to the specific, order, but it
maintains that all such changes are confined within the limits of the
species, and that the boundaries of an organic species are impassable.
Transformism, on the contrary, affirms the possibility of specific
change, and assumes that the boundaries of organic species have
actually been traversed.

What, then, is an organic species? It may be defined as a group of
organisms endowed with the _hardihood_ necessary to survive and
propagate themselves under natural conditions (_i.e._ in the wild
state), exhibiting a common inheritable type, differing from one
another by no major germinal difference, perfectly interfertile with
one another, but _sexually incompatible_ with members of an alien
specific group, in such wise that they produce hybrids wholly, or
partially, sterile, when crossed with organisms outside their own
specific group.

David Starr Jordan has wisely called attention to the requisite of
viability and survival under natural conditions. “A species,” he says,
“is not merely a form or group of individuals distinguished from other
groups by definable features. A complete definition involves longevity.
A species is a kind of animal or plant which has run the gauntlet
of the ages and persisted.... A form is not a species until it has
‘stood.’” (_Science_, Oct. 20, 1922, p. 448.)

Sexual (gametic) incompatibility as a criterion of specific
distinction, presupposes the bisexual or biparental mode of
reproduction, namely, syngamy, and is therefore chiefly applicable
to the metista, although, if the view tentatively proposed by the
protozoölogist, E. A. Minchin, be correct, it would also be applicable
to the protista. According to this view, no protist type is a
true species, unless it is maintained by syngamy (_i.e._ bisexual
reproduction)—“Not until syngamy was acquired,” says Minchin, “could
true species exist among the Protista.” (“An Introduction to the Study
of the Protozoa,” p. 141.)

To return, however, to the metista, the horse (_Equus caballus_) and
the ass (_Equus asinus_) represent two distinct species under a common
genus. This is indicated by the fact that the mule, which is the hybrid
offspring of their cross, is entirely sterile, producing no offspring
whatever, when mated with ass, horse, or mule. Such total sterility,
however, is not essential to the proof of specific differentiation; it
suffices that the hybrid be less fertile than its parents. As early as
1686, sterility (total or partial) of the hybrid was laid down by John
Ray as the fundamental criterion of specific distinction. Hence Bateson
complains that Darwinian philosophy flagrantly “ignored the chief
attribute of species first pointed out by John Ray that the product of
their crosses is frequently sterile in a greater or lesser degree.”
(_Science_, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 58.)

Accordingly, the sameness of type required in members of the same
species refers rather to the genotype, that is, the sum-total of
internal hereditary factors latent in the germ, than to the phenotype,
that is, the expressed somatic characters, viz. the color, structure,
size, weight, and all other perceptible properties, in terms of which a
given plant or animal is described. Thus it sometimes happens that two
distinct species, like the pear-tree and the apple-tree, resemble each
other more closely, as regards their external or somatic characters,
than two varieties belonging to one and the same species. Nevertheless,
the pear-tree and the apple-tree are so unlike in their germinal
(genetic) composition that they cannot even be crossed.

According to all theories of transformism, new species arise through
the transformation of old species, and hence evolutionists are at
one in affirming the occurrence of specific change. When it comes,
however, to assigning the agencies or factors, which are supposed to
have brought about this transmutation of organic species, there is a
wide divergence of opinion. The older systems of transformism, namely,
Lamarckism and Darwinism, ascribed the modification of organic species
to the operation of the external factors of the environment, while the
later school of orthogenesis attributed it to the exclusive operation
of factors residing within the organism itself.

Lamarckism, for example, made the formation of organs a response to
external conditions imposed by the environment. The elephant, according
to this view, being maladjusted to its environment by reason of its
clumsy bulk, developed a trunk by using its nose to compensate for
its lack of pliancy and agility. Here the use or function precedes
the organ and molds the latter to its need. Darwinism agrees with
Lamarckism in making the environment the chief arbiter of modification.
Its explanation of the elephant’s trunk, however, is negative rather
than positive. This animal, it tells us, developed a trunk, because
failure to vary in that useful direction would have been penalized by
extermination.

Wilson presents, in a very graphic manner, the appalling problem
which confronts evolutionists who seek to explain the adaptations of
organisms by means of environmental factors. Referring, apparently, to
Henderson’s “Fitness of the Environment,” he says: “It has been urged
in a recent valuable work ... that fitness is a reciprocal relation,
involving the environment no less than the organism. This is both
a true and suggestive thought; but does it not leave the naturalist
floundering amid the same old quicksands? The historical problem
with which he has to deal must be grappled at closer quarters. He is
everywhere confronted with specific devices in the organism that must
have arisen long after the conditions of environment to which they
are adjusted. Animals that live in water are provided with gills.
Were this all, we could probably muddle along with the notion that
gills are no more than lucky accidents. But we encounter a sticking
point in the fact that gills are so often accompanied by a variety of
ingenious devices, such as reservoirs, tubes, valves, pumps, strainers,
scrubbing brushes, and the like, that are obviously tributary to the
main function of breathing. Given water, asks the naturalist, how has
all this come into existence and been perfected? The question is an
inevitable product of our common sense.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1915, p. 405.)

Impressed with the difficulty of accounting for the phenomena of
organic adaptation by means of the far too general and unspecific
influence of the environment, the orthogenetic school of transformism
inaugurated by Nägeli, Eimer, and Kölliker repudiated this explanation,
and sought to explain organic evolution on the sole basis of internal
factors, such as “directive principles,” or germinal determinants.
According to this conception, the elephant first developed his trunk
under the drive of some internal agency, and afterwards sought out an
environment in which the newly-developed trunk would be useful. In
other words, orthogenesis makes the organ precede the function, and is
therefore the exact reverse of Lamarckism.

Evolutionists in general, as we have said, regard our present plants
and animals as the modified progeny of earlier forms, understanding
by “modified” that which is the product of a trans-specific,
as distinguished from a varietal or intra-specific, change. To
substantiate the claim that changes of specific magnitude have actually
taken place, they appeal to two principal kinds of evidence, namely:
(a) empirical evidence based on such variations as are now observed
to occur among living organisms; (b) inferential evidence, which
aposterioristically deduces the common ancestry of allied organic
types from their resemblances and their sequence in geological time.
Hence, if we omit as negligible certain subsidiary arguments, the
whole evidence for organic evolution may be summed up under three
heads: (1) the genetic evidence grounded on the facts of variation;
(2) the zoölogical evidence based on homology, that is, on structural
resemblance together with all further resemblances (physiological and
embryological), which such similarity entails; (3) the palæontological
evidence which rests on the gradual approximation of fossil types to
modern types, when the former are ranged in a series corresponding to
the alleged chronological order of their occurrence in the geological
strata. It is the bearing of recent genetical research upon the first
of these three lines of evidence that we propose to examine in the
present chapter, an objective to which a brief and rather eclectic
historical survey of evolutionary thought appears to offer the easiest
avenue of approach.

While many bizarre speculations on the subject of transformism had
been hazarded in centuries prior to the nineteenth, the history
of this conception, as a scientific hypothesis, dates from the
publication of Lamarck’s “Philosophie Zoologique” in 1809. According
to Lamarck, organic species are changed as a result of the _indirect_
influence of the external conditions of life. A change in environment
forces a change of habit on the part of the animal. A change in the
animal’s habits results in adaptation, that is, in the development or
suppression of organs through use or disuse. The adaptation, therefore,
thus acquired was not directly imposed by the environment, but only
indirectly—that is, through the mediation of habit. Once acquired
by the individual animal, however, the adaptation was, so Lamarck
thought, taken up by the process of inheritance and perpetuated by
being transmitted to the animal’s offspring. The net result would be a
progressive differentiation of species due to this indirect influence
of a varying environment.

Such was the theory of Lamarck, and it is sound and plausible in all
respects save one, namely, the unwarranted assumption that acquired
adaptations are inheritable, since these, to quote the words of the
Harvard zoölogist, G. H. Parker, “are as a matter of fact just the
class of changes in favor of the inheritance of which there is the
least evidence.” (“Biology and Social Problems,” 1914, p. 103.)

The next contribution to the philosophy of transformism was made by
Charles Darwin, when, in the year 1859, he published his celebrated
“Origin of Species.” In this work, the English naturalist bases the
evolution of organic species upon the assumed spontaneous tendency
of organisms to vary minutely from their normal type in every
possible direction. This spontaneous variability gives rise to slight
variations, some of which are advantageous, others disadvantageous to
the organism. The enormous fecundity of organisms multiplies them in
excess of the available food supply, and more, accordingly, are born
than can possibly survive. In the ensuing competition or struggle for
existence, individuals favorably modified survive and propagate their
kind, those unfavorably modified perish without progeny. This process
of elimination Darwin termed natural selection. Only individuals
favored by it were privileged to propagate their kind, and thus it
happened that these minute variations of a useful character were seized
upon and perpetuated “by the strong principle of _inheritance_.” In
this way, these slight but useful modifications would tend gradually
to accumulate from generation to generation in the direction favored
by “natural selection,” until, by the ensuing summation of innumerable
minor differences verging in the same direction, a major difference
would be produced. The end-result would be a progressive _divergence_
of posterity from the common ancestral type, whence they originally
sprang, ending in a multiplicity of new forms or species, all differing
to a greater or lesser extent from the primitive type. The contrary
hypothesis of a possible _convergence_ of two originally diverse types
towards eventual similarity Darwin rejected as an extremely improbable
explanation of the observed resemblance of organic forms, which, not
without reason, he thought it more credible to ascribe to their assumed
divergence from a common ancestral type.

Such was the scheme of evolution elaborated by Charles Darwin. His
hypothesis leaves the origin of variations an unsolved mystery. It
assumes what has never been proved, namely, the efficacy of “natural
selection.” It rests on what has been definitely disproved by factual
evidence, namely, the inheritability of the slight variations, now
called fluctuations, which, not being transmitted even, by the
hereditary process, cannot possibly accumulate from generation to
generation, as Darwin imagined. Moreover, fluctuations owe their
origin to variability in the external conditions of life (_e.g._ in
temperature, moisture, altitude, exposure, soil, food, etc.), being
due to the _direct_ influence or pressure of the environment, and not
to any spontaneous tendency within the organism itself. Hence Darwin
erred no less with respect to the spontaneity, than with respect to the
inheritability and summation, of his “slight variations.”

The subsequent history of Lamarckian and Darwinian Transformism is
briefly told. That both should pass into the discard was inevitable,
but, thanks to repeated revisions undertaken by loyal adherents, their
demise was somewhat retarded. In vain, however, did the Neo-Darwinians
attempt to do for Darwinism what the Neo-Lamarckians had as futilely
striven to do for Lamarckism. The revisers succeeded only in
precipitating a lethal duel between these two rival systems, which
has proved disastrous to both. The controversy begun in 1891 between
Herbert Spencer and August Weismann marked the climax of this fatal
conflict.

Spencer refused to see any value whatever in Darwin’s principle of
natural selection, while other Neo-Lamarckians, less extreme, were
content to relegate it to the status of a subordinate factor in
evolution. Darwin had considered it “the most important means of
modification,” but it is safe to say that no modern biologist attaches
very much importance to natural selection as a means of accounting for
the differences which mark off one species from another. In fact, if
natural selection has enjoyed, or still continues to enjoy, any vogue
at all, it is not due to its value in natural science (which, for all
practical intents and purposes, is nil), but solely to its appeal as
“mechanistic solution”; for nothing further is needed to commend it to
modern thinkers infected with what Wasmann calls _Theophobia_. Natural
selection, in making the organism a product of the concurrence of blind
forces unguided by Divine intelligence, a mere fortuitous result, and
not the realization of purpose, has furnished the agnostic with a
miserable pretext for omitting God from his attempted explanation of
the universe. “Here is the knot,” exclaims Du Bois-Reymond, “here the
great difficulty that tortures the intellect which would understand the
world. Whoever does not place all activity wholesale under the sway of
Epicurean chance, whoever gives only his little finger to teleology,
will inevitably arrive at Paley’s discarded ‘Natural Theology,’ and
so much the more necessarily, the more clearly he thinks and the
more independent his judgment.... The possibility, ever so distant,
of banishing from nature its seeming purpose, and putting a blind
necessity everywhere in the place of final causes, appears, therefore,
as one of the greatest advances in the world of thought, from which
a new era will be dated in the treatment of these problems. To have
somewhat eased the torture of the intellect which ponders over the
world-problem will, as long as philosophical naturalists exist, be
Charles Darwin’s greatest title to glory.” (_Darwin versus Galiani_,
“Reden,” Vol. I, p. 211.)

But however indispensable the selection principle may be to a
philosophy which proposes to banish the Creator from creation, its
scientific insolvency has become so painfully apparent that biologists
have lost all confidence in its power to solve the problem of organic
origins. It is recognized, for example, that natural selection would
suppress, rather than promote, development, seeing that organs
have utility only in the state of perfection and are destitute of
selection-value while in the imperfect state of transition. Again, the
specific differences that diversify the various types of plants and
animals are notoriously deficient in selection-value, and therefore the
present differentiation of species cannot be accounted for by means of
the principle of natural selection. Finally, unless one is prepared
to make the preposterous assumption that the environment is a telic
mechanism expressly designed for shaping organisms, he is under logical
necessity of admitting that the influence of natural selection cannot
be anything else than purely destructive. There is, as Wilson points
out, no aprioristic ground for supposing that natural selection could
do anything more than maintain the _status quo_, and as for factual
proofs of its effectiveness in a positive sense, they are wholly
wanting. Professor Caullery of the Sorbonne, in his Harvard lecture
of Feb. 24, 1916, assures us that, “since the time of Darwin, natural
selection has remained a purely speculative idea and that no one has
been able to show its efficacy in concrete indisputable examples.”

Considerations of this sort induced not only Neo-Lamarckians, but
many non-partisans as well, to take the field against the Darwinian
Selection Principle. Thus Spencer’s caustic attack became a forerunner
of others, and eminent biologists, like Fleischmann, Driesch, T. H.
Morgan, and Bateson, have in turn poured the vials of their satire
upon the attempts of Neo-Darwinians to rehabilitate the philosophy
of natural selection. Wm. Bateson warns those, who persist in their
credulity with reference to the Darwinian account of organic teleology,
that they “will be wise henceforth to base this faith frankly on the
impregnable rock of superstition and to abstain from direct appeals
to natural fact.” This admonition forms the conclusion of a scathing
criticism of what he styles the “fustian of Victorian philosophy.”
“In the face of what we know,” it runs, “of the distribution of
variability in nature, the scope claimed for natural selection must
be greatly reduced. The doctrine of the survival of the fittest is
undeniable so long as it is applied to the organism as a whole, but to
attempt by this principle to find value in all definiteness of parts
and functions, and in the name of science to see fitness everywhere,
is mere eighteenth century optimism. Yet it was in its application to
the parts, to the details of specific difference, to the spots on the
peacock’s tail, to the coloring of an orchid flower, and hosts of such
examples, that the potency of natural selection was urged with greatest
emphasis. Shorn of these pretensions the doctrine of the survival of
favored races is a truism, helping scarcely at all to account for the
diversity of species. Tolerance plays almost as considerable a part.
By these admissions the last shred of that teleological fustian with
which Victorian philosophy loved to clothe the theory of evolution is
destroyed.” (_Heredity_, “Presidential Address to Brit. Ass’n. for
Advanc. of Science,” Aug. 14, 1914.) Nor is this all. The Darwinian
Selection Principle is reproached with having retarded the progress
of science. It is justly accused of having discouraged profound and
painstaking analysis by putting into currency its shallow and spurious
solution of biological problems. “Too often in the past,” says Edmund
Wilson, “the facile formulas of natural selection have been made use of
to carry us lightly over the surface of unsuspected depths that would
have richly repaid serious exploration.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1915, p. 406.)

In retaliation for the destructive criticism of natural selection,
the Neo-Darwinians have proceeded to pulverize the Lamarckian tenet
concerning the inheritability of acquired adaptations. Weismann, having
laid down his classic distinction between the _soma_ (comprising the
vegetative or tissue cells in contact with the environment) and the
_germ_ (_i.e._ the sequestered reproductive cells or gametes, which are
sheltered from environmental vicissitudes), showed that the Lamarckian
assumption that a change in the somatic cells (which constitute the
organism of the individual) is registered in the germ cells (which
constitute the vehicle of racial inheritance), is supported neither
by _a priori_ probability nor by any facts of observation. Germ cells
give rise by division to somatic or tissue cells, but the converse is
not true; for, once a cell has become differentiated and specialized
into a tissue cell, it can never again give rise by division to germ
cells, but only to other tissue cells of its own kind. Hence the
possibility of a change in the tissue being transmitted to the germ
has no antecedent probability in its favor. Neither is it grounded on
the facts of observation. Bodily mutilations of the parent are not
transmitted to the offspring. The child of a blacksmith is not born
with a more developed right arm than that of a tailor’s child. When
the ovaries from a white rabbit are grafted into a black rabbit, whose
own ovaries have been previously removed, the latter, if mated to a
white male, will produce spotlessly white young. Hence the offspring
inherit the characters of the germ track of the white female, whence
the ovaries were derived, without being influenced in the least by the
pigmented somatic cells of the nurse-body (_i.e._ the black female),
into which the ovaries were grafted. Kammerer’s experiments, in which
young salamanders were found to exhibit at birth the coloration, which
their parents had acquired through the action of sunlight, fail to
convince, because, in this case, the bodies of the parents are not
sufficiently impervious to light to preclude its direct action upon
the gametes while in the reproductive organs of the parents. Hence we
cannot be sure but that the coloration of the offspring derived from
these gametes is due to the direct agency of sunlight rather than to
the intermediate influence of the modified somatic cells upon the germ
plasm.

The same objection holds true of the recent experiments, in which
the germ cells have been modified by modifying the interior medium
or internal environment by means of antibodies and hormones. No
one doubts the possibility of influencing heredity by a direct
modification of the germ cells, especially when, as is always the
case in these experiments, the modification produced is destructive
rather than constructive. The experiments, therefore, of Prof. M.
F. Guyer of Wisconsin University, in which a germinally-transmitted
eye defect was produced by injecting pregnant female rabbits with
an antilens serum derived from fowls immunized to the crystalline
lens of rabbits as antigen, are beside the mark. To demonstrate
the Lamarckian thesis one must furnish evidence of a constructive
addition to inheritance by means of prior somatic acquisition. The
transmission of defects artificially produced is not so much a process
of inheritance (transmission of type) as rather one of degeneracy
(failure to equate the parental type).[1] Commenting on Guyer’s
suggestion that an organism capable of producing antibodies that are
germinally-destructive, may also be able to produce constructive
bodies, Prof. Edwin S. Goodrich says: “The real weakness of the theory
is that it does not escape from the fundamental objections we have
already put forward as fatal to Lamarckism. If an effect has been
produced, either the supposed constructive substance was present from
the first, as an ordinary internal environmental condition necessary
for the normal development of the character, or it must have been
introduced from without by the application of a new stimulus. The same
objection does not apply to the destructive effect. No one doubts that
if a factor could be destroyed by a hot needle or picked out with a
fine forceps the effect of the operation would persist throughout
subsequent generations.” (_Science_, Dec. 2, 1921, p. 535.)

    [1] A good definition of degeneracy is that of A. F. Tredgold,
    who says: “I venture to define degeneracy as ‘a retrograde
    condition of the individual resulting from a pathological
    variation of the germ cell.’” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918,
    p. 548.)

But in demonstrating against the Neo-Lamarckians that somatic
modifications unrepresented in the germ plasm could have no
significance in the process of racial evolution, Weismann had _proved
too much_. His argument was no less telling against Darwinism than
it was against Lamarckism. Darwin’s “individual differences” or
“slight variations,” now spoken of as fluctuations, were quite as
unrepresented and unrecorded in the germ cells as Lamarck’s “acquired
adaptations.” There can be no “summation of individual differences”
for the simple reason that fluctuations have no germinal basis and
are therefore uninheritable—“We must bear in mind the fact,” says
Prof. Edmund Wilson, “that Darwin often failed to distinguish between
non-inheritable fluctuations and hereditary mutations of small degree.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 406.) Fluctuations, as we have
seen, are due to variability in the environmental conditions, _e.g._
in access to soil nutrients, etc. As an instance of fluctuational
variation the seeds of the ragweed may be cited. Normally these
seeds have six spines, but around this average there is considerable
fluctuation in individual seeds, some having as many as nine spines
and others no more than one. Yet the plants reared from nine-spine
seeds, even when similarly mated, show no greater tendency to produce
nine-spine seeds than do plants reared from one-spine seeds.

To meet the difficulty presented by the non-inheritability of the
Lamarckian adaptation and the Darwinian fluctuation, De Vries
substituted for them those rare and abruptly-appearing inheritable
variations, which he called mutations[2] and regarded as elementary
steps in the evolutionary process. This new version of transformism
was announced by De Vries in 1901, and more fully explained in his
“Die Mutations-Theorie” (Leipzig, 1902-1903). Renner has shown that De
Vries’ new forms of Œnothera were cases of complex hybridization rather
than real mutants, as the forms produced by mutation are now called.
Nevertheless, the work of Morgan, Bateson, and others leaves little
doubt as to the actual occurrence of _factorial_ mutants, while Dr.
Albert F. Blakeslee has demonstrated the existence of _chromosomal_
mutants. When unqualified, the term mutant usually denotes the
factorial mutant, which arises from a change in one or more of the
concatenated genes (hereditary factors) of a single chromosome (nuclear
thread) in the germinal (_i.e._ gametic) complex. All such changes
are called factorial mutations. They are hereditarily transmissible,
and affect the somatic characters of the race permanently, although,
in rare cases, such as that of the bar-eyed Drosophila mutant, the
phenomenon of _reversion_ has been observed. The chromosomal mutant,
on the contrary, is not due to changes in the single factors or genes,
but to duplication of one or more entire chromosomes (linkage-groups)
in the gametic complex. Like the factorial mutant, it produces a
permanent and heritable modification. The increase in nuclear material
involved in chromosomal mutation (_i.e._ duplication) seems to cause a
proportionate increase in the cytoplasmic mass of the single somatic
cells, which manifests itself in the phenotype as giantism. De
Vries’ _Œnothera gigas_ is a chromosomal mutant illustrative of this
phenomenon. Besides the foregoing, there is the _pseudomutant_ produced
by the factorial recombination, which results from a _crossover_,
_i.e._ an exchange of genes or factors between two germinal chromosomes
of the same synaptic pair. This reciprocal transfer of genes from one
homologous chromosome to another happens, in a certain percentage of
cases, during synapsis. The percentage can be artificially increased by
exposing young female hybrids to special conditions of temperature.

    [2] The term mutation had been used long before and in a
    similar sense by the German palæontologist Waagen, who employed
    it to designate the variations of a specific type that succeed
    one another in successive strata, a thing which rarely occurs.
    (Cf. Waagen’s _Die Formenreihe des Ammonites subradiatus_,
    Geognost. paläont. Beitr., Berlin, 1869.)

If these new mutant forms could be regarded as genuine new species,
then the fact that such variations are heritable and come within the
range of actual observation, would constitute the long-sought empirical
proof of the reality of evolution. Consciously or subconsciously,
however, De Vries recognized that this was not the case; for he refers
to mutants as “elementary species,” and does not venture to present
them as authentic organic species.

The factorial mutant answers neither the endurance test nor the
intersterility test of a genuine species. It would, doubtless, be
going too far to regard all such mutant forms as examples of germinal
degeneracy, but it cannot be denied that all of them, when compared
to the wild type, are in the direction of unfitness, none of them
being viable and prosperous under the severe conditions obtaining in
the wild state. Bateson, who seems to regard all mutant characters as
recessive and due to germinal loss, declares: “Even in Drosophila,
where hundreds of genetically distinct factors have been identified,
very few new dominants, that is to say positive additions, have been
seen, and I am assured that none of them are of a class which could be
expected to be viable under natural conditions. I understand even that
none are certainly viable in the homozygous state.” (Toronto Address,
_Science_, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 59.) “Garden or greenhouse products,”
says D. S. Jordan, “are immensely interesting and instructive, but
they throw little light on the origin of species. To call them species
is like calling dress-parade cadets ‘soldiers.’ I have heard this
definition of a soldier, ‘one that has stood.’ It is easy to trick out
a group of boys to look like soldiers, but you can not define them as
such until they have ‘stood.’” (_Science_, Oct. 20, 1922.) In a word,
factorial mutants, owing, as they do, their survival exclusively to
the protection of artificial conditions, could never become the hardy
pioneers of new species.

Bateson insists that the mutational variation represents a change of
loss. “Almost all that we have seen,” he says, “are variations in
which we recognize that elements have been lost.” (_Science_, Jan.
20, 1922, p. 59.) In his Address to the British Association (1914),
he cites numerous examples tending to show that mutant characters are
but diminutions or intensifications of characters pre-existent in the
wild or normal stock, all of which are explicable as effects of the
loss (total or partial) of either positive, or inhibitive (epistatic)
hereditary factors (genes). One of these instances illustrating the
subtractive nature of the factorial mutation is that of the Primula
“Coral King,” a salmon-colored mutant, which was suddenly given off
by a red variety of Primula called “Crimson King.” Such a mutation
is obviously based on the loss of a germinal factor for color. The
loss, however, is sometimes partial rather than total, as instanced in
the case of the purple-edged Picotee sweet pea, which arose from the
wholly purple wild variety by fractionation of the genetic factor for
purple pigment. Even where the mutational variation appears to be one
of gain, as happens when a positive character appears _de novo_ in the
phenotype, or when a dilute parental character is intensified in the
offspring, it is, nevertheless, interpretable as a result of germinal
loss, the loss, namely, total or partial, of a genetic inhibitor. Such
inhibitive genes or factors are known to exist. Bateson has shown,
for example, that the whiteness of White Leghorn chickens is due, not
to the absence of color-factors, but to the presence of a genetic
inhibitor—“The white of White Leghorns,” he says, “is not, as white
in nature often is, due to the loss of the color elements, but to the
action of something which inhibits their expression.” (Address to the
Brit. Ass’n., Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 368.) Thus the sudden
appearance in the offspring of a character not visibly represented in
the parents may be due, not to germinal acquisition, but the loss of
an inhibitory gene, whose elimination allows the somatic character
previously suppressed by it to appear. Hence Bateson concludes: “In
spite of seeming perversity, therefore, we have to admit that there is
no evolutionary change which in the present state of our knowledge we
can positively declare to be not due to loss.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 375.)

Another consideration, which disqualifies the factorial mutant for the
rôle of a new species, is its failure to pass the test of interspecific
sterility. When individuals from two distinct species are crossed,
the offspring of the cross is either completely sterile, as instanced
in the mule, or at least partially so. But when, for example, the
sepia-eyed mutant of the vinegar fly is back-crossed with the red-eyed
wild type, whence it originally sprang, the product of the cross is
a red-eyed hybrid, which is perfectly fertile with other sepia-wild
hybrids, with wild flies, and with sepia mutants. This proves that
the sepia-eyed mutant has departed, so to speak, only a varietal,
and not a specific, distance away from the parent stock. Ordinary
or factorial mutation does not, therefore, as De Vries imagined,
produce new species. These mutants do, indeed, meet the requirement of
permanent transmissibility, for their distinctive characters cannot
be obliterated by any amount of crossing. Nevertheless, the factorial
mutation falls short of being an empirical proof of evolution, because
it is a varietal, and not a specific, change. In other words, factorial
mutants are new varieties and not new species. Only a heritable change
based on germinal acquisition of sufficient magnitude to produce
gametic incompatibility between the variant and the parent type would
constitute direct evidence of the transmutation of species, provided,
of course, that the variant were also capable of survival under the
natural conditions of the wild state.

In his Toronto address of December 28, 1921, Wm. Bateson announced
the failure of De Vries’ Mutation Theory, when he said: “But that
particular and essential bit of the theory of evolution, which is
concerned with the origin and nature of species remains utterly
mysterious. We no longer feel as we used to do, that the process of
variation, now contemporaneously occurring, is the beginning of a work
which needs merely the element of time for its completion; for even
time cannot complete that which has not yet begun. The conclusion in
which we were brought up that species are a product of a summation of
variations ignored the chief attribute of species first pointed out by
John Ray that the product of their crosses is frequently sterile in
greater or less degree. Huxley, very early in the debate, pointed out
this grave defect in the evidence, but before breeding researches had
been made on a large scale no one felt the objection to be serious.
Extended work might be trusted to supply the deficiency. It has not
done so, and the significance of the negative evidence can no longer be
denied....

“If species have a common origin where did they pick up the ingredients
which produce this sexual incompatibility? Almost certainly it is a
variation in which something has been added. We have come to see that
variations can very commonly—I do not say always—be distinguished as
positive and negative.... Now we have no difficulty in finding evidence
of variation by loss, but variations by addition are rarities, even
if there are any such which must be so accounted. The variations to
which interspecific sterility is due are obviously variations in which
something is apparently added to the stock of ingredients. It is one of
the common experiences of the breeder that when a hybrid is partially
sterile, and from it any fertile offspring can be obtained, the
sterility, once lost, disappears. This has been the history of many,
perhaps most, of our cultivated plants of hybrid origin.

“The production of an indubitably sterile hybrid from completely
fertile parents which has arisen under critical observation is the
event for which we wait. Until this event is witnessed, our knowledge
of evolution is incomplete in a vital respect. From time to time such
an observation is published, but none has yet survived criticism.”
(_Science_, Jan. 20, 1922, pp. 58, 59.)

But what of the chromosomal mutant? For our knowledge of this type
of mutation we are largely indebted to Blakeslee’s researches and
experiments on the Jimson weed (_Datura stramonium_). According to
Blakeslee, chromosomal mutants result from duplication, or from
reduction, of the chromosomes, and they are classified as _balanced_ or
_unbalanced_ types according as all, or only some, of the chromosomal
linkage-groups are similarly doubled or reduced. If only one of the
homologous chromosomes of a synaptic pair is doubled, the mutant
is termed a _triploid_ form. It is balanced when one homologous
chromosome is doubled in every synaptic pair, but if one or more
chromosomes be added to, or subtracted from, this balanced triploid
complex, the mutant is termed an unbalanced triploid. When all the
chromosomes of the normal diploid complex are uniformly doubled, we
have a balanced _tetraploid_ race. The subtraction or addition of
one or more chromosomes in the case of a balanced tetraploid complex
renders it an unbalanced tetraploid mutant. The retention in somatic
cells of the haploid number of chromosomes characteristic of gametes
and gametophytes gives a balanced _haploid_ mutant, from which hitherto
no unbalanced haploids have been obtained. The normal diploid type and
the balanced tetraploid type are said to constitute an _even_ balance,
while balanced triploids and haploids constitute an _odd_ balance. The
odd balances and all the unbalanced mutants are largely sterile. Thus,
for example, more than 80% of the pollen of the haploid mutant is bad.
“The normal Jimson Weed,” says Blakeslee, “is diploid (2n) with a total
of 24 chromosomes in somatic cells. In previous papers the finding of
tetraploids (4n) with 48 chromosomes and triploids (3n) with 36 was
reported, as well as unbalanced mutants with 25 chromosomes represented
by the formula (2n + 1). The finding of two haploid or 1n plants, which
we are now able to report, adds a new chromosomal type to the balanced
series of mutants in _Datura_. This series now stands: 1n, 2n, 3n, 4n.
Since a series of unbalanced mutants has been obtained from each of
the other balanced types by the addition or subtraction of one or more
chromosomes, it is possible that a similar series of unbalanced mutants
may be obtainable from our new haploid plants, despite the great
unbalance which would thereby result.” (_Science_, June 16, 1923, p.
646.) The haploid mutant, of which Blakeslee speaks, has, of course, 12
unpaired chromosomes in its somatic cells.

The balanced triploid is, like the haploid mutant, largely sterile,
and is only obtainable by crossing the tetraploid race with the normal
diploid plant. Since, then, the product of the cross of the diploid
and tetraploid races is sterile, the tetraploid race fulfills the
sterility test of a distinct species. Whether or not it fulfills
the endurance test of survival under natural condition is doubtful,
inasmuch as diploid Daturas are about three times as prolific as the
tetraploid race. Moreover, as Blakeslee himself confessed in a lecture
at Woods Hole attended by the present writer in the summer of 1923, the
origin of a balanced tetraploid form from the normal diploid type by
simultaneous duplication of all the chromosomes in the diploid complex,
is an event that has yet to be witnessed. Nor is any gradual transition
from the diploid to the tetraploid race, by way of unbalanced types
and triploids, conceivable, seeing that such forms are too sterile
to maintain themselves, and are, in fact, incapable of transmitting
their own type in the absence of artificial intervention. There are,
it is true, some instances, in which diploid and tetraploid races
and species occur together in cultivation and in nature. In certain
cases, this tetraploidy is merely apparent, being due to fragmentation
of the chromosomes; in other cases, it is really due to chromosomal
duplication, giving rise to genuine tetraploid forms. The question
is often hard to decide, the mere number of the chromosomes being
not, in itself, a safe criterion. Of the actual origin, however, of
tetraploid from diploid races we have as yet no observational evidence.
Hence Blakeslee’s researches on the chromosomal mutant have so far
failed to furnish experimental proof of the origin of a genuine new
species. Besides, waiving all other considerations, the limits within
which chromosomal duplication is possible are of necessity so narrow,
that, at best, this phenomenon can only be invoked to explain a very
small range of variation. In fact, it is doubtful whether haploidy,
triploidy, and tetraploidy have any important bearing whatever upon the
problem of the origin of species. (See Addenda.)

The mutation, then, in so far as we have experimental knowledge of it,
does not fulfill requirements of a specific change. It cannot even be
regarded as an _elementary step_ in the direction of such a change.
With this admission, De-Vriesianism becomes obsolete, descending like
its predecessors, Lamarckism and Darwinism, into the charnel-house of
discarded systems whose value is historic, but no longer scientific.
When we enquire into the reason of this common demise of all the
classic systems of transformism, we find it to reside in the progress
of the new science of Mendelian genetics, whose foundations were laid
by an Augustinian monk of the nineteenth century. Six years after
the appearance of Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” Gregor Johann Mendel
published a short paper entitled “Versuche über Pflanzen-hybriden,”
which, unnoticed at the time by a scientific world preoccupied with
Darwinian fantasies, was destined, on its coming to light at the
beginning of the present century, to administer the final _coup de
grace_ to all the elaborate schemes of evolution that had preceded or
followed its initial publication. It took half a century, however,
before the dust of Darwinian sensationalism subsided sufficiently, to
permit the “rediscovery” of Mendel’s solid and genuine contribution
to biological science. But the Prälat of the abbey at Brünn never
lived to see the day of his triumph. The true genius of his century,
he died unhonored and unsung, a pretender being crowned in his stead.
For Coulter says of Darwin: “He died April 19, 1882, probably the most
honored scientific man in the world.” (_Evolution_, 1916, p. 35.)

Within the small dimensions of the paper, of which we have spoken,
Mendel had compressed the results of years of carefully conceived and
accurately executed experimentation reduced to precise statistical
form and interpreted with a penetrating sagacity of the highest order.
It is no exaggeration to say that his discovery has revolutionized
the science of biology, giving it, for the first time, mathematical
formulas comparable to those of chemistry. His two laws of inheritance,
namely, the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment
of characters, have, as previously intimated, become the basis of the
new science of Genetics. His analysis of biparental reproduction has
interpreted for us the cytological phenomena of synapsis, meiosis, and
syngamy, has explained for us the instability of hybrids, has placed
Weismann’s speculations concerning the autonomy and continuity of the
germ plasm on a firm basis of experimental fact, has clarified all our
notions respecting the mode and range of hereditary transmission, and
has, in a word, opened our eyes to that new and hitherto unexplored
realm of nature which Bateson calls “the world of gametes.”

Efforts have been made to construct systems of transformism along
Mendelian lines, but none of them has met with notable success.
Lotsy, for example, sought to explain all variation on the basis of
the rearrangement of preëxistent genetic factors brought about by
crossing. But such a solution of the problem is very unsatisfactory.
In the first place, the generality of hybrid (heterozygous) forms are
ruled out on the score of instability. The phenotype of hybrids is
directly dependent, not on the genes themselves, but on the diploid
combination of genes contained in the zygote. This combination,
however, is always dissolved in the process of gamete-formation, by the
segregative reduction division which occurs in the reproductive organs
of the hybrid. Hybrids, therefore, do not _breed true_, if propagated
by sexual reproduction. To maintain constancy of type in hybrids, one
must resort to somatogenic reproduction (_i.e._ vegetative growth from
stems, etc.). Certain violets, in fact, as well as blackberries, are
maintained in a state of constant hybridism by means of this sort of
reproduction, even in nature. In the case of _balanced lethals_ (_i.e._
factors causing death in the pure or homozygous state), the hybrid
phenotype may be maintained even by sexual reproduction, inasmuch as
all the pure (homozygous) offspring are non-viable. Two lethals are
said to be balanced, when they occur, the first in one and the second
in the other homologous chromosome of the same synaptic pair. “Such a
factorial situation would maintain a state of constant heterozygosis,
the fixed hybridism of an impure species ... the hybrid will breed true
until the relative position of the lethals are changed by a crossover,
or the genetical constitution in these respects is altered by a
mutation.” (Davis, _Science_, Feb. 3, 1922, p. 111.) As is evident,
however, the condition of balanced lethals involves a considerable
reduction in fertility.

Hybridization, moreover, is successful between varieties of the same
species rather than between distinct species. Interspecific crosses
are in some cases entirely unproductive, in other cases productive
of wholly-sterile, hybrids, and in still other cases productive of
semisterile hybrids. When semisterile hybrids are obtainable from an
interspecific cross, the phenotype can be kept constant by somatogenic
reproduction, but, as we shall see in a later chapter, this kind of
reproduction does not counteract senescence, and stock thus propagated
usually plays out within a determinate period. Finally, the mixture
of incompatible germinal elements involved in an interspecific cross
tends to produce forms, which are subnormal in their viability and
vitality. The conclusions of Goodspeed and Clausen are the following:
“(1) As a consequence of modern Mendelian developments, the Mendelian
factors may be considered as making up a reaction system, the elements
of which exhibit more or less specific relations to one another; (2)
strictly Mendelian results are to be expected only when the contrast is
between factor differences within a common Mendelian reaction system
as is ordinarily the case in varietal hybrids; (3) when distinct
reaction systems are involved, as in species crosses, the phenomena
must be viewed in the light of a contrast between systems rather than
between specific factor differences, and the results will depend upon
the degree of mutual compatibility displayed between the specific
elements of the two systems.” (_Amer. Nat._, 51 (1917), p. 99.) To
these conclusions may be added the pertinent observation of Bradley
Moore Davis: “Of particular import,” he says, “is the expectation
that lethals most frequently owe their presence to the heterozygous
condition since the mixing of diverse germ plasms seems likely to lead
to the breaking down of delicate and vital adjustments in proportion
relative to the degree of protoplasmic confusion, and this means
chemical and physical disturbance.” (_Science_, Feb. 3, 1923, p. 111.)

But crossing produces, in the second filial generation (F₂), pure
(homozygous) as well as hybrid (heterozygous) forms.⅖ In some cases
these pure forms are new, the phenotype being different from that
of either pure grandparent. Such a result is produced by _random
assortment_ of the chromosomes in gamete and zygote formation, and
occurs when the genes for two or more pairs of contrasted characters
are located in different chromosome pairs. The phenomenon is formulated
in Mendel’s Second Law, the law of independent assortment. The novelty,
however, of the true-breeding forms thus produced is not absolute,
but relative. There is no origination of new hereditary factors. It
is simply a recombination of the old genes of different stocks, the
genes themselves undergoing no intrinsic alteration. The combination
is new, but not the elements combined. In addition to chromosomal
recombination, we have factorial recombination by means of crossovers.
This, too, can produce new and true-breeding forms of a fixed nature,
but here, likewise, it is the combination, and not the elements
combined, which is new. The “new” forms thus produced are called, as we
have seen, pseudomutants. When pseudomutations, that is, crossovers,
occur in conjunction with the condition of balanced lethals, they
closely simulate genuine factorial mutations. This is exemplified in
the case of De Vries’ _Œnothera Lamarckiana_, which is the product of
a crossover supervening upon a situation of balanced lethals. In cases
of this kind, the crossover releases hitherto suppressed recessive
characters, giving the appearance of real mutation. “The workers with
Drosophila,” says Davis, “seem inclined to believe that much of the
phenomena simulating mutation in their material is in reality the
appearance of characters set free by the breaking of lethal adjustments
which held the characters latent. Well-known workers have arrived at
similar conclusions for _Œnothera_ material and are not content to
accept as evidence of mutations the behavior of _Lamarckiana_ and some
other forms when they throw their marked variants.” (_Science_, Feb. 3,
1922, p. 111.)

The new forms, however, resulting from random assortment and crossovers
cannot be regarded as new species. “Analysis,” says Bateson, “has
revealed hosts of transferable characters. Their combinations suffice
to supply in abundance series of types which might pass for new
species, and certainly would be so classed if they were met with in
nature. Yet critically tested, we find that they are not distinct
species and we have no reason to suppose any accumulation of characters
of the same order would culminate in the production of distinct
species. Specific difference therefore must be regarded as probably
attaching to the base upon which these transferables are implanted, of
which we know absolutely nothing at all. Nothing that we have witnessed
in the contemporary world can colorably be interpreted as providing the
sort of evidence required.” (_Science_, Jan. 20, 1922, pp. 59, 60.)

Anyone thoroughly acquainted with the results of genetical analysis and
research will find it impossible to escape the conviction that there
is no such thing as experimental evidence for evolution. In spite of
the enormous advances made in the fields of genetics and cytology,
the problem of the origin of species is, scientifically speaking,
as mysterious as ever. No variation of which we have experience is
interpretable as the transmutation of a specific type, and David Starr
Jordan voices an inevitable conclusion when he says: “None of the
created ‘new species’ of plant or animal I know of would last five
years in the open, nor is there the slightest evidence that any new
species of field or forest or ocean ever originated from mutation,
discontinuous variation, or hybridization.” (_Science_, Oct. 20, 1922,
p. 448.)

“In any case,” as Professor Caullery tells us in his Harvard lecture
on the “Problem of Evolution,” “we do not see in the facts emerging
from Mendelism, how evolution, in the sense that morphology suggests,
can have come about. And it comes to pass that some of the biologists
of greatest authority in the study of Mendelian heredity are led, with
regard to evolution, either to a more or less complete agnosticism,
or to the expression of ideas quite opposed to those of the preceding
generation; ideas which would almost take us back to creationism.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 334.) It is, of course, impossible
within the limits of a single chapter to convey any adequate impression
of all that Mendel’s epoch-making achievement portends, but what
has been said is sufficient to give some idea of the acuteness of
the crisis through which the theory of organic evolution is passing
as a result of his discovery. In its classic forms of Lamarckism,
Darwinism and De-Vriesianism, the survival of the theory is out of the
question. Whether or not it can be rehabilitated in any form whatever
is a matter open to doubt. Transfixed by the innumerable spears of
modern objections, its extremity calls to mind the plight of the Lion
of Lucerne. Possibly, it is destined to find a rescuer in some great
genius of the future, but of one thing, at least, we may be perfectly
certain, namely, that, even if rejuvenated, it will never again resume
the lineaments traced by Charles Darwin. In the face of this certainty,
it is almost pitiful to hear the die-hards of Darwinism bolstering up a
lost cause with the wretched quibble that, though natural selection has
been discredited as an explanation of the differentiation of species,
Darwinism “in its essentials” survives intact. For, if there is any
feature which, beyond all else, deserves to be called an essential of
Darwin’s system, surely it is natural selection. For Darwin it was “the
most important” agency of transformation (cf. “Origin of Species,”
6th ed., p. 5). Apart from his hypothesis of the summation through
inheritance of slight variations (“fluctuations”), now completely
demolished by the new science of genetics, it represented his sole
contribution to the philosophy of transformism. It alone distinguishes
Darwinism from Lamarckism, its prototype. Without it the “Origin of
Species” would be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. With it
Darwin’s fame should stand or fall. Therefore, since Darwin erred in
making it “the most important means of modification,” Darwinism is
dead, and no grief of mourners can resuscitate the corpse. “Through
the last fifty years,” says Bateson, “this theme of the natural
selection of favored races has been developed and expounded in writings
innumerable. Favored races certainly can replace others. The argument
is sound, but we are doubtful of its value. For us that debate stands
adjourned. We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts.
We would fain emulate his scholarship, his width, and his power of
exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority.
We read his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or
of Lamarck, delighting in their simplicity and their courage.”
(_Heredity_, Presid. Add. to British Assoc. for Advanc. of Science,
Smith. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 365.)




                              CHAPTER II

             HOMOLOGY AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION


The recent revival of interest in the problem of evolution seems to
have called forth two very opposite expressions of opinion from those
who profess to represent Catholic thought on this subject. M. Henri
de Dorlodot, in his “Le Darwinisme,” appears in the rôle of an ardent
admirer of Darwin and an enthusiastic advocate of the doctrine of
Transformism. The contrary attitude is adopted by Mr. Alfred McCann,
whose “God—or Gorilla” is bitterly antagonistic not only to Darwinism
but to any form whatever of the theory of Transformism. Both of these
works possess merits which it would be unjust to overlook. Dorlodot
deserves credit for having shown conclusively that there is absolutely
nothing in the Scriptures, or in Patristic tradition, or in Catholic
theology, or in the philosophy of the Schools, which conflicts with
our acceptance of organic evolution as an hypothesis explanatory of
certain biological facts. In like manner, it must be acknowledged that,
even after a liberal discount has been made in penalty of its bias and
scientific inaccuracy, Mr. McCann’s book still contains a formidable
residue of serious objections, which the friends of evolution will
probably find it more convenient to sidestep than to answer.

Unfortunately, however, neither of these writers maintains that
balanced mental poise which one likes to see in the defenders of
Catholic truth. Dorlodot seems too profoundly impressed with the
desirability of occupying a popular position to do impartial justice
to the problem at issue, and his anxiety to keep in step with the
majority blinds him apparently to the flaws of that “Darwinism”
which he praises. Had he been content with a simple demarcation of
negative limits, there would be no ground for complaint. But, when
he goes so far as to bestow unmerited praise upon the author of the
mechanistic “Origin of Species” and the materialistic “Descent of
Man”; when, by confounding Darwinism with evolution, he consents
to that historical injustice which allows Darwin to play Jacob to
Lamarck’s Esau, and which leaves the original genius of Mendel in
obscurity while it accords the limelight of fame to the unoriginal
expounder of a borrowed conception; when, by means of the sophistry of
anachronism, he speciously endeavors to bring the speculations of an
Augustine or an Aquinas into alignment with those of the ex-divinity
student of Cambridge; when he assumes that Fixism is so evidently wrong
that its claims are unworthy of consideration, whereas Transformism
is so evidently right that we can dispense with the formality of
examining its credentials; when, in a word, he expresses himself not
merely in the sense, but in the very stereotyped cant phrases of a
dead philosophy, we realize, with regret, that his conclusions are
based, not on any reasoned analysis of the evidence, but solely upon
the dogmatism of scientific orthodoxy, that his thought is cast in
antiquated molds, and that for him, apparently, the sixty-five years
of discovery and disillusionment, which have intervened since the
publication of the “Origin of Species,” have passed in vain.

But, if Dorlodot represents the extreme of uncritical approval, Mr.
McCann represents the opposite, and no less reprehensible, extreme of
biased antagonism, that is neither fair in method nor conciliatory in
tone. Instead of adhering to the time-honored practice of Catholic
controversialists, which is rather to overstate than to understate the
argument of an adversary, Mr. McCann tends, at times, to minimize, in
his restatement, the force of an opponent’s reasoning. He frequently
belittles with mere flippant sneer, and is only too ready to question
the good faith of those who do not share his convictions. Thus, when
McCann ridicules Wells and accuses him of pure romancing, because the
latter speaks of certain hairy “wild women” of the Caves, he himself
seems to be ignorant of the fact that a palæolithic etching has been
found representing a woman so covered with hair that she had no need of
other apparel (the bas-relief from Laugerie-Basse carved on reindeer
palm—cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 540 and Plate 2).

Mr. McCann may object, with truth, that this is far from being a
proof that the primitive representatives of the human race were hairy
individuals, but the fact suffices, at least, to acquit Mr. Wells of
the charge of unscrupulous invention. Hence, while we have no wish
to excuse the lamentable lack of scientific conscientiousness so
manifestly apparent in the writings of popularizers of evolution, like
Wells, Osborn, and Haeckel, nevertheless common justice, not to speak
of charity, constrains us to presume that, occasionally at least, their
departures from the norm of objective fact were due to ordinary human
fallibility or to the mental blindness induced by preconceptions,
rather than to any deliberate intent to deceive. And we feel ourselves
impelled to make this allowance for unconscious inaccuracy all the
more readily that we are confronted with the necessity of extending
the selfsame indulgence to Mr. McCann himself. Thus we find that the
seventh illustration in “God—or Gorilla” (opposite p. 56) bears the
legend: “Skeletons of man and _chimpanzee_ compared,” when, in point
of fact, the ape skeleton in question is not that of a chimpanzee
(_Troglodytes niger_) at all, but of an Orang-utan (_Simia satyrus_),
as the reader may verify for himself by consulting Plate VI of the
English version of Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” where the identical
illustration appears above its proper title: “Skeleton of an adult
Orang-utan.” Since the error is repeated in the index of illustrations
and in the legend of the third illustration of the appendix, it is
impossible, in this instance, to shift the responsibility from Mr.
McCann to the printer. In any case, it is sincerely to be hoped that
this, and several other infelicitous errors will be rectified in the
next edition of “God—or Gorilla.”

In the next chapter we shall have occasion to refer again to Dorlodot’s
book. For the present, however, his work need not concern us, while
in that of Mr. McCann we single out but one point as germane to our
subject, namely, the latter’s inadequate rebuttal of the evolutionary
argument from homology. The futility of his method, which consists in
matching insignificant differences against preponderant resemblances,
and in exclaiming with ironic incredulity: “Note extraordinary
resemblances!” becomes painfully evident, so soon as proper
presentation enables us to appreciate the true force of the argument he
is striving to refute. _Functionally_ the foot of a Troglodyte ape may
be a “hand,” but _structurally_ it is the homologue of the human foot,
and not of the human hand; nor is this homology effectually disposed
of by stressing the dissimilarity of the hallux, whilst one remains
discreetly reticent concerning the similarity of the calcaneum. For
two reasons, therefore, the irrelevance of Mr. McCann’s reply is of
special interest here: (1) because it illustrates concretely the danger
of rendering a refutation inconsequential and inept by failing to plumb
the full depth of the difficulty one is seeking to solve; (2) because
it shows that it is vain to attempt to remove man’s body from the scope
of this argument by citing the inconsiderable structural differences
which distinguish him from the ape, so that, unless the argument from
homology proves upon closer scrutiny to be inherently _inconclusive_,
its applicability to the human body is a foregone conclusion, and
implies with irresistible logic the common ancestry of men and apes.

Such are the reflections suggested by the meager measure of justice
which Mr. McCann accords to the strongest zoölogical evidence in favor
of evolution, and they contain in germ a feasible program for the
present chapter, which, accordingly, will address itself: first, to the
task of ascertaining the true significance of homology in the abstract
as well as the full extent of its application in the concrete; second,
to that of determining with critical precision its intrinsic value as
an argument for the theory of transmutation.

_Homology_ is a technical term used by the systematists of botany,
zoölogy and comparative anatomy to signify basic structural similarity
as distinguished from superficial functional similarity, the latter
being termed _analogy_. Organisms are said to exemplify the phenomenon
of homology when, beneath a certain amount of external diversity, they
possess in common a group of correlated internal resemblances of such a
nature that the organisms possessing them appear to be constructed upon
the same fundamental plan. In cases of this kind, the basic similarity
is frequently masked by a veneer of unlikeness, and it is only below
this shallow surface of divergence that we find evidences of the
identical structure or common type.

Thus organs of different animals are said to be homologous when they
are composed of like parts arranged in similar relation to one another.
Homologous organs correspond bone for bone and tissue for tissue, so
that each component of the one finds its respective counterpart in
the other. The organs in question may be functionally specialized
and externally differentiated for quite different purposes, but the
superficial diversity serves only to emphasize, by contrast, the
underlying identity of structure which persists intact beneath it.
Thus, for example, the wing of a pigeon, the flipper of a whale, the
foreleg of a cat, and the arm of a man are organs differing widely in
function as well as outward appearance, but they are called homologous,
none the less, because they all exhibit the same basic plan, being
composed of similar bones similarly disposed with respect to one
another.

Organs, on the other hand, are called analogous which, though
fundamentally unlike in structure, are, nevertheless, superficially
modified and specialized for one and the same function. The wing of
a bird and the wing of an insect furnish a trite instance of such
analogy. Functionally they subserve the same purpose, but structurally
they bear no relation to each other. In like manner, though both are
devoted to the same function, there exists between the leg of a man and
the leg of a spider a fundamental disparity in structure.

At times, specialization for the selfsame function involves the
emergence of a similar modification or uniform structural adaptation
from a substrate of basic dissimilarity. In these instances of parallel
modifications appearing on the surface of divergent types, we have
something more than mere functional resemblance. Structure is likewise
involved, albeit superficially, in the modification which brings
about this external uniformity. In such cases, analogy is spoken of
as _convergence_, a phenomenon of which the mole and the mole-cricket
constitute a typical example. The burrowing legs of the insect are,
so far as outward appearance goes, the exact replica on a smaller
scale of those of the mole, though, fundamentally, their structure is
quite unlike, the mole being built on the endoskeletal plan of the
vertebrates, whereas the mole-cricket is constructed on the exoskeletal
plan characteristic of the arthropods. Speaking of the first pair of
legs of the mole-cricket, Thomas Hunt Morgan says: “By their use the
mole-cricket makes a burrow near the surface of the ground, similar
to, but of course much smaller than, that made by the mole. In both
of these cases the adaptation is the more obvious, because, while the
leg of the mole is formed on the same general plan as that of other
vertebrates, and the leg of the mole-cricket has the same fundamental
structure as that of other insects, yet in both cases the details of
structure and the general proportions have been so altered that the
leg is fitted for entirely different purposes from those to which the
legs of other vertebrates and other insects are put.” (Quoted by Dwight
in “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 235.) In the analogies of
convergence, therefore, we have the exact converse of the phenomenon so
often encountered in connection with homology. The latter exhibits a
contrast between basic identity and superficial diversity, the former a
contrast between superficial convergence and fundamental divergence.

Now the extreme importance of homology is manifest from the fact that
the taxonomists of zoölogy and botany have found it to be the most
satisfactory basis for a scientific classification of animals and
plants. In both of these sciences, organisms are arranged in groups
according as they possess in common certain points of resemblance
whereby they may be referred to this, or that, general type. The
resemblance is most complete between members of the same species, which
do not differ from one another by any major difference, though they may
exhibit certain minor differences justifying their subdivision into
varieties or races. These morphological considerations, however, must,
in the case of an organic species, be supplemented by the additional
physiological criteria of perfect sexual compatibility and normal
viability, as we have already had occasion to note in the previous
chapter. When organisms, though distinguished from one another by
some major difference, agree, notwithstanding, in the main elements
of structure, the several species to which they belong are grouped
under a common genus, and similarly genera are grouped into families.
A _relative_ major difference, such as a difference in the size of
the teeth, suffices for the segregation of a new species, while an
_absolute_ difference, such as a difference in the number of teeth or
the possession of an additional organ, suffices for the segregation of
a new genus. In practice, however, the classifications of systematists
are often very arbitrary, and we find the latter divided into two
factions, the “lumpers” who wish to reduce the number of systematic
groups and the “splitters” who have a passion for breaking up larger
groups into smaller ones on the basis of tenuous differences. Above
the families are the orders, and they, in turn, are assembled in still
larger groups called classes, until finally we reach the phyla or
branches, which are the supreme categories into which the plant and
animal kingdoms are divided. As we ascend the scale of classification,
the points of resemblance between the organisms classified are
constantly decreasing in number, while the points of difference
increase apace. Hence, whereas members of the same species have very
much in common, members of the same phylum have very little in common,
and members of different phyla show such structural disparity that
further correlation on the basis of similarities becomes impossible
(in the sense, at least, of a reliable and consistent scheme of
classification), all efforts to relate the primary phyla to one another
in a satisfactory manner having proved abortive.

Within the confines of each phylum, however, homology is the basic
principle of classification. But the scientist is not content to note
the bare fact of its existence. He seeks an explanation, he wishes to
know the _raison d’être_ of homology. Innumerable threads of similarity
run through the woof of divergence, and the question arises: How can
we account for the coëxistence of this woof of diversity with a warp
of similarity? Certainly, if called upon to explain the similarity
existent between members of one and the same species, even the man in
the street would resort instinctively to the principle of inheritance
and the assumption of common ancestry, exclaiming: “Like sire, like
son!” It is a notorious fact that children resemble their parents,
and since members of the same species are sexually compatible and
perfectly interfertile, there is no difficulty whatever in the way of
accepting the presumption of descent from common ancestral stock as a
satisfactory solution of the problem of specific resemblance. Now, it
is precisely this selfsame principle of heredity which the Transformist
invokes to account for generic, no less than for specific, similarity.
In fact, he presses it further still, and professes to see therein
the explanation of the resemblances observed between members of the
different families, orders, and classes, which systematists group
under a common phylum. This, of course, amounts to a bold extension of
the principle of inheritance far beyond the barriers of interspecific
sterility to remote applications that exceed all possibility of
experimental verification. Transformists answer this difficulty,
however, by contending that the period, during which the human race
has existed, has been, geologically speaking, all too brief, and
characterized by environmental conditions much too uniform, to afford
us a favorable opportunity for ascertaining the extreme limits to which
the genetic process may possibly extend; and, even apart from this
consideration, they say, racial development (phylogeny) may be, like
embryological development (ontogeny) an irreversible process, in which
case no recurrence whatever of its past phenomena are to be expected in
our times.

Be that as it may, the evolutionist interprets the resemblances of
homology as surviving vestiges of an ancient ancestral type, which
have managed to persist in the descendants notwithstanding the
transformations wrought in the latter by the process of progressive
divergence. Moreover, just as the existence of a common ancestor is
inferred from the _fact_ of resemblance, so the relative position
in time of the common ancestor is inferred from the _degree_ of
resemblance. The common ancestor of forms closely allied is assumed to
have been proximate, that of forms but distantly resembling each other
is thought to have been remote. Thus the common ancestor of species
grouped under the same genus is supposed to have been less remote
than the common ancestor of all the genera grouped under one family.
The same reasoning is applied, _mutatis mutandis_, to the ancestry of
families, orders and classes.

The logic of such inferences may be questioned, but there is no
blinking the fact that, in practice, the genetic explanation of
homology is assumed by scientists to be the only reasonable one
possible. In fact, so strong is their confidence in the necessity of
admitting a solution of this kind, that they do not hesitate to make it
part and parcel of the definition of homology itself. For instance, on
page 130 of Woodruff’s “Foundations of Biology” (1922), we are informed
that homology signifies “a fundamental similarity of structure based on
descent from a common antecedent form.” The Yale professor, however,
has been outdone in this respect by Professor Calkins of Columbia, who
discards the anatomical definition altogether and substitutes, in lieu
thereof, its evolutionary interpretation. “When organs have the same
ancestry,” he says, “that is, when they come from some common part of
an ancestral type, they are said to be homologous.” (“Biology,” p.
165.) In short, F. A. Bather is using a consecrated formula culled from
the modern biological creed when he says: “The old form of diagnosis
was _per genus et differentiam_. The new form is _per proavum et
modificationem_.” (_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 259.)

A moment’s reflection, however, will make it clear that, in thus
confounding the definition proper with its theoretical interpretation,
the modern biologist is guilty of a logical atrocity. Homology, after
all, is a simple anatomical fact, which can be quite adequately
defined in terms of observation; nor is the definition improved in
the least by having its factual elements diluted with explanatory
theory. On the contrary, the definition is decidedly weakened by such
redundancy. And as for those who insist on defining homology in terms
of atavistic assumption instead of structural affinity, their procedure
is tantamount to defining the clear by means of the obscure, an actual
effect by means of a possible cause. Moreover, this attempt to load
the dice in favor of Transformism by tampering with the definition of
homology ends by defeating its own purpose. For, if homology is to
serve as a legitimate argument for evolution, then obviously evolution
must not be included in its definition; otherwise, the conclusion is
anticipated in the premise, the question is begged, and the argument
itself rendered a vicious circle.

Having formed a sufficiently clear conception of homology as a
static fact, we are now in a position to consider the problem of its
causality with reference to the solution proposed by evolutionists.
Transmutation, they tell us, results from the interaction of a
twofold process, namely, the conservative and similifying process
called _inheritance_, and progressive and diversifying process known
as _variation_. Inheritance by transmitting the ancestral likeness
tends to bring about uniformity. Variation by diverting old currents
into new channels adjust organisms to new situations and brings about
modification. Homology, therefore, is the effect of inheritance, while
adaptedness or modification is the product of variation.

As here used, the term inheritance denotes something more than a mere
recurrence of parental characters in the offspring. It signifies a
process of genuine transmission from generation to generation. Strictly
speaking, it is not the _characters_, such as coloration, shape, size,
chemical composition, structural type, and functional specificity, that
are “inherited,” but rather the hereditary _factors_ or chromosomal
_genes_, which are actually transmitted, and of which the characters
are but an external expression or manifestation. Hence, it is scarcely
accurate to speak of “inherited,” as distinguished from “acquired,”
characters. As a matter of fact, all somatic characters are joint
products of the interaction of germinal and environmental factors.
Consequently, the external character would be affected no less by a
change in the environmental factors than by a change in the germinal
factors. In a word, somatic characters are not the exclusive expression
of the genetic factors, but are equally dependent upon environmental
influence, and hence it is only to the extent that these characters
are indicative of the specific constitution of the germ plasm that
we may speak of them as “inherited,” remembering that what is really
transmitted to the offspring is a complex of genes or germinal
factors, and not the characters themselves. The sense is, therefore,
that “inherited” characters are manifestative of what is contained
in the germ plasm, whereas “acquired” characters have no specific
germinal basis, but are a resultant of the interaction between the
somatic cells and the environment. In modern terminology, as we have
seen, the aggregate of germinal factors transmitted in the process of
reproduction is called the genotype, while the aggregate of somatic
characters which manifest these germinal factors externally is spoken
of as the phenotype. Only the genotype is transmitted, the phenotype
being the subsequent product of the interplay of genetic factors and
environmental stimuli, dependent upon, and expressive of, both.

Variation, therefore, may be based upon a change in the germ plasm,
or in the environment, or in both. If it rests exclusively upon an
extraordinary change in the environmental conditions, the resulting
modification is non-inheritable, and will disappear so soon as the
exceptional environmental stimulus that evoked it is withdrawn. If,
on the contrary, it is based upon a germinal change, it will manifest
itself, even under ordinary, i.e. unchanged or uniform environmental
influence. In this case, the modification is inheritable in the sense
that it is the specific effect of a transmissible germinal factor,
which has undergone alteration.

As we have seen in the foregoing chapter, there are three kinds of
germinal change which result in “inheritable” modifications. The
first is called factorial mutation, and is initiated by an alteration
occurring in one or more of the chromosomal genes. The second is called
chromosomal mutation, and is caused by duplication (or reduction) of
the chromosomes. The third may be termed recombination, one type of
which results from the crossover or exchange of genes between pairing
chromosomes (“pseudomutation”), the other from random assortment in
accordance with the Mendelian law of the independence of allelomorphic
pairs. This so-called “random assortment of the chromosomes” is the
result of the shuffling and free deals of the chromosomal cards of
heredity which take place twice in the life-cycle of organisms:
viz. first, in the process of gametic reduction (meiosis); second,
in the chance meeting of variously-constituted sperms and eggs in
fertilization. A mischance of the first of these “free deals” is
bewailed in the following snatch from a parody belonging to the Woods
Hole anthology.

    “Oh chromosomes, my chromosomes,
        How sad is my condition!
    My grandsire’s gift for writing well
    Has gone to some lost polar cell
    And so I write this doggerel,
        I cannot do much better.”

These kinds of variation, however, in so far as they fall within the
range of actual observation, are confined within the limits of the
organic species. Intra-specific variation, however, will not suffice.
To account for the adaptive modifications superimposed upon underlying
structural identity, Transformism is obliged to assume the possibility
of trans-specific variation. Yet in none of the foregoing processes of
variation do we find a valid factual basis for this assumption.

Factorial mutation, for instance, waiving its failure to produce
naturally-viable forms, or to meet the physiological sterility test
of a new species, admits of interpretation as a change of loss due
to the “dropping out” of a gene from the germinal complex. Bateson’s
conception of evolution as a process consisting in the gradual loss of
inhibitive genes, whose elimination releases suppressed potentialities,
seems rather incredible. Many will be inclined to see in Castle’s
facetious epigram a _reductio ad absurdum_ of Bateson’s suggestion;
for, according to the latter’s view, as the Harvard professor remarks,
we should have to regard _man_ as _a simplified amœba_. Certainly,
it seems nothing short of a contradiction to ascribe the progressive
complication of the phenotype to a simplification of the genotype by
loss.

On the other hand, not only is there no experimental evidence of a
germinal change by positive acquisition, that is, by the addition of
genes, but it is hard to conceive how such a change could come about.
“At first,” admits Bateson, “it may seem rank absurdity to suppose
that the primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained
complexity enough to produce the divers types of life.” “But,” he
asks, “is it easier to imagine that these powers could have been
conveyed by extrinsic addition? Of what nature could these additions
be? Additions of material can not surely be in question. We are told
that salts of iron in the soil may turn a pink hydrangea blue. The
iron cannot be passed on to the next generation. How can iron multiply
itself? The power to assimilate iron is all that can be transmitted. A
disease-producing organism like the pebrine of silkworms can in a very
few cases be passed on through the germ cells. But it does not become
part of the invaded host, and we can not conceive it taking part in the
geometrically ordered processes of segregation. These illustrations
may seem too gross; but what refinement will meet the requirements of
the problem, that the thing introduced must be, as the living organism
itself is, capable of multiplication and of subordinating itself in a
definite system of segregation?” (_Heredity_, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1915, p. 373.)

Nor can we agree with Prof. T. H. Morgan’s contention that the
foregoing difficulty of Bateson has been solved by the discovery of
the chromosomal mutation. All unbalanced chromosomal mutants are
subnormal in their viability and vitality, not to speak of their marked
sterility. Haploidy represents a regressive, rather than a progressive,
step. The triploid mutant is sterile. The tetraploid race of Daturas
is inferior in fertility to the normal diploid plant. The origin of
balanced tetraploidy from diploidy must be presumed, since it has never
been observed. Moreover, tetraploidy represents only quantitative, and
not qualitative, progress. The increased mass of the nucleus produces
an enlargement of the cytoplasm, the result of which is giantism. This
effect, however, is not specific; for giant and normal races possessing
each the same number of chromosomes are known to exist in nature. Hence
giantism may be due to other causes besides chromosomal duplication.
The only effect of this doubling is a reinforcement and intensification
of the former effect of the genetic factors, their specificity
remaining unchanged. Double doses are substituted for single doses of
the factors, but nothing really new is added. Morgan himself recognizes
that this mere repetition of identical genes is insufficient, and that
their multiplication must be qualitative as well as numerical, to
answer the specifications of a progressive step in evolution. Hence he
suggests that the chromosomal mutation is subsequently supplemented by
appropriate factorial mutation. Once this supposition is made, however,
all the objections we have mentioned in connection with factorial
mutation (_e.g._ the subnormality of its products, its intra-specific
nature, etc.) return to plague the speculator, and, in addition to
these, he is confronted with the new difficulty of explaining how the
redundance of duplicate genes can be removed and replaced by coördinate
differentiation in their respective specificities. Now we have no
factual evidence whatever of such a solidaric redifferentiation of the
germinal factors, that would modify harmoniously the composition and
rôle of each and every gene in the factorial complex. Nor is there
any possibility whatever of accounting for this telic superregulation
of the germinal regulators upon a purely mechanistic basis. How can
the ultimate chemical determinants of heredity be thus redetermined?
Consequently, although there is gametic incompatibility between diploid
races and the tetraploid races, which are said to have arisen from
the former, we are not, nevertheless, warranted, by what has been
experimentally verified, in regarding tetraploid races as new species,
or as progressive steps in the process of organic evolution.

To conclude, therefore, we have experimental verification of the
efficacy of the similifying process said to have been at work in
evolution, namely, inheritance. The same, however, cannot be said of
the correlative diversifying process of trans-specific variation, which
is said to have superficially modified old structures into new species.
The latter process, accordingly, is but a pure postulate of science
known to us only through the effect hypothetically assigned to it,
namely, the adaptive modification.

The adaptation, however, of which there is question here is not to be
confounded with the “acquired adaptation” of Lamarckian fame; for,
unlike the latter, it is an inheritable modification rooted in the germ
plasm. Adaptations of this sort do, indeed, adjust the organism to
its external environment, but they are innate and not acquired. Hence
they are often spoken of as _preadaptations_; for they precede, in a
sense, the organism’s contact with the environing element to which
they adjust it. They may possibly, it is true, have been acquired in
the distant past, but they have now a specific germinal foundation,
and no one was ever privileged to witness their initial production _de
novo_. The whale, for example, though fundamentally a warm-blooded
mammal, is superficially a fish, by reason of such a preadaptation
to its marine environment. Preadaptation is of common occurrence,
especially among parasites, symbiotes, commensals, and inquilines.
Wasmann cites innumerable instances of beetles and flies so profoundly
modified, in accommodation to their mode of life as guests in termite
nests, that the systematist hesitates to classify them under any of the
accepted orders of insects. Here the adaptive modification so disturbs
the underlying homology as to make of these creatures taxonomical
ambiguities. In the case of _Termitomyia_, he tells us, “the whole
development of the individual has been so modified that it resembles
that of a viviparous mammal rather than that of a fly.” (“The Problem
of Evolution,” pp. 14, 15.)

Such modifications, however, amount to major, and not merely minor,
differences. We are not dealing, therefore, with varietal distinctions
here, but with specific, generic, and even ordinal differences. With
reference to the phenomenon of adaptive modification,[3] three things,
consequently, are worthy of note: (1) it has the semblance of being
adventitious to the underlying structural uniformity; (2) it is of
such magnitude that it cannot be ascribed to variation within the
species; (3) it has been appropriated by the hereditary process, in the
sense that it is now an “inherited” character based on the transmission
of specific germinal factors.

    [3] It may be remarked, in passing, that experimental genetics
    and mutation furnish no clue to the origin of adaptive
    characters. The Lamarckian idea alone gives promise in this
    direction. Orthogenesis leaves unsolved the mystery of
    preadaptation; yet only orthogenetic systems of evolution can
    be constructed on the basis of genetical facts. “Mutations
    and Mendelism,” says Kellogg, “may explain the origin of new
    species in some measure, but they do not explain adaptation in
    the slightest degree.” (_Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1924, pp.
    488, 489.) We have seen in the previous chapter that they are
    impotent to explain in _any_ measure the origin of new species.

Now it is claimed that for the occurrence of this kind of modification
in conjunction with homology only one rational explanation is
possible, and that explanation is evolution. If this contention be a
sound one, and Dorlodot, who claims certitude for the evolutionary
solution, insists that it is such, then, in the name of sheer
logical consistency, but one course lies open to us. We cannot stop
at Wasmann’s comma,[4] we must press on to the very end of the
evolutionary sentence and sing with the choristers of Woods Hole:

    [4] Rev. Erich Wasmann, S. J., accepts the evolutionary
    inference from homology as regards _plants_ and _animals_. When
    it comes to _man_, however, he attempts to draw the line, and
    argues painstakingly against the assumption of a bestial origin
    of the human body.

    “It’s a long way from Amphioxus,
      It’s a long way to us;
    It’s a long way from Amphioxus,
      To the meanest human cuss.
    Good-bye fins and gill slits;
      Welcome skin and hair.
    It’s a long, long way from Amphioxus,
      But we came from there.”

In this predicament it will not do, as we shall see presently, to adopt
Mr. McCann’s expedient of balancing anatomical differences against
anatomical resemblances. To do so is to court certain and ignominious
defeat. We must, therefore, examine the argument dispassionately. If it
be solid, we must accept it and give it general application. If it be
unsound, we must detect its flaws and expose them. Intellectual honesty
allows us no alternative!

Moreover, in weighing the argument from organic homology we must not
lose sight of the two important considerations previously stressed:
(1) that the inference of common ancestry in the case of homologous
forms is based, not upon this or that particular likeness, but upon an
entire group of coördinated resemblances; (2) that the resemblances
involved are not exterior similarities, but deep-seated structural
uniformities perfectly compatible with diversities of a superficial and
functional character. “Nothing,” says Dr. W. W. Keen, “could be more
unlike externally than the flipper of a whale and the arm of a man.
Yet you find in the flipper the shoulderblade, humerus, radius, ulna,
and a hand with the bones of four fingers masked in a mitten of skin.”
(_Science_, June 9, 1922, p. 605.)

In fact, the resemblances may, in certain instances, be so deeply
submerged that they no longer appear in the adult organism at all and
are only in evidence during a transitory phase of the embryological
process. In such cases, the embryo or larva exhibits, at a particular
stage, traces of a uniformity completely obliterated from the adult
form. In short, though frequently presented as a distinct argument,
embryological similarity, together with all else of value that can
still be salvaged from the wreck of the Müller-Haeckel Law of Embryonic
Recapitulation, is, at bottom, identical with the general evolutionary
argument from homology. In the latter argument we are directed to
look beneath the modified surface of the adult organism for surviving
vestiges of the ancestral type. In the former, we are bidden to go
deeper still, to the extent, that is, of descending into the very
embryological process itself, in order to discover lingering traces
of the ancestral likeness, which, though now utterly deleted from the
transformed adult, are yet partially persistent in certain embryonic
phases.

In sectioning a larval specimen of the fly-like termite-guest known
as _Termitoxenia Heimi_, Father Wasmann came across a typical
exemplification of this embryological atavism. In the adult insect, a
pair of oar-like appendages replace the wings characteristic of the
_Diptera_ (flies). These appendages are organs of exudation, which
elaborate a secretion whereof the termites are very fond, and thereby
render their possessors welcome guests in the nests of their hosts. The
appendages, therefore, though now undoubtedly inherited characters,
are the specific means by which these inquilines are adapted to their
peculiar environment and mode of life among the termites. Moreover, the
organs in question not only differ from wings functionally, but, in the
adult, they bear no structural resemblance whatever to the wings of
flies. Nevertheless, on examining his sections of the above-mentioned
specimen, Wasmann found a developmental stage of brief duration during
which wing veins appeared in the posterior branches of the embryonic
appendages. Now, assuming that Wasmann’s technique was faultless,
his specimen normal, and his interpretation correct, it is rather
difficult to avoid his conclusion that we have here, in this transitory
larval phase, the last surviving vestige of ancestral wings now wholly
obliterated from the adult type, that, consequently, this wingless
termite guest is genetically related to the winged _Diptera_, and that
we must see in the appendages aboriginal wings diverted from their
primitive function and respecialized for the quite different purpose of
serving as organs of exudation, (cf. “Modern Biology,” p. 385.) Indeed,
phenomena of this kind seem to admit of no other explanation than the
atavistic one. It should be remembered, however, that Wasmann does not
appear to have verified the observation in more than one specimen,
and that a larger number of representative specimens would have to be
accurately sectioned, strained, examined and interpreted, before any
reliable conclusion could be drawn.[5]

    [5] This transitory lymphatic, or tracheal venation appearing
    in the appendages at the stenogastric stage may not have the
    particular significance that Father Wasmann assigns. Such
    venation, even if vestigial and aborted, need not necessarily
    be a vestige of former _wing_ venation. To demonstrate the
    validity of the atavistic interpretation, all other possible
    interpretations would have to be definitively excluded.

Such, in its most general aspect, is the atavistic solution of the
problem presented by the homology of types. In it, similarity and
diversity are harmoniously reconciled, in the sense that they affect,
respectively, different structural, or different developmental, levels.
It is futile, therefore, to look for contradictions where they do not
exist. In a word, the attempt to create opposition between a group of
basic and correlated uniformities, on the one hand, and some particular
external difference, on the other, is not only abortive, but absolutely
irrelevant as well. The reason is obvious. Only when likeness is
associated with unlikeness is it an argument for Transmutation.
Likeness alone would demonstrate Immutability by indicating a process
of pure inheritance as distinguished from the process of variation.
Hence evolutionists do not merely concede the coëxistence of diversity
with similarity, they gladly welcome this fact as vitally necessary to
their contention.

Now it is precisely this point which Mr. McCann, like many other
critics of evolution, fails utterly to apprehend. Consequently, his
efforts to extricate the human foot from the toils of simian homology
are entirely unavailing. To offset the force of the argument in
question, it is by no means sufficient, as he apparently imagines, to
point to the fact that, unlike the hallux of the ape, the great toe in
man is non-opposable (cf. “God—or Gorilla,” pp. 183, 184, and legends
under cuts opposite pp. 184 and 318). The evolutionist will reply
at once that the non-opposability of man’s great toe is correlated
with the specialization of the human foot for progression only, as
distinguished from prehension; while, in the ape, whose foot has
retained both the progressive and the prehensile function, the hallux
is naturally opposable in adaptation to the animal’s arboreal habits.
He will then call attention to the undeniable fact that, despite these
adaptational differences, the bones in the foot of a Troglodyte ape
are, bone for bone, the counterparts of the bones in the human foot
and not of those in the human hand. He will readily concede, that,
so far as function and adaptedness go, this simian foot is a “hand,”
but he will not fail to point out that it is, at the same time, a
_heeled_ hand equipped with a calcaneum, a talus, a navicular, a
cuboid, and all other structural elements requisite to ally it to
the human foot and distinguish it from the human hand. In fact, Mr.
McCann’s own photographs of the gorilla skeleton show these features
quite distinctly, though he himself, for some reason or other, fails
to speak of them. It is to be feared, however, that his adversaries
may not take a charitable view of his reticence concerning the simian
heel, but may be inclined to characterize his silence as “discreet,”
all the more so, that he himself has uncomplimentarily credited them
with similar discretions in their treatment of unmanageable facts.
In short, Mr. McCann’s case against homology resembles the Homeric
hero, Achilles, in being vulnerable at the “heel.” At all events, the
homology itself is an undeniable fact, and it is vain to tilt against
this fact in the name of adaptational adjustments like “opposability”
and “non-opposability.” Since, therefore, our author has failed to
prove that this feature is too radical to be classed as an adaptive
modification, our only hope of exempting the human skeleton from the
application of the argument in question is to show that argument itself
is inconsequential.

Mr. McCann’s predicament resembles that of the unlucky disputant, who
having allowed a questionable major to pass unchallenged, strives to
retrieve his mistake by picking flaws in a flawless minor. As Dwight
has well said of the human body, “it differs in degree only from that
of apes and monkeys,” and “if we compare the individual bones with
those of apes we cannot fail to see the correspondence.” (“Thoughts
of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 149.) In short, there exists no valid
anatomical consideration whatever to justify us in subtracting the
human frame from the extension of the general conclusion deduced from
homology. Whosoever, therefore, sees in the homology of organic forms
conclusive evidence of descent from a common ancestor, cannot, without
grave inconsistency, reject the doctrine of the bestial origin of man.
He may still, it is true, exclude the human mind or soul from the
evolutionary account of origins, but, if homology is, in any sense, a
sound argument for common descent, the evolutionary origin of the human
body is a foregone conclusion, and none of the anatomical “differences
in degree” will avail to spare us the humiliation of sharing with the
ape a common family-tree. It remains for us, then, to reëxamine the
argument critically for the purpose of determining as precisely as
possible its adequacy as a genuine demonstration.

To begin with, it must be frankly acknowledged that here the theory
of transformism is, to all appearances, upon very strong ground. Its
first strategic advantage over the theory of immutability consists in
the fact that, unlike the latter, its attitude towards the problem is
positive and not negative. When challenged to explain the structural
uniformities observed in organic Nature, the theory of immutability is
mute, because it knows of no second causes or natural agencies adequate
to account for the facts. It can only account for homology by ascribing
the phenomenon exclusively to the unity of the First Cause, and, while
this may, of course, be the true and sole explanation, to assume it
is tantamount to removing the problem altogether from the province of
natural science. Hence it is not to be wondered at that scientists
prefer the theory of transformism, which by assigning intermediate
causes between the First Cause and the ultimate effects, vindicates
the problem of organic origins for natural science, in assuming the
phenomena to be proximately explicable by means of natural agencies.
Asked whether he believes that God created the now exclusively arboreal
Sloth (_Bradypus_) in a tree, the most uncompromising defender of
fixism will hesitate to reply in the affirmative. Yet, in this case,
what is nowadays, at least, an inherited preadaptation, dedicates the
animal irrevocably to tree-life, and makes its survival upon the ground
impossible.

Analogous preadaptations occur in conjunction with the phenomena of
parasitism, symbiosis and commensalism, all of which offer instances
of otherwise disparate and unrelated organisms that are inseparably
bound together, in some apparently capricious and fortuitous respect,
by a preadaptation of the one to the other. Parasites, guests, or
symbiotes, as the case may be, they are now indissolubly wedded to
some determinate species of host by reason of an appropriate and
congenital adjustment. For all that, however, the association seems
to be a contingent one, and it appears incredible that the associates
were always united, as at present, by bonds of reciprocal advantage,
mutual dependence, or one-sided exploitation. Yet the basis of the
relationship is in each case a now inherited adaptation, which, if it
does not represent the primitive condition of the race, must at some
time have been acquired. For phenomena such as these, orthogenesis,
which makes an organ the exclusive product of internal factors,
conceiving it as a preformed mechanism that subsequently selects a
suitable function, has no satisfactory explanation. Lamarckism, which
asserts the priority of function and makes the environment mold the
organ, is equally inacceptable, in that it flouts experience and
ignores the now demonstrated existence of internal hereditary factors.
But, if between these two extremes some evolutionary _via media_ could
be found, one must confess that it would offer the only conceivable
“natural explanation” of preadaptation.[6] All this, of course, is pure
speculation, but it serves to show that here, at any rate, the theory
of Transformism occupies a position from which it cannot easily be
dislodged.

    [6] Vernon Kellogg has expressed this same view in a recent
    article, though he frankly admits that it is an as yet
    unrealized desideratum. “Altogether,” he says, “it must be
    fairly confessed that evolutionists would welcome the discovery
    of the actual possibility and the mechanism of transferring
    into the heredity of organisms such adaptive changes as can
    be acquired by individuals in their lifetime. It would give
    them an explanation of evolution, especially of adaptation,
    much more satisfactory than any other explanation at present
    claiming the acceptance of biologists.” (_Atlantic Monthly_,
    April, 1924, p. 488.)

But, besides the advantage of being able to offer a “natural
explanation” of the association of homology with adaptation,
Transformism enjoys the additional advantage of being able to make
the imagination its partisan by means of a visual appeal. Such an
appeal is always more potent than that of pure logic stripped of
sensuous imagery. When it comes to vividness and persuasiveness, the
syllogism is no match for the object-lesson. Retinal impressions have
a hypnotic influence that is not readily exorcised by considerations
of an abstract order—“_Segnius irritant demissa per aurem, Quam quae
sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus_,” says Horace, in the “Ars Poetica.”
Philosophers may distinguish between the magnetic appeal of a graphic
presentation and the logical cogency of the doctrine so presented,
but there is no denying that, in practice, imagination is often
mistaken for reason and persuasion for conviction. Be that as it may,
the ordinary method of bringing home to the student the evolutionary
significance of homology is certainly one that utilizes to the full all
the advantages of visual presentation. Given a class of impressionable
premedics and coeds; given an instructor’s table with skeletons of a
man, a flamingo, an ape and a dog hierarchically arranged thereon;
given an instructor sufficiently versed in comparative osteology to
direct attention to the points in which the skeletons concur: and there
can be no doubt whatever as to the psychological result. The student
forms spontaneously the notion of a common vertebrate type, and the
instructor assures him that this “general type” is not, as it would
be with respect to other subject matter, a mere universal idea with
no formal existence outside the mind, but rather a venerable family
likeness, posed for originally by a single pair of ancestors (or
could it possibly have been, by one self-fertilizing hermaphrodite?)
and recopied from generation to generation, with certain variations
on the original theme, by the hand of an artist called Heredity.
This explanation may be true, but logically consequential it is not.
However, if the dialectic is poor, the pedagogy is beyond reproach,
and the solution proposed has in its favor the fact that it accords
well with the student’s limited experience. He is aware of the
truism that children resemble their parents. Why look for more
recondite explanations when one so obvious is at hand? The atavistic
theory gratifies his instinct for simplification, and, if he be of a
mechanistic turn of mind, the alternative conception of creationism
is quite intolerable. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that
the “inference” of common descent from the data of homology is not
a ratiocination at all, it is only a simple apprehension, a mere
abstraction of similarity from similars—“_Unde quaecumque inveniuntur
convenire in aliqua intentione intellecta_,” says Aquinas, “_voluerunt
quod convenirent in una re_.” (_In lib. II sent._, _dist._ 17, _q.
I_, _a._ 1) Philosophy tells us that the oneness of the universal is
conceptual and not at all extramental or real, but the transformist
insists that the universal types of Zoölogy and Botany are endowed with
real as well as logical unity, that real unity being the unity of the
common ancestor.

Certainly, from the standpoint of practical effectiveness, the
evolutionary argument leaves little to be desired. The presentation is
graphic and the solution simple. But for the critic, to whom logical
sequence is of more moment than psychological appeal, this is not
enough. To withstand the gnawing tooth of Time and the remorseless
probing of corrosive human reason, theories must rest on something
sounder than a mirage of visual imagery!

    Tell me where is fancy bred,
    Or in the heart or in the head?
    How begot, how nourished?
        Reply, reply.
    It is engendered in the eyes,
    With gazing fed; and fancy dies
    In the cradle where it lies.

But is it fair thus to characterize the “common ancestors” of
Transformism as figments which, like all other abstractions, have no
extramental existence apart from the concrete objects whence they
were conceived? To be sure, their claim to be real entities cannot be
substantiated by direct observation or experiment, and so a factual
proof is out of the question. Man, the late-comer, not having been
present at the birth of organic forms, can give no reliable testimony
regarding their parentage. In like manner, no _a priori_ proof from the
process of inheritance is available, because heredity, as revealed to
us by the experimental science of Genetics, can account for specific
resemblances only, and cannot be invoked, at present, as an empirically
tested explanation for generic, ordinal, or phyletic resemblances. It
has still to be demonstrated experimentally that the hereditary process
is transcendental to limits imposed by specific differentiation.
There remains, however, the _a posteriori_ argument, which interprets
homology and adaptation as univocal effects ascribable to no other
agency than the dual process of inheritance and variation. What are we
to think of this argument? Does it generate certainty in the mind, or
merely probability?

A moment’s reflection will bring to light the preliminary flaw of
incomplete enumeration of possibilities. To suppose that inheritance
alone can account for structural resemblance is an unwarranted
assumption. Without a doubt, there are other similifying influences at
work in Nature besides inheritance. True, inheritance is one possible
explanation of the similarity of organisms, but it is not the _only_
one. Even among the chemical elements of inorganic nature we find
analogous uniformities or “family traits,” which, in the absence of
any reproductive process whatever, we cannot possibly attribute to
inheritance. Mendeléeff’s discovery of the periodicity of the elements,
arranged in the order of their atomic weights, is well-known. At
each interval of an octave, a succession of chemical types, similar
to those of the preceding octave, recur. Hence elements appearing in
the same vertical column of the Periodic Table have many properties
in common and exhibit what may be called a family resemblance. Now,
we have in the process of atomic disintegration, as observed in
radioactive elements and interpreted by the electronic theory of atomic
structure, a reasonably satisfactory basis upon which to account for
the existence of these inorganic uniformities. Here analogous chemical
constitution, produced in accordance with a general law, results in
uniformity that implies a similar, rather than an identical, cause. The
hypothesis of parallelistic derivation from similar independent origins
accounts quite as well for the observed uniformities as does the
hypothesis of divergent derivation from a single common origin. Why,
then, should we lean so heavily on the already overtaxed principle of
inheritance, when parallelism is as much a possibility in the organic
world as it is an actuality in the inorganic world?

As to the contrast here drawn between inheritance and other similifying
factors, it is hardly necessary to remark that we are speaking of
inheritance as defined in terms of Mendelian experiment and cytological
observation. In the so-called chemical theory of inheritance, the
distinction would be meaningless and the contrast would not exist.
Ehrlich’s disciple, Adami, sets aside all self-propagating germinal
determinants, like the chromomeres, in favor of a hypothetical
“biophoric molecule,” which is to be conceived as a benzine-like
ring bristling with sidechains. Around this determining core the
future organism is built up in definite specificity, as an arch is
constructed about a template. Adami has merely applied Paul Ehrlich’s
ideas concerning metabolism and immunity to the question of heredity,
commandeering for this purpose the latter’s entire toolkit of
receptors, haptophores, amboceptors, etc., as though this grotesque
paraphernalia of crude and clumsy mechanical symbols (which look
for all the world like the wrenches of a machinist, or the lifters
used by the cook to remove hot lids from the kitchen range) could
throw any valuable light whatsoever on the exceedingly complex, and
manifestly vital, phenomenon of inheritance. It does not even deserve
to be called a chemical theory, for, as Starling correctly remarks
concerning Ehrlich’s conception, “though chemical in form,” it is not
so in reality, because “it does not explain the phenomenon by reference
to the known laws of chemistry.” (Cf. _Physiology_, ed. of 1920,
p. 1084.) In a word, the theory of heredity, which seeks to strip
inheritance of its uniqueness as a vital process by identifying it with
the more general physicochemical processes occurring in the organism,
is a groundless speculation, that, far from explaining, flouts the very
observational data which it pretends to elucidate. _Kurz und gut!_
to requite the mechanist, Schäfer, with his own Danielesque phrase,
here, as elsewhere, the mechanists have succeeded in extracting from
the facts, not what the facts themselves proclaim, but what preëxisted
in their own highly-cultured imaginations so well-stocked with cogs,
cranks, ball bearings, and other æsthetic imagery emanating from
polytechnic schools and factories.

But in arguing from the existence of parallelism in the inorganic
world to its possibility in the organic world, we are less liable
to displease the mechanists than those other extremists, the
neo-vitalists, who will be prone to deny all parity between living, and
inanimate, matter. Fortunately, we are in a position to appease the
scruples of the latter by referring to the facts of _convergence_ as
universally accepted evidence that the phenomenon of parallelism occurs
in animate, no less than inanimate, nature. Admitting, therefore, that
the laws of organic morphology are of a higher order than those which
regulate atomic, molecular, and multimolecular structure, these facts
attest, nevertheless, that parallelisms arise in organisms of separate
ancestry which are due, not to heredity, but to the uniform action
of universal morphogenetic forces. Hence general laws can be invoked
to account for organic uniformities with the same right that they
are invoked to account for resemblances existing between the various
members of a chemical “family” like the Halogens. And why should this
not be so? Organisms have much in common that transcends any possible
scheme of evolution and that cannot be brought into alignment with the
position arbitrarily assigned them in the evolutionary family-tree.
They all originate as single cells. Their common means of growth and
reproduction is mitotic cell division. This leads to the production
of a _somatella_, among the protista, and of a _soma_ differentiated
by histogenesis into two or three primary tissues, among the metista.
All these fundamental processes are strikingly uniform throughout
the entire plant and animal world. In these universal properties of
living matter, therefore, we have a common basis for general structural
and organizational laws, which, though irreducible to the “common
ancestors” of Transformism, is quite adequate to account for both the
homologies and analogies of living matter. Accept this basis of general
laws regulating the development of living matter, and there is no
difficulty in seeing why the problems posed by exposure to analogous
environmental conditions are solved in parallel fashion by organisms,
irrespective of whether they are nearly, or distantly, related in the
sense of morphology. Transformism, on the other hand, can only account
for homology at the expense of convergence, and for convergence at the
expense of homology. So far as a common ancestral basis is concerned,
the two kinds of resemblance are, from the very nature of the case,
irreducible phenomena.

It is only, in fact, by surrendering the principle that similarity
entails community of origin, and by falling back on the suggested
common basis of general laws, that Transformism makes room in its
system for the troublesome facts of convergence. “It might be
reiterated in passing,” says Dwight, “that this ‘convergence’ business
is a very ticklish one. We have been taught almost word for word
that resemblance implies relationship, or almost predicates it; but
according to this doctrine it has nothing to do with it whatever.”
(“Thoughts of a Cath. Anat.,” p. 190.) And in a subsequent chapter
he says: “No very deep knowledge of comparative anatomy is needed
for us to know that very similar adaptations for particular purposes
are found in very diverse animals. The curious low grade mammal,
the _Ornithorhynchus_, with a hairy coat and the bill of a duck, is
a familiar instance. We all know that the whales have the general
form of the fish, although they are mammals, and going more into
details we know that the whale’s flipper is on the same general plan
as that of the ancient saurians.... The origin of the eye, according
to evolutionary doctrines, has been a very difficult problem, which
gets worse rather than better the more you do for it. Even if we could
persuade ourselves that certain cells blundered along by the lucky
mating of individuals in whom they were a bit better developed than in
the others till they came to form a most complicated organ of sight, it
would be a sufficient tax on our credulity to believe that this could
come off successfully in some extraordinary lucky species; but that it
should have turned out so well with all kinds of vertebrates is really
too much to ask us to swallow. But this is not all: eyes are very
widely spread among different classes of invertebrates. More wonderful
still, the eyes of certain molluscs and crustacea are on stalks, and
this is found also in various and very different families of fishes.
How did this happen? Was it by way of descent from the molluscs or the
crustacea? If not, how could chance have brought about such a similar
result in diverse forms?” (_Op. cit._, pp. 233-236.)

It may be objected that the resemblances of convergence are superficial
analogies, not to be confounded with fundamental homologies. This
contention may be disputed; for, as we shall see in the next chapter,
there are cases where the convergence is admittedly radical, and
not merely superficial. The distinction, moreover, between shallow
and basic characters is somewhat arbitrary, and its validity is
often questionable. When the skeletal homology that relates the
amphibia to the mammals, for instance, is traced to the root of the
vertebrate family tree, we find it all but disappearing in a primitive
Amphioxus-like chordate, whose so-called skeleton contains no trace of
bone or cartilage. Hence, if we go back far enough, the homologies of
today become the convergences of a geological yesterday, and we find
the vertebrate type of skeleton arising independently in reptiles,
mammals, amphibia, and fishes.

Again, there are times when convergent analogies appear to be more
representative of the common racial heritage than the underlying
structure itself, tempting the evolutionist to fly in the face of
the orthodox interpretation, which rigidly rules out analogy in
favor of homology, and refuses to accept the eloquent testimony
of a remarkable resemblance merely because of a slight technical
discrepancy in the structural substrate. A large pinching claw, or
chela, for example, occurs in two organisms belonging to the phylum
of the arthropods, namely, the lobster and the African scorpion. Both
chelæ are practically identical in structure, but, unfortunately, the
chela of the lobster arises from a different appendage than that from
which the scorpion’s chela emerges. If they arose from corresponding
appendages, they would be pronounced “homologous organs” and acclaimed,
without hesitation, as strong evidence in favor of the common origin
of all the arthropods. In proof of this, we call attention to the
importance attached to the adaptations affecting homologous bones in
fossil “horses.” As it is, however, the two chelæ are analogous, and
not homologous, organs. Hence, technically speaking, the two chelæ are
utterly unrelated structures. To the eye of common sense, however, the
likeness appears to be far more important than the difference, and the
average person will be inclined to view the resemblance as evidence of
a community of type. In fact, the tendency to discard superficial, and
to retain only fundamental, uniformities, is dangerous to the theory of
Transformism. When we confine our attention to what is really basic, we
find that the resemblances become so generalized and widespread that
specific conclusions as to descent become impossible, and we lose all
sense of direction in a clueless labyrinth of innumerable, yet mutually
contradictory, possibilities.

Finally, it may be noted in passing that, though it is customary
with evolutionists to regard homologous characters as the tenaciously
persistent heritage of primeval days, and to look upon adaptational
characters as adventitious and accessory to the aforesaid primitive
heritage, the supposedly older and more fundamental characters fail to
give, by the manifestation of greater fixity, any empirical evidence
whatever of their being more deeply or firmly rooted in the hereditary
process than the presumably newer adaptational characters. We have,
therefore, no experimental warrant for appropriating homologous,
rather than adaptational, characters to the process of inheritance.
“It is sometimes asserted,” says Goodrich, “that old-established
characters are inherited, and that newly begotten ones are not, or are
less constant, in their reappearance. This statement will not bear
critical examination. For, on the one hand, it has been conclusively
shown by experimental breeding that the newest characters may be
inherited as constantly as the most ancient.... While, on the other
hand, few characters in plants can be older than the green color
due to chlorophyll, yet it is sufficient to cut off the light from
a germinating seed for the greenness to fail to appear. Again, ever
since Devonian times vertebrates have inherited paired eyes; yet,
as Professor Stockard has shown, if a little magnesium chloride is
added to the sea water in which the eggs of the fish _Fundulus_ are
developing, they will give rise to embryos with one median cyclopean
eye! Nor is the suggestion any happier that the, so to speak, more
deep-seated and fundamental characters are more constantly inherited
than the trivial or superficial. A glance at the organisms around
us, or the slightest experimental trial, soon convinces us that the
apparently least important character may reappear as constantly as
the most fundamental. But while an organism may live without some
trivial character, it can rarely do so when a fundamental character is
absent, hence such incomplete individuals are seldom met in Nature.”
(_Science_, Dec. 2, 1921, p. 530.)

But, whether it be upon, or beneath, the surface, similitude of _any
kind_ suffices to establish our contention that inheritance is not the
only similifying influence present in organisms, and that resemblance
is perfectly compatible with independence of ancestry. We have,
therefore, an alternative for inheritance in the explanation of organic
uniformities, and by the admission of this alternative, which, for the
rest, is factually attested by the universally acknowledged phenomena
of convergence, the inference of common descent from structural
resemblance is shorn of the last remnant of its demonstrative force, as
an _a posteriori_ argument.

But a still more serious objection to the evolutionary interpretation
of homology and preadaptation arises from its intrinsic _incoherency_.
Evolution, as previously stated, is assumed to be the resultant of
a twofold process, namely, _inheritance_ and _variation_. The first
is a conservative and similifying process, which transmits. The
second is a progressive and diversifying process, which diverts.
To the former process are due the uniformities of homology, to
the latter the deviations of adaptation. Upon the admission of
evolutionists themselves, however, neither of these processes behaves
in a manner consistent with its general nature, and both of them
are flagrantly unfaithful to the principal rôles assigned to them.
Nowadays the hereditary process transmits _adaptational_, as well
as _homologous_, characters. If, then, adaptational characters are
more recent than homologous characters, there must have been a time
when inheritance ceased to _similify_ and become a _diversifying_
process by transmitting what it did not receive from the previous
generation. There were times when, not content with simply reiterating
the past, it began to divert former tendencies into novel channels.
In other words, inheritance becomes dualized into a paradoxical
process, which both perpetuates the old and appropriates the new.
The same inconsistency is manifest in the process of variation,
which capriciously produces _convergent_, no less than _divergent_,
adaptations. In two fundamentally identical structures, like the wing
of a bird and the foreleg of a cat, variation is said to have produced
diverse adaptations. In two fundamentally diverse structures, like
the head of an octopus and the head of a frog, variation is said to
have produced an identical adaptation, namely, the vertebrate type of
eye. It appears, therefore, that the essentially diversifying process
of variation can become, on occasion, a simplifying process, which,
instead of solving environmental problems in an original manner,
prefers to employ uniform and standardized solutions, and to cling to
its old stereotyped methods. Inheritance similifies and diversifies,
variation converges and diverges. It is futile to attempt to reduce
either of these protean processes to a condition that even approximates
consistency. The evolutionist blows hot and cold with the same breath.
Verily, his god is Proteus, or the double-headed Janus!

_Summa summarum_: The evolutionary argument from homology is defective
in three important respects: (1) in its lack of experimental
confirmation; (2) in its incomplete enumeration of the disjunctive
possibilities; (3) in its inability to construct a scheme of
transmutation that synthesizes inheritance and variation in a logically
coherent, and factually substantiated formula. The first two defects
are not necessarily fatal to the argument as such. Though they destroy
its pretensions to conclusiveness, they do not preclude the fulfilment
of the moderate claim made in its behalf by Prof. T. H. Morgan, who
says: “In this sense (_i.e._, as previously stated) the argument from
comparative anatomy, while not a demonstration, carries with it, I
think, a high degree of probability.” (“A Critique of the Theory of
Evolution,” p. 14.) The third defect is more serious. The apparently
irreducible antagonism which the evolutionary assumption introduces
between inheritance and variation has been sensed even by the adherents
of transformism themselves, and they have searched in vain for a
formula, which, without sacrificing the facts, would bring into concord
the respective rôles of these discordant factors. “It follows,” says
Osborn, “as an unprejudiced conclusion from our present evidence that
upon Weismann’s principle we can explain inheritance but not evolution,
while with Lamarck’s principle and Darwin’s selection principle we
can explain evolution, but not, at present, inheritance. Disprove
Lamarck’s principle and we must assume that there is some third factor
in evolution of which we are ignorant.” (_Popular Science Monthly_,
Jan., 1905.) The point is well taken, and unless, as Osborn suggests,
there is a _tertium quid_ by means of which the discord can be resolved
into ultimate harmony, we see no way of liberating the theory of
Transmutation from this embarrassing dilemma.




                              CHAPTER III

                           FOSSIL PEDIGREES

       “_By dint of such great efforts we succeeded only in piecing
       together genial romances more or less historical._”—B. Grassi,
       Prof. of Comparative Anatomy, Univ. of Rome, “La vita” (1906),
       p. 227.


                  § 1. =The Argument in the Abstract=

The palæontological argument for evolution is based upon the observed
gradual approximation in type of the earlier forms of life, as
represented by the fossils still preserved in successive geological
strata, to the later forms of life, as represented by the contemporary
species constituting our present flora and fauna. Here the observed
distribution in time supplements and confirms the argument drawn from
mere structural affinity. Here we are no longer dealing with the
spatial gradation of contemporary forms, arranged on a basis of greater
or lesser similarity (the gradation whence the zoölogist derives his
argument for evolution), but with a temporal gradation, which is
simultaneously a morphological series and an historical record. The
lower sedimentary rocks contain specimens of organic life very unlike
modern species, but, the higher we ascend in the geological strata,
the more closely do the fossil forms resemble our present organisms.
In fact, the closeness of resemblance is directly proportional to the
proximity in time, and this seems to create a presumption that the
later forms of life are the modified descendants of the earlier forms.
Considered in the abstract, at least, such an argument is obviously
more formidable than the purely anatomical argument based on the
degrees of structural affinity observable in contemporary forms. It
ought, therefore, to be extremely persuasive, provided, of course,
it proceeds in rigorous accord with indubitably established facts and
rules out relentlessly the alloy of uncritical assumptions.

Here, likewise, we find the theory of transformism asserting its
superiority over the theory of immutability, on the ground that
evolutionism can furnish a natural explanation for the gradational
distribution of fossil types in the geological strata, whereas the
theory of permanence resorts, it is said, to a supernaturalism
of reiterated “new creations” alternating with “catastrophic
exterminations.” Now, if this claim is valid, and it can be shown
conclusively that fixism is inevitably committed to a postulate of
superfluously numerous “creations,” then the latter theory is shorn
of all right to consideration by Occam’s Razor: _Entia non sunt
multiplicanda sine ratione._ It is rather difficult to conceive of the
Creator as continually blotting out, and rewriting, the history of
creation, as ruthlessly exterminating the organisms of one age, only
to repopulate the earth subsequently with species differing but little
from their extinct predecessors—_ad quid perditio haec_? Such procedure
hardly comports with the continuity, regularity and irrevisable
perfection to be expected in the works of that Divine Wisdom, which
“reacheth ... from end to end mightily and disposeth all things
sweetly” (_Wisdom_, viii; 1), which “ordereth all things in measure,
and number and weight.” (_Wis._ xi; 21.)

Following the lead of other evolutionists, Wasmann has striven to
saddle fixism with the fatuity of periodic catastrophism and “creation
on the installment plan.” But even Cuvier, who is credited with
having originated the theory of catastrophism, did not go to the
absurd extreme of hypothecating reiterated creations, but sought
to explain the repopulation of the earth after each catastrophe
by means of migrations from distant regions unaffected by the
catastrophe. Historically, too, fixism has had its uniformitarian, as
well as its catastrophic, versions. In fact, Huxley classifies both
uniformitarianism and catastrophism as fixistic systems, when he
says: “I find three more or less contradictory systems of geologic
thought ... standing side by side in Britain. I shall call one of them
Catastrophism, another Uniformitarianism, the third Evolutionism.”
(“Lay Sermons,” p. 229.) Obviously, then, fixism is separable from
the hypothesis of repeated catastrophes alternating with repeated
“creations.” Stated in proper terms, it is at one with evolutionism
in rejecting as undemonstrated and improbable the postulate of
reiterated cataclysms. It freely acknowledges that, in the absence
of positive evidence of their occurrence, the presumption is against
extraordinary events, like wholesale catastrophes. It sanctions
the uniformitarian tenet that ordinary cosmic processes are to be
preferred to exceptional ones as a basis of geological explanation,
and it repudiates as unscientific any recourse to the unusual or
the miraculous in accounting for natural phenomena. Its sole point
of disagreement with evolutionism is its refusal to admit organic
changes of _specific_ magnitude. It does, however, admit germinal
changes of _varietal_ magnitude. It also recognizes that the external
characters of the phenotype are the joint product of germinal factors
and environmental stimuli, and admits, in consequence, the possibility
of purely _somatic changes_ of considerable profundity being induced
by widespread and persistent alterations in environmental conditions.
Like Darwin, the uniformitarian fixist ascribes the origination of
organic life to a single vivifying act on the part of the Creator, an
act, however, that was _formative_ rather than _creative_, because the
primal forms of life, whether few or many, were all evolved through
Divine influence from preëxistent inorganic matter. Unlike Darwin, he
ascribes the continuation of organic life to generative processes that
were univocal (_generationes univocae_), and not gradually-equivocal
(_generationes paulatim aequivocae_). In the next chapter, we shall see
that, in attributing the initial formation of species to a Divine act,
neither Darwin nor the creationists exposed themselves to the charge of
explaining the “natural” by means of the “miraculous.” And, as for the
process by which living forms were continued upon earth, the univocal
reproductive process upheld by fixism is more manifestly a natural
process than the gradually-equivocal generation of variable inheritance
hypothecated by the theory of transmutation. The sole matter of dispute
between the two views is whether the life-cycles of organisms are
circles or spirals.

But all this, it will be said, is purely negative. Merely to refrain
from any recourse to the extraordinary or the supernatural is by no
means sufficient. “Natural explanations” must be explanatory as well
as natural. Unless there be a simplification, a reduction of plurality
to unity, a resolution of many particular problems into a common
general problem, we have no explanation worthy of the name. Granting,
therefore, that uniformitarian fixism does not recur to the anomalous
or the miraculous, it still lies open to the charge of failing in its
function as an explanation, because it multiplies origins in both space
and time. Transformism, on the contrary, is said to elucidate matters,
inasmuch as it unifies origins spatially and temporally.

That transformism successfully plausibleizes a unification of origins
in space, is true only in a limited and relative sense. The most
that can be said for the assumption, that resemblances rest on the
principle of common inheritance, is that it permits of a numerical
reduction of origins, but this numerical reduction will, by an
intrinsic necessity, always fall short of absolute unification. The
monophyletic derivation of all organic forms from one primordial cell
or protoblast is a fantastic dream, for which, from the very nature
of things, natural science does not, and can not, furnish even the
semblance of an objective basis. The ground is cut from under our feet,
the moment we attempt to extend the principle of descent outside the
limits of an organic phylum. The sole basis of inference is a group
of uniformities, and, unless these uniformities predominate over the
diversities, there can be no rational application of the principle of
transformism. Hence, the hypothesis, that organisms are consanguineous
notwithstanding their differences, loses all value as a solution
at the point where resemblances are outweighed by diversities. The
transmutation assumed to have taken place must be never so complete as
to have obliterated all recognizable vestiges of the common ancestral
type. “Whenever,” says Driesch, “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 be
overshadowed by their diversities.” (“Science and Philosophy of the
Organism,” v. I, p. 254.) When, therefore, the reverse is true and
diversities are prevalent over uniformities, we are left without clue
or compass in the midst of a labyrinth of innumerable possibilities.
Such are the limits imposed by the very nature of the evidence itself,
and the scientists, who transgress these limits, by attempting to
correlate the primary phyla, are on a par with those unconvincible
geniuses, who continually besiege the Patent Office with schemes ever
new and weird for realizing the chimera of “perpetual motion.”

Thus scientific transformism is unable to simplify the problem beyond a
certain irreducible plurality of forms, lesser only in degree than the
plurality postulated by fixism. This being the case, the attempts of
Wasmann and Dorlodot to prune the works of Creation with Occam’s Razor
are not only presumptuous, but precarious as well. _Qui nimis probat,
nihil probat!_ If it be unworthy of God to multiply organic origins
in space, then monophyletic descent is the only possible alternative,
and polyphyletic transformism falls under the same condemnation as
fixism. Yet the polyphyletic theory of descent is that to which both
Wasmann and Dorlodot subscribe, as it is, likewise, the only kind of
transformism which science can ever hope to plausibleize. Besides, too
close a shave with Occam’s Razor would eliminate creation altogether,
since all theologians cheerfully admit that it was the result of a free
and unnecessary act on the part of God. When we apply our _rationes
convenientiae_ to the Divine operations, we must not make the mistake
of applying them to the Divine action itself instead of the created
effects of that action. We may be competent to discern disorder and
irregularity in finite things, but we are wholly incompetent to
prescribe rules for Divine conduct. To say that God is constrained
by His infinite Wisdom to indirect, rather than direct, production,
or that He must evolve a variety of forms out of living, rather than
non-living, matter, is to be guilty of ridiculous anthropomorphism.
There is no _a priori_ reason, founded upon the Divine attributes,
which restricts God’s creative action to the production of this, or
that, number of primordial organisms, or which obliges him to endow
primitive organisms with the power of transmutation.

But the fact that these _rationes convenientiae_ fail to establish
the _a priori_ necessity of a unification of organic origins in
space, does not imply that they are without value in suggesting the
unification of organic origins in time. Order and regularity are not
excluded by spatial multiplicity, but they may easily be excluded by
the incongruities of an irregular succession of events. Indeterminism
and chance are, indeed, inseparable from the course of Nature. There is
in matter an unlimited potentiality, incommensurate with the limited
efficacy of natural agencies. Hence it evades the absolute control of
all finite factors and forces. But the anomalies and irregularities,
which are contingent upon the limitation or frustration of second
causes unable to impose an iron necessity upon evasive matter, are
not referable to the First Cause, but rather to the finite efficacy
of second causes. Such anomalies in natural processes, consequently,
are not inconsistent with infinite wisdom and power on the part of
the Creator. If, on the contrary, the anomaly occurs, not in the form
of an accidental frustration of a natural agency, but in the form
of an intrusive “new creation,” the irregularity in question would
then be referable to the Creator Himself, and such derogations of
order are inadmissible, except as manifestations of the supernatural.
In fact, the abrupt and capricious insertion of a “new creation”
into an order already constituted, say, for instance, the sudden
introduction of Angiosperms in the Comanchian period, or of mammals in
the Tertiary, would be out of harmony with both reason and revelation.
Unless there is a positive reason for supposing the contrary, we must
presume that, subsequent to the primordial constitution of things,
the Divine influence upon the world has been concurrent rather than
revolutionizing. Hence a theory of origins, compatible with the
simultaneous “creation” of primal organisms, is decidedly preferable
to a theory, which involves successive “creations” at random. That
transformism dispenses with the need of assuming a succession of
“creative” acts, is perfectly obvious, and, unless fixism can emulate
its rival system in this respect, it cannot expect to receive serious
attention.

But once fixism assumes the simultaneousness of organic origins,
it encounters, in the absence of modern organic types from ancient
geological strata, a new and formidable difficulty. Cuvier’s theory
of numerous catastrophes followed by wholesale migrations of the
forms, which had escaped extinction, is tantamount to an appeal to the
extraordinary and the improbable for purposes of explanation, and this,
as we have seen, is an expedient, which natural science is justified
in refusing to sanction. Nor does the appeal to the incompleteness of
the geological record offer a more satisfactory solution. It is tax
enough, as we shall see, upon our credulity, when the transformist
seeks to account thereby for the absence of intermediate types, but
to account in this fashion for the absence of palæozoic Angiosperms
and mammals is asking us to believe the all-but-incredible. It would
not, therefore, be advisable for the fixist to appropriate the line of
defense suggested for him by Bateson—“It has been asked how do you
_know_ for instance that there were no mammals in Palæozoic times? May
there not have been mammals somewhere on the earth though no vestige of
them has come down to us? We may feel confident there were no mammals
then, but are we sure? In very ancient rocks most of the great orders
of animals are represented. The absence of the others might by no great
stress of imagination be ascribed to accidental circumstances.” But the
sudden rise of the Angiosperms in the early part of the Mesozoic era is
an instance of _de novo_ origin that is not so easily explained away.
Hence Bateson continues: “Happily, however, there is one example of
which we can be sure. There were no Angiosperms—that is to say ‘higher
plants’ with protected seeds—in the carboniferous epoch. Of that age we
have abundant remains of a worldwide and rich flora. The Angiosperms
are cosmopolitan. By their means of dispersal they must immediately
have become so. Their remains are very readily preserved. If they
had been in existence on the earth in carboniferous times they must
have been present with the carboniferous plants, and must have been
preserved with them. Hence we may be sure that they did appear on earth
since those times. We are not certain, using certain in the strict
sense, that Angiosperms are the lineal descendants of the carboniferous
plants, but it is much easier to believe that they are than that they
are not.” (_Science_, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 58.)

It would thus appear, that not all the organic types of either the
plant, or the animal, kingdom are of equal antiquity, and that the
belated rise of unprecedented forms has the status of an approximate
certainty, wherewith every theory of origins must inevitably reckon.
How, then, is the fixist to reconcile this successive appearance of
organisms with the simultaneous “creation” advocated by St. Augustine
and St. Thomas of Aquin? Unless there be some other gradual process
besides transmutation, to bridge the interval between the creative
fiat and the eventual appearance of modern types, there seems to be no
escape from the dilemma.

This brings us to St. Augustine’s theory of the evolution of organic
life from inorganic matter, which Dorlodot sophistically construes
as supporting the theory of descent. According to St. Augustine, for
whose view the Angelic Doctor expressed a deliberate preference, the
creation of the corporeal world was the result of a single creative
act, having an immediate effect in the case of minerals, and a remote
or postponed effect in the case of plants and animals (cf. “De Genesi
ad litteram,” lib. V, c. 5). Living beings, therefore, were created,
not in actuality, but in germ. God imparted to the elements the
power of producing the various plants and animals in their proper
time and place. Hence living beings were created causally rather
than formally, by the establishment of causal mechanisms or natural
agencies especially ordained to bring about the initial formation of
the ancestral forms of life. The Divine act initiating these “natural
processes” (_rationes seminales, rationes causales_) in inorganic, and
not in living, matter, was instantaneous, but the processes, which
terminated in the formation of plants and animals, in their appointed
time and place, were in themselves gradual and successive. Thus by an
influx of Divine power the earth was made pregnant with the promise
of every form of life—“_Sicut matres gravidae sunt foetibus, sic ipse
mundus est gravidus causis nascentium._” (Augustine, lib. III, “de
Trinitate,” c. 9.)

By reason of this doctrine, the Louvain professor claims that
St. Augustine was an evolutionist, and so, indeed, he was, if by
evolution is meant a gradual production of organisms from inorganic
matter. But if, on the contrary, by evolution is meant a progressive
differentiation and multiplication of organic species by transmutation
of preëxistent forms of life, or, in other words, if evolution is taken
in its usual sense as synonym for transformism, then nothing could
be more absurdly anachronistic than to ascribe the doctrine to St.
Augustine. The subject of the gradual process postulated by the latter
was, not living, but _inorganic_, matter, and the process was conceived
as leading to the _formation_, and not the transformation, of species.
The idea of variable inheritance did not occur to St. Augustine, and he
conceived organisms, once they were in existence, as being propagated
exclusively by univocal reproduction (_generatio univoca_). It is the
fixist, therefore, rather than the transformist, who is entitled to
exploit the Augustinian hypothesis. In fact, it is only the vicious
ambiguity and unlimited elasticity of the term evolution, which avail
to extenuate the astounding confusion of ideas and total lack of
historic sense, that can bracket together under a common term the
ideology of Darwin and the view of St. Augustine.


                   § 2. The Argument in the Concrete

But it is our task to criticize the theory of transformism, and not to
throw a life-line to fixism, by advocating gradual formation of species
as the only feasible alternative to gradual transformation of species.
Perhaps, this particular life-line will not be appreciated any way;
for the fixist may, not without reason, prefer to rest his case on the
contention that the intrinsic _time-value_ of geological formations is
far too problematic for certain conclusions of any sort. In maintaining
this position, he will have the support of some present-day geologists,
and can point, as we shall see, to facts that seem to bear out his
contention. In fact, the cogency of the palæontological argument
appears to be at its maximum in the abstract, and to evaporate the
moment we carry it into the concrete. The lute seems perfect, until we
begin to play thereon, and then we discover certain rifts that mar the
effect. It is to these rifts that our attention must now be turned.

The first and most obvious flaw, in the evolutionary interpretation
of fossil series, is the confounding of succession with filiation.
Thinkers, from time immemorial, have commented on the deep chasm
of distinction, which divides historical from causal sequence, and
philosophers have never ceased to inveigh against the sophistical
snare of: _Post hoc, ergo propter hoc._ That one form of life has
been subsequent in time to another form of life is, in itself, no
proof of descent. “Let us suppose,” says Bather, “all written records
to be swept away, and an attempt made to reconstruct English history
from coins. We could set out our monarchs in true order, and we might
suspect that the throne was hereditary; but if on that assumption
we were to make James I, the son of Elizabeth—well, but that’s
just what palæontologists are constantly doing. The famous diagram
of the Evolution of the Horse which Huxley used in his American
lectures has had to be corrected in the light of the fuller evidence
recently tabulated in a handsome volume by Prof. H. F. Osborn and
his coadjutors. _Palæotherium_, which Huxley regarded as a direct
ancestor of the horse, is now held to be only a collateral, as the
last of the Tudors were collateral ancestors of the Stuarts. The later
_Ancitherium_ must be eliminated from the true line as a side branch—a
Young Pretender. Sometimes an apparent succession is due to immigration
of a distant relative from some other region—‘The glorious House of
Hanover and Protestant Succession.’ It was, you will remember, by such
migrations that Cuvier explained the renewal of life when a previous
fauna had become extinct. He admitted succession but not descent.”
(_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 261.)

But, if succession does not imply descent, descent, at least, implies
succession, and the fact that succession is the necessary corollary of
descent, may be used as a corrective for the erroneous allocations made
by neontologists on the basis of purely morphological considerations.
The _priority_ of a type is the _sine qua non_ condition of its
being accepted as _ancestral_. It is always embarrassing when, as
sometimes happens, a “descendant” turns out to be older than, or even
coëval with, his “ancestor.” If, however, the historical position of
a form can be made to coincide with its anatomical pretensions to
ancestry, then the inference of descent attains to a degree of logical
respectability that is impossible in the case of purely zoölogical
evidence. Recent years have witnessed a more drastic application of the
historical test to morphological speculations, and the result has been
a wholesale revision of former notions concerning phylogeny. “I could
easily,” says Bather, “occupy the rest of this hour by discussing the
profound changes wrought by this conception on our classification. It
is not that orders and classes hitherto unknown have been discovered,
not that some erroneous allocations have been corrected, but the whole
basis of our system is being shifted. So long as we were dealing with
a horizontal section across the tree of life—that is to say, with
an assemblage of approximately contemporaneous forms—or even with a
number of such horizontal sections, so long were we confined to simple
description. Any attempt to frame a causal connection was bound to be
speculative.” (_Ibidem_, p. 258.) Whether zoölogists will take kindly
to this “shifting of the whole basis” of classification, remains to be
seen. Personally, we think they would be very ill-advised to exchange
the solid observational basis of homology for the scanty facts and
fanciful interpretations of palæontologists.

The second stumbling block in the path of Transformism is the
occurrence of convergence. We have seen that, in the palæontological
argument, descent is inferred conjointly from similarity and
succession, and that, in the abstract, this argument is very
persuasive. One of the concrete phenomena, however, that tend to make
it inconsequential, is the undoubted occurrence of convergence. Prof.
H. Woods of Cambridge, in the Introduction to the 5th edition of his
“Palæontology” (1919), speaks of three kinds of convergence (cf.,
pp. 14, 15, 16), which, as a matter of convenience, we may term the
parallelistic, the radical, and the adaptational, types of convergence.
A brief description of each type will serve to elucidate its nature and
its significance:

(1) Parallelistic convergence implies the appearance of parallel
modifications in the homologous parts of organisms regarded as
diverging from common stock in two distinct collateral lines, that
were independent at the time of the appearance in both of the said
parallel modifications. Speaking of the fossil cœlenterates known as
_Graptolites_, Professor Woods says: “In some genera the hydrothecæ
of different species show great variety of form, those of one species
being often much more like those of a species belonging to another
genus than to other species of the same genus.” (“Palæontology,” 5th
ed., 1919, p. 69.) As another instance of this phenomenon, the case
of the fossil ungulates of South America, spoken of as _Litopterna_,
may be cited, and the case is peculiarly interesting because of its
bearing on that _pièce de résistance_ of palæontological evidence,
the Pedigree of the Horse. “The second family of Litopterna,” says
Wm. B. Scott, “the Proterotheriidæ, were remarkable for their many
deceptive resemblances to horses. Even though those who contend that
the Litopterna should be included in the Perissodactyla should prove to
be in the right, there can be no doubt that the proterotheres were not
closely related to the horses, but formed a most striking illustration
of the independent acquisition of similar characters through parallel
or convergent development. The family was not represented in the
Pleistocene, having died out before that epoch, and the latest known
members of it lived in the upper Pliocene.... Not that this remarkable
character was due to grotesque proportions; on the contrary, they
looked far more like the ordinary ungulates of the northern hemisphere
than did any of their South American contemporaries; it is precisely
this resemblance that is so notable.... The feet were three-toed,
except in one genus (_Thoatherium_) in which they were single-toed, and
nearly or quite the whole weight was carried upon the median digit, the
laterals being mere dew-claws. The shape of the hoofs and the whole
appearance of the foot was surprisingly like those of the three-toed
horses, but there were certain structural differences of such great
importance, in my judgment, as to forbid the reference of these
animals, not merely to the horses, but even to the perissodactyls.” (“A
History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere,” p. 499.)

For this sort of parallelism, the Lamarckian and Darwinian types of
evolution by addition can offer no rational explanation. It could,
perhaps, be accounted for upon the Batesonian hypothesis of evolution
by loss of inhibition, that is to say, the coincident appearance of
convergent characters in collateral lines might be interpreted as
being due to a parallel loss in both lines of the inhibitive genes,
which had suppressed the convergent feature in the primitive or common
stock. We say that the convergence _might_ be so interpreted, because
the interpretation in question would, at best, be merely optional
and not at all necessary; for in the third, or adaptational, type of
convergence, we shall see instances of parallel modifications occurring
in completely independent races, whose morphology and history alike
exclude all possibility of hereditary connection between them. Hence,
even in the present case, nothing constrains us to accept the genetic
interpretation.

(2) Radical convergence, which Woods styles heterogenetic homœomorphy,
is described by him as follows: “Sometimes two groups of individuals
resemble each other so closely that they might be regarded as belonging
to the same genus or even to _the same species_ (italics mine), but
they have descended from different ancestors since they are found to
differ in development (ontogeny) or in their palæontological history;
this phenomenon, of forms belonging to different stocks approaching
one another in character, is known as convergence or heterogenetic
homœomorphy, and may occur at the same geological period or at widely
separated intervals. Thus the form of oyster known as _Gryphaea_ has
originated independently from oysters of the ordinary type in the Lias,
in the Oölites, and again in the Chalk; these forms found at different
horizons closely resemble one another and have usually been regarded as
belonging to one genus (_Gryphaea_), but they have no direct genetic
connection with one another.” (“Palæontology,” 5th ed., 1919, p. 15.)
Comment is almost superfluous. If even _specific_ resemblance is no
proof of common origin, then what right have we to interpret any
resemblance whatever in this sense? With such an admission, the whole
bottom drops out of the evolutionary argument. When the theory of
descent is forced to account for heterogenetic resemblance at expense
of all likelihood and consistency, when it cannot save itself except by
blowing hot and cold with one breath, one is tempted to exclaim: “Oh,
why bother with it!”

(3) Adaptational convergence is the occurrence of parallel
modifications due to analogous specialization in unrelated forms,
whose phylogeny has been obviously diverse. “Also, animals belonging
to quite distinct groups,” says Woods, “may, when living under similar
conditions, come to resemble one another owing to the development of
adaptive modifications, though they do not really approach one another
in essential characters; thus analogous or parallel modifications may
occur in independent groups—such are the resemblances between flying
reptiles (_Ornithosaurs_) and birds, and between sharks, icthyosaurs
and dolphins.” (_Op. cit._, p. 16.) As this type of convergence has
been discussed in a previous article, with reference to the mole and
mole-cricket, it need not detain us further.

All these types of convergence, but especially the second type, are
factual evidence of the compatibility of resemblance with independent
origin, and the fact of their occurrence tends to undermine the
certainty of the phylogenetic inferences based on fossil evidence;
all the more so, that, thanks to its bad state of preservation, and
the impossibility of dissection, even superficial resemblances may
give rise to false interpretations. And, as for the cases of radical
convergence, there is no denying that they strike at the very heart of
the theory of descent.

The third difficulty for Transformism arises from the discontinuity
of the geological record. It was one of the very first discrepancies
to be discovered between evolutionary expectation and the actual
results of research. The earliest explorations revealed a state of
affairs, that subsequent investigations have failed to remedy: on
the one hand, namely, a notable absence of intermediate species to
bridge the gaps between the fossil genera, and on the other hand,
the sudden and simultaneous appearance of numerous new and allied
types unheralded by transitional forms. Since Darwin had stressed the
gradualness of transmutation, the investigators expected to find the
transitional means more numerous than the terminal extremes, and were
surprised to find, in the real record of the past, the exact reverse
of their anticipation. They found that the classes and families of
animals and plants had always been as widely separated and as sharply
differentiated as they are today, and that they had always formed
distinct systems, unconnected by transitional links. The hypothetical
“generalized types,” supposed to combine the features of two or three
families, have never been found, and most probably never will be;
for it is all but certain that they never existed. Occasionally, it
is true, palæontologists have discovered isolated types, which they
interpreted as annectant forms, but a single pier does not make a
bridge, and only too often it chanced that the so-called annectant
type, though satisfactory from the morphological standpoint, was more
recent than the two groups, to which it was supposed to be ancestral.
But it will make matters plainer, if we illustrate what is meant by the
discontinuity or incompleteness of the fossil record, by reference to
some concrete series, such as the so-called Pedigree of the Horse.

Whenever a series of fossils, arranged in the order of their historical
sequence, exhibits a gradation of increasing resemblance to the latest
form, with which the series terminates, such a series is called a
palæontological pedigree, and is said to represent so many stages in
the racial development or phylogeny of the respective modern type. The
classical example of this sort of “pedigree” is that of the Horse.
It is, perhaps, one of the most complete among fossil “genealogies,”
and yet, as has been frequently pointed out, it is, as it stands,
extremely incomplete. Modern representatives of the _Equidae_, namely,
the horse, the ass and the zebra, belong to a common genus, and are
separated from one another by differences which are merely specific,
but the differences which separate the various forms, that compose
the “pedigree of the Horse,” are generic. We have, to borrow Gerard’s
simile, nothing more than the piers of the evolutionary bridge, without
the arches, and we do not know whether there ever were any arches.
There is, indeed, a sort of progression, _e.g._, from the four-toed
to a one-toed type, so that the morphological gradation does, in some
degree, coincide with temporal succession. But, on the other hand, the
fossil forms, interpreted as stages in the phylogeny of the Horse, are
separated from one another by gaps so enormous, that, in the absence
of intermediate species to bridge the intervals, it is practically
impossible, particularly in the light of our experimental knowledge
of Genetics, to conceive of any transition between them. Nor is this
all. The difficulty is increased tenfold, when we attempt to relate the
_Equidae_ to other mammalian groups. Fossil ungulates appear suddenly
and contemporaneously in the Tertiary of North America, South America
and Europe, without any transitional precursors, to connect them with
the hypothetical proto-mammalian stock, and to substantiate their
collaterality with other mammalian stocks.

To all such difficulties the evolutionist replies by alleging the
incompleteness of the geological record, and modern handbooks
on palæontology devote many pages to the task of explaining why
incompleteness of the fossil record is just what we should expect,
especially in the case of terrestrial animals. The reasons which
they assign are convincing, but this particular mode of solving the
difficulty is a rather precarious one. Evolutionists should not
forget that, in sacrificing the substantial completeness of the
record to account for the absence of intermediate species, they are
simultaneously destroying its value as a proof of the relative position
of organic types in time. Yet this, as we have seen, is precisely the
feature of greatest strategic value in the palæontological “evidence”
for evolution. We must have absolute _certainty_ that the reputed
“ancestor” was in existence prior to the appearance of the alleged
“descendant,” or the peculiar force of the palæontological argument
is lost. It would be preposterous for the progeny to be prior to,
or even coëval with, the progenitor, and so we must be quite sure
that what we call “posterity” is really posterior in time. Now the
sole argument that palæontology can adduce for the posteriority of
one organic type as compared with another is the negative evidence
of its non-occurrence, or rather of its non-discovery, in an earlier
geological formation. The lower strata do not, so far as is known,
contain the type in question, and so it is concluded that this
particular form had no earlier history. Such an inference, as is
clear, is not only liable to be upset by later discoveries, but has
the additional disadvantage of implicitly assuming the substantial
completeness of the fossil record, whereas the absence of intermediate
species is only explicable by means of the assumed incompleteness of
the selfsame record. The evolutionist is thus placed in the dilemma
of choosing between a substantially complete, and a substantially
incomplete, record. Which of the alternatives, he elects, matters very
little; but he must abide by the consequences of his decision, he
cannot eat his cake and have it.

When the evolutionist appeals to the facts of palæontology, it goes
without saying that he does so in the hope of showing that the
differences, which divide modern species of plants and animals,
diminish as we go backward in time, until the stage of identity is
reached in the unity of a common ancestral type. Hence from the very
nature of the argument, which he is engaged in constructing, he is
compelled to resort to intermediate types as evidence of the continuity
of allied species with the hypothetical ancestor, or common type,
whence they are said to have diverged. Now, even supposing that his
efforts in this direction were attended with a complete measure of
success, evidence of this kind would not of itself, as we shall see,
suffice to demonstrate the common origin of the extremes, between
which a perfect series of intergradent types can be shown to mediate.
Unquestionably, however, unless such a series of intergradent fossil
species can be adduced as evidence of the assumed transition, the
presumption is totally against the hypothesis of transformism.

Now, as a matter of fact, the geological record rarely offers any
evidence of the existence in the past of intermediate species. For
those, who have implicit confidence in the _time-value_ of geological
“formations,” there are indications of a general advance from lower to
higher forms, but, even so, there is little to show that this seeming
progress is to be interpreted as an increasing divergence from common
ancestral types. With but few exceptions, the fossil record fails to
show any trace of transitional links. Yet pedigrees made up of diverse
genera are poor evidence for filiation or genetic continuity, so long
as no intermediate species can be found to bridge the chasm of generic
difference. By intermediate species, we do not mean the fabulous
“generalized type.” Annectants of this kind are mere abstractions,
which have never existed, and never could have existed. We refer rather
to actual fossil types separated from one another by differences not
greater than specific; for “not until we have linked species into
lineages,” can fossil pedigrees lay claim to serious attention.

But let us suppose the case for evolution to be ideally favorable, and
assume that in every instance we possessed a perfect gradation of forms
between two extremes, such, for example, as occurs in the Ammonite
series, even then we would be far from having a true demonstration of
the point at issue. Bateson has called our attention to the danger of
confounding sterile and instable _hybrids_ with intergradent species.
“Examine,” he says, “any two thoroughly distinct species which meet
each other in their distribution, as for instance, _Lychnis diurna_
and _vespertina_ do. In areas of overlap are many intermediate forms.
These used to be taken to be transitional steps, and the specific
distinctness of _vespertina_ and _diurna_ was on that account
questioned. Once it is known that these supposed intergrades are merely
mongrels between the two species the transition from one to the other
is practically beyond our powers of imagination to conceive. If both
these can survive, why has their common parent perished? Why, when
they cross, do they not reconstruct it instead of producing partially
sterile hybrids? I take this example to show how entirely the facts
were formerly misrepresented.” (_Heredity_, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1915, p. 369.)

Similarly, T. H. Morgan has shown, with reference to _mutants_,
the fallacy of inferring common descent from the phenomenon of
intergradence, and what holds true for a series of intergradent mutants
would presumably also hold true of a series of intergradent species,
could such a series be found and critically distinguished from hybrid
and mutational intermediates. In short, the Darwinian deduction of
common origin from the existence of intergradence must now be regarded
as a thoroughly discredited argument. “Because we can often arrange
the series of structures in a line extending from the very simple
to the more complex, we are apt to become unduly impressed by this
fact and conclude that if we found the complete series we should find
all the intermediate steps and that they have arisen in the order
of their complexity. This conclusion is not necessarily correct.”
(“A Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” p. 9.) Having cited such
a series of gradational mutations ranging between the long-winged,
and completely wingless condition, in the case of the Vinegar Fly
(_Drosophila melanogaster_), as well as two similar graded series based
on pigmentation and eye color, he concludes: “These types, with the
fluctuations that occur within each type, furnish a complete series of
gradations; yet historically they have arisen independently of each
other. Many changes in eye color have appeared. As many as thirty or
more races differing in eye color are now maintained in our cultures.
Some of them are so similar that they can scarcely be separated from
each other. It is easily possible beginning with the darkest eye color,
sepia, which is a deep brown, to pick out a perfectly graded series
ending with pure white eyes. But such a serial arrangement would give
a totally false idea of the way the different types have arisen; and
any conclusion based on the existence of such a series might very well
be entirely erroneous, for the fact that such a series exists bears
no relation to the order in which its members have appeared.” (_Op.
cit._, pp. 12, 13.) Such facts must give us pause in attaching undue
importance to phenomena like the occurrence of a gradual complication
of sutures in the Chalk Ammonites, particularly as parallel series
of perfectly similar sutures occurs “by convergence” in the fossil
Ceratites, which have no genetic connection with the Ammonites. (Cf.
Woods’ “Palæontology,” 5th ed., p. 16.)

But, if even mutational and specific intergradents are not sufficient
evidence of common ancestry, what shall we say of a discontinuous
series, whose links are separate genera, orders, or even classes,
instead of species. Even the most enthusiastic transformist is forced
to admit the justice of our insistence that the gaps which separate the
members of a series must be reduced from differences of the generic,
to differences of the specific, order, before that series can command
any respect as hypothetical “genealogy.” “You will have observed,” says
F. A. Bather, “that the precise methods of the modern palæontologist,
on which this proof is based, are very different from the slap-dash
conclusions of forty years ago. The discovery of _Archæopteryx_, for
instance, was thought to prove the evolution of birds from reptiles.
No doubt it rendered that conclusion extremely probable, especially
if the major promise—that evolution was the method—were assumed. But
the fact of evolution is precisely what men were then trying to prove.
These jumpings from class to class or from era to era, by aid of a few
isolated stepping-stones, were what Bacon calls anticipations “hasty
and premature but very effective, because as they are collected from a
few instances, and mostly from those which are of familiar occurrence,
they immediately dazzle the intellect and fill the imagination.” (_Nov.
Org._, I, 28.) No secure step was taken until the modern palæontologist
began to affiliate mutation with mutation and species with species,
working his way back, literally inch by inch, through a single small
group of strata. Only thus could he base on the laboriously collected
facts a single true interpretation; and to those who preferred the
broad path of generality his interpretations seemed, as Bacon says
they always “must seem, harsh and discordant—almost like mysteries of
faith.” ... Thus by degrees we reject the old slippery stepping-stones
that so often toppled us into the stream, and, foot by foot, we build
a secure bridge over the waters of ignorance.” (_Science_, Sept. 17,
1920, pp. 263, 264.)

We cannot share Bather’s confidence in the security of a bridge
composed of even linked species. Let such a series be never so perfect,
let the gradation be never so minute, as it might conceivably be
made, when not merely distinct species, but also hybrids, mutants
and fluctuants are available as stopgaps, the bare fact of such
intergradation tells nothing whatever concerning the problem of
genetical origin and specific relationship. The species-by-species
method does, however, represent the very minimum of requirement imposed
upon the palæontologist, who professes to construct a fossil pedigree.
But, when all is said and done, such a method, even at its best,
falls considerably short of the mark. However perfectly intergradent
a series of fossils may be, the fact remains that these petrified
remnants of former life cannot be subjected to breeding tests, and
that, in the consequent absence of genetical experimentation, we have
no means of determining the real bearing of these facts upon the
problem of interspecific relationship. Only the _somatic_ characters
of extinct floras and faunas have been conserved in the rock record of
the past, and even these are often rendered dubious, as we shall see
presently, by their imperfect state of preservation. Now, it is solely
in conjunction with breeding experiments, that somatic characters can
give us any insight into the nature of the _germinal constitution_
of an organism, which, after all, is the cardinal consideration upon
which the whole question of interspecific relationship hinges. All
inferences, therefore, regarding the descent of fossil forms are
irremediably speculative and conjectural. When we are dealing with
living forms, we can always check up the inferences based on somatic
characteristics by means of genetical experiments, and in so doing
we have found that it is as unsafe to judge of an organism from the
exclusive standpoint of its external characters as it is to judge of
a book by the cover; for, apart from the check of breeding tests, it
is impossible to say just which somatic characters are genetically
significant, and which are not. Forms externally alike may be so
unlike in germinal constitution as to be sexually incompatible; forms
externally unlike may be readily crossed without any discernible
diminution of fertility. “Who could have foreseen,” exclaims Bateson,
“that the apple and the pear—so like each other that their botanical
differences are evasive—could not be crossed together, though
species of _Antirrhinum_ (Snapdragon) so totally unlike each other
as _majus_ and _molle_ can be hybridized, as Baur has shown, without
a sign of impaired fertility?” (_Heredity_, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1915, p. 370.) We cannot distinguish between alleged specific, and
merely mutational (varietal), change, nor between hybridizations and
factorial, chromosomal, or pseudo-, mutations, solely on the basis
of such external characters as are preserved for us in fossils. It
is impossible, therefore, to demonstrate trans-specific variation by
any evidence that Palæontology can supply. The palæontologist (_pace_
Osborn) is utterly incompetent to pass judgment on the problem of
interspecific relationship. As Bateson remarks: “In discussing the
physiological problem of interspecific relationship evidence of a more
stringent character is now required; and a naturalist acquainted with
genetical discoveries would be as reluctant to draw conclusions as to
the specific relationship of a series of fossils as a chemist would be
to pronounce on the nature of a series of unknown compounds from an
inspection of them in a row of bottles.” (_Science_, April 17, 1922,
p. 373.) “When the modern student of variation and heredity,” says T.
H. Morgan, “looks over the different ‘continuous’ series, from which
certain ‘laws’ and ‘principles’ have been deduced, he is struck by two
facts: that the gaps, in some cases, are enormous as compared with the
single changes with which he is familiar, and (what is more important)
that they involve numerous parts in many ways. The geneticist says to
the palæontologist, since you do not know, and from the nature of your
case can never know, whether your differences are due to one change or
to a thousand, you cannot with certainty tell us anything about the
hereditary units which have made the process of evolution possible.”
(_Op. cit._, pp. 26, 27.) And without accurate knowledge on this
subject, we may add, there is no possibility of demonstrating specific
change or genetic relationship in the case of any given fossil.

In our discussion of the third defect in the fossil “evidence,”
allusion was made to a fourth, namely, its imperfect state of
preservation. The stone record of bygone days has been so defaced by
the metamorphism of rocks, by the solvent action of percolating waters,
by erosion, weathering and other factors of destruction, that, like a
faded manuscript, it becomes, even apart from its actual _lacunae_,
exceedingly difficult to decipher. So unsatisfactory, indeed, is the
condition of the partially obliterated facts that human curiosity,
piqued at their baffling ambiguity, calls upon human imagination
to supply what observation itself fails to reveal. Nor does the
invitation remain unheeded. Romance hastens to the rescue of uncertain
Science, with an impressive display of “reconstructed fossils,” and
the hesitation of critical caution is superseded by the dogmatism of
arbitrary assumption. Scattered fragments of fossilized bones are
integrated into skeletons and clothed by the magic of creative fancy
with an appropriate musculature and flesh, reënacting for us the
marvelous vision of Ezekiel: “And the bones came together, each one to
its joint. And I beheld and, lo, there were sinews upon them, and the
flesh came upon them: and the skin was stretched over them.” (Chap.
XXXVII, 7, 8.) “It is also true,” says Osborn (who, like Haeckel,
evinces a veritable mania for “retouching” incomplete facts), “that
we know the mode of origin of the human species; our knowledge of
human evolution has reached a point not only where a number of links
are thoroughly known but the characters of the missing links can be
very clearly predicated.” (_Science_, Feb. 24, 1922.) We will not
dispute his contention; for it is perfectly true, that, in each and
every case, all the missing details can be so exactly predicated that
the resulting description might well put to shame the account of a
contemporary eyewitness. The only difficulty is that such predication
is the fruit of pure imagination. Scientific reconstructions, whether
in the literary, plastic, or pictorial, form, are no more scientific
than historical novels are historical. Both are the outcome of a
psychological weakness in the human makeup, namely, its craving for a
“finished picture”—a craving, however, that is never gratified save at
the expense of the fragmentary basis of objective fact.[7]

    [7] See Addenda.

In calling into question, however, the scientific value of the
so-called “scientific reconstruction,” so far as its pretensions to
precision and finality are concerned, it is not our intention to
discredit those tentative restorations based upon Cuvier’s Law of
Correlation, provided they profess to be no more than provisional
approximations. Many of the structural features of organisms are
physiologically interdependent, and there is frequently a close
correlation among organs and organ-systems, between which no causal
connection or direct physiological dependence is demonstrable. In
virtue of this principle, one structural feature may connote another,
in which case it would be legitimate to supply by inference any
missing structure implied in the actual existence of its respective
correlative. But if any one imagines that the law of correlation
enables a scientist to restore the lost integrity of fossil types
with any considerable degree of accuracy and finality, he greatly
overestimates the scope of the principle in question. At best it is
nothing more than an empirical generalization, which must not be
pressed to an extent unwarranted by the inductive process, that first
established it. “Certain relations of structure,” says Bather, “as
of cloven hoofs and horns with a ruminant stomach, were observed, but
as Cuvier himself insisted, the laws based on such facts were purely
empirical.” (_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 258.) The palæontologist,
then, is justified in making use of correlation for the purpose of
reconstructing a whole animal out of a few fragmentary remains, but to
look for anything like photographic precision in such “restorations” of
extinct forms is to manifest a more or less complete ignorance of the
nature and scope of the empirical laws, upon which they are based.

The imprudence of taking these “reconstructions” of extinct forms
too seriously, however, is inculcated not merely by theoretical
considerations, but by experience as well. Even in the case of the
mammoth, a comparatively recent form, whose skeletal remains had
been preserved more completely and perfectly than those of other
fossil types, the discovery of a complete carcass buried in the ice
of the Siberian “taiga” on the Beresovka river showed the existing
restorations to be false in important respects. All, without exception,
stood in need of revision, proving, once and for all, the inadequacy
of fossil remains as a basis for exact reconstruction. E. Pfizenmayer,
a member of the investigating expedition, comments on the fact as
follows: “In the light of our present knowledge of the mammoth,
and especially of its exterior, the various existing attempts at a
restoration need important corrections. Apart from the many fanciful
sketches intended to portray the exterior of the animal, all the more
carefully made restorations show the faults of the skeleton, hitherto
regarded as typical, on which they are based, especially the powerful
semicircular and upward-curved tusks, the long tail, etc.

“As these false conceptions of the exterior of the mammoth, both
written and in the form of pictures, are contained in all zoölogical
and palæontological textbooks, and even in scientific monographs, it
seems necessary to construct a more nearly correct picture, based on
our present knowledge. I have ventured on this task, because as a
member of the latest expedition for mammoth remains, I was permitted
not only to become acquainted with this newest find while still in its
place of deposit and to take part in exhuming it, but also to visit
the zoölogical museum of St. Petersburg, which is so rich in mammoth
remains, for the purpose of studying the animal more in detail.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1906, pp. 321, 322.) The example is but
one of many, which serve to emphasize not merely the inadequacy of
the generality of palæontological restorations, but also the extreme
difficulty which the palæontologist experiences in interpreting aright
the partially effaced record of a vanished past.

The fifth and most critical flaw in the fossil “evidence” for evolution
is to be found in the anomalies of the actual distribution of fossils
in time. It is the boast of evolutionary Palæontology that it is able
to enhance the cogency of the argument from mere structural resemblance
by showing, that, of two structurally allied forms, one is more ancient
than the other, and may, therefore, be presumed to be ancestral to the
later form. Antecedence in time is the _sine qua non_ qualification
of a credible ancestor, and, unless the relative priority of certain
organic types, as compared with others, can be established with
absolute certainty, the whole palæontological argument collapses, and
the boast of evolutionary geology becomes an empty vaunt.

Whenever the appearance of a so-called annectant type is antedated by
that of the two forms, which it is supposed to connect, this fact is,
naturally, a deathblow to its claim of being the “common ancestor,”
even though, from a purely morphological standpoint, it should
possess all the requisites of an ancestral type. Commenting upon the
statement that a certain genus “is a truly annectant form uniting the
Melocrinidae and the Platycrinidae,” Bather takes exception as follows:
“The genus in question appeared, so far as we know, rather late in the
Lower Carboniferous, whereas both Platycrinidae and Melocrinidae were
already established in Middle Silurian time. How is it possible that
the far later form should unite these two ancient families? Even a
_mésalliance_ is inconceivable.” (_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 260.)

Certainty, therefore, with respect to the comparative antiquity of
the fossiliferous strata is the indispensable presupposition of any
palæontological argument attempting to show that there is a gradual
approximation of ancient, to modern, types. Yet, of all scientific
methods of reckoning, none is less calculated to inspire confidence,
none less safeguarded from the abuses of subjectivism and arbitrary
interpretation, than that by which the relative age of the sedimentary
rocks is determined!

In order to date the strata of any given series with reference to
one another, the palæontologist starts with the principle that, in
an undisturbed area, the deeper sediments have been deposited at an
earlier period than the overlying strata. Such a criterion, however,
is obviously restricted in its application to local areas, and is
available only at regions of outcrop, where a vertical section of the
strata is visibly exposed. To trace the physical continuity, however,
of the strata (if such continuity there be) from one continent to
another, or even across a single continent, is evidently out of
the question. Hence, to correlate the sedimentary rocks of a given
region with those of another region far distant from the former,
some criterion other than stratigraphy is required. To supply this
want, recourse has been had to _index fossils_, which have now
come into general use as age-markers and means of stratigraphical
correlation, where the criterion of _superposition_ is either absent
or inapplicable. Certain fossil types are assumed to be infallibly
indicative of certain stratigraphical horizons. In fact, when it
comes to a decision as to the priority or posteriority of a given
geological formation, index fossils constitute the court of last
appeal, and even the evidences of actual stratigraphical sequence and
of physical texture itself are always discounted and explained away,
whenever they chance to conflict with the presumption that certain
fossil forms are typical of certain geological periods. If, for
example, the superposed rock contains fossils alleged to be typical
of an “earlier” stratigraphic horizon than that to which the fossils
of the subjacent rock belong, the former is pronounced to be “older,”
despite the fact that the actual stratigraphic order conveys the
opposite impression. “We still regard fossils,” says J. W. Judd, “as
the ‘medals of creation,’ and certain types of life we take to be as
truly characteristic of definite periods as the coins which bear the
image and superscription of a Roman emperor or of a Saxon king.” (Cf.
Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 356.) Thus it comes to pass, in the
last analysis, that fossils, on the one hand, are dated according to
the consecutive strata, in which they occur, and strata, on the other
hand, are dated according to the fossils which they contain.

Such procedure, if not actually tantamount to a _vicious circle_,
is, to say the least, in imminent danger of becoming so. For, even
assuming the so-called empirical generalization, that makes certain
fossils typical of certain definitely-aged geological “formations,” to
be based upon induction sufficiently complete and analytic to insure
certainty, at least, in the majority of instances, and taking it for
granted that we are dealing with a case, where the actual evidence of
stratigraphy is not in open conflict with that of the index fossils,
who does not see that such a system of chronology lends itself only
too readily to manipulation of the most arbitrary kind, whenever the
pet preconceptions of the evolutionary chronologist are at stake? How,
then, can we be sure, in a given case, that a verdict based exclusively
on the “evidence” of index fossils will be reliably _objective_? It is
to be expected that the evolutionist will refrain from the temptation
to give himself the benefit of every doubt? Will there not be an
almost irresistible tendency on the part of the convinced transformist
to revise the age of any deposit, which happens to contain fossils
that, according to his theory, ought not to occur at the time hitherto
assigned?

The citation of a concrete example will serve to make our meaning
clear. A series of fresh-water strata occur in India known as the
Siwalik beds. The formation in question was originally classed
as Miocene. Later on, however, as a result, presumably, of the
embarrassing discovery of the genus _Equus_ among the fossils of
the Upper Siwalik beds, Wm. Blanford saw fit to mend matters by
distinguishing the Upper, from the Lower, beds and assigning the
former (which contain fossil horses) to the Pliocene period. The title
Miocene being restricted by this ingenious step to beds destitute
of equine remains, namely the Nahun, or Lower Siwalik, deposits,
all danger of the horse proving to be older than his ancestors
was happily averted. A mere shifting of the conventional labels,
apparently, was amply sufficient to render groundless the fear, to
which Professor A. Sedgwick had given expression in the following
terms: “The genus _Equus_ appears in the upper Siwalik beds, which
have been ascribed to the Miocene age.... If _Equus_ really existed
in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to some of its supposed
ancestors.” (“Students’ Textbook of Zoölogy,” p. 599.) Evidently, the
Horse must reconcile himself perforce to the pedigree assigned to him
by the American Museum of Natural History; for he is to be given but
scant opportunity of escaping it. This classic genealogy has already
entailed far too great an expenditure of time, money and erudition to
permit of any reconsideration; and should it chance, in the ironic
perversity of things, that the Horse has been so inconsiderate as to
leave indubitable traces of himself in any formation earlier than
the Pliocene, it goes without saying that the formation in question
will at once be dated ahead, in order to secure for the “ancestors”
that priority which is their due. An elastic criterion like the index
fossil is admirably adapted for readjustments of this sort, and the
evolutionist who uses it need never fear defeat. The game he plays can
never be a losing one, because he gives no other terms than: Heads I
win, tails you lose.

In setting forth the foregoing difficulties, we have purposely
refrained from challenging the cardinal dogma of orthodox palæontology
concerning the unimpeachable time-value of index fossils as
age-markers. The force of these considerations, therefore, must be
acknowledged even by the most fanatical adherents of the aforesaid
dogma. Our forbearance in this instance, however, must not be construed
as a confession that the dogma in question is really unassailable. On
the contrary, not only is it not invulnerable, but there are many and
weighty reasons for rejecting it lock, stock, and barrel.

The palæontological dogma, to which we refer, is reducible to the
following tenets: (1) The earth is swathed with fossiliferous strata,
in much the same fashion that an onion is covered with a succession of
coats, and these strata are universal over the whole globe, occurring
always in the same invariable order and characterized not by any
peculiar uniformity of external appearance, physical texture, or
mineral composition, but solely by peculiar groups of fossil types,
which enable us to distinguish between strata of different ages and
to correlate the strata of one continent with their counterparts in
another continent—“Even the minuter divisions,” says Scott, “the
substages and zones of the European Jura, are applicable to the
classification of the South American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,”
p. 681.) (2) In determining the relative age of a given geological
formation, its characteristic fossils form the exclusive basis of
decision, and all other considerations, whether lithological or
stratigraphic, are subordinated to this—“The character of the rocks,”
says H. S. Williams, “their composition or their mineral contents have
nothing to do with settling the question as to the particular system
to which the new rocks belong. The fossils alone are the means of
correlation.” (“Geological Biology,” pp. 37, 38.)

To those habituated to the common notion that stratigraphical sequence
is the foremost consideration in deciding the comparative age of rocks,
the following statement of Sir Archibald Geikie will come as a distinct
shock: “We may even demonstrate,” he avers, “that in some mountainous
ground the strata have been turned completely upside down, if we can
show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought
properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them.” (“Textbook,”
ed. of 1903, p. 837.) In fact, the palæontologist, H. A. Nicholson,
lays it down as a general principle that, wherever the physical
evidence (founded on stratigraphy and lithology) is at variance with
the biological evidence (founded on the presence of typical fossil
organisms), the latter must prevail and the former must be ignored: “It
may even be said,” he tells us, “that in any case where there should
appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and
the palæontological evidence as to the age of a given series of beds,
it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter.”
(“Ancient Life History of the Earth,” p. 40.)

George McCready Price, Professor of Geology at a denominational college
in Kansas, devotes more than fifty pages of his recent work, “The New
Geology” (1923), to an intensely destructive criticism of this dogma of
the supremacy of fossil evidence as a means of determining the relative
age of strata. To cite Price as an “authority” would, of course, be
futile. All orthodox geologists have long since anathematized him, and
outlawed him from respectable geological society. Charles Schuchert
of Yale refers to him as “a fundamentalist harboring a geological
nightmare.” (_Science_, May 30, 1924, p. 487.) Arthur M. Miller of
Kentucky University speaks of him as “the man who, while a member of no
scientific body and absolutely unknown in scientific circles, has ...
had the effrontery to style himself a ‘geologist.’” (_Science_, June
30, 1922, pp. 702, 703.) Miller, however, is just enough to admit that
he is well-informed on his subject, and that he possesses the gift of
persuasive presentation. “He shows,” says Miller, “a wide familiarity
with geological literature, quoting largely from the most eminent
authorities in this country and in Europe. Any one reading these
writings of Price, which possess a certain charm of literary style,
and indicate on the part of the author a gift of popular presentation
which makes one regret that it had not been devoted to a more laudable
purpose, must constantly marvel at the character of mind of the man who
can so go into the literature of the subject and still continue to hold
such preposterous opinions.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 702.)

In the present instance, however, our interest centers, not on the
unimportant question of his official status in geological circles,
but exclusively on the objective validity of his argument against the
chronometric value of the index fossil. All citations, therefore, from
his work will be supported, in the sequel, by collateral testimony
from other authors of recognized standing. It is possible, of course,
to inject irrelevant issues. Price, for example, follows Sir Henry
Howorth in his endeavor to substitute an aqueous catastrophe for the
glaciation of the Quaternary Ice Age, and he adduces many interesting
facts to justify his preference for a deluge. But this is neither
here nor there; for we are not concerned with the merits of his “new
catastrophism.” It is his opportune revival in modern form of the
forgotten, but extremely effective, objection raised by Huxley and
Spencer against the alleged universality of synchronously deposited
fossiliferous sediments, that constitutes our sole preoccupation here.
It is Price’s merit to have shown that, in the light of recently
discovered facts, such as “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts,”
this objection is far graver than it was when first formulated by the
authors in question.

Mere snobbery and abuse is not a sufficient answer to a difficulty
of this nature, and we regret that men, like Schuchert, have replied
with more anger than logic. The orthodox geologist seems unnecessarily
petulant, whenever he is called upon to verify or substantiate the
foundational principles of lithic chronology. One frequently hears him
make the excuse that “geology has its own peculiar method of proof.” To
claim exemption, however, from the universal criterions of criticism
and logic is a subterfuge wholly unworthy of a genuine science, and, if
Price insists on discussing a subject, which the orthodox geologist
prefers to suppress, it is the latter, and not the former, who is
really reactionary.

Price begins by stating the issue in the form of a twofold question:
(1) How can we be sure, with respect to a given fauna (or flora), say
the Cambrian, that at one time it monopolized our globe to the complete
exclusion of all other typical faunas (or floras), say the Devonian,
or the Tertiary, of which it is assumed that they could not, by any
stretch of imagination, have been contemporaneous, on either land or
sea, with the aforesaid “older” fauna (or flora)? (2) Do the formations
(rocks containing fossils) universally occur in such a rigidly
invariable order of sequence with respect to one another, as to warrant
our being sure of the starting-point in the time-scale, or to justify
us in projecting any given local order of succession into distant
localities, for purposes of chronological correlation?

His response to the first of these questions constitutes what may be
called an aprioristic refutation of the orthodox view, by placing
the evolutionary palæontologist in the trilemma: (a) of making the
awkward confession that, except within limited local areas, he has no
means whatever of distinguishing between a geographical distribution
of coëval fossil forms among various habitats and a chronological
distribution of fossils among sediments deposited at different times;
(b) or of denying the possibility of geographical distribution in the
past, by claiming dogmatically that the world during Cambrian times,
for example, was totally unlike the modern world, of which alone we
have experimental knowledge, inasmuch as it was then destitute of
zoölogical provinces, districts, zones, and other habitats peculiar to
various types of fauna, so that the whole world formed but one grand
habitat, extending over land and sea, for a limited group of organisms
made up exclusively of the lower types of life; (c) or of reviving
the discredited onion-coat theory of Abraham Werner under a revised
biological form, which asserts that the whole globe is enveloped with
fossiliferous rather than mineral strata, whose order of succession
being everywhere the same enables us to discriminate with precision
and certainty between cases of distribution in time and cases of
distribution in space.

In his response to the second question, Professor Price adduces
numerous factual arguments, which show that the invariable order of
sequence postulated by the theory of the time-value of index fossils,
not only finds no confirmation in the actual or concrete sequences
of fossiliferous rocks, but is often directly contradicted thereby.
“Older” rocks may occur above “younger” rocks, the “youngest” may
occur in immediate succession to the “oldest,” Tertiary rocks may be
crystalline, consolidated, and “old in appearance,” while Cambrian
and even pre-Cambrian rocks sometimes occur in a soft, incoherent
condition, that gives them the physical appearance of being as young
as Pleistocene formations. These exceptions and objections to the
“invariable order” of the fossiliferous strata accumulate from day to
day, and it is only by means of Procrustean tactics of the most drastic
sort that the facts can be brought into any semblance of harmony with
the current dogmas, which base geology upon evolution rather than
evolution upon geology.

Price, then, proposes for serious consideration the possibility that
Cretaceous dinosaurs and even Tertiary mammals may have been living on
the land at the same time that the Cambrian graptolites and trilobites
were living in the seas. “Who,” he exclaims, “will have the hardihood,
the real dogmatism to affirm in a serious way that Cambrian animals
and seaweeds were for a long time the only forms of life existing
anywhere on earth?” Should we, nevertheless, make bold enough to aver
that for countless centuries a mere few of the lower forms of life
monopolized our globe, as one universal habitat unpartitioned into
particular biological provinces or zones, we are thereupon confronted
with two equally unwelcome alternatives. We must either fly in the
face of experience and legitimate induction by denying the existence
in the past of anything analogous to our present-day geographical
distribution of plants and animals into various biological provinces,
or be prepared to show by what infallible criterion we are enabled
to distinguish between synchronously deposited formations indicative
of a geographical distribution according to regional diversity, and
consecutively deposited formations indicative of comparative antiquity.

The former alternative does not merit any consideration whatever.
The latter, as we shall presently see, involves us in an assumption,
for which no defense either aprioristic or factual is available. We
can, indeed, distinguish between spatial, and temporal, distribution
within the narrow limits of a single locality by using the criterion
of superposition; for in regions of outcrop, where one sedimentary
rock overlies another, the obvious presumption is that the upper rock
was deposited at a later date than the lower rock. But the criterion
of superposition is not available for the correlation of strata in
localities so distant from each other that no physical evidence of
stratigraphic continuity is discernible. Moreover the induction, which
projects any local order of stratigraphical sequence into far distant
localities on the sole basis of fossil taxonomy, is logically unsound
and leads to conclusions at variance with the actual facts. Hence the
alleged time-value of index fossils becomes essentially problematic,
and affords no basis whatever for scientific certainty.

As previously stated, the sequence of strata is visible only in regions
of outcrop, and nowhere are we able to see more than mere parts of two
or, at most, three systems associated together in a single locality.
Moreover, each set of beds is of limited areal extent, and the limits
are frequently visible to the eye of the observer. In any case, their
visible extent is necessarily limited. It is impossible, therefore, to
correlate the strata of one continent with those of another continent
by tracing stratigraphic continuity. Hence, in comparing particular
horizons of various ages and in distinguishing them from other horizons
over large areas, we are obliged to substitute induction for direct
observation. Scientific induction, however, is only valid when it
rests upon some universal uniformity or invariable sequence of nature.
Hence, to be specific, the assumption that the time-scale based on the
European classification of fossiliferous strata is applicable to the
entire globe as a whole, is based on the further assumption that we are
sure of the universality of fossiliferous stratification over the face
of the earth, and that, as a matter of fact, fossils are always and
everywhere found in the same order of invariable sequence.

But this is tantamount to reviving, under what Spencer calls “a
transcendental form,” the exploded “onion-coat” hypothesis of Werner
(1749-1817). Werner conceived the terrestrial globe as encircled
with successive mineral envelopes, basing his scheme of universal
stratification upon that order of sequence among rocks, which he had
observed within the narrow confines of his native district in Germany.
His hypothesis, after leading many scientists astray, was ultimately
discredited and laughed out of existence. For it finally became evident
to all observers that Werner’s scheme did not fit the facts, and men
were able to witness with their own eyes the simultaneous deposition,
in separate localities, of sediments which differed radically in
their mineral contents and texture. Thus it came to pass that this
classification of strata according to their mineral nature and physical
appearance lost all value as an absolute time-scale, while the theory
itself was relegated to the status of a curious and amusing episode in
the history of scientific fiascos.

Thanks, however, to Wm. Smith and to Cuvier, the discarded onion-coat
hypothesis did not perish utterly, but was rehabilitated and bequeathed
to us in a new and more subtle form. Werner’s fundamental idea of
the universality of a given kind of deposit was retained, but his
mineral strata were replaced by fossiliferous strata, the lithological
onion-coats of Werner being superseded by the biological onion-coats
of our modern theory. The geologist of today discounts physical
appearance, and classifies strata according to their fossil, rather
than their mineral, contents, but he stands committed to the same old
postulate of universal deposits. He has no hesitation in synchronizing
such widely-scattered formations as the Devonian deposits of New
York State, England, Germany, and South America. He pieces them all
together as parts of a single system of rocks. He has no misgiving as
to the universal applicability of the European scheme of stratigraphic
classification, but assures us, in the words of the geologist, Wm. B.
Scott, that: “Even the minuter divisions, the subdivisions and zones of
the European Jura, are applicable to the classification of the South
American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,” p. 681f.) The limestone and
sandstone strata of Werner are now things of the past, but, in their
stead, we have, to quote the criticism of Herbert Spencer, “groups of
formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order, and
are severally everywhere of the same age. Though it may not be asserted
that these successive systems are universal, yet it seems to be tacitly
assumed that they are so.... Though probably no competent geologist
would contend that the European classification of strata is applicable
to the globe as a whole, yet most, if not all geologists, write as
though it were so.... Must we not say that though the onion-coat
hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental
form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists.” (“Illustrations of
Universal Progress,” pp. 329-380, ed. of 1890.)

But overlooking, for the moment, the mechanical absurdity involved in
the notion of a regular succession of universal layers of sediment,
and conceding, for the sake of argument, that the substitution of
fossiliferous, for lithological, strata may conceivably have remedied
the defects of Werner’s geological time-scale, let us confine ourselves
to the one question, which, after all, is of prime importance, whether,
namely, without the aid of Procrustean tactics, the actual facts
of geology can be brought into alignment with the doctrine of an
invariable order of succession among fossil types, and its sequel,
the intrinsic time-value of index fossils. The question, in other
words, is whether or not a reliable time-scale can be based on the
facts of fossiliferous stratification as they are observed to exist in
the concrete. Price’s answer is negative, and he formulates several
empirical laws to express the concrete facts, on which he bases his
contention. The laws and facts to which he appeals may be summarized as
follows:

1. The concrete facts of geology do not warrant our singling out any
fossiliferous deposit as unquestionably the oldest, and hence we have
no reliable _starting-point_ for our time-scale, because:

(_a_) We may lay it down as an empirical law that “any kind of
fossiliferous rock (even the ‘youngest’), that is, strata belonging to
any of the systems or other subdivisions, may rest directly upon the
Archæan or primitive crystalline rocks, without any other so-called
‘younger’ strata intervening; also these rocks, Permian, Cretaceous,
Tertiary, or whatever thus reposing directly on the Archæan may be
themselves crystalline or wholly metamorphic in texture. And this
applies not alone to small points of contact, but to large areas.”

(_b_) Conversely: any kind of fossiliferous strata (even the “oldest”)
may not only constitute the surface rocks over wide areas,[8] but may
consist of loose, unconsolidated materials, thus in both position and
texture resembling the “late” Tertiaries or the Pleistocene—“In some
regions, notably in the Baltic province and in parts of the United
States,” says John Allen Howe, alluding to the Cambrian rocks around
the Baltic Sea and in Wisconsin, “the rocks still retain their
original horizontality of deposition, the muds are scarcely indurated,
and the sands are incoherent.” (Encycl. Brit., vol. V, p. 86.)

    [8] “It is a common occurrence,” says Charles Schuchert, “on
    the Canadian Shield to find the Archæozoic formations overlain
    by the most recent Pleistocene glacial deposits, and even
    these may be absent. It appears as if in such places no rocks
    had been deposited, either by the sea or by the forces of the
    land, since Archæozoic time, and yet geologists know that the
    shield has been variously covered by sheets of sediments formed
    at sundry times in the Proterozoic, Palæozoic, and, to a more
    limited extent, in the Mesozoic.” (“Textbook of Geology,” ed.
    of 1920, II, p. 569.) It may be remarked that, when geologists
    “know” such things, they know them in spite of the facts!

A large number of striking instances are cited by Price to substantiate
the foregoing rule and its converse. The impression left is that not
only is the starting-point of the time-scale in doubt, but that, if
we were to judge the age of the rocks by their physical appearance
and position, we could not accept the conventional verdicts of
modern geology, which makes fossil evidence prevail over every other
consideration.

2. When two contiguous strata are parallel to each other, and
there is no indication of disturbance in the lower bed, nor any
evidence of erosion along the plane of contact, the two beds are
said to exhibit conformity, and this is ordinarily interpreted
by geologists as a sign that the upper bed has been laid down in
immediate sequence to the lower, and that there has been a substantial
continuity of deposition, with no long interval during which the
lower bed was exposed as surface to the agents of erosion. When
such a conformity exists, as it frequently does, between a “recent”
stratum, above, and what is said (according to the testimony of the
fossils) to be a very “ancient” stratum, below, and though the two
are so alike lithologically as to be mistaken for one and the same
formation, nevertheless, such a conformity is termed a “non-evident
disconformity,” or “deceptive conformity,” implying that, inasmuch
as the “lost interval,” representing, perhaps, a lapse of “several
million years,” is entirely unrecorded by any intervening deposition,
or any erosion, or any disturbance of the lower bed, we should not
have suspected that so great a hiatus had intervened, were it not for
the testimony of the fossils. Price cites innumerable examples, and
sums them up in the general terms of the following empirical law:
“Any sort of fossiliferous formation may occur on top of any other
‘older’ fossiliferous formation, with all the physical evidences of
perfect conformity, just as if these alleged incongruous or mismated
formations had in reality followed one another in quick succession.”

A quotation from Schuchert’s “Textbook of Geology,” (1920), may be
given by way of illustration: “The imperfection,” we read, “of the
geologic column is greatest in the interior of North America and more
so in the north than in the south. This imperfection is in many places
very marked, since an entire period or several periods may be absent.
With such great breaks in the local sections the natural assumption
is that these gaps are easily seen in the sequence of the strata,
but in many places the beds lie in such perfect conformity upon one
another that the breaks are not noticeable by the eye and can be
proved to exist only by the entombed fossils on each side of a given
bedding plane.... Stratigraphers are, as a rule, now fully aware of the
imperfections in the geologic record, but the rocks of two unrelated
formations may rest upon each other with such absolute conformability
as to be completely deceptive. For instance, in the Bear Grass quarries
at Louisville, Ky., a face of limestone is exposed in which the
absolute conformability of the beds can be traced for nearly a mile,
and yet within 5 feet of vertical thickness is found a Middle Silurian
coral bed overlain by another coral zone of Middle Devonian. The
parting between these two zones is like that between any two limestone
beds, but this insignificant line represents a stratigraphic hiatus
the equivalent of the last third of Silurian and the first of Devonian
time. But such disconformities are by no means rare, in fact are very
common throughout the wide central basin area of North America.” (_Op.
cit._, II, pp. 586-588.)

In such cases, the stratigraphical relations give no hint of any
enormous gap at the line of contact. On the contrary, there is
every evidence of unbroken sequence, and the physical appearances
are as if these supposed “geological epochs” had never occurred
in the localities, of which there is question. Everything points
to the conclusion that the alleged long intervals of time between
such perfectly conformable, and, often, lithologically identical,
formations are a pure fiction elaborated for the purpose of bolstering
up the dogma of the universal applicability of the European
classification of fossiliferous rocks. Why not take the facts as we
find them? Why resort to tortuous explanations for the mere purpose of
saving an arbitrary time-scale? Why insist on a definite time-value
for fossils, when it drives us to the extremity of discrediting the
objective evidence of physical facts in deference to the preconceptions
of orthodox geology? Were it not for theoretical considerations, these
stratigraphic facts would be taken at their face value, and the need
of saving the reputation of the fossil as an infallible time index is
not sufficiently imperative to warrant so drastic a revision of the
physical evidence.

3. The third class of facts militating against the time-value of
index fossils, are what Price describes as “deceptive conformities
turned upside down,” and what orthodox geology tries to explain away
as “thrusts,” “thrust faults,” “overthrusts,” “low-angle faulting,”
etc.[9] In instances of this kind we find the accepted order of the
fossiliferous strata reversed in such a way that the “younger” strata
are conformably overlain by “older” strata, and the “older” strata are
sometimes interbedded between “younger” strata. “In many places all
over the world,” says Price, “fossils have been found in a relative
order which was formerly thought to be utterly impossible. That is,
the fossils have been found in the ‘wrong’ order, and on such a scale
that there can be no mistake about it. For when an area 500 miles long
and from 20 to 50 miles wide is found with Palæozoic rocks on top,
or composing the mountains, and with Cretaceous beds underneath, or
composing the valleys, and running under these mountains all around,
as in the case of the Glacier National Park and the southern part of
Alberta, the old notion about the exact and invariable order of the
fossils has to be given up entirely.”

    [9] Thus, to explain away “wrong sequences” of fossils, Heim
    and Rothpletz postulate the great Glaurus overthrust in the
    Alps, Geikie the great overthrust in Scotland, McConnell,
    Campbell, and Willis a great overthrust along the eastern
    front of the Rockies in Montana and Alberta, while Hayes
    recognizes numerous overthrusts in the southern Appalachians.
    “The deciphering of such great displacements,” says Pirrson,
    speaking of thrust faults, “is one of the greatest triumphs of
    modern geological research.” (“Textbook of Geology,” 1920, I,
    p. 367.) Desperate measures are evidently justifiable, when it
    is a question of saving the time-value of fossils!

Price formulates his third law as follows: “Any fossiliferous
formation, ‘old’ or ‘young,’ may occur conformably on any other
fossiliferous formation, ‘younger’ or ‘older.’” The corollary of this
empirical law is that we are no longer justified in regarding any
fossils as intrinsically older than other fossils, and that our present
classification of fossiliferous strata has a _taxonomic_, rather than a
_historical_, value.

Low-angle faulting is the phenomenon devised by geologists to meet
the difficulty of “inverted sequence,” when all other explanations
fail. Immense mountain masses are said to have been detached from
their roots and pushed horizontally over the surface (without
disturbing it in the least), until they came finally to rest in
perfect conformity upon “younger” strata, so that the plane of
slippage ended by being indistinguishable from an ordinary horizontal
bedding plane. These gigantic “overthrusts” or “thrust faults” are a
rather unique phenomenon. Normal faulting is always at a high angle
closely approaching the vertical, but “thrust faults” are at a low
angle closely approximating the horizontal, and there is enormous
displacement along the plane of slippage. The huge mountain masses are
said to have been first lifted up and then thrust horizontally for
vast distances, sometimes for hundreds of miles, over the face of the
land, being thus pushed over on top of “younger” rocks, so as to repose
upon the latter in a relation of perfectly conformable superposition.
R. G. McConnell, of the Canadian Survey, comments on the remarkable
similarity between these alleged “thrust planes” and ordinary
stratification planes, and he is at a loss to know why the surface
soil was not disturbed by the huge rock masses which slid over it for
such great distances. Speaking of the Bow River Gap, he says: “The
fault plane here is nearly horizontal, and the two formations, viewed
from the valley appear to succeed one another conformably,” and then
having noted that the underlying Cretaceous shales are “very soft,” he
adds that they “have suffered little by the sliding of the limestones
over them.” (_An. Rpt. 1886_, part D., pp. 33, 34, 84.) _Credat Iudaeus
Apella, non ego!_

Schuchert describes the Alpine overthrust as follows: “The movement
was both vertical and thrusting from the south and southeast, from
the southern portion of Tethys, elevating and folding the Tertiary
and older strata of the northern areas of this mediterranean into
overturned, recumbent, and nearly horizontal folds, and pushing the
southern or Lepontine Alps about 60 miles to the northward into the
Helvetic region. Erosion has since carved up these overthrust sheets,
leaving remnants lying on foundations which belong to a more northern
portion of the ancient sea. Most noted of these residuals of overthrust
masses is the Matterhorn, a mighty mountain without roots, a stranger
in a foreign geologic environment,” (Pirsson & Schuchert’s “Textbook of
Geology,” 1920, II, p. 924.)

With such a convenient device as the “overthrust” at his disposal, it
is hard to see how any possible concrete sequence of fossiliferous
strata could contradict the preconceptions of an evolutionary
geologist. The hypotheses and assumptions involved, however, are so
tortuous and incredible, that nothing short of fanatical devotion to
the theory of transformism can render them acceptable. “Examples,”
says Price, “of strata in the ‘wrong’ order were first reported from
the Alps nearly half a century ago. Since that time, whole armfuls
of learned treatises in German, in French, and in English have been
written to explain the wonderful conditions there found. The diagrams
that have been drawn to account for the strange order of the strata
are worthy to rank with the similar ones by the Ptolemaic astronomers
picturing the cycles and epicycles required to explain the peculiar
behavior of the heavenly bodies in accordance with the geocentric
theory of the universe then prevailing.... In Scandinavia, a district
some 1,120 miles long by 80 miles wide is alleged to have been pushed
horizontally eastward ‘at least 86 miles.’ (Schuchert.) In Northern
China, one of these upside down areas is reported by the Carnegie
Research Expedition to be 500 miles long.” (“The New Geology,” 1923,
pp. 633, 634.)

Nor are the epicyclic subterfuges of the evolutionary geologist
confined to “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts.” His inventive
genius has hit upon other methods of explaining away inconvenient
facts. When, for example, “younger” fossils are found interbedded with
“older” fossils, and the discrepancy in time is not too great, he rids
himself of the difficulty of their premature appearance by calling
them a “pioneer colony.” Similarly, when a group of “characteristic”
fossils occur in one age, skip another “age,” and recur in a third,
he recognizes the possibility of “recurrent faunas,” some of these
faunas having as many as five successive “recurrences.” Clearly, the
assumption of gradual approximation and the dogma that the lower
preceded the higher forms of life are things to be saved at all costs,
and it is a foregone conclusion that no facts will be suffered to
conflict with these irrevisable articles of evolutionary faith. “What
is the use,” exclaims Price, “of pretending that we are investigating
a problem of natural science, if we already know beforehand that the
lower and more generalized forms of animals and plants came into
existence first, and the higher and the more specialized came only long
afterwards, and that specimens of all these successive types have been
pigeonholed in the rocks in order to help us illustrate this wonderful
truth?” (_Op. cit._, pp. 667, 668.)

The predominance of extinct species in certain formations is said to
be an independent argument of their great age. Most of the species of
organisms found as fossils in Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian rocks
are extinct, whereas modern types abound in Cretaceous and Tertiary
rocks. Hence it is claimed that the former must be vastly older than
the latter. But this argument gratuitously assumes the substantial
perfection of the stone record of ancient life and unwarrantedly
excludes the possibility of a sudden impoverishment of the world’s
flora and fauna as the result of a sweeping catastrophe, of which our
present species are the fortunate survivors. Now the fact that certain
floras and faunas skip entire systems of rocks to reappear only in
later formations is proof positive that the record of ancient life is
far from being complete, and we have in the abundant fossil remains of
tropical plants and animals, found in what are now the frozen arctic
regions, unmistakable evidence of a sudden catastrophic change by
which a once genial climate “was abruptly terminated. For carcasses of
the Siberian elephants were frozen so suddenly and so completely that
the flesh has remained untainted.” (Dana.) Again, the mere _fact_ of
extinction tells us nothing about the _time_ of the extinction. For
this we are obliged to fall back on the index fossil whose inherent
time-value is based on the theory of evolution and not on stratigraphy.
Hence the argument from extinct species is not an independent argument.

To sum up, therefore, the aprioristic evolutional series of fossils
is not a genuine time-scale. The only safe criterion of comparative
age is that of stratigraphic superposition, and this is inapplicable
outside of limited local areas.[10] The index fossil is a reliable
basis for the chronological correlation of beds only in case one is
already convinced on other grounds of the actuality of evolution, but
for the unbiased inquirer it is destitute of any inherent time-value.
In other words, we can no longer be sure that a given formation is
old merely because it happens to contain Cambrian fossils, nor that a
rock is young merely because it chances to contain Tertiary fossils.
Our present classification of rocks according to their fossil contents
is purely arbitrary and artificial, being tantamount to nothing more
than a mere taxonomical classification of the forms of ancient life on
our globe, irrespective of their comparative antiquity. This scheme
of classification is, indeed, universally applicable, and places can
usually be found in it for new fossiliferous strata, whenever and
wherever discovered. Its universal applicability, however, is due not
to any prevalent order of invariable sequence among fossiliferous
strata, but solely to the fact that the laws of biological taxonomy
and ecology are universal laws which transcend spatial and temporal
limitation. If a scheme of taxonomy is truly scientific, all forms of
life, whether extant or extinct, will fit into it quite readily.

    [10] “All that geology can prove,” says Huxley, “is local order
    of succession.” (“Discourses Biological and Geological,” pp.
    279-288.)

The anomalies of spatial distribution constitute a sixth difficulty
for transformistic palæontology. In constructing a phylogeny the
most diverse and widely-separated regions are put under tribute to
furnish the requisite fossils, no heed being paid to what are now
at any rate impassable geographical barriers, not to speak of the
climatic and environmental limitations which restrict the migrations
of non-cosmopolitan species within the boundaries of narrow habitats.
Hypothetical lineages of a modern form of life are frequently
constructed from fossil remains found in two or more continents
separated from one another by immense distances and vast oceanic
expanses. When taxed with failure to plausibleize this procedure,
the evolutionist meets the difficulty by hypothecating wholesale and
devious migrations to and fro, and by raising up alleged land bridges
to accommodate plants and animals in their suppositional migrations
from one continent to another, etc.

The European horse, with his so-called ancestry interred, partly in
the Tertiary deposits of Europe, but mostly in those of North America,
is a typical instance of these anomalies in geographical distribution.
It would, of course, be preposterous to suppose that two independent
lines of descent could have fortuitously terminated in the production
of one and the same type, namely, the genus _Equus_. Moreover, to admit
for a moment that the extinct American _Equus_ and the extant European
_Equus_ had converged by similar stages from distinct origins would be
equivalent, as we have seen, to a surrender of the basic postulate that
structural similarity rests on the principle of inheritance. Nothing
remains, therefore, but to hypothecate a Tertiary land bridge between
Europe and North America.

Modern geologists, however, are beginning to resent these arbitrary
interferences with their science in the interest of biological
theories. Land bridges, they rightly insist, should be demonstrated by
means of positive geological evidence and not by the mere exigencies of
a hypothetical genealogy. Whosoever postulates a land bridge between
continents should be able to adduce solid reasons, and to assign a
mechanism capable of accomplishing the five-mile uplift necessary to
bring a deep-sea bottom to the surface of the hydrosphere. Such an
idea is extravagant and not to be easily entertained in our day, when
geologists are beginning to understand the principle of _isostasy_.
To-day, the crust of the earth, that is, the entire surface of the
lithosphere, is conceived as being constituted of earth columns,
all of which rest with equal weight upon the level of complete
compensation, which exists at a depth of some 76 miles below land
surfaces. At this depth viscous flows and undertows of the earth take
place, compensating all differences of gravitational stress. Hence the
materials constituting a mountain column are thought to be less dense
than those constituting the surrounding lowland columns, and for this
reason the mountains are buoyed up above the surrounding landscape. The
columns under ocean bottoms, on the contrary, are thought to consist
of heavy materials like basalt, which tend to depress the column. To
raise a sea floor, therefore, some means of producing a dilatation of
these materials would have to be available. Arthur B. Coleman called
attention to this difficulty in his Presidential Address to the
Geological Society of America (December 29, 1915), and we cannot do
better than quote his own statement of the matter here:

“Admitting,” he says, “that in the beginning the lithosphere bulged
up in places, so as to form continents, and sagged in other places,
so as to form ocean beds, there are interesting problems presented as
to the permanence of land and seas. All will admit marginal changes
affecting large areas, but these encroachments of the sea on the
continents and the later retreats may be of quite a subordinate kind,
not implying an interchange of deep-sea bottoms and land surfaces.
The essential permanence of continents and oceans has been firmly
held by many geologists, notably Dana among the older ones, and seems
reasonable; but there are geologists, especially palæontologists, who
display great recklessness in rearranging land and sea. The trend of a
mountain range, or the convenience of a running bird, or a marsupial
afraid to wet his feet seems sufficient warrant for hoisting up any sea
bottom to connect continent with continent. A Gondwana Land arises in
place of an Indian Ocean and sweeps across to South America, so that a
spore-bearing plant can follow up an ice age; or an Atlantis ties New
England to Old England to help out the migrations of a shallow-water
fauna; or a ‘Lost Land of Agulhas’ joins South Africa and India.

“It is curious to find these revolutionary suggestions made at a
time when geodesists are demonstrating that the earth’s crust over
large areas, and perhaps everywhere, approaches a state of isostatic
equilibrium, and that isostatic compensation is probably complete at a
depth of only 76 miles” ... and (having noted the difference of density
that must exist between the continental, and submarine, earth columns)
Coleman would have us bear in mind “that to transform great areas of
sea bottom into land it would be necessary either to expand the rock
beneath by several per cent or to replace heavy rock, such as basalt,
by lighter materials, such as granite. There is no obvious way in which
the rock beneath a sea bottom can be expanded enough to lift it 20,000
feet, as would be necessary in parts of the Indian Ocean, to form a
Gondwana land; so one must assume that light rocks replace heavy ones
beneath a million square miles of ocean floor. Even with unlimited
time, it is hard to imagine a mechanism that could do the work, and
no convincing geological evidence can be brought forward to show that
such a thing ever took place.... The distribution of plants and animals
should be arranged for by other means than by the wholesale elevation
of ocean beds to make dry land bridges for them.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt.
for 1916, pp. 269-271.)

A seventh anomaly of palæontological phylogeny is what may be described
as contrariety of direction. We are asked to believe, for example, that
in mammals racial development resulted in dimensional increase. The
primitive ancestor of mammoths, mastodons, and elephants is alleged to
have been the _Moeritherium_, “a small tapirlike form, from the Middle
Eocene Qasr-el-Sagha beds of the Fayûm in Egypt.... _Moeritherium_
measured about 3½ feet in height.” (Lull: Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1908, pp. 655, 656.) The ancestor of the modern horse, we are told,
was “a little animal less than a foot in height, known as _Eohippus_,
from the rocks of the Eocene age.” (Woodruff: “Foundations of Biology,”
p. 361.) In the case of insects, on the other hand, we are asked to
believe the exact reverse, namely, that racial development brought
about dimensional reduction. “In the middle of the Upper Carboniferous
periods,” says Anton Handlirsch, “the forest swamps were populated
with cockroaches about as long as a finger, dragonfly-like creatures
with a wing spread of about 2½ feet, while insects that resemble our
May flies were as big as a hand.” (“Die fossilen Insekten, und die
Phylogenie der recenten Formen,” 1908, L. c., p. 1150.) Contrasting one
of these giant palæozoic dragonflies, _Meganeura monyi_ Brongn., with
the largest of modern dragonflies, _Aeschna grandis_ L., Chetverikov
exclaims with reference to the latter: “What a pitiful pigmy it is and
its specific name (_grandis_) sounds like such a mockery.” (Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 446.) Chetverikov, it is true, proposes a
teleological reason for this progressive diminution, but the fact
remains that for dysteleological evolutionism, which dispenses with
the postulate of a Providential coördination and regulation of natural
agencies, this _diminuendo_ of the “evolving” insects stands in
irreconcilable opposition to the _crescendo_ of the “evolving” mammals,
and constitutes a difficulty which a purely mechanistic philosophy can
never surmount.

Not to prolong excessively this already protracted enumeration of
discrepancies between fossil fact and evolutionary assumption, we
shall mention, as an eighth and final difficulty, the indubitable
persistence of _unchanged_ organic types from the earliest geological
epochs down to the present time. This phenomenon is all the more
wonderful in view of the fact that the decision as to which are to be
the “older” and which the “younger” strata rests with the evolutionary
geologist, who is naturally disinclined to admit the antiquity of
strata containing modern types, and whose position as arbiter enables
him to date formations aprioristically, according to the exigencies of
the transformistic theory. Using, as he does, the absence of modern
types as an express criterion of age, and having, as it were, his pick
among the various fossiliferous deposits, one would expect him to be
eminently successful in eliminating from the stratigraphic groups
selected for senior honors all strata containing fossil types identical
with modern forms. Since, however, even the most ingenious sort of
geological gerrymandering fails to make this elimination complete, we
must conclude that the evidence for persistence of type is inescapable
and valid under any assumption.

When we speak of persistent types, we mean generic and specific,
rather than phyletic, types, although it is assuredly true that the
persistence of the great phyla, from their abrupt and contemporaneous
appearance in Cambrian and pre-Cambrian rocks down to the present day,
constitutes a grave difficulty for progressive evolution in general
and monophyletic evolution in particular. All the great invertebrate
types, such as the protozoa, the annelida, the brachiopoda, and large
crustaceans called eurypterids, are found in rocks of the Proterozoic
group, despite the damaged condition of the Archæan record, while
in the Cambrian they are represented by a great profusion of forms.
“The Lower Cambrian species,” says Dana, “have not the simplicity of
structure that would naturally be looked for in the earliest Palæozoic
life. They are perfect of their kind and highly specialized structures.
No steps from simple kinds leading up to them have been discovered; no
line from the protozoans up to corals, echinoderms, or worms, or from
either of these groups up to brachiopods, mollusks, trilobites, or
other crustaceans. This appearance of abruptness in the introduction
of Cambrian life is one of the striking facts made known by geology.”
(“Manual,” p. 487.) Thus, as we go backward in time, we find the great
organic phyla retaining their identity and showing no tendency to
converge towards a common origin in one or a few ancestral types. For
this reason, as we shall see presently, geologists are beginning to
relegate the evolutionary process to unknown depths below the explored
portion of the “geological column.” What may lurk in these unfathomed
profundities, it is, of course, impossible to say, but, if we are to
judge by that part of the column which is actually exposed to view,
there is no indication whatever of a steady progression from lower, to
higher, degrees of organization, and it takes all the imperturbable
idealism of a scientific doctrinaire to discern in such random, abrupt,
and unrelated “origins” any evidence of what Blackwelder styles “a
slow but steady increase in complexity of structure and in function.”
(_Science_, Jan. 27, 1922, p. 90.)

But, while the permanence of phyletic types excludes progress, that
of generic and specific types excludes change, and hence it is in
the latter phenomenon, especially, that the theory of transformism
encounters a formidable difficulty. Palæobotany furnishes numerous
examples of the persistence of unchanged plant forms. Ferns identical
with the modern genus _Marattia_ occur in rocks of the Palæozoic group.
Cycads indistinguishable from the extant genera _Zamia_ and _Cycas_ are
found in strata belonging to the Triassic system, etc., etc.

The same is true of animal types. In all the phyla some genera and
even species have persisted unchanged from the oldest strata down to
the present day. Among the Protozoa, for example, we have the genus
_Globigerina_ (one of the Foraminifera), some modern species of which
are identical with those found in the Cretaceous. To quote the words
of the Protozoologist, Charles A. Kofoid: “The Protozoa are found
in the oldest fossiliferous rocks and the genera of _Radiolaria_
therein conform rather closely to genera living today, while the
fossil _Dinoflagellata_ of the flints of Delitzsch are scarcely
distinguishable from species living in the modern seas. The striking
similarities of the most ancient fossil Protozoa to recent ones afford
some ground for the inference that the Protozoa living today differ but
little from those when life was young.” (_Science_, April 6, 1923, p.
397.)

The Metazoa offer similar examples of persistence. Among the
Cœlenterata, we have the genus _Springopora_, whose representatives
from the Carboniferous limestones closely resemble some of the
present-day reef builders of the East Indies. Species of the brachiopod
genera _Lingula_ and _Crania_ occurring in the Cambrian rocks are
indistinguishable from species living today, while two other modern
genera of the Brachiopoda, namely, _Rhynchonella_ and _Discina_,
are represented among the fossils found in Mesozoic formations.
_Terebratulina striata_, a fossil species of brachiopod occurring in
the rocks belonging to the Cretaceous system, is identical with our
modern species _Terebratulina caput serpentis_. Among the Mollusca such
genera as _Arca_, _Nucula_, _Lucina_, _Astarte_, and _Nautilus_ have
had a continuous existence since the Silurian, while the genera _Lima_
and _Pecten_ can be traced to the Permian. One genus _Pleurotomaria_
goes back to pre-Cambrian times. As to Tertiary fossils, Woods informs
us that “in some of the later Cainozoic formations as many as 90 per
cent of the species of mollusks are still living.” (“Palæontology,”
1st ed., p. 2.) Among the Echinodermata, two genera, _Cidaris_ (a
sea urchin) and _Pentacrinus_ (a crinoid) may be mentioned as being
persistent since the Triassic (“oldest” system of the Mesozoic group).
Among the Arthropoda, the horseshoe crab _Limulus polyphemus_ has
had a continuous existence since the Lias (_i.e._ the lowest series
of the Jurassic system). Even among the Vertebrata we have instances
of persistence. The extant Australian genus _Ceratodus_, a Dipnoan,
has been in existence since the Triassic. Among the fossils of the
Jurassic (middle system of the Mesozoic group), _Sharks_, _Rays_, and
_Chimaeroids_ occur in practically modern forms, while some of the
so-called “ganoids” are extremely similar to our present sturgeons and
gar pikes—“Some of the Jurassic fishes approximate the teleosts so
closely that it seems arbitrary to call them ganoids.” (Scott.)

The instances of persistence enumerated above are those acknowledged by
evolutionary palæontologists themselves. This list could be extended
somewhat by the addition of several other examples, but even so, it
would still be small and insufficient to tip the scales decisively
in favor of fixism. On the other hand, we must not forget that the
paucity of this list is due in large measure to the fact that our
present method of classifying fossiliferous strata was deliberately
framed with a view to excluding formations containing modern types
from the category of “ancient” beds. Moreover, orthodox palæontology
has minimized the facts of persistence to an extent unwarranted even
by its own premises. As the following considerations indicate, the
actual number of persistent types is far greater, even according to the
evolutionary time-scale, than the figure commonly assigned.

First of all, we must take into account the deplorable, if not
absolutely dishonest, practice, which is in vogue, of inventing new
names for the fossil duplicates of modern species, in order to mask or
obscure an identity which conflicts with evolutionary preconceptions.
When a given formation fails to fit into the accepted scheme by
reason of its fossil anachronisms, or when, to quote the words of
Price, “species are found in kinds of rock where they are not at all
expected, and where, according to the prevailing theories, it is
quite incredible that they should be found ... the not very honorable
expedient is resorted to of inventing a new name, specific or even
generic, to disguise and gloss over the strange similarity between them
and the others which have already been assigned to wholly different
formations.” (“The New Geology,” p. 291.) The same observation is
made by Heilprin. “It is practically certain,” says the latter, “that
numerous forms of life, exhibiting no distinctive characters of their
own, are constituted into distinct species for no other reason than
that they occur in formations widely separated from those holding
their nearest kin.” (“Geographical and Geological Distribution of
Animals,” pp. 183, 184.) An instance of this practice occurs in the
foregoing list, where a fossil brachiopod identical with a modern
species receives the new specific name “_striata_.” Its influence is
also manifest in the previously quoted apology of Scott for calling
teleost-like fish “ganoids.”

We must also take into account the imperfection of the fossil record,
which is proved by the fact that most of the acknowledged “persistent
types” listed above “skip” whole systems and even groups of “later”
rocks (which are said to represent enormous intervals of time), only
to reappear, at last, in modern times. It is evident that their
existence has been continuous, and yet they are not represented in the
intervening strata. Clearly, then, the fossil record is imperfect, and
we must conclude that many of our modern types actually did exist in
the remote past, without, however, leaving behind any vestige of their
former presence.

Again, we must frankly confess our profound ignorance with respect to
the total number and kinds of species living in our modern seas. Hence
our conventional distinction between “extinct” and “extant” species has
only a provisory value. Future discoveries will unquestionably force
us to admit that many of the species now classed as “extinct” are in
reality living forms, which must be added to our list of “persistent
types.” “It is by no means improbable,” says Heilprin, “that many of
the older genera, now recognized as distinct by reason of our imperfect
knowledge concerning their true relationships, have in reality
representatives in the modern sea.” (_Op. cit._ pp. 203, 204.)

Finally, the whole of our present taxonomy of plants and animals, both
living and fossil, stands badly in need of revision. Systematists,
as we have seen in the second chapter, base their classifications
mainly on what they regard as basic or homologous structures, in
contradistinction to superficial or adaptive characters. Both kinds
of structure, however, are purely somatic, and somatic characters,
as previously observed, are not, by themselves, a safe criterion for
discriminating between varieties and species. In the light of recent
genetical research, we cannot avoid recognizing that there has been
far too much “splitting” of organic groups on the basis of differences
that are purely fluctuational, or, at most, mutational. Moreover,
the distinction between homologous and adaptive structures is often
arbitrary and largely a matter of personal opinion, especially when
numerous specimens are not available. What the “Cambridge Natural
History” says in allusion to the Asteroidea is of general application.
“While there is considerable agreement,” we read, “amongst authorities
as to the number of families, or minor divisions of unequivocal
relationship, to be found in the class Asteroidea, there has been
great uncertainty both as to the number and limits of the orders
into which the class should be divided, and also as to the limits of
the various species. The difficulty about the species is by no means
confined to the group Echinodermata; in all cases where the attempt
is made to determine species by an examination of a few specimens
of unknown age there is bound to be uncertainty; the more so, as it
becomes increasingly evident that there is no sharp line to be drawn
between local varieties and species. In Echinodermata, however, there
is the additional difficulty that the acquisition of ripe genital cells
does not necessarily mark the termination of growth; the animals can
continue to grow and at the same time slightly alter their characters.
For this reason many of the species described may be merely immature
forms....

“The disputes, however, as to the number of orders included in the
Asteroidea proceed from a different cause. The attempt to construct
detailed phylogenies involves the assumption that one set of
structures, which we take as the mark of the class, has remained
constant, whilst the others which are regarded as adaptive, may have
developed twice or thrice. As the two sets of structures are about
of equal importance it will be seen to what an enormous extent the
personal equation enters in the determination of these questions.”
(_Op. cit._, vol. I, pp. 459, 460.)

In dealing with fossil forms, these difficulties of the taxonomist
are intensified: (1) by the sparse, badly-preserved, and fragmentary
character of fossil remains; (2) by the fact that here breeding
experiments are impossible, and hence the diagnosis based on external
characters cannot be supplemented by a diagnosis of the germinal
factors. Fossil taxonomy is, in consequence, extremely arbitrary and
unreliable. Many fossil forms classed as distinct species, or even
as distinct genera, may be nothing more than fluctuants, mutants,
hybrids, or immature stages of well-known species living today.
Again, many fossils mistaken for distinct species are but different
stages in the life-history of a single species, a mistake, which is
unavoidable, when specimens are few and the age of the specimens
unknown. The great confusion engendered in the classification of
the hydrozoa by nineteenth-century ignorance of the alternation of
hydroid and medusoid generations is a standing example of the danger
of classifying forms without a complete knowledge of the entire
life-cycle. When due allowance is made for mutation, hybridization,
metagenesis, polymorphism, age and metamorphosis, the number of
distinct fossil species will undergo considerable shrinkage. Nor must
we overlook the possibility of environmentally-induced modifications.
Many organisms, such as mollusks, undergo profound alteration as a
result of some important, and, perhaps, relatively permanent, change in
their environmental conditions, though such alterations affect only the
phenotype, and do not involve a corresponding change in the specific
genotype, _i.e._ the germinal constitution of the race.

In the degree that these considerations are taken into account the
number of “extinct” fossil species will diminish and the number of
“persistent” species will increase. This is a consummation devoutly to
be wished for, but it means that hundreds of thousands of described
species must needs be reviewed for the purpose of weeding out the
duplicates, and who will have the knowledge, the courage, or even the
span of life, necessary to accomplish so gigantic a task?

But so far as the practical purposes of our argument are concerned, the
accepted list of persistent types needs no amplification. It suffices,
as it stands, to establish the central fact (which, for the rest,
is admitted by everyone) that some generic and even specific types
have remained unchanged throughout the enormous lapse of time which
has intervened between the deposition of the oldest strata and the
advent of the present age. Our current theories, far from diminishing
the significance of this fact, tend to intensify it by computing the
duration of such persistence in millions, rather than in thousands, of
years. Now, whatever one’s views may be on the subject of transformism,
this prolonged permanence of certain genera and species is an
indubitable _fact_, which is utterly irreconcilable with a _universal
law_ of organic evolution. The theory of transformism is impotent
to explain an exception so palpable as this; for persistence and
transmutation cannot be subsumed under one and the same principle. That
which accounts for change cannot account for _unchange_. Yet unchange
is an observed fact, while the change, in this case, is an inferred
hypothesis. Hence, even if we accept the principle of transformism,
there will always be scope for the principle of permanence. The
extraordinary tenacity of type manifested by persistent genera and
species is a phenomenon deserving of far more careful study and
investigation than the evolutionally-minded scientist of today deigns
to bestow upon it. To the latter it may seem of little consequence,
but, to the genuine scientist, the actual persistence of types should
be of no less interest than their possible variability.

With these reflections, our criticism of the palæontological argument
terminates. The enumeration of its various deficiencies was not
intended as a refutation. To disprove the theory of organic evolution
is a feat beyond our power to accomplish. We can only adduce negative
evidence, whose scope is to show that the various evolutionary
arguments are inconsequential or inconclusive. We cannot rob the
theory of its intrinsic possibility, and sheer justice compels us to
confess that certain facts, like those of symbiotic preadaptation,
lend themselves more readily to a transformistic, than to a fixistic,
interpretation. On the other hand, nothing is gained by ignoring
flaws so obvious and glaring as those which mar the cogency of
palæontological “evidence.” The man who would gloss them over is
no true friend either of Science or of the scientific theory of
Evolution! They represent so many real problems to be frankly faced
and fully solved, before the palæontological argument can become a
genuine demonstration. But until such time as a demonstration of this
sort is forthcoming, the evolutionist must not presume to cram his
unsubstantiated theory down our reasonably reluctant throats. To accept
as certain what remains unproved, is to compromise our intellectual
sincerity. True certainty, which rests on the recognition of objective
necessity, will never be attainable so long as difficulties that sap
the very base of evolutionary argumentation are left unanswered; and,
as for those who, in the teeth of discordant factual evidence, profess,
nevertheless, to have certainty regarding the “fact” of evolution, we
can only say that such persons cannot have a very high or exacting
conception of what scientific certainty really means.

For the rest, it cannot even be said that the palæontological record
furnishes good circumstantial evidence that our globe has been the
scene of a process of organic evolution. In fact, so utterly at
variance with this view is the total impression conveyed by the
visible portion of the geological column, that the modern geologist
proposes, as we have seen, to probe depths beneath its lowest strata
for traces of that alleged transmutation, which higher horizons do
not reveal. There are six to eight thick terranes below the Cambrian,
we are told, and igneous masses that were formerly supposed to be
basal have turned out to be intrusions into sedimentary accumulations,
all of which, of course, is fortunate for the theory of organic
evolution, as furnishing it with a sadly needed new court of appeal.
The bottom, so to speak, has dropped out of the geological column,
and Prof. T. C. Chamberlin announces the fact as follows: “The sharp
division into two parts, a lifeless igneous base and a sedimentary
fossiliferous superstructure, has given place to the general concept
of continuity with merely minor oscillations in times and regions of
major activity. Life has been traced much below the Cambrian, but
its record is very imperfect. The recent discoveries of more ample
and varied life in the lower Palæozoic, particularly the Cambrian,
implies, under current evolutional philosophy, a very great downward
extension of life. In the judgment of some biologists and geologists,
this extension probably reaches below all the pre-Cambrian terranes
as yet recognized, though this pre-Cambrian extension is great. The
‘Azoic’ bottom has retired to depths unknown. This profoundly changes
the life aspect of the ‘column.’” (_Science_, Feb. 8, 1924, p. 128.)
All this is doubtless true, but such an appeal, from the known to the
unknown, from the actual to the possible, is not far-removed from a
confession of scientific insolvency. Life must, of course, have had
an earlier history than that recorded in the pre-Cambrian rocks. But
even supposing that some portion of an earlier record should become
accessible to us, it could not be expected to throw much light on the
problem of organic origins. Most of the primordial sediments have long
since been sapped and engulfed by fiery magmas, while terranes less
deep have, in all probability, been so metamorphosed that every trace
of their fossil contents has perished. The sub-Archæan beginnings of
life will thus remain shrouded forever in a mystery, which we have
no prospect of penetrating. Hence it is the exposed portion of the
geological column which continues and will continue to be our sole
source of information, and it is preëminently on this basis that the
evolutionary issue will have to be decided.

Yet what could be more enigmatic than the rock record as it stands?
For in nature it possesses none of that idealized integrity and
coherence, with which geology has invested it for the purpose of
making it understandable. Rather it is a mighty chaos of scattered
and fragmentary fossiliferous formations, whose baffling complexity,
discontinuity, and ambiguity tax the ingenuity of the most sagacious
interpreters. Transformism is the key to one possible synthesis, which
might serve to unify that intricate mass of facts, but it is idle to
pretend that this theory is the unique and necessary corollary of
the facts as we find them. The palæontological argument is simply a
theoretical construction which presupposes evolution instead of proving
it. Its classic pedigrees of the horse, the camel, and the elephant
are only credible when we have assumed the “fact” of evolution, and
even then, solely upon condition that they claim to approximate,
rather than assign, the actual ancestry of the animals in question.
In palæontology, as in the field of zoölogy, evolution is not a
conclusion, but an interpretation. In palæontology, otherwise than
in the field of genetics, evolution is not amenable to the check of
experimental tests, because here it deals not with that which is, but
with that which _was_. Here the sole objective basis is the mutilated
and partially obliterated record of a march of events, which no one
has observed and which will never be repeated. These obscure and
fragmentary vestiges of a vanished past, by reason of their very
incompleteness, lend themselves quite readily to all sorts of theories
and all sorts of speculations. Of the “Stone Book of the Universe”
we may say with truth that which Oliver Wendell Holmes says of the
privately-interpreted Bible, namely, that its readers take from it the
same views which they had previously brought to it. “I am, however,
thoroughly persuaded,” say the late Yves Delage, “that one is or is not
a transformist, not so much for reasons deduced from natural history,
as for motives based on personal philosophic opinions. If there existed
some other scientific hypothesis besides that of descent to explain
the origin of species, many transformists would abandon their present
opinion as not being sufficiently demonstrated.... If one takes his
stand upon the exclusive ground of the facts, it must be acknowledged
that the formation of one species from another species has not been
demonstrated at all.” (“L’herédité et les grands problèmes de la
biologie générale,” Paris, 1903, pp. 204, 322.)




                                  II

                        THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS




                               CHAPTER I

                          THE ORIGIN OF LIFE


               § 1. The Theory of Spontaneous Generation

Strictly speaking, the theory of Transformism is not concerned with the
initial production of organic species, but rather with the subsequent
differentiation and multiplication of such species by transmutation
of the original forms. This technical sense, however, is embalmed
only in the term transformism and not in its synonym evolution. The
signification of the latter term is less definite. It may be used
to denote any sort of development or origination of one thing from
another. Hence the problem of the formation of organic species is
frequently merged with the problem of the transformation of species
under the common title of evolution.

This extension of the evolutionary concept, in its widest sense, to the
problem of the origin of life on our globe is known as the hypothesis
of abiogenesis or spontaneous generation. It regards inorganic matter
as the source of organic life not merely in the sense of a _passive
cause_, out of which the primordial forms of life were produced, but
in the sense of an _active cause_ inasmuch as it ascribes the origin
of life to the exclusive agency of dynamic principles inherent in
inorganic matter, namely, the physicochemical energies that are native
to mineral matter. Life, in other words, is assumed to have arisen
spontaneously, that is, by means of a synthesis and convergence of
forces resident in inorganic matter, and not through the intervention
of any exterior agency.

The protagonists of spontaneous generation, therefore, assert not
merely a passive, but an active, evolution of living, from lifeless
matter. As to the fact of the origin of the primal organisms from
inorganic matter, there is no controversy whatever. All agree that, at
some time or other, the primordial plants and animals emanated from
inorganic matter. The sole point of dispute is whether they arose from
inorganic matter by active evolution or simply by passive evolution.
The passive evolution of mineral matter into plants and animals is an
everyday occurrence. The grass assimilates the nitrates of the soil,
and is, in turn, assimilated by the sheep, whose flesh becomes the food
of man, and mineral substance is thus finally transformed into human
substance. In the course of metabolic processes, the inorganic molecule
may doff its mineral type and don, in succession, the specificities of
plant, animal, and human protoplasm; and this transition from lower
to higher degrees of perfection may be termed an evolution. It is
an ascent of matter from the lowermost grade of an inert substance,
through the intermediate grades of vegetative and animal life, up
to the culminating and ultimate term of material perfection, in
the partial constitution of a human nature and personality, in the
concurrence as a coagent in vegetative and sensile functions, and
in the indirect participation, as instrument, in the higher psychic
functions of rational thought and volition.

At the present time, the inorganic world is clearly the exclusive
source of all the matter found in living beings. All living beings
construct their bodies out of inorganic substances in the process of
nutrition, and render back to the inorganic world, by dissimilation and
death, whatever they have taken from it. We must conclude, therefore,
the matter of the primordial organisms was likewise derived from the
inorganic world. But we are not warranted in concluding that this
process of derivation was an active evolution. On the contrary, all
evidence is against the supposition that brute matter is able to evolve
of itself into living matter. It can, indeed, be transformed into
plants, animals, and men through the action of an appropriate external
agent (_i.e._ solely through the agency of the living organism), but
it cannot acquire the perfections of living matter by means of its
own inherent powers. It cannot vitalize, or sensitize, itself through
the unaided activity of its own physicochemical energies. Only when
it comes under the superior influence of preëxistent life can it
ascend to higher degrees of entitive perfection. It does not become
of itself life, sensibility, and intelligence. It must first be drawn
into communion with what is already alive, before it can acquire life
and sensibility, or share indirectly in the honors of intelligence (as
the substrate of the cerebral imagery whence the human mind abstracts
its conceptual thought). Apart from this unique influence, inorganic
matter is impotent to raise itself in the scale of existence, but, if
captured, molded, and transmuted by a living being, it may progress to
the point of forming with the human soul one single nature, one single
substance, one single person. The evolution of matter exemplified in
organic metabolism is obviously passive, and such an evolution of
the primal organisms out of non-living matter even the opponents of
the hypothesis of spontaneous generation concede. But spontaneous
generation implies an active evolution of the living from the lifeless,
and this is the point around which the controversy wages. It would, of
course, be utterly irrational to deny to the Supreme Lord and Author of
Life the power of vivifying matter previously inanimate and inert, and
hence the origin of organic life from inorganic matter by a formative
(not creative) act of the Creator is the conclusion to which the denial
of abiogenesis logically leads.

The hypothesis of spontaneous generation is far older than the theory
of transformism. It goes back to the Greek predecessors of Aristotle,
at least, and may be of far greater antiquity. It was based, as is well
known, upon an erroneous interpretation of natural facts, which was
universally accepted up to the close of the 17th century. As we can
do no more than recount a few outstanding incidents of its long and
interesting history here, the reader is referred to the VII chapter of
Wasmann’s “Modern Biology” and the VIII chapter of Windle’s “Vitalism
and Scholasticism” for the details which we are obliged to omit.


                  § 2. The Law of Genetic Continuity—

From time immemorial the sudden appearance of maggots in putrescent
meat had been a matter of common knowledge, and the ancients were
misled into regarding the phenomenon as an instance of a _de novo_
origin of life from dead matter. The error in question persisted until
the year 1698, when it was decisively disproved by a simple experiment
of the Italian physician Francesco Redi. He protected the meat from
flies by means of gauze. Under these conditions, no maggots appeared
in the meat, while the flies, unable to reach the meat, deposited
their eggs on the gauze. Thus it became apparent that the maggots were
larval flies, which emerged from fertilized eggs previously deposited
in decaying meat by female flies. Antonio Vallisnieri, another
Italian, showed that the fruit-fly had a similar life-history. As a
result of these discoveries, Redi rejected the theory of spontaneous
generation and formulated the first article of the Law of Genetic Vital
Continuity: _Omne vivum ex vivo_.

Meanwhile, the first researches conducted by means of the newly
invented compound microscope disclosed what appeared to be fresh
evidence in favor of the discarded hypothesis. The unicellular
organisms known as infusoria were found to appear suddenly in hay
infusions, and their abrupt appearance was ascribed to spontaneous
generation. Towards the end of the 18th century, however, a Catholic
priest named Lazzaro Spallanzani refuted this new argument by
sterilizing the infusions with heat and by sealing the containers as
protection against contamination by floating spores or cysts. After
the infusions had been boiled for a sufficient time and then sealed,
no organisms could be found in them, no matter how long they were kept.
We now know that protozoa and protophytes do not originate _de novo_ in
infusions. Their sudden appearance in cultures is due to the deposition
of spores or cysts from the air, etc.

The possibility that the non-germination of life in sterilized
infusions kept in sealed containers might be due to the absence of
oxygen, removed by boiling and excluded by sealing, left open a
single loophole, of which the 19th century defenders of abiogenesis
proceeded to avail themselves. Pasteur, however, by employing
sterilized cultures, which he aerated with filtered air exclusively,
succeeded in depriving his opponents of this final refuge, and
thereby completely demolished the last piece of evidence in favor
of spontaneous generation. Prof. Wm. Sydney Thayer, in an address
delivered at the Sorbonne, May 22, 1923, gives the following account
of Pasteur’s experiments in this field: “Then, naturally (1860-1876)
came the famous studies on spontaneous generation undertaken against
the advice of his doubting masters, Biot and Dumas. On the basis of
careful and well-conceived experiments he demonstrated the universal
presence of bacteria in air, water, dust; he showed the variation in
different regions of the bacterial content of the air; he demonstrated
the permanent sterility of media protected from contamination, and he
insisted on the inevitable derivation of every living organism from
one of its kind. ‘No,’ he said, ‘there is no circumstance known today
which justifies us in affirming that microscopic organisms have come
into the world, without parents like themselves. Those who made this
assertion have been the playthings of illusions or ill-made experiments
invalidated by errors which they have not been able to appreciate or
to avoid.’ In the course of these experiments he demonstrated the
necessity of reliable methods of sterilization for instruments or
culture media, of exposure for half an hour to moist heat at 120° or to
dry air at 180°. And behold! our modern procedures of sterilization
and the basis of antiseptic surgery.” (_Science_, Dec. 14, 1923, p.
477.) Pasteur brought to a successful completion the work of Redi and
Spallanzani. Henceforth spontaneous generation was deprived of all
countenance in the realm of biological fact.

Meanwhile, the cytologists and embryologists of the last century
were adding article after article to the law of genetic cellular
continuity, thus forging link by link the fatal chain of severance
that inexorably debars abiogenesis from the domain of natural science.
With the formulation of the great Cell Theory by Schleiden and Schwann
(1838-1839), it became clear that the cell is the fundamental unit
of organization in the world of living matter. It has proved to be,
at once, the simplest organism capable of independent existence and
the basic unit of structure and function in all the more complex
forms of life. The protists (unicellular protozoans and protophytes)
consist each of a single cell, and no simpler type of organism is
known to science. The cell is the building brick out of which the
higher organisms or metists (_i.e._ the multicellular and tissued
metazoans and metaphytes) are constructed, and all multicellular
organisms are, at one time or other in their career, reduced to the
simplicity of a single cell (_v.g._ in the zygote and spore stages).
The somatic or tissue cells, which are associated in the metists to
form one organic whole, are of the same essential type as germ cells
and unicellular organisms, although the parallelism is more close
between the unicellular organism and the germ cell. The germ cell, like
the protist, is equipped with all the potentialities of life, whereas
tissue cells are specialized for one function rather than another. The
protist is a generalized and physiologically-balanced cell, one which
performs all the vital functions, and in which the suppression of one
function leads to the destruction of all the rest; while the tissue
cell is a specialized and physiologically-unbalanced cell limited to
a single function, with the other vital functions in abeyance (though
capable of manifesting themselves under certain circumstances).
Normally, therefore, the tissue cell is functionally incomplete, a part
and not a whole, whereas the protist is an independent individual,
being, at once, the highest type of cell and the lowest type of
organism.

According to the classic definition of Franz Leydig and Max Schultze,
the cell is a mass of protoplasm containing a nucleus, both protoplasm
and nucleus arising through division of the corresponding elements of
a preëxistent cell. In this form the definition is quite general and
applies to all cells, whether tissue cells, germ cells, or unicellular
organisms. Moreover, it embodies two principles which still further
determine the law of genetic cellular continuity, namely: _Omnis
cellula ex cellula_, enunciated by Virchow in 1855, and Flemming’s
principle: _Omnis nucleus ex nucleo_, proclaimed in 1882. In this way,
Cytology supplemented Redi’s formula that every living being is from
a preëxistent living being, by adding two more articles, namely, that
every living cell is from a preëxistent cell, and every new cellular
nucleus is derived by division from a preëxistent cellular nucleus. Now
neither the nucleus nor the cell-body (the cytoplasm or extranuclear
area of the cell) is capable of an independent existence. The
cytoplasm of the severed nerve fibre, when it fails to reëstablish its
connection with the neuron nucleus, degenerates. The enucleated amœba,
though capable of such vital functions as depend upon destructive
metabolism, can do nothing which involves constructive metabolism, and
is, therefore, doomed to perish. The sperm cell, which is a nucleus
that has sloughed off most of its cytoplasm, disintegrates, unless
it regains a haven in the cytoplasm of the egg. Life, accordingly,
cannot subsist in a unit more simply organized than the cell. No
organism lives which is simpler than the cell, and the origin of all
higher forms of life is reducible, as we shall see, to the origin of
the cell. Consequently, new life can originate in no other way than
by a process of cell-division. All generation or reproduction of new
life is dependent upon the division of the cell-body and nucleus of a
preëxistent living cell.

Haeckel, it is true, has attempted to question the status of the cell
as the simplest of organisms, by alleging the existence of cytodes
(non-nucleated cells) among the bacteria and the blue-green algæ.
Further study, however, has shown that bacteria and blue-green algæ
have a distributed nucleus, like that of certain ciliates, such as
_Dileptus gigas_ and _Trachelocerca_. In such forms the entire cell
body is filled with scattered granules of chromatin called chromioles,
and this diffuse type of nucleus seems to be the counterpart of the
concentrated nuclei found in the generality of cells. At any rate,
there is a temporary aggregation of the chromioles at critical stages
in the life-cycle (such as cell-division), and these scattered
chromatin granules undergo division, although their distribution to
the daughter-cells is not as regular as that obtaining in mitosis. All
this is strongly suggestive of their nuclear nature, and cells with
distributed nuclei cannot, therefore, be classified as cytodes. In
fact, the polynuclear condition is by no means uncommon. _Paramœcium
aurelia_, for example, has a macronucleus and a micronucleus, and
the _Uroleptus mobilis_ has eight macronuclei and from two to four
micronuclei. The difference between the polynuclear and diffuse
condition seems to be relatively unimportant. In fact, the distributed
nucleus differs from the morphological nucleus mainly in the absence
of a confining membrane. From the functional standpoint, the two
structures are identical. Hence the possession of a nucleus or its
equivalent is, to all appearances, a universal characteristic of cells.
Haeckel’s “cytodes” have proved to be purely imaginary entities. The
verdict of modern cytologists is that Shultze’s definition of the cell
must stand, and that the status of the cell as the simplest of organic
units capable of independent existence is established beyond the
possibility of prudent doubt.

With the progressive refinement of microscopic technique, it has become
apparent that the law of genetic continuity applies not merely to the
cell as a whole and to its major parts, the nucleus and the cell-body,
but also to the minor components or organelles, which are seen to
be individually self-perpetuating by means of growth and division.
The typical cell nucleus, as is well known, is a spherical vesicle
containing a semisolid, diphasic network of basichromatin (formerly
“chromatin”) and oxychromatin (linin) suspended in more fluid medium
or ground called nuclear sap. When the cell is about to divide, the
basichromatin resolves itself into a definite number of short threads
called chromosomes. Now, Boveri found that, in the normal process of
cell-division known as mitosis, these nuclear threads or chromosomes
are each split lengthwise and divided into two exactly equivalent
halves, the resulting halves being distributed in equal number to the
two daughter-cells produced by the division of the original cell.
Hence, in the year 1903, Boveri added a fourth article to the law of
genetic vital continuity, namely: _Omne chromosoma ex chromosomate_.

But the law in question applies to cytoplasmic as well as nuclear
components. In physical appearance, the cell-body or cytoplasm
resembles an emulsion with a clear semiliquid external phase called
hyaloplasm and an internal phase consisting mainly of large spheres
called macrosomes and minute particles called microsomes, all of which,
together with numerous other formed bodies, are suspended in the clear
hyaloplasm (hyaline ground-substance). Now certain of these cytoplasmic
components have long been known to be _self-perpetuating_ by means
of growth and division, maintaining their continuity from cell to
cell. The plastids of plant cells, for example, divide at the time of
cell-division, although their distribution to the daughter-cells does
not appear to be as definite and regular as that which obtains in the
case of the chromosomes. Similarly, the centrioles or division-foci
of animal cells are self-propagating by division, but here the
distribution to the daughter-cells is exactly equivalent and not at
random as in the case of plastids. In the light of recent research
it looks as though two other types of cytoplasmic organelles must be
added to the list of cellular components, which are individually
self-perpetuating by growth and division, namely, the chondriosomes
and the Golgi bodies—“both mitochondria and Golgi bodies are able to
assimilate, grow, and divide in the cytoplasm.” (Gatenby.) Wilson is
of opinion that the law of genetic continuity may have to be extended
even to those minute granules and particles of the cytosome, which were
formerly thought to arise _de novo_ in the apparently structureless
hyaloplasm. Speaking of the emulsified appearance of the starfish and
sea urchin eggs, he tells us that their protoplasm shows “a structure
somewhat like that of an emulsion, consisting of innumerable spheroidal
bodies suspended in a clear continuous basis or hyaloplasm. These
bodies are of two general orders of magnitude, namely: larger spheres
or macrosomes rather closely crowded and fairly uniform in size, and
much smaller microsomes irregularly scattered between the macrosomes,
and among these are still smaller granules that graduate in size
down to the limit of vision with any power (_i.e._ of microscope)
we may employ.” (_Science_, March 9, 1923, p. 282.) Now, the limit
of microscopic vision by the use of the highest-power oil-immersion
objectives is one-half the length of the shortest waves of visible
light, that is, about 200 submicrons (the submicron being one millionth
of a millimeter). Particles whose diameter is less than this cannot
reflect a wave of light, and are, therefore, invisible so far as the
microscope is concerned. By the aid of the ultramicroscope, however,
we are enabled to see the halos formed by particles not more than four
submicrons in diameter, which, however, represents the limit of the
ultramicroscope, and is the diameter hypothetically assigned to the
protein multimolecule. Since, therefore, we find the particles in the
protoplasm of the cell body graduating all the way down to the limit
of this latter instrument, and since on the very limit of microscopic
vision we find such minute particles as the centrioles “capable of
self-perpetuation by growth and division, and of enlargement to form
much larger bodies,” we cannot ignore the possibility that the
ultramicroscopic particles may have the same powers and may be the
sources or “formative foci” of the larger formed bodies, which were
hitherto thought to arise _de novo_.

Certainly, pathology, as we shall see, tells us of ultramicroscopic
disease-germs, which are capable of reproduction and maintenance of a
specific type, and experimental genetics makes us aware of a linear
alignment of submicroscopic genes in the nuclear chromosomes, each
gene undergoing periodic division and perpetual transmission from
generation to generation. The cytologist, therefore, to quote the words
of Wilson, “cannot resist the evidence that the appearance of a simple
homogeneous colloidal substance is deceptive; that it is in reality a
complex, heterogeneous, or polyphasic system. He finds it difficult to
escape the conclusion, therefore, that the visible and the invisible
components of the protoplasmic system differ only in their size and
degree of dispersion; that they belong to a single continuous series,
and that the visible structure of protoplasm may give us a rough
magnified picture of the invisible.” (_Ibidem_, p. 283.)

It would seem, therefore, that we must restore to honor, as the fifth
article of the law of cellular continuity, the formula, which Richard
Altmann enunciated on purely speculative grounds in 1892, but which
the latest research is beginning to place on a solid factual basis,
namely: _Omne granulum ex granulo_. “For my part,” says the great
cytologist, Wilson, “I am disposed to accept the probability that
many of these particles, as if they were submicroscopical plastids,
may have a persistent identity, perpetuating themselves by growth and
multiplication without loss of their specific individual type.” And
he adds that the facts revealed by experimental embryology (_e.g._,
the existence of differentiated zones of specific composition in
the cytoplasm of certain eggs) “drive us to the conclusion that the
submicroscopical components of the hyaloplasm are segregated and
distributed according to an ordered system.” (_Ibidem_, p. 283.)
The structure of the cell has often been likened to a heterogeneous
solution, that is, to a complex polyphasic colloidal system, but this
power of perpetual division and orderly assortment possessed by the
cell as a whole and by its single components is the unique property
of the living protoplasmic system, and is never found in any of the
colloidal systems known to physical chemistry, be they organic or
inorganic.

Cells, then, originate solely by division of preëxistent cells and even
the minor components of the cellular system originate in like fashion,
namely: by division of their respective counterparts in the preëxistent
living cell. Here we have the sum and substance of the fivefold law of
genetic continuity, whose promulgation has relegated the hypothesis
of spontaneous generation to the realms of empty speculation. Waiving
the possibility of an _a priori_ argument, by which abiogenesis might
be positively excluded, there remains this one consideration, which
alone is scientifically significant, that, so far as observation goes
and induction can carry us, the living cell has absolute need of a
vital origin and can never originate by the exclusive agency of the
physicochemical forces native to inorganic matter. If organic life
exists in simpler terms than the cell, science knows nothing of it, and
no observed process, simple or complicated, of inorganic nature, nor
any artificial synthesis of the laboratory, however ingenious, has ever
succeeded in duplicating the wonders of the simplest living cell.


             § 3. Chemical Theories of the Origin of Life

In fact, the very notion of a chemical synthesis of living matter
is founded on a misconception. It would, indeed, be rash to set
limits to the chemist’s power of synthesizing organic compounds, but
living protoplasm is not a single chemical compound. Rather it is
a complex system of compounds, enzymes and organelles, coördinated
and integrated into an organized whole by a persistent principle of
unity and finality. Organic life, to say nothing at all of its unique
dynamics, is a morphological as well as a chemical problem; and,
while it is conceivable that the chemist might synthesize all the
compounds found in dead protoplasm, to reproduce a single detail of
the ultramicroscopic structure of a living cell lies wholly beyond his
power and province. “Long ago,” says Wilson (in the already quoted
address on the “Physical Basis of Life”), “it became perfectly plain
that what we call protoplasm is not chemically a single substance. It
is a mixture of many substances, a mixture in high degree complex, the
seat of varied and incessant transformations, yet one which somehow
holds fast for countless generations to its own specific type. The
evidence from every source demonstrates that the cell is a complex
organism, a microcosm, a living system.” (_Science_, March 9, 1923, p.
278.)

With the chemist, analysis must precede synthesis, and it is only after
a structural formula has been determined by means of quantitative
analysis supplemented by analogy and comparison, that a given compound
can be successfully synthesized. But living protoplasm and its
structures elude such analysis. Intravitous staining is inadequate even
as a means of qualitative analysis, and tests of a more drastic nature
destroy the life and organization, which they seek to analyze. “With
one span,” says Amé Pictet, Professor of Chemistry at the University
of Geneva, “we will now bridge the entire distance separating the
first products of plant assimilation from its final product, namely,
living matter. And it should be understood at the outset that I employ
this term ‘living matter’ only as an abbreviation, and to avoid long
circumlocution. You should not, in reality, attribute life to matter
itself; it has not, it cannot have both living molecules and dead
molecules. Life requires an organization, which is that of cellular
structure, but it remains, in contradistinction to it, outside the
domain of strict chemistry. It is none the less true that the content
of a living cell must differ in its chemical nature from the content of
a dead cell. It is entirely from this point of view that the phenomenon
of life pertains to my subject.... A living cell, both in its chemical
composition and in its morphological structure, is an organism of
extraordinary complexity. The protoplasm that it incloses is a mixture
of very diverse substances. But if there be set aside on the one hand
those substances which are in the process of assimilation and on the
other those which are the by-products of nutrition, and which are in
the process of elimination, there remain the protein or albuminous
substances, and these must be considered, if not the essential factor
of life, at least the theater of its manifestations.... Chemistry,
however, is totally ignorant, or nearly so, of the constitution of
living albumen, for chemical methods of investigation at the very
outset kill the living cell. The slightest rise in temperature,
contact with the solvent, the very powerful effect of even the mildest
reactions cause the transformation that needs to be prevented, and the
chemist has nothing left but dead albumen.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1916, pp. 208, 209.)

Chemical analysis associated with physical analysis by means of the
polariscope, spectroscope, x-rays, ultramicroscope, etc. is extremely
useful in determining the structure of inorganic units like the atom
and the molecule. Both, too, throw valuable light on the problem of the
structure of non-living multimolecules such as the crystal units of
crystalloids and the ultramicrons of colloids, but they furnish no clue
to the submicroscopical morphology of the living cell. Such methods do
not enable us to examine anything more than the “physical substrate”
of life, and that, only after it has been radically altered; for it
is not the same after life has flown. At all events, the integrating
principle, the formative determinant, which binds the components of
living protoplasm into a unitary system, which makes of them a single
totality instead of a mere sum or fortuitous aggregate of disparate
and uncoördinated factors, and which gives to them a determinate and
persistent specificity that can hold its own amid a perpetual fluxion
of matter and continual flow of energy, this is forever inaccessible to
the chemist, and constitutes a phenomenon of which the inorganic world
affords no parallel.

With these facts in mind, we can hardly fail to be amused whenever
certain simple chemical reactions obtained _in vitro_ are hailed as
“clue to the origin of life.” When it was found, for instance, that,
under certain conditions, an aldehyde (probably formaldehyde) is
formed in a colloidal solution of chlorophyll in water, if exposed to
sunlight, the discovery gave rise to Bach’s formaldehyde-hypothesis;
for Alexis Bach saw in this reaction “a first step in the origin of
life.” As formaldehyde readily undergoes aldol condensation into
a syrupy fluid called formose, when a dilute aqueous solution of
formaldehyde is saturated with calcium hydroxide and allowed to
stand for several days, there was no difficulty in conceiving the
transition from formaldehyde to the carbohydrates; for formose is a
mixture containing several hexose sugars, and Fischer has succeeded in
isolating therefrom acrose, a simple sugar having the same formula as
glucose, namely: C₆H₁₂O₆. Glyceraldehyde undergoes a similar
condensation. In view of these facts, carbohydrate-production in green
plants was interpreted as a photosynthesis of these substances from
water and carbon dioxide, with chlorophyll acting a sensitizer to
absorb the radiant energy necessary for the reaction. The first step in
the process was thought to be a reduction of carbonic acid to formic
acid and then to formaldehyde, the latter being at once condensed into
glucose, which in turn was supposed to be dehydrated and polymerized
into starch. From the carbohydrates thus formed and the nitrates of the
soil the plant could then synthesize proteins, while oxidation of the
carbohydrates into fatty acids would lead to the formation of fats.
Hence Bach regarded the formation of formaldehyde in the presence of
water, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, and sunlight as the “first step in
the production of life.” Bateson, however, does not find the suggestion
a very helpful one, and evaluates it at its true worth in the following
contemptuous aside: “We should be greatly helped,” he says, “by
some indication as to whether the origin of life has been single or
multiple.” Modern opinion is, perhaps, inclined to the multiple theory,
but we have no real evidence. Indeed, the problem still stands outside
the range of scientific investigation, and when we hear the spontaneous
formation of formaldehyde mentioned as a possible first step in
the origin of life, we think of Harry Lauder in the character of a
Glasgow schoolboy pulling out his treasures from his pocket—“That’s a
wassher—for makkin’ motor cars.” (“Presidential Address,” cf. Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 375.)

Bach, moreover, takes it for granted that the formation of formaldehyde
is really the first step in the synthesis performed by the green plant,
and he claims that formaldehyde is formed when carbon dioxide is passed
through a solution of a salt of uranium in the presence of sunlight.
Fenton makes a similar claim in the case of magnesium, asserting that
traces of formaldehyde are discernible when metallic magnesium is
immersed in water saturated with carbon dioxide. But at present it
begins to look as though the spontaneous formation and condensation of
formaldehyde had nothing to do with the process that actually occurs
in green plants. Certain chemists, while admitting that an aldehyde
is formed when chlorophyll, water, and air are brought together in
the presence of sunlight, deny that the aldehyde in question is
formaldehyde, and they also draw attention to the fact that this
aldehyde may be formed in an atmosphere entirely destitute of carbon
dioxide. In fact, the researches conducted by Willstätter and Stoll,
and later (in 1916) by Jörgensen and Kidd tend to discredit the common
notion that carbohydrate-production in plants is the result of a direct
union of water and carbon dioxide. Botany textbooks still continue to
parrot the traditional view. We cannot any longer, however, be sure but
that the term photosynthesis may be a misnomer.

Carbohydrate-formation in plants seems to be more analogous to
carbohydrate-formation in animals than was formerly thought to be the
case. In animals, as is well known, glycogen or animal starch is formed
not by direct synthesis, but by deämination and reduction of proteins.
In a similar way, it is thought that the production of carbohydrates
in plants may be due to a breaking down of the phytyl ester in
chlorophyll, the chromogen group functioning (under the action of
light) alternately as a dissociating enzyme in the formation of sugars
and a synthesizing enzyme in the reconstruction of chlorophyll. Phytol
is an unsaturated alcohol obtained when chlorophyll is saponified by
means of caustic alkalis. Its formula is C₂₀H₃₉OH, and chlorophyll
consists of a chromogen group containing magnesium (MgN₄C₃₂H₃₀O) united
to a diester of phytyl and methyl alcohols.

Experimental results are at variance with the theory that chlorophyll
acts as a sensitizer in bringing about a reduction of carbonic
acid, after the analogy of eosin, which in the presence of light
accelerates the decomposition of silver salts on photographic plates.
Willstätter found that, when a colloidal solution of the pure extract
of chlorophyll in water is exposed to sunlight and an atmosphere
consisting of carbon dioxide exclusively, no formaldehyde is formed,
but the chlorophyll is changed into yellow phæophytin owing to the
removal of the magnesium from the chromogen group by the action of the
carbonic acid. Jörgensen, on the other hand, discovered that in an
atmosphere of pure oxygen, formaldehyde is formed, apparently by the
splitting off and reduction of the phytyl ester of chlorophyll. Soon,
however, the formaldehyde is oxidized to formic acid, which replaces
the chlorophyllic magnesium with hydrogen, thus causing the green
chlorophyll to degenerate into yellow phæophytin and finally to lose
its color altogether. The dissociation of the chromogen group may be
due to the fact that the reaction takes place _in vitro_, and may not
occur in the living plant. At all events, it would seem that plants,
like animals, manufacture carbohydrates by a destructive rather than a
constructive process, and that water and carbon dioxide serve rather
as materials for the regeneration of chlorophyll than as materials out
of which sugars are directly synthesized.

A new theory has been proposed by Dr. Oskar Baudisch, who seems to
have sensed the irrelevance of the formaldehyde hypothesis, and to
have sought another solution in connection with the chromogen group of
chlorophyll. He finds a more promising starting-point in formaldoxime,
which, he claims, readily unites with such metals as magnesium and iron
and with formaldehyde, in the presence of light containing ultra-violet
rays, to form organic compounds analogous to the chromogen complexes
in chlorophyll and hæmoglobin. Oximes are compounds formed by the
condensation of one molecule of an aldehyde with one molecule of
hydroxylamine (NH₂OH) and the elimination of a molecule of water. Hence
Dr. Baudisch imagines that, given formaldoxime (H₂C:N·OH), magnesium,
and ultra-violet rays, we might expect a spontaneous formation of
chlorophyll leading eventually to the production of organic life. “It
is his theory that life may have been caused through the direct action
of sunlight upon water, air, and carbon dioxide in the ancient geologic
past when, he believes, sunlight was more intense and contained
more ultra-violet light and the air contained more water vapor and
carbon dioxide than at the present time.” (_Science_, April 6, 1923,
Supplement XII.)

This is the old Spencerian evasion, the fatuous appeal to “conditions
unlike those we know,” the unverified and unverifiable assumption
that an unknown past must have been more favorable to spontaneous
generation than the known present. In archæozoic times, the temperature
was higher, the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide
greater, the percentage of ultra-violet rays in sunlight larger.
Such contentions are interesting, if true, but, for all that, they
may, “like the flowers that bloom in the spring,” have nothing to do
with the case. Nature does not, and the laboratory cannot, reproduce
the conditions which are said to have brought about the spontaneous
generation of formaldoxime and its progressive transmutation into
phycocyanin, chlorophyll and the blue-green algæ. What value, then,
have these conjectures? If it be the function of natural science to
discount actualities in favor of possibilities, to draw arguments from
ignorance, and to accept the absence of disproof as a substitute for
demonstration, then the expedient of invoking the unknown in support
of a speculation is scientifically legitimate. But, if the methods of
science are observation and induction, if it proceeds according to the
principle of the uniformity of nature, and does not utterly belie its
claim of resting upon factual realities rather than the figments of
fancy, then all this hypothecation, which is so flagrantly at variance
with the actual data of experience and the unmistakable trend of
inductive reasoning, is not science at all, but sheer credulity and
superstition.

When we ask by what right men of science presume to lift the veil of
mystery from a remote past, which no one has observed, we are told that
the justification of this procedure is the principle of the uniformity
of nature or the invariability of natural laws. Nature’s laws are the
same yesterday, today, and forever. Hence the scientist, who wishes
to penetrate into the unknown past, has only to “prolong the methods
of nature from the present into the past.” (Tyndall.) If we reject
the soundness of this principle, we automatically cut ourselves off
from all certainty regarding that part of the world’s history which
antecedes human observation. Either nature’s laws change, or they do
not. If they never change, then Spontaneous Generation is quite as
much excluded from the past as it is from the present. If, however, as
Hamann and Fechner explicitly maintain, nature’s laws do change, then,
obviously, no knowledge whatever is possible respecting the past, since
it is solely upon the assumption of the immutable constancy of such
laws that we can venture to reconstruct prehistory.

The puerile notion that the synthesis of organic substances in the
laboratory furnishes a clue to the origin of organic life on earth is
due to a confusion of organic, with living and organized, substances.
It is only in the production of organic substances that the chemist
can vie with the plant or animal. These are lifeless and unorganized
carbon compounds, which are termed organic because they are elaborated
by living organisms as a metaplastic by-product of their metabolism.
Such substances, however, are not to be confounded with animate matter,
_e.g._ a living cell and its organelles, or even with organized matter,
_e.g._ dead protoplasm. These the chemist cannot duplicate; for
vitality and organization, as we have seen, are things that elude both
his analysis and his synthesis. Even with respect to the production of
organic substances, the parallelism between the living cell and the
chemical laboratory is far from being a perfect one. Speaking of the
metaplastic or organic products of cells, Benjamin Moore says: “Most
of these are so complex that they have not yet been synthesized by the
organic chemist; nay, even of those that have been synthesized, it may
be remarked that all proof is wanting that the syntheses have been
carried out in identically the same fashion and by the employment of
the same forms of energy in the case of the cell as in the chemist’s
laboratory. The conditions in the cell are widely different, and at the
temperature of the cell and with such chemical materials as are at hand
in the cell no such organic syntheses have been artificially carried
out by the forms of energy extraneous to living tissue.” (“Recent
Advances in Physiology and Bio-Chemistry,” p. 10.) Be that as it may,
however, the prospect of a laboratory synthesis of an organic substance
like chlorophyll affords no ground whatever for expecting a chemical
synthesis of living matter. The chlorophyllic tail is inadequate to
the task of wagging the dog of organic life. In this connection, Yves
Delage’s sarcastic comment on Schaaffhausen’s theory is worthy of
recall. The latter had suggested (in 1892) that life was initiated by a
chemical reaction, in which water, air, and mineral salts united under
the influence of light and heat to produce a colorless _Protococcus_,
which subsequently acquired chlorophyll and became a _Protococcus
viridis_. “If the affair is so simple,” writes Delage, “why does
not the author produce a few specimens of this _protococcus_ in his
laboratory? We will gladly supply him with the necessary chlorophyll.”
(“La structure du protoplasma et les théories sur l’hérédité,” p. 402.)

Another consideration, which never appears to trouble the visionaries
who propound theories of this sort, is the fact that the inert elements
and blind forces of inorganic nature are, if left to themselves,
utterly impotent to duplicate even so much as the feats of the
chemical laboratory, to say nothing at all of the more wonderful
achievements possible only to living organisms. In the laboratory,
the physicochemical forces of the mineral world are coördinated,
regulated, and directed by the guiding intelligence of the chemist.
In that heterogeneous conglomerate, which we call brute matter, no
such guiding principle exists, and the only possible automatic results
are those which the fortuitous concurrence of blind factors avails to
produce. Chance of this kind may vie with art in the production of
relatively simple combinations or systems, but where the conditions are
as complex as those, which the synthesis of chlorophyll presupposes,
chance is impotent and regulation absolutely imperative. How much more
is this true, when there is question of the production of an effect
so complicatedly telic as the living organism! “I venture to think,”
says Sir William Tilden, in a letter to the London _Times_ (Sept. 10,
1912), “that no chemist will be prepared to suggest a process by which,
from the interaction of such materials (viz., inorganic substances),
anything approaching a substance of the nature of a proteid could be
formed or, if by a complex series of changes a compound of this kind
were conceivably produced, that it would present the characters of
living protoplasm.” In the concluding sentence of his letter, the
great chemist seems to deprecate even the discussion of a chemical
synthesis of living matter, whether spontaneous or artificial. “Far
be it from any man of science,” he says, “to affirm that any given set
of phenomena is not a fit subject of inquiry and that there is any
limit to what may be revealed in answer to systematic and well-directed
investigation. In the present instance, however, it appears to me that
this is not a field for the chemist nor one in which chemistry is
likely to afford any assistance whatever.” In any case, the idea that a
chaos of unassorted elements and undirected forces could succeed where
the skill of the chemist fails is preposterous. No known or conceivable
process, or group of processes, at work in inorganic nature, is equal
to the task. Chance is an explanation only for minds insensible to the
beauty and order of organic life.

Darwin inoculated biological science with this Epicurean metaphysics,
when, in his “Origin of Species,” he ascribed discriminating and
selective powers of great delicacy and precision to the blind factors
of a heterogeneous and variable environment. He compared natural
selection to artificial selection, and in so doing, he was led
astray by a false implication of his own analogy—“I have called this
principle,” he says, “by which each slight variation, if useful, is
preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation
to man’s power of selection.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., c. III,
p. 58.) Having likened the unintelligent and fortuitous selection
and elimination exercised by the environment to the intelligent and
purposive selection and elimination practiced by animal breeders and
horticulturists, he pressed the analogy to the unwarranted extent of
attributing to a blind, lifeless, and impersonal aggregate of minerals,
liquids, and gases superhuman powers of discretion. To preserve
even the semblance of parity, he ought first to have expurgated the
process of artificial selection by getting rid of the element of
human intelligence, which lurks therein, and vitiates its parallelism
with the unconscious and purposeless havoc wrought at random by the
blind and uncoördinated agencies of the environment. If inorganic
nature were a vast and multifarious mold, a preformed sieve with
holes of different sizes, a separator for sorting coins of various
denominations, Darwin’s idea would be, in some degree, defensible, but
this would only transfer the problem of cosmic order and intelligence
from the organism to the environment. As a matter of fact, the
mechanism of the environment is far too _simple_ in its structure
and too _general_ in its influence to account for the complexities
and specificities of organisms, that is, for the morphology and
specific differences of plants and animals. Hence the selective work
of the environment is negligible in the positive sense, and consists,
for the most part, in a tendency to eliminate the abnormal and the
subnormal. On the other hand, the environment as well as the organism
is fundamentally teleological, and the environmental mechanism, though
simple and general, is nevertheless expressly preadapted for the
maintenance of organic life. Henderson, the bio-chemist of Harvard, has
shown conclusively, in his “Fitness of the Environment” (1913), that
the environment itself has been expressly selected with this finality
in view, and that the inorganic world, while not the active cause, is,
nevertheless, the preördained complement of organic life.

Simple constructions may, indeed, be due to pure accident as well
as deliberate art, inasmuch as they presuppose but few and easy
conditions. Complex constructions, on the contrary, provided they be
systematic and not chaotic, are not producible by accident, but only
by art, because they require numerous and complicated conditions.
Operating individually, the unconscious factors of inorganic nature
can produce simple and homogeneous constructions such as crystals.
Operating in uncoördinated concurrence with one another, these blind
and unrelated agencies produce complex chaotic formations such as
mountains and islands, mere heterogeneous conglomerates, destitute
of any determinate size, shape, or symmetry, constructions in which
every single item and detail is the result of factors each of
which is independent of the other. In short, the efficacy of the
unconscious and uncoordinated physicochemical factors of inorganic
nature is limited to fortuitous results, which serve no purpose,
embody no intelligible law, convey no meaning nor idea, and afford
no æsthetic satisfaction, being mere aggregates or sums rather than
natural units and real totalities. But it does not extend to the
production of complex systematic formations such as living organisms
or human artefacts. Left to itself, therefore, inorganic nature might
conceivably duplicate the simplest artefacts such as the chipped flints
of the savage, and it might also construct a complex heterogeneous
chaos of driftwood, mud, and sand like the Great Raft of the Red River,
but it would be utterly impotent to construct a complicated telic
system comparable to an animal, a clock, or even an organic compound,
like chlorophyll.

In this connection, it is curious to note how extremely myopic the
scientific materialist can be, when there is question of recognizing
a manifestation of Divine intelligence in the stupendous teleology of
the living organism, and how incredibly lynx-eyed he becomes, when
there is question of detecting evidences of human intelligence in the
eoliths alleged to have been the implements of a “Tertiary Man.” In
the latter case, he is never at a loss to determine the precise degree
of chipping, at which an eolith ceases to be interpretable as the
fortuitous product of unconscious processes, and points infallibly to
the intelligent authorship of man, but he grows strangely obtuse to
the psychic implications of teleology, when it comes to explaining the
symmetry of a starfish or the beauty of a Bird of Paradise.

In conclusion, it is clear that the hypothesis of a spontaneous
origin of organic life from inorganic matter has in its favor neither
factual evidence nor aprioristic probability, but is, on the contrary,
ruled out of court by the whole force of the scientific principle of
induction. To recapitulate, there are no subcellular organisms, and
all cellular organisms (which is the same as saying, all organisms),
be they unicellular or multicellular, originate exclusively by
reproduction, that is, by generation from living parents of the same
organic type or species. This is the law of genetic vital continuity,
which, by the way, Aristotle had formulated long before Harvey, when
he said: “It appears that all living beings come from a germ, and the
germ from parents.” (“De Generatione Animalium,” lib. I, cap. 17.) All
reproduction, however, is reducible to a process of cell-division. That
such is the case with unicellular organisms is evident from the very
definition of a cell. That it is also true of multicellular organisms
can be shown by a review of the various forms of reproduction occurring
among plants and animals.


                 § 4. =Reproduction and Rejuvenation=

Reproduction, the sole means by which the torch of life is relayed
from generation to generation, the exclusive process by which
living individuals arise and races are perpetuated, consists in the
separation of a germ from the parent organism as a physical basis for
the development of a new organism. The germ thus separated may be
many-celled or one-celled, as we shall see presently, but the separated
cells, be they one or many, have their common and exclusive source in
the process of mitotic cell-division. In a few cases, this divisional
power or energy of the cell seems to be perennial by virtue of an
inherent inexhaustibility. In most cases, however, it is perennial by
virtue of a restorative process involving nuclear reorganization. In
the former cases, which are exceptional, the cellular stream of life
appears to flow onward forever with steady current, but as a general
rule it ebbs and flows in cycles, which involve a periodic rise
and fall of divisional energy. The phenomena of the life-cycle are
characteristic of most, perhaps all, organisms. The complete life-cycle
consists of three phases or periods, namely: an adolescent period of
high vitality, a mature period of balanced metabolism, and a senescent
period of decline. Each life-cycle begins with the germination of the
new organism and terminates with its death, and it is reproduction
which constitutes the connecting link between one life-cycle and
another.

Reproduction, as previously intimated, is mainly of two kinds, namely:
somatogenic reproduction, which is less general and confined to the
metists, and cytogenic reproduction, which is common to metists and
protists, and which is the ordinary method by which new organisms
originate. Reproduction is termed somatogenic, when the germ separated
from the body of the parent consists of a whole mass of somatic or
tissue cells not expressly set aside and specialized for reproductive
purposes. Reproduction is termed cytogenic, when the germ separated
from the parent or parents consists of a single cell (_e.g._ a spore,
gamete, or zygote) dedicated especially to reproductive purposes.

Cytogenic reproduction may be either nonsexual (agamic) or sexual,
according as the cell which constitutes the germ is an agamete or
a gamete. An agamete is a germ cell not specialized for union with
another complementary cell, or, in other words, it is a reproductive
cell incapable of syngamy, _e.g._ a spore. A gamete, on the other hand,
is a reproductive cell (germ cell) specialized for the production of a
zygote (a synthetic or diploid germ cell) by union with a complementary
cell, _e.g._ an egg, or a sperm.

Nonsexual cytogenic reproduction is of three kinds, according to the
nature of the agamete. When a unicellular organism gives rise to two
new individuals by simple cell-division, we have fissiparation or
binary fission. When a small cell or bud is formed and separated by
division from a larger parent cell, we have budding (gemmation) or
unequal fission. When the nucleus of the parent cell divides many
times to form a number of daughter-nuclei, which then partition the
cytoplasm of the parent cell among themselves so as to form a large
number of reproductive cells called spores, we have what is known
as sporulation or multiple fission. The first and second kind of
nonsexual reproduction are confined to the protists, but the third
kind (sporulation) also occurs among the metists.

Sexual cytogenic reproduction is based upon gametes or mating germ
cells. Since complementary gametes are specialized for union with each
other to form a single synthetic cell, the zygote, the number of their
nuclear threads or chromosomes is reduced to one half (the _haploid
number_) at the time of maturation, so that the somatic or tissue cells
of the parent organism have double the number (the _diploid number_)
of chromosomes present in the reduced or mature gametes. Hence, when
the gametes unite to form a zygote, summation is prevented and the
diploid number of chromosomes characteristic of the given species of
plant or animal is simply restored by the process of syngamy or union.
The process by which the number of chromosomes is reduced in gametes is
called _meiosis_, and, among the metists, it is distinct from syngamy,
which, in their case, is a separate process called fertilization. Among
the protists, we have, besides fertilization, another type of syngamy
called conjugation, which combines meiosis with fertilization.

In sexual reproduction, we have three kinds of gametes, namely:
isogametes, anisogametes, and heterogametes. In the type of sexual
reproduction known as isogamy, the complementary gametes are exactly
alike both in size and shape. There is no division of labor between
them. Each of the fusing gametes is equally fitted for the double
function which they must perform, namely, the kinetic function, which
enables them to reach each other and unite by means of movement,
and the trophic function which consists in laying up a store of
food for the sustenance of the developing embryo. In anisogamy, the
complementary gametes are alike in shape, but unlike in size, and
here we have the beginning of that division of labor, upon which the
difference of gender or sex is based. The larger or female gamete is
called a macrogamete. It is specialized for the trophic rather than
the kinetic function, being rendered more inert by having a large
amount of yolk or nutrient material stored up within it. The smaller
or male gamete is called a microgamete. It is specialized for the
kinetic function, since it contains less yolk and is the more agile of
the two. In anisogamy, however, the division of labor is not complete,
because both functions are still retained by either gamete, albeit
in differing measure. In the heterogamy, the differentiation between
the male and female gametes is complete, and they differ from each
other in structure as well as size. The larger or female gamete has
no motor apparatus and retains only the trophic function. The kinetic
function is sacrificed to the task of storing up a food supply for the
embryo. Such a gamete is called a hypergamete or egg. The smaller or
male gamete is known, in this case, as a hypogamete or sperm. It has a
motor apparatus, but no stored-up nutrients, and has even sloughed off
most of its cytoplasm, in its exclusive specialization for the motor
function. In heterogamy, accordingly, the division of labor is complete.

We may distinguish two principal kinds of sexual reproduction, namely:
unisexual reproduction and bisexual reproduction. When a single gamete
such as an unfertilized egg gives rise (with, or without, chromosomal
reduction) to a new organism, we have unisexual reproduction or
parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis from a reduced egg gives rise to an
organism having only the haploid number of chromosomes, as is the case
with the drone or male bee, but unreduced eggs give rise to organisms
having the diploid number of chromosomes. Parthenogenesis, as we shall
see presently, can, in some cases, be induced by artificial means.
When reproduction takes place from a zygote or diploid germ cell
formed by the union of two gametes, we have what is known as bisexual
reproduction or syngamy. It is, perhaps, permissible to distinguish a
third or intermediate kind of sexual reproduction, for which we might
coin the term autosexual. What we refer to as autosexual reproduction
is usually known as autogamy, and occurs when a diploid nucleus is
formed in a germ cell by the union (or, we might say, reunion) of
two daughter-nuclei derived from the same mother-nucleus. Autogamy
occurs not only among the protists (_e. g._ _Amœba albida_), but also
among the metists, as is the case with the brine shrimp, _Artemia
salina_, in which the diploid number of chromosomes is restored
after reduction by a reunion of the nucleus of the second polar body
with the reduced nucleus of the egg. Autogamy is somewhat akin to
kleistogamy, which occurs among hermaphroditic metists of both the
plant and animal kingdoms. The violet is a well-known example. In
kleistogamy or self-fertilization, the zygote is formed by the union of
two gametes derived from the same parent organism. Strictly speaking,
however, kleistogamy is not autogamy, but syngamy, and must, therefore,
be classed as bisexual reproduction. It is, of course, necessarily
confined to hermaphrodites.

Loeb’s experiments in artificial parthenogenesis have been
sensationally misinterpreted by some as an artificial production of
life. What Jacques Loeb really did was to initiate development in an
unfertilized egg by the use of chemical and physical excitants. The
writer has repeated these experiments with the unfertilized eggs of the
common sea urchin, _Arbacia punctulata_, using very dilute butyric acid
and hypertonic sea water as stimulants. Cleavage had started within an
hour and a half after the completion of the aforesaid treatment, and
the eggs were in the gastrula stage by the following morning (9 hours
later). In three days, good specimens of the larval stage known as the
pluteus could be found swimming in the normal sea water to which the
eggs had been transferred from the hypertonic solution. Since mature
sea urchin eggs undergo reduction before insemination takes place,
the larval sea urchins arising from these artificially activated
eggs had the reduced or haploid number of chromosomes instead of the
diploid number possessed by normal larvæ arising from eggs activated
by the sperm. For, in fertilization, the sperm not only activates the
egg, but is also the means of securing biparental inheritance, by
contributing its quota of chromosomes to the zygotic complex. Hence,
it is only in the former function, _i. e._ of initiating cleavage in
the egg, that a chemical excitant can replace the sperm. In any case,
it is evident that these experiments do not constitute an exception
to the law of genetic cellular continuity. The artificially activated
egg comes from the ovaries of a living female sea urchin, and in this
there is small consolation for the exponent of abiogenesis. The terse
comment of an old Irish Jesuit sizes up the situation very aptly: “The
Blue Flame Factory,” he said, “has announced another discovery of the
secret of life. A scientist made an egg and hatched an egg. The only
unfortunate thing was that the egg he hatched was not the egg he made.”
How an experiment of this sort could be interpreted as an artificial
production of life is a mystery. The only plausible explanation is that
given by Professor Wilson, who traces it to the popular superstition
that the egg is a lifeless substrate, which is animated by the sperm.
The idea owes its origin to the spermists of the 17th century, who
defended this doctrine against the older school of preformationists
known as ovists. It is now, however, an embryological commonplace that
egg and sperm are both equally cellular, equally protoplasmic, and
equally vital.

The phenomena of the life-cycle in organisms find their explanation in
what, perhaps, is inherent in all living matter, namely, a tendency to
involution and senescence. This tendency, in the absence of a remedial
process of rejuvenation, leads inevitably to death. Living matter seems
to “run down” like a clock, and to stand in similar need of a periodic
“rewinding.” This reinvigoration of protoplasm is accomplished by means
of several different types of nuclear reorganization. Since no nuclear
reorganization occurs in somatogenic reproduction, there seem to be
limits to this type of propagation. Plants, like the potato and the
apple, cannot be propagated indefinitely by means of tubers, shoots,
stems, etc. The stock plays out in time, and, ever and anon, recourse
must be had to seedlings. Hence a process of nuclear reorganization
seems, in most cases, at least, to be essential for the restoration of
vitality and the continuance of life. Whether this need of periodic
renewal is absolutely universal, we cannot say. The banana has been
propagated for over a century by the somatogenic method, and there
are a few other instances in which there appears to be no limit to
this type of reproduction. Nevertheless, the tendency to decline is
so common among living beings that the rare exceptions serve only to
confirm (if they do not follow) the general rule.

In cytogenic reproduction three kinds of rejuvenation by means of
nuclear reorganization are known: (1) amphimixis or syngamy; (2)
automixis or autogamy; (3) endomixis. In amphimixis or syngamy, two
gametic (haploid) nuclei of different parental lineage are commingled
to form the diploid nucleus of the zygote, which is consequently of
biparental origin. In automixis or autogamy, two reduced or haploid
nuclei of the same parental lineage unite to form a diploid nucleus,
the uniting nuclei being daughter-nuclei derived from a common parent
nucleus. In endomixis, the nucleus of the exhausted cell disintegrates
and fuses with the cytoplasm, out of which it is reformed or
reconstructed as the germinal nucleus of a rejuvenated cellular series.
Endomixis occurs as a periodic phenomenon among the protists, and it
appears to be homologous with parthenogenesis among metists. In certain
ciliates, like the Paramœcium, endomixis and syngamy are facultative
methods of rejuvenation. This has been proved most conclusively
by Professor Calkins’ work on _Uroleptus mobilis_, an organism in
which both endomixis and conjugation are amenable to experimental
control. Nonsexual reproduction in this protozoan (by binary fission)
is attended with a gradual weakening of metabolic activity, which
increases with each successive generation. The initial rate of division
and metabolic energy can, however, be restored either by conjugation
(of two individuals), or by endomixis, which takes place (in a single
individual) during encystment. The race, however, inevitably dies
out, if both encystment and conjugation are prevented. Even in such
protists as do not exhibit the phenomenon of nuclear reorganization
through sexual reproduction, Kofoid points to the phenomenon of
alternating periods of rest and rapid cell-division as evidence that
some process of periodically-recurrent nuclear organization must exist
in the organisms, which do not conjugate. This process of nuclear
reorganization manifested by periodic spurts of renewed divisional
energy is, according to Kofoid, a more primitive mode of rejuvenation
than endomixis. “The phenomenon of endomixis,” he says, “appears to be
somewhat more like that of parthenogenesis than a more primitive form
of nuclear reorganization.” (_Science_, April 6, 1923, p. 403.) At all
events, it seems safe to conclude that the tendency to senescence is
pretty general among living organisms, and that this tendency, unless
counteracted by a periodic reorganization of the nuclear genes, results
inevitably in the deterioration and final extinction of the race.

In this inexhaustible power of self-renewal inherent in all forms
of organic life, the mechanist and the upholder of abiogenesis
encounter an insuperable difficulty. In inorganic nature, where the
perpetual-motion device is a chimera, and the law of entropy reigns
in unchallenged supremacy, nothing analogous to it can be found. The
activity of all non-living units of nature, from the hydrogen atom
to the protein multimolecule, is rigidly determined by the principle
of the degradation of energy. The inorganic unit cannot operate
otherwise than by externalizing and dissipating irreparably its own
energy-content. Nor is its reconstruction and replenishment with energy
ever again possible except through the wasteful expenditure of energy
borrowed from some more richly endowed inorganic unit. In order to pay
Paul a little, Peter must be robbed of much. Wheresoever atoms are
built up into complex endothermic molecules, the constructive process
is rigidly dependent upon the administration thereto of external
energy, which in the process of absorption must of necessity fall from
a higher level of intensity. And when the energy thus absorbed by the
complex molecule is again set free by combustion, it is degraded to a
still lower potential, from which, without external intervention, it
can never rise again to its former plane of intensity. The phenomena
of radioactivity tell the same tale. All the heavier atoms, at least,
are constantly disintegrating with a concomitant discharge of energy.
There is no compensating process, however, enabling such an atom to
re-integrate and recharge itself at stated intervals; and, once it
has broken down into its component protons and electrons, “not all
the king’s horses nor all the king’s men can ever put Humpty-Dumpty
together again.” In a word, none of the inorganic units of the mineral
world exhibits that wonderful power of autonomous recuperation which
a unicellular ciliate manifests when it rejuvenates itself by means
of endomixis. The inorganic world knows of no constructive process
comparable to this. It is only in living beings that we find what
James Ward describes as the “tendency to disturb existing equilibria,
to reverse the dissipative processes which prevail throughout the
inanimate world, to store and build up where they are ever scattering
and pulling down, the tendency to conserve individual existence against
antagonistic forces, to grow and to progress, not inertly taking the
easier way but seemingly striving for the best, retaining every vantage
secured, and working for new ones.” (“On the Conservation of Energy,”
I, p. 285.)

Summing up, then, we have seen that the reproductive process, whereby
the metists or multicellular organism originate, resolves itself
ultimately into a process of cell-division. The same is true of the
protists or unicellular organisms. For all cells, whether they be
protists, germ cells, or somatic cells, originate in but one way, and
that is, from a preëxistent living cell by means of cell-division.
Neither experimentation nor observation has succeeded in revealing so
much as a single exception to the universal law of genetic cellular
continuity, and the hypothesis of spontogenesis is outlawed, in
consequence, by the logic of scientific induction. Even the hope that
future research may bring about an amelioration of its present status
is entirely unwarranted in view of the manifest dynamic superiority
of the living organism as compared with any of the inert units of the
inorganic world. “Whatever position we take on this question,” says
Edmund B. Wilson, in the conclusion of his work on the Cell, “the same
difficulty is encountered; namely, the origin of that coördinated
fitness, that power of active adjustment between internal and external
relations, which, as so many eminent biological thinkers have insisted,
overshadows every manifestation of life. The nature and origin of this
power is the fundamental problem of biology. When, after removing
the lens of the eye in the larval salamander, we see it restored in
perfect and typical form by regeneration from the posterior layer of
the iris, we behold an adaptive response to changed conditions of which
the organism can have no antecedent experience either ontogenetic or
phylogenetic, and one of so marvelous a character that we are made
to realize, as by a flash how far we still are from a solution of
this problem.” Then, after discussing the attempt of evolutionists to
bridge the enormous gap that separates living, from lifeless nature,
he continues: “But when all these admissions are made, and when the
conserving action (_sic_) of natural selection is in the fullest degree
recognized, we cannot close our eyes to two facts: first, that we are
utterly ignorant of the manner in which the idioplasm of the germ cell
can so respond to the influence of the environment as to call forth
an adaptive variation; and second, that the study of the cell has on
the whole seemed to widen rather than to narrow the enormous gap that
separates even the lowest forms of life from the inorganic world.”
(“The Cell,” 2nd edit., pp. 433, 434.)


                  § 5. A “New” Theory of Abiogenesis

Since true science is out of sympathy with baseless conjectures and
gratuitous assumptions, one would scarcely expect to find scientists
opposing the inductive trend of the known facts by preferring mere
possibilities (if they are even such) to solid actualities. As a matter
of fact, however, there are not a few who obstinately refuse to abandon
preconceptions for which they can find no factual justification. The
bio-chemist, Benjamin Moore, while conceding the bankruptcy of the
old theory of spontaneous generation, which looked for a _de novo_
origin of living cells in sterilized cultures, has, nevertheless,
the hardihood to propose what he is pleased to term a _new_ one.
Impressed by the credulity of Charlton Bastian and the autocratic tone
of Schäfer, he sets out to defend as plausible the hypothesis that
the origination of life from inert matter may be a contemporaneous,
perhaps, daily, phenomenon, going on continually, but invisible to us,
because its initial stages take place in the submicroscopic world.
By the time life has emerged into the visible world, it has already
reached the stage at which the law of genetic continuity prevails,
but at stages of organization, which lie below the limit of the
microscope, it is not impossible, he thinks, that abiogenesis may
occur. To plausibleize this conjecture, he notes that the cell is a
natural unit composed of molecules as a molecule is a natural unit
composed of atoms. He further notes, that, in addition to the cell,
there is in nature another unit higher than the monomolecule, namely,
the _multimolecule_ occurring in both crystalloids and colloids.
The monomolecule consists of atoms held together by atomic valence,
whereas the multimolecule consists of molecules whose atomic valence
is completely saturated, and which are, consequently, held together by
what is now known as _molecular_ or _residual valence_. Moore cites
the crystal units of sodium bromide and sodium iodide as instances of
multimolecules. The crystal unit of ordinary salt, sodium chloride, is
an ordinary monomolecule, with the formula NaCl. In the case of the
former salts the crystal units consist of multimolecules of the formula
NaB·(H₂O)₂ and NaI·(H₂O)₂, the water of crystallization not being
mechanically confined in the crystals, but combined with the respective
salt in the exact ratio of two molecules of water to one of the salt.
Judged by all chemical tests, such as heat of formation, the law of
combination in fixed ratios, the manifestation of selective affinity,
etc., the multimolecule is quite as much entitled to be considered a
natural unit as is the monomolecule.

But it is not in the crystalloidal multimolecule, but in the larger
and more complex multimolecule of colloids (viscid substances like
gum arabic, gelatine, agar-agar, white of egg, etc.), that Moore
professes to see a sort of intermediate between the cell and inorganic
units. Such colloids form with a dispersing medium (like water) an
emulsion, in which the dispersed particles, known as ultramicrons or
“solution aggregates,” are larger than monomolecules. It is among
these multimolecules of colloids that Moore would have us search for
a transitional link connecting the cell with the inorganic world.
Borrowing Herbert Spencer’s dogma of the complication of homogeneity
into heterogeneity, he asserts that such colloidal multimolecules
would tend to become more and more complex, and consequently more and
more instable, so that their instability would gradually approach the
chronic instability or constant state of metabolic fluxion manifest in
living organisms. The end-result would be a living unit more simply
organized than the cell, and evolution seizing upon this submicroscopic
unit would, in due time, transform it into cellular life of every
variety and kind. _Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte!_

It should be noted that this so-called law is a mere vague formula
like the “law” of natural selection and the “law” of evolution. The
facts which it is alleged to express are not cited, and its terms
are far from being quantitative. It is certainly not a law in the
sense of Arrhénius, who says: “Quantitative formulation, that is,
the establishing of a connection, expressed by a formula, between
different quantitatively measurable magnitudes, is the peculiar feature
of a law.” (“Theories of Chemistry,” Price’s translation, p. 3.) Now,
chemistry, as an exact science, has no lack of laws of this kind, but
no branch of chemistry, whether physical, organic, or inorganic, knows
of any _law of complexity_, that can be stated in either quantitative,
or descriptive, terms. We will, however, let Moore speak for himself:

“It may then be summed up as a general law universal in its application
to all matter, ... a law which might be called the Law of Complexity,
that matter so far as its energy environment will permit tends to
assume more and more complex forms in labile equilibrium. Atoms,
molecules, colloids, and living organisms, arise as a result of the
operations of this law, and in the higher regions of complexity it
induces organic evolution and all the many thousands of living forms....

“In this manner we can conceive that the hiatus between non-living and
living things can be bridged over, and there awakens in our minds the
conception of a kind of spontaneous production of life of a different
order from the old. The territory of this spontaneous generation of
life lies not at the level of bacteria, or animalculæ, springing forth
into life from dead organic matter, but at a level of life lying deeper
than anything the microscope can reveal, and possessing a lower unit
than the living cell, as we form our concept of it from the tissues of
higher animals and plants.

“In the future, the stage at which colloids begin to be able to
deal with external energy forms, such as light, and build up in
chemical complexity, will yield a new unit of life opening a vista of
possibilities as magnificent as that which the establishment of the
cell as a unit gave, with the development of the microscope, about a
century ago.” (“Origin and Nature of Life,” pp. 188-190.)

Having heard out a rhapsody of this sort, one may be pardoned a little
impatience at such a travesty on science. Again we have the appeal from
realities to fancies, from the seen to unseen. Moore sees no reason
to doubt and is therefore quite sure that an unverified occurrence
is taking place “at a level of life lying deeper than anything the
microscope can reveal.” The unknown is a veritable paradise for
irresponsible speculation and phantasy. It is well, however, to keep
one’s feet on the _terra firma_ of ascertained facts and to make one’s
ignorance a motive for caution rather than an incentive to reckless
dogmatizing.

To begin with, it is not to a single dispersed particle or ultramicron
that protoplasm has been likened, but to an emulsion, comprising both
the dispersed particles and the dispersing medium, or, in other words,
to the colloidal system as a whole. Moreover, even there the analogy
is far from being perfect, and is confined exclusively, as Wilson has
pointed out, to a rough similarity of structure and appearance. The
colloidal system is obviously a mere _aggregate_ and not a _natural
unit_ like the cell, and its dispersed particles (ultramicrons) do
not multiply and perpetuate themselves by growth and division as do
the living components or formed bodies of the cell. As for the single
ultramicron or multimolecule of a colloidal solution, it may, indeed,
be a natural unit, but it only resembles the cell in the sense that,
like the latter, it is a complex of constituent molecules. Here,
however, all resemblance ceases; for the ultramicron does not display
the typically vital power of self-perpetuation by growth and division,
which, as we have seen, is characteristic not only of the cell as a
whole, but of its single components or organelles. Certainly, the
distinctive phenomena of colloidal systems cannot be interpreted as
processes of multiplication. There is nothing suggestive of this vital
phenomenon in the reversal of phase, which is caused by the addition
of electrolytes to oil emulsions, or in gelation, which is caused by
a change of temperature in certain hydrophilic colloids. Thus the
addition of the salt of a bivalent cation (_e.g._ CaCl₂ or BaCl₂)
to an oil-in-water emulsion (if soap is used as the emulsifier) will
cause the external or continuous phase (water) to become the internal
or discontinuous phase. Vice versa, a water-in-oil emulsion can be
reversed into an oil-in-water emulsion, under the same conditions,
by the addition of the salt of a monovalent cation (_e. g._ NaOH).
Solutions of hydrophilic colloids, like gelatine or agar-agar, can
be made to “set” from the semifluid state of a hydrosol into the
semisolid state of a hydrogel, by lowering the temperature, after
which the opposite effect can be brought about by again raising the
temperature. In white of egg, however, once gelation has taken place,
through the agency of heat, it is impossible to reconvert the “gel”
into a “sol” (solution). In such phenomena, it is, perhaps, possible
to see a certain parallelism with some processes taking place in the
cell, _e. g._ the osmotic processes of absorption and excretion, but to
construe them as evidence of propagation by growth and division would
be preposterous.

Nor is the subterfuge of relegating the question to the obscurity
of the submicroscopic world of any avail; for, as a matter of
fact, submicroscopic organisms actually do exist, and manage,
precisely by virtue of this uniquely vital power of multiplication
or reproductivity, to give indirect testimony of their invisible
existence. The microörganisms, for example, which cause the disease
known as Measles are so minute that they pass through the pores
of a porcelain filter, and are invisible to the highest powers of
the microscope. Nevertheless, they can be bred in the test tube
cultures of the bacteriologist, where they propagate themselves for
generations without losing the definite specificity, which make
them capable of producing distinctive pathological effects in the
organisms of higher animals, including man. Each of these invisible
disease germs communicates but one disease, with symptoms that are
perfectly characteristic and definite. Moreover, they are specific in
their choice of a host, and will not infect any and every organism
promiscuously. Finally, they never arise _de novo_ in a healthy
host, but must always be transmitted from a diseased to a healthy
individual. The microscopist is tantalized, to quote the words of
Wilson, “with visions of disease germs which no eye has yet seen,
so minute as to pass through a fine filter, yet beyond a doubt
self-perpetuating and of specific type.” (_Science_, March 9, 1923,
p. 283.) Submicroscopic dimensions, therefore, are no obstacle to
the manifestation of such vital properties as reproduction, genetic
continuity, and typical specificity; and we must conclude that, if
any of the ultramicrons of colloids possessed them, their minute size
would not debar them from manifesting the fact. As it is, they fail to
show any vital quality, whereas the submicroscopic disease germs give
evidence of possessing all the characteristics of visible cells.

In fine, the radical difference between inorganic units, like atoms,
molecules, and multimolecules, and living units, like protozoans and
metazoans, is so obvious that it is universally admitted. Not all,
however, are in accord when it comes to assigning the fundamental
reason for the difference in question. Benjamin Moore postulates a
unique physical energy, peculiar to living organisms and responsible
for all distinctively vital manifestations. This unique form of energy,
unlike all other forms, he calls “biotic energy,” denying at the same
time that it is a vital force. (Cf. _op. cit._, pp. 224-226.) Moore
seems to be desirous of dressing up vitalism in the verbal vesture of
mechanism. He wants the game, without the name. But, if his “biotic
energy” is unlike all other forms of energy, it ought not to parade
under the same name, but should frankly call itself a “vital force.”
Somewhat similar in nature is Osborn’s suggestion that the peculiar
properties of living protoplasm may be due to the presence of a
unique chemical element called Bion. (Cf. “The Origin and Evolution
of Life,” 1917, p. 6.) Now, a chemical element unlike other chemical
elements is not a chemical element at all. Osborn’s Bion, like Moore’s
biotic energy, ought, by all means, to make up its mind definitely on
Hamlet’s question of “to be, or not to be.” The policy of “It is, and
it is not,” is not likely to win the approval of either mechanists or
vitalists.


          § 6. Hylomorphism versus Mechanism and Neo-vitalism

Mechanism and Neo-vitalism represent two extreme solutions of this
problem of accounting for the difference between living and lifeless
matter. Strictly speaking, it is an abuse of language to refer to
mechanism as a solution at all. Its first pretense at solving the
problem is to deny that there is any problem. But facts are facts and
cannot be disposed of in this summary fashion. Forced, therefore, to
face the actual fact of the uniqueness of living matter, mechanists
concede the inadequacy of their physicochemical analogies, but
obstinately refuse to admit the legitimacy of any other kind of
explanation. Confronted with realities, which simply must have _some_
explanation, they prefer to leave them unexplained by their own theory
than have them explained by any other. They recognize the difference
between a living animal and a dead animal (small credit to them for
their perspicacity!), but deny that there is anything present in the
former which is not present in the latter.

Neo-vitalism, on the other hand, is, at least, an attempt at solving
the problem in the positive sense. It ascribes the unique activities of
living organisms to the operation of a superphysical and superchemical
energy or force resident in living matter. This unique dynamic
principle is termed _vital force_. It is not an entitive nor a static
principle, but belongs to the category of efficient or active causes,
being variously described as an agent, energy, or force. To speak
precisely, the term agent denotes an active being or substance; the
term energy denotes the proximate ground in the agent of a specific
activity; while the term force denotes the activity or free, kinetic,
or activated phase of a given energy. In practice, however, these
terms are often used interchangeably. Thus Driesch, who, like all
other Neo-vitalists, makes the vital principle a dynamic factor
rather than an entitive principle, refers to the vital principle as a
“non-material,” “non-spatial” _agent_, though the term _energy_ would
be more precise. To this active or dynamic vital principle Driesch
gives a name, which he borrowed from Aristotle, that is, _entelechy_.
In so doing, however, he perverted, as he himself confesses, the true
Aristotelian sense of the term in question: “The term,” he says,
“... is not here used in the proper Aristotelian sense.” (“History and
Theory of Vitalism,” p. 203.) His admission is quite correct. At the
critical point, Driesch, for all his praise of Aristotle, deserts
the Stagirite and goes over to the camp of Plato, Descartes, and the
Neo-vitalists!

Driesch’s definition is as follows: “Entelechy is an agent _sui
generis_, non-material and non-spatial, but acting ‘into’ space.”
(_Op. cit._, p. 204.) Aristotle’s use of the term in this connection
is quite different. He uses it, for example, in a static, rather than
a dynamic, sense: “The term ‘entelechy,’” he says, “is used in two
senses; in one it answers to knowledge, in the other to the exercise of
knowledge. Clearly in this case it is analogous to knowledge.” (“Peri
Psyches,” Bk. II, c. 1.) Knowledge, however, is only a _second_ or
static _entelechy_. Hence, in order to narrow the sense still further
Aristotle refers to the _soul_ as a _first_ entelechy, by which he
designates a purely _entitive_ principle, that is, a constituent of
being or substance (cf. _op. cit._ _ibidem_). The _first_, or entitive,
entelechy, therefore, is to be distinguished from all secondary
entelechies, whether of the _dynamic_ order corresponding to kinetic
energy or force, or of the _static_ order corresponding to potential
energy. Neither is it an _agent_, because it is only a partial
constituent of the total agent, that is, of the total active being or
substance. Hence, generally speaking, _that which acts_ (the agent)
is not entelechy, but the total composite of entelechy and matter,
_first entelechy_ being consubstantial with matter and not a separate
existent or being. In fine, according to Aristotelian philosophy,
entelechy (that is, “first” or “prime” entelechy) is not an agent nor
an energy nor a force. In other words, it is totally removed from the
category of efficient or active causes. The second difference between
Driesch and Aristotle with respect to the use of the term entelechy
lies in the fact that Driesch uses it as a synonym for the soul or
vital principle, whereas, according to Aristotle, _entelechy is common
to the non-living units of inorganic nature as well as the living
units_ (organisms) _of the organic world_. All vital principles or
souls are entelechies, but not all entelechies are vital principles.
All material beings or substances, whether living or lifeless, are
reducible, in the last analysis, to two consubstantial principles or
complementary constituents, namely, entelechy and matter. Entelechy
is the binding, type-determining principle, the source of unification
and specification, which makes of a given natural unit (such as a
molecule or a protozoan) a single and determinate whole. Matter is
the determinable and potentially-multiple element, the principle of
divisibility and quantification, which can enter indifferently into the
composition of this or that natural unit, and which owes its actual
unity and specificity to the entelechy which here and now informs
it. It is entelechy which makes a chemical element distinct from its
isobare, a chemical compound distinct from its isomer, a paramœcium
distinct from an amœba, a maple distinct from an oak, and a bear
distinct from a tiger.

The molecular entelechy finds expression in what the organic chemist
and the stereochemist understand by valence, that is, the static aspect
of valence considered as the structural principle of a molecule.
Hence it is entelechy which makes a molecule of urea [O:C:(NH₂)₂]
an entirely different substance from its isomer ammonium cyanate
[NH₄·O·C:N], although the material substrate of each of these molecular
units consists of precisely the same number and kinds of atoms.
Similarly, it is the atomic entelechy which gives to the isotopes of
Strontium chemical properties different from those of the isotopes of
Rubidium, although the mass and corpuscular (electronic and protonic)
composition of their respective atoms are identical. It is the vital
entelechy or soul, which causes a fragment cut from a Stentor to
regenerate its specific protoplasmic architecture instead of the type
which would be regenerated from a similar fragment cut from another
ciliate such as Dileptus.

In all the tridimensional units of nature, both living and non-living,
the hylomorphic analysis of Aristotle recognizes an essential dualism
of matter and entelechy. Hence it is not in the presence and absence
of an entelechy (as Driesch contends) that living organisms differ
from inorganic units. The sole difference between these two classes of
units is one of autonomy and inertia. The inorganic unit is inert, not
in the sense that it is destitute of energy, but in the sense that it
is incapable of self-regulation and rigidly dependent upon external
factors for the utilization of its own energy-content. The living
unit, on the other hand, is endowed with dynamic autonomy. Though
dependent, in a general way, upon environmental factors for the energy
which it utilizes, nevertheless the determinate form and direction of
its activity is not imposed in all its specificity by the aforesaid
environmental factors. The living being possesses a certain degree of
independence with respect to these external forces. It is autonomous
with a special law of immanent finality or reflexive orientation, by
which all the elements and energies of the living unit are made to
converge upon one and the same central result, namely, the maintenance
and development of the organism both in its capacity as an individual
and in its capacity as the generative source of its racial type.

The entelechies of the inert units of inorganic nature turn the
forces of these units in an _outward direction_, so that they are
incapable of operating upon themselves, of modifying themselves, or
of regulating themselves. They are only capable of operating upon
other units outside themselves, and in so doing they irreparably
externalize their energy-contents. All physicochemical action is
_transitive_ or _communicable_ in character, whereas vital action
is of the _reflexive_ or _immanent_ type. Mechanical action, for
example, is intermolar (_i.e._ an exchange between large masses of
inorganic matter); physical action is intermolecular; chemical action
is interatomic; while in radioactive and electrical phenomena we have
intercorpuscular action. Hence all the forms of activity native to the
inorganic world are reducible to _interaction_ between discontinuous
and unequally energized masses or particles. Always it is a case of
one mass or particle operating upon another mass or particle distinct
from, and spatially external to, itself. The effect or positive change
produced by the action is received into another unit distinct from the
agent or active unit, which can never become the receptive subject of
the effect generated by its own activity. The living being, on the
contrary, is capable of operating upon itself, so that what is modified
by the action is not outside the agent but within it. The reader does
not modify the book, but modifies himself by his reading. The blade
of grass can nourish not only a horse, but its very self, whereas a
molecule of sodium nitrate is impotent to nourish itself, and can
only nourish a subject other than itself, such as the blade of grass.
Here the active source and receptive subject of the action is one and
the same unit, namely, the living organism, which can operate upon
itself in the interest of its own perfection. In chemical synthesis
two substances interact to produce a third, but in vital assimilation
one substance is incorporated into another without the production of
a third. Thus hydrogen unites with oxygen to produce water. But in
the case of assimilation the reaction may be expressed thus: Living
protoplasm plus external nutriment equals living protoplasm increased
in quantity but unchanged in specificity. Addition or subtraction
alters the nature of the inorganic unit, but does not change the nature
of the living unit. In chemical change, entelechy is the variant and
matter is the constant, but in metabolic change, matter is the variant
and entelechy the constant. “Living beings,” says Henderson, “preserve,
or tend to preserve, an ideal form, while through them flows a steady
stream of energy and matter which is ever changing, yet momentarily
molded by life; organized, in short.” (“Fitness of the Environment,”
1913, pp. 23, 24.) The living unit maintains its own specific type
amid a constant flux of matter and flow of energy. It subjugates the
alien substances of the inorganic world, eliminates their mineral
entelechies and utilizes their components and energies for its own
purposes. The soul or vital entelechy, therefore, is more powerful than
the entelechies of inorganic units which it supplants. It turns the
forces of living matter _inward_, so that the living organism becomes
capable of _self-regulation_ and of striving for the attainment of
self-perfection. It is this _reflexive orientation_ of all energies
towards self-perfection that is the unique characteristic of the living
being, and not the nature of the energies themselves. The energies by
which vital functions are executed are the ordinary physicochemical
energies, but it is the vital entelechy or soul which elevates them
to a higher plane of efficiency and renders them capable of reflexive
or vital action. There is, in short, no such thing as a special vital
force. The radical difference between living and non-living units does
not consist in the possession or non-possession of an entelechy, nor
yet in the peculiar nature of the forces displayed in the execution of
vital functions, but solely in the orientation of these forces towards
an inner finality.


                      § 7. The Definition of Life

Life, then, may be defined as the capacity of reflexive or
self-perfective action. In any action, we may distinguish four things:
(1) the agent, or source of the action; (2) the activity or internal
determination differentiating the agent in the active state from the
selfsame agent in the inactive state; (3) the patient or receptive
subject; (4) the effect or change produced in the patient by the
agent. Let us suppose that a boy named Tom kicks a door. Here Tom is
the agent, the muscular contraction in his leg is the activity, the
door is the patient or recipient, while the dent produced in the door
is the effect or change of which the action is a production. In this
action, the effect is produced not in the cause or agent, but in a
patient outside of, and distinct from, the agent, and the otherness of
cause and effect is consequently complete. Such an action is termed
transitive, which is the characteristic type of physicochemical action.
In another class of actions, however, (those, namely, that are peculiar
to living beings) the otherness of cause and effect is only partial
and relative. When the agent becomes ultimately the recipient of the
effect or modification wrought by its own activity, that is, when
the positive change produced by the action remains within the agent
itself, the action is called immanent or reflexive action. Since,
however, action and passion are opposites, they can coëxist in the same
subject only upon condition that said subject is differentiated into
partial otherness, that is, organized into a plurality of distinct and
dissimilar parts or components, one of which may act upon another.
Hence only the organized unit or organism, which combines unity or
continuity of substance with multiplicity and dissimilarity of parts
is capable of immanent action. The inorganic unit is capable only of
transitive action, whose effect is produced in an exterior subject
really distinct from the agent. The living unit or organism, however,
is capable of both transitive action and immanent (reflexive) action.
In such functions as thought and sensation, the living agent modifies
itself and not an exterior patient. In the nutritive or metabolic
function the living being perfects itself by assimilating external
substances to itself. It develops, organizes, repairs, and multiplies
itself, holding its own and perpetuating its type from generation to
generation.

Life, accordingly, is the capacity of tending through any form of
reflexive action to an ulterior perfection of the agent itself.
This capacity of an agent to operate of, and upon, itself for the
acquisition of some perfection exceeding its natural equilibrial state
is the distinctive attribute of the living being. Left to itself, the
inorganic unit tends exclusively to conservation or to loss, never
to positive acquisition in excess of equilibrial exigencies; what
it acquires it owes exclusively to the action of external factors.
The living unit, on the contrary, strives in its vital operations to
acquire something for itself, so that what it gets it owes to itself
and not (except in a very general sense) to the action of external
factors. All the actions of the living unit, both upon itself and upon
external matter, result sooner or later in the acquisition on the part
of the agent of a positive perfection exceeding and transcending the
mere exigencies of equilibration. The inorganic agent, on the contrary,
when in the state of tension, tends only to return to the equilibrial
state by alienation or expenditure of its energy; otherwise, it
tends merely to conserve, by virtue of inertia, the state of rest or
motion impressed upon it from without. In the chemical changes of
inorganic units, the tendency to loss is even more in evidence. Such
changes disrupt the integrity of the inorganic unit and dissipate its
energy-content, and the unit cannot be reconstructed and recharged,
except at the expense of a more richly endowed inorganic unit. The
living organism, however, as we see in the case of the paramæcium
undergoing endomixis, is capable of counteracting exhaustion by
recharging itself.

The difference between transitive and reflexive action is not an
accidental difference of _degree_, but an essential difference of
_kind_. In reflexive actions, the source of the action and the
recipient of the effect or modification produced by it are one and the
same substantial unit or being. In transitive actions, the receptive
subject of the positive change is an alien unit distinct from the
unit, which puts forth the action. Hence a reflexive action is not
an action which is _less_ transitive; it is an action which is _not
at all_ transitive, but intransitive. The difference, therefore,
between the living organism, which is capable of both reflexive and
transitive action, and the inorganic unit, which is only capable
of transitive action, is _radical_ and _essential_. This being the
case, an evolutionary transition from an inert multimolecule to a
reflexively-operating cell or cytode, becomes inconceivable. Evolution
might, at the very most, bring about intensifications and combinations
of the transitive agencies of the physicochemical world, but never
the _volte face_, which would be necessary to reverse the centrifugal
orientation of forces characteristic of the inorganic unit into the
centripetal orientation of forces which makes the living unit capable
of self-perfective action, self-regulation, and self-renewal. The idea,
therefore, of a spontaneous derivation of living units from lifeless
colloidal multimolecules must be rejected, not merely because it finds
no support in the facts of experience, but also because it is excluded
by aprioristic considerations.


                     § 8. An Inevitable Corollary

But, if inorganic matter is impotent to vitalize itself by means of its
native physicochemical forces, the inevitable alternative is that the
initial production of organisms from inorganic matter was due to the
action of some supermaterial agency. Certain scientists, like Henderson
of Harvard, while admitting the incredibility of abiogenesis, prefer
to avoid open conflict with mechanism and materialism by declaring
their neutrality. “But while biophysicists like Professor Schäfer,”
says Henderson, “follow Spencer in assuming a gradual evolution of the
organic from the inorganic, biochemists are more than ever unable to
perceive how such a process is possible, and without taking any final
stand prefer to let the riddle rest.” (“Fitness of the Environment,”
p. 310, footnote.) Not to take a decisive stand on this question,
however, is tantamount to making a compromise with what is illogical
and unscientific; for both logic and the inductive trend of biological
facts are arrayed against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation.

In the first place, it is manifest that organic life is neither
self-explanatory nor eternal. Hence it must have had its origin in the
action of some external agency. Life as it exists today depends upon
the precedence of numerous unbroken chains of consecutive cells that
extend backward into a remote past. It is, however, a logical necessity
to put an end to this retrogradation of the antecedents upon which the
actual existence of our present organisms depends. The infinite cannot
be spanned by finite steps; the periodic life-process could not be
relayed through an unlimited temporal distance; and a cellular series
which never started would never arrive. Moreover, we do not account for
the existence of life by extending the cellular series interminably
backward. Each cell in such a series is derived from a predecessor,
and, consequently, no cell in the series is self-explanatory. When it
comes to accounting for its own existence, each cell is a zero in the
way of explanation, and adding zeros together indefinitely will never
give us a positive total. Each cell refers us to its predecessor for
the explanation of why it exists, and none contains within itself the
sufficient explanation of its own existence. Hence increasing even to
infinity the number of these cells (which fail to explain themselves)
will give us nothing else but a zero in the way of explanation. If,
therefore, the primordial cause from which these cellular chains are
suspended is not the agency of the physicochemical forces of inorganic
nature, it follows that the first active cause of life must have been a
_supermaterial_ and _extramundane agency_, namely, the Living God and
Author of Life.

As a matter of fact, no one denies that life has had a beginning on
our globe. The physicist teaches that a beginning of our entire solar
system is implied in the law of the degradation of energy, and various
attempts have been made to determine the time of this beginning.
The older calculations were based on the rate of solar radiation;
the more recent ones, however, are based on quantitative estimates
of the disintegration products of radioactive elements. Similarly,
the geologist and the astronomer propound theories of a gradual
constitution of the cosmic environment, which organic life requires
for its support, and all such theories imply a _de novo_ origin or
beginning of life in the universe. Thus the old _nebular hypothesis_ of
Laplace postulated a hot origin of our solar system incompatible with
the coëxistence of organic life, which, as the experiments of Pasteur
and others have shown, is destroyed, in all cases, at a temperature
just above 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit). Even the enzymes or
organic catalysts, which are essential for bio-chemical processes,
are destroyed at a temperature between 60° and 70° Centigrade. This
excludes the possibility of the contemporaneousness of protoplasm
and inorganic matter, and points to a beginning of life in our solar
system. Moreover, independently of this theory, the geologist sees
in the primitive crystalline rocks (granites, diorites, basalts,
etc.) and in the extant magmas of volcanoes evidences of an azoic
age, during which temperatures incompatible with the survival of even
the blue-green algæ or the most resistent bacterial spores must have
prevailed over the surface of the globe. In fact, it is generally
recognized by geologists that the igneous or pyrogenic rocks, which
contain no fossils, preceded the sedimentary or fossiliferous rocks.
The new _planetesimal hypothesis_, it is true, is said to be compatible
with a cold origin of the universe. Nevertheless, this theory assumes
a very gradual condensation of our cosmos out of dispersed gases and
star dust, whereas life demands as the _sine qua non_ condition of its
existence a differentiated environment consisting of a lithosphere, a
hydrosphere, and an atmosphere. Hence, it is clear that life did not
originate until such an appropriate environment was an accomplished
fact. All theories of cosmogony, therefore, point to a beginning of
life subsequent to the constitution of the inorganic world.

Now, it is impossible for organic life to antecede itself. If,
therefore, it has had a beginning in the world, it must have had a
first active cause distinct from itself; and the active cause, in
question, must, consequently, have been either something intrinsic, or
something extrinsic, to inorganic matter. The hypothesis, however, of
a spontaneous origin of life through the agency of forces intrinsic
to inorganic matter is scientifically untenable. Hence it follows that
life originated through the action of an immaterial or spiritual agent,
namely, God, seeing that there is no other assignable agency capable of
bringing about the initial production of life from lifeless matter.


                         § 9. Futile Evasions

Many and various are the efforts made to escape this issue. One group
of scientists, for example, attempt to rid themselves of the difficulty
by diverting our attention from the problem of a beginning of organic
life in the universe to the problem of its translation to a new
habitat. This legerdemain has resulted in the theories of _cosmozoa_
or _panspermia_, according to which life originates in a favorable
environment, not by reason of spontaneous generation, but by reason
of importation from other worlds. This view has been presented in two
forms: (1) the “meteorite” theory, which represents the older view
held by Thomson and Helmholtz; (2) the more recent theory of “cosmic
panspermia” advocated by Svante Arrhénius, with H. E. Richter and F.
J. Cohn as precursors. Sir Wm. Thompson suggested that life might have
been salvaged from the ruins of other worlds and carried to our own by
means of meteorites or fragments thrown off from life-bearing planets
that had been destroyed by a catastrophic collision. These meteorites
discharged from bursting planets might carry germs to distant planets
like the earth, causing them to become covered with vegetation. Against
this theory stands the fatal objection that the transit of a meteorite
from the nearest stellar system to our own would require an interval
of 60,000,000 years. It is incredible that life could be maintained
through such an enormous lapse of time. Even from the nearest planet
to our earth the duration of the journey would be 150 years. Besides,
meteorites are heated to incandescence while passing through the
atmosphere, and any seeds they might contain would perish by reason of
the heat thus generated, not to speak of the terrific impact, which
terminates the voyage of a meteorite.

Arrhénius suggests a method by which microörganisms might be conveyed
through intersidereal space with far greater dispatch and without any
mineral vehicle such as a meteorite. He notes that particles of cosmic
dust leave the sun as a coronal atmosphere and are propelled through
intervening space by the pressure of radiation until they reach the
higher atmosphere of the earth (viz. at a height of 100 kilometers from
the surface of the latter), where they become the electrically charged
dust particles of polar auroras (_v.g._ the aurora borealis). The motor
force, in this case, is the same as that which moves the vanes of a
Crookes’ radiometer. Lebedeff has verified Clerk-Maxwell’s conceptions
of this force and has demonstrated its reality by experiments. It is
calculated that in the immediate vicinity of a luminous surface like
that of the sun the pressure exerted by radiation upon an exposed
surface would be nearly two milligrams per square centimeter. On
a nontransparent particle having a diameter of 1.5 microns, the
pressure of radiation would just counterbalance the force of universal
gravitation, while on particles whose diameter was 0.16 of a micron,
the pressure of radiation would be ten times as great as the pull of
gravitation. Now bacterial spores having a diameter of O.3 to O.2 of a
micron are known to bacteriologists, and the ultramicroscope reveals
the presence of germs not more than O.1 of a micron in size.[11] Hence
it is conceivable that germs of such dimensions might be wafted
to limits of our atmosphere, and might then be transported by the
pressure of radiation to distant planets or stellar systems, provided,
of course, they could escape the germicidal action of oxidation,
desiccation, ultra-violet rays, etc. Arrhénius calculates that their
journey from the earth to Mars would, under such circumstances, occupy
a period of only 20 days. Within 80 days they could reach Jupiter,
and they might arrive at Neptune on the confines of our solar system
after an interval of 3 weeks. The transit to the constellation of the
Centaur, which contains the solar system nearest to our own (the one,
namely, whose central sun is the star Alpha), would require 9,000 years.

    [11] Recently, by means of photography with short-length light
    waves, the bacteria of “Foot-and-mouth disease,” invisible to
    the highest power microscope, have been revealed as rods about
    100 submicrons (_i.e._ O.1 micron, or O.0001 millimeter) in
    length. (_cf._ _Science_, May 30, 1924, Supplement X.) Germs
    of this dimension could be as easily transported by radiation
    as the alleged electrically charged stardust in the aurora
    borealis. It may be of interest, however, to note, in this
    connection, that the most recent theory of the aurora borealis
    discards stardust in favor of nitrogen snow. Lars Vegard, a
    Norwegian professor, ascribes the peculiar greenish tint in the
    Northern Lights to the action of solar radiations on nitrogen
    snow, which he assumes to exist at an altitude of more than
    60 miles above the earth. When he condensed crystals of solid
    nitrogen on a copper plate by freezing with liquid hydrogen,
    he found that these crystals, after bombardment with cathode
    rays, emit a light of green color, which gives the same strong
    green spectrum line as the spectrum of the aurora. As the
    solid nitrogen evaporates, it begins to emit the reddish light
    characteristic of nitrogen gas. This phenomenon would explain
    the changes of color that occur in the aurora borealis. (_cf._
    _Science_, April 18, 1924, Suppl. X.)

Arrhénius’ theory, however, that “life is an eternal rebeginning”
explains nothing and leaves us precisely where we were. In the
metaphysical as well as the scientific sense, it is an evasion and
not a solution. To the logical necessity of putting an end to the
retrogradation of the subalternate conditions, upon which the realities
of the present depend for their actual existence, we have already
adverted. Moreover, the reasons which induce the scientist to postulate
a beginning of life in our world are not based on any distinctive
peculiarity of that world, but are universally applicable, it being
established by the testimony of the spectroscope that other worlds are
not differently constituted than our own. Hence Schäfer voices the
general attitude of scientific men when he says: “But the acceptance
of such theories of the arrival of life on earth does not bring us any
nearer to a conception of its actual mode of origin; on the contrary,
it merely serves to banish the investigation of the question to
some conveniently inaccessible corner of the universe and leaves us
in the unsatisfactory condition of affirming not only that we have
no knowledge as to the mode of origin of life—which is unfortunately
true—but that we never can acquire such knowledge—which it is to be
hoped is not true. Knowing what we know, and believing what we believe,
... we are, I think (without denying the possibility of the existence
of life in other parts of the universe), justified in regarding these
cosmic theories as inherently improbable.” (Dundee Address of 1912, cf.
Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 503.)

Dismissing, therefore, all evasions of this sort, we may regard as
scientifically established the conclusion that, so far as our knowledge
goes, inorganic nature lacks the means of self-vivification, and that
no inanimate matter can become living matter without first coming
under the influence of matter previously alive. Given, therefore,
that the conditions favorable to life did not always prevail in our
cosmos, it follows that life had a beginning, for which we are obliged
to account by some postulate other than abiogenesis. This conclusion
seems inescapable for those who concede the scientific absurdity of
spontaneous generation, but, by some weird freak of logic, not only
is it escaped, but the very opposite conclusion is reached through
reasoning, which the exponents are pleased to term philosophical, as
distinguished from scientific, argumentation. The plight of these
“hard-headed worshippers of fact,” who plume themselves on their
contempt for “metaphysics,” is sad indeed. Worsted in the experimental
field, they appeal the case from the court of facts to that aprioristic
philosophy. “Physic of metaphysic begs defence, and metaphysic calls
for aid on sense!”

Life, they contend, either had no beginning or it must have begun
in our world as the product of spontaneous generation. But all the
scientific theories of cosmogony exclude the former alternative.
Consequently, not only is it not absurd to admit spontaneous
generation, but, on the contrary, it is absurd not to admit it. It
is in this frame of mind that August Weismann is induced to confide
to us “that spontaneous generation, in spite of all the vain attempts
to demonstrate it, remains for me a logical necessity.” (“Essays,” p.
34, Poulton’s Transl.) The presupposition latent in all such logic is,
of course, the assumption that nothing but matter exists; for, if the
possibility of the existence of a supermaterial agency is conceded,
then obviously we are not compelled by _logical necessity_ to ascribe
the initial production of organic life to the exclusive agency of the
physicochemical energies inherent in inorganic matter. Weismann should
demonstrate his suppressed premise that matter coincides with reality
and that spiritual is a synonym for nonexistent. Until such time as
this unverified and unverifiable affirmation is substantiated, the
philosophical proof for abiogenesis is not an argument at all, it is
dogmatism pure and simple.

But, they protest, “To deny spontaneous generation is to proclaim
a miracle” (Nägeli), and natural science cannot have recourse to
“miracles” in explaining natural phenomena. For the “scientist,”
miracles are always absurd as contradicting the uniformity of nature,
and to recur to them for the solution of a scientific problem is,
to put it mildly, distinctly out of the question. Hence Haeckel
regards spontaneous generation as more than demonstrated by the bare
consideration that no alternative remains except the unspeakable
scientific blasphemy implied in superstitious terms like “miracle,”
“creation,” and “supernatural.” For a “thinking man,” the mere mention
of these abhorrent words is, or ought to be, argument enough. “If
we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous generation,” Haeckel
expostulates, “we must have recourse to the miracle of a _supernatural
creation_.” (Italics his—“History of Creation,” I, p. 348, Lankester’s
Transl.) It would be a difficult matter, indeed, to cram more blunders
into one short sentence! We will not, and need not, undertake to defend
the supernatural here. Suffice it to say, that the initiation of life
in inorganic matter by the Author of Life would not be a creation, nor
a miracle, nor a phenomenon pertaining to the supernatural order.

The principle of the minimum forbids us to postulate the superfluous,
and a creative act would be superfluous in the production of the first
organisms. Inorganic nature contains all the material elements found in
living organisms, and all organisms, in fact, derive their matter from
the inorganic world. If, therefore, they are thus dependent _in their
continuance_ upon a supply of matter administered by the inorganic
world, it is to be presumed that they were likewise dependent on that
source of matter _in their first origin_. In other words, the material
substrata of the first organisms were not produced anew, but derived
from the elements of the inorganic world. Hence they were not created,
but formed out of preëxistent matter. A _creative_ act would involve
_total_ production, and exclude the preëxistence of the constituent
material under a different form. A _formative_ act, on the contrary, is
a _partial_ production, which presupposes the material _out of which_ a
given thing is to be made. Hence the Divine act, whereby organic life
was first educed from the passive potentiality of inorganic matter, was
formative and not creative. Elements preëxistent in the inorganic world
were combined and intrinsically modified by impressing upon them a new
specification, which raised them in the entitive and dynamic scale, and
integrated them into units capable of self-regulation and reflexive
action. This modification, however, was intrinsic to the matter
involved and nothing was injected into matter from without. Obviously,
therefore, the production of the first organisms was not a creation,
but a formation.

Still less was it a miracle; for a miracle is a visible interposition
in the course of nature by a power superior to the powers of nature. A
given effect, therefore, is termed miraculous with express reference
to some existing natural agency, whose efficacy it, in some way,
exceeds. If there existed in inorganic nature some natural process
of self-vivification, then any Divine interposition to produce
life independently of this natural agency, would be a miraculous
intervention. As a matter of fact, however, inorganic nature is
destitute of this power of self-vitalization, and consequently no
natural agency was superseded or overridden by the initial imparting
of life to lifeless matter. Life was not ordained to originate in any
other way. Given, therefore, this impotence of inorganic nature, it
follows that an initial vivification of matter by Divine power was
demanded by the very nature of things. The Divine action did not come
into competition, as it were, with existing natural agencies, but was
put forth in response to the exigencies of nature itself. It cannot,
therefore, be regarded as miraculous.

Nor, finally, is there any warrant for regarding such an initial
vivification of matter as supernatural. Only that is supernatural which
transcends the nature, powers, and exigencies of all things created
or creatable. But, as we have seen, if life was to exist at all, a
primal animation of inanimate matter by Divine power was demanded
by the very nature of things. Here the Divine action put forth in
response to an exigency of nature and terminated in the constitution
of living nature itself. Now, the effect of a Divine action, by which
the natures of things are initially constituted, plainly pertains to
the order of nature, and has nothing to do with the supernatural. Hence
the primordial constitution by Divine power of living nature was not a
supernatural, but a purely natural, event.




                              CHAPTER II

                     THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL


                        § 1. Matter and Spirit

We live in an age in which scientific specialization is stressed as the
most important means of advancing the interests of human knowledge; and
specialism, by reason of its many triumphs, seems to have deserved, in
large measure, the prestige which it now enjoys. It has, however, the
distinct disadvantage of fostering provincialism and separatism. This
lopsided learning of the single track mind is a condition that verges
on paranoia, leads to naïve contempt for all knowledge not reducible to
its own set of formulæ, and portends, in the near future, a Babel-like
confusion of tongues. In fact, the need of a corrective is beginning
to be felt in many quarters. This corrective can be none other than
the general and synthetic science of philosophy; it is philosophy
alone that can furnish a common ground and break down the barriers of
exclusiveness which immure the special sciences within the minds of
experts.

Scientists readily admit the advantage of philosophy in theory, but in
practice their approval is far from being unqualified. A subservient
philosophy, which accepts without hesitation all the current dogmas
of contemporary science, is one thing, and a critical philosophy
venturing to apply the canons of logic to so-called scientific proof
is quite another. Philosophy of the latter type is promptly informed
that it has no right to any opinion whatever, and that only the
scientific specialist is qualified to speak on such subjects. But the
disqualification, which is supposed to arise from lack of special
knowledge, is just as promptly forgotten, when there is question of
philosophy in the rôle of a pliant sycophant, and the works of a Wells
or a van Loon are lauded to the skies, despite the glaring examples of
scientific inaccuracy and ignorance, in which they abound.

This partiality is sometimes carried to a degree that makes it
perfectly preposterous. Thus it is by no means an infrequent thing to
find scientists dismissing, as unworthy of a hearing, a philosopher
like Hans Driesch, who spent the major portion of his life in
biological research, and combined the technical discipline of a
scientist with the mental discipline of a logician. The chemist, H.
E. Armstrong, for instance, sees in the mere label “philosopher” a
sufficient reason for barring his testimony. “Philosophers,” jeers
the chemist, with flippant irrelevance, “must go to school and study
in the purlieus of experimental science, if they desire to speak with
authority on these matters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 528.)
Such is his comment on Driesch, yet Driesch did nothing at all, if he
did not do far more than Armstrong prescribes as a prerequisite for
authoritative speaking. In James Harvey Robinson, on the contrary, we
have an example of the tendency of scientists to coddle philosophers
who assume a docile, deferential, and submissive attitude towards
every generalization propounded in the name of natural science. In
sheer gratitude for his uncritical acquiescence, his incapacitation
as a nonspecialist is considerately overlooked, and he can confess,
without the slightest danger of discrediting his own utterances: “I am
not ... a biologist or palæontologist. But I have had the privilege
of consorting familiarly with some of the very best representatives
of those who have devoted their lives to the patient study of the
matters involved in this controversy. I think I quite understand
their attitude.” (_Harper’s Magazine,_ June, 1922, p. 68.) By his own
testimony he is a scientific amateur, but this does not, in the least,
prevent him from “speaking with authority” or from being lionized in
scientific circles as an evolutionary “defender of the faith.” Clearly,
it is the nature of their respective views, and not the possession or
absence of technical knowledge, which makes Robinson a favorite, and
Driesch a _persona non grata_, with “the very best representatives”
of contemporary science. “Science,” says a writer in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ (Oct., 1915), “has turned all philosophy out of doors except
that which clings to its skirts; it has thrown contempt on all learning
that does not depend upon it; and it has bribed the sketches by giving
us immense material comforts.”

Here, however, we are concerned with the fact, rather than the justice,
of this discrimination which the scientific world makes between
philosopher and philosopher. Certain it is that Robinson has received
no end of encomiums from scientists, who apparently lack the literary
gifts to expound their own philosophy, and that his claim to represent
the views of a large and influential section of the scientific world
is, in all probability, entirely correct. It is this manifest approval
of scientific men which lends especial interest to the remarks of
this scientific dilettante, and we shall quote them as expressing the
prevalent scientific view on the origin of man, a view which, with but
slight variations, has persisted from the time of Darwin down to the
present day.

“The recognition,” says Robinson, “that mankind is a species of animal,
is, like other important discoveries, illuminating.” (_Science_, July
28, 1922, p. 74.) To refer to the recognition of man’s animality as
a _discovery_ is a conceit too stupid for mere words to castigate.
Surely, there was no need of the profound research or delicate
precision of modern science to detect the all too obvious similarity
existing between man and beast. Mankind did not have to await the
advent of an “enlightened” nineteenth, or twentieth century to be
assured of the truth of a commonplace so trite and palpable. Even the
“benighted” scholastics of medieval infamy had wit enough to define man
as a rational animal. Indeed, it would be a libel on human intelligence
to suppose that anyone, in the whole history of human thought, was ever
sufficiently fatuous to dispute the patent fact that man is a sentient
organism compounded of flesh, blood, bone, and sinew like the brute.
The “discovery” that man is a species of animal dates from the year one
of human existence, and it is now high time for the novelty of this
discovery to be worn off.

Even as a difficulty against human superiority and immortality, the
“recognition” is by no means recent. We find it squarely faced in
a book of the Old Testament, the entire book being devoted to the
solution of the difficulty in question. “I said in my heart concerning
the estate of the sons of men ... that they might see they are
themselves beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth
beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the
other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no preeminence
above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the
dust, and all return to dust. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it
goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to
the earth?” (_Ecclesiastes_, III: 18-21.) The sacred writer insists
that, so far as the body is concerned, man and the brute stand on the
same level; but what of the human soul? Is it, he asks, resolvable into
matter like the soul of a beast, or is it a supermaterial principle
destined, not for time, but for eternity? At the close of the book, the
conclusion is reached that the latter alternative is the true solution
of the riddle of human nature—“the dust returneth to the earth whence
it was, and the spirit returneth to God who gave it.” (Ch. XII, v. 7.)

Centuries, therefore, before the Christian era, this problem was
formulated by Ecclesiastes, the Jew, and also, as we shall presently
see, by Aristotle, the coryphæus of Greek philosophy. Nay, from time
immemorial man, contrasting his aspirations after immortality with
the spectacle of corporal death, has appreciated to the full the
significance of his own animality. Never was there question of whether
man is, or is not, just as thoroughly an animal as any beast, but
rather of whether, his animal nature being unhesitatingly conceded,
we are not, none the less, forced to recognize in him, over and above
this, the existence of a spiritual mind or soul, differentiating
him from the brute and constituting him a being unique, despite the
unmistakable homologies discernible between bestial organisms and the
human body. Everywhere and always mankind as a whole have manifested,
by the universal and uniquely human practice of burying the dead, their
unswerving and indomitable conviction that man is spirit as well as
flesh, an animal, indeed, yet animated by something not present in the
animal, namely, a spiritual soul, deathless and indestructible, capable
of surviving the decay of the organism and of persisting throughout
eternity.

But, if the human mind or soul is spiritual, it is clear that it cannot
be a product of organic evolution, any more than it can be a product of
parental generation. On the contrary, each and every human soul must
be an immediate creation of the Author of Nature, not evolved from the
internal potentiality of matter, but infused into matter from without.
The human soul is created in organized matter, but not from it. Nor
can the Divine action, in this case, be regarded as a supernatural
interposition; for it supplements, rather than supersedes, the natural
process of reproduction; and, since it is not in matter to produce
spirit, a creative act is demanded by the very nature of things.

Evolution is nothing more nor less than a transmutation of matter,
and a transmutation of matter cannot terminate in the annihilation of
matter and the constitution of non-matter or spirit. If nothing of the
_terminus a quo_ persists in the final product, we have substitution,
and not transmutation. The evolution of matter, therefore, cannot
progress to a point where all materiality is eliminated. Hence,
whatever proceeds from matter, either as an emanation or an action,
will, of necessity, be material. It should be noted, however, that by
material we do not mean corporeal; for material denotes not merely
matter itself, but everything that intrinsically depends on matter.
The term, therefore, is wider in its sense than corporeal, because
it comprises, besides matter, all the properties, energies, and
activities of matter. Hence whatever is incapable of existence and
activity apart from matter (whether ponderable or imponderable) belongs
to the material, as distinguished from the spiritual, order of things.
The soul of a brute, for example, is not matter, but it is material,
nevertheless, because it is totally dependent on the matter of the
organism, apart from which it has neither existence nor activity of its
own.

In the constitution of the sentient or animal soul, matter reaches
the _culmination of its passive evolution_. True, its inherent
physicochemical forces do not suffice to bring about this consummation,
wherewith its internal potentiality is exhausted. Nevertheless, the
emergence of an animal soul from matter is conceivable, given an agency
competent to educe it from the intrinsic potentiality of matter;
for, in the last analysis, the animal soul is simply an internal
modification of matter itself. But, if spirit is that which exists, or
is, at least, capable of existence, apart from matter, it goes without
saying that spirit is neither _derivable_ from, nor _resolvable_ into,
matter of any kind. Consequently, it cannot be evolved from matter,
but must be produced in matter by creation (_i.e._ total production).
_To make the human mind or soul a product of evolution is equivalent
to a denial of its spirituality_, because it implies that the human
soul like that of the brute, is inherent in the potentiality of matter,
and is therefore a purely material principle, totally dependent on
the matter, of which it is a perfection. Between such a soul and the
sentient principle present in the beast, there would be no essential
difference of kind, but only an accidental difference of degree; and
this is precisely what Darwin and his successors have spared no effort
to demonstrate. James Harvey Robinson is refreshingly frank on this
subject, and we will therefore let him be spokesman for those who are
more reticent:

“It is the extraordinarily illuminating discovery (_sic_) of man’s
animalhood rather than evolution in general that troubles the routine
mind. Many are willing to admit that it looks as if life had developed
on the earth slowly, in successive stages; this they can regard as a
merely curious fact and of no great moment if only man can be defended
as an honorable exception. The fact that we have an animal body may
also be conceded, but surely man must have a soul and a mind altogether
distinct and unique from the very beginning bestowed on him by the
Creator and setting him off an immeasurable distance from any mere
animal. But whatever may be the religious and poetic significance of
this compromise it is becoming less and less tenable as a scientific
and historic truth. The _facts_ indicate that man’s _mind_ is quite as
clearly of animal extraction as his body.” (_Science_, July 28, 1922,
p. 95—italics his.)

This language has, at least, the merit of being unambiguous, and leaves
us in no uncertainty as to where the writer stands. It discloses,
likewise, the animus which motivates his peculiar interest in
transformistic theories. If evolution were incapable of being exploited
in behalf of materialistic philosophy, Mr. Robinson, we may be sure,
would soon lose interest in the theory, and would once more align
himself with the company, which he has so inappropriately deserted,
namely, “the routine minds” that regard evolution “as a merely curious
fact of no great moment.” Be that as it may, his final appeal is to
the “facts,” and it is to the facts, accordingly, that we shall go;
but they will not be the irrelevant “facts” of anatomy, physiology,
and palæontology. Sciences such as these confine their attention to
the external manifestations of human life, and can tell us nothing of
man’s inner consciousness. It does not, therefore, devolve upon them
to pronounce final judgment upon the origin of _man_. For that which
is the distinguishing characteristic of man is not his animal nature,
that he shares in common with the brute, but his rational nature, which
alone differentiates him from “a beast that wants discourse of reason.”
We cannot settle the question as to whether or not man’s _mind_ is
“of animal extraction” by comparing his _body_ with the bodies of
irrational vertebrates. To institute the requisite comparison between
the rational mentality of man and the purely sentient consciousness of
irrational animals falls within the exclusive competence of psychology,
which studies the internal manifestations of life as they are presented
to the intuition of consciousness, rather than biology, which studies
life according to such of its manifestations as are perceptible to the
external senses. Hence it is within the domain of psychology alone,
that man can be studied on his distinctively human, or rational, side,
and it is to this science, accordingly, that we must turn in our search
for facts that are germane to the problem of the origin of man and
the genesis of the human mind. How little, indeed, does he know of
human nature, whose knowledge of it is confined to man’s insignificant
anatomy and biology, and who knows nothing of the triumphs of human
genius in literature, art, science, architecture, music, and a thousand
other fields! Psychology alone can evaluate these marvels, and no other
science can be of like assistance in solving the problem of whether man
is, or is not, unique among all his fellows of the animal kingdom.


                     § 2. The Science of the Soul

As a distinct science, psychology owes its origin to Aristotle, whose
“_Peri Psyches_” is, in all probability, the first formal treatise on
the subject. Through his father, Nichomachus, who was court physician
to Philip of Macedon, he became acquainted, at an early age, with
biological lore in the form of such medical botany, anatomy, and
physiology as were commonly known in prescientific days. Subsequently,
his celebrated pupil, Alexander the Great, placed at his disposal a
vast library, together with extensive opportunities for biological
research. This enabled the philosopher to criticize and summarize the
observations and speculations of his predecessors in the field, and
to improve upon them by means of personal reflection and research. In
writing his psychology, he was naturally forced to proceed on the basis
of the facts discoverable by internal experience (introspection) and
unaided external observation. Of such facts as are only accessible by
means of instrumentation and systematic experimentation, he could, of
course, know nothing, since their exploration awaited the advent of
modern mechanical and optical inventions. But the factual foundation
of his treatise, though not extensive, was solid, so far as it went,
and his selection, analysis, and evaluation of the materials at hand
was so accurate and judicious, that the broad outlines of his system
have been vindicated by the test of time, and all the results of
modern experimental research fit, with surprising facility, into the
framework of his generalizations, revision being nowhere necessary
save in nonessentials and minor details. Wilhelm Wundt, the Father of
Experimental Psychology, pays him the following tribute: “The results
of my labors do not square with the materialistic hypothesis, nor do
they with the dualism of Plato or Descartes. It is only the animism
of Aristotle which, by combining psychology with biology, results as
a plausible metaphysical conclusion from Experimental Psychology.”
(“Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie,” 4te Auflage, II, C. 23,
S. 633.)

Literally translated, the title of Aristotle’s work signifies a
_treatise concerning the soul_. It set a precedent for the scholastic
doctors of the thirteenth century, and _de anima_ became with them a
technical designation for all works dealing with this theme. In the
sixteenth century the selfsame usage was embalmed in the Greek term
psychology, which was coined with a view to rendering the elliptic
Latin title by means of a single word. Melanchthon is credited with
having originated the term, which, in its original use as well as its
etymology, denoted a science of the _psyche_ or soul.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, however, the meaning of
the term in question began to undergo a marvelous evolution, of which
the end is not yet. The process was initiated by Descartes, under whose
auspices psychology was changed from a science of the _soul_ into a
science of the _mind_. Then, under the influence of Hume and Kant, the
_noumenal mind_ disappeared, leaving only _phenomenal consciousness_.
Recently, with the advent of Watson, even consciousness itself has
been discarded and psychology has become a science of _behavior_.
And here, for the time being, at any rate, the process has come to a
stop, just one step short of complete nihilism. Woodworth quotes the
following waggish comment: “First psychology lost its soul, then it
lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still has behavior of
a kind.” (“Psychology, the Science of Mental Life,” p. 2, footnote.)
This gradual degeneration of psychology from animism into behaviorism
is one of the greatest ironies in the history of human thought. All
of this, however, was latent in the corrosive Cartesian principle of
“scientific doubt.” _Facilis descensus Averni!_ It is easy to question
the validity of this or that kind of human knowledge, but difficult to
arrest, or even foresee, the consequences which the remorseless logic
of scepticism portends.

Disintegration set in, as has been said, when Descartes substituted
his _psychophysical dualism_ of _mind_ and _matter_ for Aristotle’s
_hylomorphic dualism_ of _soul_ and _body_. The French philosopher,
in an appendix to his “Meditations,” which dates from 1670, expressly
rejects the Aristotelian term of soul or _psyche_, and announces his
preference for mind or spirit, in the following words: “The substance
in which thought immediately resides is here called mind (mens,
esprit). I here speak, however, of mens (mind) rather than anima
(soul), for the latter is equivocal, being frequently applied to denote
what is material” (“Reply to the Second Objections,” p. 86). Henceforth
psychology ceased to be a science of the soul, and became, instead, a
science of the mind.

Descartes, one must bear in mind, divided the universe into two great
realms of being, namely: the conscious and the unconscious, the
_psychic_ world of mind and the _physical_ world of matter, unextended
substance which thinks and extended substance which moves. In man
these two substantial principles were conceived as being united by the
tenuous link of mere contact, the spirit or mind remaining separate
from, and unmingled with, its material partner, the body. The main
trouble with this dualism is that it draws the line of demarcation
at the wrong place. Reason and sense-consciousness are bracketed
together above the line as being equally spiritual; physiological
processes and processes purely physicochemical are coupled below the
line as being equally mechanical. Now, when a brain-function such
as sense-perception is introduced, like another Trojan Horse, into
the citadel of spiritualism, it is a comparatively easy task for
materialism to storm and sack that citadel by demonstrating with a
thousand neuro-physiological facts that all sensory functions are
rigidly correlated with neurological processes, that they are, in
short, functions of the nervous system, and therefore purely material
in nature. On the other hand, once we retreat from the trench of
distinction between the processes of unconscious or vegetative life
and the physicochemical processes of the inorganic world, that moment
we have lost the strategic position in the conflict with mechanism,
and nothing avails to stay its triumphant onrush. Hence, from first to
last, it is perfectly clear that the treacherous psychophysical dualism
of Descartes has done far more harm to the cause of spiritualism than
all the assaults of materialism. There is a Latin maxim which says:
_Extrema sese tangunt_—“Extremes come in contact with each other.” The
ultraspiritualism of Descartes by confounding spiritual, with organic
consciousness, leads by the most direct route to the opposite extreme
of crass materialism.

Aristotle’s dualism of matter and form, which is but a physical
application of his transcendental dualism of potency (_dynamis_) and
act (_entelechy_), is very different from the Cartesian dualism of the
physical and the psychic. According to the Aristotelian view, as we
have seen in the last chapter, all the physical entities or substantial
units of nature (both living and inorganic) are fundamentally _dual_
in their essence, each consisting of a definitive principle called
entelechy and a plastic principle called matter. Entelechy is the
integrating determinant, the source of the unit’s coherence and
of its differentiation from units of another type. Matter is the
determinable and quantifying factor, in virtue of which the unit is
potentially-multiple and endowed with mass. In the electro-chemical
reactions of non-living substances (synthesis, analysis, and
transmutation), entelechy is the variant and matter is the constant;
in the metabolic activities of living substances (assimilation and
dissimilation), matter is the variant and entelechy is the constant.
This persistent entelechy of the living unit or organism is what
Aristotle terms the _psyche_ or soul. The latter, therefore, may
be defined as the vital principle or primary source of life in the
organism.

But in using such terms as “soul” and “vital principle” we are
employing expressions against which not merely rabid mechanists,
but many conservative biologists as well, see fit to protest. The
opposition of the latter, however, is found on closer scrutiny to be
_nominal_ rather than _real_. It is the _name_ which offends; they have
no objection to the _thing signified_. Wilson, to cite a pertinent
example, rejects as meaningless all such terms as “vital principle,”
“soul,” etc. “They are words,” he avers, “that have been written into
certain spaces that are otherwise blank in our record of knowledge,
and as far as I can see no more than this.” (“Biology,” p. 23, 1908.)
Yet he himself affirms again and again the existence of the reality
which these terms (understood in their Aristotelian sense) denote.
In discussing the relation of the tissue cell to the multicellular
body, for instance, he speaks of “a formative power pervading the
growing mass as a whole.” (“The Cell,” 2nd ed., p. 59), and, in his
recent lecture on the “Physical Basis of Life,” he makes allusion
to “the integrating and unifying principle in the vital processes.”
(_Science_, March 9, 1923, p. 284.) It would seem, therefore, that
Wilson’s aversion to such terms as soul and vital principle is based
on the _dynamic_ sense assigned to them by the neo-vitalists, who, as
we have seen, regard the vital principle as a force _sui generis_ or
a _unique agent_, which operates intrusively among physicochemical
factors in the rôle of an active or efficient cause of vital functions.
That such is really the case, appears from his rhetorical question:
“Shall we then join hands with the neo-vitalists in referring the
unifying and regulatory principle to the _operation_ of an unknown
power, a directive _force_, an archæus, an entelechy or a soul?” (_Loc.
cit._, p. 285—italics mine.) The objection, however, does not apply
to these terms used in their Aristotelian sense. In the philosophy of
the Stagirite, the soul, like all other entelechies, is a cause in the
_entitive_, but not in the _dynamic_, order of things. Its efficacy is
_formal_, not _efficient_. It is not an agent, but a specifying type.
The organism must be integrated, specified, and existent _before_ it
can operate, and hence its integration and specification by the soul
is prior to all vital activity. The soul is a constituent of being
and not an immediate principle of action. The soul is not even an
entity (in the sense of a complete and separate being), but rather an
incomplete entity or constituent of an entity. It takes a complete
entity to be an agent, and the soul or vital entelechy is not an
independent existent, which is somehow inserted into the organism,
but an incomplete being which has no existence of its own, but only
coexistence, in the composite that it forms with the organism. Nor is
there any such thing as a special vital force resident in the organism.
The executive factors in all vital operations of the organic order are
the physicochemical energies, which are native to matter in general.
These forces, as we have seen, receive a reflexive orientation and are
elevated to a higher plane of efficiency by reason of their association
with an entelechy superior to the binding and type-determining
principles present in inorganic units, but they are not supplanted or
superseded by a new executive force. Wilson’s fear, therefore, that
the experimental analysis of life is discouraged by vitalism, inasmuch
as this conception _subtracts something from the efficiency of the
physicochemical forces_, is groundless in the case of hylomorphic
vitalism, but is well-founded in the case of such systems as the
neo-vitalism of Driesch and the spiritualism of Descartes.

Summing up, therefore, we may say that the soul, like other
entelechies, is consubstantial with its material substrate, the body.
True it is more autonomous than are the inflexible entelechies of
inorganic nature, inasmuch as it is independent of any given atom,
molecule, or cell in the organic aggregate. Such a degree of freedom,
for example, is not possessed by the most complex molecules, which show
no other flexibility than tautomerism, even this small readjustment
involving a change in their specificity. But this autonomy does not
preclude the essential dependence of the soul upon the body. Generally
speaking, the soul is incapable of existence apart from its total
substrate, the organism. We say, _generally speaking_, because, as
previously intimated, an exception must be made in the case of the
_human soul_, which, being, as we shall see, a self-subsistent and
spiritual entelechy, is by itself, apart from its material substrate,
a sufficient subject of existence, and is therefore capable of
surviving the dissolution of its complementary principle, the organism.
Nevertheless, even in man, the soul forms one substance with the
organism, and the organism participates as a coëfficient factor in
all his vital functions, both physiological and psychic, excluding
only the _superorganic_ or _spiritual_ functions of rational thought
and volition, whose agent and recipient is the _soul alone_. In man,
then, soul and body unite to form a single substance, a single nature,
and a single person. Apart from the body, the human soul is, indeed,
a complete entity, in the sense that it is capable of subsistence
(independent existence), but, in another sense, it is not a complete
entity, because apart from the body it cannot constitute a complete
nature or complete personality. It is this essential incompleteness of
the discarnate human soul that forms the natural basis of the Christian
doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead.

Here, however, it is important to note the difference between the
hylomorphic spiritualism of Aristotle and the psychophysical
spiritualism of Descartes. By the latter _all_ conscious or physic
functions are regarded as spiritual. The former, however, recognizes
the fundamental difference which exists between the lower or
animal, and the higher or rational functions of our conscious life.
Sense-perception and sensual emotion belong to the former class, and
must be regarded as _organic_ functions, whose agent and subject is
neither the soul alone nor the organism alone, but the soul-informed
organism or substantial composite of body and soul. Rational thinking
and willing, on the contrary, are classified as _superorganic_ or
_spiritual_ functions, inasmuch as they exclude the coägency of the
organism and have the soul alone for their active cause and receptive
subject.

The soul, in fine, is the formal principle or primary source of the
threefold life in man, namely, the metabolic life, which man shares
with plants, the sentient life, which he shares with animals, and the
rational life, which is uniquely human. The human soul is often spoken
of as the mind. In their dictionary sense, both terms denote one and
the same reality, namely, the human entelechy or vital principle in
man, but the connotation of these terms is different. The term soul
signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the primary source
of every kind of life in man, that is, vegetative, sentient, and
rational. The term mind, however, connoting conscious rather than
unconscious life, signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the
root and ground of our conscious life (both sentient and rational).
Here, however, the distinction is of no great moment, and the terms
may be regarded as synonymous. The definitions which we have given
are, of course, blasphemous in the ears of our modern neo-Kantian
phenomenalists, whose preference is for a _functional_, rather than a
_substantial_, mind or soul; but we will pay our respects to them later.

It is clear, however, from what has been said, that, for evidences of
the superiority and spirituality of the human soul, we must recur,
not to the external manifestations of our nutritive life, but to
the internal manifestations of our conscious life. The latter are
wholly inaccessible to the external senses and perceptible only to the
intuition of consciousness, introspection, or internal experience,
as it is variously called. All our self-knowledge rests on the basis
of introspection, and without it the science of psychology would be
impossible. In fact, not only psychology, but the physical sciences
as well, depend for their validity on the testimony of consciousness;
for the external world is only knowable to the extent that it enters
the domain of our consciousness. Recently, as we have seen, a tendency
to discredit internal experience has arisen among materialistic
extremists. This “tendency,” to quote the words of Keyser, “most
notably represented by the behaviorist school of psychologists (like
Professor Watson, for example), is manifest in the distrust of
introspections as a means of knowledge of mental phenomena and in the
growing dependence of psychology upon external observation of animal
and human behavior and upon physiological experiment, as if matter
were regarded ‘as something much more solid and indubitable than
mind’ (Bertrand Russell).”—C. J. Keyser, _Science_, Nov. 25, 1921,
p. 520. Since, however, all our knowledge depends on the validity of
consciousness, such a tendency is suicidal and destructive of all
science, whether physical or psychological. The attempts, therefore, of
mechanists, like Loeb, and behaviorists, like Watson, to dispense with
consciousness overreach themselves. For how can the mechanists _know_
that there are such things as tropisms, tactisms, or reaction-systems,
how can the behaviorist _study_ such things as “situations,”
“adjustments,” and S-R-bonds, how can the materialist _become aware_
of the existence of molecules and atoms, except through the medium of
their own conscious or psychic states? States of matter can be known
only by means of states of mind, and the former, therefore, cannot
be any more real than the latter. “What, after all,” asks Cardinal
Mercier, “is a fact of nature if the mind has not seized, examined,
and assimilated it? True, the information of consciousness is often
precarious. For this reason we do well to aid and control it by
scientific apparatus. These apparatus, however, can only aid, never
supplant, introspection. The telescope does not replace the eye, but
extends its vision.” (“Relation of Exp. Psych. to Philosophy,” pp. 40,
41—Trans. of Wirth.)


                   § 3. The Nature of the Human Soul

Now our inner consciousness bears unmistakable witness to the existence
within us of an abiding subject of our thoughts, feelings, and desires.
In biology, the soul is revealed to us as a binding-principle, that
obstructs dissolution of the organism, and a persistent type that
maintains its identity amid an incessant flux of matter and flow
of energy. Clearer still is testimony of introspective psychology,
which reveals all our psychic activities and states as successive
modifications of this permanent “I,” “self,” “personality,” or “mind,”
according as we choose to express it. Human language proves this
most forcibly; for the intramental facts and data of our conscious
life simply cannot be so much as intelligibly expressed, much less,
defined, or differentiated from the extramental facts of the physical
world, without using terms that include a reference to this selfsame
persistent subject of thought, feeling, and volition. Even inveterate
phenomenalists, like Wundt, James, and Titchener, are obliged to
submit to this inexorable linguistic law, in common with their
unscientific brethren, the generality of mankind, although they do
so only after futile attempts at a “scientific revision” of grammar,
and with much grumbling over the “barbarous conceptions” of the
gross-headed aborigines who invented human language. Be that as it
may, no formulation of mental facts is possible except in terms that
either denote or connote this permanent source and ground of human
thought and feeling, as is apparent, for example, from such phrases
as: “_I_ think,” “_I_ wish,” “_I_ hear”; “_mental_ states” (_i. e._ of
the mind); _psychic_ functions (_i. e._ of the psyche); _subjective_
idealism (_i. e._ of the subject); a _conscious_ act (from _con-scire_:
“to know along with,” because in conscious acts the subject is known
along with the object). The phenomenalists occasionally succeed, in
their “most precise” passages, in omitting to mention the person,
knower, or thinker behind thought, but they do so only at the cost of
substituting _personal pronouns_, and of thus bringing back through
the window what they have just ejected by way of the door. Our
consciousness, therefore, makes us invincibly aware of the _existence_
of a superficially variable, but radically unchangeable, subject of
our mental life. It does not, however, tell us anything concerning the
_nature_ of this primary ground of thought, whether, for example, it is
identical with the cerebral cortex, or something distinct therefrom,
whether it is phenomenal or substantial, dynamic or entitive, spiritual
or material. To decide these questions the unanalyzed factual data of
internal experience do not suffice, but they do suffice to establish
the reality of the ego or subject of thought. Later we shall see that
the analysis of these data, when taken in conjunction with other facts,
forces us to predicate of the soul such attributes as substantiality,
simplicity, and spirituality, but here they are cited solely for their
factual force and not for their logical implications.

The phenomenalistic schools of Interactionism and Psychophysical
Parallelism deny the _substantiality_ of the soul, and seek to resolve
it into sourceless and subjectless processes. A phenomenal mind or
soul, however, could not be the primary ground of mental life, for the
simple reason that phenomena presuppose a supporting medium (otherwise
they would be self-maintaining, and therefore, substantial). Now that
which presupposes cannot be a primary principle, but only a secondary,
or tertiary principle. Consequently, a functional mind could not be
the primary and irreducible ground of mental life, but only that _of
which_ it is a function, whether that something is a material, or a
spiritual substance. For the present, we are not interested in the
nature of this ultimate substrate, we are content with the fact that
it really exists. Phenomenalists (like Wundt, Paulsen, and James)
are very inconsistent when they admit material molecules as the
extended substrate of extramental or physical phenomena, while denying
the existence of the mind or ego as the inextended substrate of
intramental or psychic phenomena. All substance, whether material or
spiritual, is inaccessible to the senses. Even material substrates are
manifested only by their phenomena, being in themselves supersensible
and “metaphysical.” If, then, the human understanding is inerrant in
ascribing a material substrate to extramental phenomena, then it is
equally inerrant in attributing to intramental phenomena the intimate
substrate called mind, whether this substrate be a spiritual substance,
or a material substance like the substrate of physical phenomena
and that of organic life. As a matter of fact, the Psychophysical
Parallelists actually do reduce mental phenomena to a material
substrate (viz. the cerebral cortex). Their phenomenalism, which we
will refute presently, is but a disingenuous attempt to gloss over
their fundamental materialism. At all events, they are willing to admit
an ultimate substantial ground of thought and volition, provided it is
not claimed that this substrate is of a spiritual nature. The _bare
existence_ of some substrate, however, is all that we assert, for the
present.

Before leaving this topic, we wish to call attention to the fact that
the subject of thought and desire is _active_ as well as _passive_.
Mind, in other words, is not merely a persistent medium wherein passive
mental states are maintained, but an active and synthetic principle
as well. Mental processes, like those of judgment, reasoning, and
recognition, require a unitary and unifying principle, which actively
examines and compares our impressions and thoughts, in order to discern
their relations to one another and to itself. Materialistic psychology,
in spite of the plain testimony of consciousness, is all for ignoring
the mind in its _active rôle_ as the percipient of the identities and
discrepancies of thought, and for regarding mind as a mere complex of
mental states or transient flux of fleeting imagery. It is well, then,
to bear in mind the indubitable facts of internal experience, to which
Cardinal Mercier calls attention. “English psychology,” he observes,
“had attempted a kind of anatomy of consciousness. It made all consist
in passive sensations or impressions. These impressions came together,
fused, dissociated under the guidance of certain laws, principally
those of similarity and dissimilarity. The whole process was entirely
passive without the intervention of any active subject. It was
psychology without a soul. Now that things are being examined a little
more closely, psychologists find that there are a lot of conscious
states that are without the slightest doubt active on the part of the
subject. There are a number of mental states upon which the subject
brings his _attention_ to bear, and attention (from _ad-tendere_)
means activity. Ordinarily we do not know the intensity of a sensation
without _comparing_ it with another preceding one. This work of
comparison, or, as the English call it, discrimination, is necessarily
_activity_. The Associationists had confounded the fact of coëxistence
with the perception of similarity or dissimilarity. Supposing even
that the coëxistence of two mental states were entirely passive, it
still remains true that the notion of their similarity or dissimilarity
requires an _act of perception_. It is absolutely impossible to
conceive psychical life without an _active subject_ which _perceives_
itself as living, _notes_ the impressions it receives, _compares_ its
acts, _associates_ and _dissociates_ them; in a word, there can be
no psychology without a perceiving subject which psychologists call
_esprit_, or with the English, ‘mind.’” (_Op. cit._, pp. 52-54—italics
his.)

The conflict between phenomenalism and the clear testimony of
consciousness is summed up in the following words of T. Fontaine: “If
all things are phenomena, then we ourselves can be nothing more than
events unknown to one another; in order, then, that such events may
appear to us united, so that we may be able to declare their succession
within us, it is necessary that something else besides them should
exist; and this something else, this link that binds them together,
this principle that is conscious of their succession, can be nothing
else than a non-event or non-phenomenon, namely, a substance, an ego
substantially distinct from sensations.” (“La sensation et la pensée,”
p. 23.)

For the phenomenalists, mind is but a collective term for the
phenomenal series of our transitory thoughts and feelings. With
Wundt, they discard the substantial or entitive soul for a dynamic or
functional one, “_die aktuelle Seele_.” (Cf. Grundz. der Phys. Psych.,
ed. 5th, III, p. 758 _et seq._) Thought antecedes itself by becoming
its own thinker; for Titchener tells us: “The passing thought would
seem to be the thinker.” (“Pr. of Psych.,” I, p. 342.) We do not think,
but thought thinks; John does not walk, but walking walks; aeroplanes
do not fly, but flight flies; air does not vibrate, but vibration
vibrates. The phenomenalist _objectivates his subjective abstractions_,
divorces processes from their agents, and substantializes phenomena.
The source of his error is a confusion of the ideal, with the real,
order of things. Because it is possible for us _to consider_ a thought
apart from any determinate thinker, by means of a mental abstraction,
he very falsely concludes that it is possible for a thought _to exist_
without a concrete thinker. It would be obviously absurd to suppose
that the so-called Grignard reaction could occur without definite
reactants, merely because we can think of it without specifying any
particular kind of _alkyl halide_; it would be preposterous to infer,
from the fact that vibration can be considered independently of any
concrete medium such as air, water, or ether, that therefore a pure
vibration can exist without any vibrating medium; and it is equally
absurd to project an abstraction like subjectless thought into the
realm of existent reality. Abstractions are ideal entities of the mind;
they can have no real existence outside the domain of thought. Hence
to assign a real or extralogical existence to actions, modalities, and
properties, in isolation from the concrete subjects, to which they
belong, is a procedure that is not legitimate in any other world than
Alice’s Wonderland, where, we are told, the Cheshire Cat left behind
his notorious grin long after his benign countenance had faded from
view. His faceless grin is a fitting comment on the neo-Kantian folly
of those who, as L. Chiesa says, “speak of phenomena without substance,
of sensations without subject, of thoughts without the Ego, to which
they belong, imitating in this way the poets, who personify honor,
virtue, beauty, etc. Now all this proceeds exclusively from a confusion
of the subjective abstraction with the reality, and from the assumption
that the phenomenon, for example, exists without substance, because we
are able (by means of abstraction) to consider the former independently
of the latter.” (“La Base del Realismo,” p. 39.) In other words, the
mind is capable of separating (representatively, of course, and not
physically) its own phenomena from itself, but this is no warrant for
transferring the abstractions thus formed from the ideal, to the real,
order of things.

So much for the soul’s substantiality, but it is a _simple_, as
well as a substantial, principle, that is to say, it is inextended,
uncompounded, incorporeal, and not dispersed into quantitative parts
or particles. In other words, it is not a composite of constituent
elements or complex of integral parts, but something really distinct
from the body and pertaining to a different order of reality than
matter. This, as we have seen, does not necessarily mean that it
is immaterial, in the sense of being intrinsically independent of
matter. In a word, simplicity does not involve spirituality (absolute
immateriality). Not only plant and animal souls, but even mineral
entelechies, are simple, in the negative sense of excluding extension,
corporeality and dispersal into quantitative parts, but they are, none
the less, intrinsically dependent on matter and are therefore material
principles.

That the soul or vital entelechy is really distinct from its material
substrate is apparent from the perennial process of metabolism enacted
in the living organism. In this process, matter is the variant and
entelechy or specific type is the constant. Hence the two principles
are not only distinct, but separable. Moreover, the soul’s rôle as a
binding-principle that obstructs dissolution is incompatible with its
dispersal into quantitative parts; for such a principle, far from being
able to bind, would require binding itself, and could not, therefore,
be the primary source of unification in the organism. Finally, the soul
must be incorporeal; since, if it were a corporeal mass, it could not
be “a formative power pervading the growing mass as a whole” (Wilson);
for this would involve the penetration of one body by another.
Consequently, the soul is a simple, inextended, incorporeal reality
undispersed into quantitative parts.

Introspective psychology bears witness to the same truth; for
consciousness reinforced by memory attests _the substantial permanence
of our personal identity_. We both think and regulate our practical
conduct in accordance with this sense of unchanging personal identity.
All recognition of the past means simply this, that we perceive the
substantial identity of our present, with our past, selves throughout
all the experiences and vicissitudes of life. There is an inmost core
of our being which is unchanging and which remains always identical
with itself, in spite of the flow of thought and the metabolic changes
of the life-cycle. It is this that gives us the sense of being
always identically the same person, from infancy to maturity, and
from maturity to old age. It is this that constitutes the thread of
continuity which links our yesterdays with today, and makes us morally
responsible for all the deliberate deeds of a lifetime. Courts of law
do not acquit a criminal because he is in a different frame of mind
from that which induced him to commit murder, nor do they excuse him on
the score that metabolism has made him a different mass of flesh from
that which perpetrated the crime. Such philosophies as phenomenalism
and materialism are purely academic. Even their advocates dare not
reduce them to consistent practice in everyday life.

Nor can the cases of _alternating personalities_ be adduced as
counterevidence. In the first place, these cases are psychopathic
and not normal. In the second, they are due, not to a modification
of _personality itself_, but to a modification in the _perception of
personality_. Since this perception is, as we shall see, extrinsically
dependent on cerebral imagery, any neuropathic affection is liable
to modify the perception of personality by seriously disturbing
the imagery, on which it depends. But (_pace_ Wundt and James) the
perception of personality is one thing, and personality itself quite
another. Perception does not produce its objects, but presupposes
them, and self-perception is no exception to this rule. Introspection,
therefore, does not create our personality, but reveals and represents
it. If then to the intuition of consciousness our personality appears
as an unchanging principle that remains always substantially identical
with itself, it follows that this perception must be terminated by
something more durable than a flux of transient molecules or a stream
of fleeting thought. Unless this perceptive act has for its object some
unitary and uniformly persistent reality distinct from our composite,
corruptible bodies, and not identified with our transitory thoughts,
this sense of permanent personal identity would be utterly impossible.
Materialism, which recognizes nothing more in man than a decaying
organism, a mere vortex of fluent molecules, is at a loss to account
for our consciousness of being always the same person. Phenomenalism,
which identifies mind or self with the “thought-stream,” is equally
impotent to account for this sense of our abiding sameness.

James’ attempt at a phenomenalistic explanation of the persistent
continuity of self, on the assumption that each passing thought knows
its receding predecessor and becomes known, in turn, by its successor,
is puerile. To pass over other flaws, this absurd theory encounters an
insuperable difficulty in _sleep_, which interrupts, for a considerable
interval, the flow of conscious thought. Thought is a transient
reality, which passes, so far as its actuality is concerned, and can
only remain in the form of a permanent effect. Unless, therefore, there
were some _persistent medium_ in which the last waking thought could
leave a permanent vestige of itself, the process of relaying the past
could never be resumed, and we would lose our personal identity every
twenty-four hours. The mind, or subject of thought, then, must be an
abiding and unitary principle distinct from our composite bodies, and
from our manifold and fleeting thoughts.

Finally, to the two foregoing attributes of the human soul
(substantiality and simplicity), we must add a third and crowning
attribute, namely, _spirituality_. It is this, and this alone, that
differentiates the human from the bestial soul, which latter is but
an incomplete complement of matter, incapable of existence apart from
matter, and doomed to perish with the dissolution of the organism, as
the cylindrical form of a candle perishes with the consumption of the
wax by the flame.

All the psychic activities of the brute, such as sensation,
object-perception, imagination, associative memory, sensual emotion,
etc., are organic functions of the sensitivo-nervous type. In
all of them the agent and recipient is not the soul alone, but
the psycho-organic composite of soul and organism, that is, the
soul-informed sensory and central neurons of the cerebrospinal system.
The sensory neurons are nerve cells that transmit centerward the
excitations of physical stimuli received by the external sense organs
or receptors, in which their axon-fibers terminate. These receptors
and sensory neurons are extended material organs proportioned and
specialized for receiving physical impressions from external bodies,
either directly through surface-contact with the bodies themselves
or their derivative particles (_e.g._ in touch, taste and smell), or
indirectly through surface-contact with an extended vibrant medium such
as air, water, or ether (_e.g._ in hearing and sight). The central
neurons of the cerebral cortex are, as it were, the tablets, upon which
the excitations transmitted thither by the sensory neurons, record the
extended neurograms that constitute the physical basis of the concrete
imagery of memory and imagination. Interior senses, then, like memory
and imagination, merely continue and combine what was preëxistent in
the exterior senses. Their composite imagery is rigidly proportioned
to the extended neurograms imprinted on the cerebral neurons, and
these neurograms, in turn, are determined both qualitatively and
quantitatively by the physical impressions received by the receptors,
and these impressions, finally, are exactly proportioned to the action
of the material stimuli in contact with the receptors. Thus the
composite images of imagination as well as those of direct perception
are proportioned to the underlying neurograms of the cortex and
correspond exactly, as regards quality, intensity, and extensity, to
the original stimulus affecting the external receptors. Hence men born
blind can never imagine color, nor can men born deaf ever imagine
sound. An inextended principle, such as the discarnate soul, cannot
receive or record impressions from extended vibrant media, or from
extended corporeal masses. For this the soul requires the intrinsic
coöperation of material receptors. Now, the highest cognitive and
appetitive functions of the brute (_e.g._ sense-perception and emotion)
are, as has been stated, of the sensitivo-nervous or psycho-organic
type, that is, they are functions in which the material organism
intimately coöperates; brute animals give no indication of having so
much as a single function, which proceeds from the soul alone and
which is not communicated to the organism. Hence the bestial soul is
“totally immersed” in matter; as regards both operation and existence,
it is “intrinsically dependent” upon its material complement, the
organism. It never operates save in conjunction with the latter, and
its _sole reason for existence_ is adequately summed up in saying that
it exists, not for its own sake, but merely _to vivify and sensitize
the organism_. Consequently, the brute soul, though inextended and
incorporeal, belongs, not to the spiritual, but to the material, order
of things.

Is the human soul equally material in nature, or does it belong to the
spiritual category of being? The state of the question has long since
been formulated for us by Aristotle: “A further difficulty,” he says,
“arises as to whether all attributes of the soul are also shared by
that which has the soul or whether any of them are peculiar to the soul
itself: a problem which it is imperative, and yet by no means easy, to
solve. It would appear that in most cases it neither acts nor is acted
upon apart from the body: as, _e.g._, in anger, courage, desire, and
sensation in general. Thought, if anything, would seem to be peculiar
to the soul. Yet if thought is a sort of imagination, or something not
independent of imagination, it will follow that not even thought is
independent of the body. If, then, there be any functions or affections
of the soul that are peculiar to it, it will be possible for the soul
to be separated from the body: if, on the other hand, there is nothing
peculiar to it, the soul will not be capable of separate existence.”
(“Peri Psyches,” Bk. I, chap. I, 9.) We shall see that the human
soul has certain operations which it discharges independently of the
intrinsic coägency of the organism, _e.g._, abstract thought (not to be
confounded with the concrete imagery of the imagination) and deliberate
volition (to be distinguished from the urge of the sensual appetite).
Hence, over and above the organic functions, which it discharges in
conjunction with the material organism, the human soul has superorganic
functions, of which it is itself, in its own right, the exclusive agent
and recipient. In other words, it exists _for its own sake_ and not
merely to perfect the body.

The Aristotelian argument for the spirituality of the human soul
consists in the application of a self-evident principle or axiom to
certain facts of internal experience. The axiom in question is the
following: “The nature of an agent is revealed by its action”; or,
to phrase it somewhat differently: “Every being operates after the
same manner that it exists.” The factual data, to which reference is
made, are man’s higher psychic functions, in which the soul alone
is the active cause and receptive subject, namely: the rational or
superorganic functions of thinking and willing. The argument may be
formulated thus: Every agent exists after the same manner that it
operates. But in rational cognition and volition the soul acts without
the co-agency of the material organism. Therefore the human soul can
exist without the coexistence of the material organism. But this is
tantamount to saying that it is a spiritual reality irreducible to
matter and incapable of derivation from matter. For we define that
as spiritual, which exists, or is, at least, capable of existing,
without matter. Consequently, the human soul is a supermaterial and
immortal principle, which does not need the body to maintain itself in
existence, and can, on that account, survive the death and dissolution
of its material complement, the organism. Such a reality, as we
have seen, cannot be a product of evolution, but can only come into
existence by way of creation.

The axiom, that activity is the expression or manifestation of the
entity which underlies it, needs but little elucidation. In the
genesis of human knowledge, the dynamic is prior to both the static
and the entitive. We deduce the nature of the cause from the changes
or effects that it produces. Action, in short, is the primary datum
upon which our knowledge of being rests. It is the spectrum of solar
light emitted by them, which enables us to determine the nature of
the chemical elements present in the distant Sun. It is the reaction
of an unknown compound with a test reagent that furnishes the chemist
with a clue to its composition and structure. It is the special type
of tissue degeneration caused by the specific toxin engendered by an
invisible disease germ that enables the pathologists to identify the
latter, etc., etc. So much for the axiom. Regarding the psychological
facts, a more lengthy exposition is required. To begin with, there
is _prima facie_ evidence against the contention that the higher
psychic functions in man are independent of the organism. Injury and
degeneration of the cerebral cortex result (very often, at least) in
insanity and idiocy. Reason, therefore, is in some way dependent upon
the organism. Babies, too, are incapable of rational thought until
such a time as the nervous system is fully developed. Obviously,
then, rational functions cannot be spiritual, inasmuch as they are not
independent of the organism.

This time-honored objection of materialists is based on a
misapprehension. It falsely assumes that spirituality excludes _every_
kind of dependence upon a material organism, and that our assertion
of the soul’s independence of matter is an unqualified assertion.
This, however, is far from being the case. It is only _intrinsic_
(subjective), and not _extrinsic_ (objective), independence of the
organism which is here affirmed. An analogy from the sense of sight
will serve to make clear the meaning of this distinction. In the act
of seeing a tree, for example, our sight is dependent upon a twofold
corporeal element, namely, the _eye_ and the _tree_. It is dependent
upon the eye as upon a corporeal element intrinsic to the visual sense,
the eye being a constituent part of the agent and subject of vision;
for it is not the soul alone which sees, but rather the soul-informed
retina and neurons of the psycho-organic composite. The eye enters as
an essential ingredient into the intimate constitution of the visual
sense. It is a _constituent part_ of the _specific cause_ of vision,
and it can therefore be said with perfect propriety that the _eye
sees_. Such dependence upon a material element is called intrinsic or
subjective dependence, and is utterly incompatible with spirituality on
the part of that which is thus dependent. But the dependence of sight
upon an external corporeal factor, like a tree or any other visible
object, is of quite a different nature. Here the corporeal element is
outside of the seeing subject and does not enter as an ingredient into
the composition of the principal and specific agent of vision. True the
tree, which is seen, is coïnstrumental as a provoking stimulus and an
objective exemplar, but its concurrence is of an extrinsic nature, not
to be confounded with the intrinsic co-agency of the eye in the act of
vision. Hence, in no sense whatever can the tree be said to see; for
the tree is merely an object, not the principal and specific cause,
of vision. When the dependence of an agent upon a corporeal element
is of this sort, it is termed extrinsic or objective dependence. Such
dependence upon a material element is _perfectly compatible with
spirituality_, which does, indeed, exclude all materiality from the
specific agent and subject of a psychic act, but does not necessarily
exclude materiality from the object contemplated in such an act. Hence
the fact that the thinking soul must abstract its rational concepts
from the concrete imagery of a cerebral sense, like the imagination,
in no wise detracts from its spirituality, because the dependence of
abstract thought upon such imagery is objective or extrinsic, and not
subjective or intrinsic.

Psychologists of the sensationalist school have striven to obscure
the fundamental distinction which exists between rational thought and
the concomitant cerebral imagery. It is, however, far too manifest
to escape attention, as the healthy reaction of the modern school of
Würzburg indicates. “It cost me great resolution,” says Dr. F. E.
Schultze, a member of this school, “to say, that, on the basis of
immediate experiment, appearances and sensible apprehensions are not
the only things that can be experienced. But finally I had to resign
myself to my fate.” (“Beitrag zur Psychologie des Zeitbewusstseins,” p.
277.)

But thought is not only distinct from imagery, often there is marked
contrast between the two, both as regards subjective, and objective,
characters. Thus our thought may be perfectly clear, precise, and
pertinent, while the accompanying imagery is obscure, fragmentary,
and irrelevant. “What enters into consciousness so fragmentarily, so
sporadically, so very accidentally as our mental images,” exclaims Karl
Bühler (also of Würzburg), “can not be looked upon as the well-knitted,
continuous content of our thinking.” (_Archiv. für die ges. Psychol._,
9, 1907, p. 317.) The same contrast exists with respect to their
objective characters. Imagination represents by means of one and the
same image what reason represents by means of two distinct concepts,
_e.g._ an oasis and a mirage; and, _vice versa_, reason represents
under the single general concept of a rose objects that imagination
is forced to represent by means of two distinct images, _e.g._, a
yellow, and a white rose. Imagery depicts only the superficial or
exterior properties of an object, whereas thought penetrates beneath
the phenomenal surface to interior properties and supersensible
relationships. The sensory percept apprehends the existence of a fact,
while the rational concept analyzes its nature. Hence sense-perception
is concerned with the _reality of existence_, while thought is
concerned with the _reality of essence_.

Certain American psychologists employ the term _imageless thought_
to designate abstract concepts. The expression is liable to be
misunderstood. It should not be construed as excluding all concomitance
and concurrence of sensible imagery, in relation to the process of
thought. What is really meant is that sensible appearances do not make
up the sum-total of our internal experiences, but that we are also
aware of mental acts and states which are not reducible to imagery.
In other words, we experience thought; and thought and imagery,
though concomitant, are not commensurable. The clarity and coherence
of thought does not depend on the clarity or germaneness of the
accompanying imagery, nor is it ever adequately translatable into terms
of that imagery. Thus the universal triangle of geometry, which is not
right, nor oblique, nor isosceles, neither scalene nor equilateral,
neither large nor small, neither here nor there, neither now nor then,
is not visualizable in terms of concrete imagery, although we are
clearly conscious of its significance in geometrical demonstrations.
Imagery differs according to the person, one man being a visualist,
another an audist, another a tactualist, another a motor-verbalist,
etc. But thought is the same in all, and consequently it is thought,
and not imagery, which we convey by means of speech. Helen Keller,
whose imagery is mainly motor and tactile, can exchange views with an
audist or visualist on the subject of geometry, even though the amount
of imagery which she has in common with such persons is negligible.
“_Eine Bedeutung_,” says Bühler, “_kann man überhaupt nicht vorstellen,
sondern nur wissen_,” and Binet, in the last sentence of his “L’Étude
expérimentale de l’intelligence,” formulates the following conclusion:
“Finally—and this is the main fact, fruitful in consequences for the
philosophers—the entire logic of thought escapes our imagery.”

Nevertheless, thought does not originate in the total absence of
imagery, but requires a minimal substrate of sensible images, upon
which it is objectively, if not subjectively, dependent. The nature
of this objective dependence is explained by the Scholastic theory
concerning the origin of concepts. According to this theory, the
genesis of our general and abstract knowledge is as follows: (1) We
begin with sense-perception, say of boats differing in shape, size,
color, material, location, etc. (2) Imagination and sense-memory retain
the composite and concrete imagery synthesized or integrated from the
impressions of the separate external senses and representing the boats
in all their factual particularity, individuality, and materiality,
as existent here and now, or there and then, as constructed of such
and such material (_e.g._, of wood, or steel, or iron, or concrete),
as having determinate sizes, shapes, and tonnages, as painted white,
or gray, or green, as propelled by oar, or sail, or turbine, etc. (3)
Then the _active intellect_ exerts its abstractive influence upon this
concrete imagery, accentuating the essential features which are common
to all, and suppressing the individuating features which are peculiar
to this or that boat, so that the essence of a boat may appear to the
_cognitive intellect_ without its concomitant individuation—the essence
of a boat being, in this way, isolated from the peculiarities thereof
and its various qualities from their subject (representatively, of
course, and not physically). (4) The imagery thus predisposed, being
no longer immersed in matter, but dematerialized by the dispositive
action of the active intellect, becomes coïnstrumental with the
latter in producing a determination in the cognitive intellect. (5)
Upon receiving this determination, the cognitive intellect, which
has hitherto been, as it were, a blank tablet with nothing written
upon it, reacts to express the essence or nature of a boat by means
of a spiritual representation or concept—the abstractive act of the
active intellect is _dispositive_, inasmuch as it _presents_ what
is common to all the boats perceived without their differentiating
peculiarities; the abstractive act of the cognitive intellect,
however, is _cognitive_, inasmuch as it _considers_ the essence of a
boat without considering its individuation. Such is the abstractive
process by which our general and abstract concepts are formed. From a
comparison of two concepts of this sort the process of judgment arises,
and from the comparison of two concepts with a third arises the process
of mediate inference or reasoning. Volition, too, is consequent upon
conception, and hence an act of the will (our rational appetite), such
as the desire of sailing in a boat, entails the preëxistence of some
conceptual knowledge of the nature of a boat. Volition, therefore,
presupposes thought, and thought presupposes imagination, which
supplies the sensible imagery that undergoes the aforesaid process
of analysis or abstraction. Such imagery, however, is a function of
the cerebral cortex, and, for this reason, the normal exercise of the
imagination presupposes the cerebral cortex in a normal physiological
condition; and anything that disturbs this normal condition of the
cortex will directly disturb the imagery of the imagination, and
therefore indirectly impede the normal exercise of conceptual thought,
which is abstracted from such imagery. Hence it is clear that the
activity of both the intellect and the will is objectively dependent
upon the organic activity of the imagination, and, in consequence,
_indirectly_ dependent upon the physiological condition of the cerebral
cortex, which is the organ of the imagination. Since, however, this
dependence is objective rather than subjective, it does not, as we have
seen, conflict with the spirituality of rational thought.

The nature of conceptual thought is such as to exclude the
participation of matter as a constituent of its specific agent
and receptive subject. The objects of a cerebral sense like the
imagination are endowed with extension, color, shape, volume, mass,
temperature, and other physical properties, in virtue of which they
can set up vibrations in an extended medium or modify an extended
organ by immediate physical contact. But, while imagination makes
us conscious of objects capable of stimulating extended material
organs, the objects, of which we are conscious in abstract thinking,
are divested of all the sensible properties, extension, and specific
energies, which would enable them to modify a material neuron, or
produce a physical impression upon a material receptor of any kind
whatever. Between an extended material receptor, like a sense-organ or
a cerebral neuron, and the nondimensional, dematerialized object or
content of an abstract thought, like science, heroism, or morality,
there is no conceivable proportion. How can a material organ be
affected by what is supersensible, unextended, imponderable, invisible,
intangible, and uncircumscribed by the limitations of space and time?
Extended receptors are necessary for picking up the vibrations of a
tridimensional medium (like air or ether), and they are, likewise,
essential for the reception of impressions produced by surface-contact
with an exterior corporeal mass. In short, sensory neurons are needed
to receive and transmit inward the quantitative and measurable
excitations of the material stimuli of the external world, and central
neurons are required as tablets upon which these incoming excitations
may imprint _extended neurograms_, that are proportionate in intensity
and extensity to the external stimulus apprehended, and that underlie
and determine the concrete imagery (of which they are the physical
basis). But when it comes to perceiving and representing the _meaning_
of duty, truth, error, cause, effect, psychology, means, end, entity,
logarithms, etc., our mind can derive no benefit from the coöperation
of a material organ. In such thinking we are conscious of that which
could not make an impression nor leave a record upon material receptors
like neurons. To employ a material organ for the purpose of perceiving
abstract essences and qualities would be as futile and pointless as an
attempt to stop a nondimensional, unextended, intangible baseball with
a catcher’s glove. Hence the services of material centers and receptors
may be dispensed with, so far as rational thought is concerned.
Rational thought cannot utilize the intrinsic coägency of the organism,
and it is therefore a superorganic or spiritual function.

That conceptual thought is in no wise communicated to the organism,
but subjected in the spiritual soul alone, is likewise apparent from
the data furnished by introspection. The conceiving mind apprehends
even material objects according to an abstract or spiritualized mode
of representation. In other words, in conceiving material objects
we expurgate them of their materiality and material conditions,
endowing them with a dematerialized mode of mental existence which
they could never have, if subjected in their own physical matter, or
in the organized matter of the cerebral cortex. Thus, in forming our
concept of a material object like a boat, we spiritualize the boat
by separating (representatively, of course, and not physically) its
nature or essence from the determinate matter (_e.g._, wood, or steel)
of which it is made, and by divesting it of the material and concrete
conditions which define not only its physical existence outside of
us, but also its imaginal existence within us as a concrete image
in our imagination. In other words, we isolate the type or form of
a given object from its material substrate and liberate it from the
limiting material and concrete individuation, which confine it to a
single material subject and localize it definitely in space and time.
Now, it is axiomatic that whatever is received is received according
to the nature of the receiver. Water, for example, assumes the form
of the receptacle into which it is poured, and a picture painted
upon canvas is necessarily extended according to the extension of
the canvas. If, therefore, our intellect endows even the material
objects, which it perceives, with a dematerialized or spiritualized
mode of representation, it follows that the intellect itself is a
spiritual power and not an organic sense immersed in concretifying
and individualizing matter. Certainly, this ideal or spiritualized
mode of existence does not emanate from the material object without
nor yet from its vicarious material image in our organic imagination
(which, in point of fact, is absolutely impotent to imagine anything
except concrete, singular things in all their determinate individuation
and quantification). Thought, then, with its _abstract mode of
presentation_, cannot, like imagery, be subjected in the animated or
soul-informed cortex, but must have the spiritual mind alone as its
receptive subject. Our abstract or dematerialized mode of conceiving
material objects is a subjective character of thought, proceeding from,
and manifesting, the spirituality of the human mind, which represents
even material objects in a manner that accords with its own spiritual
nature.

But it is not only in the process of abstraction, but also in that
of _reflection_, that rational thought manifests its superorganic or
spiritual character. The human mind knows that it knows and understands
that it understands, thinks of its own thoughts and of itself as
the agent and subject of its thinking. It is conscious of its own
conscious acts, that is to say, it reflects upon itself and its own
acts, becoming an object to itself. The thinking ego becomes an
object of observation on the part of the thinking ego, which acquires
self-knowledge by this process of reflective thought. In introspection,
that which observes is identical with that which is observed. Now such
a capacity of self-observation cannot reside in matter, cannot be
spatially commensurate with a material organ nor inseparably attached
thereto. It is possible only to an immaterial or spiritual principle,
devoid of mass and extension, and not subject to the law of the
impenetrability of matter. In virtue of the law of impenetrability,
no two material particles, no two bodies, no two integral parts of the
same body, can occupy one and the same place. One part of a body can,
indeed, act on another part extrinsic to itself; but one and the same
part or particle cannot act upon itself. To become at once observed
and observer, a material organ would have to split itself in two, so
that the part watched could be distinct from, and spatially external
to, the part watching. The power of perfect reflection, therefore, must
reside in the spiritual soul, and cannot be bound to, and coëxtensive
with, a material organ. Only in this supposition can there be a return
of the subject upon and into itself, only in this supposition can
there be that identification of observed and observer implied by the
process of reflection. H. Gründer, in his “Psychology without a Soul,”
gives a graphic _reductio ad absurdum_ of the contrary assumption:
“A fairy tale,” he says, “tells of a knight who was beheaded by his
victorious foe. But, strange to relate, the vanquished knight rose to
his feet, seized his severed head and bore it off, as in triumph. The
most remarkable part, however, of the story is that with a last effort
of gallantry he took his own head, and—kissed its brow. The climax of
this fairy tale is no more absurd than the assumption that a material
organ can know itself and philosophize on itself. Only if we admit with
the scholastics a simple soul intrinsically independent of any bodily
organism, can we explain the possibility of perfect psychological
reflexion.” (_Cf._ pp. 193, 194.)

For the rest the impossibility of introspection on the part of a
material organ is so evident that the materialists themselves freely
concede it, and being unwilling to admit the spirituality of the human
intellect, they are forced to resort to the disingenuous expedient
of denying the _fact_ of reflection on the part of the human mind.
“It is obvious,” says Auguste Comte, “that by an invincible necessity
the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own. We
understand that a man can observe himself as a moral agent, because
in that case he can watch himself under the action of the passions
which animate him, precisely because the organs that are the seat
of those passions are distinct from those that are destined for the
functions of observation.... But it is manifestly impossible to observe
intellectual phenomena whilst they are being produced. The individual
thinking cannot divide himself in two, so that one half may think
and the other watch the process. Since the organ observing and the
one to be observed are identical, there can be no self-observation.”
(“Cours de philosophie positive,” lière leçon.) But an argument is
of no avail against a fact, and, as a matter of fact, we do reflect.
It is by introspection or reflective thought that we discriminate
between our present and our past thoughts, and become conscious of our
own consciousness. Our intellect even reflects upon its own act of
reflection, and so on indefinitely, so that, unless we are prepared
to accept the absurd alternative of an infinite series of thinkers,
we have no choice but to identify the subject knowing with the
subject known. That our intellect is conscious of its own operations
and attentive to its own thoughts, is an evident fact of internal
experience, and it is preposterous to tilt against facts by means
of syllogisms. When Zeno concocted his aprioristic “proof” of the
impossibility of translatory movement, his sophism was refuted by the
simple process of walking—_solvitur ambulando_. In like manner, the
Comtean sophism concerning the impossibility of reflection is refuted
by the simple act of mental reflection—_solvitur reflectendo_. For the
rest, we readily concede Comte’s contention that an organ is incapable
of reflection or self-observation, but we deny his tacit assumption
that our cognitive powers are _all_ of the organic type. Our intellect,
which attends to its own phenomena, thinks of its own thought and
reasons upon its own reasoning, cannot be bound to, or coextensive
with, a material organ, but must be free from any corporeal organ and
rooted in a spiritual principle. In a word, reflective thought is a
superorganic function expressing the spiritual nature of the human mind.

Another proof of the superorganic nature of the human intellect as
compared with sentiency, both exterior and interior, is one adduced by
Aristotle himself: “But that the impassivity of the sense,” he says,
“is different from that of intellect is clear if we look at the sense
organs and at sense. The sense loses its power to perceive, if the
sensible object has been too intense; thus it cannot hear sound after
very loud noises, and after too powerful colors or odors it can neither
see nor smell. But the intellect, when it has been thinking on an
object of intense thought, is not less, but even more, able to think of
inferior objects. For sense-perception is not independent of the body,
whereas the intellect is.” (“Peri Psyches,” Bk. III, Ch. iv, 5.)

This temporary incapacitation of the senses consequent upon powerful
stimulation is a common experience embalmed in such popular expressions
as “a deafening noise,” “a blinding flash,” “a dazzling light,” “a
numbing pain,” etc. Weber’s law of the differential threshold tells
us that the intensity of sensation does not increase in the same
proportion as that of the stimulus. On the contrary, the more intense
the previous stimulus has been, the greater must be the increment
added to the subsequent stimulus before it can produce a perceptible
increase in the intensity of sensation. In short, stimulation of the
senses temporarily decreases their sensitivity with reference to
supervening stimuli. The reason for this momentary loss of the power to
react normally is evidently due to the organic nature of the senses.
Their activity entails a definite and rigidly proportionate process
of destructive metabolism in their bodily substrate, the organism. In
other words, the exercise of sense-perception involves a commensurate
process of decomposition in the neural tissue, which must afterwards
be compensated by a corresponding assimilation of nutrient material,
before the sense can again react with its pristine vigor. This process
of recuperation requires time and temporarily inhibits the reactive
power of the sense in question, the duration of this repair work being
determined by the amount of neural decomposition caused by the reaction
of the sense to the previous stimulus. When, therefore, a weaker
stimulus supervenes in immediate succession to a stronger one, the
sense is incapable of perceiving it. All organic activity, in short,
such as sense-perception and imagination, is rigidly regulated by the
metabolic law of waste and repair.

With the intellect, however, the case is quite different. The intellect
is neither debilitated nor stupefied by the discovery of truths that
are exceptionally profound, or unusually abstruse, or strikingly
evident; nor is it temporarily incapacitated thereby from understanding
simpler, easier, or less evident truths. On the contrary, the more
comprehensive, the more penetrating, the more perspicuous, the more
sublime our intellectual vision is, so much the more is our intellect
invigorated and enthused in its pursuit of truth, and its knowledge
of the highest truths renders it not less, but more, apt for the
understanding of simple and ordinary truths. Obviously, then, the
intellect is not bound to a corruptible organ like the senses, but has
for its subject a spiritual principle that is intrinsically independent
of the organism.

In opposition to this contention, it may be urged that a prolonged
exercise of intellectual activity results in the condition commonly
known as brain-fag. But this fatigue of the brain is not, as a matter
of fact, the _direct_ effect of intellectual activity; rather it is the
direct effect of the activity of the imagination, and only _indirectly_
the effect of intellectual thought. The intellect, as we have seen,
requires a constant flow of associated and aptly coördinated imagery
as the substrate of its contemplation. Now, the imagination, which
supplies this imagery, is a cerebral sense, whose activity is directly
proportionate to, and commensurate with, the metabolic processes at
work in the cortical cells. Its exercise is directly dependent upon
the energy released by the decomposition of the cerebral substance.
Prolonged activity of the imagination, therefore, involves the
destruction of a considerable amount of the cortical substance, and
results in temporary incapacitation or paralysis of the imagination,
which must then be compensated by a process of repair in the cortical
neurons, before the imagination can resume its normal mode of
functioning. Brain-fag, then, is due to the activity of the imagination
rather than that of the intellect. That such is the case appears from
the fact that after the initial exertion, which results from the
imagination being forced to assemble an appropriate and systematized
display of illustrative imagery as subject-matter for the contemplation
of the intellect, the latter is henceforth enabled to proceed with ease
along the path of a given science, its further progress being smooth
and unhampered. Once the preliminary work imposed upon the imagination
is finished, the sense of effort ceases and intellectual investigation
and study may subsequently reach the highest degrees of concentration
and intensity, without involving corresponding degrees of fatigue or
depression on the part of the cerebral imagination, just as, conversely
speaking, the activity of the cerebral imagination may reach degrees
of intensity extreme enough to induce brain-fag in psychic operations
wherein the concomitant intellectual activity is reduced to a minimum,
_e. g._, in the task of memorizing a poem, or recitation. Here, in the
all but complete absence of intellectual activity, the same fatigue
results as that induced by a prolonged period of analytic study or
investigation, in which imaginative activity and rational thinking are
concomitant. The point to be noted, in this latter case, is that the
intellect does not show the same dependence upon the physiological
vicissitudes as the imagination. The imagery of our imagination, being
rigidly correlated with the metabolic processes of waste and repair
at work in the cerebral cortex, manifests correspondingly variable
degrees of intensity and integrity, but the intensity of thought is
not dependent upon this alternation of excitation and inhibition in
the cortex. Hence, while the concomitant imagery is fitful, sporadic,
and fragmentary, intellectual thought itself is steady, lucid,
and continuous. The intensity of thought does not vary with the
fluctuations of neural metabolism, and may reach a maximum without
involving corresponding fatigue in the brain. The brain-fag, therefore,
which results from study does not correspond to the height of our
intellectual vision, but is due to the intensity of the concomitant
imaginative process.

The intellect, therefore, is not subject to the metabolic laws
which rigidly regulate organic functions like sense-perception
and imagination. Man’s capacity for logical thought is frequently
unaffected by the decline of the organism which sets in after maturity.
All organic functions, however, such as sight, hearing, sense-memory,
are impaired in exact proportion to the deterioration of the organism,
which is the inevitable sequel of old age. The intellectual powers, on
the contrary, remain unimpaired, so long as the cortex is sound enough
to furnish the required minimum of imagery, upon which intellectual
activity is objectively dependent. There are, in fact, many cases on
record where men have remained perfectly sane and rational, despite the
fact that notable portions of the cerebral cortex had been destroyed by
accident or disease (_e. g._, tumors). Intellectual thought, therefore,
is a superorganic function, having its source in a spiritual principle
and not in a corruptible organ.

Such is the spiritualism of Aristotle. That this conception differs
profoundly from the ultraspiritualism of Descartes, it is scarcely
necessary to remark. The position assumed by the latter was always
untenable, but it is now, more than ever, indefensible in the face
of that overwhelming avalanche of facts whereby modern physiological
psychology demonstrates the close interdependence and correlation
existent between psychic and organic states. Such facts are exploited
by materialists as arguments against spiritualism, though it is evident
that they have force only against Cartesian spiritualism, and are
bereft of all relevance with respect to Aristotelian spiritualism,
which they leave utterly intact and unscathed. In the latter system,
sense-perception, imagination, and emotion are acknowledged to be
directly dependent on the organism. Again, spiritual functions like
thinking and willing are regarded as objectively or extrinsically
dependent upon the imagination, which, in turn, is directly dependent
on a material organ, namely: the brain. Hence even the rational
operations of the mind are indirectly dependent upon the cerebral
cortex. The spiritualism of Aristotle, therefore, by reason of its
doctrine concerning the direct dependence of the lower, and the
indirect dependence of the higher, psychic functions upon the material
organism, is able to absorb into its own system all the supposedly
hostile facts amassed by Materialism, thereby rendering them futile
and inconsequential as arguments against the spirituality of the human
soul. In confronting this philosophy, the materialistic scientist finds
himself disarmed and impotent, and it is not to be wondered at, that,
after indulging in certain abusive epithets and a few cant phrases,
such as “metaphysics” or “medieval” (invaluable words!), he prudently
retires from the lists without venturing to so much as break a lance in
defense of his favorite dogma, that nothing is spiritual, because all
is matter. In this predicament, the Cartesian caricature proves a boon
to the materialist, as furnishing him with the adversary he prefers,
a man of straw, and enabling him to demonstrate his paltry tin-sword
prowess. Of a truth, Descartes performed an inestimable service for
these modern “assassins of the soul,” when he relieved them of the
necessity of crossing swords with the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle
by the substitution of a far less formidable antagonist, namely, the
psychophysical dualism of mind and matter.

The proofs advanced, in the previous pages, for the spirituality of
the human soul are based upon the superorganic function of rational
thought. A parallel series of arguments can be drawn from the
superorganic function of rational volition. The cognitive intellect
has for its necessary sequel the appetitive will, which may be defined
as spiritual tendency inclining us toward that which the intellect
apprehends as good. The objects of such volition are frequently
abstract and immaterial ideals transcendent to the sphere of concrete
and material goods, _e. g._, virtue, glory, religion, etc. The will of
man, moreover, is free, in the sense that it can choose among various
motives, and is not compelled to follow the line of least resistance,
as is the electric current when passing through a shunt of steel and
copper wire. Like the self-knowing intellect, the self-determining
will is capable of reflective action, that is, it can will to will.
Having its own actions within its own control, it is itself the
principal cause of its own decisions, and thus becomes responsible for
its conduct, wherever its choice has been conscious and deliberate.
External actions, which escape the control of the will, and even
internal actions of the will itself, which are indeliberate, are not
free and do not entail responsibility. Our courts of law and our whole
legal system rests on the recognition of man’s full responsibility for
his deliberate voluntary acts. The distinction between premeditated
murder, which is punished, and unpremeditated homicide, which is not,
is purely moral, and not physical, depending for its validity upon the
fact of human freedom. It is this exemption from physical determinism,
that makes man a moral agent, subject to duties, amenable to moral
suasion, and capable of merit or demerit. Finally, the will of man
is insatiable, invincible, and inexhaustible. The aspirations of the
will are boundless, whereas our animal appetites are easily cloyed by
gratification. There is no freezing point for human courage. The animal
or sensual appetites wear out and decline with old age, but virtue and
will-power do not necessarily diminish with the gradual deterioration
of the material organism. Willing, therefore, is a superorganic or
spiritual function. Activity which is bound to a material organ cannot
tend towards supersensible ideals, cannot escape physical determinism,
cannot achieve the reflective feat of spurring itself to action, cannot
avoid exhaustion, cannot elude rigid regulation by the laws of organic
metabolism. For this reason, the brute, whose psychic functions are
of the organic type exclusively, is destitute of freedom, morality,
and responsibility. Deliberate volition, therefore, like conceptual
thought, has its source and subject in man’s spiritual soul, and is not
a function of the material organism.[12]

    [12] To develop the argument drawn from rational volition
    for the spirituality of the human soul would carry us too
    far afield. Those who wish to pursue the subject further
    may consult Chapter VIII of Gründer’s monograph entitled
    “Psychology without a Soul,” also his monograph on “Free Will.”

    G. H. Parker of Harvard, though admitting the fact of human
    freedom, tries to explain it away in terms of materialism. The
    following is the description which he gives of his theory: “It
    is a materialist view which, however, recognizes in certain
    types of organized matter a degree of free action consistent
    with human behavior and the resultant responsibility.”
    (_Science_, June 13, 1924, p. 520.) Freedom, in other words,
    “emerges” from matter having a peculiar “type of organization.”

    This view must be interpreted in the light of the philosophy
    of “Emergent Evolution,” which Parker holds in common with C.
    Lloyd Morgan and R. W. Sellars. The philosophy in question
    recognizes in nature an ascending scale of more and more
    complexly organized units, starting with protons and electrons,
    at the bottom, and culminating in the human organism, at the
    top. At each higher level of this cosmic scale we find higher
    units formed by coalescence of the simpler units of a lower
    level. These higher units, however, are _something more_ than
    a mere summation of the lower units; for, in addition to
    _additive_ properties that can be predicted from a knowledge
    of the components, they exhibit genuinely _new_ properties
    which, not being mere sums of the properties of the component
    units, are unpredictable on that basis. Given, for example, the
    weight of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, we
    could predict an _additive_ property such as the _weight_ of
    the compound, _i.e._ the water, formed by their combination.
    Other properties, of the compound, however, such as liquidity,
    are not foreshadowed by the properties of the component
    gases. Similarly, the weight of carbon disulphid (CS₂) is
    an additive function of the combining weights of sulphur and
    carbon, but the other properties of this mobile liquid are
    not predictable on the basis of the properties of sulphur and
    carbon. Hence _two_ kinds of properties are distinguished: (1)
    _additive_ (quantitative) properties called _resultants_, which
    are predictable; (2) _specificative_ (qualitative) properties
    called _emergents_, which are unprecedented and unpredictable.
    Freedom and intelligence, accordingly, are pronounced to be
    _emergents_ of matter organized to that degree of complexity
    which we find in man.

    This dualism of resultance and emergence is merely a new
    verbal vesture for the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle. The
    _additive_ properties (_resultants_) are based on _matter_,
    which is the principle of _continuity_. The _specificative_
    (constituitive or qualitative) properties called emergents
    are rooted in _entelechy_ (form), which is the principle of
    _novelty_. In fact, entelechy (form) itself is _an emergent of
    matter_ just as the specificative properties are _emergents_
    of matter, with the sole difference that _entelechy_ is
    _the primary emergent_ of matter, whereas the specificative
    or qualitative properties are _secondary emergents_. For
    in Aristotelian philosophy, entelechy is not, as it is in
    Neo-vitalism, “an alien principle inserted into matter”
    abruptly and capriciously “at the level of life,” but a
    _primary emergent_ and _constituent_ of matter both living
    and non-living. In fine, entelechy is an _emergent_ of matter
    in all the units of nature from the simplest atom to the
    most complex plant or animal organism. The only entelechy,
    which is not an _emergent_, but an _insert_ into matter, is
    the _spiritual human soul_. Neither the human soul nor the
    _superorganic_ functions rooted in it, namely, abstraction,
    reflection, and election, are _emergents_. Here we have
    _novelty without continuity_, and therefore not _emergence_
    (eduction), but _insertion_ (infusion).

    In his “Emergent Evolution,” 1923, Lloyd Morgan lays it down
    as axiomatic that _emergence involves continuity_—“There
    may often be resultants,” he says, “without emergence; but
    there are no emergents that do not involve resultant effects
    also. Resultants give quantitative continuity which underlies
    new constitutive steps in emergence.” (_Op. cit._, p. 5.)
    Now our proofs for human spirituality consist precisely in
    the _complete exclusion of quantitative continuity_ between
    _organic_ functions (_e. g._ sensation) and _superorganic_
    functions (_e. g._ conceptual thought and free volition).
    Hence, by the very axiom which Morgan himself formulates,
    the human soul and its _superorganic functions_ are excluded
    from the category of material _emergents_. If there can be no
    emergence without quantitative continuity, then the human soul
    is not an _emergent from_, but an _insert into_, matter. _Free
    choice_, too, it is needless to say, is not an _emergent of
    matter_, but an _expression of the supermaterial nature of the
    human soul_. So much for the new-old dualism of emergence and
    resultance.

Two additional facts may be cited as bringing into strong relief
the basic contrast existing between the higher or rational, and the
lower or animal psychosis in man. The first is the occurrence of
irreconcilable opposition or conflict. The imagination, for example,
antagonizes the intellect by visualizing as an extended speck of chalk
or charcoal the mathematical point, which the intellect conceives
as destitute of extension and every other property except position.
Similarly, the effort of our rational will to be faithful to duty
and to uphold ideals is antagonized by the sensual impulses of the
animal appetite, which seek immediate gratification at the expense of
remote considerations that are higher. Such antagonism is incompatible
with any identification of the warring factors, that is, of our
rational, with our sentient, functions; for, wherever opposition is in
evidence, there _a fortiori_ a real distinction must be recognized.
The understanding and the will, therefore, differ radically from sense
and sensual appetite. The second significant fact is the domination
exerted by reason and will over the cognitive and appetitive functions
of the organic or sentient order. Our intellect criticizes, evaluates
and corrects the data of sense-perception, it discriminates between
objective percepts and illusions and hallucinations, it distinguishes
dreams from realities, it associates and dissociates imagery for
purposes of comparison, contrast, illustration, or analysis. Moreover,
it not only shows its superiority to sense by supervising, revising,
and appraising the data of sentient experience, but it manifests its
discontent at the inaccuracy and limitation of sense by the invention
and use of instrumentation (_e. g._ ear trumpets, spectacles,
microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes, polariscopes, periscopes,
etc.) to remedy the defects or increase the range of sense-perception,
etc. This phenomenon is without parallel among brute animals, and is
a patent manifestation of the superiority of human psychology. In
like manner, the will demonstrates its preeminence over the organic
or animal appetite, by exerting supreme control over the passions and
impulses of our lower nature. In fact, it is able to bridle and repress
the impulses of sensuality even in the immediate presence of sensible
stimuli that would irresistibly determine the brute to a gratification
of its animal lusts; and it can force the struggling and reluctant
flesh to undergo a crucifixion for supersensible motives that make
no appeal to the beast. The understanding and the will, therefore,
are essentially superior to the organic psychosis that they control,
namely, the sentient consciousness and sensual appetite, which we share
in common with the brute, but which, in the latter, give no evidence
whatever of rational or moral control.


                    § 4. Darwinian Anthropomorphism

The spiritual mind of man represents an eminence to which evolving
matter can never attain. This, then, is the hill that must needs be
laid low, if the path of Darwinian materialism is to be a smooth one.
There is, therefore, nothing very surprising in the fact that Darwin
and his followers, from Huxley down to Robinson, have done all in
their power to obscure and belittle the psychological differences
between man and the brute. The objective of their strategy is twofold,
namely, the _brutalization of man_ and its converse, the _humanization
of the brute_. The ascent will be easier to imagine, if man can be
depressed, and the brute raised, to levels that are not far apart.
To this end, the Darwinian zealots have, on the one hand, spared no
pains to minimize the superiority and dignity of human reason by the
dissemination of sensistic associationism, psychophysical parallelism,
and various other forms of “psychology without a soul”; and they have
striven, on the other hand, to exalt to the utmost the psychic powers
of the brute by means of a crude and credulous anthropomorphism, which,
for all its scientific pretensions, is quite indistinguishable from the
naïveté of the author of “Black Beauty”[13] and the sentimentality of
S. P. C. A. fanatics, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists, etc. The first
of these tendencies we have already discussed, the second remains to be
considered.

    [13] Title of a horse’s autobiography by Anna Sewall, the
    horse’s _alter ego_.

When it comes to anthropomorphizing the brute, Darwin has not been
outdistanced by the most reckless of his disciples. Three entire
chapters of the “Descent of Man” are filled with this “vulgar
psychology” (as Wundt so aptly styles it). It is the sum and substance
of the entire fabric of argumentation, which he erects in support of
his thesis that “the difference in mind between man and the higher
animals is certainly one of degree and not of kind.” (_Cf._ _op.
cit._, chs. III-V.) Haeckel, Huxley, and Clifford attained to equal
proficiency in the sport. Subsequent philosophers parroted their bold
metaphors and smart aphorisms, and the game went on merrily till
the close of the century. Then a badly needed reaction set in under
the auspices of Wundt, Lloyd Morgan, and Thorndike, who insisted on
abandoning this naïve impressionism in favor of more critical methods.

In his “Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Tierseele” (cf. 2nd ed., p.
370), Wundt proclaims his rupture with the impressionistic school in
the following terms: “The one great defect of this popular psychology
is that it does not take mental processes for what they show themselves
to be to a direct and unprejudiced view, but imports into them the
reflections of the observer about them. The necessary consequence for
animal psychology is that the mental actions of animals, from the
lowest to the highest, are interpreted as acts of the understanding.
If any vital manifestation of the organism is capable of possible
derivation from a series of reflections and inferences, that is taken
as sufficient proof that these reflections and inferences actually led
up to it. And, indeed, in the absence of a careful analysis of our
subjective perceptions we can hardly avoid this conclusion. Logical
reflection is the logical process most familiar to us, because we
discover its presence when we think about any object whatsoever. So
that for popular psychology mental life in general is dissolved in
the medium of logical reflection. The question whether there are not
perhaps other mental processes of a simpler nature is not asked at
all, for the one reason that whenever self-observation is required, it
discovers this reflective process in the human consciousness. The same
idea is applied to feelings, impulses, and voluntary actions which are
regarded, if not as acts of intelligence, still as effective states
which belong to the intellectual sphere.

“This mistake, then, springs from ignorance of exact psychological
methods. It is unfortunately rendered worse by the inclination of
animal psychologists to see the intellectual achievements of animals
in the most brilliant light.... Unbridled by scientific criticism the
imagination of the observer ascribes phænomena in perfectly good faith
to motives which are entirely of its own invention. The facts reported
may be wholly true; the interpretation of the psychologist, innocently
woven in with his account of them, puts them from first to last in a
totally wrong light. You will find a proof of this on nearly every page
of the works on animal psychology.” (English Translation by Creighton &
Titchener, p. 341.)

Wundt’s warning against taking at their face value popular, or even
so-called scientific, accounts of wonderful feats performed by animals
is very salutary. The danger of subjective humanization of bestial
conduct is always imminent. We are unavoidably obliged to employ
the analogy of our own animal nature and sentient consciousness as
our principal clue to an understanding of brute psychology, but we
must beware of pressing this analogy based on our own consciousness
to the uncritical extreme of interpreting in terms of our highest
psychic operations animal behavior that, in itself, admits of a far
simpler explanation. According to the principle of the minimum, it is
unscientific to assume in a given agent the presence of anything that
is not rigidly required for the explanation of its observed phenomena.
We must refrain, therefore, from reading into the consciousness of an
animal what is not really there. We must abstain from transporting
our own viewpoint and personality into a brute, by imagining, with
Darwin, that we discern a “sense of humor,” or a “high degree of
self-complacency” in some pet animal, like a dog. In general, we can
rest assured that animals are quite innocent of the motivation we
ascribe to them. All their manifestations of the psychic order are
adequately explicable in terms of sensory experience, associative
memory, instinct, and the various automatisms of their innate and
conditioned reflexes. There is no ground whatever for supposing the
brute to possess the superorganic power of understanding commonly known
as _intelligence_.

Etymologically speaking, the abstract term “intelligence,” together
with the corresponding concrete term “intellect,” is derived from the
Latin: _intus-legere_, signifying to “read within,” the fitness of the
term being based upon the fact that the intellect can penetrate beneath
the outer appearances of things to _inner_ aspects and relations,
which are hidden from the senses. In its proper and most general
usage, intelligence denotes a cognoscitive power of abstraction and
generalization, which, by means of conceptual comparison, discovers the
supersensible relationships existent between the realities conceived,
in such wise as to apprehend substances beneath phenomena, causes
behind effects, and remote ends beyond proximate means.

Certain animal psychologists, however, refuse to reserve the
prerogative of intelligence for man. Bouvier’s “La Vie Psychique des
Insectes” (1918), for example, contains the following statement:
“Choice of a remarkably intellectual nature, is even more noticeable
in the instinctive manifestations of individual memory. The animal,
endowed with well-developed senses and nervous system, not only
reacts to new necessities by new acts, but associates the stored
up impressions of new sensations and thereby appropriately directs
its further activities. Thus, by an intelligent process, new habits
are established, which by heredity become part of the patrimony of
instinct, modifying the latter and constituting elements essential
to its evolution. Of these instincts acquired through an intelligent
apprenticeship Forel was led to say that they are reasoning made
automatic, and it is to them particularly that we may apply the idea
of certain biologists that instincts are habits which have become
hereditary and automatic.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 454.)

It is extremely doubtful, however, whether Bouvier is here using the
term intelligence in its proper sense. Indeed, his words convey the
impression that what he means by intelligence is an _ability to profit
by experience_. Now, ability to profit by experience may, under one
set of circumstances, involve the power of logical reflection and
inference, while, under another set of circumstances, it may imply
nothing more than the power of associative memory. In the latter case,
the facts are explicable without any recourse to psychic powers of
a superorganic nature, and, in point of fact, it often happens that
the very zoöpsychologists, who insist on attributing this sort of
“intelligence” to brutes, are most emphatic in denying that brutes are
endowed with _reason_. In any case, it is unfortunate that the word
intelligence is now used in two entirely different senses. This new and
improper sense, being unrelated to the etymology, and out of harmony
with the accepted use of the term, serves only to engender a confusion
of ideas. It should be suppressed, in order to avoid misunderstandings.

That men should be deluded, however, into crediting animals with
“intelligence” (properly so-called) is not at all surprising, when
we reflect on the source of this misapprehension; for we find
combined in the animal two important factors, whose association
closely simulates intelligence, namely, _sentient consciousness_
and _unconscious teleology_. Now teleology is not _inherent_ or
_subjective_ intelligence, but rather an _objective expression_ and
_product_ of intelligence. It exists in unconscious mechanisms like
phonographs and adding machines, and it is, likewise, manifest in
unconscious organisms like plants. Here, however, there is no danger of
confounding it with conscious intelligence, because machines and plants
do not possess consciousness in any form whatever. But in animals,
on the contrary, teleology is intimately associated with sentient
consciousness. Here the teleological automatisms of instinct are not
wholly blind and mechanical, but are guided by sense-perception and
associative memory. It is this combination of teleology with sentient
“discernment” (as Fabre styles it) that conveys the illusory impression
of a conscious intelligence. Careful analysis, however, of the facts,
in conjunction with judicious experiments, will, in every instance,
enable the observer to distinguish between this deceptive semblance
of intelligence and that inherent rational power of abstraction,
classification, and inference which is the unique prerogative of the
human being. A genuine intelligence of this sort need not be invoked to
explain any of the phenomena of brute psychology. All of them, from the
highest to the lowest, are explicable in terms of the sensitivo-nervous
functions. To illustrate the truth of this statement let us cite a few
typical examples of animal behavior, that are sometimes regarded as
manifestations of intelligent or rational consciousness on the part of
the brute.

Animals, it is pointed out, learn by experience. The tiny chick that
has been stung by a wasp, for instance, learns to avoid such noxious
creatures for the future. This is, indeed, “learning by experience.”
Obviously, however, it does not consist in an inference of a new truth
from an old truth. On the contrary, it amounts to nothing more than
a mere association of imagery, formed in accordance with the _law of
contiguity in time_, sanctioned by the animal’s sensual appetite, and
persistently conserved in its sentient memory. A bond of association is
formed between the visual image of the wasp and the immediately ensuing
sensation of pain. Thereafter the wasp and the pain are associated in
a single complex, which the sensile memory of the animal permanently
retains. We are dealing with a mere _association of contiguity_,
and nothing further is required to explain the future avoidance of
wasps by the chick. The abilities acquired by animals through the
trial and error method are to be explained in the same way. A horse
confined within an enclosure, for example, seeks egress to the fresh
grass of the pasture. The fact that repeated exits through the gate
of the enclosure have associated the image of its own access to the
pasture with the particular spot where the gate is located induces
it to approach the gate. Its quest, however, is balked by the fact
that the gate is closed and latched. Thereupon, it begins to chafe
under the urge of frustrated appetite. Certain actions ensue, some
spontaneous and others merely reflex movements. It paws the ground,
prances about, and rubs its nose against the gate. Its futile efforts
to pass through the closed gate continue indefinitely and aimlessly,
until, by some lucky accident, its nose happens to strike against the
latch and lift it sufficiently to release the gate. This causes the
gate to swing ajar, and the horse rushes out to food and freedom. By
the law of contiguity, the vision of free egress through the gate is
thereafter firmly associated in the horse’s sense-memory with the
final sensation experienced in its nose just prior to the advent
of the agreeable eventuation of its prolonged efforts. Henceforth
the animal will be able to release itself from the enclosure by
repeating the concatenated series of acts that memory associates with
the pleasurable result. On the second occasion, however, the more
remote of its futile acts will have been forgotten, and the process
of opening the gate will occupy less time, though probably a certain
amount of useless pawing and rubbing will still persist. Gradually,
however, the number of inefficacious actions will diminish, until,
after many repetitions of the experience, only those actions which
directly issue in the desirable result will remain in the chain of
impressions retained by memory, all others being eliminated. For, by
a teleological law, making for economy of effort, all impressions
not immediately and constantly connected with the gratification of
animal appetites tend to be inhibited. Pawlow’s experiments on dogs
show that impressions which coincide in time with such gratification
tend to be recalled by a return of the appetitive impulse, but are
soon disconnected from such association and inhibited, if they recur
independently of the recurrence of gratification. For this reason,
the horse tends to remember more vividly those actions which are more
closely connected with the pleasurable result, and, as its superfluous
actions are gradually suppressed by a protective process of inhibition,
it gradually comes to run through the series of actions necessary to
open the gate with considerable accuracy and dispatch.

The point to be noted, however, is that the horse does not
_discursively analyze_ this concatenated series of associated
stimulators and actions; for, let the concrete circumstances be changed
never so little, the horse will at once lose its laboriously acquired
ability to open the gate. Such, for example, will be the result, if the
position of the gate be transferred to another part of the enclosure.
The horse, therefore, is incapable of adapting its acquired ability to
new conditions. It can only rehearse the original series in all its
initial concreteness and stereotyped specificity; and it must, whenever
the circumstances are changed, begin once more at the beginning, and
rearrive by trial and error at its former solution of the problem. The
reason is that the horse merely _senses_, but does not _understand_,
its own solution of the problem. The sense, however, cannot abstract
from the here and now. Consequently, the human infant of two summers is
enabled by its dawning intelligence to _adapt old means to new ends_,
but the ten-year-old horse cannot adjust its abilities to the slightest
change in the concrete conditions surrounding the original acquisition
of a useful habit. The cognitive powers of an animal are confined to
the sphere of concrete singularity, it has no power to abstract or
generalize.

The selfsame observation applies to the tricks which animals “learn”
through human training. Their sensitive memory is very receptive and
retentive. Hence, by means of a judicious alternation of “rewards” and
“penalties” (_e.g._ of sugar and the whip), a man can, as it were,
inscribe his own thoughts on the tablets of the brute’s memory, in such
a way as to force the latter to form habits that appear to rest upon a
basis of intelligence. And so, indeed, they do, but the intelligence is
that of the trainer and not that of the animal, which is as destitute
of intrinsic intelligence as is a talking phonograph, upon whose
records a man can inscribe his thoughts far more efficiently than he
can write them in terms of the neurographic imagery of the canine,
equine, or simian memory.

The trained monkey always renders back without change the original
lesson imparted by its human trainer. The lesson as first received
becomes an immutable reaction-basis for the future. With a school
child, however, the case is quite different. It does, indeed, receive
“an historical basis of reaction,” when the teacher illustrates the
process of multiplication by means of an example on the blackboard.
But it does not receive this information passively and render it back
in the original stereotyped form. On the contrary, it analyzes the
information received, and is able thereafter to reapply the analyzed
information to new problems differing in specificity from the problem
that the teacher originally worked out on the blackboard. The human
pupil does not, like the monkey or the phonograph, render back what
it has received in unaltered specificity. His reaction differs from
its original passive basis. To borrow the words of Driesch, he “uses
this basis, but he is not bound to it as it is. He dissolves the
combined specificities that have created the basis.” (“The Problem of
Individuality,” pp. 27, 28.) The brute, therefore, cannot “learn,”
or “be taught” in the sense of intellectual comprehension and
enlightenment. “We see,” says John Burroughs somewhere, “that the caged
bird or beast does not reason because no strength of bar or wall can
convince it that it cannot escape. It cannot be convinced because it
has no faculties that are convinced by evidence. It continues to dash
itself against the bars not until it is convinced, but until it is
exhausted. Then slowly a new habit is formed, the cage habit. When we
train an animal to do stunts, we do not teach it or enlighten it in any
proper sense, but we compel it to form new habits.”

Human beings, however, can be _taught_ and _enlightened_ under the most
adverse circumstances. Even those unfortunates are susceptible to it,
who, like Laura Bridgman, Helen Keller, Martha Obrecht, Marie Heurtin,
and others, have been blind and deaf and dumb from infancy or birth.
With nearly all the light of sensibility extinguished, there was,
nevertheless, latent within them something of which a perfectly normal
ape, for all the integrity of its senses, is essentially destitute,
namely, the superorganic power of reason. Reason, however, is
extrinsically dependent on organic sensibility, and, consequently, “the
gates of their souls” were closed to human converse, until such a time
as the patient kindness and ingenuity of their educators devised means
of reciprocal communication on a basis of tactile signals. Thereupon
they revealed an intelligence perfectly akin to that of their rescuers.
Years of similar education, however, would be futile in the case of an
ape. The “gates of the soul” would never open, because the ape has no
rational soul, to which the most ingenious trainer might gain access,
in which respect it differs fundamentally from even the lowest savage.
A being that lacks reason may be _trained_ by means of instruction, but
it can never be _enlightened_ by it.

Another consideration, that is occasionally urged in proof of bestial
intelligence, is the fact that birds, mammals, and even insects
communicate with one another by means of sounds or equivalent signals,
which are sometimes remarkably diversified in quality and consequent
efficacy. “Since fowls,” writes Darwin, “give distinct warnings for
danger on the ground, or in the sky, from hawks ..., may not some
unusually wise ape-like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of
prey, and thus told his fellow monkeys the nature of the expected
danger? This would have been a first step in the formation of a
language.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. III, pp. 122, 123.) This is
saltatory logic with a vengeance! Darwin leaps at one bound across the
entire chasm between irrationality and rationality, without pausing
to build even the semblance of a bridge. Given an animal with the
foresight and inventiveness requisite to employ onomatopœia for the
_purpose_ of specifying the _nature_ of an expected _danger_, in the
_interest_ of its fellows, and we need not trouble ourselves further
about plausibleizing any transition; for so “unusually wise” an ape
is already well across the gap that separates reason from unreason,
and far on its way towards the performance of all the feats of which
reason is capable. After swallowing the camel of so much progress, it
would be straining at a gnat to deny such a paragon of simian genius
the mere power of articulate speech. Of course, if imagination rather
than logic, is to be the dominant consideration in science, there is
no difficulty in imagining animals to be capable of thinking or doing
anything we choose to ascribe to them, as witness _Æsop’s Fables_.
But, if sober and critical judgment be in order, then, evidently, from
the simple fact that an animal has diversified cries manifestative
of different emotions or degrees of emotion (_e.g._ of fear or rage)
and capable of arousing similar emotions in other animals of the
same species, it by no means follows that such an irrational animal
can _adapt a means to an end_ by using mimicry _in order to give
notification_ of approaching danger, and _to specify the nature of the
danger_ in question.

This stupid anthropomorphism arises from Darwin’s failure to appreciate
the fundamental distinction that exists between the “language” of
animals, which is indicative, emotional, and inarticulate, and human
language, which is descriptive, conceptual, and articulate. Brute
animals, under the stress of a determinate passion or emotion, give
vent impulsively and unpremeditatedly to instinctive cries indicative
of their peculiar emotional state. Moreover, these emotionalized sounds
are capable of arousing kindred emotions in the breasts of other
animals of the same species, since organisms of the same species are
syntonic with (_i.e._ attuned to) one another. Hence these reflex or
instinctive cries have, no doubt, a teleological value, inasmuch as
they serve to protect the race by inciting a peculiar flight-reaction
in those that are not in immediate contact with the fear-inspiring
object. This so-called warning, however, is given without reflection or
intention on the part of the frightened animal, and is simply sensed,
but not interpreted, by the other animals that receive it.

This premised, it is easy to discriminate between bestial and human
language. The former is not articulate, that is to say, the sounds of
which it is composed have not been elaborated by analysis and synthesis
into phonetic elements and grammatical forms. In the second place, it
is emotional and not conceptual, because it is manifestative of the
emotions or passions (which are functions of the organic or sensual
appetite), and not of rational concepts. In the third place, it is
indicative, that is, it merely signalizes a determinate emotional
state, as a thermometer indicates the temperature, or a barometer
the atmospheric pressure. It is not, therefore, descriptive, in the
sense of being selected and arranged in syntactic sequence for the
express purpose of making others realize one’s own experiences. The
rational language of man, on the contrary, is not emotional. Only a
negligible portion of the human vocabulary is made up of emotional
interjections. It consists, for the most part, of sounds descriptive of
thought, to express which an elaborate system of vowels and consonants
are discriminated and articulated on the basis of social agreement,
the result being a conventional vocal code invented and used for the
express purpose of conveying, not emotions or imagery, but general and
abstract concepts.


                § 5. The True Significance of Instinct

A third class of facts commonly cited as evidence of bestial
intelligence are the remarkable phenomena of _instinct_.[14] The beaver
acts as though it were acquainted with the principles of hydraulics
and engineering, when it maintains the water at the height requisite
to submerge the entrance to its dwelling by building a dam of mud,
logs, and sticks across the stream at a point below the site of its
habitation. The predatory wasp _Pompilius_ is endowed with surgical
art, that suggests a knowledge of anatomy, inasmuch as it first disarms
and afterwards paralyzes its formidable prey, the _Lycosa_ or black
Tarantula. Another predatory wasp, the _Stizus ruficornis_, disables
Mantids in a similar fashion. One of the American Pompilids, the black
wasp _Priocnemis flavicornis_, is an adept in the art of navigation,
since it adopts the principle of the French hydroglissia (an air-driven
boat which skims the water under the propulsion of an aeroplane
propeller). This insect tows a huge black spider several times its own
size and too heavy to be carried, propelling its prey with buzzing
wings along the open waterway, and leaving behind a miniature wake
like that of a steamer. It thus avoids the obstacles of the dense
vegetation, and saves time and energy in transporting the huge carcass
of its paralyzed quarry to the haven of its distant burrow. Spiders
like the _Epeira_, for example, are endowed with the mathematical
ability of constructing their webs on the patterns of the logarithmic
spiral of Jacques Bernouilli (1654-1705), a curve which it took _man_
centuries to discover. The dog infested with parasitic tapeworms
(_Taenia_) evinces a seeming knowledge of pharmaceutics, seeing that it
will avidly devour Common Wormwood (_Artemisia absynthium_), an herb
which it never touches otherwise.

    [14] J. Henri Fabre and Erich Wasmann, S.J., have formulated
    very sound and critical views on the subject of instinct. The
    works of these authors are now available in English. (_Cf._
    de Mattos’ translation of the _Souvenirs etymologiques_: “The
    Mason Bees,” Ch. VII; “The Bramble Bees,” Ch. VI; “The Hunting
    Wasps,” Chs. IX, X, XX; _cf._ also Wasmann’s _Instinct and
    Intelligence_, and _Psychology of Ants and of Higher Animals_,
    Engl. translation by Gummersbach.)

In all these cases, however, as we have previously remarked, the
illusion of intelligence is due to the combination of teleology or
objective purposiveness with sentient consciousness. But teleology
is nothing more than a material expression of intelligence, not to
be confounded with subjective intelligence, which is its causal
principle. When the cells of the iris of the eye of a larval salamander
regenerate the lens in its typical perfection, after the latter has
been experimentally destroyed, we behold a process that is objectively,
but not subjectively, intelligent. In like manner the instinctive
acts of an animal are teleological or objectively purposive, but do
not proceed from an intelligence _inherent in the animal_, any more
than the intelligent soliloquy delivered by a phonograph proceeds
from a conscious intelligence inherent in the disc. In the animal,
sentient consciousness is associated with this teleology or objective
purposiveness, but such consciousness is only aware of what can be
sensed, and is, therefore, _unconscious of purpose_, that is, of the
supersensible link, which connects a means with an end. “Instinct,”
to cite the words of Wm. James, “is usually defined as the faculty of
acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight
of the ends, and without previous education in the performance.”
(“Principles of Psychology,” vol. II, c. xxiv, p. 383.) Hence the
unconscious and objective purposiveness, which the human mind discerns
in the instinctive behavior of brutes, is manifestative, not of an
intelligence within the animal itself, but only of the infinite
intelligence of the First Cause or Creator, Who imposed these laws
replete with wisdom upon the animal kingdom, and of the finite
intelligence of man, who is capable of recognizing the Divine purpose
expressed, not only in the instincts of animals, but in all the telic
phenomena of nature. Such marvels are not the fortuitous result of
uncoördinated contingencies. Behind these correlated teleologies
of the visible universe there is a Supreme Intelligence, which has
“ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight.” (_Wisdom_:
XI, 21.) “And this universal geometry,” says Fabre, in allusion to the
mathematics of the Epeira’s web, “tells of an Universal Geometrician,
whose divine compass has measured all things. I prefer that, as an
explanation of the logarithmic curve of the Ammonite and the Epeira,
to the Worm screwing up the tip of its tail. It may not perhaps be in
accordance with latter-day teaching, but it takes a loftier flight.”
(“Life of the Spider,” p. 400.)

But, though the teleology of instinct is wonderful in the extreme, the
element of psychic regulation is so subordinate and restricted, that,
far from postulating _intelligent_ control, certain scientists go so
far as to deny even _sentient_ control, in the case of instinctive
behavior. Animals, in their opinion, are nothing more than “reflex
machines,” a view which coincides with that of Descartes, who regarded
animals as unconscious automatons. “The instincts,” says Pawlow, “are
also reflexes but more complex.” (_Science_, Nov. 9, 1923, p. 359.) The
late Jacques Loeb was a protagonist of the view that instincts are
simply _metachronic chain-reflexes_, in which one elementary process
releases another, each preceding phase terminating in the production
of the succeeding phase, until the entire gamut of concatenated arcs
has been traversed. Hence, John B. Watson, the Behaviorist disciple
of Loeb, defines instinct as “a combination of congenital responses
unfolding serially under appropriate stimulation.”

But, if Darwinian anthropomorphism sins by excess, Loeb’s mechanism
sins by defect, and fails to account for the indubitable variability of
instinctive behavior. For, however fixed and stereotyped such behavior
may be, it manifests unmistakable adaptation to external circumstances
and emergencies, as well as subordination to the general physiological
condition of the organism, phenomena that exclude the idea of fatal
predetermination according to the fixed pattern of a determinate series
of reflex arcs. As Jennings has shown, synaptic coördination in the
neural mechanism cannot be more than a partial factor in determining
serial responses. The state of the organism as a whole must also be
taken into account. (Cf. “Behavior of the Lower Organisms,” p. 251.)
Thus an earthworm may turn to the right simply because it has just
turned to the left, but this so-called “chain-reflex” does not involve
an invariable and inevitable sequence of events, since the earthworm
may turn twice or thrice to the left, before the second reaction of
turning to the right comes into play. Any animal, when sated, will
react differently to a food stimulus than it will when it is starved,
by reason of its altered organic condition. We have something more,
therefore, to reckon with than a mere system of reflexes released by a
simple physical stimulus.

The second type of variability manifested by instinct is its capacity
for complex and continuous adjustment to variable environmental
circumstances. Thus predatory animals, such as wasps, crabs, spiders,
and carnivorous mammals, accommodate themselves appropriately and
uninterruptedly to the changing and unforeseeable movements of the
prey they are engaged in stalking, giving evidence in this way of the
regulation of their hunting instincts by sensory impressions. Whether
this element of psychic control is based upon object-perception,
or simple sensation, and whether it involves a sensual impulse, or
is merely sensori-motor, we have, naturally, no direct means of
ascertaining. But the presence of some sort of sensory regulation is
evident enough, _e.g._ in the prompt and unerring flight of vultures
to distant carrion. Moreover, there is a close analogy between our
sense organs and those of an animal. Particularly, in the case of the
higher animals, the resemblance of the sense organs and nervous system
to our own is extremely close, so much so that even the localization
of sensory and motor centers in the brain is practically identical in
dogs, apes, and men. Moreover, the animals make analogous use of their
sense organs, orientating them and accommodating them for perception,
and using them to inspect strange objects, etc., _e.g._ they turn
their eyes, prick up their ears, snuff the wind, etc. Again, analogous
motor and emotional effects result from the stimulation of their sense
organs, and brutes make emotional displays of anger, exultation, fear,
etc., similar to our own. Hence it is to be presumed that they have
similar sensuous experiences. The analogy, however, must not be pressed
further than the external manifestations warrant. With brute animals,
the manifestations in question are confined exclusively to phenomena of
the sensuous order.

Another indication of sensory control is found in the repair-work
performed by animals endowed with the constructive instinct. C. F.
Schroeder, for instance, experimenting on certain caterpillars, found
that they repaired their weaving, whenever it was disturbed by the
experimenter. Fabre, too, discovered that a Mason-bee would plaster
up holes or clefts marring the integrity of its cell, provided that
the bee was actually engaged in the process of plastering at the time,
and provided that the experimenter inflicted the damage at the level,
and within the area, of the construction work on which the bee was
then engaged. In a word, if the damage inflicted could be repaired by
a simple continuation or extension of its actual work of the moment,
the bee was able to cope with the emergency. There are other ways,
too, in which the animal adapts its constructive instincts to external
circumstance. Fabre tells us that the Bramble-bee _Osmia_, which builds
a train of partitioned cells in snail shells or in hollow reeds, will
victual first and then plaster in a partition, if the reed be narrow,
but will first plaster a partition, and then introduce honey and
pollen through a hole left unclosed in the partition, whenever the
reed is of greater diameter. This reversal of the procedure according
to the exigencies of the external situation does not suggest the
chain-reflex of Loeb. (Cf. “The Bramble-Bee,” pp. 214-217.) Another
kind of adaptation of instinct to external circumstances consists in
the economical omission of the initial step of a serial construction,
in cases where the environmental conditions provide a ready-made
equivalent. “The silkworm,” says Driesch, “is said not to form its
web of silk if it is cultivated in a box containing tulle, and some
species of bees which normally construct tunnels do not do so if they
find one ready made in the ground, they then only perform their second
instinctive act: separating the tunnel into single cells.” (“Science &
Phil. of the Organism,” vol. II, p. 47.)

Driesch’s analysis of the constructive instinct shows that these
facts of adaptation or regulation fit in with the idea of sensory
control rather than with that of a chain-reflex. In the supposition
that the successive stages of instinctive construction are due to a
chain-reflex, consisting of a series of elementary motor reactions
_a_, _b_, _c_, etc., in which _a_ produces the external work A and,
on terminating, releases _b_, which, in turn, produces external work
B and releases _c_, etc., clearly _b_ could never appear before _a_,
and the sight of A ready-made would not inhibit _a_, nor would the
removal of A defer the advent of _b_. In other words, regulation
would be impossible. But, if we suppose that not the elemental act
_a_, but rather the sensory perception of A, the first state of the
external construction, is the stimulus to _b_ and, consequently, to the
production of the second state of construction B, then we understand
why _b_ is released independently of _a_, when, for example, an
insect discovers a ready-made substitute for A, the initial step in
its construction, and we also understand why, in cases of accidental
damage resulting in the total or partial removal of A, the reaction
_b_ is deferred and the reaction _a_ prolonged, until the repair or
reconstruction of A is complete; for, in this supposition, the addition
of A will inhibit _a_ and release _b_, whereas the subtraction of A
will inhibit the appearance of _b_ and consequently defer B, until the
state of construction A, the sight of which is the stimulus to _b_, is
complete. The fact of regulation, therefore, entails _sensory_ control
of the serial responses involved in the constructive instinct. Hence,
as H. P. Weld of Cornell expresses it: “We may safely assume that even
in the lowest forms of animal life some sort of sensory experience
releases the (instinctive) disposition and to an extent determines the
subsequent course of action.” (Encycl. Am., v. 15, p. 168.)

But it would be going to the opposite extreme to interpret these
adjustments of instinct to external contingencies as evidence of
_intelligent_ regulation. The animal’s ability, for example, to
repair accidental damage to a construction, which instinct impels
it to build, is rigidly limited to repairs that can be accomplished
by a simple continuation of the actual and normal occupation of
the moment. If, however, the damage affects an already completed
portion of the instinctive structure, and its present occupation is
capable of continuance, the animal is impotent to relinquish this
actual occupation of the moment, in order to cope with the emergency.
Suppose, for illustration, that the instinctive operations _a_ and _b_
are finished and the animal is in the _c_-stage of its instinctive
performance, then, if the damage is inflicted in the A-portion of the
structure, and _c_ can be continued independently of A, the animal
cannot relinquish _c_ and return to _a_, in order to restore the
marred integrity of A. This shows that the animal is guided, in its
repair-work, by _sense_, which is bound to the here and now, and not
by intelligence, which is an abstractive faculty that emancipates from
the actual and concrete present, and enables the possessor to hark back
to the past of its performance, should necessity require. Thus Fabre
found that the Mason-bee, after it had turned from building to the
foraging of honey and pollen, would no longer repair holes pricked in
its cell, but suffered the latter to become a veritable vessel of the
Danaïdes, which it vainly strove to fill with its liquid provender.
Though the holes affected portions extremely close to the topmost
layer of masonry, and although it frequently sounded and explored
these unaccustomed holes with its antennæ, it took no steps to check
the escape of the honey and pollen by recurring to its mason craft of
earlier stages. And, finally, when it did resume the plasterer’s trade
in constructing a lid for the cell, it would spare no mortar to plug
the gaping breaches in the walls of its cell, but deposited its egg in
a chamber drained of honey, and then proceeded to perform the useless
work of closing with futile diligence _only the topmost aperture_ in
this much perforated dwelling. Obviously, therefore, the bee failed
to perceive the connection which existed between these breaches and
the escape of the honey, and it was unable to apply its instinctive
building skill to _new uses_ by abstraction from the definite
connection, in which the latter is normally operative.

Sense, therefore, and not intelligence, is the regulatory principle
of instinct. To recognize causal and telic relationships is the
prerogative of a superorganic intelligence. The transcendental link
by which a useful means is referred to an ulterior end is something
that cannot be _sensed_, but only _understood_. An animal, therefore,
acts _toward_ an end, not _on account of_ an end. Nature, however,
has compensated for this ignorance by implanting in each species of
animal a special teleological disposition, by reason of which objects
and actions, which are, under normal conditions, objectively useful
to the individual, or the species, become invested for the animal
with a subjective aspect of agreeableness, while objects and actions,
which are normally harmful, are invested with a subjective aspect
of repulsiveness. The qualities of serviceableness and pleasantness
_happen_, so far as the animal is concerned, to be united in one
and the same concrete object or action, but the animal is only
aware of the pleasantness, which appeals to its senses, and not of
the serviceableness, which does not. Thus, in the example already
cited, the dog suffering from tapeworms eats the herb known as Common
Wormwood, not because it is aware of the remedial efficacy of the herb,
but simply because the odor and flavor of the plant appeal to the
animal in its actual morbid condition, ceasing to do so, however, when
the latter regains the state of health. How different is the action
of the man whose blood is infected with malarial parasites and who
takes quinine, not because the bitter taste of the alkaloid appeals
to his palate, but solely because he has his future cure explicitly
in view! “Finally,” says Weld, “the more we learn about instincts the
more apparent it becomes that the situations from which they proceed
are meaningful, but we need not suppose that the organism is aware of
the meaning. The chick in the egg feels (we may only guess as to its
nature) a vague discomfort, and the complicated reaction by which it
makes its egress from the shell is released.” (Encycl. Am., v. 15, p.
169.)

Recapitulating, then, we may define instinct as a psycho-organic
propensity, not acquired by education or experience, but congenital
by inheritance and identical in all members of the same zoölogical
species, having as its physical basis the specific nervous organization
of the animal and as its psychic basis a teleological coördination
of the cognitive, emotional, and motor functions, in virtue of
which, given the proper physiological state of the organism and the
presence of an appropriate environmental stimulus, an animal, without
consciousness of purpose, is impelled to the inception, and regulated
in the performance, of complicated behavior which is sensually
gratifying and, under normal circumstances, simultaneously beneficial
to the individual, or the race.

Instinctive acts are performed without previous experience or training
on the part of the animal, and are, nevertheless, at least in the
majority of cases, _perfect in their first performance_. A few, like
the pecking-instinct of young chickens, are slightly improvable through
sentient experience, _e.g._ the young chick, at first undiscriminating
in the choice of the particles which it picks up, learns later by
associative memory to distinguish what is tasty and edible from what
is disagreeable and inedible, but, for the most part, the perfection
of instinctive acts is independent of prior experience. Hence instinct
is entirely different from human reason, which, in the solution of
problems, is compelled to begin with reflection upon the data furnished
by previous experience, or education. The animal, however, in its
instinctive operations, without pausing to investigate, deliberate,
or calculate, proceeds unhesitatingly on the very first occasion
to a prompt and perfect solution of its problems. Hence, without
study, consultation, planning, or previous apprenticeship of any
sort, and in the complete absence of experimental knowledge, that
might serve as matter for reflection or as a basis for inference, the
animal is able to solve intricate problems in engineering, geometry,
anatomy, pharmaceutics, etc., which the combined intelligence of
mankind required centuries upon centuries of schooling, research, and
reflection in order to solve. Of two things, therefore, one: either
these actions do not proceed from an intelligent principle inherent in
the animal; or they do, and in that case we are compelled to recognize
in brute animals _an intelligence superior to our own_, because they
accomplish deftly and without effort ingenious feats that human
reason cannot duplicate, save clumsily and at the price of prolonged
discipline and incessant drudgery. “Perhaps the strongest reason,” says
an anonymous writer, “for not regarding the activities of instinct
as intelligent is that in such enormously complex sequences of action
as, for instance, the emperor moth carries out in the preparing of an
escape-opening for itself on its completing the larval and passing
into the imago state, the intelligence needed would be so great that
it could not be limited to this single activity, and yet it is so
limited.”[15]

    [15] Cf. Nelson’s Encyclopedia, v. 6, p. 452.

Intelligence is essentially a _generalizing_ and _abstracting_ power;
hence, from its very nature, it could not be _limited to a single
activity_. Bestial instincts, however, though frequently so amazingly
complex and ingeniously purposive as to seem the fruit of profound
meditation, are, nevertheless, confined exclusively to this or that
determinate ability. They operate within narrow and preëstablished
grooves, from which they never swerve to any appreciable degree,
being but little modifiable or perfectible by experience. Bees always
construct hexagonal cells, spiders stick to the logarithmic spiral,
and beavers never attempt to put their engineering skill to new uses.
Instincts have but little pliancy, their regularity and uniformity
being such as to make the instinctive abilities definitely predictable
in the case of any given species of animal. Now, the distinctive mark
of intelligence is _versatility_, that is, aptitude for many things
without determinate restriction to this or that. A man who is expert
in one art may, by reason of his intelligence, be equally proficient
in a dozen others. The biologist may be a competent chemist, and the
astronomer an excellent physicist. Michel Angelo was a sculptor, a
frescoer, a painter, an anatomist, an engineer, and an architect,
while Leonardo da Vinci had even more arts to his credit. To predict
before birth the precise form that a man’s ability will take is an
impossibility. Certain aptitudes, such as a musical gift, are no doubt
inherited, but it is an inheritance which imposes no rigid necessity
upon inheriter; since he is free to neglect this native talent, and to
develop others for which he has no special innate aptitude. With man,
the fashion in clothing and the styles of architecture vary from day
to day. The brute, however, never emerges from the rut of instinct,
and each generation of a given animal species monotonously reproduces
the history of the previous generation. Man, on the contrary, is
capable of indefinite _progress_, as the march of human cultures
and civilizations shows. Gregarious animals are restricted by their
instincts to determinate types of aggregation, as we see in the case of
ants and bees. Hence these insect communities are unacquainted with our
sanguinary revolutions which overturn monarchies in favor of republics,
or set up dictatorships in place of democracies; for, fortunately or
unfortunately, as one may choose to regard it, man is not limited to
one form of government rather than another.

Animals, then, notwithstanding their wonderful instincts, are
deficient in precisely that quality which is the unique criterion of
intelligence, namely, versatility. Each species has but one stereotyped
ability, outside of which it is woefully stupid and inefficient. “So
long,” says Fabre, “as its circumstances are normal the insect’s
actions are calculated most rationally in view of the object to be
attained” (“The Mason-Bees,” p. 167), but let the circumstances
cease to be normal, let them vary never so little from those which
ordinarily obtain, and the animal is helpless, while its instinctive
predisposition becomes, not merely futile, but often positively
detrimental. Thus the instinct, which should, in the normal course of
events, guide night-flying moths to the white flowers that contain
the life-sustaining nectar of their nocturnal banquets, proves
their undoing, when they come into contact with the white lights of
artificial illumination. In fact, the fatal fondness of the moth for
the candle flame has become in all languages a proverb for the folly of
courting one’s own destruction.

The animal may employ an exquisitely efficient method in accomplishing
its instinctive work, but is absolutely impotent to apply this
ingenious method to more than one determinate purpose. Man, however,
is not so restricted. He varies at will both his aims and his
methods. He can adapt the _same means_ (a pocketknife, for instance)
to _different ends_, and, conversely, he can obtain the _same end_
by the use of _different means_ (_e.g._ communicate by mail, or
telegraph, or radio). Man, in a word, is _emancipated from limitation
to the singular and the concrete_ by virtue of his unique prerogative,
reason, or intelligence, the power that enables him _to generalize
from the particular and to abstract from the concrete_. This is
the secret of his unlimited versatility. This is the basis of his
capacity for progress. This is the root of his freedom; for his
will seeks happiness in general, happiness in the abstract, and is
not, therefore, compelled to choose any particular form or concrete
embodiment of happiness, such as this or that style of architecture,
this or that form of government, this or that kind of clothing, etc.,
etc. Teleology is but a material expression of intelligence, and may,
therefore, occur in things destitute of intelligence, but versatility
is the inseparable concomitant and infallible sign of an inherent and
autonomous intelligence. Lacking this quality, instinct, however telic,
is obviously not intelligence.

Another indication of the fact that no intelligence lies behind
the instinctive behavior of brutes is manifest from their evident
_unconsciousness of purpose_. That the animal is ignorant of the
purpose implied in its own instinctive actions appears from the fact
that it will carry out these operations with futile diligence and
exactitude, even when, through accident, the purpose is conspicuously
absent. Thus the hen deprived of her eggs will, nevertheless, continue
the now futile process of incubation for twenty-one days, or longer,
despite the fact that her obstinacy in maintaining the straw of the
empty nest at a temperature of 104° F. serves no useful purpose
whatever. She cannot but sense the absence of the eggs; she has not,
however, the intelligence to realize that incubation without eggs is
vain. The connection between the latter and the former is something
that mere sense cannot apprehend. Hence the hen is not troubled by
the purposelessness of her performance. Fabre gives many examples
of this futile persistence in instinctive operations, despite their
complete frustration. Alluding to the outcome of his experiments on
the Mason-wasp _Pelapaeus_, he says: “The Mason bees, the Caterpillar
of the Great Peacock Moth, and many others, when subjected to similar
tests, are guilty of the same illogical behaviour: they continue, in
the normal order, their series of industrious actions, though accident
has now rendered them all useless. Just like millstones unable to cease
revolving though there be no corn left to grind, let them once be given
the compelling power and they will continue to perform their task
despite its futility.” (“Bramble Bees,” pp. 192, 193.)

The instance cited by Dr. H. D. Schmidt is an excellent illustration
of this inability of an animal to appreciate either the utility or
futility of its instinctive behavior. Having described the instinct
of squirrels to bury nuts by ramming them into the ground with their
teeth, and then using their paws to cover them with earth, he continues
as follows: “Now, as regards the young squirrel, which, of course,
never had been present at the burial of a nut, I observed that, after
having eaten a number of hickory nuts to appease its appetite, it
would take one between its teeth, then sit upright and listen in all
directions. Finding all right, it would scratch upon the smooth blanket
on which I was playing with it as if to make a hole, then hammer with
the nut between its teeth upon the blanket, and finally perform all the
motions required to fill up a hole—_in the air_; after which it would
jump away, leaving the nut, of course, uncovered.” (_Transactions of
the Am. Neurological Ass’n_, 1875, vol. I, p. 129—italics his.) This
whole pantomime of purposeless gesticulations, from the useless “Stop,
look and listen!” down to the final desertion of the uncovered nut, is
overwhelming evidence of the fact that the brute is destitute of any
rational faculty capable of recognizing the telic aspect of its own
instinctive conduct.

The claim is sometimes made that certain forms of animal behavior
are not unconsciously, but _consciously_, telic. Bouvier, for
example, claims that in the rare cases of the _use of tools_ among
the Arthropoda, we have evidence of the existence of intelligent
inventiveness of a rudimentary kind. Thus the crab _Melia_ carries a
sea-anemone in its chela as a weapon wherewith to sting its prey into a
condition of paralysis. The leaf-cutting ants of India and Brazil use
their own thread-spinning larvæ as tools for cementing together the
materials out of which their nests are constructed. The predatory wasp
_Ammophila urnaria_ uses a pebble to tamp the filling of its burrow.
According to the Wheelers (cf. _Science_, May 30, 1924, p. 486), the
hunting wasp _Sphex_ (_Ammophila_) _gryphus_ (Sm.) makes similar use
of a pebble. As Bouvier notes, however, this use of tools appears “to
be rather exceptional ..., showing itself only in the primitive state
consisting of the use of foreign bodies as implements.” (Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 456.) Moreover, the animals in question
are limited to a concretely determinate kind of tool, which their
environment supplies ready-made. Such a use of implements _does not
presuppose any power of abstraction and generalization_. In fact, the
presence of such a power is expressly excluded by the consideration
that the animal’s so-called “inventiveness” is confined exclusively to
_one particularized manifestation_.

At times the behavior of animals so closely simulates the consciously
telic or intelligent conduct of men, that only severely critical
methods enable us to discriminate between them. An experiment, which
Erich Wasmann, S.J., performed upon ants will serve to illustrate this
point. In one of his glass nests, Father Wasmann constructed an island
of sand surrounded by a moat filled with water. He then removed from
their “nursery” a certain number of the ant larvæ and placed them on
the island. Thereupon the ants were observed to build a bridge of sand
across the moat “for the purpose,” apparently, of rescuing the marooned
larvæ. Such behavior seemed to imply an intelligent ordination of a
means to an end. Wasmann’s second experiment, however, proved this
inference to be wholly unwarranted; for, when he excavated a hole in
the sand of the nest and filled it with water, the ants, stimulated
by what to them was the disagreeable dampness of the marginal sand,
were impelled to perform the reflex act of kicking about in the sand.
This impulse persisted until all traces of the hole, the dampness and
the water had been buried under a carpet of drier sand. Then, and then
only, was the aforesaid impulse inhibited. Applying these results to
the interpretation of the first experiment, we see that the “building
of a bridge” in the first experiment was not intentional, but merely
an accidental result of a kicking-reflex, with damp sand acting as
a stimulator. Once the moat was bridged, however, the ants happened
to find the larvæ, and were then impelled by instinct to carry the
larvæ to their proper place in the nest. To see in such an incident a
planned and premeditated rescue of the marooned larvæ would be grossly
anthropomorphic. Nevertheless, had only the first experiment been
performed, such an anthropomorphic interpretation would have seemed
fully justified, and it was only by an appropriate variation of the
conditions of the original experiment that this false interpretation
could be definitively excluded.

Consciously telic behavior is distinguishable from unconsciously
telic conduct only to the extent that it implies an agent endowed
with the power of abstraction. Unless an agent can vary radically the
specificity of the procedure, whereby it attains a given end, the
purposiveness of its behavior is no evidence of its intelligence.
“Among animals,” says Bergson, “invention is never more than a
variation on the theme of routine. Locked up as it is within the habits
of its species, the animal succeeds no doubt in broadening these by
individual initiative; but its escape from automatism is momentary
only, just long enough to create a new automatism; the gates of its
prison close as soon as they are opened; dragging the chain merely
lengthens it. Only with man does consciousness break the chain.” (Cf.
Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 457.)

In vain, then, do our Darwinian humanizers of the brute exalt instinct
at the expense of intelligence. Their attempt to reduce to a difference
of degree the difference of kind that separates the irrational from
the rational, fails all along the line. Indeed, far from being able to
account for the appearance of intelligence in the world, transformistic
theories are impotent to account for so much as the development of
instinct, all forms of the evolutionary theory, the Lamarckian, the
Darwinian, the De-Vriesian, etc., being equally inadequate to the task
of explaining the origin of animal instincts.

The complex instinctive behavior of predatory wasps, for example, is
absolutely essential for the preservation of their respective races,
and yet these indispensable instincts are completely useless in any
other than the _perfect state_. From their very nature, therefore,
they do not admit of _gradual development_. The law of all, or none,
holds here. “Instinct developed by degrees,” says Fabre, “is flagrantly
impossible. The art of preparing the larva’s provisions allows none
but masters, and suffers no apprentices; the Wasp must excel in it
from the outset or leave the thing alone.” (“The Hunting Wasps,” p.
403.) To be useful at all, the instinctive operation must possess an
indivisible perfection, which cannot be partitioned into degrees.
The _Pompilius_ (_Calicurgus_), for instance, must, under penalty of
instant death, take the preliminary precaution to sting into inaction
the ganglion that controls the poison forceps of her formidable prey,
the Black Tarantula (_Lycosa_), before she proceeds to paralyze it
by stabbing its thoracic ganglion. The slightest imperfection or
shortcoming in her surgery would be irretrievably disastrous. Such an
instinct never existed in an imperfect form. The first wasp to possess
it must have been an expert, or she would never have lived to serve the
limp body of the huge spider as living provender for her tiny grub.
“The first to come to grips with the Tarantula,” says Fabre, “had an
unerring knowledge of her dangerous surgery. The least hesitation, the
slightest speculation, and she was lost. The first teacher would also
have been the last, with no disciples to take up her art and perfect
it.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 354.)

Another hunting wasp, the Hairy Ammophila, subdues a large caterpillar
into a state of coma by pricking with its sting nine of the ventral
ganglia, while it spares the cervical ganglion, merely compressing
the latter with its mandibles, so as not to destroy life altogether.
This nice discrimination rules out Loeb’s hypothesis of a so-called
“chemotaxis.” As a result of this elaborate surgical operation, the
power of movement is suppressed in every segment, and the tiny larva
of the wasp emerging from the egg laid on the ventral surface of the
caterpillar can devour this huge living, but motionless, victim in
peace and safety. Dead meat would not agree with the larva, and any
movement of the caterpillar would be fatal to the delicate grub. To
eliminate these contingencies, the Wasp’s surgery must be perfect
from the very outset. “There is,” says Fabre, “no _via media_, no
half success. Either the caterpillar is treated according to rule and
the Wasp and its family is perpetuated; or else the victim is only
partially paralyzed and the Wasp’s offspring dies in the egg. Yielding
to the inexorable logic of things, we will have to admit that the
first Hairy Ammophila, after capturing a Grey Worm to feed her larva,
operated on the patient by the exact method in use today.” (“The
Hunting Wasps,” pp. 403, 404.)

Certain meticulous critics of our day cite the fact of the diffusion
of the poison as indicating that the surgery of the hunting wasps need
not be so perfectly accommodated to the nervous system of their prey,
and they attempt in this way to discredit Fabre as having failed to
take the occurrence of diffusion into account. A careful reading of
his works, however, will serve to vindicate him in this respect. In a
chapter on the poison of the bee, for instance, we read: “The local
effect is diffused. This diffusion, which might well take place in the
victims of the predatory insects, plays no part in the latter’s method
of operation. The egg, which will be laid immediately afterwards,
demands the complete inertia of the prey from the outset. Hence all the
nerve-centers that govern locomotion must be numbed instantaneously
by the virus.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 347.) Bouvier, therefore, very
justly remarks: “After all, when Fabre’s work is examined there is no
trouble in seeing that none of these details escaped him. He never
disputed the paralytic action of the poison inoculated by the insect,
and the wonderful researches by the Peckhams on the Pompilids, which
hunt Lycosids, have clearly established the fact that the thrusts of
the sting given by the predatory insect produce two different kinds
of paralysis, one functional, and often temporary, resulting from the
action of the venom, the other structural and persistent, produced by
the dart which more or less injures the nervous centers.” (Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 594.)

In the case of predatory insects, therefore, the instinct must be
_perfect at the outset_, or survival is impossible. For the origin
of such instincts, Darwinism, which stresses the _gradualness_ of
evolutionary progress, has no explanation that will hold water.
Lamarckism, which sees in _acquired habits_ transmitted by inheritance,
the origin of instinct, the “memory of the race,” is equally at a
loss to account for these instincts. The formation of habits requires
_practice_ and _repetition_. The predatory insect must be perfect at
the start, and yet it only exercises its remarkable instinct _once a
year_. Where is the practice and reiteration requisite for canalizing
its nervous system into the conduction-paths of habit? How did one
particular set of rarely performed acts happen to gain precedence over
all others, and to be alone successful in stamping themselves indelibly
upon the nerve plasm as habits, and upon the germ plasm as instincts?
De-Vriesianism, which would make the acquisition and perfecting of
instinct dependent upon the rare and accidental contingency of a
_fortuitous mutation_, is even more objectionable. These instincts are
vital to the insect. If their acquisition and improvement depend upon
the lucky chance of a series of favorable mutations, its prospects of
survival are nil; for it cannot afford to wait at all. “In order to
live,” says Fabre, “we all require the conditions that enable us to
live: this is a truth worthy of the famous axioms of La Palice. The
predatory insects live by their talent. If they do not possess it to
perfection, their race is lost.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 364.)

Recently, there has been a revival of Lamarckism hitherto regarded
as defunct. Guyer, Kammerer, and Pawlow profess to find factual
justification for it, and Bouvier adopts it in his “La vie psychique
des insectes” (1918), to account for the origin of instinct. Of the
alleged facts of Kammerer and Guyer, we have spoken in a previous
chapter. Here we shall content ourselves with few remarks on the
experiments of Ivan Pawlow, as being especially relevant to the subject
under consideration. The Russian physiologist has experimented on
white mice, and claims that the mice of the fifth generation learned
to answer a dinner bell in the space of five lessons, whereas their
ancestors of the first generation had required a hundred lessons to
answer the same signal. Hence he concludes: “The latest experiments ...
show that conditioned reflexes, _i.e._, the highest nervous activity,
are inherited.” (_Science_, Nov. 9, 1923, p. 360.) His results,
however, do not tally with those recently obtained by E. C. MacDowell
of the Carnegie Institution, by H. G. Bragg, and by E. M. Vicari of
Columbia. MacDowell found that white rats trained in a circular maze
did not improve in their susceptibility to training from generation to
generation. “Children from trained parents,” he says, “or from trained
parents and grandparents, take as long to learn the maze habit as the
first generation used.” (_Science_, March 28, 1924, p. 303.) Having
cited the similar results of Bragg, who experimented with white mice,
he concludes: “The results are in full accord with those given above;
they indicate that the training of the ancestors did not facilitate the
learning of the descendants.” (_Ibidem._) E. M. Vicari, using a simple
maze and white rats, obtained the same results. “It seems clear,” she
says, “that the latter generations have not been aided by the training
of their ancestors.” (_Ibidem._)

Bouvier’s conception, then, that the automatisms of instinct originate
as automatisms of acquired habit, the latter being appropriated
by inheritance, still stands in need of reliable experimental
confirmation. Moreover, a theory of this sort could never account,
as Weismann points out, for such phenomena as the specific instincts
of worker bees, which are _excluded from propagation_. Nor can the
theory explain, as originating in acquired _habit_, those instinctive
operations of enormous complexity, like the complicated method of
emergence employed by the larva of the emperor moth, which only occur
_once in a lifetime_, and could not, therefore, fasten themselves on
the organism as a _habit_.

An evolutionary origin of instinct, however, though extremely
improbable, is, at any rate, not absolutely inconceivable. Its
teleology, as we have seen, does not imply inherent intelligence, but
is explicable as an innate law involving appropriate coördination
of the sensory, emotional, and motor functions, all of which are
intrinsically dependent on the organism. But intelligence, as we
have seen, is a superorganic power, having its source in a spiritual
principle, that, from the very nature of things, cannot be evolved from
matter. Human reason, therefore, owes its origin, not to any evolution
of the human body, but to the creation of the human soul, which is the
source and subject of that unique prerogative of man, namely: the power
of abstract thought.




                              CHAPTER III

                     THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY


In an article published August 31, 1895, in the _New York Freeman’s
Journal_, the late Rev. J. A. Zahm gave expression to the following
opinion: “The evolution of the body of man from some inferior animal
and its subsequent endowment in this body by God of a rational soul is
antagonistic to no dogma of faith and may be shown to be in harmony
with the teachings of St. Thomas.” The scriptural and theological
aspect of this view need not concern us here, our sole purpose being
to evaluate it from a purely scientific standpoint. Once evolutionary
thought takes cognizance of the fact that the human soul is a spiritual
principle underivable from mere matter, once it acknowledges the
immediate creation of the human soul, and professes to do no more
than account for the origin of man’s animal _body_, that moment is it
shorn of its materialistic implications; but what, we may ask, are the
foundations of such an hypothesis in the realm of scientific fact?

The writer must confess that he cannot fathom the mentality of those
who accept the evolutionary explanation, so far as plant and animal
organisms are concerned, but proceed to draw the line when it comes to
applying it to the human body. For if one (to borrow Du Bois-Reymond’s
expression) “gives so much as his little finger to” the evolutional
argument from organic homology, he must end, in so far as he is
consistent, in acknowledging as incontestable its obvious application
to man. The only choice which sound logic can sanction is between
fixism and a thoroughgoing system of transformism, which does not
exempt the human body from the scope of the evolutionary explanation.
Indeed, the theory of evolution itself stands or falls upon this issue;
for, if structures so strikingly similar as the skeletons of a man
and an ape, respectively, have originated from two distinct ancestral
stocks, then in no case at all is the inference of common descent
from structural resemblance a legitimate procedure. In other words,
if the homologies existent between the human and simian organisms are
explicable on some other basis than that of common ancestry, then
all organic homologies are so explicable, and the whole evolutionary
argument collapses.


                     § 1. Two Theories of Descent

Two theories have been formulated regarding the alleged bestial
origin of the human body: (1) the theory of lineal descent from some
known species (living or fossil) of ape or monkey; (2) the theory of
collateral descent from a hypothetical bestial ancestor common to apes
and men. The theory of lineal descent is that to which Darwin himself
stands committed. This theory, however, soon fell into disrepute among
scientists, who came to prefer the theory of collateral descent,
although signs of a return to the older theory are not wanting in our
day. At all events, Darwin came out flatly in favor of the monkey
origin of man. This, it is true, has been indignantly denied by loyal
partisans anxious to exonerate their idol from the reproach of having
advanced a crude and now obsolete theory of human descent. But Darwin’s
own words speak for themselves: “The Simiadae,” he says, “then branched
off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from
the latter, at a remote period of time, Man, the wonder and glory of
the Universe, proceeded.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. VI, pp. 220,
221.) Note that he does not say “probably”; his language is not the
language of hypothesis, but of categorical affirmation.

The theory, however, which is most generally favored at the present
time holds that, assuming the universality of the evolutionary
process, all existing types must be of equal antiquity, and none prior
or ancestral to any other. Hence it regards man, not as the direct
descendant of any known type of ape, but as the offspring of an as yet
undiscovered Tertiary ancestor, from which men and apes have diverged
in two distinct lines of descent. “_Monkeys, apes, and men_,” says
Conklin, “_have descended from some common but at present extinct
ancestor_. Existing apes and monkeys are collateral relatives of man
but not his ancestors; his cousins but not his parents.... The human
branch diverged from the anthropoid stock not less than two million
years ago, and since that time man has been evolving in the direction
represented by existing human races, while the apes have been evolving
in the direction represented by existing anthropoids. During all this
time men and apes have been growing more and more unlike and conversely
the farther back we go, the more we should find them converging until
they meet in a common stock which should be intermediate between these
two stocks.” (“Evolution and the Bible,” pp. 12, 13—italics his.)

Barnum Brown’s recent discovery of three jaws of the fossil ape
_Dryopithecus_ in the Siwalik Hills of India has, as previously
intimated, resulted in a return on the part of certain scientists,
_e.g._ Wm. K. Gregory and Dudley J. Morton, to views that more nearly
approximate those of Charles Darwin. According to these men, the fossil
anthropoid _Dryopithecus_ is to be regarded as the common ancestor of
men, chimpanzees, and gorillas. (Cf. _Science_, April 25, 1924, Suppl.
XII.)

Many considerations, however, militate against the direct derivation
of man’s bodily frame from any known species of ape, whether living
or fossil. Dana has pointed out that, as regards the mechanism of
locomotion, man belongs to a more primitive type than the ape.
The earliest and lowest type of vertebrates are the fish, and
these, according to the above-mentioned author, are _urosthenic_
(tail-strong), inasmuch as they propel themselves by means of their
tails. Next in point of organization and time came the _merosthenic_
vertebrates, which have their strength concentrated in the hind-limbs,
_e.g._ reptiles like the dinosaurs. In the last place come the
_prosthenic_ vertebrates, whose strength is concentrated in the
fore-limbs, _e.g._ the carnivora and apes. Now man belongs to the
_merosthenic_ type, and his mode of progression, therefore, is more
primitive than that of apes, which are _prosthenic_, all anthropoid
apes, such as the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan and the
gibbon having longer fore-limbs than hind-limbs.

The striking anatomical differences between apes and men, though not
of sufficient importance to exclude the possibility of collateral
relationship, are so many solid arguments against the theory of
direct descent. We will content ourselves with a mere enumeration of
these differences. In the ape, the cranium has a protruding muzzle
and powerful jaws equipped with projecting canine teeth, but the
brain-case is comparatively small; in man, on the contrary, the facial
development is insignificant and the teeth are small and vertical,
while the brain-case is enormous in size, having at least twice the
capacity of that of an ape. “The face of man,” to quote Ranke, “slides,
as it were, down from the forehead and appears as an appendix to the
front half of the skull. But the gorilla’s face, on the contrary,
protrudes from the skull, which in turn slides almost entirely backward
from the face. By a cross-cut one may sever the whole face from the
skull, except a very small part near the sockets, without being forced
to open up the interior of the skull. It is only on account of its
protruding, strongly developed lower parts that the skull-cap of the
animal can simulate a kind of human face.” (“Der Mensch,” vol. II,
p. 401.) These differences may be summarized by saying that the head
of the ape is specialized for mastication and defense, whereas the
head of man is specialized for psychic functions. Again, as we have
seen, the fore-limbs of the ape are long, and its hind-limbs short,
the extremities of both the latter and the former being specialized
primarily for prehension and only secondarily for progression. This
is due to the ape’s adaptation to arboreal life. In man, however,
the arms are short and specialized for prehension alone, while the
legs are long and terminate in broad plantigrade feet specialized for
progression alone. Man, consequently, is not adapted to arboreal life.
In the ape, the spine has a single curve, and the occipital foramen
(the aperture through which the spinal cord enters the brain-case)
is eccentrically located in the floor of the cranial box; in man,
the spine has a double curve, and the occipital foramen is centrally
located, both features being in adaptation to the upright posture
peculiar to man—“_die zentralle Lage dieser Oeffnung_,” says Ranke
alluding to the occipital foramen of man, “_in der Schädelbasis ist
für den Menschenschädel im Unterschied gegen den Tierschädel eine in
hohem Masse typische_.” (“Der Mensch,” vol. I, p. 378.) In the ape,
therefore, the vertebræ have an adaptation producing convexity of the
back, precluding a normal upright posture, and enforcing progression
on all fours. It has, moreover, powerful muscles at the back of the
neck to carry the head in the horizontal position necessitated by this
mode of progression. In man “the skull has the occipital condyles
placed within the middle fifth, in adaptation to the vertical position
of the spine” (Nicholson), the spinal cord enters the cranial box at
a perpendicular, and the head balances on the spinal column as on a
pivot, all of which ensures the erect posture and bipedal progression
in man. There are, moreover, no neck muscles to support the head in any
other than the vertical position. There are many other differences,
besides: the ape, for example, has no chin, while in man there is a
marked mental protuberance; man has a slender waist, but the ape has a
barrel-like torso without any waist; the ape has huge bony ridges for
the attachment of muscles, _e.g._ the sagittal crest, the superciliary
ridges, etc., while in man such features are practically absent.

Ranke has given a very good summary of the chief anatomical differences
between man and the anthropoid apes: “The gorilla’s head leaning
forward, hangs down from the spinal column, and his chinless snout,
equipped with powerful teeth, touches the breastbone. Man’s head
is round, and resting on a free neck, balances unrestrained upon
the spinal column. The gorilla’s body, without a waist, swells out
barrel-shaped, and when straightened up finds no sufficient support on
the pelvis; the back-bone, tailless as in man, but almost straight,
loses itself without nape or neck formation properly so-called in the
rear part of the head and without protuberance of the gluteal region
in the flat thighs. Man’s body is slightly molded, like an hour-glass,
the chest and abdomen meeting to form a waist where they are narrowest;
the abdominal viscera are perfectly supported in the pelvis as in a
plate; and elegance is decidedly gained by the double S-line, which,
curving alternately convex and concave, passes from the crown through
the neck and nape, down the back to the base of the spine and the
gluteal region. The normal position of the gorilla shows us a plump,
bear-like trunk, carried by short, crooked legs and by arms which serve
as crutches and touch the ground with the knuckles of the turned-in
fingers. The posture of the body is perfectly straight in man, it rests
on the legs as on columns when he stands upright, and his hands hang
down on both sides always ready for use. The gorilla is thickly covered
with hair, while man’s body on the whole is naked.” (_Op. cit._, vol.
II, p. 213.)

In conclusion, we may say that, while there is a general resemblance
between the human body and that of an anthropoid ape, there is,
likewise, a particular divergence—“there is no bone, be it ever so
small, nay, not even the smallest particle of a bone, in which the
general agreement in structure and function would pass over into real
identity.” (Ranke, _op. cit._, vol. I, p. 437.) Hence Virchow declares
that “the differences between man and monkey are so wide that almost
any fragment is sufficient to diagnose them.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1889, p. 566.) These differences are so considerable as to preclude the
possibility of a _direct_ genealogical connection between man and any
known type of ape or monkey—“The testimony of comparative anatomy,” to
quote Bumüller, “is decidedly against the theory of man’s descent from
the ape.” (“Mensch oder Affe?” p. 59.) Ranke has somewhere called man
a brain-animal, and this sums up the chief difference, which marks off
the human body from all bestial organisms. In the ape the brain weighs
only 100th part of the weight of its body, whereas in man the brain has
a weight equivalent to the 37th part of the weight of the human body.
The cranial capacity of the largest apes ranges from 500 to 600 c.cm.,
while the average cranial capacity in man is 1500 c.cm. Moreover, the
human brain is far more extensively convoluted within the brain-case
than that of an ape, so much so that the surface or cortical area of
the human brain is four times as great as that of the ape’s brain.
Thus Wundt, in his “Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie,” cites
H. Wagner as assigning to man a brain surface of from 2,196 to 1,877
sq. cm., but a cortical area of only 535 sq. cm. in the case of an
orang-outang. (Cf. English Translation by Titchener, vol. I, p. 286.)

Another difficulty in the way of the Darwinian theory of direct
descent is the fact that the best counterparts of human anatomy
are not found united in any one species of ape or monkey, but are
scattered throughout a large number of species. “Returning to the
old discussion,” says Thomas Dwight, “as to which ape can boast of
the closest resemblance to man, Kohlbrugge brings before us Aeby’s
forgotten book on the skull of man and apes. His measurements show that
the form nearest to man among apes is the gibbon, or long-armed ape,
but that the South American monkey _Crysothrix_ is nearer still. Aeby
recognized what modern anatomists have forgotten or wilfully ignored:
that any system of descent is inadequate which does not recognize that
the type of man is not in any one organ, but in all the physical and
psychological features. He declared that while we are far from having
this universal knowledge, we have learned enough about the various
parts of the body to make it impossible for us to sketch any plan
of descent. ‘It almost seems as if every part had its own line of
descent, different from that of others.’ ... Kohlbrugge now introduces
Haacke, who denies any relationship between man and apes, the latter
being instances of one-sided development. He even dares to declare
anyone who speaks of an intermediate form between man and apes to be
ignorant of the laws of development governing the race history of
mammals. He believes man came from some lemuroid form, which may have
descended from the insectivora.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,”
pp. 188-190.)

All known types, then, of apes and monkeys are too specialized to have
been in the direct line of human descent. Man, as Kohlbrugge ironically
remarks, appears to have come from an ancestor much more like himself
than any species of ape we know of. Moreover, no species of apes or
monkeys monopolizes the honors of closest resemblance to man. In many
points, the South American monkeys, though more primitive than the
anthropoid apes, are more similar to man than the latter.


                    § 2. Embryological Resemblances

Much has been made of the so-called biogenetic law as an argument
for the bestial origin of mankind. This theory of the embryological
recapitulation of racial history was first formulated by Fritz Müller.
Haeckel, however, was the one who exploited it most extensively,
and who exalted it to the status of “the fundamental law of
biogenesis.”[16] The latter’s statement of the principle is as follows:
“_Die Ontogenesis ist die Palingenesis der Phylogenesis_.”—Ontogeny
(the development of the individual) is a recapitulation of phylogeny
(the development of the race). For a long time this law was received
with uncritical credulity by the scientific world, but enthusiasm
diminished when more careful studies made it clear that the line of
descent suggested by embryology did not agree with what was inferred
from comparative anatomy and the sequence of fossil forms. Besides,
it was manifest that certain organs in embryos were distinctively
_embryonic_ and could never have functioned in adult forms, _e.g._ the
yolk sac and the amnion. “It was recognized,” says T. H. Morgan, “that
many embryonic stages could not possibly represent ancestral animals. A
young fish with a huge yolk sac attached could scarcely ever have led a
happy, free life as an adult individual. Such stages were interpreted,
however, as _embryonic_ additions to the original ancestral type. The
embryo had done something on its own account. In some animals the
young have structures that attach them to the mother, as does the
placenta of mammals. In other cases the young develop membranes about
themselves—like the amnion of the chick and the mammal—that would have
shut off an adult animal from all intercourse with the outside world.
Hundreds of such embryonic structures are known to embryologists. These
were explained as adaptations and as falsifications of the ancestral
records.” (“Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” pp. 16, 17.)

    [16] Haeckel’s “Biogenetisches Grundgesetz,” which he
    formulates thus: “_Die Ontogenie (Keimesgeschichte) ist eine
    kurze Wiederholung der Phylogenie (Stammesgeschichte)_,” 1874.

The result has been that this so-called law has fallen into general
disrepute among scientists, especially as a means of reconstructing
the phylogeny of modern organisms. It is recognized, of course, that
comparative embryology can furnish embryological homologies analogous
to the homologies of comparative anatomy, but it is now generally
acknowledged that the view, which regards the embryological process
as an abridged repetition of the various states through which the
species has passed in its evolutionary career must be definitively
abandoned, and that, as a general law of organic development, the
biogenetic principle has been thoroughly discredited. “This law,” says
Karl Vogt of Geneva, “which I long held as well-founded, is absolutely
and radically false. Attentive study of embryology shows us, in fact,
that embryos have their own conditions suitable to themselves, and very
different from those of adults.” (Quoted by Quatrefages De Breau, in
his “Les Emules de Darwin,” vol. II, p. 13.) “There can no longer be
question,” says Prof. M. Caullery of the Sorbonne, “of systematically
regarding individual development as a repetition of the history of the
stock. This conclusion results from the very progress made under the
inspiration received from this imaginary law, the law of biogenesis.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 325.)

This collapse of the biogenetic law has tumbled into ruins the
elaborate superstructure of genealogy which Haeckel had reared upon it.
His series of thirty stages extending from the fictitious “cytodes”
up to man, inclusively, is even more worthless today than it was when
Du Bois-Reymond made his ironic comment: “Man’s pedigree, as drawn up
by Haeckel, is worth about as much as is that of Homer’s heroes for
critical historians.” (_Revue Scientifique_, 1877, I, p. 1101.) Haeckel
tried in vain to save his discredited law by means of the expedient
of _cænogenesis_, that is, “the falsification of the ancestral record
(palingenesis).” That Nature should be guilty of “falsification” is an
hypothesis not to be lightly entertained, and it is more credible, as
Wasmann remarks, to assume that Haeckel, and not Nature, is the real
falsifier, inasmuch as he has misrepresented Nature in his “fundamental
biogenetic law.” Cænogenesis is a very convenient device. One can
alternate at will between _cænogenesis_ and _palingenesis_, just
as, in comparative anatomy, one can alternate capriciously between
_convergence_ and _homology_, on the general understanding of its
being a case of: “Heads, I win; tails, you lose”—certainly, there is
no _objective_ consideration to restrain us in such procedure. “Such
weapons as Cænogenesis and Convergence,” says Kohlbrugge (in his “Die
Morphologische Abstammung des Menschen,” 1908) “are unfortunately so
shaped that anyone can use them when they suit him, or throw them
aside when they do not. They show, therefore, in the prettiest way the
uncertainty even now of the construction of the theory of descent.
As soon as we go into details it leaves us in the lurch; it was only
while our knowledge was small that everything seemed to fit together
in most beautiful order.” (Quoted by Dwight in “Thoughts of a Catholic
Anatomist,” p. 187.)

It is undeniable, indeed, that in many cases the young of higher
animals pass through stages in which they bear at least a superficial
resemblance to adult stages in inferior and less complex organisms.
Obviously, however, there cannot be any direct derivation of the
_embryonic_ features of one organism from the _adult_ characters of
another organism. This preposterous implication of the Müller-Haeckel
Law must, as Morgan points out, be entirely eliminated, before it
can merit serious consideration. Referring to the spiral cleavage
exhibited by annelid, planarian and molluscan eggs, Morgan says:
“It has been found that the cleavage pattern has the same general
arrangement in the early stages of flat worms, annelids and molluscs.
Obviously these stages have never been adult ancestors, and obviously
if their resemblance has any meaning at all, it is that each group has
retained the same general plan of cleavage possessed by their common
ancestor.... Perhaps someone will say, ‘Well! is not this all that
we have contended for! Have you not reached the old conclusion in a
roundabout way?’ I think not. To my mind there is a wide difference
between the old statement that the higher animals living today have the
original adult stages telescoped into their embryos, and the statement
that the resemblance between certain characters in the embryos of
higher animals and corresponding stages in the embryos of lower animals
is most plausibly explained by the assumption that they have descended
from the same ancestors, and that their common structures are embryonic
survivals.” (_Op. cit._, pp. 22, 23.)

After this admission, however, nothing remains of the law of
“recapitulation” except simple embryological homology comparable, in
every sense, to adult homology, and adding nothing essentially new
to the latter argument for evolution. It is, therefore, ridiculous
for evolutionists to speak of _branchial_ (gill) arches and clefts in
man. The visceral or pharyngeal arches and grooves appearing in the
human embryo are unquestionably homologous with the genuine branchial
arches and clefts in a fish embryo. In the latter, however, the grooves
become real clefts through perforation, while the arches become the
lamellæ of the permanent gills, thus adapting the animal to aquatic
respiration. It is, accordingly, perfectly legitimate to refer to these
embryonic structures in the young fish as gill arches and gill clefts.
In man, however, the corresponding embryonic structures develop into
the oral cavity, auditory meatus, ossicles of the ear, the mandible,
the lower lip, the tongue, the cheek, the hyoid bone, the styloid
process, the thymus, the thyroid and tracheal cartilages, etc. There is
no perforation of the grooves, and the arches develop into something
quite different than branchial lamellæ. Hence the correct name for
these structures in the human embryo is _pharyngeal_ (visceral) arches
and grooves, their superficial resemblance to the embryonic structures
in the fish embryo being no justification for calling them branchial.
In short, the mere fact that certain embryonic structures in the
young fish (homologous to the pharyngeal arches and grooves in the
human embryo) develop into the permanent gills of the adult fish, is
no more significant than the association of homology with divergent
preadaptations, which is of quite general occurrence among adult
vertebrate types. In all such cases, we have instances of fundamentally
identical structures, diverted, as it were, to entirely different
purposes or functions (_e.g._ the arm of a man and the flipper of a
whale). Hence the argument drawn from embryological homology is no
more cogent than the argument drawn from the homologies of comparative
anatomy, which we have already discussed in a previous chapter. The
misuse of the term _branchial_, to prejudge matters in their own
favor, is in keeping with the customary policy of evolutionists. It is
intended, naturally, to convey the impression that man, in the course
of his evolution, has passed through a fish-like stage. At bottom,
however, it is nothing more than a verbal subterfuge, that need not
detain us further.

The theory of embryological recapitulation is often applied to man,
with a view to establishing the doctrine of his bestial ancestry. We
have seen one instance of this application, and we shall consider
one other, for the purpose of illustrating more fully the principles
involved. The claim is made by evolutionists, that man must have
passed through a fish or amphibian stage, because, in common with all
other mammals, he exhibits, during his embryological development, a
typical fish (or, if you prefer, amphibian) kidney, which subsequently
atrophies, only to be replaced by the characteristic mammalian kidney.
The human embryo, therefore, repeats the history of our race, which
must have passed through a fish-like stage in the remote past. In
consequence of this phenomenon, therefore, it is inferred that man must
have had fish-like ancestors. Let us pause, however, to analyze the
facts upon which this inference is based.

In annelids, like the earthworm, the nephridia or excretory tubules
are arranged segmentally, one pair to each somite. In vertebrates,
however, the nephridial tubules, instead of developing in regular
sequence from before backwards, develop in three batches, one behind
the other, the anterior batch being called the _pronephros_, the middle
one, the _mesonephros_ and the posterior one, the _metanephros_. This,
according to J. Graham Kerr, holds true not only of the amniotic
vertebrates (reptiles, birds, and mammals) but also, with a certain
reservation, of the anamniotic vertebrates (fishes and amphibians).
“In many of the lower Vertebrates,” says this author, “there is no
separation between the mesonephros and metanephros, the two forming one
continuous structure which acts as the functional kidney. Such a type
of renal organ consisting of the series of tubules corresponding to
mesonephros together with metanephros may conveniently be termed the
opisthonephros.” (“Textbook of Embryology,” II—Vertebrata, p. 221.) If
we accept this view, it is not quite accurate to regard the mesonephros
in man as a homologue of the _opisthonephros_ of a fish, seeing that
the latter is composed not only of mesonephridia (mesonephric tubules),
but also of metanephridia (metanephric tubules). A brief description
of the three nephridial systems of vertebrate embryos will serve to
further clarify their interrelationship.

(1) _The pronephric system_: This consists of a collection of tubules
called the pronephros, and a pronephric duct leading to the cloaca,
or terminal portion of the alimentary canal. The pronephros is a
functional organ in the frog tadpole and other larval amphibia. It
is also found in a few teleosts, where it is said to persist as a
functional organ in the adult. In other fishes, however, and in all
higher forms the pronephros atrophies and becomes reduced to a few
rudiments.[17]

    [17] The objection may be raised that a purely embryonic organ
    like the pronephros, which is functional in but few vertebrate
    adults and which originates in vertebrate embryos only to
    undergo atrophy, can have no other explanation than that of
    “recapitulation.” The objection, however, fails to take into
    account the possibility of the organ being serviceable to
    the _embryo_, in which it may be a provisory solution of the
    excretory problem and not a vestige of past ancestry.

(2) _The mesonephric system_: This consists of a collection of
nephridial tubules called the mesonephros (Wolffian body). The tubules
of the mesonephros do not develop any duct of their own, but utilize
the posterior portion of the pronephric duct, the said tubules becoming
secondarily connected with this duct in a region posterior to the
pronephridia (tubules of the pronephros). The pronephric tubules
together with the anterior portion of the pronephric duct then atrophy,
while the persisting posterior portion of this duct receives the name
of mesonephric or Wolffian duct. The duct in question still terminates
in the cloaca, and serves, in the male, the combined function of a
urinary and spermatic duct; but, in the female, a special oviduct (the
Müllerian duct) is superadded because of the large size of the eggs to
be transmitted, the Wolffian or mesonephric duct subserving only the
urinary function. The mesonephros is functional in mammalian embryos,
but atrophies and disappears coincidently with the development of the
permanent kidney. The same is true of amniotic vertebrates generally,
except that in the case of reptiles the mesonephros persists for a
few months after hatching in the adult, the definitive kidney of the
adult being reinforced during that interval by the still functional
mesonephros. In anamniotic vertebrates, however, no separation exists
between the mesonephros and the metanephros, the two forming one
continuous structure, the opisthonephros, which acts as the functional
kidney of the adult.

(3) _The metanephric system_: In the amniotic vertebrates the
mesonephros and metanephros are distinct, the former being functional
in embryos and in adult reptiles (for a few months after hatching),
while the metanephros becomes the definitive kidney of the adult. The
metanephros is a collection of nephridial tubules provided with a
special urinary duct called the ureter, which empties into the bladder
(not the cloaca). The Wolffian or mesonephric duct is retained as a
sperm duct in the male (of amniotic vertebrates), but becomes vestigial
in the female. Only a certain number of the nephridial tubules of the
embryonic metanephros are taken over to form part of the permanent or
adult kidney (in mammals, birds, and reptiles).

If, then, as we have previously observed, we follow Kerr in regarding
the fish kidney, not as a simple mesonephros, but as an opisthonephros
(_i.e._ a combination of mesonephros and metanephros), there is no
warrant for interpreting the embryonic mesonephros of man and mammals
generally as the fish-kidney stage. But waiving this consideration, and
assuming, for the sake of argument, that the fish kidney is a perfect
homologue of the human mesonephros, the mere fact of the adoption by
the human embryo of a temporary solution of its excretory problem
similar to the permanent solution of that problem adopted by the fish,
would not, of itself, imply the common ancestry of men and fishes.
Such a coincidence would be fully explicable as a case of convergent
adaptation occurring in the interest of embryonic economy.

It is, indeed, a well-known fact that larval and embryonic organisms
are often obliged to defer temporarily the construction of the more
complex structures of adult life, and to improvise simpler substitutes
for use until such a time as they have accumulated a sufficient reserve
of energy and materials to complete the work of their more elaborate
adult organization. The young starfish, for example, arising as it does
from an egg but scantily supplied with yolk, is forced, from the very
outset, to shift for itself, in coping with the food-getting problem.
Under stress of this necessity, it economizes its slender resources
by constructing the extremely simple digestive and motor apparatus
characteristic of the larva in its bilaterally-symmetrical _Bipinnaria_
stage, and postponing the development of the radially-symmetrical
structure characteristic of the adult stage, until it has stored up the
wherewithal to complete its metamorphosis.

From this viewpoint, there is no difficulty in understanding why
_temporary_ solutions of the excretory problem should precede the
_definitive_ solution of this problem in mammalian embryos. The problem
of excretion is urgent from the outset, and its demands increase with
the growth of the embryo. It is only natural, then, that a series of
improvised structures should be resorted to, in a case of this kind;
and, since these temporary solutions of the excretory problem must,
of necessity, be as simple as possible, it should not be in the least
surprising to find them coinciding with the permanent solutions adopted
by inferior organisms less complexly organized than the mammals.
Hence the bare fact of resemblance between the transitory embryonic
kidney of a mammal and the permanent adult kidney of a fish would
have no atavistic significance. We know of innumerable cases in which
an identical adaptation occurs in genetically unrelated organisms.
The cephalopod mollusc _Nautilus_, for example, solves the problem
of light-perception in the identical manner in which it is solved by
the vertebrates. This mollusc has the perfect vertebrate type of eye,
including the lens and all other parts down to the minutest detail.
The fact, however, that the mollusc solves its problem by using the
stereotyped solution found in vertebrates rather than by developing a
compound eye analogous to the type found among arthropods, is wholly
destitute of genetic significance. In fact, the genetic interpretation
is positively rejected by the evolutionists, who interpret the
occurrence of similar eyes in molluscs and vertebrates as an instance
of “accidental convergence.” Even assuming, then, what Kerr denies,
namely, a perfect parallelism between the mesonephros of the human
embryo and the permanent kidney of an adult fish, the alleged fact that
the human embryo temporarily adopts the same type of solution for its
excretory problem as the one permanently employed by the fish would not
in itself be a proof of our descent from a fish-like ancestor.

In fact, not only is embryological homology of no greater value
than adult homology as an argument for evolution, but it is, on
the contrary, considerably inferior to the latter, as regards
cogency. _Differentiation_ pertains to the final or _adult_ stage of
organisms. Embryonic structures, inasmuch as they are undeveloped and
undifferentiated, present for that very reason an appearance of crude
and superficial similarity. “Most of what is generally ascribed to
the action of the so-called biogenetic law,” says T. Garbowski, “is
erroneously ascribed to it, since all things that are undeveloped and
incomplete must be more or less alike.” (“Morphogenetische Studien,”
Jena, 1903.) When we consider the fact that the metazoa have all a
similar unicellular origin, are subject to uniform morphogenetic laws,
and are frequently exposed to analogous environmental conditions
demanding similar adaptations, it is not at all surprising that
they should present many points of resemblance (both in their
embryonic and their adult morphology) which are not referable to any
particular line of descent. At all events, these resemblances are
far too general in their extension to enable us to specify the type
of ancestor responsible therefor. More especially is this true of
embryological homologies, which are practically valueless as basis for
reconstructing the phylogeny of any type. “That certain phenomena,”
says Oskar Hertwig, “recur with great regularity and uniformity in
the development of different species of animals, is due chiefly to the
fact that under all circumstances they supply the necessary condition
under which alone the next higher stage in ontogeny (embryological
development) can be produced.” (“Allgemeine Biologie,” 1906, p.
595.) The same author, therefore, proposes to revamp Haeckel’s
“biogenetisches Grundgesetz” as follows: “We must leave out the words
‘recapitulation of forms of extinct ancestors’ and substitute for them
‘repetition of forms regularly occurring in organic development, and
advancing from the simple to the more complex.’” (_Op. cit._, p. 593.)

Finally, when applied to the problem of man’s alleged genetic
connection with the ape, the biogenetic principle proves the exact
reverse of what the Darwinians desire; for as a matter of fact the
young apes resemble man much more closely in the shape of the skull
and facial features than do the adult animals. Inasmuch, therefore, as
the ape, in its earlier development, reveals a more marked resemblance
to man than is present in its later stages, it follows, according
to the “biogenetic law,” that man is the ancestor of the ape. This,
however, is inadmissible, seeing that the ape is by no means a more
recent type than man. Consequently, as applied to man, the Haeckelian
principle leads to a preposterous conclusion, and thereby manifests
its worthlessness as a clue to phylogeny. Julius Kollmann, it is true,
gives serious attention to this likeness between young apes and men,
and makes it the basis of his scheme of human evolution. “Kollmann,”
says Dwight, “starts from the fact that the head of a young ape is very
much more like that of a child than the head of an old ape is like that
of a man. He holds that the likeness of the skull of a very young ape
is so great that there must be a family relationship. He believes that
some differentiation, some favorable variation, must occur in the body
of the mother and so a somewhat higher skull is transmitted to the
offspring and is perpetuated. Concerning which Kohlbrugge remarks that
‘thus the first men were developed, not from the adult, but from the
embryonic forms of the anthropoids whose more favorable form of skull
they managed to preserve in further growth.’ ... Schwalbe makes the
telling criticism of these views of Kollmann that much the same thing
might be said of the heads of embryonic animals in general that is said
of those of apes, and that thus mammals might be said to have come from
a more man-like ancestor.” (_Op. cit._, pp. 186, 187.) All of which
goes to show that the “biogenetic law” is more misleading than helpful
in settling the question of human phylogeny.


                        § 3. Rudimentary Organs

Darwin attached great importance to the existence in man of so-called
rudimentary organs, which he regarded as convincing evidence of man’s
descent from the lower forms of animal life. Nineteenth century
science, being ignorant of the functional purpose served by many
organs, arbitrarily pronounced them to be useless organs, and chose,
in consequence, to regard them all as the atrophied and (wholly or
partially) functionless remnants of organs that were formerly developed
and fully functional in remote ancestors of the race. Darwin borrowed
this argument from Lamarck. It may be stated thus: Undeveloped and
functionless organs are atrophied organs. But atrophy is the result of
disuse. Now disuse presupposes former use. Consequently, rudimentary
organs were at one time developed and functioning, viz. in the remote
ancestors of the race. Since, therefore, these selfsame organs are
developed and functional in the lower forms of life, it follows that
the higher forms, in which these organs are reduced and functionless,
are descended from forms similar to those in which said organs are
developed and fully functional.

This argument, however, fairly bristles with assumptions that are not
only wholly unwarranted, but utterly at variance with actual facts.
In the first place, it wrongly assumes that all reduced organs are
functionless, and, conversely, that all functionless organs are
atrophied or reduced. Facts, however, prove the contrary; for we find
frequent instances of reduced organs which function, and, _vice versa_,
of well-developed organs which are functionless. The tail, for example,
in cats, dogs, and certain Catarrhine monkeys, though it discharges
neither the prehensile function that makes it useful in the Platyrrhine
monkey, nor the protective function that makes it useful to horses and
cattle in warding off flies, is, nevertheless, despite its inutility
or absence of function, a quite fully developed organ. Conversely, the
reduced or undeveloped fin-like wings of the penguin are by no means
functionless, since they enable this bird to swim through the water
with great facility.

To save his argument from this antagonism of the facts, Darwin resorts
to the ingenious expedient of distinguishing between _rudimentary_
organs and _nascent_ organs. Rudimentary organs are undeveloped organs,
which are wholly, or partially, useless. They have had a past, but have
no future. Nascent organs, on the contrary, are undeveloped organs,
which “are of high service to their possessors” (“Descent of Man,”
ch. I, p. 28, 2nd ed.). They “are capable of further development”
(_ibidem_), and have, therefore, a future before them. He gives the
following examples of rudimentary organs: “Rudimentary organs ...
are either quite useless, such as teeth which never cut through the
gums, or almost useless, such as the wings of an ostrich, which serve
merely as sails.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. XIV, p. 469.)
As an example of a nascent organ, he gives the mammary glands of the
oviparous Duckbill: “The mammary glands of the Ornithorhynchus may be
considered, in comparison with the udders of a cow, as in a nascent
condition.” (_Op. cit._, ch. XIV, p. 470.)

Darwin admits that it is hard to apply this distinction in the
concrete: “It is, however, often difficult to distinguish between
rudimentary and nascent organs; for we can judge only by analogy
whether a part is capable of further development, in which case alone
it deserves to be called nascent.” (_Op. cit._, ch. XIV, p. 469.)
For Darwin “judging by analogy” meant judging on the assumption that
evolution has really taken place; for he describes rudimentary organs
as being “of such slight service that we can hardly suppose that they
were developed under the conditions which now exist.” (“Descent of
Man,” ch. I, p. 29.)

He is somewhat perplexed about applying this distinction to the
penguin: “The wing of the penguin,” he admits, “is of high service,
acting as a fin; it may, therefore, represent the nascent state: not
that I believe this to be the case; it is more probably a reduced
organ, modified for a new function.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch.
XIV, pp. 469, 470.) In other words, there is scarcely any objective
consideration by which the validity of this distinction can be checked
up in practice. Like homology and convergence, like palingenesis and
cænogensis, the distinction between rudimentary and nascent organs is
a convenient device, which can be arbitrarily manipulated according to
the necessities of a preconceived theory. It is “scientific” sanction
for the privilege of blowing hot and cold with the same breath.

The assumption that atrophy and reduction are the inevitable
consequence of disuse, or diminution of use, in so far as this
decreases the flow of nourishing blood to unexercised parts, is
certainly erroneous. Yet Darwin made it the premise of his argument
from so-called rudimentary organs. “The term ‘disuse’ does not relate,”
he informs us, “merely to lessened action of muscles, but includes a
diminished flow of blood to the part or organ, from being subjected
to fewer alternations of pressure, or from being in any way less
habitually active.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., p. 469.) As a matter
of fact, however, we have many instances in which use has failed to
develop and disuse to reduce organs in certain types of animals. As
an example in point, we may cite the case of right-handedness among
human beings. From time immemorial, the generality of mankind have
consistently used the right hand in preference to the left, without
any atrophy or reduction of the left hand, or over-development of the
right hand, resulting from this racial practice. “The superiority of
one hand,” says G. Elliot Smith, “is as old as mankind.” (Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 570.) It is true that only about 6,000 years
of human existence are known to history, but, if one accepts the most
conservative estimates of glaciologists, man has had a much longer
prehistory, the lowest estimates for the age of man being approximately
30,000 years. Thus W. J. Sollas tells us that the Glacial period, in
which man first appeared, came to an end about 7,000 years ago, and
that the men buried at Chapelle-aux-Saints in France lived about 25,000
years ago. His figures agree with those of C. F. Wright, who bases
his calculations on the Niagara Gorge. The Niagara River is one of
the postglacial streams, and the time required to cut its gorge has
been calculated as 7,000 years. Gerard De Geer, the Swedish scientist,
gives 20,000 years ago as the end of glacial and the commencement of
recent or postglacial time. He bases his estimates on the sediments of
the Yoldia Sea in Sweden. His method consists in the actual counting
of certain seasonally-laminated clay layers, presumably left behind
by the receding ice sheet of the continental glacier. The melting is
registered by annual deposition, in which the thinner layers of finer
sand from the winter flows alternate with thicker layers of coarser
material from the summer flows. In warm years, the layers are thicker,
in colder years they are thinner, so that these laminated Pleistocene
clays constitute a thermographic as well as a chronological record. De
Geer began his study of Pleistocene clays in 1878, and in 1920 he led
an expedition to the United States, for the purpose of extending his
researches. (Cf. _Science_, Sept. 24, 1920, pp. 284-286.) At that time,
he claimed to have worked out the chronology of the past 12,000 years.
His figure of 20,000 years for postglacial time, while very displeasing
to that reckless foe of scientific caution and conservatism, Henry
Fairfield Osborn, tallies very well with the estimates of Sollas and
Wright. H. Obermaier, basing his computation on Croll’s theory that
glaciation is caused by variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s
orbit about the sun, which would bring about protracted winters in the
hemisphere having winter, when the earth was farthest from the sun
(with consequent accumulation of ice), gives 30,000 years ago as the
date of the first appearance of man on earth. Father Hugues Obermaier,
it may be noted, like Abbé Henri Breuil, is one of the foremost
authorities on the subject of prehistoric Man. Both are Catholic
priests.

All such computations of the age of man are, of course, uncertain and
theoretical. Evolutionists calculate it in hundreds of thousands,
and even millions, of years. After giving such a table of recklessly
tremendous figures, Osborn has the hypocritical meticulosity to add
that, for the sake of _precision_ (save the mark!) the nineteen hundred
and some odd years of the Christian era should be added to his figures.
But, even according to the most conservative scientific estimates,
as we have seen, man is said to have been in existence for 30,000
years, and the prevalence of right-handedness among men is as old as
the human race. One would expect, then, to find modern man equipped
with a gigantic right arm and a dwarfed left arm. In other words, man
should exhibit a condition comparable to that of a lobster, which has
one large and one small chela. Yet, in spite of the fact that the
comparative inaction of the human left hand is supposed to have endured
throughout a period of, at least, 30,000 years, this state of affairs
has not resulted in the faintest trace of atrophy or retrogression.
Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood vessels, and all
parts are of equal size in both arms and both hands. Excessive exercise
may overdevelop the musculature of the right arm, but this is an
individual and acquired adaptation, which is never transmitted to
the offspring, _e.g._ the child of a blacksmith does not inherit the
muscular hypertrophy of his father. Disuse, therefore, has not the
efficacy which Lamarck and Darwin ascribed to it.

In fine, it must be recognized, once for all, that organisms are
not-molded on a Lamarckian basis of use, nor yet on a Darwinian
basis of selected utility. Expediency, in other words, is not the
sole governing principle of the organic world. Neither instinctive
habitude nor the struggle for existence succeeds in forcing structural
adaptation of a predictable nature. Animals with different organic
structure have the same instincts, _e.g._ monkeys with, and without,
prehensile tails alike dwell in trees; while animals having the same
organic structure may have different instincts, _e.g._ the rabbit,
which burrows, and the hare, which does not, are practically identical
in anatomical structure. Again, some animals are highly specialized for
a function, which other animals perform without specialized organs, as
is instanced in the case of moles, which possess a special burrowing
apparatus, and prairie-dogs, which burrow without a specialized
apparatus. Any system of evolution, which ignores the internal or
hereditary factors of organic life and strives to explain all in terms
of the environmental factors, encounters an insuperable obstacle in
this remorseless resistance of conflicting facts.

Another flaw in the Darwinian argument from rudimentary organs is
that it confounds, in many cases, _apparent_, with _real_ inutility
(or absence of function). Darwin and his followers frequently argued
out of their ignorance, and falsely concluded that an organ was
destitute of a function, merely because _they_ had failed to discover
its utility. Large numbers, accordingly, of highly serviceable organs
were catalogued as vestigial or rudimentary, simply because nineteenth
century science did not comprehend their indubitable utility. With the
advance of present-day physiology, this list of “useless organs” is
being rapidly depleted, so that the scientific days of the rudimentary
organ appear to be numbered. At any rate, in arbitrarily pronouncing
many important and functioning organs to be useless vestiges of a
former stage in the history of the race, the Darwinians were not the
friends of Science, but rather its reactionary enemies, inasmuch as
they sought to discourage further investigation by their dogmatic
decision that there was no function to be found. In so doing, however,
they were merely exploiting the ignorance of their times in the
interest of a preconceived theory, which whetted their appetite for
discovering, at all costs, the presence in man of functionless organs.

Their anxiety in this direction led them to consider the whole group
of organs constituting a most important regulatory and coördinative
system in man and other vertebrates as so many useless vestigial
organs. This system is called the _cryptorhetic system_ and is made of
internally-secreting, ductless glands, now called _endocrine glands_.
These glands generate and instill into the blood stream certain
chemical substances called _hormones_, which, diffusing in the blood,
produce immediate stimulatory, and remote metabolic effects on special
organs distant from the endocrine gland, in which the particular
hormone is elaborated. As examples of such endocrine glands, we may
mention the pineal gland (epiphysis), the pituitary body (hypophysis),
the thyroid glands, the parathyroids, the islelets of Langerhans, the
adrenal bodies (suprarenal capsules), and the interstitial cells of the
gonads. The importance of these alleged useless organs is now known to
be paramount. Death, for instance, will immediately ensue in man and
other animals, upon extirpation of the adrenal bodies.

The late Robert Wiedersheim, it will be remembered, declared the
pineal gland or epiphysis to be the surviving vestige of a “third
eye” inherited from a former ancestor, in whom it opened between the
parietal bones of the skull, like the median or _pineal eye_ of certain
lizards, the socket of which is the parietal foramen formed in the
interparietal suture. If the argument is based on homology alone,
then the coincidence in position between the human epiphysis and the
median optic nerve of the lizards in question has the ordinary force
of the evolutionary argument from homology. But when one attempts to
reduce the epiphysis to the status of a useless vestigial rudiment,
he is in open conflict with facts; for the pineal body is, in reality,
an endocrine gland generating and dispersing a hormone, which is
very important for the regulation of growth in general and of sexual
development in particular. Hence this tiny organ in the diencephalic
roof, no larger than a grain of wheat, is not a functionless rudiment,
but an important functioning organ of the cryptorhetic system. We have
no ground, therefore, on this score for inferring that our pineal gland
functioned in former ancestors as a median eye comparable to that of
the cyclops Polyphemus of Homeric fame.

In like manner, the pituitary body or hypophysis, which in man is a
small organ about the size of a cherry, situated at the base of the
brain, buried in the floor of the skull, and lying just behind the
optic chiasma, was formerly rated as a rudimentary organ. It was, in
fact, regarded as the vestigial remnant of a former connection between
the neural and alimentary canals, reminiscent of the invertebrate
stage. “The phylogenetic explanation of this organ generally accepted,”
says Albert P. Mathews, “is that formerly the neural canal connected
at this point with the alimentary canal. A probable and almost the
only explanation of this, though an explanation almost universally
rejected by zoölogists, is that of Gaskell, who has maintained that
the vertebrate alimentary canal is a new structure, and that the old
invertebrate canal is the present neural canal. The infundibulum,
on this view, would correspond to the old invertebrate œsophagus,
the ventricle of the thalamus to the invertebrate stomach, and the
canal originally connected posteriorly with the anus. The anterior
lobe of the pituitary body could then correspond to some glandular
adjunct of the invertebrate canal, and the nervous part to a portion
of the original circumœsophageal nervous ring of the invertebrates.”
(“Physiological Chemistry,” 2nd ed., 1916, pp. 641, 642.)

This elaborate piece of evolutionary contortion calls for no comment
here. We are only interested in the fact that this wild and weird
speculation was originally inspired by the false assumption that
the hypophysis was a functionless organ. As a matter of fact, it
is the source of two important hormones. The one generated in its
anterior lobe is _tethelin_, a metabolic hormone, which promotes the
growth of the body in general and of the bony tissue in particular.
Hypertrophy and overfunction of this gland produces giantism, or
acromegaly (enlargement of hands, feet, and skull), while atrophy and
underfunction of the anterior lobe results in infantilism, acromikria
(diminution of extremities, _i. e._ hands, feet, head), obesity, and
genital dystrophy (_i. e._ suppression of secondary sexual characters).
The posterior lobe of the pituitary body constitutes, with the _pars
intermedia_, a second endocrine gland, which generates a stimulatory
hormone called _pituitrin_. This hormone stimulates unstriated muscle
to contract, and thereby regulates the discharge of secretions from
various glands of the body, _e. g._ the mammary glands, bladder,
etc. Hence the hypophysis, far from being a useless organ, is an
indispensable one. Moreover, it is an integral and important part of
the cryptorhetic system.

The same story may be repeated of the thyroid glands. These consist
of two lobes located on either side of the windpipe, just below the
larynx (Adam’s apple), and joined together across the windpipe by a
narrow band or isthmus of their own substance. Gaskell homologized
them with a gland in scorpions, and Mathew says that, if his surmise
is correct, “the thyroid represents an accessory sexual organ of the
invertebrate.” (_Op. cit._, p. 654.) They are, however, endocrine
glands, that generate a hormone known as _thyroxin_, which regulates
the body-temperature, growth of the body in general, and of the nervous
system in particular, etc., etc. Atrophy or extirpation of these glands
causes cretinism in the young and myxoedema in adults. Without a
sufficient supply of this hormone, the normal exercise of mental powers
in human beings is impossible. The organ, therefore, is far from being
a useless vestige of what was formerly useful.

George Howard Parker, the Zoölogist of Harvard, sums up the case
against the Darwinian interpretation of the endocrine glands as
follows: “The extent to which hormones control the body is only just
beginning to be appreciated. For a long time anatomists have recognized
in the higher animals, including man, a number of so-called ductless
glands, such as the thyroid gland, the pineal gland, the hypophysis,
the adrenal bodies, and so forth. These have often been passed over as
unimportant functionless organs whose presence was to be explained as
an inheritance from some remote ancestor. But such a conception is far
from correct. If the thyroids are removed from a dog, death follows in
from one to four weeks. If the adrenal bodies are excised, the animal
dies in from two to three days. Such results show beyond doubt that at
least some of these organs are of vital importance, and more recent
studies have demonstrated that most of them produce substances which
have all the properties of hormones.” (“Biology and Social Problems,”
1914, pp. 43, 44.)

Even the _vermiform appendix_ of the cæcum, which since Darwin’s time
has served as a classic example of a rudimentary organ in man, is, in
reality, not a functionless organ. Darwin, however, was of opinion
that it was not only useless, but positively harmful. “With respect to
the alimentary canal,” he says, “I have met with an account of only a
single rudiment, namely, the vermiform appendage of the cæcum. ... Not
only is it useless, but it is sometimes the cause of death, of which
fact I have lately heard two instances. This is due to small hard
bodies, such as seeds, entering the passage and causing inflammation.”
(“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. I, pp. 39, 40.) The idea that seeds
cause appendicitis is, of course, an exploded superstition, the hard
bodies sometimes found in the appendix being fecal concretions and not
seeds—“The old idea,” says Dr. John B. Deaver, “that foreign bodies,
such as grape seeds, are the cause of the disease, has been disproved.”
(Encycl. Americana, vol. 2, p. 76.) What is more germane to the point
at issue, however, is that Darwin erred in denying the utility of the
vermiform appendix. For, although this organ does not discharge in man
the important function which its homologue discharges in grain-eating
birds and also in herbivorous mammals, it subserves the secondary
function of lubricating the intestines by means of a secretion from its
muciparous glands.

Darwin gives the _semilunar fold_ as another instance of a vestigial
organ, claiming that it is a persistent rudiment of a former third
eyelid or _membrana nictitans_, such as we find in birds. “The
nictitating membrane, or third eyelid,” he says, “with its accessory
muscles and other structures, is especially well developed in birds,
and is of much functional importance to them, as it can be rapidly
drawn across the whole eyeball. It is found in some reptiles and
amphibians, and in certain fishes as in sharks. It is fairly well
developed in the two lower divisions of the mammalian series, namely,
in the monotremata and marsupials, and in some higher mammals, as in
the walrus. But in man, the quadrumana, and most other mammals, it
exists, as is admitted by all anatomists, as a mere rudiment, called
the semilunar fold.” (_Op. cit._, ch. I, pp. 35, 36.) Here Darwin is
certainly wrong about his facts; for the so-called third eyelid is
not well developed in the two lower divisions of the mammalian series
(_i.e._ the monotremes and the marsupials) nor in any other mammalian
type. “With but few exceptions,” says Remy Perrier, “the third eyelid
is not so complete as among the birds; (in the mammals) it never
covers the entire eye. For the rest, it is not really perceptible
except in certain types, like the dog, the ruminants, and, still more
so, the horse. In the rest (of the mammals) it is less developed.”
(“Elements d’anatomie comparée,” Paris, 1893, p. 1137.) Moreover,
Darwin’s suggestion leaves us at sea as to the ancestor, from whom
our “rudimentary third eyelid” has been inherited. His mention of
birds as having a well developed third eyelid is not very helpful,
because all evolutionists agree in excluding the birds from our line of
descent. The reptiles are more promising candidates for the position
of ancestors, but, as no trace of a third eyelid could possibly be
left behind in the imperfect record of the fossiliferous rocks (soft
parts like this having but slight chance of preservation), we do not
really _know_ whether the palæozoic reptiles possessed this particular
feature, or not. Nor can we argue from analogy and induction, because
not _all_ modern reptiles are equipped with third eyelids. Hence the
particular group of palæozoic reptiles, which are supposed to have been
our progenitors, may not have possessed any third eyelid to bequeath to
us in the reduced and rudimentary form of the plica semilunaris. If it
be replied, that they _must_ have had this feature, because otherwise
we would have no ancestor from whom we could inherit our semilunar
fold, it is obvious that such argumentation assumes the very point
which it ought to prove, namely: the actuality of evolution. Rudiments
are supposed to be a proof for evolution, and not, _vice versa_,
evolution a proof for rudiments.

Finally, the basic assumption of Darwin that the semilunar fold is
destitute of function is incorrect; for this crescent-shaped fold
situated in the inner or nasal corner of the eye of man and other
mammals serves to regulate the flow of the lubricating lacrimal fluid
(which we call tears). True this function is secondary compared with
the more important function discharged by the nictitating membrane in
birds. In the latter, the third eyelid is a pearly-white (sometimes
transparent) membrane placed internal to the real eyelids, on the
inner side of the eye, over whose surface it can be drawn like a
curtain to shield the organ from excessive light, or irritating dust;
nevertheless, the regulation of the flow of lacrimal humor is a real
function, and it is therefore entirely false to speak of the semilunar
fold as a functionless rudiment.

The _coccyx_ is likewise cited by Darwin as an example of an inherited
rudiment in man. “In man,” he says, “the os coccyx, together with
certain other vertebræ hereafter to be described, though functionless
as a tail, plainly represents this part in other vertebrate animals.”
(_Op. cit._, ch. I, p. 42.) That it serves no purpose _as a tail_,
may be readily admitted, but that it serves no purpose _whatever_, is
quite another matter. As a matter of fact, it serves for the attachment
of several small muscles, whose functioning would be impossible in the
absence of this bone. Darwin himself concedes this; for he confesses
that the four vertebræ of the coccyx “are furnished with some small
muscles.” (_Ibidem._) We may, therefore, admit the homology between the
human coccyx and the tails of other vertebrates, without being forced
to regard the latter as a useless vestigial organ. It may be objected
that the attachment of these muscles might have been provided for in
a manner more in harmony with our ideas of symmetry. To this we reply
that Helmholtz criticized the human eye for similar reasons, when he
said that he would remand to his workshop for correction an optical
instrument so flawed with defects as the human eye. But, after all,
it was by the use of these selfsame imperfect eyes that Helmholtz was
enabled to detect the flaws of which he complained. When man shall
have fully fathomed the difficulties and obstructions with which
organic morphogeny has to contend in performing its wonderful work,
and shall have arrived at an elementary knowledge of the general laws
of morphogenetic mechanics, he will be more inclined to admire than
to criticize. It is a mistake to imagine that the finite works of the
Creator must be perfect from _every_ viewpoint. It suffices that they
are perfect with respect to the particular _purpose_ which they serve,
and this purpose must not be narrowly estimated from the standpoint of
the created work itself, but from that of its position in the universal
scheme of creation. All such partial views as the Helmholtzian one are
false views.

Another consideration which Darwin and his partisans have failed
to take into account is the possibility of an _ontogenetic_, as
well as a phylogenetic, explanation of rudimentary organs. That is
to say, rudimentary organs might, so far as _a priori_ reasons are
concerned, be the now useless vestiges of organs formerly developed
and functional _in the fœtus_, and need not necessarily be interpreted
as traces of organs that functioned formerly in remote racial
ancestors. That there should be such things as special fœtal organs,
which atrophy in later adult life, is a possibility that ought not to
excite surprise. During its uterine existence, the fœtus is subject
to peculiar conditions of life, very different from those which
prevail in the case of adult organisms—_e.g._ respiration and the
digestive process are suspended, and there is a totally different kind
of circulation. What, then, more natural than that the fœtus should
require special organs to adapt it to these special conditions of
uterine life? Such organs, while useful and functional in the earlier
stages of embryonic development, will, so soon as birth and maturity
introduce new conditions of life, become superfluous, and therefore
doomed, in the interest of organic economy, to ultimate atrophy and
degeneration, until nothing is left of them but vestigial remnants.

The thymus may be cited as a probable instance of such an organ.
This organ, which is located in front of the heart and behind the
breastbone, in the region between the two lungs, consists, at the
period of its greatest development in man, of a two-lobed structure,
5 cm. long and 4 cm. wide, with a thickness of 6 mm. and a maximum
weight of 35 grams. It is supplied with numerous lymphoid cells, which
are aggregated to form lymphoid follicles (_cf._ Gray’s “Anatomy,”
20th ed., 1918, pp. 1273, 1274; Burton-Opitz’ “Physiology,” 1920,
p. 964). This organ is a transitory one, well developed at birth,
but degenerating, according to some authors, after the second year
of life (_cf._ Starling’s “Physiology,” 3rd ed., 1920, p. 1245);
according to others, however, not until the period of full maturity,
namely, puberty. (_Cf._ Gray’s “Anatomy,” _loc. cit._) W. H. Howell
cites both opinions, without venturing to decide the matter (_cf._
his “Physiology,” 8th ed., 1921, pp. 869, 870). It was at one time
classified as a rudimentary or functionless organ. Later on, however,
it was thought by certain observers to be an endocrine gland, yielding
a secretion important for the growth of young mammals. This took it
out of the class of useless vestigial organs, but the recent discovery
that it is indispensable to birds as furnishing a secretion necessary
for the formation of the tertiary envelopes (egg membrane and shell)
of their eggs, has tended to revive the idea of its being a vestigial
organ inherited from the lower vertebrates.

Thus Dr. Oscar Riddle, while admitting that the thymus gland in
man has some influence on the growth of the bones, contends that
the newly-discovered function of this gland in birds is much more
important, since without it none of the vertebrates, excepting mammals,
could reproduce their young. “It thus becomes clear,” he says, “that
though the thymus is almost without use in the human being, it is in
fact a sort of ‘mother of the race.’ The higher animals could not have
come into existence without it. For even while our ancestors lived in
the water, it was the thymus of these ancestors which made possible the
production of the egg-envelopes within which the young were cradled and
protected until they were ready for an independent life.” (_Science_,
Dec. 28, 1923, Suppl. XIII, XIV.)

This conclusion, however, is far too hasty. For, even if we disregard
as negligible the minor function, that Riddle assigns to the thymus
in man, there remains another possibility, which H. H. Wilder takes
into account, namely, that the thymus may, in certain cases, be
a temporary substitute for the lymphatic vessels. Having called
attention to certain determinate channels found in some of the lower
vertebrates, he tells us that these “can well be utilized as adjuncts
of the lymphatic system until their function can be supplied by
definite lymphatic vessels.” He then resumes his discussion of the
lymph nodules in mammals as follows: “Aside from the solitary and
aggregated nodules, both of which appear to be centers of origin of
lymphocytes, there are numerous other places in which the cellular
constituents of the blood are developed. Many of these, as in the case
of the aggregated nodules of the intestines, are developed within
the wall of the alimentary canal and are therefore endodermic in
origin. These include the tonsils, the _thymus_, and thyroid glands,
the associated epithelial bodies, and, perhaps, the spleen.... In
their function as formative nidi for the cellular elements of the
blood these organs form physiologically important auxiliaries to the
vascular system as a whole, but belong elsewhere in their anatomical
developmental affinities.” (“History of the Human Body,” 2nd ed., 1923,
p. 395—italics mine.)

This being the case, it is much more reasonable to interpret the thymus
as an ontogenetic (embryonic), rather than a phylogenetic (racial)
rudiment. It has been observed that, in the case of reptiles which
lack definite lymphatic glands (which function in man as formative
centers of lymphocytes or white blood corpuscles), the thymus is
extraordinarily developed and abounds in lymphoid cells. It has also
been observed that the formation of lymphocytes in the lymphatic
glands is regulated by the digestive process; for, after digestion,
the activity of these glands increases and the formation of leucocytes
is accelerated. Since, then, the lymphatic glands appear to require
the stimulus of the digestive process to incite them to action, it
is clear that in the fœtus, which lacks the digestive process, the
lymphatic glands will not be stimulated to action, and that the task
of furnishing lymphocytes will devolve upon the thymus. After birth,
the digestive process commences and the lymphatic glands become active
in response to this stimulus. As the function of forming lymphocytes
is transferred from the thymus to the lymphatic glands, the former is
gradually deprived of its importance, and, in the interest of organic
economy, it begins to atrophy, until, at the end of the child’s second
year, or, at latest, when the child has reached sexual maturity,
nothing but a reduced vestige remains of this once functional organ.
“The thymus,” says Starling, “forms two large masses in the anterior
mediastinum which in man grow up to the second year of life and then
rapidly diminish, so that only traces are to be found at puberty. It
contains a large amount of lymphatic tissue and is therefore often
associated with the lymphatic glands as the seat of the formation of
lymph corpuscles.... In certain cases of arrested development or of
general weakness in young people, the thymus has been found to be
persistent.” (“Physiology,” 3rd ed., 1920, p. 1245.)

In the light of these facts, it is utterly unreasonable to regard the
thymus as a practically useless rudiment inherited from the lower
vertebrates. “That they have an important function in the young
animal,” says Albert Mathews, “can hardly be doubted.” (“Physiological
Chemistry,” 1916, p. 675.) In fact, the peculiar nature of their
development in the young and their atrophy in the adult forces such a
conclusion upon us. The thymus, therefore, is, in all probability, an
ontogenetic, and not a phylogenetic, rudiment. It might conceivably be
exploited as a biogenetic recapitulation of a reptilian stage in man,
just as the so-called fish-kidney of the human embryo is exploited for
evolutionary interpretation. The principles by which such a view may be
refuted have been given previously. But, in any case, it is folly to
interpret the thymus as a rudiment in the racial, rather than embryonic
sense. Moreover, the possibility of an ontogenetic interpretation
of rudiments must not be restricted to the thymus, but must be
accepted as a general and legitimate alternative for the phylogenetic
interpretation.

In the last place, it remains for us to consider the Darwinian
argument, based upon so-called rudimentary organs, from the standpoint
of the science of genetics. Darwin, as we have remarked elsewhere,
was ignorant of the non-inheritability of those inconstant individual
variations now known as fluctuations. He was somewhat perplexed, when
Professor L. Meyer pointed out the extreme variability in position
of the “projecting point” on the margin of the human ear, but he
still clung to his original contention that this “blunt point” was a
surviving vestige of the apex of the pointed ears found in donkeys and
horses, etc. “Nevertheless,” he says, “in some cases my original view,
that the points are vestiges of the tips of formerly erect and pointed
ears, still seems to be probable.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. I,
p. 34.) Darwin, as Ranke points out, was mistaken in homologizing his
famous “tubercule” with the apex of bestial ears. “The acute extremity
of the pointed animal ear,” says this author, “does not correspond to
this prominence designated by Darwin, but to the vertex of the helix.”
(“Der Mensch,” II, p. 39.) The feature in question is, moreover, a mere
fluctuation due to the degree of development attained by the cartilage:
hence its variability in different human beings. In very extreme cases,
fluctuations of this sort, may be important enough to constitute an
_anomaly_, and, as anomalies are often interpreted as atavisms and
reversions to a primitive type, it may be well to advert to this
subject here.

Dwight has an excellent chapter on anatomical variations and anomalies.
(_Cf._ “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” 1911, ch. IX.) He tells us
that “a thigh bone a little more bent, an ear a little more pointed,
a nose a little more projecting ... a little more or a little less
of anything you please—this is variation.” “An anatomical anomaly,”
he says, “is some peculiarity of any part of the body which cannot
be expressed in terms of more or less, but is distinctly new.” He
divides the latter into two classes, namely: those which consist in the
repetition of one or more elements in a series, _e.g._ the occurrence
of supernumerary legs in an insect, and those which consist in the
suppression of one or more elements in a series, _e.g._ the occurrence
of eleven pairs of ribs in a man. Variations and anomalies are
fluctuational or mutational, according as they are based on changes in
the soma alone, or on changes in the germ plasm. Variations, however,
are more likely to be non-inheritable fluctuations, and anomalies to
be inheritable mutations. We shall speak of the latter presently. In
the meantime we may note that the main trouble with interpreting these
anatomical irregularities as “reversive” or “atavistic” is that they
would connect man with all sorts of quite impossible lines of descent.
“In my early days of anatomy,” says Dwight, “I thought that I must
be very ignorant, because I could not understand how the occasional
appearance in man of a peculiarity of some animal outside of any
conceivable line of descent could be called a reversion, as it soon
became the custom to call it.... It was only later that I grasped the
fact that the reason I could not understand these things was that there
was nothing to understand. It was sham science from beginning to end.”
(_Op. cit._, p. 209.) By way of anomaly, almost any human peculiarity
can occur in animals, and, conversely, any bestial peculiarity in
man, but the resemblance to man of an animal outside of the alleged
line of human descent represents a grave difficulty for the theory of
evolution, and not an argument in its favor.

The human body is certainly not a _mosaic of heterogenetic organs_,
_i.e._ a complex of structures inherited from any and every sort of
animal, whether extant or extinct; for such a vast number and variety
of ancestors could not possibly have coöperated to produce man. Prof.
D. Carazzi, in his Address of Inauguration in the Chair of Zoölogy
and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Padua, Jan. 20, 1906,
excoriated with scathing irony the sham Darwinian science, of which
Dwight complains. “But even in the serious works of pure science,” says
the Italian zoölogist, “we read, for example, that the over-development
of the postauricular muscles sometimes observed in man is an atavistic
reminiscence of the muscles of the helix of the ear of the horse and
the ass. And so far so good, because it gives evidence of great modesty
in recognizing as our ancestors those well-deserving and long-eared
quadrupeds. But this is not all; there appear at times in a woman one
or more anomalous mammary glands below the pectoral ones; and here,
too, they insist on explaining the anomaly as a reversion to type,
that is, as an atavistic reminiscence of the numerous mammary glands
possessed by different lower mammals; the bitch, for example....

“But the supernumerary mammary glands are not a reversion to type;
anomalous mammary glands may appear upon the median line, upon
the deltoid, and even upon the knee, regions far-distant from the
‘milk-line.’ So with regard to the postauricular muscles we must
say that according to the laws of Darwinism the cases of anomalous
development are not interpretable as reversions to type. All these
features are not phylogenetic reminiscences, but anomalies of
development, of such a nature that, if we should wish to make use of
them for establishing the line of human descent, we would have to say
that man descends from the swine, from the solipeds and even from the
cetaceans, returning, namely, to the old conception of lineal descent,
that is, to Buffon’s idea of the concatenation of creatures.” (“Teorie
e critiche nella moderna biologia,” 1906.)

Darwin’s doctrine, however, on the origin and significance of
rudimentary organs has been damaged by genetic analysis in a yet
more serious fashion. In fact, with the discovery that anomalous
_suppression_ and anomalous _duplication_ of organs may result from
_factorial mutation_, this Darwinian conception received what is
tantamount to its deathblow. Darwin, it will be remembered, was
convinced that the regression of organs was brought about by “increased
disuse controlled by natural selection.” (Cf. “Origin of Species,” 6th
ed., ch. V.) Such phenomena, he thought, as the suppression of wings
in the Apteryx and the reduction of wings in running birds, arose from
their “inhabiting ocean islands,” where they “have not been exposed to
the attacks of beasts, and consequently lost the power of using their
wings for flight.” (“Descent of Man,” 6th ed., ch. I, p. 32.) In some
cases, he believed that disuse and natural selection had coöperated
_ex aequo_ to produce results of this nature, _e.g._ the reduction of
the eyes in the mole and in Ctenomys; for this reduction, he claims,
has some selection-value, inasmuch as reduction of the eyes, adhesion
of the lids, and covering with hair tends to protect the unused and
useless eye against inflammation. In other cases, however, he is
inclined to discount the idea that suppression of organs is an “effect
of long-continued disuse,” and to regard the phenomenon as “wholly, or
mainly, due to natural selection,” _e.g._ in the case of the wingless
beetles of the island of Madeira. “For during successive generations,”
he reasons, “each individual beetle which flew least, either from its
wings having been ever so little less developed or from indolent habit,
will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out
to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took
to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus destroyed.”
In a third class of instances, however, he assigns the principal rôle
to disuse, _e.g._ in the case of the blind animals “which inhabit
the caves of Carniola and Kentucky, because,” as he tells us, “it is
difficult to imagine that eyes, though useless, could be injurious
to animals living in darkness.” Hence he concludes that, as the
obliteration of eyes has no selection-value, under the circumstances
prevailing in dark caves, “their loss may be attributed to disuse.”
(Cf. “Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. V, pp. 128-133.)

Morgan’s comment on these elaborate speculations of Darwin is very
caustic and concise. Referring to factorial mutations, which give rise
to races of flies having _supernumerary_ and _vestigial_ organs, he
says: “In contrast to the last case, where a character is doubled, is
the next one in which the eyes are lost. This change took place at a
single step. All the flies of this stock, however, cannot be said to be
eyeless, since many of them show pieces of eye—indeed the variation is
so wide that the eye may even appear like a normal eye unless carefully
examined. Formerly we were taught that eyeless animals arose in caves.
This case shows that they may also arise suddenly in glass milk
bottles, by a change in a single factor.

“I may recall in this connection that wingless flies also arose in
our cultures by a single mutation. We used to be told that wingless
insects occurred on desert islands because those insects that had the
best developed wings were blown out to sea. Whether this is true or
not, I will not pretend to say, but at any rate wingless insects may
also arise, not through a slow process of elimination, but at a single
step.” (“A Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” 1916, pp. 66, 67.)

In directing attention to the fact that a permanent and inheritable
reduction of organs to the vestigial state can result from mutation,
we do not, of course, intend to exclude the possible occurrence of
somatic atrophy due to lack of exercise rather than to germinal change.
Thus the blind species of animals in caves may, in some instances,
be persistently blind, because of the persistent darkness of the
environment in which they live, and not by reason of any inherited
factor for blindness. Darwin gives one such instance, namely, that
of the cave rat _Neotoma_. To test such cases, the blind animals
would have to be bred in an illuminated environment. If, under this
condition, they failed to develop normal eyes, the blindness would be
due to a germinal factor, and would be inherited in an illumined, no
less than a dark, environment.

In any case, a mutation which suppresses a character is not, as we
have seen, a specific change, but merely one of the varietal order,
which does not result in the production of a genuine new species. The
factorial mutant with a vestigial wing or eye belongs to the same
species as its wild or normal parent stock. Moreover, neither disuse
nor natural selection has the slightest power to induce mutations
of this kind. If mutation be the cause of the blindness of cave
animals, then their presence in such caves must be accounted for by
supposing that they migrated thither because they found in the cave a
most suitable environment for safety, foraging, etc. Darkness alone,
however, could never induce germinal, but, at most, merely somatic
blindness. The Lamarckian factor of disuse and the Darwinian factor of
selection have been definitely discredited as agents which could bring
about hereditarily-transmissible modifications.


                           § 4. Fossil Links

All efforts, then, to establish, by means of anatomical and
embryological homologies, the lineal descent of man from any known
type of monkey or ape have ended in ignominious failure. Comparative
anatomy and embryology can, at most, only furnish grounds for extremely
vague and indefinite speculations regarding the descent of man, but
they can never become a basis for specific conclusions with respect
to the phylogeny of _Homo sapiens_. Every known form of ape, whether
extant or extinct, is, as we have seen, far too specialized in its
adaptation to arboreal life to pass muster as a feasible ancestor. The
only conceivable manner in which the human body could be related to
simian stock is by way of collateral descent, and the only means of
proving such descent is to adduce a series of intermediate fossil types
connecting modern men and modern apes with this alleged common ancestor
of both. “The ascent (_sic_) of man as one of the Primates,” says Henry
Fairfield Osborn, “was parallel with that of the families of apes. Man
has a long line of ancestry of his own, perhaps two million or more
years in length. He is not descended from any known form of ape either
living or fossil.” (_The Ill. London News_, Jan. 8, 1921, p. 40.)

This theory of a hypothetical primate ancestor of man, which is
supposed to have inhabited the earth during the earlier part of the
Tertiary period, and to have presented a more man-like appearance than
any known type of ape, was first propounded by Karl Snell in 1863. It
was popularized at the beginning of the present century by Klaatsch,
who saw in it a means of escape from the absurdities and perplexities
of the theory of lineal descent—“the less,” says the latter, “an ape
has changed from its original form, just so much the more human it
appears.” This saying is revamped by Kohlbrugge to read: “Man comes
from an original form much more like himself than any existing ape.”
Kohlbrugge’s comment is as follows: “The line of descent of man thus
receives on the side of the primates a quite different form from its
previous-one. Such new hypotheses as those of Hubrecht and Klaatsch
seem, therefore, fortunate for nature-philosophers, because evolution
always failed us when we compared known forms in their details, and led
us only to confusion. But if one works with such distant hypothetical
ancestors, one escapes much disillusioning.” (Quoted by Dwight, _op.
cit._, p. 195.)

One thing, at any rate, is certain, namely: that we do not possess any
fossils of this primitive “large brained, erectly walking primate,”
who is alleged to have roamed the earth during the eocene or oligocene
epoch. The Foxhall Man, whose culture Osborn ascribes to the Upper
Pliocene, is far too recent, and, what is worse, far too intelligent,
to be this Tertiary Ancestor. The _Pithecanthropus erectus_, likewise,
is excluded for reasons which we shall presently consider. Meanwhile,
let it be noted, that we have Osborn’s assurance for the fact that we
are descended from a brainy and upright oligocene ancestor, as yet,
however, undiscovered.

But the situation is more hopeful, if we hark back to a still more
remote period, whose remains are so scarce and fragmentary, as to
eliminate the possibility of embarrassment arising from intractable
details. “Back of this,” says Osborn, “ ... was a prehuman arboreal
stage.” (_Loc. cit._) Here, then, we are back again in the same old rut
of tree-climbing simian ancestry, whence we thought to have escaped
by abandoning the theory of lineal descent; and, before we have time
to speculate upon how we got there, Prof. Wm. Gregory of the American
Museum is summoned by Osborn to present us with specimens of this
prehuman arboreal stage. This expert, it would seem, favored up till
the year 1923 the fossil jaw of the _Propliopithecus_ as representing
the common root, whence the human race diverged, on one side, and the
races of anthropoid apes, on the other. (Cf. Osborn’s _Museum-leaflet_
of 1923 on “The Hall of the Age of Man,” p. 29.) On April 14, 1923,
however, Gregory announced the deposition of _Propliopithecus_ and
the enthronement of the jaw of _Dryopithecus_. This sudden accession
of _Dryopithecus_ to the post of common ancestor of apes and men was
due to the discovery by Dr. Barnum Brown of three fossil jaws of
_Dryopithecus_ in the Miocene deposits of the Siwalik beds in northern
India. By some rapturous coincidence, the three jaws in question happen
to come from three successive “horizons,” and to be representative
of just three different stages in the evolution of _Dryopithecus_.
Doctor Gregory finds, moreover, that the patterns of the minute cracks
and furrows on the surviving molar teeth correspond to those on the
surface of the enamels of modern ape and human teeth. Hence, with
that ephemeral infallibility, which is characteristic of authorities
like Doctor Gregory, and which is proof against all discouragement
by reason of past blunders, the one who told us but a year ago that
the cusps of all the teeth of _Propliopithecus_ “are exactly such
as would be expected in the common starting point for the divergent
lines leading to the gibbons, to the higher apes, and to man” (_loc.
cit._), now tells us that both we and the apes have inherited our teeth
from _Dryopithecus_, who had heretofore remained neglected on the
side-lines. In 1923, apparently, Dr. Gregory was unimpressed with the
crown patterns of _Dryopithecus_, whose jaw he then excluded from the
direct human line. (Cf. _Museum-leaflet_, p. 5.) Now, however, that
the new discoveries have brought _Dryopithecus_ into the limelight,
and, particularly because these jaws were found in _Miocene_ deposits,
Gregory has shifted his favor from _Propliopithecus_ to _Dryopithecus_.
(Cf. _Science_, April 25, 1924, suppl. XIII.)

When palæontologists are obliged to do a _volte face_ of this sort,
one ought not to scoff. One ought to be an optimist, and eschew above
all the spirit of the English statesman, who, on hearing a learned
lecture by Pearson on the question of whether Man was descended from
hylobatic, or troglodytic stock, was guilty of the following piece
of impatience: “I am not particularly interested in the descent of
man ... this scientific pursuit of the dead bones of the past does
not seem to me a very useful way of spending life. I am accustomed
to this mode of study; learned volumes have been written in Sanscrit
to explain the conjunction of the two vowels ‘a’ and ‘u’. It is very
learned, very ingenious, but not very helpful.... I am not concerned
with my genealogy so much as with my future. Our intellects can be more
advantageously employed than in finding our diversity from the ape....
There may be no spirit, no soul; there is no proof of their existence.
If that is so, let us do away with shams and live like animals. If, on
the other hand, there is a soul to be looked after, let us all strain
our nerves to the task; there is no use in digging into the sands of
time for the skeletons of the past; build your man for the future.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1921, pp. 432, 433.) It is to be hoped,
however, that this reactionary spirit is confined to the few, and
that the accession of this new primitive ancestor will be hailed with
general satisfaction. At any rate, we can wish him well, and trust that
the fossilized jaw of _Dryopithecus_ will not lose caste so speedily as
that of _Propliopithecus_.

_Propliopithecus_, or _Dryopithecus_? Hylobatic, or troglodytic
affinities? Such questions are scarcely the pivots on which the
world is turned! Nevertheless, we rejoice that Doctor Gregory has
again settled the former problem (provisorily, at least) to his own
satisfaction. More important, however, than that of the dentition of
_Dryopithecus_, is the crucial question of whether or not Palæontology
is able to furnish evidence of man’s genetic continuity with this
primitive pithecoid root. Certainly, no effort has been spared to
procure the much desired proofs of our reputed bestial ancestry. The
Tertiary deposits of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the oceanic
islands have been diligently ransacked for fossil facts that would
be susceptible to an evolutionary interpretation. The aprioristic
criterion that all large-brained men are recent, and all small-brained
men with recessive chins are necessarily ancient, has always been
employed in evaluating the fossil evidence. Notwithstanding all
endeavors, however, to bring about the consummation so devoutly
desired, the facts discovered not only fail to support the theory of
collateral descent, but actually militate against it. For assuming that
man and the anthropoid apes constitute two distinct lines of evolution
branching out from common Tertiary or pre-Tertiary stock, palæontology
should be able to show numerous intermediate fossil forms, not alone
for the lateral branch of the apes, but also, and especially, for the
lateral line connecting modern men with the common root of the primate
tree. But it is precisely in this latter respect that the fossil
evidence for collateral descent fails most egregiously. Palæontology
knows of many fossil genera and species of apes and lemurs, that might
conceivably represent links in a genetic chain connecting modern
monkeys with Tertiary stock, but it has yet to discover so much as a
single fossil species, much less a fossil genus, intermediate between
man, as we know him, and this alleged Tertiary ancestor common to apes
and men.

Not even catastrophism can be invoked to save this irremediable
situation; for any catastrophe that would have swept away the human
links would likewise have swept away the ape links. The presence of
many genera and species of fossil apes, in contrast to the absence
of any fossil genus or species of man distinct from _Homo sapiens_,
is irreconcilable with the theory of collateral descent. Such is the
dilemma proposed to the upholders of this theory by Wasmann, in the
10th chapter of his “Die Moderne Biologie” (3rd edition, 1906), a
dilemma, from which, as we shall see, their every attempt to extricate
themselves has failed most signally.

“But what,” asked Wasmann, “has palæontology to say concerning this
question? It tells us that, up to the present, no connecting link
between man and the ape has been found; and, indeed, according to
the theory of Klaatsch, it is absurd to speak of a link of direct
connection between these two forms, but it tells us much more than
this. It shows us, on the basis of the results of the most recent
research, that we know the genealogical tree of the various apes, a
tree very rich in species, which extends from the present as far back
as the hypothetical primitive form assigned to the earliest part of
the Tertiary period; and, in fact, in Zittel’s work, “Grundzüge der
Paläontologie” (1895), not less than thirty genera of fossil Pro-simiæ
and eighteen genera of genuine fossil apes are enumerated, the which
have been entombed in those strata of the earth that intervene between
the Lower Eocene and the Alluvial epoch, but between this hypothetical
primitive form and man of the present time we do not find a single
connecting link. _The entire genealogical tree of man does not show so
much as one fossil genus, or even one fossil species._” (_Op. cit._,
italics his.) A brief consideration of the principal fossil remains, in
which certain palæontologists profess to see evidence of a transition
between man and the primitive pithecoid stock, will serve to verify
Wasmann’s statement, and will reveal the fact that all the alleged
connecting links are distinctly human, or purely simian, or merely
mismated combinations of human and simian remains.

(1) _Pithecanthropus erectus_: In 1891 Eugène Dubois, a Dutch army
surgeon, discovered in Java, at Trinil, in the Ngawa district of
the Madiun Residency, a calvarium (skull-cap), 2 upper molars and a
femur, in the central part of an old river bed. The four fragments,
however, were not all found in the same year, because the advent of
the rainy season compelled him to suspend the work of excavation.
“The teeth,” to quote Dubois himself, “were distant from the skull
from one to, at most, three meters; the femur was fifteen meters (50
feet) away.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1898, p. 447.) Dubois judged
the lapilli stratum, in which the bones were found, to be older than
the Pleistocene, and older, perhaps, than the most recent zones of the
_Pliocene_ series. “The Trinil ape-man,” says Osborn, “ ... is the
first of the conundrums of human ancestry. Is the Trinil race prehuman
or not?” (_Loc. cit._, p. 40.) Certainly, Lower Pleistocene, or Upper
Pliocene represents too late a time for the appearance of the upright
primate, whence we are said to have sprung. Even Miocene would be too
late a date for our alleged divergence from the primitive arboreal
stock.

Of the capacity of the calvarium, Dubois says: “I found the
above-mentioned cavity measured 550 c.cm. The cast of the cavity of
the Neanderthal skull taken to the same plane measures 750 c.cm.”
(_Loc. cit._, p. 450, footnote.) His first estimate of the total
cranial capacity of _Pithecanthropus_ was 1000 c.cm., but, later on,
when he decided to reconstruct the skull on the basis of the cranium
of a gibbon (_Hylobates agilis_) rather than that of a chimpanzee
(_Troglodytes niger_), he reduced his estimate of the cranial capacity
to 900 c.cm. Recently, it is rumored, he has increased the latter
estimate, as a sequel to his having removed by means of a dentist’s
tool all the siliceous matter adhering to the skull-cap. As regards
shape, the calvarium seems to resemble most closely the cranial vault
of gibbon. This similarity, as we have seen, led Dubois to reconstruct
the skull on hylobatic lines—“the skull of Hylobates agilis,” says
Dubois, “ ... strikingly resembles that of Pithecanthropus.” (_Loc.
cit._, p. 450, footnote.) The craniologist Macnamara, it is true,
claims that the skull-cap most closely approximates the Troglodyte
type. Speaking of the calvarium of Pithecanthropus, the latter says:
“The cranium of an average adult male chimpanzee and the Java cranium
are so closely related that I believe them to belong to the same family
of animals—_i.e._ to the true apes.” (_Archiv. für Anthropologie_,
XXVIII, 1903, pp. 349-360.) The large cranial capacity, however,
would seem to favor Dubois’ interpretation, seeing that gibbons have,
in proportion to their bodies, twice as large a brain as the huge
Troglodyte apes, namely, the chimpanzee and the gorilla. The maximum
cranial capacity for any ape is from 500 to 600 c.cm. Hence, with 900
c.cm. of cranial capacity estimated by Dubois, the Pithecanthropus
stands midway between the ape and the Neanderthal Man, a human
dwarf, whose cranial capacity Huxley estimated at 1,236 c.cm. This
consideration, however, does not of itself entitle the Pithecanthropus
to be regarded as a connecting link between man and the anthropoid
apes. In all such comparisons, it is the _relative_, and not the
_absolute_, size of the brain, which is important. The elephant for
example, has as large a brain as a man, but the elephant’s brain
is small, in comparison to its huge body. The brain of a mouse is
insignificant, as regards absolute size, but, considered in relation to
the size of the mouse’s body, it is as large as, if not larger than,
that of an elephant, and hence the elephant, for all the absolute
magnitude of its brain, is no more “intelligent” than a mouse. As
we have already seen, man’s brain is unique, not for its absolute
size, but for its weight and enormous cortical surface, considered
with reference to the comparatively small organism controlled by the
brain in question. It is this excess in size which manifests the
specialization of the human brain for psychic functions. The Weddas,
a dwarf race of Ceylon, have a far smaller cranial capacity than the
Neanderthal Man, their average cranial capacity being 960 c.cm., but
they are _human pigmies_, whereas the Pithecanthropus, according to
Richard Hertwig, was a _giant ape_. “The fragments,” says Hertwig,
“were regarded by some as belonging to a connecting link between apes
and man, _Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois_; by others they were thought
to be the remains of genuine apes, and by others those of genuine
men. The opinion that is most probably correct is that the fragments
belonged to an anthropoid ape of extraordinary size and enormous
cranial capacity.” (“Lehrbuch der Zoologie,” 7th ed.)

Prof. J. H. McGregor essays to make a gradational series out of
conjectural brain casts of a large ape, the Pithecanthropus and the
Neanderthal Man, in the ratio of 6: 9: 12, this ratio being based
upon the estimated cranial capacities of the skulls in question.
In a previous chapter, we have seen that such symmetrically graded
series have little force as an argument for common descent. In the
present instance, however, the gradation gives a wrong impression of
the real state of affairs. If Doctor McGregor had taken into account
the all-important consideration of relative size, he would not have
been able to construct this misleading series. This consideration,
however, did not escape Dubois himself, and in his paper of Dec. 14,
1896, before the Berlin Anthropological Society, he confessed that a
gigantic ape of hylobatic type would have a cranial capacity close to
that of Pithecanthropus, even if we suppose it to have been no taller
than a man. (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1898, p. 350.) The admission
is all the more significant in view of the fact that Dubois was then
endeavoring to exclude the possibility of regarding Pithecanthropus as
an anthropoid ape.

The teeth, according to Dubois, are unlike the teeth of either
men or apes, but according to Virchow and Hrdlička, they are more
ape-like than human. The femur, though unquestionably man-like, might
conceivably belong to an ape of the gibbon type, inasmuch as the
upright posture is more normal to the long-armed gibbon than to any
other anthropoid ape, and its thighbone, for this reason, bears the
closest resemblance to that of man. According to the “Text-Book of
Zoölogy” by Parker and Haswell, the gibbon is the only ape that can
walk erectly, which it does, not like other apes, with the fore-limbs
used as crutches, but balanced exclusively upon its hind-limbs, with
its long arms dangling to the ground—“The Gibbons can walk in an
upright position without the assistance of the fore-limbs; in the
others, though, in progression on the surface of the ground, the
body may be held in a semi-erect position with the weight resting on
the hind-limbs, yet the assistance of the long fore-limbs acting as
crutches is necessary to enable the animal to swing itself along.”
(_Op. cit._, 3rd ed., 1921, vol. II, p. 494.) The Javanese femur is
rounder than in man, and is, in this, as well as other respects, more
akin to the thighbone of the gibbon. “After examining hundreds of
human femora,” says Dubois, “Manouvrier could find only two that had
a somewhat similar shape. It is therefore a very rare form in man.
With the gibbon a similar form normally occurs.” (_Loc. cit._, pp.
456, 457.) Whether the thighbone really belonged to an erectly walking
animal has not yet been definitely settled. To decide this matter, it
would be necessary to apply the Walkhoff x-ray method, which determines
the mode of progression from the arrangement of the bone fibers in
frontal, or other, sections from the femur. This test, however, has
not hitherto been made. Nor should the significance of the fact that
the thighbone was found at a distance of some _fifty feet away_ from
the skull-cap be overlooked, seeing that this fact destroys, once and
for all, any possibility of _certainty_ that both belonged to the same
animal.

In conclusion, therefore, we may say that the remains of
Pithecanthropus are so scanty, fragmentary, and doubtful, as to
preclude a reliable verdict on their true significance. As Virchow
pointed out, the determination of their correct taxonomic position is
impossible, in the absence of a complete skeleton. Meanwhile, the most
probable opinion is that they represent the remains of a giant ape of
the hylobatic type. In other words, the Pithecanthropus belongs to the
genealogical tree of the apes, and not to that of man. In fact, he
has been excluded from the direct line of human descent by Schwalbe,
Alsberg, Kollmann, Haacke, Hubrecht, Klaatsch, and all the foremost
protagonists of the theory of collateral descent. (Cf. Dwight, _op.
cit._, ch. VIII.) Professor McGregor’s series consisting of an ape, the
Pithecanthropus, Homo neanderthalensis, and the Crô-Magnon Man fails
as an argument, not only for the general reason we have discussed in
our third chapter, but also for two special reasons, namely: (1) that
he completely ignores the chronological question of the comparative
age of the fossils in his series, and (2) that he has neglected to
take into account the consideration of the body-brain ratio. For as
Prof. G. Grant MacCurdy puts it, “We must distinguish between relative
(cranial) capacity and absolute capacity.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1909, p. 575.) In justice to Professor McGregor, however, it should be
noted that he proposes his interpretation in a purely provisory and
tentative sense, and does not dogmatize after the fashion of Osborn and
Gregory.

After the year 1896, Dubois appears to have withdrawn the relics of
Pithecanthropus from further inspection on the part of scientific
men, and to have kept them securely locked up in his safe at
Haarlem, Holland. (Cf. _Science_, June 15, 1923, suppl. VIII.)
Since all existing casts of the skull-cap of Pithecanthropus are
inaccurate, according to the measurements originally given by Dubois,
anthropologists were anxious to have access to bones, in order to
verify his figures and to obtain better casts. (Cf. Hrdlička, Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 498.) His obstinate refusal, therefore, to
place the Javanese remains at the disposal of scientists was bitterly
resented by the latter. Some of them accused him of having become
“reactionary” and “orthodox” in his later years, and others went so
far as to impugn his good faith in the matter of the discovery. (Cf.
W. H. Ballou’s article, _North American Review_, April, 1922.) A
writer in _Science_ says: “It has been rumored that he was influenced
by religious bigotry” and refers to the bones as a “skeleton in the
closet.” (Cf. _loc. cit._) Dubois’ own explanation, however, was
that he wished to publish his own finds first. Recently, he seems to
have yielded to pressure in the matter, since he permitted Hrdlička,
McGregor, and others to examine the fragments of Pithecanthropus. (Cf.
_Science_, Aug. 17, 1923, Suppl. VIII.) Meanwhile, too, his opinion
has changed with reference to these bones, which he now regards as
the remains of a large ape of the hylobatic type, and not of a form
intermediate between men and apes. This opinion is, in all likelihood,
the correct one.

(2) _The Heidelberg Man_: In a quarry near Mauer in the Elsenz Valley,
Germany, on Oct. 21, 1907, a workman engaged in excavating drove his
shovel into a fossilized human jaw, severing it into two pieces. Herr
Joseph Rösch, the owner of the quarry, immediately telegraphed the news
of the find to Prof. Otto Schoetensack of the neighboring University
of Heidelberg. The Professor arrived on the scene the following day,
and “once he got hold of the specimen, he would no more let it out of
his possession.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 510.) He took
it back with him to Heidelberg, where he cleaned and repaired it. The
crowns of four of the teeth broken by the workman’s shovel were never
recovered. The Heidelberg jaw was found at a depth of about 79 feet
below the surface (24.1 meters). Fossil bones of Elephas antiquus,
Rhinoceros etruscus, Felis leo fossilis, etc., are said to have been
discovered at the same level. The layer in which it was found has been
classed by some as Middle Pleistocene, by others as Early Quaternary;
for “there seems to be some uncertainty as to the exact subdivision of
the period to which it should be attributed.” (Hrdlička, _loc. cit._,
p. 516.) No other part of the skeleton except the jaw was discovered.

The teeth are of the normal human pattern, being small and vertical.
Prof. Arthur Keith says they have the same shape as those of the
specimen found at Spy. The jaw has an ape-like appearance, due to
the extreme recessiveness of the chin. It is also remarkable for its
massiveness and the broadness of the ascending rami. Its anomalous
character is indicated by the manifest disproportion between the
powerful jaw and the insignificant teeth. “One is impressed,” says
Prof. George Grant MacCurdy of Yale, “by the relative smallness of
the teeth as compared with the massive jaw in the case of _Homo
heidelbergensis_.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 570.) “Why so
massive a jaw,” says the late Professor Dwight, former anatomist at
Harvard, “should have such inefficient teeth is hard to explain, for
the very strength of the jaw implies the fitness of corresponding
teeth. Either it is an anomaly or the jaw of some aberrant species of
ape.” (_Op. cit._, p. 164.) This fact alone destroys its evidential
force; for, by way of anomaly, almost any sort of feature can appear in
apes and men, that is, human characters in apes and simian characters
in man. “Thus it is certain,” says Dwight, “that animal features of
the most diverse kinds appear in man apparently without rhyme or
reason, and also that they appear in precisely the same way in animals
far removed from those in which they are normal. It is hopeless to
try to account for them by inheritance; and to call them instances of
convergence does not help matters.” (_Op. cit._, pp. 230, 231.)

Kramberger, however, claims that, with the exception of the
extremely recessive chin, the features of the Heidelberg jaw are
approximated by those which are normal in the modern Eskimo skull.
(Cf. _Sitzungbericht der Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften_, 1909.)
Prof. J. H. McGregor holds similar views. He claims that the greater
use of the jaw in uncivilized peoples, who must masticate tough foods,
tends to accentuate and increase the recessiveness of the chin. It
is also possible that the backward sloping of the chin may have been
intensified in certain primitive races or varieties of the human
species as a result of factorial mutation. We would not, however, be
justified in segregating a distinct human species on the basis of minor
differences, such as the protuberance or recessiveness of chins. On
the whole, we are hopelessly at sea with reference to the significance
of the Heidelberg mandible. Taxonomic allocation must be grounded on
something more than a jaw, otherwise it amounts to nothing more than a
piece of capricious speculation.

(3) _Eoanthropus Dawsoni_: Dec. 18, 1912, is memorable with
evolutionary anthropologists as the day on which Charles Dawson
announced his discovery of the famous Dawn Man. The period of discovery
extended from the years prior to 1911 up to Aug. 30, 1913, when the
canine tooth was found by Father Teilhard de Chardin. The locality
was Piltdown Common, Sussex, in England. The fragments recovered were
an imperfect cranium, part of the mandible, and the above-mentioned
canine tooth. The stratified Piltdown gravel, which Dawson assigns to
the Lower Pleistocene or Glacial epoch, had been much disturbed by
workmen, “who were digging the gravel for small repairs.” (Dawson.)
The discoverer first found a fragment of a parietal bone. Then several
years later, after the gravels had been considerably rainwashed, he
recovered other fragments of the skull. All parts of the skeletal
remains are said to have been found within a radius of several yards
from the site of the initial discovery. The skull was reconstructed by
Dr. A. Smith Woodward and deposited in the British Museum of Natural
History at South Kensington. Eoliths were found in the same gravel as
the skull.

Of the skull, according to Woodward, four parts remain, which, however,
were integrated from nine fragments of bone. “The human remains,” he
says, “comprise the greater part of a brain-case and one ramus of
the mandible, with two lower molars.” Of Woodward’s reconstruction,
Keith tells us that “an approach to symmetry and a correct adjustment
of parts came only after many experimental reconstructions” (cf.
“Antiquity of Man,” p. 364), and he also remarks that, when Woodward
undertook to “replace the missing points of the jaws, the incisor
and canine teeth, he followed simian rather than human lines.” (_Op.
cit._, p. 324.) Here we may be permitted to observe that, even apart
from the distorting influence of preconceived theories, this business
of reconstruction is a rather dubious procedure. The absence of parts
and the inevitable modification introduced by the use of cement
employed to make the fragments cohere make accurate reconstruction
an impossibility. The fact that Woodward assigned to the _lower_ jaw
a tooth which Gerrit Miller of the United States Museum assigns to
the _upper_ jaw, may well give pause to those credulous persons, who
believe that palæontologists can reliably reconstruct a whole cranium
or skeleton from the minutest fragments. Sometimes, apparently, the
“experts” are at sea even over so simple a question as the proper
allocation of a tooth.

Woodward, however, was fully satisfied with his own artistic work on
Eoanthropus; for he says: “While the skull, indeed, is evidently human,
only approaching a lower grade in certain characters of the brain, in
the attachment for the neck, the extent of the temporal muscles and
in the probable size of the face, the mandible appears to be almost
precisely that of an ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth.”
(Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, pp. 505, 506.) Of the cranial
capacity Woodward gives the following estimate: “The capacity of the
brain-case cannot, of course, be exactly determined; but measurements
both by millet seed and water show that it must have been at least
1,070 cc., while a consideration of the missing parts suggests that
it may have been a little more (note the parsimoniousness of this
concession!). It therefore agrees closely with the capacity of the
Gibraltar skull, as determined by Professor Keith, and equals that of
the lowest skulls of the existing Australians. It is much below the
Mousterian skulls from Spy and La Chapelle-aux-Saints.” (_Loc. cit._,
p. 505.)

Where Doctor Woodward came to grief, however, was in his failure to
discern the obvious disproportion between the mismated cranium and
mandible. As a matter of fact, the mandible is older than the skull
and belongs to a fossil ape, whereas the cranium is more recent and
is conspicuously human. Woodward, however, was blissfully unconscious
of this mésalliance. What there is of the lower jaw, he assures us,
“shows the same mineralized condition as the skull” and “corresponds
sufficiently well in size to be referred to the same individual without
any hesitation.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 506.)

For this he was roundly taken to task by Prof. David Waterston in an
address delivered by the latter before the London Geological Society,
Dec., 1912. _Nature_, the English scientific weekly, reports this
criticism as follows: “To refer the mandible and the cranium to the
same individual would be equivalent to articulating a chimpanzee
foot with the bones of a human thigh and leg.” Prof. J. H. McGregor
of Columbia, though he followed Woodward in modeling the head of
Eoanthropus now exhibited in “The Hall of the Age of Man,” told the
writer that he believed the jaw and the skull to be misfits. Recently,
Hrdlička has come out strongly for the separation of the mandible
from the cranium, insisting that the former is _older_ and on the
order of the jaw of the fossil ape _Dryopithecus_, while the skull
is less antique and indubitably human. The following abstract of
Hrdlička’s view is given in _Science_, May 4, 1923: “Dr. Hrdlička,”
we read, “holds that the Piltdown jaw is much older than the skull
found near it and to which it had been supposed to belong.” (Cf.
suppl. X.) Hrdlička asserts that, from the standpoint of dentition,
there is a striking resemblance between the Piltdown jaw and that of
the extinct ape _Dryopithecus rhenanus_. He comments, in fact, on
“the close relation of the Piltdown molars to some of the Miocene or
early Pliocene human-like teeth of this fossil ape.” (_Ibidem._) Still
other authorities, however, have claimed that the jaw was that of a
chimpanzee.

To conclude, therefore, the Eoanthropus Dawsoni is an invention, and
not a discovery, an artistic creation, not a specimen. Anyone can
combine a simian mandible with a human cranium, and, if the discovery
of a connecting link entails no more than this, then there is no reason
why evidence of human evolution should not be turned out wholesale.

(4) _The Neanderthal Man_ (No. 1): The remains of the famous
Neanderthal Man were found in August, 1856, by two laborers at work
in the Feldhofer Grotte, a small cave about 100 feet from the Düssel
river, near Hochdal in Germany. This cave is located at the entrance
of the Neanderthal gorge in Westphalia, at a height of 60 feet above
the bottom of the valley. No competent scientist, however, saw the
bones _in situ_. Both the bones and the loam, in which they were
entombed, had been thrown out of the cave and partly precipitated into
the ravine, long before the scientists arrived. Indeed, the scientific
discoverer, Dr. C. Fuhlrott, did not come upon the scene until several
weeks later. It was then too late to determine the age of the bones
geologically and stratigraphically, and no petrigraphic examination of
the loam was made. The cave, which is about 25 meters above the level
of the river, communicates by crevices with the surface, so that it
is possible that the bones and the loam, which covered the floor of
the cave, may have been washed in from without. Fuhlrott recovered a
skull-cap, two femurs, both humeri, both ulnæ (almost complete), the
right radius, the left pelvic bone, a fragment of the right scapula,
five pieces of rib, and the right clavicle. (Cf. Hugues Obermaier’s
article, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1906, pp. 394, 395.) “Whether they
(the bones) were really in the Alluvial loam,” says Virchow, “no one
saw.... The whole importance of the Neanderthal skull consists in
the honor ascribed to it from the very beginning, of having rested
in the Alluvial loam, which was formed at the time of the early
mammals.” (Quoted by Ranke, “Der Mensch,” II, p. 485.) We know nothing,
therefore, regarding the age of the fragmentary skeleton; for, as
Obermaier says: “It is certain that its exact age is in no way defined,
either geologically or stratigraphically.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 395.)

The remains are no less enigmatic from the anthropological standpoint.
For while no doubt has been raised as to their human character,
they have given rise to at least a dozen conflicting opinions. Thus
Professor Clemont of Bonn pronounced the remains in question to be
those of a Mongolian Cossack shot by snipers in 1814, and cast by his
slayers into the Feldhofer Grotte. The same verdict had been given by
L. Meyer in 1864. C. Carter Blake (1864) and Karl Vogt (1863) declared
the skull to be that of an idiot. J. Barnard Davis (1864) claimed that
it had been artificially deformed by early obliteration of the cranial
sutures. Pruner-Bey (1863) said that it was the skull of an ancient
Celt or German; R. Wagner (1864), that it belonged to an ancient
Hollander; Rudolf Virchow, that the remains were those of a primitive
Frieslander. Prof. G. Schwalbe of Strassburg erected it into a new
_genus_ of the _Anthropidæ_ in 1901. In 1904, however, he repented of
his rashness and contented himself with calling it a distinct human
_species_, namely, _Homo primigenius_, in contradistinction to _Homo
sapiens_ (modern man). As we shall see presently, however, it is not a
distinct species, but, at most, an ancient _variety_ or _subspecies_
(race) of the species _Homo sapiens_, differing from modern Europeans
only in the degree that Polynesians, Mongolians, and Hottentots differ
from them, that is, within the limits of the one and only human
species. Other opinions might be cited (cf. Hrdlička, Smithson. Inst.
Rpt. for 1913, p. 518, and H. Muckermann’s “Darwinism and Evolution,”
1906, pp. 63, 64), but the number and variety of the foregoing bear
ample testimony to the uncertain and ambiguous character of the remains.

The skull is that of a low, perhaps, degenerate, type of humanity. The
facial and basal parts of the skull are missing. Hence we are not sure
of the prognathism shown in McGregor’s reconstruction. The skull has,
however, a retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges and a sloping
occiput. Yet, in spite of the fact that it is of a very low type, it
is indubitably human. “In no sense,” says Huxley, “can the Neanderthal
bones be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between
men and apes.” (“Evidence of Man’s Place in Nature,” Humb. ed., p.
253.) D. Schaaffhausen makes the same confession—“In making this
discovery,” he owns, “we have not found the missing link.” (“Der
Neanderthaler Fund,” p. 49.) The cranial capacity of the Neanderthal
skull, as we have seen, is 1,236 c.cm., which is practically the same
as that of the average European woman of today. In size it exceeds,
but in shape it resembles, the dolichocephalic skull of the modern
Australian, being itself a dolichocephalic cranium. Huxley called
attention to this resemblance, and Macnamara, after comparing it with
a large number of such skulls, reaches this conclusion: “The average
cranial capacity of these selected 36 skulls (namely, of Australian
and Tasmanian blacks) is even less than that of the Neanderthal group,
but in shape some of these two groups are closely related.” (_Archiv.
für Anthropologie_, XXVIII, 1903, p. 358.) Schwalbe’s opinion that the
Neanderthal Man constitutes a distinct species, though its author has
since abandoned it (cf. Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” Eng. ed., 1910, p.
506), will be considered later, viz. after we have discussed the Men of
Spy, Krapina and Le Moustier, all of whom have been assigned to the
Neanderthal group.

(5) _Neanderthal Man_ (No. 2): This specimen is said to be more recent
than No. 1. Its discoverers were Rautert, Klaatsch, and Koenen. It
consists of a human skeleton without a skull. It was found buried in
the loess at a depth of 50 centimeters. This loess had been washed
into the ruined cave, where the relics were found, subsequently to its
deposition on the plateau above. The bones were most probably washed
into the cave along with the loess, which fills the remnant of the
destroyed cave. The upper plateau of the region is covered with the
same loess. The site of the second discovery was 200 meters to the west
of the Neanderthal Cave (_i.e._ the Feldhofer Grotte). The bones were
either washed into the broken cave, or buried there later. We have no
indication whatever of their age.

(6) _The Man of La Naulette_: In 1866, André Dupont found in the
cavern of La Naulette, valley of the Lesse, Belgium, a fossil lower
jaw, or rather, the fragment of a lower jaw, associated with remains
of the mammoth and rhinoceros. The fragment was sufficient to show the
dentition, and to indicate the absence of a chin. “Its kinship with the
man of Neanderthal,” remarks Professor MacCurdy very naïvely, “whose
lower jaw could not be found, was evident. It tended to legitimatize
the latter, which hitherto had failed of general recognition.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 572.)

(7) _The Men of Spy_: In June of 1886 two nearly complete skeletons,
probably of a woman and a man, were discovered by Messrs. Marcel
de Puydt and Maximin Lohest in a terrace fronting a cave at Spy in
the Province of Namur, Belgium, 47½ feet above the shallow bed of
the stream Orneau. The bones were found at a depth of 13 feet below
the surface of the terrace. The remains were associated with bones
of the rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros tichorhinus_), the mammoth (_Elephas
primigenius_), and the great bear (_Ursus spelaeus_). There were also
stone implements indicating Mousterian industry, and the position of
one of the skeletons shows that the bodies were buried by friends.
The present valley of the Orneau was almost completely formed at the
time of the burial. The exact age of the bones cannot be determined
nor can these cave deposits be correlated with the river drift and the
loess. The cultural evidences are said to be Mousterian, and Mousterian
culture is assigned by Obermaier to the Fourth, or last, Glacial period.

Prof. Julien Fraipont of the University of Liége announced the
discovery of these palæolithic skeletons Aug. 16, 1886. Skeleton No.
1 has weaker bones and is thought to be that of a woman; No. 2 shows
signs of strong musculature and is evidently that of a man. Of No. 1
we have the cranial vault, two portions of the upper jaw (with five
molars and four other teeth), a nearly complete mandible with all the
teeth, a left clavicle, a right humerus, the shaft of the left humerus,
a left radius, the heads of two ulnæ, a nearly complete right femur,
a complete left tibia, and the right os calcis. Of No. 2 we have the
vault of the skull, two portions of the maxilla with teeth, loose teeth
belonging to lower jaw, fragments of the scapulæ, the left clavicle,
imperfect humeri, the shaft of the right radius, a left femur, the
left os calcis, and the left astragalus. The separation of the bones,
however, is not yet satisfactory. The jaw of No. 1 is well-preserved,
except in the region of the coronoids and condyles, which makes any
position we may give it more or less arbitrary. The skull of this
specimen is almost the replica of the Neanderthal skull, except that
the forehead is lower and more sloping. But No. 1 has a trace of chin
prominence and in this it resembles modern skulls. No. 2 has a higher
forehead and the cranial vault is higher and more spacious.

In both skeletons the radius and femur show a peculiar curvature,
and in both, too, the arms and legs must have been very short. Hence
the men of Spy are described as having been only partially erect,
and as having had bowed thighs and bent knees. The source of this
modification, however, is not a surviving pithecoid atavism, but a
non-inheritable adaptation acquired through the habitual attitude or
posture maintained in stalking game—“Now we know,” says Dwight, “that
this feature, which is certainly an ape-like one, implies simply
that the race was one of those with the habit of ‘squatting,’ which
implies that the body hangs from the knees, not touching the ground
for hours together. As a matter of course we look for this in savage
tribes.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 168.) The same may
be said of the receding chin, which, as we have seen, is also an
acquired adaptation. The same, finally, is true of the prominent brow
ridges, which are not pithecoid, but are, as Klaatsch has pointed out,
related to the size of the eye sockets, and consequently the result
of an adaptation of early palæolithic man to the life of a hunter, a
natural sequel of the very marked development of his sense of sight.
Similar brow ridges, though not quite so prominent, occur among modern
Australian blacks.

Nor are the remains as typically Neanderthaloid as Keith and others
(who wish to see in palæolithic men a distinct human species) could
desire. No. 1, as we have seen, though almost a replica of the
Neanderthal skull-cap, has a trace of chin prominence in the mandible.
No. 2, though the chin is recessive, has a higher forehead and higher
and more spacious cranial vault than the Neanderthal Man. “On the
whole,” says Hrdlička, “it may be said that No. 2, while in some
respects still very primitive, represents morphologically a decided
step from the Neanderthaloid to the present-day type of the human
cranium.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 525.)

(8) _The Men of Krapina_: In the cave, or rather rock shelter, of
Krapina, in northern Croatia, beside the small stream Kaprinica which
now flows 82 feet below the cave, K. Gorjanovič-Kramberger, Professor
of geology and palæontology at the University of Zagreb, found, in
the year 1899, ten or twelve skulls in fragments, a large number of
teeth, and many other defective parts of skeletons. All told, they
represent at least fourteen different individuals. The bones are in
a bad state of preservation, and show traces of burning, some of them
being calcined. The bones were associated with objects of Mousterian
industry, and bones of extinct animals such as _Rhinoceros merckii_,
_Ursus spelaeus_, _Bos primigenius_, etc. The aforesaid Rhinoceros is
an older type than the _Rhinoceros tichorhinus_ associated with the men
of Spy, and implies a hot climate, wherein the _Rhinoceros merckii_
managed to persist for a longer time than in the north. Hence the
remains are thought to belong to the last Interglacial period.

In general, the bones show the same racial characteristics as those of
Neanderthal and Spy, though they are said to be of a perceptibly more
modern type than the latter. They were men of short stature and strong
muscular development. “The crania,” says Hrdlička, “were of good size
externally, but the brain cavities were probably below the present
average. The vault of the skull was of good length and at the same
time fairly broad, so that the cephalic index, at least in some of the
individuals, was more elevated than usual in the crania of early man.”
(_Loc. cit._, pp. 530, 531.) The reader must take Hrdlička’s use of
the word “usual” with “the grain of salt” necessitated in view of the
scanty number of specimens whence such inductive generalizations are
derived. The pronounced and complete supraorbital arcs characteristic
of the Neanderthaloid type occur in this group also, though in a less
marked manner. The stone implements are evidence of the intelligence of
these men.

(9) _The Le Moustier Man_: This specimen, _Homo mousteriensis
Hauseri_, was found by Prof. O. Hauser in the “lower Moustier Cave”
at Le Moustier in the valley of the Vézère, Department of Dordogne in
France, during the March of 1908. It consists of the complete skull
and other skeletal parts of a youth of about 15 years. At this age,
the sex cannot be determined from the bones alone. Obermaier assigns
these bones to the Fourth Glacial period. Prof. George Grant MacCurdy’s
anthropological evaluation is the following: “The race characters ...
are not so distinct (_i.e._ at the age of 15 years) as they would be at
full maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neanderthal,
Spy, and Krapina—the so-called _Homo primigenius_ which now also
becomes _Homo mousteriensis_. It was a rather stocky type, robust and
of a low stature. The arms and legs were relatively short, especially
the forearm and from the knee down, as is the case among the Eskimo.
Ape-like characters are noticeable in the curvature of the radius and
of the femur, the latter being also rounder in section than is the case
with _Homo sapiens_. In the retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges,
and prognathism (_i.e._ projection of the jaws) it is approached to
some extent by the modern Australian. The industry associated with
this skeleton is that typical of the Mousterian epoch.” (_Loc. cit._,
p. 573.) As we have already seen, the so-called ape-like features are
simply acquired adaptations to the hunter’s life, and, if inheritable
characters, they do not exceed the limits of a varietal mutation.
That the Mousterian men were endowed with the same intelligence as
ourselves, appears from the evidences of solemn burial which surround
the remains of this youth of 15 years, and prove, as Klaatsch points
out, that these men of the Glacial period were persuaded of their
own immortality. The head reclined on a pillow of earth, which still
retains the impression of the youth’s cheek, the body having been laid
on its side. Around the corpse are the best examples of the stone
implements of the period, the parents having buried their choicest
possession with the corpse of their son.

(10) _The La Chapelle Man_: On August 3, 1908, the Abbés J. and A.
Bouyssonie and L. Bardon, assisted by Paul Bouyssonie (a younger
brother of the first two), discovered palæolithic human remains,
which are also assigned to the Neanderthal group. The locality
of the discovery was the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 22
kilometers south of the town of Brive, in the department of Corrèze,
in southern France. In the side of a moderate elevation, 200 yards
south of the aforesaid village, and beyond the left bank of a small
stream, the Sourdoire, there is a cave now known as the Cave of
La Chapelle-aux-Saints. It was here, on the above-mentioned date,
that the priests discovered the bones of a human skeleton surrounded
by unmistakable evidences of solemn burial. “The body lay on its
back, with the head to the westward, the latter being surrounded by
stones.... About the body were many flakes of quartz and flint, some
fragments of ochre, broken animal bones, etc.” (Hrdlička.) Another
token of burial is the rectangular pit, in which the remains were
found. It is sunk to a depth of 30 to 40 centimeters in the floor of
the cavern.

“They (the remains) were covered,” says Prof. G. G. MacCurdy, “by a
deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting of a magma of
bone, of stone implements, and of clay. The stone implements belong to
a pure Mousterian industry. While some pieces suggest a vague survival
of Acheulian implements (_i.e._ from the cool latter half of the Third
Interglacial period), others presage the coming of the Aurignacian
(close of last Glacial period). Directly over the human skull were the
foot bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that the piece had
been placed there with the flesh still on, and proof, too, that the
deposit had not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also, and the
fact that there were no implements of bone, the industry differing in
this respect from that of La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen (Charente), as
well as at Wildkirchli, Switzerland.

“The human bones include the cranium and lower jaw (broken, but the
pieces nearly all present and easily replaced in exact position), a
few vertebræ and long bones, several ribs, phalanges, and metacarpals,
clavicle, astragalus, calcaneum, parts of scaphoid, ilium, and sacrum.
The ensemble denotes an individual of the male sex whose height was
about 1.60 meters. The condition of the sutures and of the jaws proves
the skull to be that of an old man. The cranium is dolichocephalic,
with an index of 75. It is said to be flatter in the frontal region
than those of Neanderthal and Spy.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 574.)

The associated remains of fossil animals comprise the horse, reindeer,
bison, _Rhinoceros tichorinus_, etc., and, according to Hrdlička,
“indicate that the deposits date from somewhere near the middle of the
glacial epoch.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 539.) The discoverers turned over the
skeleton to Marcellin Boule of the Paris Museum of Natural History
for cleaning and reconstruction. It is the _first instance_ of a
palæolithic man, in which _the basal parts_ of the skull, including the
foramen magnum, were recovered. Professor Boule estimates the cranial
capacity as being something between 1,600 and 1,620 c.cm. He found the
lower part of the face to be prognathic, but not excessively so, the
vault like the Neanderthal cranium, but larger, the occiput broad and
protruding, the supraorbital arch prominent and complete, the nasal
process broad, the forehead low, and the mandible stout and chinless,
though not sloping backward at the symphysis.

Alluding to the rectangular burial pit in the cave, Hrdlička remarks:
“The depression was clearly made by the primitive inhabitants or
visitors of the cave for the body and the whole represents very
plainly a regular burial, the most ancient intentional burial thus far
discovered.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 539.)

The specimens of Neanderthal, Spy, La Naulette, Krapina, Le Moustier
and La Chapelle, as we have seen, are the principal remains said to
represent the Neanderthal type, which, according to Keith and others,
is a distinct human species. As Aurignacian Man (assigned to the close
of the “Old Stone Age,” or Glacial epoch), including the Grimaldi or
Negroid as well as the Crô-Magnon type, are universally acknowledged
to belong to the species _Homo sapiens_, we need not discuss them
here. The same holds true, _a fortiori_, of Neolithic races such as
the Solutreans and the Magdalenians. The main issue for the present is
whether or not the Neanderthal type represents a _distinct species_ of
human being.

Anent this question, Professor MacCurdy has the following: “Boule
estimated the capacity of the Chapelle-aux-Saints skull according to
the formulæ of Manouvrier, of Lee, and of Beddoe, obtaining results
that varied between 1,570 and 1,750 cubic centimeters. By the use of
millet and of shot an average capacity of 1,626 was obtained. Judging
from these figures the capacity of the crania of Neanderthal and Spy
has been underestimated by Schaaffhausen, Huxley, and Schwalbe. By its
cranial capacity, therefore, the Neanderthal race belongs easily in
the class of _Homo sapiens_. But we must distinguish between relative
capacity and absolute capacity. In modern man, where the transverse
and antero-posterior diameters are the same as in the skull of La
Chapelle-aux-Saints, the vertical diameter would be much greater, which
would increase the capacity to 1,800 cubic centimeters and even to
1,900 cubic centimeters. Such voluminous modern crania are very rare.
Thus Bismarck, with horizontal cranial diameters scarcely greater than
in the man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, is said to have had a cranial
capacity of 1,965 cubic centimeters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909,
p. 575.)

As for the structural features which are alleged to constitute a
_specific difference_ between the Neanderthal type and modern man,
_v.g._ the prominent brow ridges, prognathism, retreating forehead,
receding chin, etc., all of these occur, albeit in a lesser degree, in
modern Australian blacks, who are universally acknowledged to belong
to the species _Homo sapiens_. Moreover, there is much _fluctuation_,
as Kramberger has shown from the examination of an enormous number
of modern and fossil skulls, in both the Neanderthal and the modern
type; that is to say, Neanderthaloid features occur in modern skulls
and, conversely, modern features occur in the skulls of _Homo
neanderthalensis_ (cf. “Biolog. Zentralblatt,” 1905, p. 810; and
Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” Eng. ed., pp. 472, 473).

All the differences between modern and palæolithic man are explicable,
partly upon the basis of _acquired adaptation_, inasmuch as the
primitive mode of life pursued by the latter entailed the formation
of body-modifying habits very different from our present customs
and habits (viz. those of our modern civilized life). But these
modifications, not being inheritable, passed away with the passing of
the habits that gave rise to them. In part, however, the differences
may be due to heritable _mutations_, which gave rise to new _races_ or
_varieties_ or _subspecies_, such as Indo-Europeans, Mongolians, and
Negroes. And, if the evolutionary palæontologist insists on magnifying
characters that are well within the scope of mere factorial mutation
into a specific difference, we shall reply, with Bateson and Morgan,
by denying his competence to pronounce on taxonomic questions, without
consulting the verdict of the geneticist. Without breeding tests,
the criterions of intersterility and longevity cannot be applied,
and breeding tests are impossible in the case of fossils. As for an
_a priori_ verdict, no modern geneticist, if called upon to give his
opinion, would concede that the differences which divide the modern and
the Neanderthal types of men exceed the limits of factorial mutations,
or of natural varieties within the same species. Here, then, it is
a case of the wish being father to the thought. So anxious are the
materialistic evolutionists to secure evidence of a connection between
man and the brute, that no pretext is too insignificant to serve as
warrant for recognizing an “intermediate species.”

Even waiving this point, however, there is no evidence at all that the
Neanderthal type is ancestral to the Crô-Magnon type. Both of these
races must have migrated into Europe from the east or the south, and
we have no proof whatever of genetic relationship between them. True,
attempts have been made to capitalize the fact that the Neanderthal
race was represented by specimens discovered in what were alleged to
be the older deposits of the Glacial epoch, but we have seen that
the evidences of antiquity are very precarious in the case of these
Neanderthaloid skeletons. Time-scales based on extinct species and
characteristic stone implements, etc., are always satisfactory to
evolutionists, because they can _date_ their fossils and archæological
cultures _according to the theory of evolution_, but, for one whose
confidence in the “reality” of evolution is not so great, these
palæontological chronometers are open to grave suspicion.

If the horizon levels are not too finely graded, the difficulty
of accepting such a time-scale is not excessive. Hence we might
be prepared to accept the chronometric value of the division of
fossiliferous rocks into Groups, such as the Palæozoic, the Mesozoic,
and the Cænozoic, even though we are assured by Grabau that this
time-scale is “based on the changes of life, with the result that
fossils alone determine whether a formation belongs to one or the
other of these great divisions” (“Principles of Stratigraphy,” p.
1103), but when it comes to projecting an elaborate scheme of levels
or horizons into Pleistocene deposits on the dubious basis of index
fossils and “industries,” our credulity is not equal to the demands
that are made upon it. And this is particularly true with reference
to fossil men. Man has the geologically unfortunate habit of _burying
his dead_. Other fossils have been entombed on the spot where they
died, and therefore belong where we find them. But it is otherwise with
man. In Hilo, Hawaii, the writer heard of a Kanaka, who was buried
to a depth of 80 feet, having stipulated this sort of burial through
a special disposition in his will. His purpose, in so doing, was to
preclude the possibility of his bones ever being disturbed by a plough
or other instrument. Nor have we any right to assume that indications
of burial will always be present in a case of this nature. We may, on
the contrary, assume it as a general rule that human remains are always
more recent than the formations in which they are found.

Be that as it may, the evidences for the antiquity of the
Neanderthaloid man prove, at most, that he was prior to the Crô-Magnon
man in Europe, but they do not prove that the former was prior to the
latter absolutely. Things may, for all we know, have been just the
reverse in Asia. Hence we have no ground for regarding the Man of
Neanderthal as ancestral to the race of artists, who frescoed the caves
of France and Spain. In fact, to the unprejudiced mind the Neanderthal
type conveys the impression of a race on the downward path of
degeneration rather than an embodiment of the promise of better things.
“There is another view,” says Dwight, “ ... though it is so at variance
with the Zeitgeist that little is heard of it. May it not be that many
low forms of man, archaic as well as contemporary, are degenerate
races? We are told everything about progress; but decline is put aside.
It is impossible to construct a tolerable scheme of ascent among the
races of man; but cannot dark points be made light by this theory of
degeneration? One of the most obscure, and to me most attractive of
questions, is the wiping out of old civilizations. That it has occurred
repeatedly, and on very extensive scales, is as certain as any fact in
history. Why is it not reasonable to believe that bodily degeneration
took place in those fallen from a higher estate, who, half-starved and
degraded, returned to savagery? Moreover, the workings of the soul
would be hampered by a degenerating brain. For my part I believe the
Neanderthal man to be a specimen of a race, not arrested in its upward
climb, but thrown down from a higher position.” (_Op. cit._, pp. 169,
170.)

The view, however, that the Neanderthaloid type had degenerated from
a previous higher human type was not at all in accord with the then
prevalent opinion that this type was far more ancient than any other.
And Dwight himself admitted the force of the “objection ... that the
Neanderthal race was an excessively old one and that skeletons of the
higher race which, according to the view which I have offered, must
have existed at the same time as the degenerate ones, are still to be
discovered.” (_Op. cit._, p. 170.) In fact, the Neanderthal ancestry
of the present human race was so generally accepted that, in the very
year in which Dwight’s book appeared, Sir Arthur Keith declared: “The
Neanderthal type represents the stock from which all modern races have
arisen.” Time, however, as Dr. James Walsh remarked (_America_, Dec.
15, 1917, pp. 230, 231), has triumphantly vindicated the expectations
of Professor Dwight. For in his latest book, “The Antiquity of Man”
(1916), Sir Arthur Keith has a chapter of Conclusions, in which the
following recantation appears: “We were compelled to admit,” he owns,
“that men of the modern type had been in existence long before the
Neanderthal type.”

But, even if it were true that savagery preceded civilization in
Europe, such could not have been the case everywhere; for it is
certain that civilization and culture of a comparatively high order
were imported into Europe before the close of the Old Stone Age. The
Hungarian Lake-dwellings show that culture of a high type existed
in the New Stone Age. These two ages are regarded as prehistoric in
Europe, though in America the Stone Age belongs to history. It is
also possible that in Europe much of the Stone Age was coëval with
the history of civilized nations, and that it may be coincident with,
instead of prior to, the Bronze Age, which seems to have begun in
Egypt, and which belongs unquestionably to history. And here we may
be permitted to remark that history gives the lie to the evolutionary
conceit that civilized man has arisen from a primitive state of
barbarism. History begins almost contemporaneously in many different
centers, such as Egypt, Babylonia, Chaldea, China, and Crete, about
5,000 or 6,000 years ago, and, as far back as history goes, we find
the record of high civilizations existing side by side with a coëval
barbarism. Barbarism is historically a state of degeneration and
stagnation, and history knows of no instance of a people sunk in
barbarism elevating itself by its own efforts to higher stages of
civilization. Always civilization has been imposed upon barbarians
from without. Savages, so far as history knows them, have never become
civilized, save through the intervention of some contemporary civilized
nation. History is one long refutation of the Darwinian theory of
constant and inevitable progress. The progress of civilization is not
subsequent, but prior, or parallel, to the retrogression of barbarism.

That savagery and barbarism represent a _degenerate_, rather than
a _primitive_, state, is proved by the fact that savage tribes, in
general, despite their brutish degradation, possess languages too
perfectly elaborated and systematized to be accounted for by the mental
attainments of the men who now use them, languages which testify
unmistakably to the superior intellectual and cultural level of their
civilized ancestors, to whom the initial construction of such marvelous
means of communication was due. “It is indeed one of the paradoxes
of linguistic science,” says Dr. Edwin Sapir, in a lecture delivered
April 1, 1911, at the University of Pennsylvania, “that some of the
most complexly organized languages are spoken by so-called primitive
peoples, while, on the other hand, not a few languages of relatively
simple structure are found among peoples of considerable advance in
culture. Relatively to the modern inhabitants of England, to cite but
one instance out of an indefinitely large number, the Eskimos must be
considered as rather limited in cultural development. Yet there is just
as little doubt that in complexity of form the Eskimo language goes far
beyond English. I wish merely to indicate that, however we may indulge
in speaking of primitive man, of a primitive language in the true sense
of the word we find nowhere a trace.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912,
p. 573.) Pierre Duponceau makes a similar observation with reference
to the logical and orderly organization of the Indian languages: “The
dialects of the Indian tribes,” he says, “appear to be the work of
philosophers rather than of savages.” (Cited by F. A. Tholuck, “Verm.
Schr.,” ii, p. 260.)

It was considerations of this sort which led the great philologist Max
Müller to ridicule Darwin’s conception of primitive man as a savage.
“As far as we can trace the footsteps of man,” he writes, “even on the
lowest strata of history, we see that the Divine gift of a sound and
sober intellect belonged to him from the very first; and the idea of
humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can
never be maintained again in our century. The earliest work of art
wrought by the human mind—more ancient than any literary document, and
prior even to the first whisperings of tradition—the human language,
forms one uninterrupted chain, from the first dawn of history down
to our own times. We still speak the language of the first ancestors
of our race; and this language with its wonderful structures, bears
witness against such gratuitous theories. The formation of language,
the composition of roots, the gradual discrimination of meanings, the
systematic elaboration of grammatic forms—all this working which we can
see under the surface of our own speech attests from the very first
the presence of a rational mind, of an artist as great at least as his
work.” (“Essays,” vol. I, p. 306.) History and philology are far more
solid and certain as a basis for inference than are “index fossils” and
prehistoric archæology; and the lesson taught by history and philology
is that primitive man was not a savage, but a cultured being endowed
with an intellect equal, if not superior, to our own.

But, even if we grant the priority, which evolutionists claim for the
Old Stone Age, there are not absent even from that cultural level
evident tokens of artistic genius and high intellectual gifts. Speaking
of the pictures in the caves of Altamira, of Marsoulas in the Haute
Garonne, and of Fonte de Gaume in the Dordogne, the archæologist
Sir Arthur Evans says: “These primeval frescoes display not only
consummate mastery of natural design, but an extraordinary technical
resource. Apart from the charcoal used in certain outlines, the chief
coloring matter was red and yellow ochre, mortars and palettes for the
preparation of which have come to light. In single animals the tints
varied from black to dark and ruddy brown or brilliant orange, and so,
by fine gradations, to paler nuances, obtained by scraping and washing.
Outlines and details are brought out by white incised lines, and the
artists availed themselves with great skill of the reliefs afforded by
convexities of the rock surface. But the greatest marvel of all is
that such polychrome masterpieces as the bisons, standing and couchant,
or with limbs huddled together, of the Altamira Cave, were executed
on the ceilings of inner vaults and galleries where the light of day
has never penetrated. Nowhere is there any trace of smoke, and it is
clear that great progress in the art of artificial illumination had
already been made. We know that stone lamps, decorated in one case
with the engraved head of an ibex, were already in existence. Such was
the level of artistic attainment in southwestern Europe, at a modest
estimate, some 10,000 years earlier than the most ancient monuments
of Egypt or Chaldæa!” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, pp. 429, 430.)
While reaffirming our distrust of the undocumented chronology of
“prehistory,” we cite these examples of palæolithic art as a proof of
the fact that everywhere the manifestation of man’s physical presence
coincides with the manifestation of his intelligence, and that neither
in history nor in prehistory have we any evidence of the existence of
a bestial or irrational man preceding _Homo sapiens_, as we know him
today. It is interesting to note in this connection that a certain J.
Taylor claims to have found a prehistoric engraving of a mastodon on a
bone found in a rock shelter known as Jacobs’ Cavern in Missouri (cf.
_Science_, Oct. 14, 1921, p. 357). Incidents of this sort must needs
dampen the enthusiasm of those who are overeager to believe in the
enormous antiquity of the Old Stone Age in Europe.

(11) _The Rhodesian Man_: In 1921 a human skull was found by miners
in the “Bone Cave” of the Broken Hill Mine in southern Rhodesia. It
was associated with human and animal bones, as well as very crude
instruments (knives and scrapers) in flint and quartz. It was found
at a depth of 60 feet below the surface. The lower jaw was missing,
and has not been recovered. It was sent to the British Museum, South
Kensington, where it is now preserved. Doctor Smith-Woodward has
examined and described it. “The skull is in some features the most
primitive one that has ever been found; at the same time it has many
points of resemblance to (or even identity with) that of modern man.”
(_Science_, Feb. 3, 1922, p. 129.) The face is intact. The forehead is
low, and the brow ridges are more pronounced than in any known fossil
human skull. The prognathism of the upper jaw is very accentuated.
The cranium is very flat on top and broad in the back. “Its total
capacity is surprisingly large. At least one prominent authority
thinks that this man had quite as much gray matter as the average
modern man.” (_Loc. cit._, pp. 129, 130.) Woodward, however, estimates
the cranial capacity of this skull as 1280 c.cm. The neck must have
had powerful muscles. The nasal bone is prominent and Neanderthaloid
in character. “The wisdom tooth is reduced in size—another point in
common with modern man and never found before in a fossil skull.”
(_Ibidem._) The palate and the teeth in general are like those of
existing men. The femur is not curved like that of the Neanderthal
man—“In contrast to the Neanderthal man who is supposed to have walked
in a crouching position (because of the rather curved femur and other
bits of evidence), this man is believed to have maintained the upright
position, because the femur is relatively straight and when fitted to
the tibia (which was also found) presents a perfectly good, straight
leg.” (_Ibidem._) According to the writer we have quoted, Dr. Elliot
Smith entertained hopes that the Rhodesian man might represent the
“missing link” in man’s ancestry, leaving the Neanderthal man as an
offshoot from the main ancestral trunk. No comment is necessary. The
skull may be a pathological specimen, but, in any case, it is evidently
human as regards its cranial capacity. The remains, moreover, serve
to emphasize the _fluctuational_ character of the so-called _Homo
primigenius_ type, being a mixture of modern and Neanderthaloid
features. They are not fossilized and present a recent appearance.
Hence, as B. Windle suggests, they may have fallen into the cave
through a crack, and may be modern rather than prehistoric.

(12) _The Foxhall Man_: This is the earliest known prehistoric man.
He is known to us, however, only through “his flint instruments
partly burned with fire, found near the little hamlet of Foxhall, near
Norwich, on the east coast of England. These flints, discovered in
1921, constitute the first proofs that man of sufficient intelligence
to make a variety of flint implements and to use fire existed in
Britain at the close of the Age of Mammals; this is the first true
Tertiary man ever found.” (Osborn: _Guide-leaflet_ to “The Hall of the
Age of Man,” 2nd ed., 1923, p. 9.) Osborn assigns the twelve kinds
of flint instruments typical of the Foxhallian culture to the Upper
Pliocene epoch. R. A. Macalister, however, denies that the deposits are
Tertiary. Abbé Henri Breuil’s verdict was undecided. In any case, the
Foxhallian culture proves that the earliest of prehistoric men were
intelligent like ourselves.

_Summa summarum_: So far as science knows, only one human species
has ever existed on the earth, and that is _Homo sapiens_. All the
alleged connecting links between men and apes are found, on careful
examination, to be illusory. When not wholly ambiguous in view of their
inadequate preservation and fragmentary character, they are (as regards
both mind and body) distinctly human, like the Neanderthal man, or they
are purely simian, like the Pithecanthropus, or they are heterogeneous
combinations of human and simian bones, like the Eoanthropus
Dawsoni.[18] “With absolute certainty,” says Hugues Obermaier, “we can
only say that man of the Quaternary period differed in no essential
respect from man of the present day. In no way did he go beyond the
limits of variation of the normal human body.” (“The Oldest Remains of
the Human Body, etc.,” Vienna, 1905.) The so-called _Homo primigenius_,
therefore, is not a distinct species of human being, but merely an
ancient race that is, at most, a distinct variety or subspecies of man.
In spite of tireless searching, no traces of a bestial, irrational
man have been discovered. Indeed, man whom nature has left naked,
defenseless, unarmed with natural weapons, and deficient in instinct,
has no other resource than his reason and could never have survived
without it. To imagine primitive man in a condition analogous to that
of the idiot is preposterous. “For other animals,” says St. Thomas of
Aquin, “nature has prepared food, garments of fur, means of defense,
such as teeth, horns, and hoofs, or at least swiftness in flight. But
man is so constituted that, none of these things having been prepared
for him by nature, reason is given him in their stead, reason by which
through his handiwork he is enabled to prepare all these things....
Moreover, in other animals there is inborn a certain natural economy
respecting those things which are useful or hurtful, as the lamb by
nature knows the wolf to be its enemy. Some animals also by natural
instinct are aware of the medicinal properties of herbs and of other
things which are necessary for life. Man, however, has a natural
knowledge of these things which are necessary for life only in general,
as being able to arrive at the knowledge of the particular necessities
of human life by way of inference from general principles.” (“De regim.
princ.,” l. I, c. I.) As a matter of fact, man is never found apart
from evidences of his intelligence. The Neanderthaloid race, with their
solemn burials and implements of bone and stone, exemplify this truth
no less than the palæolithic artists of the Cave of Altamira.

    [18] See Addenda.

§ 5. The Edict of the American Association

In the Cincinnati meeting (1923-1924) of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, a number of resolutions were passed
regarding the subject of evolution. True, the session in which these
resolutions were passed was but sparsely attended, and packed, for the
most part, with the ultra-partisans of transformism. Nevertheless, it
is to be regretted that the dignity of this eminent and distinguished
body was so unfittingly compromised by the fulmination of rhetorical
anathemas against W. J. Bryan and his Round Head adherents. Among
the resolutions, of which we have spoken, the following dictatorial
proclamation occurs: “_The evidences in favor of the evolution of man
are sufficient to convince every scientist in the world._”

This authoritative decree is both rash and intolerant. The
resolution-committee of the American Association is by no means
infallible, and, in the absence of infallibility, no group of men
should be so unmindful of their own limitations as to strive to make
their subjective views binding upon others. Scientific questions are
not settled by authority, but exclusively by means of irresistible
evidence, which is certainly absent in the present case. Moreover,
the declaration in question is untrue; for many of the foremost
palæontologists and anthropologists of the day confess their complete
ignorance, as scientists, with respect to the origin of man.

Dr. Clark Wissler, for example, who is the Curator-in-Chief of the
Anthropological section of the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City, made, in the course of an interview published in
the _New York American_ of April 2, 1918, the following statement:
“Man, like the horse or elephant, just happened anyhow, so far as has
been discovered yet. As far as science has discovered, there always
was a man—some not so developed, but still human beings in all their
functions, much as we are today.” Asked by the reporter, whether this
did not favor the idea of an abrupt, unheralded appearance of man on
earth, Doctor Wissler replied: “Man came out of a blue sky as far as
we have been able to delve back.” Fearing lest the reporter might have
sensationalized his words, the writer took occasion to question the
learned anthropologist on the subject during the Pan Pacific Conference
held at Honolulu, Hawaii (Aug. 2-20, 1920). His answer was that the
foregoing citations were substantially correct.

The same verdict is given by the great palæontologist, Prof. W.
Branco, Director of the Institute of Geology and Palæontology at the
University of Berlin. In his discourse on “Fossil Man” delivered
August 16, 1901, before the Fifth International Zoölogical Congress
at Berlin, Branco said, with reference to the origin of man:
“Palæontology tells us nothing on the subject—it knows no ancestors
of man.” The well-known palæontologist Karl A. von Zittel reached
the same conclusion. He says somewhere (probably in his “Grundzüge
der Paläontologie”): “Such material as this (the discovered remains
of fossil men) throws no light upon the question of race and descent.
All the human bones of determinable age that have come down to us
from the European Diluvium, as well as all the skulls discovered in
caves, are identified by their size, shape, and capacity as belonging
to _Homo sapiens_, and are fine specimens of their kind. They do not
by any means fill up the gap between man and the ape.” Joseph Le
Conte repeats the identical refrain. In the revised Fairchild edition
(1903) of his “Elements of Geology” we read: “The earliest men yet
found are in no sense connecting links between man and ape. They are
distinctly human.” (Ch. VI, p. 638.) Replying to Haeckel, who in his
“Welträtsel” proclaims man’s descent from pithecoid primates to be
_an historical fact_, J. Reinke, the biologist of Kiel, declares: “We
are merely having dust thrown in our eyes when we read in a widely
circulated book by Ernst Haeckel the following words: ‘That man is
immediately descended from apes, and more remotely from a long line of
lower vertebrates, remains established as an indubitable historic fact,
fraught with important consequences.’ It is absurd to speak of anything
as a fact when experience lends it no support.” (“Haeckel’s Monism
and Its Supporters,” Leipzig, 1907, p. 6.) The sum-total, in fact,
of scientific knowledge concerning the origin of the human body is
contained in the saying of the geologist, Sir Wm. Dawson, President of
McGill University: “I know nothing about the origin of man, except what
I am told in the Scripture—that God created him. I do not know anything
more than that, and I do not know of anyone who does.”

In view of this uncertainty and ignorance regarding the origin of the
human body, it is extremely unethical to strive to impose the theory
of man’s bestial origin by the sheer weight of scientific authority
and prestige. Conscientious scientists would never venture to abuse
in such a fashion the confidence which the people at large place in
their assurances. Hence those who respect their honor and dignity as
scientists should refrain from dogmatizing on the undemonstrated animal
origin of man, however much they may personally fancy this theory. “We
cannot teach,” says Virchow, “nor can we regard as one of the results
of scientific research, the doctrine that man is descended from the ape
or from any other animal.” (“The Liberty of Science,” p. 30, et seq.)
And Professor Reinke of Kiel concludes: “The only statement consistent
with her dignity, that Science can make, is to say that she knows
nothing about the origin of man.” (_Der Türmer_, V, Oct., 1902, Part I,
p. 13.)

A slave, we are told (Tertul., _Apolog._ 33), rode in the triumphal
chariot of the Roman conqueror, to whisper ever and anon in his ear:
_Hominem memento te!_—“Remember that thou art a man!” It is unfortunate
that no similar warning is sounded when the tone of scientific
individuals or organizations threatens to become unduly imperious
and intolerant. This tendency, however, to forget limitations and to
usurp the prerogative of infallibility is sometimes rebuked by other
reminders. The writer recalls an instance, which happened in connection
with the Pan Pacific Conference at Honolulu during the August of 1920.

The Conference was attended by illustrious scientists from every
land bordering upon the Pacific. After the preliminary sessions,
the delegates paid a visit to the famous volcano of Kilauea. Doctor
T. A. Jaggar, Jr., vulcanologist and Director of the United States
Observatory at Kilauea, acted as guide, the writer himself being one
of the party. In the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the
extinct volcano of Kenakakoe. There a number of volcanic bombs, some
shattered and some intact, were pointed out to us. For the benefit of
readers, who may not know, I may state that a volcanic bomb originates
as a fragment of foreign material, _e.g._ a stone, which, falling into
a volcano, becomes coated with an external shell of lava. In addition
to the bombs, certain holes in the soil were shown to us, which Doctor
Jaggar, evidently under the influence of military imagery suggested by
the then recent European War, described as “shell-craters” dug by the
aforesaid volcanic bombs.

Doctor Jaggar accounted for the bombs and craters by a very ingenious
theory. In 1790, he said, the year in which Kamehameha I was contending
with Keoua for the mastery of the large island of Hawaii, the only
explosive eruption of Kilauea known to history occurred, and it was
during this eruption (which destroyed part of Keoua’s army) that the
bombs found at Kenakakoe were ejected from the above-mentioned volcano.
It was then, we were informed, that these bombs hurtling through the
air in giant trajectories from Kilauea struck the ground and scooped
out the “shell-craters” at Kenakakoe. Some of them, it appeared, did
not remain in the craters, but rebounded to strike again on the rocks
beyond. Of the latter, part were shattered, while others withstood the
force of the second impact. The whole party was much impressed by the
grandeur of this vivid description, and some of the scientists were at
great pains to photograph the craters as awe-inspiring vestiges of the
mighty bombardment wrought in times past by Nature’s volcanic artillery.

When I returned to Hilo, I happened to mention to Brother Matthias
Newell some misgivings which I had felt concerning the size and
appearance of the so-called “shell-craters.” Brother Newell, a member
of the Marist Congregation and quite a scientist in his way, is famous
in the Islands as the discoverer of a fungus, by which the Japanese
Beetle, a local pest, has been largely exterminated. For several years,
prior to the advent of Doctor Jaggar and the United States Observatory,
he had studied extensively the famous volcano on the slopes of Mauna
Loa. On hearing my narrative of the foregoing incident, Brother Newell
was curious to know the exact locality, and burst into a hearty laugh
as soon as I mentioned Kenakakoe. He himself, he told me, in company
with Brother Henry, had frequently dug for bombs at Kenakakoe. When
successful in their quest, the two were wont to carry the volcanic
bomb to the rocks, and to break it open for the purpose of examining
the inner core. Some of the bombs, however, escaped this fate through
being too resistent to the hammer. The holes, needless to say, were not
“shell-craters” scooped by volcanic bombs, but ordinary excavations dug
by prosaic spades. Such was the simple basis of fact upon which the
elaborate superstructure of Jaggar’s theory had been reared! Though
Jaggar was, in a sense, entirely blameless, his theory was pure fiction
from start to finish. No scientist present, however, took exception to
it. On the contrary, all of them appeared perfectly satisfied with his
pseudoscientific explanation.

If the foregoing incident conveys any lesson, it is this, that neither
singly nor collectively are scientists exempt from error, especially
when they deal with a remote past, which no one has observed. The
attempt to reconstruct the past by means of inference alone produces,
not history, but romance. Doctor Gregory’s genealogy of Man displayed
in the American Museum is quite as much the fruit of imagination as
Jaggar’s Kilauean fantasy. The sham pedigree bears like witness to the
ingenuity of the human mind, but, if anyone is tempted by its false
show of science to take it seriously, let him think of the bombs of
Kenakakoe.




                               AFTERWORD


With the close of the nineteenth century the hour hand of biological
science had completed another revolution. One after another, the
classic systems of evolution had passed into the discard, as its
remorseless progress registered their doom. The last of these systems,
De-Vriesianism, enjoyed a meteoric vogue in the first years of the
present century, but it, too, has gone into eclipse with the rise of
rediscovered Mendelism. Notwithstanding all these reverses, however,
the evolutionary theory still continues to number a host of steadfast
adherents.

Some of its partisans uphold it upon antiquated grounds. Culturally
speaking, such men still live in the days of Darwin, and fail to
realize that much water has passed under the bridge since then. It
has other protagonists, however, who are thoroughly conversant with
modern data, and fully aware, in consequence, of the inadequacy of
all existent formulations of the evolutional hypothesis. Minds of the
latter type are proof, apparently, against any sort of disillusionment,
and it is manifest that their attitude is determined by some
consideration other than the actual results of research.

This other consideration is monistic metaphysics. In defect of
factual confirmation, evolution is demonstrated aprioristically
from the principle of the minimum. The scope of this methodological
principle is to simplify or unify causation by dispensing with all
that is superfluous in the way of explanation. In olden days, it went
by the name of Occam’s Razor and was worded thus: _Entia non sunt
multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_—“Things are not to be multiplied
without necessity.” Evolution meets the requirements of this principle.
It simplifies the problem of organic origins by reducing the number of
ancestors to a minimum. Therefore, argues the evolutionist, evolution
must be true.

As an empirical rule, the principle of the minimum is, no doubt,
essential to the scientific method. To erect it into a metaphysical
axiom, however, is preposterous; for _simple_ explanations are
not necessarily _true_ explanations. In the rôle of aprioristic
metaphysics, the principle of continuity is destructive, and tends
to plane down everything to the dead level of materialistic monism.
For those who transcendentalize it, it becomes the principle “that
everything is ‘nothing but’ something else, probably inferior to it.”
(Santayana.) To assert continuity, they are driven to deny, or, at
least, to leave unexplained and inexplicable, the obvious novelty
that emerges at each higher level of the cosmic scale. And thus it
comes to pass that intelligence is pronounced to be nothing but
sense, and sense to be nothing but physiology, and physiology to be
nothing but chemistry, and chemistry to be nothing but mechanics,
until this philosophical nihilism weeps at last for want of further
opportunities of devastation. Its exponents have an intense horror for
abrupt transitions, and resent the discovery of anything that defies
resolution into terms of mass and motion.

Evolution smooths the path for monism of this type by transforming
nature’s staircase into an inclined plane of imperceptible ascent.
Hence Dewey refers to evolution as a “clinching proof” of the
continuity hypothecated by the monist. For the latter, there is no
hierarchy of values, and all essential distinctions are abolished; for
him nothing is unique and everything is equally important. He affirms
the democracy of facts and is blind to all perspective in nature. He
is, in short, the enemy of all beauty, all spirituality, all culture,
all morality, and all religion. He substitutes neurons for the soul,
and enthrones Natural Selection in the place of the Creator. He sets
up, in a word, the ideal of “an animalistic man and a mechanistic
universe,” and offers us evolution as a demonstration of this “ideal.”

Vernon Kellogg objects to our indictment. “The evolutionist,” he says,
“does not like being called a bad man. He does not like being posted
as an enemy of poetry and faith and religion. He does not like being
defined as crassly materialist, a man exclusively of the earth earthy.”
(_Atlantic Monthly_, April 24, 1924, p. 490.) Apart from their object,
the likes or dislikes of an evolutionist are a matter of indifference.
What we want to know is whether his dislike is merely for the names, or
whether it extends to the reality denoted by these names. Human nature
has a weakness for euphemisms. Men may “want the game without the
name,” particularly when, deservedly or undeservedly, the name happens
to have an offensive connotation.

There are, no doubt, evolutionists who mingle enough dualism with their
philosophy to mitigate the most objectionable aspects of its basic
monism. In so doing, however, they are governed by considerations that
are wholly extraneous to evolutionary thought. Indeed, if we take
Kellogg’s words at their face value (that is, in a sense which he
would probably disclaim), it is in spite of his philosophy that the
evolutionist is a spiritualist. “And just as religion and cheating,”
reasons Kellogg, “can apparently be compassed in one man, so can one
man be both evolutionist and idealist.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 490.) If this
comparison holds true, the evolutionist can be an idealist only to the
extent that he is inconsistent or hypocritical, since under no other
supposition could piety and crime coëxist in one and the same person.

Be that as it may, the majority of evolutionists are avowed mechanists
and materialists, in all that concerns the explanation of natural
phenomena. “That there may be God who has put his Spirit into men”
(Kellogg, _ibid._, p. 491), they are condescendingly willing to
concede. And small credit to them for this; for who can _disprove_ the
existence of God, or the spirituality of the human soul? Nevertheless,
it is impossible, they maintain, to be _certain_ on these subjects.
Natural science is in their eyes the only form of human knowledge that
has any objective validity. Proofs of human spirituality they denounce
as _metaphysical_, and metaphysics is for them synonymous with “such
stuff as dreams are made of,” unworthy to be mentioned in the same
breath with physical science—“Es gibt für uns kein anderes Erkennen als
das mechanische, ... Nur mechanisch begreifen ist Wissenschaft.” (Du
Bois-Reymond.)

In practice, therefore, if not in theory, the tendency of evolution
has been to unspiritualize and dereligionize the philosophy of its
adherents, a tendency which is strikingly exemplified in one of its
greatest exponents, Charles Darwin himself. The English naturalist
began his scientific career as a theist and a spiritualist. He ended
it as an agnostic and a materialist. His evolutionary philosophy was,
by his own confession, responsible for the transformation. “When thus
reflecting,” he says, “I feel compelled to look to a first cause
having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man,
and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my
mind about the time, as far as I remember, when I wrote the ‘Origin
of Species’; and it is since that time that it has very gradually,
with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the doubt, can
the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a
mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when
it draws such grand conclusions? I can not pretend to throw the least
light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all
things is insoluble by us; and I, for one, must be content to remain an
Agnostic.” (“The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” edited by Francis
Darwin, 1887, vol. I, p. 282.)

Darwin likewise exemplifies in his own person the destructive
influence exercised upon the æsthetic sense by exclusive adherence to
the monistic viewpoint. Having alluded in his autobiography to his
former predilection for poetry, music, and the beauties of nature,
he continues as follows: “But now for many years I cannot endure to
read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and
found that it nauseated me. I have also lost my taste for pictures and
music.... I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause
me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.... My mind seems to
have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large
collections of facts; ... if I had to live my life again, I would have
made it a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least
every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have
been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of
happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more
probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our
nature.” (_Op. cit._, vol. I, pp. 81, 82.)

Evolution, we repeat, has brought us materialistic monism, in whose
barren soil nor faith, nor idealism, nor morality, nor poesy, nor art,
nor any of the finer things of life can thrive. To its dystelic and
atomistic view, Nature has ceased to be the vicar of God, and material
things are no longer sacramental symbols of eternal verities. It denies
all design in Nature, and dismembers all beauty into meaningless
fragments. It is so deeply engrossed in the contemplation of parts,
that it has forgotten that there is any such thing as a whole. The rose
and the bird-of-paradise are not ineffable messages from God to man;
they are but accidental aggregates of colloidal molecules fortuitously
assembled in the perpetual, yet aimless, flux of evolving matter.

From the standpoint of the moral and sociological consequences,
however, the gravest count against evolution is the seeming support
which this theory has given to the monistic conception of an
animalistic man. Darwin’s doctrine on the bestial origin of man
brought no other gain to natural science than the addition of one more
unverified and unverifiable hypothesis to its already extensive stock
of unfounded speculations. It did, however, work irreparable harm to
millions of unlearned and credulous persons, whose childlike confidence
the unscrupulous expounders of this doctrine have not hesitated to
abuse. The exaggerations and misrepresentations of the latter met
with an all too ready credence on the part of those who were not
competent to discriminate between theory and fact. The sequel has been
a wholesale abandonment of religious and moral convictions, which has
ruined the lives and blighted the happiness of countless victims.

Has it been worth while, we may well ask of the propounders of this
theory, to sacrifice so much in exchange for so little? The solid gain
to natural science has been negligible, but the consequences of the
blow unfairly dealt to morals and religion are incalculable and beyond
the possibility of repair. “Morals and Religion,” says Newman, “are not
represented to the intelligence of the world by intimations and notices
strong and obvious such as those which are the foundation of physical
science.... Instead of being obtruded on our notice, so that we cannot
possibly overlook them, they are the dictates either of Conscience or
of Faith. They are faint shadows and tracings, certain indeed, but
delicate, fragile, and almost evanescent, which the mind recognizes at
one time, not at another, discerns when it is calm, loses when it is
in agitation. The reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is proof
that sky and mountains are around it, but the twilight or the mist or
the sudden thunderstorm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves
behind it no memorial of what it was.... How easily can we be talked
out of our clearest views of duty; how does this or that moral precept
crumble into nothing when we rudely handle it! How does the fear of sin
pass off from us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from the
countenance! and then we say ‘It is all superstition.’ However, after a
time, we look around, and then to our surprise we see, as before, the
same law of duty, the same moral precepts, the same protest against
sin, appearing over against us, in their old places, as if they had
never been brushed away, like the Divine handwriting upon the wall at
the banquet.” (“Idea of a University,” pp. 513-515.)

Had evolutionary enthusiasts adhered more strictly to the facts, had
they proceeded in the spirit of scientific caution, had they shown,
in fact, even so much as a common regard for the simple truth, the
“progress of science” would not have been achieved at the expense
of morals and religion. As it is, this so-called progress has left
behind a wake of destruction in the shape of undermined convictions,
blasted lives, crimes, misery, despair, and suicide. It has, in short,
contributed largely to the present sinister and undeserved triumph of
Materialism, Agnosticism, and Pessimism, which John Talbot Smith has so
fittingly characterized as the three D’s of dirt, doubt, and despair. A
little less sensationalism, a little more conscientiousness, a little
more of that admirable quality, scientific caution, and the concord of
faith and reason would have become a truism instead of a problem. But
such regrets are vain. The evil effects are here to stay, and nothing
can undo the past.

If man is but a higher kind of brute, if he has no unique, immortal
principle within him, if his free will is an illusion, if his conduct
is the necessary resultant of chemical reactions occurring in his
protoplasm, if he is nothing more than an automaton of flesh, a mere
decaying organism which is the sport of all the blind physical forces
and stimuli playing upon it, if he has no prospect of a future life
of retribution, if he is unaccountable to any higher authority,
Divine or human, then morality ceases to have a meaning, right and
wrong lose their significance, virtue and vice are all the same. The
constancy of the martyr and the patriotism of the fallen soldier become
unintelligible folly, while a heartless and infamous sensualism preying
vulturelike upon the carrion of human misery and corruption is to be
reckoned the highest expression of wisdom and efficiency. The grandest
ideals that have inspired enthusiasm and devotion in human breasts are
but idle dreams and worthless delusions. From a world which accepts
this degraded view of human nature all heroism and chivalry must vanish
utterly; for it will recognize no loftier incentives to action than
pleasure and love of self.

Such doctrines, too, are essentially antisocial. They destroy the very
foundation of altruism. To seek immortality in the effects of one’s
unselfish deeds becomes ridiculous. For what assurance can we have
that the fruits of our sacrifice will be acceptable to a progressive
posterity, or what difference will our self-denial make, when the whole
human species shall have become extinct on the desolate surface of a
dying world? Without an adequate motivation for altruism, however, the
existence of society becomes impossible, since self-interest is not
a feasible substitute. To urge the observance of social laws on the
ground that they protect person, life, and property, will hardly appeal
to men who have no possessions to be protected nor a comfortable life
to be prolonged. Yet the major portion of mankind are in this category.
For such the laws can mean nothing more than artificial corruptions, of
the natural and primitive order of things introduced for the special
benefit of the rich and powerful.

Under circumstances of this sort, no plea avails to silence the heralds
of revolt. If there is no future life for the righting of present
injustices, then naught remains but to terminate the prosperity of the
wicked here and now. If there is no heaven for man beyond the grave,
then it behooves everyone to get all the enjoyment he can out of the
present life. It is high time, therefore, that this earthly heaven
of mankind should cease to be monopolized by a few coupon-holding
capitalists and become, instead, the property of the expropriated
proletariat. Anarchy and Socialism are the consequences which the logic
of the situation inexorably portends. The starving swine must hurl
their bloated brethren from the trough that the latter have heretofore
reserved for themselves. The sequel, of course, can be none other
than the complete disintegration of civilization and its ultimate
disappearance in a hideous vortex of carnage, rapine, and barbarity.

Nor is this prognosis based on pure conjecture. In proportion as these
pernicious doctrines have gained ground, modern society has become
infected with the virus of animalism, egoism, and perfidy; expediency
has been substituted for honor; and purity has been replaced by
prophylaxis. One could not, of course, expect to see a universal and
thoroughgoing application of these principles in the concrete. The
materialistic view of human nature is horribly unnatural, and, in
practice, would be quite unbearable. Natural human goodness and even
the mere instinct of self-preservation militate against a reduction
to the concrete of this inhuman conception, and these tend, in real
life, to mitigate the evil effects of its acceptance. Nevertheless,
the actual consequences resulting from the spread of evolutionary
principles are so conspicuous and appalling as to leave no doubt
whatever of the deadly nature of this philosophy.

Marxian Socialism has been called “scientific” for no other reason than
that it is based upon materialistic evolution, and this scientific
socialism has brought upon modern Russia a reign of terror, which
eclipses that of France in the bloodiest days of the Revolution.
Eleanor Marx, it will be remembered, after falling a victim to her
father’s teachings regarding “free love,” committed suicide. The same
confession of failure has been made by two recent editors of the
socialist _Appeal to Reason_ (J. W. Wayland and J. O. Welday), both
of whom committed suicide. These are but a few of the many instances
that might be cited to show that the life philosophy inculcated by
materialistic evolution is so intolerably unnatural and revolting that
neither society nor the individual can survive within the lethal shadow
of its baleful influence.

But may not the extreme materialism and pessimism of this view be
peculiar to the sordid and joyless outlook of the social malcontent?
Does not evolutionary thought conduce to something finer and more
hopeful in the case of the progressive and optimistic liberal? Vain
hope! We cannot console ourselves with any delusions on this score.
Liberalism proclaims the emancipation of humanity from all authority,
and the rejection of a future life of retribution is the indispensable
premise of the doctrine that makes man a law unto himself. Hence,
wherever Liberalism controls the tongues of educators, the human
soul becomes a myth, religion a superstition, and immortality
an anodyne for mental weaklings. Strong-minded truth-seekers are
advised to abandon these irrational beliefs, and to adopt the “New
Religion,” which dispenses once for all with God and the hereafter.
“The new religion,” says Charles Eliot, ex-President of Harvard,
“will not attempt to reconcile people to present ills by the promise
of future compensation. I believe that the advent of just freedom
has been delayed for centuries by such promises. Prevention will be
the watchword of the new religion, and a skillful surgeon will be
one of its ministers. It cannot supply consolation as offered by old
religions, but it will reduce the need of consolation.” (“The New
Religion.”)

Again, it may be objected that evolutionists, for all their
agnosticism and materialism, frequently put Christians to shame by
their irreproachably upright and moral lives. That they sometimes
succeed in doing this cannot be gainsaid. But they do so because they
borrow their moral standards from Christianity, and do not follow
the logical consequences of their own principles. Their morality,
therefore, is parasitic, as Balfour has wisely observed, and it will
soon die out when the social environment shall have been sufficiently
de-Christianized. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,”
is their proper philosophy of life, only they have not the courage
of their convictions. For the rest, their philosophical convictions
have nothing in common with the moral standards which they actually
observe. In fact, not only does the monism of evolutionary science
fail to motivate the Christian code of morals, but it is radically and
irreconcilably opposed to all that Christianity stands for. Hartmann, a
modern philosopher, notes with grim satisfaction the clash of the two
viewpoints, and predicts (with what, perhaps, is premature assurance)
the ultimate triumph of “modern progress.” “Many there are,” he tells
us, “who speak and write of the struggle of civilization, but few there
are who realize that this struggle is the last desperate stand of the
Christian ideal before its final disappearance from the world, and
that modern civilization is prepared to resort to any means rather
than relinquish those things, which it has won at the cost of such
great toil. For modern civilization and Christianity are antagonistic
to each other, and it is therefore inevitable that one give place to
the other. Modern progress can acknowledge no God save one immanent to
the world and opposed to the transcendent God of Christian revelation,
nor other morality save only that true kind whose source is the human
will determining itself by itself and becoming a law unto itself.”
(“Religion de l’avernir.”)

The World War has done much to dampen the ardor of those who looked
forward with enthusiasm to the millennium of a purely scientific
religion. In this spectacular lesson they have learned that science can
destroy as well as build. They have come to see that biology, physics,
and chemistry are morally colorless, and that we must go outside the
realm of natural science when we are in quest of that which can give
meaning to our lives and noble inspiration to our conduct. When science
supersedes religion, the result is always disillusionment following in
the wreck-strewn wake of moral and physical disaster.

    Grave little manikins digging in the slime
    Intent upon the old game of ‘Once-upon-a-time.’
    Other little manikins engaged with things-to-come,
    Building up the sand-heap called Millennium.
                            (_Theodore MacManus_)

Recently, the chancellor of a great university has seen fit publicly
to disclaim, in the name of his institution, all responsibility for
a crime committed by two members of the student body. The young men
involved in this affair had performed an experimental murder. The
experimenters, it would seem, were unable to discriminate between man
and beast. They had been taught by their professors that scientific
psychology dispenses with the soul, and that the difference
between men and brutes is one of degree only, and not of kind. Even
that negligible distinction, they were told, had been bridged by
evolution. In the sequel, the young men failed, apparently, to see
why vivisection, which was right in the case of animals, should be
wrong in the case of human beings. Their astounding obtuseness on this
particular point was, of course, exceedingly regrettable and hard to
understand. Yet, somehow, one cannot help thinking but that their
education was largely responsible for it.

In the startling crime of these students, modern educators will
find much food for serious thought. It should give pause to those,
especially, who have been overzealous in popularizing the Darwinian
conception of human nature. Let men of this type reflect upon what
slender grounds their dogmatism rests, and let them then weigh well the
gravity of the responsibility, which they incur. Tuccimei summarizes
for them, in the following terms, the nature and extent of their
accountability:

“This perverse determination to place man and brutes in the same
category, interests me not so much from the scriptural standpoint
as for reasons moral and social. Science, as the more moderate of
our adversaries have told us often enough, does not assail religion,
but proceeds on its way regardless of the consequences. And the
consequences we see only too plainly, now that the evolutionary
philosophy has invaded every branch of knowledge and walk of life,
and has seeped down among the ignorant and turbulent masses. These
consequences are known as socialism and anarchy. The protagonists of
the new philosophy strove to repudiate them at first: but now many of
their number have laid aside even this pretense. Socialistic doctrines
are based exclusively upon our assumed kinship with the brutes, and the
leaders of militant socialism have inscribed on the frontispieces of
their books the chain fatally logical and terribly true of three names,
Darwin, Spencer, Marx.

“In truth, our common origin with the brutes being taken for granted,
why should we not enjoy in common with them the right to gratify
every instinct? Social inequalities are the product of laws and
conventionalities willed by the rich and powerful. In the natural and
primitive state of things they did not exist; why not proceed then to a
general leveling of the existing social order?

“Such an origin of the human race being assumed, the existence of the
soul and a future life becomes a myth invented by the priests of the
various religions. With this inconvenient restraint removed, there
remains no alternative save to aspire to the acquisition of all the
pleasures of life; and for him who lacks the wherewithal to procure
them for himself there remains no other recourse than to seek them by
means of violence or strategy. Hence anarchy. In this supposition,
morality no longer possesses that sole, true, and efficacious sanction
which religion alone can furnish; it amounts to nothing more than the
resultant of the evolution of the individual’s perfections and their
coördination to the well-being of his race and of society. But if, by
reason of retarded evolution, the social instincts have not progressed
to the point of repressing the individual or egoistic instincts,
what guilt will there be in the delinquent who lapses into the most
atrocious crimes? Hence free will is another myth that positive
psychology and the science of moral statistics have already been at
pains to explode.

“And behold the suffering, the unfortunate, and the dying deprived of
their sole consolation, the last hope which faith held out to them,
and society reduced to an inferno of desperadoes and suicides! I could
go on showing in this way, to what a pass the evolutionistic theories
bring society and the individual.” (“La teoria dell’ evoluzione e le
sue applicazioni,” p. 46.)




                               GLOSSARY


    _Abiogenesis_: The discredited hypothesis that life may
    originate spontaneously in lifeless matter, _i.e._, apart from
    the influence of living matter.

    _Adaptation_: (1) The reciprocal aptitude of organism and
    environment for each other; (2) a structure, modification of
    structure, or behavioristic response enabling the organism to
    solve a special problem imposed by the environment; (3) the
    process by which the organism’s adjustment to the environment
    is brought about.

    _Allelomorphs_: Genes located opposite each other on homologous
    chromosomes and representing contrasting characters; they
    are separated during meiosis according to the Mendelian
    law of segregation, _e.g._ the genes for red and white
    in Four o’clocks which when united give rise to pink, and
    when segregated, to red and white flowers respectively, are
    allelomorphs of each other.

    _Alluvial_: Pertaining to the Alluvium, which consists of
    fresh-water deposits of the Pleistocene and Recent series, to
    be distinguished from the Diluvium which consists of older
    Pleistocene formations.

    _Amino-acids_: The chemical building-stones of the
    proteins—organic acids containing one or more amino-groups
    (—NH₂) in place of hydrogen, _e.g._, amino-acetic acid,
    CH₂·NH₂·COOH.

    _Amnion_: A membranous bag which encloses the embryo in
    higher vertebrates. The lower vertebrates, namely, fishes
    and amphibia, have no amnion and are termed “anamniotic.”
    The reptiles, birds, and mammals which possess it are termed
    amniotic vertebrates.

    _Amphioxus_: The most simply organized animal having a
    dorsal notochord. It is classified among the Acrania in
    contradistinction to the craniate Chordates which make up the
    bulk of the vertebrates.

    _Angiosperms_: The higher plants, which have their seeds
    enclosed in seed-vessels.

    _Anthropoid Apes_: Apes of the family SIMIIDÆ, which approach
    man most closely in their organization, namely, the chimpanzee,
    the gorilla, the gibbon, and orang-utan.

    _Antibody_: Chemical substances produced in the blood in
    reaction to the injection of antigens or toxic substances and
    capable of counteracting or neutralizing said substance. Such
    antibodies are specific for determinate antigens.

    _Antigen_: Any substance that causes the production of special
    antibodies in the blood of susceptible animals, after one or
    several injections.

    _Arthropods_: The phylum of exoskeletal invertebrates
    comprising crustaceans, arachnida, insects, etc.

    _Atavism_: The resemblance to an ancestor more distant than the
    parents.

    _Automatism_: A spontaneous action, not in response to
    recognizable stimuli.


    _Basichromatin_: That portion of a cell’s nuclear network which
    contains nuclein and is deeply stained by basic dyes.

    _Biparental_: Derived from two progenitors, _i.e._, a father
    and mother.

    _Brachiopods_: Invertebrate animals bearing a superficial
    resemblance to bivalve molluscs, but belonging to a totally
    different group—lamp shells.


    _Cambrian_: The “oldest” system of the Palæozoic group of
    fossiliferous rocks.

    _Carbohydrates_: The sugars, starches, etc.,—polyhydric
    alcohols with aldehydic or ketonic groups, and acetals of same,
    etc.

    _Catalyst_: A substance which accelerates a chemical reaction
    without permanently participating in it, being left over
    unchanged at the end of the process.

    _Centriole_: The centrioles or central bodies are the foci of
    mitotic division in animal cells, as well as the source of
    the kinetic elements developed by such cells. They are minute
    bodies usually located within a larger sphere known as the
    centrosome or centrosphere. They do not occur in the cells of
    the higher plants.

    _Cephalopods_: A class of molluscs in which the foot is
    developed into a headlike structure with eyes and a circle of
    arms, _e.g._, the octopus, the cuttlefish, the squid, and the
    nautilus.

    _Ceratites_: A genus of extinct cephalopods having a coiled
    shell and crooked sutures.

    _Character_: An external feature or sensible property of an
    organism. It is the joint product of germinal factors (genes)
    and environmental influences.

    _Chlorophyll_: The green pigment formed in the chloroplasts
    (green plastids) of plant cells. It is a diester of phytyl
    and methyl alcohols with the tribasic acid, chlorophyllin,
    one of whose carboxyls is esterified with methyl alcohol, a
    second with phytol, while the third is otherwise engaged.
    Chlorophyllin is a tribasic acid consisting of the
    chlorophyllic chromogen group (containing magnesium) joined to
    three carboxyl groups.

    _Chondriosomes_: Cytoplasmic granules rodlike, threadlike,
    or spherical in form, which often appear to divide on the
    mitotic spindle, and are therefore credited with the power of
    independent growth and division. The chondriosomes of embryonic
    tissues are thought to be the original sources of the plastids,
    the fibrillæ, and certain metaplastic granules.

    _Chordates_: The phylum of animals whose primary axial skeleton
    consists temporarily or permanently of a notochord.

    _Chromatin_: Same as basichromatin.

    _Chromosomes_: The short threads or rodlike bodies into which
    the basichromatin of the cell-nucleus is aggregated during
    mitosis—each chromosome is segmented into granules called
    chromomeres—in its submicroscopic structure it consists
    of chain or linear series of genes (hereditary factors)
    representing characters linked together in heredity,
    each single chromosome being termed, on this account, a
    “linkage-group” by geneticists.

    _Ciliate_: A protozoan whose motor-apparatus consists of cilia,
    _i. e._, hairlike protoplasmic projections capable of rapid and
    coördinated vibratile movement.

    _Cloaca_: A common passageway through which the intestine,
    kidneys, and sex organs discharge their products,—it occurs in
    certain fishes, in amphibia, reptiles, and birds, and in a few
    mammals.

    _Coccyx_: Lower extremity of the vertebral column in man.

    _Colloids_: Insoluble gumlike substances, which will not
    diffuse through organic membranes.

    _Commensalism_: The harmonious cohabitation of two organisms
    belonging to different species, where the relation is not
    necessarily beneficial nor necessarily harmful to either.

    _Crossover_: The exchange or reciprocal transfer of whole
    blocks of genes from one homologous chromosome to the
    other, which sometimes occurs in synapsis, probably at the
    strepsinema-stage.

    _Crystalloids_: Soluble substances, which usually form crystals
    and readily diffuse through organic membranes.

    _Cyst_: A protective envelope formed around an organism during
    period of rest.

    _Cytode_: The non-nucleated cell hypothecated by Haeckel.

    _Cyptoplasm_: The cell-body or extranuclear protoplasm of a
    cell.


    _Endomixis_: A process of nuclear reorganization among the
    protozoa, which does not require the coöperation of two cells
    as in conjugation (amphimixis).

    _Endoskeleton_: An internal living skeleton providing
    support and protection (as well as organs of movement, in
    the bone-levers to which the muscles are attached)—it is
    characteristic of the vertebrates.

    _Enzymes_: Organic catalysts, _i. e._, complex chemical
    substances formed by organisms and serving to accelerate
    chemical processes taking place in said organisms, _e. g._,
    the digestive enzymes, which accelerate the hydrolysis of
    starches, fats, and proteins.

    _Epigenesis_: Development of the embryo by differentiation of
    previously undifferentiated protoplasm.


    _Fats_: Esters of the higher fatty or organic acids (such as
    stearic, palmitic, and oleic) esterified with the trihydric
    alcohol glycerine (glycerol).


    _Gamete_: A reproductive cell specialized for syngamy, _i.e._,
    for union with a complementary germ cell, their union giving
    rise to a synthetic cell known as a zygote.

    _Ganglion_: An aggregate of nerve-cells consisting mainly of
    neural cell-bodies together with supporting cells.

    _Ganoids_: Fishes covered with enameled bony scales, and now,
    for the most part, extinct.

    _Gene_: A factor or infinitesimal element in a nuclear thread
    or chromosome, the latter being a linear aggregate of such
    factors, each having definite specificity and manifesting
    itself in the external character which develops from it.

    _Genotype_: The total assemblage of germinal factors
    transmitted by a given species of organism, that is, the
    complete complex of genes synthesized in the zygote and
    perpetuated by equation-divisions in the somatic cells. Hence
    the basic germinal or hereditary constitution of an organism or
    group of organisms.

    _Germ Cells_: Cells specialized for reproduction as contrasted
    with other vital functions, _e.g._, spores and gametes.

    _Germ-plasm_: The material basis of inheritance.

    _Glacial Epoch_: After the close of the Tertiary period,
    Europe and North America are said to have been covered with
    vast ice sheets known as continental glaciers (the result of
    great climatic changes in the Northern hemisphere). As the
    weather varied these ice sheets advanced and retreated, the
    retreats corresponding to the so-called Interglacial intervals.
    Four Glacial and three Interglacial stages are distinguished,
    and it was during the Second and Third of these Interglacial
    stages that Palæolithic Man is alleged to have entered Europe.
     _Golgi Bodies_: A cytoplasmic apparatus consisting, in its
    localized form, of a network, and, in its dispersed form,
    of scattered granules. It appears to divide on the mitotic
    spindle, and seems to have some important function connected
    with secretion.


    _Habitat_: The locality in which a given animal or plant
    normally lives.

    _Hallux_: The great toe, opposable in the ape, but not in man.

    _Heredity_: “The appearance in offspring of characters whose
    differential causes are in the germ cells” (Conklin).

    _Heterozygous_: Hybrid,—the condition in which the chromosomal
    genes paired by syngamy in the zygote are unlike.

    _Homologous Chromosomes_: Corresponding chromosomes of the
    same synaptic pair, being of paternal and maternal origin
    respectively.

    _Homozygous_: Pure,—the condition in which the chromosomal
    genes paired in the zygote by syngamy are alike.

    _Hormone_: An internal secretion elaborated in the endocrine
    or ductless glands and diffused in the blood stream for the
    purpose of influencing the activities or metabolism of parts of
    the organism at a distance from the source of the hormone, _e.
    g._, secretin, gastrin, adrenalin, etc.

    _Hydrotheca_: The cuplike extension of the perisarc (skeletal
    sheath) surrounding the hypostome (oral cone) and tentacles of
    certain polyps.

    _Hyloblatic_: Resembling the gibbon.


    _Lemurs_: Four-handed animals allied to the Insectivora, with
    curved nostrils and a claw instead of a nail on the first
    finger of the rear hands.

    _Lethals_: A genetical term for hereditary factors (genes)
    which cause the death of the gametes or the zygotes that
    contain them. In the case of zygotes, death results from the
    homozygous, but not from the heterzygous, condition.

    _Linin_: Same as oxychromatin.

    _Litopterna_: A suborder of extinct ungulate mammals from the
    Miocene and Pliocene of South America resembling horses or
    llamas.  _Mammals_: Vertebrate animals which suckle their
    young after birth.

    _Meiosis_: The process whereby the chromosomes of synaptic
    pairs (in the primary oöcyte or spermatocyte) are separated
    in such a way that the resulting gametes (eggs, or sperms)
    receive a haploid (halved) number of unpaired chromosomes,
    instead of the diploid (double) number of paired chromosomes
    characteristic of the zygote and the somatic cells of the
    species.

    _Metista_: Animals and plants normally multicellular and having
    their cells differentiated into at least two distinct layers or
    tissues—the Metazoans and Metaphytes.

    _Mitosis_: Typical cell-division, whose mechanism consists of
    the spindle-fibers, and whose scope is to secure an exactly
    equal partition of the single components of the nucleus of the
    dividing cell between the two resultant daughter-cells.

    _Monism_: A system of thought which holds that there is but one
    substance, either mind (idealistic subjectivism), or matter
    (objectivistic materialism),—or else a substance that is
    neither mind nor matter, but is the substantial ground of both.
    Idealistic monism regards mind as the sole reality and matter
    as its product. Materialistic monism regards matter as the sole
    reality and mind as its product.


    _Neolithic_: Pertaining to the Young-Stone Age, that is, to
    prehistoric man of Post-glacial time. The implements of the
    latter are of polished stone. The Young-Stone Age is said to
    have begun about 7,000 years B.C., and to have ended with the
    Copper Culture about 2,000 B.C. The Bronze Age, which followed
    it, belongs to history.

    _Neurone_: The nerve-cell with all its processes, consisting,
    therefore, of the nucleated cell-body, the axone or discharging
    fiber, and the dentrites or receiving fibers.


    _Oölites_: An English term for the Jurassic, or middle system
    of the Mesozoic group of fossiliferous rocks.

    _Ontogeny_: The embryological development of the individual.
    _Opposable_: A term applied to the thumb or great toe when they
    are capable of being placed with their tips opposite to those
    of the other digits.

    _Organelle_: Literally, a “miniature organ,” _i.e._, one of
    the living components of a cell as distinguished from the
    metaplastic or non-living inclusions.

    _Oxychromatin_: That portion of the nuclear network which
    stains with acidic dyes, the finer nuclear reticulum in which
    the coarser strands of basichromatin appear to be suspended.


    _Palæolithic_: Belonging to the Old-Stone Age, which
    corresponds to the latter half of the Glacial or Pleistocene
    epoch. It is alleged to be the second period of prehistoric man
    (following the Eolithic) and is characterized by implements
    of unpolished stone shaped from flint by the chipping off of
    flakes of the latter substance.

    _Palæontology_: The science of fossil organisms.

    _Palæozoic_: A term applied to the second group of
    fossiliferous rocks, following the earliest, or Proterozoic,
    group, and preceding the Mesozoic group. It comprises the
    Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian, Silurian, and Carboniferous
    systems, and its sediments are the first that contain
    well-preserved fossils.

    _Parasitism_: A condition in which one organism (the parasite)
    residing in, or upon, another species of organism (the host)
    lives at its expense, the relation being detrimental to the
    latter.

    _Parthenogenesis_: The production of offspring from
    unfertilized eggs.

    _Phenotype_: The sum-total of external characters by whose
    enumeration an organism is described—the somatic or expressed
    characters of an organism (or group of organisms) as
    distinguished from those that are merely potential in the germ
    cells.

    _Phylogeny_: Developmental history of the race, the
    hypothetical evolutionary history of the race, in
    contradistinction to the embryological development of
    the individual (ontogeny).  _Phylum_: A term used in
    classification to denote any primary group of the plant or
    animal kingdom.

    _Plantigrade_: Walking on the whole sole of the foot, like
    bears.

    _Plastids_: Permanent organelles or living components of the
    cellular cytoplasm, _e.g._, chloroplasts, leucoplasts, etc.

    _Pleistocene_: The lower series of the Quaternary system of
    fossiliferous rocks. It corresponds to the so-called Glacial
    epoch, and extends from the close of the Tertiary period
    (system) to the dawn of the Recent or Historical epoch.

    _Polar Cell_: A synonym for polar body, or policyte. The
    polar bodies are minute abortive cells given off by the egg
    undergoing meiosis. Into them are shunted the chromosomes
    which the egg discards in its process of nuclear reduction
    (maturation).

    _Præformation_: Theory that the egg contains a complete
    miniature of the organism into which it develops.

    _Prehension_: Grasping, catching hold.

    _Progression_: Advancing movement, locomotion.

    _Pro-simiæ_: The lemurs as distinguished from genuine apes
    (Simiæ).

    _Protista_: Animals or plants which are normally unicellular
    and which when multicellular show no differentiation into
    tissues—the Protozoans and Protophytes.

    _Protoplasm_: Living matter.


    _Receptor_: An organ specialized to receive stimuli, _e.g._, a
    sense-organ.


    _Sedimentary_: A term applied to rocks which originated as
    sediments deposited under water.

    _Serum_: Watery portion of the blood, the plasma.

    _Somatic Cells_: Vegetative cells not especially set aside by
    the organism for reproductive purposes, _e.g._, tissue-cells.

    _Somite_: One of the uniform segments of the longitudinal
    series into which a metameric organism (such as an earthworm)
    is partitioned.

    _Spermatist_: An old term applied to one who held that the
    animal embryo was produced entirely by the male parent.
    _Spore_: A single cell, incapable of syngamy, but capable of
    giving rise to a new individual without the sexual process.

    _Symbiosis_: The obligatory association of two organisms of
    different species for mutual benefit.

    _Synapsis_: Union in pairs of corresponding (homologous)
    chromosomes of opposite parental origin as a preliminary to
    their separation in meiosis.

    _Systematist_: An expert in classification (systematics), _i.
    e._, a taxonomist.


    _Taxonomy_: The science of classification.

    _Tertiary Period_: A geological time-division corresponding to
    the rock-system that comprises the greater part of the Cenozoic
    group. It is made up of four series, namely, the Eocene,
    Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. Its close marks the beginning
    of the Glacial or Pleistocene epoch.

    _Tissue_: A layer of uniform cells specialized for the same
    function.

    _Tissue Cell_: One of the somatic cells of which a tissue is
    composed.

    _Troglodytic_: Resembling the chimpanzee and the gorilla.


    _Woods Hole_: The seat of the Marine Biological Laboratory. It
    is a watering-place on the New England coast opposite Martha’s
    Vineyard.


    _Zygote_: The synthetic cell formed by the union of two gametes
    and giving rise by division either to a new multicellular
    organism, or to a rejuvenated cycle of unicellular forms.




                           INDEX TO AUTHORS


    Adami, J. G., 57.

    Aeby, Christoph Theod., 274.

    Æsop, 246.

    Alsberg, Moritz, 317.

    Altman, Richard, 141.

    Aquinas, St. Thomas, 32, 73, 268, 343.

    Aristotle, 133, 155, 172, 174, 192, 196, 197, 200, 202, 214, 215,
      227, 230.

    Armstrong, H. E., 190.

    Arrhénius, Svante, 166, 167, 182, 183, 184.

    Augustine, St., 32, 73, 74, 75.


    Bach, Alexis, 145, 146.

    Bacon, Francis, 86, 87.

    Bagg, H. J., 266.

    Balfour, Arthur James, 358.

    Ballou, W. H., 318.

    Bardon, L., 330.

    Bastian, Charlton, 165.

    Bateson, Wm., 1, 5, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 28, 30, 43, 44,
      73, 84, 85, 88, 145, 146, 334.

    Bather, F. A., 3, 40, 76, 77, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93.

    Baudlisch, Oscar, 148.

    Baur, E., 88.

    Beddoe, 333.

    Bergson, Henri, 262.

    Bernouilli, Jacques, 248.

    Bey, Pruner-, 324.

    Binet, Alfred, 220.

    Biot, Jean Baptiste, 135.

    Blackwelder, Eliot, 117.

    Blake, C. Carter, 324.

    Blakeslee, Albert F., 17, 21, 22, 23.

    Blanford, Wm. Thomas, 95.

    Boule, Marcellin, 332.


    Bouvier, E. L., 239, 260, 261, 265.

    Bouyssonie, A. J. & P., 330.

    Boveri, Th., 139.

    Branco, W., 344.

    Breuil, Abbé Henri, 290, 342.

    Brown, Barnum, 270, 310.

    Bryan, Wm. Jennings, 1, 343.

    Buffon, C. L., 305.

    Bühler, Karl, 218, 220.

    Bumüller, J., 273, 274.

    Burroughs, John, 244.

    Burton-Opitz, Russel, 299.


    Calkins, Gary N., 39, 40, 161.

    Campbell, Marius Robinson, 107 note

    Carazzi, D., 304.

    Castle, W. E., 43.

    Caullery, Maurice, 12, 28, 29, 277.

    Chamberlain, T. C., 125.

    Chetverikov, S. S., 115, 116.

    Chiesa, Luigi, 210.

    Clausen, Roy Elwood, 26.

    Clemont, 324.

    Clifford, Wm. Kingdon, 237.

    Cohn, Ferd. Jul., 182.

    Coleman, Arthur P., 113, 114, 115.

    Comte, (Isidore) Auguste, 225, 226.

    Conklin, E. G., 270.

    Copernicus, Nicholas, XII, XIII.

    Coulter, John Merle, 24.

    Creighton, J. E., 238.

    Croll, James, 290.

    Crookes, Sir Wm., 183.

    Cuvier, Georges, 67, 72, 76, 90, 91, 102.


    Dana, James Dwight, 111, 114, 117, 270.


    Darwin, Charles, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 24, 30, 32, 65, 68, 75, 81, 152,
      191, 194, 236, 238, 245, 246, 269, 277, 286, 287, 288, 290, 295,
      296, 297, 298, 302, 305, 307, 338, 349, 352, 353, 360.

    Da Vinci, Leonardo, 257.

    Davis, Bradley Moore, 25, 26, 27, 28.

    Davis, J. Barnard, 324.

    Dawson, Sir John William, 345.

    Dawson, Charles, 320.

    Deaver, J. B., 295.

    De Chardin, Teilhard, 320.

    De Geer, Gerard, 289.

    Delage, Yves, 127, 150, 151.

    De Mattos, Alexander Teixeira, 247 note.

    De Puydt, Marcel, 326.

    Descartes, René, 172, 197, 198, 202, 231, 249.

    De Vires, Hugo, 16, 17, 20.

    Dewey, John, 350.

    Dorlodot, Canon Henri de, XII, 31, 34, 47, 70, 74.

    Dreisch, Hans, 12, 70, 172, 174, 190, 202, 244, 252.

    Dubois, Eugène, 313, 314, 316, 318.

    Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 11, 268, 277, 352.

    Dumas, Jean Baptiste, 135.

    Duponceau, Pierre Étienne, 338.

    Dupont, André Hubert, 326.

    Dwight, Thomas, 36, 51, 59, 274, 275, 278, 285, 303, 304, 309, 319,
      320, 328, 336, 337.


    Ecclesiastes, 192.

    Ehrlich, Paul, 57.

    Eimer, Th., 7.

    Eliot, Charles W., 358.

    Evans, Sir Arthur, 339.

    Ezekiel, 89.


    Fabre, J. H., 240, 247 note, 249, 251, 252, 254, 258, 260, 263, 264,
      265, 266.

    Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 149.


    Fenton, Henry John H., 146.

    Fischer, Emil, 145.

    Fleischmann, Albert, 12.

    Flemming, W., 137.

    Fontaine, T., 208.

    Fraipont, Julien, 327.

    Fuhlrott, C., 323.


    Galiani, 11.

    Galilei, Galileo, XII, XIII.

    Garbowski, Thad., 284.

    Gaskell, Walter Holbrook, 293, 294.

    Gatenby, J. B., 140.

    Geikie, Sir Archibald, 96, 97, 107 note.

    Gerard, John, S.J., 82.

    Goodrich, Edwin S., 15, 62.

    Goodspeed, T. H., 26.

    Grabau, Amadeus, Wm., 335.

    Grassi, B., 66.

    Gray, Henry, 299.

    Gregory, W. K., 270, 309, 310, 311, 318, 348.

    Grignard, Victor, 209.

    Gruender, Hubert, 233 note.

    Gummersbach, Joseph, 247 note.

    Guyer, M. F., 15, 266.


    Haacke, Joh. Wilh., 275, 317.

    Haeckel, Ernest, 33, 48, 89, 138, 186, 237, 275, 277, 278, 345.

    Hamann, Joh. Georg, 149.

    Handlirsch, Anton, 115.

    Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard von, 358.

    Harvey, William, 155.

    Haswell, Wm. A., 316, 317.

    Hauser, O., 329.

    Hayes, Charles Willard, 107 note.

    Heilprin, Angelo, 120, 121.

    Heim, Albert, 107 note.

    Helmholtz, Herman von, 182, 298.

    Henderson, Lawrence J., 6, 153, 175, 176, 179.

    Hertwig, Oskar, 284.

    Hertwig, Richard, 315.

    Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 127.


    Holworth, Sir Henry, 98.

    Horace, 54, 109.

    Howe, John Allen, 104, 105.

    Howell, Wm. H. 299.

    Hrdlička, A., 316, 318, 319, 322, 323, 325, 328, 329, 331, 332.

    Hubrecht, Ambrosius Arnold William, 309, 317.

    Hume, David, 198.

    Huxley, Thomas H., 20, 67, 76, 98, 111 note, 236, 237, 314, 325, 333.


    Jaggar, T. A., Jr., 346, 347, 348.

    James, William, 205, 206, 212, 249.

    Jennings, H. S., 250.

    Johnson, Dr. George, XVI.

    Jordan, David Starr, 4, 18, 28.

    Jörgensen, J., 146, 147.

    Judd, J. W., 94.


    Kammerer, Paul, 14, 266.

    Kant, Immanuel, 198.

    Keen, W. W., 48.

    Keith, Arthur, 319, 322, 328, 332, 336, 337.

    Kellogg, Vernon I., 46 note, 53 note, 350, 351.

    Kerr, J. Graham, 280, 282, 284.

    Keyser, C. J., 204.

    Kidd, F., 146.

    Klaatsch, A., 308, 309, 312, 317, 326, 328, 330.

    Koenen, C., 326.

    Kofoid, Charles A., 118, 162.

    Kohlbrugge, J. H. F., 274, 275, 277, 285, 308.

    Kölliker, Rudolph Albert, 7.

    Kollman, Julius, 285, 286, 317.

    Kramberger, K. Gorjanović, 320, 333.


    Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, 8, 9, 16, 30, 32, 65, 286, 290.

    Lankester, E. Ray, 186.

    Laplace, Pierre Simon, 181.

    Lebedeff, 183.

    Le Conte, Joseph N., 345.

    Lee, 333.

    Leydig, Franz, 137.

    Linné, Carl von, 4.

    Loeb, Jacques, 159, 249, 250, 252, 264.

    Lohest, Maximin, 326.

    Lotsy, J. P., 25.

    Lucretius, 30.

    Lull, Richard S., 115.


    Macalister, R. A. S., 342.

    MacCurdy, George Grant, 317, 326, 329, 331, 332.

    MacDowell, E. C., 266.

    MacManus, T., 359.

    Macnamara, N. C., 314, 325.

    Manouvrier, L., 316, 333.

    Marx, Karl, 360.

    Mathews, Albert, 293, 294, 302.

    Maxwell, J. Clerk, 183.

    McCann, Alfred W., 31, 32, 33, 34, 47, 50, 51.

    McConnell, R. G., 107, note, 109.

    McGregor, J. H., 315, 316, 317, 320, 322.

    Melanchthon, Phillip, 197.

    Mendel, Gregor Johann, 3, 24, 27, 28, 32.

    Mendeléef, Dimitri Ivanovitch, 56.

    Mercier, Désiré Cardinal, 204, 205, 208.

    Meyer, Ludwig, 302, 324.

    Michael Angelo, 257.

    Miller, Arthur M., 97, 98.

    Miller, Gerrit, 321.

    Minchin, E. A., 5.

    Moore, Benjamin F., 150, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170.

    Morgan, C. Lloyd, 233 note, 234 note, 237.

    Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 12, 16, 36, 44, 64, 85, 86, 88, 89, 276, 278,
      306, 334.

    Morton, Dudley J., 270.

    Muckermann, H., S.J., 325.

    Müller, Fritz, 48, 275, 278.

    Müller, Max, 338.


    Nägeli, Karl Wilhelm, 7, 186.

    Newman, John Henry, 354.

    Newell, Bro. Matthias, 347.

    Newton, Sir Isaac, XIII.

    Nicholson, Henry Alleyne, 97, 272.

    Nicomachus, 196.


    Obermaier, Hugues, 289, 290, 324, 327, 329, 342.

    Occam, William of, 67, 349.

    Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 2, 33, 65, 70, 76, 88, 89, 90, 170, 289,
      290, 309, 318, 342.


    Paley, William, 11.

    Parker, G. H., 9, 233 note, 295.

    Parker, T. Jeffery, 316, 317.

    Pasteur, Louis, 135, 181.

    Paulsen, Friederich, 206.

    Pawlow, Ivan, 242, 249, 266.

    Pearson, Karl, 310.

    Peckham, Geo. W. and Eliz. G., 265.

    Perrier, Remy, 296.

    Pfizenmayer, E., 91, 92.

    Pictet, Amé, 143.

    Pirrson, L. V., 107 note, 109.

    Plato, 172, 197.

    Poulton, Edward B., 186.

    Price, George McCready, 97, 98, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 120.

    Price, T. S., 167.


    Quatrefages De Breau, Jean Louis Armand de, 276.


    Ranke, J., 271, 272, 273, 274, 324.

    Rautert, 326.

    Ray, John, 5, 20.

    Redi, Francesco, 134, 136, 137.

    Reinke, J., 345, 346.

    Renner, O., 16.

    Richter, Herm. Eberh., 182.

    Riddle, Oscar, 300.

    Robinson, James Harvey, 190, 194, 195, 236.

    Rösch, Joseph, 318.

    Rothpletz, Aug., 107 note.

    Russell, Bertrand, 204.


    Santayana, George, 350.

    Sapir, Edward, 338.

    Schaaffhausen, D., 150, 325, 333.

    Schäfer, E. A., 58, 165, 179, 184, 185.

    Schleiden, Matthias J., 136.

    Schmidt, H. D., 260.

    Schoetensack, Otto, 318, 319.

    Schroeder, Ch. F., 251.

    Schuchert, Charles, 97, 98, 104 note, 106, 109, 110.

    Schultze, F. E., 218.

    Schultze, Max, 137, 138.

    Schwalbe, Gust. Alb., 286, 317, 324, 325, 333.

    Schwann, Theodor, 136.

    Scott, Wm. B., 78, 96, 103, 119, 120.

    Sedgwick, A., 95.

    Sellars, R. W., 233 note.

    Sewall, Anna, 236.

    Smith, G. Elliot, 289, 341.

    Smith, John Talbot, 355.

    Smith, William, 102.

    Snell, Karl, 308.

    Sollas, W. J., 289.

    Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 134, 136.

    Spencer, Herbert, 10, 12, 98, 102, 103, 148, 166, 179, 360.

    Starling, Ernest H., 57, 299, 301.

    Stockard, Charles R., 62.

    Stoll, A., 146.


    Taylor, J., 340.

    Tertullian, 346.

    Thayer, Wm. Sydney, 135.

    Tholuck, Fried. Aug., 338.

    Thompson, Sir Wm., 182.

    Thorndyke, Edward L., 237.

    Tilden, Sir Wm., 151, 192.

    Titchener, Edward Bradford, 205, 209, 274.

    Tredgold, A. F., 15 note.

    Tuccimei, Giuseppe, XIII, 360, 361.

    Tyndall, John, 149.


    Vallisnieri, Antonio, 134.

    Van Loon, Hendrick Willem, 190.

    Vegard, Lars, 183 note.

    Vicari, E. M., 266, 267.

    Virchow, Rudolph, 137, 273, 316, 317, 324, 346.

    Vogt, Carl, 276, 324.


    Waagen, W., 16 note.

    Warner, H., 274.

    Walkhoff, O., 317.

    Walsh, James J., 336.

    Ward, James, 163.

    Wasmann, Erich, S.J., XII, 11, 33, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49 note, 67, 70,
      134, 247 note, 261, 262, 277, 312, 313, 325, 333.

    Waterston, David, 322.

    Watson, John B., 198, 204, 250.

    Wayland, John Walter, 357.

    Weismann, August, 10, 13, 16, 25, 65, 186, 267.

    Weber, Ernest Heinrich, 227.

    Weld, H. P., 253, 255.

    Welday, J. O., 357.

    Wells, H. G., 1, 33, 190.

    Wenstrup, Edward, O.S.B., XVI.

    Werner, Abraham Gottlob, 99, 102, 103.

    Wheeler, Geo. C. and Esther H., 261.

    Wiedersheim, Robert, 292.

    Wilder, Harris Hawthorne, 300, 301.

    Williams, H. S., 96.

    Willis, Bailey, 107 note.

    Willstätter, R., 146, 147.

    Wilson, Edmund B., 6, 12, 13, 140, 141, 143, 160, 164, 168, 170,
      200, 201, 211.

    Windle, Bertram C. A., 134, 341.

    Wirth, Edmund J., 205.

    Wissler, Clark, 344.

    Woodruff, Lorande Loss, 39, 115.

    Woods, Henry, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 118, 119.

    Woodward, A. Smith, 321, 322, 340, 341.

    Woodworth, Robert S., 198.

    Wright, C. F., 289.

    Wundt, Wilhelm, 197, 205, 206, 209, 212, 236, 237, 238.


    Zahm, J. A., 268.

    Zeno, 226.

    Zittel, Karl A. von, 313, 345.




                           INDEX OF SUBJECTS


    Abiogenesis, 131, 135, 136, 142, 160, 165, 167, 179, 183, 186;
      “new theory” of, 165;
      “old theory” of, 165;
      “philosophical” proof of, 186

    Absence of function, real, 291;
      apparent, 291

    Abstract concept, 219

    Abstraction, 221, 224, 254, 261, 262;
      of active intellect predispositive, 221;
      of intellect, potential, cognitive, 221;
      power of, 261, 262;
      process of, 221, 224

    Abstract thought, 215, 267;
      has soul as its exclusive agent and subject, 215;
      not same as imagery, 215;
      unique prerogative of man, 267

    Acids, butyric, 159;
      carbonic, 145;
      fatty, 145;
      formic, 145

    Acromegaly, 294

    Acromikria, 294

    Act, 199

    Action, 174, 175, 176, 177, 215, 216;
      agent of, 176;
      an expression of entity, 125, 216;
      chemical, 175;
      effect of, 176, 177;
      electrical, 176;
      energy-content of, 174;
      immanent, defined, 177;
      mechanical, 175;
      physical, 175;
      reflexive, 177;
      subject of, 176;
      transitive, 174, 177;
      defined, 177;
      vital, 175

    Active intellect, 220, 221

    Activity, organic cannot escape physical determinism, 232

    Adaptation, 7, 8, 9, 16, 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124, 250, 290, 291,
      328;
      acquired, 8, 9, 16, 45, 290, 328, 333
        —not inheritable, 9;
      innate (inherited), 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124;
      of instinctive behavior to emergencies, 250;
      structural, 291

    Additive properties, 233 _note_

    Adjustments, 204

    Adolescence, 155

    Adrenal bodies, 292, 295

    Adults, 276

    Aeschna grandis L., 115

    Aftermath of evolutionary propaganda, 360

    Agametes, 156

    Agamic, 156

    Agent, 171, 177

    Age of Man, 289, 290

    Agnosticism, 352, 355, 358;
      parasitic, 358

    Agulhas, Lost Land of, 114

    Alberta, 108

    Albumen, living and dead, 144

    Alcohol, methyl, 147;
      phytyl, 147

    Aldehyde, 145, 148

    Aldol condensation, 145

    Allelomorphic, 42

    Allocation, taxonomic, 320

    Alluvial epoch, 313;
      loam, 324

    Alpha Centauri, 184

    Alps, 109

    Altamira, caves of, 339, 340, 343

    Alternating personalities, 211;
      psychopathic condition, 211

    Altruism, 355, 356;
      without adequate motivation, 356

    Amboceptors, 57

    American Association for Advancement of Science, 343, 344;
      Edict of, 343

    Ammonites, 84, 86, 249;
      intergradence in, 84

    Ammonium cyanate, 173

    Ammophila, 264

    Ammophila gryphus, 261

    Ammophila urnaria, 261

    Amnion, 276

    Amœba albida, 159

    Amphibia, 61, 281, 296

    Amphioxus, 60, 161

    Analogous organs, 35, 36, 61

    Analogy, 35, 59, 60;
      convergent, 61

    Analysis, 144;
      chemical, 144;
      physical, 144

    Anarchy, 355, 360

    Anatomists, 296

    Anatomy, 196, 208, 276, 277, 303, 308;
      comparative, 276, 277, 308;
      of consciousness, attempted by Associationists, 208

    Ancestors, 55, 59, 76, 82, 83, 92, 95, 115, 270, 280, 296, 304, 308,
      309, 317, 349;
      collateral, 76;
      common, 55, 59, 83, 92, 269, 270, 278, 308;
      direct, 76;
      hypothetical, 308, 309, 317;
      necessary priority of, 82, 83;
      of man, 298
        —alleged to be fish-like, 280;
      tertiary, 270

    Ancestry, 92, 280;
      entails antecedence in time, 92;
      of man, 280

    Ancitherium, 76

    Angiosperms, 72, 73

    Animal, 242, 249, 307;
      appetite, gratification of, 242;
      as “reflex machines,” 249;
      cave, 307

    Animalism, 365

    Animalistic man, 350, 352

    Animality of man, not a modern discovery, 191, 192

    Animism, 197, 198

    Anisogametes, 157, 158

    Anisogamy, 157, 158

    Annelida, 117, 278, 280

    Anomalies, 112, 303, 305, 319, 320;
      anatomical, fluctuational, 303;
      mutational, 303;
      of spatial distributions, 112

    Antagonism, 358;
      between modern progress and Christian ideal, 358

    Anthropomorphism, 236, 246, 250, 262;
      Darwinian, 236, 250

    Anthropologists, 318, 344;
      foremost ones confess their ignorance regarding origin of man, 344

    Antibodies, 14, 15

    Antigen, 15

    Antirrhinum, majus and molle, 88

    Anti-vivisectionists, 236

    Ants, 261, 262; leaf-cutting, 261

    Ape, 245, 270, 272, 275, 285, 308, 309, 311, 314, 315, 316, 317, 345;
      anthropoid, 270, 271, 272, 275, 309, 315, 317;
      cranial capacity, 314;
      descended from man-like ancestor, 285;
      descent from, not a doctrine of science, 345;
      embryonic skull of, 285;
      foot of, 50, 51
        —a hand functionally but not structurally, 50, 51;
      fossil, 308, 313;
      giant, geneological tree of, 315;
      higher, 311;
      its cranium, 271;
      large, 315;
      living, 308

    Ape-like features, acquired adaptation, 330

    Appalachians, 107

    Appetite, 221, 235, 241;
      rational, 221;
      sensual, 235, 241

    Appendicitis, 295

    Appendix, vermiform, 295, 296;
      useful, 296

    Apple-tree, 6, 88, 161

    Apterix, 305

    Arbacia punctulata, 159

    Arboreal life, 271, 308

    Arca, 118

    Archæan, 104, 117;
      record, damaged condition of, 117

    Archæology, prehistoric, 339

    Archæopteryx, 86

    Archæozoic, 104, 148;
      times alleged to have been more favorable to origin of life, 148

    Argument, 226;
      no avail against fact, 226

    Art, palæolithic, 340

    Artefacts, 154

    Artemia salina, 159

    Artemisia absynthium, 248

    Arthropoda, 61, 119, 261, 284

    Artificial illumination, 340

    Artistic attainment, high level of, 340

    Artists, palæolithic, 335

    Asia, 335

    Ass, 5, 81, 304

    Assimilation, 143

    Association, 208, 235, 241, 242

    Associationists, 208, 236

    Astarte, 118

    Asteroidea, 121, 122

    Atavism, 303, 304

    Atlantis, 114

    Atmosphere, 148, 181, 183;
      coronal of sun, 183;
      formerly richer in carbon dioxide, 148;
      of earth, 183

    Atoms, 58, 144, 162, 165, 167, 170, 202;
      structure of, 58

    Atrophy, 285, 286, 288, 294, 299, 301, 302, 307;
      due to misuse, 288;
      somatic, 307

    Attention, 208

    Audist, 219

    Aurignacian Man, 332

    Aurora borealis, 183, 183 _note_, 184 _note_

    Australian, 321, 325, 328, 330, 333;
      blacks, 325, 333
        —modern, have brow ridges, 328;
      modern, 325, 330;
      skull of, 321

    Author of Nature, 193

    Autogamy, 158, 159, 161

    Automatisms, 238, 240, 262;
      teleological, 240

    Automixis, 161

    Autonomy, 174, 202;
      dynamic, 174;
      vital, 202

    Axiom, 223, 224;
      of reception, 223, 224

    Axon, 213

    Azoic bottom, 125


    Babylonia, 337

    Bacteria, 135, 138, 183, 183 _note_

    Barbarism, 337;
      historically a state of degeneration and stagnation, 337;
      not a primitive condition, 337;
      no instance of spontaneous emergence from, 337

    Bacteriologists, 183

    Baltic Sea, 104, 105

    Banana, 162

    Basichromatin, 139

    Bear Grass quarries, 106

    Beaver, 247, 257

    Bedding plane, 106

    Bees, 257

    Beetles, wingless, 306

    Behavior, 249, 254, 255, 260, 261, 262, 263;
      instinctive, 249, 254, 255, 260
        —objectively useful, 254, 255
        —subjectively agreeable, 254, 255;
      concursively telic, 260-262;
      consciously telic, _i. e._, intelligent 262;
      unconcursively telic, 262;
      must be perfect from outstart, 263

    Behaviorism, degeneration of psychology into, 198

    Behaviorists, 204, 250

    Bestial man, 340, 342;
      impossible, 340;
      no traces of, 342

    Bestial origin, 345, 352;
      of man, 352;
      of man, theory of, 345

    Bestial soul, 114, 194, 213, 214, 234;
      an emergent of matter, 194, 234 _note_
        —not a product of physicochemical action, 194;
      exists in the interest of the organism, 214;
      incomplete complement of matter, 213;
      material but not corporeal, 194, 214;
      operates only in conjunction with organism, 213;
      perishes with dissolution of organism, 213

    Bible, 127

    Biochemists, 179

    Biogenetic Law, 48, 275, 276, 277, 278, 283, 285

    Biologists, 2, 3, 11, 19, 29, 53 _note_, 190, 200, 257

    Biology, xiv, 24, 196, 197, 205

    Bion, 170, 171

    Biophysicists, 179

    Bipinnaria, 283

    “Biotic energy,” 170

    Bird of Paradise, 154, 353

    Birds, 282, 296, 297

    Bison, 331, 332

    “Black Beauty,” 236

    Blackberries, 25

    Blindness, germinal and somatic, 306

    Blue-green Algæ, 138, 149, 181

    Body, 198

    Bone cave, 340

    Bone fibres, 317

    Bos primigenius, 329

    Botany, 31, 55

    Brachiopoda, 117, 118, 120

    Bradypus, 52

    Brain, 274, 315, 316;
      human, 274
        —convolutions of, 274;
      relative and absolute size of, 315;
      relative size of, 316;
      simian, 274

    Brain case, 272

    Brain cavities, below modern average, 329

    Brain-fag, due to imaginative, not to intellectual activity, 228,
      229, 230;
      follows mere memorizing, 229

    Branchial arches and clefts, 278, 279

    Branchial lamellæ, 279

    Breasts, supernumerary, 304

    Broken Hill Mine, 340

    Bronze Age, historic, 337

    Brow ridges, 328, 330, 333, 341;
      most pronounced of any human specimen, 341

    Brute, 213, 233, 235, 236, 360;
      destitute of freedom, morality, responsibility, 233;
      its psychic functions, all organic, 213;
      lumination of, 236;
      our common origin with, 360

    Budding, 156

    Burial, 330, 335;
      deep, 335;
      makes age of bones uncertain, 335;
      solemn, indicates belief in immortality, 330

    Butyric acid, 159


    Cæcum, 295

    Cænogenesis, 277, 288

    Cænozoic, 118, 119, 335

    Calcium hydroxide, 145

    Calicurgus, 263

    Cambrian, 99, 100, 104, 105, 110, 116, 117, 118, 125;
      Lower, 117;
      terranes below, 125;
      youthful appearance of, 104, 105

    Canadian Shield, 104 _note_

    Canadian survey, 108

    Canal, alimentary, 293, 295, 301;
      neural, 293

    Canalization, 265

    Carbohydrates, 145, 148;
      production of, by plants, 145-148—not a synthesis,
      146-148—analogous to process in animals, 146, 147

    Carbon dioxide, 145-147

    Carboniferous, 73, 92, 115, 118;
      Lower, 92;
      Upper, 115

    Carnivora, 271

    Catarrhine monkeys, 287

    Catastrophes, 72, 182;
      cosmic, 182

    Catastophism, 67, 68, 98, 312;
      new, 98

    Caterpillar, 260, 264

    Cats, 284

    Causation, active and efficient, 171, 172

    Cave rat, 307


    Caves, 335, 336;
      of France and Spain, 335, 336;
      of Spain, 336

    Cell-division, 59, 137, 138, 139, 155, 162, 163

    Cell, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 155, 165, 168, 202, 301;
      definition of, 137;
      a multimolecule, 165;
      cannot originate through exclusive agency of physicochemical
        energies, 142;
      fundamental unit of organization, 136;
      germ, 156;
      simplest of organic units capable of independent existence, 138;
      simplest of organisms, 147;
      somatic, 156;
      submicroscopical components of, 141;
      simplest form of organic life, 142;
      vital, 142;
      sperm, 137

    Cell Theory, 136

    Cellular continuity, 137, 141;
      Fifth article of, 141;
      Law of, 141

    Centaur, constellation of, 184

    Centers, sensory and motor, 251

    Central neurones, 213, 222;
      purpose of, 222

    Centrioles, 140

    Cephalic index, 329

    Ceratites, 86

    Ceratodus, 119

    Cerebral cortex, 206, 213, 221, 222

    Cerebral neurones, 222;
      an extended receptor not proportioned to dematerialized abstract
        objects, 222

    Cerebrospinal system, 213

    Certainty, 124, 125;
      based on objective necessity, 124;
      scientific, 125

    Ceylon, 315

    Chain-reflex, 250, 252

    Chaldea, 337, 340

    Chalk, 79, 86

    Chance, 11, 151-154;
      impotent to produce effect so complicatedly telic as an organism,
        151;
      its efficacy and impotence, 151-154

    Change, adaptive, 53 _note_;
      germinal, 42, 43, 68, 307;
      kinds of, 42;
      somatic, 68;
      specific, 7, 23, 68, 88, 89, 307;
      varietal, 7, 68, 88

    Characters (somatic or external), 5, 6, 17, 18, 41, 62, 63, 87, 88,
      121, 122, 278, 306, 334;
      definition of, 41;
      duplication and suppression of, 306;
      embryonic not derived from adult, 278;
      homologous and adaptational, 62, 63, 121
        —distinction has no experimental basis, 62;
      “inherited” and “acquired,” 41

    Chapelle-aux-Saintes, 288, 331;
      Cave of, remains, 331;
      remains, 228

    Chela, 61, 261;
      of lobster and African scorpion, 61

    Chemical analysis, 143, 144, 216;
      destroys life, 143, 144

    Chemical synthesis of living matter possible, 142, 144

    Chemist, 151;
      guiding intelligence of need in synthesis of organic compounds,
        151;
      necessity of regulation, 151

    Chemistry, 142, 350;
      physical, 142

    Chemotaxis, 264

    Chick, 255

    Chimaeroids, 119

    Chimpanzee, 33, 270, 314, 323

    Chin, 319, 320, 328;
      may be accentuated by a mutation, 320;
      prominence in Spy No. 1, 328;
      recessive, 320;
      recessiveness of the, 319;
      recessiveness and protuberance of, 320;
      recessiveness, an acquired adaptation, 320;
      receding, acquired, 328

    China, 110, 337

    Chinless mandible, not sloping backward, 332

    Chlorophyll, 62, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 154;
      chromogen group of, 148;
      chromogen complex, 148;
      colloidal solution of, 145;
      not a “sensitizer” like Eosin, 147, 148;
      regenerated from H₂O and CO₂, 147, 148;
      “sensitizer,” 145

    Chondriosomes, 140

    Christianity, 359

    Chromatin, 138, 139

    Chromiole, 138

    Chromosomes, 17, 21, 27, 44, 45, 139, 141, 157, 158, 159;
      diploid number normal, 159;
      diploid number of, 157, 158, 159;
      duplication of, 17, 21, 44, 45;
      haploid number of, 157, 158, 159;
      homologous,
    17, 21;
      random assortment of, 27

    Chronology, 98;
      lithic, 98;
      principles of, 98

    Chronometer, palæontological, 135

    Chrysothrix, 274

    Cidaris, 119

    Ciliate, 163

    Circumstances, environmental, 250-252

    Civilization, old, destruction of, 336

    Classes, 37

    Classification, taxonomic, not historical, 112

    Clays, Pleistocene, 289

    Cleavage, 154, 159

    Cloaca, 281

    Coccyx, alleged rudiment of former tail, 297;
      serves purpose, 298

    Cockroaches, 115

    Coelenterates, 78, 118

    Coexistence of impressions, not a companion of them, 208

    Cognitive intellect, 220, 221

    Colloid systems, aggregates, not units, 168

    Colloidal, 141, 170;
      substances, 141;
      systems not analogous to organisms, 170

    Colloids, 166-169;
      hydrophilic, 168, 169

    Columns, continental and submarine, 114

    Commanchian period, 72

    Commensal, 46

    Commensalism, 52

    Common stock, 39

    Comparative anatomy, 279, 304

    Complexity, “Law” of, 166, 167

    Components, 138, 139, 141, 142, 168;
      cytoplasmic and nuclear, 138, 139;
      of cell, 141
        —self-perpetuating, 168;
      of protoplasmic system, 141

    Compounds, organic, 142

    Concepts, 219, 220, 221, 247;
      abstract and general, 220, 247;
      rational, 247

    Conceptual thought, 219, 222, 223;
      concerned with the reality of essence, 219;
      excludes materiality
    from its specific agent and receptive subject, 222;
      not communicated to organism, 223;
      subject in soul alone, 223

    Conduction path, 265

    Condyles, occipital, 272

    Conformity, 105, 107, 110;
      “deceptive,” 105, 110;
      normal significance of, 105;
      “upside-down,” 107

    Conjugation, 157, 161

    Consciousness, 198, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 211, 235, 238, 240,
      248, 262;
      and unconsciousness, 198;
      attests existence superficially variable but radically unchangeable
        subject of mental life, 206;
      attests persistence of our personal identity, 211;
      dependence of all science upon, 204;
      etymology of, 205, 206;
      its testimony to the reality of the ego, 205;
      organic and spiritual, 199;
      phenomenal, 198;
      sentient, 235, 238, 240, 248;
      testimony of, 208

    Constructions, complex and systematic, not producible by accident,
      53, 154

    Consolation, 358, 361;
      destroyed, 361;
      eliminated, 358

    Contamination of media, 135

    Contiguity, 241, 242;
      association of, 241;
      law of, 241, 242

    Continents, 113, 114;
      permanence of, 114

    Continuity, 350;
      destructive as metaphysics, 350;
      leads to materialistic monism, 350;
      principles of, 350;
      nuclear, 137

    Control, 236, 251-253;
      intelligent, 253;
      psychic, 251;
      rational and moral, 236;
      sensory, 251-253

    Consequences—socialism, anarchy, despair, 360

    Convergence, 10, 36, 58, 59, 61, 63, 77, 78, 79, 80, 277, 283, 284,
      287;
      kinds of 77

    Corpuscular, 174

    Correlation, 90, 91, 93, 99, 101, 111;
      Cuvier’s Law of, 90, 91;
      stratigraphic, 93, 96, 99, 101, 111

    Cortical, 294, 315;
      area, 274;
      surface, 315


    Cosmic scale, 350;
      Cosmogony, 181, 185

    Cosmopolitan species, 73

    Cosmozoa, 182

    Cranial box, 272

    Cranial capacity, 274, 315, 317, 322, 325, 332, 341;
      absolute, 332;
      human, 341;
      large, 341;
      of man and ape compared, 274;
      relative, 317, 332

    Cranial vault, more spacious in Spy No. 2, 327

    Cranium, 118, 271, 321, 325, 328, 329, 331, 333, 337, 341;
      dolichocephalic, 325, 331;
      flat on top, broad in back, 341;
      modern, 333;
      human, 328;
      of ape, 271;
      of man, 271;
      not subsequent to barbarism, 337;
      Spy, 331

    Creation, 67, 72, 186, 187;
      defined, 187;
      new, 67, 72;
      simultaneous or recessive, 72

    Creationism, 55

    Creator, 72, 249, 298, 350

    Credulous persons misled, 353

    Cretaceous, 100, 104, 108, 109, 111, 118;
      shales, 109

    Crete, 337

    Cretinism, 294

    Cries, 246;
      emotional, 246;
      instinctive, 246

    Crinoids, 119

    Crossing, 4, 5, 19-21, 25-28, 88;
      interspecific, 19-21, 26, 27;
      intervarietal, 19, 20, 27, 28;
      does not produce “new species,” 25-28

    Crossover, 17, 26, 42

    Crust, terrestrial, 113

    Crustaceans, 117

    Cryptorhetic system, 292-294

    Crystalloids, 144

    Crystals, 153

    Crystal units, 144, 165

    Ctenomys, 305

    Cultures, 135, 309, 317;
      sterilized and aërated, 135

    Curved femur, acquired adaptation, 328

    Cycads, 118

    Cycas, 118

    Cysts, 134

    Cytodes, 138, 179, 207

    Cytologist, 136, 141


    Cytology, 137

    Cytoplasm, 137-139, 141;
      of eggs differentiated, 141

    Cytoplasmic components self-perpetuating, 139

    Cytosome, 140


    Darwinism, 1, 5, 6, 16, 24, 29, 30, 32, 78, 79, 85, 263, 265, 285,
      291, 325;
      contradicted by history, 337;
      obsolete theory, 29, 30, 349

    Datura stramonium, 21, 22, 23

    Death, 156

    Deceptive conformities, 98

    Deep sea bottoms, 113

    Degeneracy, 15, 15 _note_, 18, 336

    Degradation of energy, 162, 163, 180;
      implies beginning of life, 180;
      law of, 162, 163

    Delitzch, 118

    Dependence, 217, 218, 221, 231;
      direct, of psycho-organic functions on organism, 231;
      incompatible with spirituality, 218;
      intrinsic on matter, 218;
      objective, not subjective, 221

    Descent, 67, 80, 87, 88, 267, 269, 274, 277, 284, 305, 308, 310,
      312, 315, 317, 345;
      collateral, 269, 308, 312, 317
        —of man, 308, 317
        —theory of, 269, 312;
      common, 269, 315
        —reference of, 269;
      direct, Darwin’s theory of, 274;
      from ape, theory of, 274;
      human, 317, 345
        —from pithecoid primates, not a historical fact, 345
        —theory of, 269;
      lineal, 269, 305, 308, 309, 317
        —a chain of creatures, 305
        —from ape, theory of, 269
        —upheld by Darwin, 269;
      of man, 308, 310;
      theory of, 80, 277

    Deterioration of organism does not always involve deterioration of
      superorganic powers, 230

    Devonian, 62, 99, 103, 106;
      Middle, 106

    De-Vriesianism, 23, 24, 29, 263, 265, 266, 349

    Diester, phytyl-methyl, 147

    Differences, 9, 12, 13, 16, 28, 37, 46, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 121,
      171, 236, 237, 271, 272, 273, 320, 331, 333, 334, 359;
      anatomical, between
      Homo primigenius and Homo sapiens, 331, 334
        —between man and ape, 271-273;
      between living and lifeless, 171;
      fluctuational, 121;
      generic, 37, 46, 82, 84, 86;
      individual, 16
        —alleged summation of, 9, 20, 29;
      major, 9, 37, 46, 320
        —relative and absolute, 37;
      minor, 9, 37, 46, 320;
      mutational, 121, 334;
      ordinal, 46;
      psychological, between man and brute, 236, 237, 359, 360
        —amount to a distinction of kind, 236, 237, 359, 360;
      specific, 12, 13, 28, 37, 46, 81, 84, 86, 333, 334;
      varietal, 46

    Differential threshold, law of, 227

    Differentiation, 284

    Diffusion of venom, 264, 265

    Digestion, stimulates lymphatic glands, 301

    Dileptus gigas, 138, 174

    Diluvium, European, 345

    Dinoflagellata, 118

    Dinosaurs, 100, 271

    Diphasic, 134

    Diploid forms, 44, 45, 47

    Dipnoan, 119

    Diptera, 48, 49

    Discernment, 240

    Discina, 118

    Disconformity, non-evident, 105

    Discrimination, 208

    Discursive analysis, 243, 244

    Disease germs, 141, 169, 170, 216;
      invisible, identified by the pathological effects, 216;
      submicroscopic, 141, 169, 170

    Disintegration, atomic, 163

    Dispersing medium, 168

    Dissociation, 235, 242

    Distributed nucleus, 138

    Distribution, 92, 99, 100, 112, 113, 115;
      chronological, 92;
      geographical, hard to distinguish from chronological, 99, 100;
      of plants and animals, 115;
      spatial, anomalies of, 112, 113

    Disuse, 286, 288, 290, 305, 306;
      effects, alleged of, 288

    Divergence, 9, 36, 39, 57

    Divine action, vivifying matter, not a miracle, 187, 188


    Dog, 248, 255, 287

    Dogmatism, evolutionary, 360

    Dolphins, 80

    Domination of intellect and will over organic powers, 235

    Doubt, “scientific,” 198

    Dragonflies, 115

    Drone, 158

    Drosophila, 17, 18, 19, 27, 85, 86;
      melanogaster, 85, 86
        —gradations in eye-color, wing-length and pigmentation of, 85, 86

    Dryopithecus, 270, 310, 311, 323, 345;
      dentition of, 311, rhenanus, teeth, human-like, 323

    Dualism, 174, 198, 199, 231, 233, 234, 351;
      conscious and unconscious, of Descartes, 198;
      hylomorphic, 174, 198, 231;
      of emergence and resistance, 233, 234 _note_;
      of potency and act, 199;
      psychic and physical, of Descartes, 198;
      psychophysical, 198, 231

    Duckbill, 287

    Duplication, 44, 45, 305;
      chromosomal, 44, 45;
      of organs, 305

    Dynamic, 206


    Ear, 302, 304;
      helix of, 304

    Earth columns, 113

    Earthworm, 250, 280

    East Indies, 118

    Echinodermata, 119, 121, 122

    Education, 245, 256, 360;
      responsible, 360

    Educator, modern, 360

    Effect, 176, 177

    Eggs, 134, 156, 158, 159, 160, 255, 259, 278, 283;
      of sea urchin, 159, 160;
      unfertilized, 158;
      reduced, 158;
      unreduced, 158

    Ego, 209, 210, 224;
      the, 209, 210;
      the thinking, 224

    Egoism, 256

    Egypt, 115, 337, 340

    Electrolytes, 168

    Electronic theory, 56

    Electrons, 163, 174

    Elements, radioactive, 180

    Elephants, 111, 115, 315;
      brain of, 315;
      Siberian, sudden extinction of, 111


    Elephas:
      antiquus, 317;
      primigenius, 326

    Embryologists, 136

    Embryology, 141, 275, 276, 308;
      comparative, 276;
      experimental, 141

    Embryonic additions, 276

    Embryos, 276, 278, 279, 280, 281;
      alleged fish-like stage of, 279, 280;
      human, 278, 280, 283;
      mammalian, 281, 283;
      vertebrate, 281

    Emergents, 233 _note_, 234 _note_

    Energy-content, 174

    Emotion, 214, 231, 246, 247;
      functions of sensual appetite, 247;
      a psycho-organic function, 214;
      organic function, 231

    Emperor moth, 267

    Emulsifier, 169

    Emulsion, 139, 168

    Encasement, 3, 4

    Encystment, 162

    End, 254, 259

    Endocrine glands, 292-295, 298;
      not functionless, 295

    Endomixis, 161, 162, 163, 178

    Endoskeletal, 36

    Energy, 172, 174;
      content, 174;
      defined, 172;
      kinetic and potential, 172

    Energy-environment, 168

    Enlightenment, 244, 245

    Entelechy, 172-175, 199, 200, 202, 210;
      definition of, 200;
      Aristotelian sense perverted by Driesch, 172;
      a constant in living units, a variant in inorganic units, 175,
        200, 202, 210;
      common to inorganic units and living organisms, 173, 174;
      consubstantial with matter, 202;
      entitive, not dynamic, 172, 201;
      equivalent to static affinity or structural valence, 173;
      inorganic, 174;
      not an agent but a specifying type, 201

    Entitive, 206

    Environment, 6-9, 12-15, 42, 46, 152, 153, 174, 180-182, 261, 307;
      cosmic, of life, 180, 181;
      internal, 14, 15;
      not a mechanism for molding organisms, 152, 153

    Environmental conditions, 15, 16, 68, 123, 284

    Environmental stimulus, 255

    Enzymes, 143

    Eoanthropus, 320, 322, 323, 342;
      a combination of simian and human remains, 342;
      Dawsoni, 320-323, 342;
      jaw older than cranium, 322

    Eocene, 115, 309, 313, 317;
      Lower, 313;
      Middle, 115

    Eoliths, 154, 321

    Eosin, a sensitizer, 147

    Epeira, 248, 249

    Epicyclic subterfuges, 110

    Epigenesis, 3, 4

    Epiphysis, 292

    Equus, 5, 95, 113;
      American and European, 113;
      asinus, 5;
      caballus, 5

    Erosion, 105, 109

    Eskimo, 330, 338;
      language more complex than English, 338

    Euphemisms, 351

    Europe, 112, 113, 335

    Eurypterids, 117

    Events, 208

    Evolution (active and passive) of life from inorganic matter, 132,
      133

    Evolution (alleged) of human soul, 194, 195, 268, 352

    Evolution (alleged) of human body, 268, 309, 343

    Evolution, xi-xiv, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 17, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 32,
      34, 43, 44, 45, 63, 66, 70, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 86, 90,
      92, 97, 105, 116, 117, 123, 124, 125, 131, 193, 194, 267, 268,
      291, 297, 304, 309, 325, 335, 339, 349-361;
      aspects, moral and social, of, 353-361;
      causes of, 2, 6;
      evidence for, experimental, 3, 7, 8, 17, 28
        —inferential or circumstantial, 3, 8, 125
        —genetical, 8, 18, 28, 29
        —zoological, 8, 34, 66, 76
        —palæontological, 3, 8, 66, 74-76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 92, 97, 105,
           126;
      fact of, 2, 86, 124, 126;
      heliocentric theory not on a par with, xii, xiii, law of, 1, 123;
      monistic basis of, 349-353;
      necessary as hypothesis, not as
    dogma, xi;
      senses of, 2, 74, 75, 131;
      spirit not a product of, 193, 194, 268;
      systems of, 1, 29, 31, 349;
      Augustinian, 32, 74, 75;
      Batesonian, 18-21, 43, 44, 79;
      monophyletic, 69, 70, 116, 117;
      polyphyletic, 70;
      progressive, 44, 45, 116

    Evolutionary thought, crisis in, 3, 29

    Evolutionists, 279

    Exoskeletal, 36

    Expediency, 291

    Experience, 238, 241, 253, 256;
      learning by, 241;
      sensory, 238, 253

    Experimentation, 197

    Eye, 60, 205, 217, 283, 298;
      a corporal element intrinsic to the visual sense, 217;
      an example of convergence, 60;
      constituent part of agent and subject of vision, 217;
      human, defective, 298;
      not replaced by telescope, 205;
      vertebrate type of, 283


    Factorial, complex, 45

    Factors, germinal (genetic, hereditary), 5, 6, 15, 17, 18, 19, 41,
      42, 44, 45, 68, 122, 151, 152, 174, 207, 291
        —diagnosis of, 122
        —fractionation of, 19
        —positive and inhibitive, 19;
      environmental, 6, 41, 42, 68, 151, 152, 174, 207, 291
        —blind, 151, 152
        —of disuse and selection, 207

    Facts, 205;
      former cannot be formulated except with reference to ego, 205;
      in terms denoting or connoting ego, 205;
      intramental and extramental, 205

    “Falsifications” of ancestral records, 276

    Families, 37, 58;
      chemical, 58

    Family-tree, evolutionary, 58

    Fats, 145

    Faulting, 107, 108;
      horizontal and vertical, 108;
      “Low angle,” 107, 108;
      normal, 108

    Fayûm, the, 115

    Feldhofer Grotte, 323, 324, 326

    Felis leo fossilis, 319

    Femur, 313, 316, 317, 324, 327, 330, 341;
      not curved as in Neanderthal type, 341;
      shows curvature, 327, 330

    Ferns, 118

    Fertilization, 42, 157, 159, 160

    Filiation, 75

    Finality, immanent law of, 174

    First causes, 52, 71, 249

    Fishes, 61, 270, 276, 279, 283, 296;
      adult, 279, 283;
      embryo of, 279

    Fish-kidney, 302

    Fission, binary, 156, 161;
      unequal, 156;
      multiple, 156

    Fixism, 4, 32, 52, 69, 70, 72, 75, 119, 124, 268;
      unable to furnish “natural” explanation of homology, 52;
      uniformitarian, 69

    Flat worms, 278

    Flies, 134

    Fluctuants, 87

    Fluctuations, 10, 16, 29, 302, 333;
      cause of, 10, 16;
      instance of, 16;
      non-inheritable, 10, 16

    Fœtal life, special conditions of, 299

    Fœtus, 301

    Fonte de Gaume, 339

    Foot-and-mouth disease, germ of, 183 _note_

    Foramnifera, 118

    Force, 172, 176;
      defined, 172;
      no special vital, 176

    Forehead, 328, 330, 341;
      higher, 328;
      low, 341;
      retreating, 330

    Formaldehyde, 145-148;
      not first step in origin of life nor in photosynthesis, 145-147

    Formaldehyde-hypothesis, 145-148

    Formaldoxime, 148

    Formations, fossiliferous, 105

    Formations, geological, 75, 84, 93, 95, 99, 100, 103, 105, 108, 118,
      119, 126;
      time-value of, 84

    Formed bodies of cell, self-perpetuating, 168

    Formose, 145

    Forms, 246, 275, 276, 312;
      fossil, sequence of, 276
        —intermediate, 312;
      grammatical, 246;
      intermediate, none between man and apes, 275

    Fortuitous result, 249

    Fossil bones, 319

    Fossil facts, 311

    Fossiliferous stratification, universality of, 102

    Fossil remains, human, 213

    Fossils, 3, 81, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 107,
      110, 111, 112, 118, 309, 317, 334, 335;
      dated by theory of descent, 334;
      evade experimental breeding tests, 87, 88, 334;
      no invariable sequence of, 99, 102;
      reconstructed, 88;
      still “medals of Creation,” 94;
      time-value problematic, 98, 100, 101, 107, 110, 111, 112, 335

    Foxhall Man, 309, 341, 342;
      alleged to be Tertiary, 309, 341, 342;
      flint implements prove intelligence of, 342;
      no fossils of, 342

    Freedom, human, 232;
      of will, 232

    Free will, a myth, 360, 361

    Frescoes, 339, 340;
      polychrome, 340;
      primeval, 339, 340

    Frog, 64, 281;
      tadpole, 281

    Fruit-flies, eyeless, 306;
      vestigial, 306;
      wingless, 306

    Functions, 215, 216, 241, 276;
      extrinsically dependent on organism, 215, 216;
      sensitivo-nervous, 241;
      superorganic, 215

    Fundulus, 62

    Future life, 354, 361;
      a myth, 361;
      of retribution, 354


    Gametes, 13, 14, 25, 156, 157, 158, 159;
      production of, 25;
      specialization of, for kinetic and trophic functions, 157, 158

    Ganoids, 119, 120

    Gar pike, 119

    Gastrula, 159

    Gelation, 168

    Gemmation, 156

    Geneology, 95, 113, 348;
      hypothetical, 113;
      of horse, 95;
      of man, 348

    Geneological tree of man, 348

    Genera, 3, 4, 37, 78, 80, 81, 86, 92, 119, 312, 313;
      fossil, 3, 4, 78, 80, 81, 86, 312, 313

    Generalization, power of, 261

    Generation, univocal and equivocal, 68, 69

    Genes, 17, 18, 19, 25, 27, 42, 43, 44, 45, 79, 141, 162;
      inhibitive, 18, 19, 42, 79, 162

    Genetic cellular continuity, law of, no exception to, 163, 164

    Genetic continuity, 142, 160, 165, 311;
      fivefold law of, 142;
      law of, 136, 160
        —may not prevail in submicroscopic world, 165

    Geneticists, 89, 334

    Genetics, 2, 3, 24, 36, 46 _note_, 56, 82, 88, 89, 121, 126, 141,
      302, 305, 334

    Genital distrophy, 294

    Genotype, 5, 41, 43, 123

    Geodesists, 114

    Geological column, 106, 117, 125, 126

    Geological record, 72, 80-84, 92, 106, 111, 120, 125, 126, 127, 297;
      damaged, 92;
      enigmatic, 126, 127;
      incomplete, 72, 80, 106;
      incompleteness assumed to explain absence of intermediates, 83;
      time-value presupposes its completeness, 82, 83, 111

    Geologists, 100, 102, 113, 114, 117, 125, 181

    Geology, xiv, 98, 107, 111, 117;
      can only prove local order of succession, 111

    Germ, 13, 155, 156, 182;
      multicellular and unicellular, 155, 156

    Germ cells, 13, 14, 16, 156, 157, 163

    Germ plasm, 14, 25, 26, 41, 42, 45, 265, 303

    Germ tract, 14

    Germinal constitution, 87, 123

    Gerrymandering, geological, 116

    Giantism, 44, 294

    Gibbon, 271, 274, 310, 314, 316

    Gibraltar skull, 322

    Gill arches and clefts, 278, 279

    Gills, 70, 279;
      permanent, 279

    Glacial, 104 _note_, 289, 320, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332, 334;
      deposits, 104 _note_;
      epoch, 320, 332, 334
        —middle of, 332
        —close of, 332;
      period, 289, 327, 329, 330, 331
        —fourth or last, 327, 329
        —close of, 331

    Glaciation, 290

    Glacier, continental, 287, 289

    Glacier National Park, 108

    Glaciologists, 289

    Glands, 296, 304;
      muciparous, 296;
      supernumerary mammary, 304

    Glaurus overthrust, 107

    Globigerina, 118

    Glucose, 145

    Gluteal region, 273

    Glyceraldehyde, 145

    God, 180, 351;
      admitted as hypothetical, 351;
      Author of Life, 180;
      impossible to prove existence of, 351

    Golgi bodies, 140

    Gonads, interstitial cells of, 292

    Gondwana Land, 114, 115

    Gorilla, 51, 270, 271, 272, 273, 314;
      face of, 271;
      skull of, 271

    Gradation, 82, 87, 315;
      morphological, 82;
      of forms, 87;
      series, 315;
      temporal succession, 82

    Gradual approximation, dogma of, 110

    Grammar, “scientific” revision of, 205

    Graptolites, 78, 100

    Great Peacock Moth, 260

    Grey Worm, 246

    Grignard reaction, 209

    Groups, 335

    Gryphaea, 79

    Guest, 49, 53


    Habit, 8, 265, 266, 267, 291, 328, 333, 334;
      automatisms of, alleged to be source of instinct, 267;
      body-modifying, 333
        —of squatting, 328;
      modern, 334

    Habitat, 99, 112, 182

    Hæmoglobin, 148

    Hallucinations, 235

    Hallux, human, 50;
      simian, 50

    Halogens, 58

    Haptophores, 57

    Heidelberg Man, 318, 319, 320;
      jaw anomalous, 319, 320

    Hen, 259, 260


    Heredity, 5, 39, 54, 88;
      alleged cause of homology, 39;
      biparental, 5

    Heterogametes, 158

    Hererogamy, 158

    Hererozygous, 25, 26, 27

    Histogenesis, 59

    History, 337, 338, 339;
      contradicts evolutionary assumption, 337, 338;
      dawn of, 337;
      proves primitive man to have been civilized, not barbaric, 339

    Homœomorphy, heterogenetic, 79

    Homology, 8, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 51, 54, 59, 60, 61, 63,
      64, 65, 77, 268, 276, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 292, 298, 308;
      definition of, 35;
      anatomical, 276, 279, 284, 308;
      application to man, 34, 51, 268;
      disguised by external diversity, 48;
      embryological, 48, 278, 279, 284, 308;
      evolutionary argument from, 34, 47 _note_, 48, 54, 63, 64, 65, 268,
        292;
      genetic explanation of, 39, 40, 47

    Homologous organs, 35, 61

    Homo neanderthalensis, 333

    Homo primigenius, 323, 330, 333, 334, 341, 342;
      a variety, not a distinct species, 342;
      same as Homo Mousteriensis, 330;
      type, fluctional nature of, 341

    Homo sapiens, 325, 330, 332, 333, 340, 342, 345;
      only human species, 342

    Homozygous, 25, 27

    Horizon, 93, 94, 125, 310, 335;
      level, 335;
      stratigraphical, 93, 94;
      stratigraphic, 125, 310, 335

    Hormones 14, 292, 294, 295

    Horse, 5, 78, 81, 82, 304, 332

    Host, 49, 53

    Hottentots, 325

    Human, 224, 227, 256, 335, 341, 342, 345, 352;
      fossils all belong to the species, Homo sapiens, 345;
      mind
        —alleged to be of animal extraction, 352
        —reflects, 224
        —spiritual, 227;
      reason, 256;
      remains more ancient than formations in which they are found, 335

    Human body, 267, 304, 345;
      evolution of, 267;
      ignorance and uncertainty regarding origin, 345;
      not a mosaic of heterogenetic organs, 304;
      origin of, 345

    Humanization of brute, subjective, 238

    Humanizers of brute, Darwinian, 263

    Human language attests reality of ego, 205

    Human nature, 360;
      Darwinian conception of, 360
        —evils of popularizing it, 360

    Human Soul, 193, 194, 202, 203, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 225, 231,
      232, 233, 267, 268;
      could only originate by creation, 267;
      creation of, 193, 267;
      discarnate, 202, 214
        —not a complete person or nature, 202;
      exists for its own sake, 215;
      immortal, 193;
      intrinsically independent of organism, 202, 215, 225;
      not an emergent of matter, 194
        —alone active in superorganic functions, 202, 214, 216;
      same as mind, 203;
      simplicity of, 210
        —not to be confounded with spirituality of, 210;
      spirituality of, 193, 203, 214, 215, 216, 231, 232, 233, 233 _note_,
        268
        —proofs of, 214, 215, 216, 231
        —from rational thought and volition, 231, 232, 233, 233 _note_;
      substantiality of, 210;
      underivable from matter, 268

    Hunter, life of, 328, 330

    Hyaloplasm, 139, 141

    Hybridism, constant, 25

    Hybridization, 16, 26, 88;
      interspecific and intervarietal, 26

    Hybrids, 4, 5, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 84, 85, 87;
      interspecific, sterile, 4, 5, 26, 27;
      invarietal, 19, 20, 27, 28;
      as intermediates, 84, 85

    Hydrang, 44

    Hydrogen, 175;
      liquid, 184 _note_

    Hydroglissia, 248

    Hydrosol, 169

    Hydrosphere, 113, 181

    Hydrotheca, 78

    Hydroxylamine, 148

    Hyrozoa erroneously classified, 122

    Hylobatic, 314, 316, 317, 318;
      type, 318

    Hylomorphic dualism, 198

    Hylomorphic vitalism, does not discourage experimental analysis of
      life, 201

    Hylomorphism, 174

    Hypogamete, 158

    Hypertrophy, 289, 290, 294;
      due to use, 289

    Hypophysis, 292, 293, 294, 295;
      not functionless, 294


    Ice Age, 98

    Ichthyosaurs, 80

    Igneous masses, not basal, 125

    Illusions, 235

    Imageless thought, sense of term, 219

    Imagery, 214, 215, 218, 219, 220, 221, 228, 229, 241, 243;
      a function of the living cerebral cortex, 221;
      association of, 241;
      cerebral, 218;
      concrete, 220, 221;
      different in different persons, 219;
      distributed by abnormal state of cortex, 221;
      motor, 214;
      neurographic, 243;
      represents only superficial and exterior properties, 219;
      rigid, correlated with metabolic process at work in cerebral
        cortex, 228, 229;
      rigidly proportioned underlying neurogram, 215;
      sensible, presupposed by thought and volition, 221;
      shows corresponding degrees of integrity and intensity, 229;
      sporadic and fragmentary, 229;
      tactile, 214

    Imagination, 213, 221, 222, 228, 229, 231;
      cerebral sense, 222, 228, 229;
      its normal exercise depends on physiological normality of cerebral
        cortex, 221;
      organic function, 231

    Imaginative activity, 229

    Immortality, considered an anodyne, 358

    Immunity, 57

    Immutibility, 50, 52

    Impenetrability, 225;
      of matter, law of, 225;
      reflection opposed to, 225

    Improvised structures, 281 _note_, 283

    Incubation, purposeless, 259

    Independent Assortment, Law of, 27

    Index fossils, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111,
      112, 335, 339;
      basis of stratigraphic correlation, 93, 94;
      an arbitrary and elastic criterion, 94, 95;
      final court of appeal, 93, 96, 97, 335;
      in conflict with physical and stratigraphic evidence, 100, 104-112

    India, 114

    Indian dialects, work of philosophers, 338

    Indian Ocean, 114, 115

    Individuation, 220, 224;
      concrete, 224

    Indo-Europeans, 334

    Industry, Mousterian, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331;
      Acheulean, 331;
      Aurignacian, 331

    Inertia, defined, 174

    Infusion, 193;
      not supernatural, 193;
      of spirit into matter, not a miracle, 193

    Infantilism, 294

    Inference, 221, 240;
      mediate, 221

    Infundibulum, 293

    Infusoria, supposed abiogenetic origin of, 134

    Inheritance, 2, 8, 9, 24, 27, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 56, 57, 62, 63,
      64, 75, 160, 294, 320;
      definition of, 41;
      biparental, 160;
      chemical theory of, 57;
      laws of, 2, 24, 27, 42;
      similifying process, 40, 45
        —not only one, 56
        —also said to diversify, 63, 64;
      variable, 75

    Inhibition, 242, 252

    Initial vivification, 133;
      act, 133;
      of matter required a formative, 133;
      rather than creative, 133

    Inquilines, 46

    Insectivora, 275

    Insects, 225, 307;
      evolutionary diminuendo of, 116;
      wingless, 307

    Instinct, 238, 240, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 256, 257, 259,
      263, 264, 265, 267, 291, 343, 361;
      defined, 255, 256;
      James’ definition of,
    249;
      according to external circumstances, 250-252;
      according to physiological state of organism, 250;
      adjustment of, 250, 252;
      constructive, 251;
      effective only under normal circumstances 258;
      evolutionary origin of, 267
        —improbable, 267;
      fixity of, 258;
      improbability of, 267;
      its regulatory principal sense, 254;
      not gradually acquired, 263, 264;
      not intelligence, 254;
      only slightly undefiable, 256;
      origin of, 263;
      psychic regulation of, 249;
      requires no apprenticeship, 256;
      teleology of, 249;
      telic, 259;
      variability of, 250

    Instinctive acts, 256

    Instruction, 244, 245

    Instrumentation, 197

    Intellect, 220, 221, 224, 226-230, 339;
      active, 220, 221;
      activity of, 221;
      cognitive, 220, 221;
      conscious of its own operations, 226, 227;
      indirectly dependent on physiological condition of cortex, 221;
      its immaterial nature, 224;
      objectively dependent on organic activity of imagination, 221;
      not bound to material organ, 226;
      not debilitated by intense thinking, 227, 228;
      not incapacitated but invigorated by intense thinking, 228;
      not regulated by physiological vicissitude, 229;
      not subject to metabolic laws, 230;
      rooted in a spiritual principle, 227;
      superorganic nature of, 227

    Intellectual, 228, 229, 230;
      activity may reach highest points of concentration and intensity
        without involving commensurate fatigue on part of organism, 228

    Intelligence, 239-241, 243, 245, 247, 248, 249, 254, 256, 257, 259,
      262, 263, 267, 329, 330, 340, 343, 350;
      definition of, 239;
      autonomous, 259;
      a generalizing and abstracting power, 257;
      “bestial,” 245, 247, 257;
      conscious, 240;
      deceptive semblance of, 240, 241;
      Divine, 249;
      etymology of, 239;
      finite, 249;
      genuine, 240, 241;
      infinite, 248, 249;
      incapable of being evolved from matter, 267;
      inherent, 249, 256, 259, 267;
      of worker bees, 267;
      subjective or inherent, 248, 249;
      used to denote power of profiting by experience, 239, 240

    Intensity, 227, 230;
      does not increase in same proportion as intensity of stimulus, 227;
      may reach maximum with involving corresponding fatigue, 230;
      of thought does not follow fluctuations of neural metabolism, 230

    Interactionism, 206

    Interaction, three types of, 175

    Interglacial period, 329;
      last, 329

    Intergradation, 87

    Intergradence, 84-87;
      may indicate hybridism, 84, 85;
      no argument for common ancestry, 84-86;
      of mutants genetically independent, 85, 86

    Intergradents, 85, 86;
      hybrid, 85, 86;
      mutational, 85, 86;
      specific, 85, 86

    Interjections, negligible part of human language, 247

    Interpretation, ontogenetic, an alternative for phylogenetic, 302

    Intervals, 105;
      lost, unrepresented by deposition, erosion or disturbance, 105

    Intravitous staining, 143

    Introspection, 204, 205, 212, 225;
      does not create personality, 212;
      impossible to a material organ, 225

    Intrusions, igneous, 125

    Invertebrate, 293, 294;
      stage, 293, 294

    Involution, 160

    Iron, 148

    Irrational man unknown either to history or prehistory, 340

    Islands, 153

    Islets of Langerhans, 292

    Isobares, 172

    Isogametes, 157

    Isogamy, 157

    Isomers, 173

    Isostacy, 113, 114

    Isostatic equilibrium, 114


    Jacob’s Cavern, in Missouri, 340

    Java, 313

    Jaw, 331, 340;
      lower, 331;
      lower missing, 340

    Jimson Weed, 21, 22

    Judgment, 207, 220

    Jupiter, 184

    Jura, 103

    Jura, European, 96, 106

    Jurassic, 117


    Kena Kakoe, 346-348;
      extinct volcano, 346

    Kidney, 280-283;
      adult, 282;
      embryonic, 283;
      fish, 280, 282;
      mammalian, 280;
      permanent, 281, 284

    Kiluea, observatory at volcano of, 346

    Kingdom, animal, 249

    Kleistogamy, 159

    Knowledge, 190, 191, 221, 256;
      conceptional, 221;
      experimental, 256;
      technical, absence of, does not always disqualify, 190, 191

    Krapina, 330, 332;
      type of, 330


    Laboratory syntheses differ from those occurring in organism, 150

    La Chapelle-aux-Saints remains, 232, 330-333

    Lamarckism, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 24, 29, 46 _note_, 53, 67, 78, 79,
      263, 265, 266, 291;
      recent revival of, 266

    Lamps, 340

    La Naulette remains, 326, 332;
      alleged to be distinct species, 332;
      absence of chin, 326;
      allied to Neanderthal type, 326

    Land bridges, 112

    Language, 245, 246, 247, 330, 338, 339;
      descriptive, conceptual and articulate, 246, 247;
      first step in formation of, 245;
      formation of, presupposes an artist as great as his works, 339;
      human, 246, 247;
      indicative, emotional and articulate, 247, 256;
      of animals, 245,
    246, 247;
      of savage races point to former civilization, 330

    La Quina, industry of, 331

    Law, definition of, 166, 167

    Law of Weber, 227

    “Learning” of animals, 243

    Le Moustier, 329, 332;
      remains, 322, 326, 329, 330

    Lemuroids, 275

    Lemurs, 312

    Lepontine Alps, 109

    Lethals, balanced, 25-28

    Lias, 119

    Liberalism, 257

    Life, 133, 142, 144, 145, 154, 165, 176, 177, 181, 182, 186, 187,
      188, 203;
      organic, definition of, 176, 177;
      active cause of extramundane, 181, 182;
      alleges submicroscopical units of, 165;
      Author of, 186, 187;
      conscious, 203;
      initiation of, not a creation, 186, 187
        —not a miracle, 187, 188
        —not supernatural, 187, 188;
      integrating and formative principle of, 144;
      metabolic, sentient and rational, 203;
      more than a chemical problem, 142;
      origin of, 133
      chemical hypothesis, 145
        —not a problem of translation, 182;
      spontaneous origin of, 154

    Life-cycle, 69, 112, 138, 155, 156, 160

    Lima, 118

    Limit of microscopic vision, 140

    Limulus polyphemus, 119

    Lingula, 118

    Linin, 139

    Links, 84, 86, 312, 313, 315, 323, 341, 342;
      connecting, 315, 323
        —between men and apes, 312;
      connecting, so called are (a) human, (b) simian, (c) mixed
        remains, 342;
      generic and ordinal, insufficient, 86;
      “missing,” 341;
      specific, minimum, 86;
      transitional, 84
        —none between man and apes, 313

    Linkage groups, 17

    Lithosphere, 113, 114, 181

    Litopterna, 78

    Living beings derive their matter from inorganic world, 123


    Living matter, 143, 171;
      its uniqueness, a simple fact, 171;
      maintains its specific type, 143

    Lizards, 292

    Loess, 326, 327

    Logarithmic spiral, 248

    Locomotion, mechanism of, 270

    Logic, 198, 220, 245;
      of scepticism, 198;
      of thought, escapes our imagery, 220;
      saltatory, 245

    Loss, 352, 353;
      of artistic taste by Darwin, 352, 353

    Lucina, 118

    Lumpers, 37

    Lumping, 121

    Lychnis diurna and vespertina, 84

    Lycosa, 247, 263

    Lycosids, 247, 263-265

    Lymphatic glands, stimulated by digestive process, 301

    Lymphatic system, adjuncts of, 300

    Lymphatic vessels, 300

    Lymph nodules, 300

    Lymphocytes, 300, 301

    Lymphoid cells, follicle, 299


    Macrogamete, 157, 158

    Macrosomes, 139

    Madeira, 306

    Magalenians, 332

    Maggots, 134

    Magnesium, 146, 147, 148

    Mammal, 46, 59, 60, 72, 73, 100, 115, 116, 275, 280, 282, 283,
      296, 304, 324, 342;
      age of, 342;
      early, 324;
      evolutionary “crescendo” of, 116

    Mammalian stock, 82

    Mammoth, 91, 115, 326

    Man, 192, 193, 212, 236, 271, 290, 340, 341, 343;
      bestial, 340;
      brutalization of, 236;
      destitute of instincts, 343;
      face of, 27;
      indications of his physical presence always accomplished by signs
        of intelligence, 340;
      left defenceless by nature, 343;
      modern, 341;
      more than a decaying organism, 212;
      never found apart from evidence of his intelligence, 343;
      physically helpless, 343;
      skull of, 271;
      unique
    in his soul, not in his body, 192, 193

    Mantids, 247

    Marattia, 118

    Mars, 184

    Marsoulas, caves of, 339

    Marsupial, 114, 296

    Mason bee, 251, 254, 260

    Mastodons, 115, 340;
      “prehistoric,” engraving of, 340

    Material, 193, 194, 207, 214;
      functions, 214;
      organism coöperates intrinsically in organic substrate, 224;
      sense of term, 193, 194;
      substance, inaccessible to senses, 207

    Materialism, 178, 199, 212, 214, 236, 352, 355, 357, 358, 361;
      a purely academic philosophy, 211;
      attempt to gloss over, 207;
      Darwinian, 236;
      evolutionary, 360, 361;
      its destructive effect on religion, ideals and morality, 361;
      parasitic, 358

    Materialistic, 207, 351-356, 357;
      philosophy ignores active rôle of mind, 207;
      view of human nature unnatural and intolerable—complete and
        consistent application impossible, 357;
      view make morality unthinkable—antisocial, 351-356

    Material organ cannot be effected by the supersensible, 222

    Matterhorn, 109

    Materialist, 230

    Materialists, many evolutionists are avowed, 351

    Matter, 71, 173, 174, 179, 181, 186, 194, 199, 200, 204, 210;
      a constant in inorganic units, 175;
      a source of indeterminism, 71;
      a variant in living organisms, 175;
      constant in chemical reactions, variant in metabolism, 199, 200,
        210;
      does not coincide with sum total of reality, 186;
      initial vivification of, due to supermaterial agency, 179;
      inorganic, 181;
      not more real than mind, 204;
      notions of, 200;
      ponderable and imponderable, 194

    Maturity, 155

    Mauer, 318

    Mayflies, 115

    Means, 254, 259

    Measles, invisible germ of, 169

    Mechanics, 350

    Mechanism, 153, 154, 171, 179, 250;
      environmental, 153;
      teleological but simple, 153, 154

    Mechanist, 58, 200, 204, 351;
      many evolutionists are avowed, 351

    Mechanistic universe, 350

    Media, 136

    Medium, vibrant, 213

    Meganeura monyi Brogn, 115

    Meiosis, 25, 42, 157

    Melia, 261

    Melocrinidae, 92

    Membrana nictitans, 296, 297;
      not functionless, 297

    Memory, 213, 238, 242, 243;
      associative, 238;
      sensitive, 242, 243;
      sentiment, 238, 242

    Men, 318, 325, 328, 329;
      and apes, link between, 318
      —intermediate between, 318;
      fossil, 325;
      of Krapina, 325, 328, 329

    Mendelism, 3, 24, 25, 26, 28, 42, 46, _note_, 57, 349

    Mental protuberance, 272

    Mental states, 205

    Merosthenic, 270

    Mesonephric duct, 281, 282

    Mesonephros, 280, 281, 282, 284

    Mesozoic, 73, 104 _note_, 118, 119, 335;
      lowest series of, 119;
      middle system of, 119

    Metabolism, 57, 139, 210, 211, 227, 228;
      destructive and constructive, 137

    Metagenesis, 122

    Metamorphosis, 123, 283

    Metamorphism, 89, 126;
      of rocks, 126

    Metanephros, 280, 282

    Metaphysical, 351

    Metaphysics, 152, 185, 231, 349, 350, 351, 352;
      Epicurian, 152;
      monistic, 349;
      vs. physical science, 352

    Metaphytes, 136

    Metazoa, 118

    Metazoans, 136, 170, 284

    Meteorites, 182, 183


    Metista, 5, 59, 136, 156, 157, 159, 163

    Microgamete, 158

    Microns, 183

    Microörganism, 169, 183

    Microsomes, 139

    Migrations, 72, 76, 112

    Millennium, 358

    Mimicry, 246

    Mind, 195, 196, 198, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 222, 223, 249;
      active and passive, 207;
      apprehends material objects under dematerialized form, 223;
      a substance, 207;
      connotation of, 203;
      cannot utilize coöperation of material organ in abstract
        conceptions, 223;
      frame of, 211;
      human, 249;
      of man alleged to be of animal extraction, 195, 196;
      phenomenalistic notion of, 209;
      science of, 197;
      states of, not less real than states of matter, 204;
      noumenal, 198

    Minimum, 238, 349, 350;
      an empirical rule, not an axiom, 350;
      principle of, 238, 349, 350

    Miocene, 95, 310, 323;
      Upper, 95

    Miracle, definition of, 187

    Miraculous, 69, 351-356, 357

    Mitachondria, 140

    Mitosis, 59, 138, 139, 155

    Modification, 7, 41, 42, 45, 46, 51, 77, 80, 123, 307, 327, 334;
      adaptive, 45, 46, 51, 80;
      environmentally-induced, 123;
      heritable, 42, 45, 307;
      non-inheritable, 334;
      parallel, 77, 80;
      product of variation, 41;
      of specific magnitude, 7;
      of varietal magnitude, 7

    Moeritherium, 115

    Molars, 313, 322;
      teeth, 322

    Mole, 36, 80, 291, 305

    Mole-cricket, 36, 80

    Molecule, 57, 58, 143, 144, 162, 167, 170, 175, 202, 203;
      biophoric, 57;
      complex, 202;
      complex endothermic, 162;
      living and dead, 143;
      structure of, 58

    Molluscs, 117, 118, 119, 123, 278, 283

    Mongolian, 324, 325, 334;
      cossack, 324


    Monism, 350, 351, 352, 359;
      destructive of culture, spirituality, morality, 350;
      fail to motivate Christian morality, 358;
      makes God immanent in world, 359;
      makes will law unto itself, 359;
      materialistic, 350, 352

    Monist, 350

    Monistic view vitiates artistic taste, 352

    Monkey, 270, 275

    Monomolecules, 165;
      are not units, 165

    Monotremeta, 296

    Montana, 107 _note_

    Moral consequences of failure to discriminate, 360

    Morality, 354, 360;
      evolutionary conception of, 360

    Motor-verbalist, 219

    Morphogenetic forces, 58, 284;
      Laws, uniform, 284

    Morphogeny, organic, 298

    Morphology, embryonic and adult, 284

    Mountain columns, 113

    Mountains, 113, 153

    Mouse, brain of, 315

    Moustier Cave, 329

    Movements, 241, 242;
      reflex, 242;
      spontaneous, 241, 242.

    Mule, 5

    Müllerian duct, 281

    Multimolecule, 58, 144, 162, 165, 166, 168, 170, 179;
      are not units, 165;
      colloidal, 166;
      crystalloidal, 165, 166;
      not a link between molecules and cells, 179;
      structure of, 58

    Murder, as an experiment, 359

    Muscles, 298

    Mutants, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 87;
      chromosomal, 17, 21, 22, 23
      —balanced and unbalanced, 21, 22
      —balance, odd and even, 22
      —status as “new species” not established, 23;
      factorial, 17, 18, 19, 20;
      pseudo, 17, 27

    Mutation, 16, 16 _note_, 26, 42, 86, 88, 122, 265, 303, 305, 307,
      334;
      changes of loss, 18, 43;
      chromosomal, 17, 42, 44, 45, 88;
      factorial,
    19, 20, 42, 44, 45, 88, 305, 334
      —a varietal, not a specific change; fortuitous, 265;
      heritable, 16, 303, 334;
      pseudo, 17, 42, 88

    Mutation, 16, 20, 46;
      Theory, 16, 20

    Myxœdema, 294


    Nahun beds, 95

    Natural explanations, 69, 70

    Naturalism borrows moral standards, 358

    Natural process, 69, 74

    Natural science, 186

    Natural Selection, 9, 11, 12, 13, 29, 30, 152, 153, 305, 306, 350;
      a theory of chance, 11, 350;
      has no positive efficacy, 153;
      theory has impeded progress of science, 13

    Nature, 151, 185;
      inorganic impotent to duplicate even laboratory synthesis, not
        to speak of vital phenomena, 151
      —lacks means of self-vivification, 185;
      not automatic, 151

    Nautilus, 118, 283

    Neanderthal, 314, 315, 317, 325, 326, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335,
      337, 342;
      bone, show some racial characteristics, 329;
      cranium, 331, 332
      —capacity underestimated, 333, not ancestral to Cro-Magnon type, 335;
      not more ancient than modern type, 337;
      remains, 325, 332
      —human, 325;
      skull, cranial capacity of, 314, 325;
      type of, 330, 332

    Neanderthal Man, 314, 315, 317, 323, 326, 341, 342;
      distinctly human, 342;
      a dwarf, 314;
      No. 1, 323, 326;
      divided opinion on, 324;
      No. 2, skeleton, 326
      —skull missing, 326

    Neanderthal type, 326, 330, 332, 333, 334, 336;
      alleged to be distinct species, 332;
      alleged to be more ancient, 334;
      degenerate, 336;
      differences, 334;
      race, 334;
      no longer considered oldest type, 336

    Neanderthaloid, 328, 333, 341, 343;
      characteristics occur in modern skulls, 333;
      race, 343;
      skulls, modern features occur in, 333

    Nebular, hypothesis, 181

    Negroes, 334

    Neo-Darwinism, 10

    Neo-Kantian, 203, 219;
      phenomenalist, 203

    Neo-Lamarkism, 10, 12, 15

    Neolithic, 332

    Neontologists, 76

    Neotoma, 307

    Neo-vitalism, 171, 201, 202;
      postulates a unique force, an agent “sui generis,” 171

    Neo-vitalists, 58, 200, 201;
      regard vital principle as force “sui generis,” a unique agent,
        200, 201

    Nephridia, 280

    Neptune, 184

    Nerve plasm, 265

    Neurograms, 213, 214, 222;
      extended, 222;
      imprinted on neurons, 213, 214;
      objects capable of stimulating an extended organ, 222;
      objects of, endowed with concrete properties, 222;
      proportioned to stimuli, 222;
      physical basis of imagery, 214, 222

    Neurons, 213, 222, 350;
      sensory and central, 213;
      utility of sensory, 222

    New names for fossil duplicates of modern species, 119, 120

    New Stone Age, prehistoric, 337

    Nihilism, philosophical, 350

    Nitrogen snow, 183 _note_;
      reddish light of, 184 _note_

    Non-cosmopolitan species, 283

    Non-enents, 309

    Non-opposability of human hallux, 50

    Non-phenomenon or substance, 209

    Non-specialist, when disqualified and when not, 189-191

    Non-viable, 25

    Novelty, emergent, 350

    Nuclear components, self-perpetuating, 139

    Nuclear reorganization, 155, 160, 161, 162;
      a restorative process,
    155, 161;
      means of rejuvenation, 161;
      none in somatogenic reproduction, 160;
      periodic, 162;
      primitive, 162

    Nuclear sap, 139

    Nucleus, 137, 138, 161;
      cellular, 138;
      daughter, 161;
      distributed, 138;
      germinal, 161;
      parent, 161

    Nucula, 118

    Nutrition, a reflexive activity, 175


    Object, 217, 223, 224;
      concurrence of, extrinsic, 217;
      indicated spiritual nature of mind, 224;
      (material) abstract, made of representation, 224;
      of abstract thought, incapable of making impressions or leaving
        records on material receptors, 223

    Occipital foramen, 272

    Occiput, broad, 332

    Ocean beds, elevation of, 114, 115

    Ocean bottoms, 113-115

    Ocean floor, 115

    Octopus, 64

    Œnothera, 16, 17, 27, 28;
      gigas, 17;
      Lamarkiana, 27, 28

    Œsophagus, invertebrate, 293

    Old Stone Age, 332, 337, 339, 340;
      class of, 332;
      prehistoric, 337

    Oligocene, 309, 317

    Onion-coat, 99, 102, 103, 109;
      a convenient device, 109;
      Alpine, 109;
      hypothesis of, 102, 103
      —“transcendental form of,” 102;
      lithological and biological, 102;
      mineral envelopes, 102;
      theory, 99

    Ontogeny, 39, 79, 275, 285

    Oölites, 79

    Opisthonephros, 280, 282

    Opposability of simian hallux, 50

    Opposition, 218, 219, 234, 235;
      between imagery and thought, 218, 219;
      between psycho-organic and spiritual activity, 234, 235;
      entails distinction, 235

    Orang-utan, 33, 271

    Orders, 37

    Organ, 222, 226, 276, 286, 287, 288, 292, 298, 300, 303;
      embryonic, 276;
      functionless, 286, 287, 292;
      incapable of reflection, 226;
      material, cannot be effected by the supersensible, 222;
      nascent and rudimentary, 287, 288;
      distinction, arbitrary, 288;
      reduced, 286, 287;
      vestigial, 292, 300, 303;
      useless, 286

    Organelles, 139

    Organic activity, rigidly regulated by metabolism, 228

    Organic functions, 203, 213, 215;
      agent and subject of, not soul alone, 203;
      not only functions in man, 215

    Organic substances, 149, 150;
      laboratory synthesis of, 149, 150;
      not to confounded with living or organized substances, 150

    Organisms, 154, 155, 163, 201, 202, 203, 246;
      a product of the law of Complexity, 167;
      multicellular, 155;
      none subcellular, 154;
      of some species, syntonic, 246;
      participates as coefficient factor in physiological and sensory
        functions, 203;
      soul-informed, 203;
      unicellular, 154, 163

    Organization, 143, 150;
      elude art of chemist, 150

    Order, 209;
      ideal, phenomenalists confuse it with real order of things, 209;
      real, of things, 209

    Ordivician, 111

    Orientation of forces, centrifugal and centripetal, 179

    Origins, 71, 83, 161, 220, 221, 360;
      biparental, 161;
      common, 81
      —of man and brute, 360;
      organic, need not be unified in space but should be in time, 71;
      of concepts, 220, 221

    Orneau, river, 326;
      valley, 327

    Ornithorhynchus, 59, 287

    Ornithosaurs, 80

    Orthogenesis, 6, 7, 46 _note_, 53;
      cannot explain adaptation, 53

    Osmia, 252

    Outcrop, 93

    Overthrust, 98, 107, 110;
      a triumph of modern research, 107

    Ovists, 160

    Oximes, 148

    Oxychromatin, 139

    Oysters, 79


    Palæobotany, 117

    Palæolithic, 327, 328, 330, 333, 343;
      artists, 343;
      human remains, 330;
      man, 328, 333

    Palæontological argument, 66-127;
      defects in, 75, 124;
      in abstract, 66-75;
      in concrete, 75-127;
      a theoretical construction, 126

    Palæontological evidence, 3, 8, 66, 74-80, 83, 89, 97, 105, 107,
      124, 311, 312;
      imperfection of, 89;
      rated as outweighing physical evidence, 97, 107

    Palæontological pedigrees, 3, 76, 78, 81, 82, 84, 126;
      definition of, 81;
      of horse, 76, 78, 81, 82, 126;
      camel, 126,
      and elephant, 126

    Palæontologists, 76, 86, 87, 88, 91, 119, 190, 310, 313, 321, 334,
      344;
      incompetent to decide questions of specific origin or
        distinction, 87, 88, 89, 334

    Palæontology, 3, 82, 83, 88, 92, 95, 96, 114, 119, 126, 195, 311,
      312, 313, 344;
      facts of, 83, 195;
      ignorant concerning origin of man, 344;
      orthodox, 95, 96, 119

    Palæotherium, 76

    Palæozoic, 73, 108, 117, 118, 124 _note_, 125, 335

    Palingenesis, 277, 288

    Pan-Pacific Conferences, 344, 346

    Panspermia, 182

    Parallelism, 57, 58;
      _vs._ divergence, 57

    Paramœcium, 138, 161, 178;
      aurelia, 138

    Parasites, 46, 53

    Parasitism, 52

    Parathyroids, 292

    Parent cell, 156

    Parthenogenesis, 158, 159, 160, 162;
      artificial, 159, 160
      —not violation of law of genetic continuity, 159, 160

    Pathology, 141

    Patient, 176, 177

    Pear-tree, 6, 88

    Pebrine, 44

    Pecking instinct of chicks, 256

    Pecten, 118

    Pedigrees, of genera, 84

    Pelopæus, 260

    Penguin, wings of, 287

    Pentacrinus, 119

    Perception, 208, 212, 253;
      an act of, 208;
      of personality, not personality, 212;
      sensory, 253

    Percepts, objective, 235;
      sensory, 219

    Periodicity, 56;
      of elements, 56;
      families of elements, 56

    Peri Psyches, Aristotle’s, 196, 197, 215

    Perissodactyla, 78

    Permian, 104, 118

    Persistence, 116, 119, 123;
      cannot be subsumed under same principles as transmutations, 123;
      its significance intensified by current theories, 123;
      of types, 119;
      of unchanged types, 116

    Persistent types, generic and specific, 123

    Personal identity, sense of, 212

    Personality, 205, 211, 212, 238;
      a unitary and uniform reality, 212;
      alternating, 211;
      based on unchanging principle, 212;
      perception of, 212

    Pessimism, 355, 357

    Petit-Puymoyen, industry of, 331

    Phæophytin, 147

    Pharyngeal arches and clefts, 278, 279

    Phase, reversal of, 168, 169

    Phenomena, 208, 209;
      phenomenalists’ substantialization of, 209

    Phenomenalism, 207, 208, 211, 212;
      a purely academic philosophy, 211;
      identifies mind with “thought stream,” 212

    Phenomenalistic school, 206

    Phenomenalists, 203, 205, 206, 207;
      inconsistently admit of physical phenomena while denying subject
        of psychic phenomena, 206, 207

    Phenotype, 5, 19, 25, 27, 41, 43, 68, 123

    Philology, 339;
      proves primitive man to have been civilized, not barbaric, 339

    Philosophers, 220

    Philosophy, 189, 190, 195;
      in rôle of critic, 189;
      in rôle of sycophant,
    190;
      materialistic, 195;
      relation to science, 189

    Phonetic elements, 246

    Photosynthesis, 146

    Phycocyanin, 149

    Phylogeny, 39, 80, 122, 275, 276, 284, 285, 308;
      human, 285, 308;
      palæontological, 115

    Phylum, 37, 38, 69, 116

    Physical impressions, 213

    Physical science, 352, 354

    Physicochemical action, reducible to interaction between unequally
      energized masses and particles, 175

    Physicochemical forces, executive factors in vital operations, 201

    Physiology, 350

    Phytol, 147

    Picotee sweet pea, 19

    Piltdown skull, 320

    Pineal eye, 292

    Pineal gland, 292, 293, 295;
      not functionless, 293

    Pioneer colonies, 110

    Pithecanthropus, distinctly simian, 342

    Pithecanthropus erectus, 309, 313-318, 342;
      cranial capacity of, 314;
      a giant ape, 315;
      existing casts inaccurate, 318

    Pituitary body, 292, 293

    Pituitrin, 294

    Placenta, 276

    Planarian, 278

    Planetesimal, hypothesis, 181

    Plantigrade, 272

    Plastids, 139, 141

    Platycrinidae, 92

    Platyrhine monkeys, 287

    Pleistocene, 78, 100, 104, 313, 319, 320, 325;
      Lower, 313, 320;
      Middle, 319

    Pleurotomaria, 118

    Plica, semilunaris, 297

    Pliocene, 78, 95, 309, 313, 317, 323;
      Upper, 309, 313, 317

    Pluteus, 159

    Polar body, second, 159

    Polariscope, 144

    Polymorphism, 122

    Polynesians, 325

    Polynuclear condition, 138

    Polyphemus, the Cyclops, 293

    Pompilids, 247, 248, 263, 264

    Pompilius, 247, 261

    Popular trust not to be abused, 345, 346

    Postauricular muscles, 304, 305

    Post-glacial time, 289

    Preadaptations, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124, 279;
      adventitious appearance of, 46, 47;
      divergent, 279;
      entail modifications of specific magnitude, 47;
      evolution as “natural explanation” of, 53;
      inherited, 47

    Pre-Cambrian, 100, 116, 118, 125;
      terranes, 125
      —extension great, 125

    Preformation, 3, 160

    Prehension, 50, 271, 272

    Prehistoric, 337

    Prehuman, arboreal stage, 309, 217

    Presupposition, latent in materialistic logic, 186

    Pre-tertiary, 312

    Primates, 308

    Primitive man, 338, 342, 343;
      not irrational, 342, 343;
      not a savage, 338

    Primula, 19

    Principles, 171, 172;
      entitive and dynamic, 171, 172

    Priocnemis, flavicornis, 248

    Priority, 76;
      a “sine qua non” condition of ancestry, 76

    Process, 206, 209, 225;
      divorced from agents, 209;
      of reflection entails identity of observer and observed, 225;
      subjectless and sourceless, of phenomenalists, 206

    Prognathic face, 332

    Prognathism, 325, 330, 333, 341;
      of upper jaw accentuated, 341

    “Progress,” 355, 359;
      modern, 359;
      of science, 355

    Progression, 50, 271, 272, 317;
      bipedal, 272;
      modes of, 271, 317

    Prehistory, undocumented, unreliable, 340

    Pronephric duct, 281

    Pronephros, 280, 281 _note_

    Prophylaxis, 356


    Propliopithecus, 309, 311

    Prosthenic, 271

    Protein, 140, 144, 145, 147, 151;
      multimolecule of, 140

    Proterotheres, 78

    Proterotheriidæ, 78

    Proterozoic, 104 _note_, 117

    Protista, 5, 59, 136, 138, 156, 157, 163;
      polynuclear condition not rare among, 138

    Protoplasm, 141, 143, 144, 151, 160, 161, 175, 181;
      dead, 143;
      how reinvigorated, 160, 161;
      invisible structure, 141;
      not a chemical compound but a complex system, 142, 143;
      persistent specificity of, 144;
      ultramicroscopic structure of, 143;
      visible, a picture of, 141

    Protococcus, 151;
      viridis, 151

    Protons, 103, 174

    Protophytes, 135, 136

    Protoplasmic architecture, 174

    Protozoa, 117, 118, 135, 136, 170

    Psyche, 179, 200

    Psychic, 198, 205, 230, 233;
      and physical dualism of Descartes, 198;
      functions, 205, 233
      —of organic type, 233;
      states, correlated with organic states, 230

    Psychology, 196, 197, 198, 204, 205, 208, 211, 235, 236, 361;
      alone competent to pronounce origin of man, 196;
      as science of behavior, 198;
      human, 235;
      positive, 361;
      reveals psychic activities as modification of abiding ego, 205;
      sole science that studies man on his distinctively human side, 196;
      vulgar, 236;
      without a soul, 208, 236

    Psychophysical, 198, 206, 236;
      dualism, 198;
      parallelism, 206, 236

    Psychosis, 213, 235, 255, organic, 213, 235
      —has for agent and recipient the psycho-organic composite, 213;
      psycho-organic, 255

    Physiological process not reducible to mere physicochemical
      reaction, 199

    Potency, 199

    Purpose, 11, 249, 255, 258, 259, 298;
      Divine, 249;
      unconscious of, 255, 259

    Purposiveness, 248, 249, 262;
      no intelligence, 262;
      objective, 248, 249;
      unconscious, 248


    Quadrumana, 296

    Qasr-el-Sagha, 115

    Quaternary, 98, 319;
      Early, 319


    Races, 334, 342

    Radiation, pressure of, 183

    Radioactive elements, 56

    Radio-activity, 118

    Radiolaria, 118

    Radiometer, 183

    Radius, shows curvature, 327

    Ragweed, 16

    Raft of Red River, 154

    Random Assortment, 27, 42;
      of chromosomes, 27

    Ratio, body-brain, 317

    Rays, 119

    Reactants, 209

    Reaction, 243, 252;
      elementary, motor, 252;
      historical basis of 243

    Reaction-systems, 26, 204

    Reason, 235, 240, 244, 245, 259, 267, 343;
      not evolved, 267;
      sole means of human preservation, 343;
      superorganic power of, 244, 245

    Reasoning, 207, 220

    Recapitulation, 48, 275, 278, 279, 285;
      embryonic, 48, 275, 278, 279

    Receptors, 57, 213, 222;
      extended, necessary to perceive material stimuli, 222

    Recessive chin, 311

    Recognition, 207

    Recombination, 27, 42;
      chromosomal, 27;
      factorial, 27

    Reconstructions, 89, 90, 92, 321;
      of fossil skulls, 321;
      psychological motivation of, 89, 90;
      scientific, 89, 90, 92

    Recuperation, autonomous, 163

    “Recurrent faunas,” 110

    Reduction, 42, 157

    Reflection, 224, 225, 226, 240, 256;
      a fact, 225, 226;
      alleged impossibility of, 225;
      only possible to spiritual agent, 224;
      undeniable fact of, 225

    Reflexes, innate and conditioned, 238

    Reflexion, 225

    Reflexive orientation, 174, 176;
      of energies, no living being, 176;
      of forces in living organism, 174;
      in living being, 201

    Regression of organ, 305

    Regulation, 253;
      intelligent, 253;
      sensory, 253

    Rejuvenation, 155, 161, 163;
      three kinds of, 161

    Rejuvenescence, 160, 161, 162

    Reign of Terror, 357;
      French, 357;
      Russian, 357

    Reindeer, 332

    Re-integration of atoms, impossible, 163

    Relationships, 254;
      causal and telic, 254;
      supersensible, 254

    Religion, 354, 361;
      only sanction of morality, 361

    Remains, Javanese, 318

    Repair-work, 251, 252

    Reproduction, 5, 24, 25, 26, 56, 68, 69, 137, 141, 156, 157, 158,
      159, 161;
      biparental (bisexual), 24, 158;
      cytogenic, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161;
      link between life-cycles, 156;
      nonsexual, 156—three kinds of, 156, 157;
      reducible to cell-division, 163;
      sexual, 25, 156, 157
      —autosexual, 158, 159
      —bisexual, 158
      —unisexual, 158
      somatogenic, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161
      —limited, 161
      —no rejuvenation in, 161

    Reptiles, 61, 80, 281, 282, 296, 301;
      flying, 80;
      palæozoic and modern, 296

    Resemblance, 38, 54, 58, 63, 79, 80, 284, 340, 341;
      compatible with separate ancestry, 63, 80
      —even specific, does not entail common origin, 79, 80;
      family, 54, 56;
      generic, 38, 56;
      heterogenetic, 80;
      ordinal, 56;
      phyletic, 56;
      specific, 38, 56, 79;
      to modern man, 340, 341

    Responsibility, 232, 360, 361;
      harmful consequences, 360;
      implies mastery of will over its own actions, 232;
      of evolutionary propagandists, 360, 361

    Resultants, 233 _note_, 234 _note_

    Resurrection, natural basis of, 202

    Reversion, 17, 303, 304, 305;
      to type, 305

    Rhinoceros etruscus, 319;
      merckii, 329;
      tichorhinus, 326, 329, 332

    Rhodesian Man, 340, 341;
      may be modern, 341

    Rhynchonella, 118

    Right-handedness, human, 288;
      duration of, 290

    River drift, 327

    Rocks, 66, 93, 96, 103, 104, 107, 118, 120, 181, 297, 335;
      composition and mineral contents disregarded in classification, 96;
      crystalline, 104, 181;
      fossiliferous, 104, 107, 118, 181, 279, 335;
      European classification of, 107;
      groups of, 120;
      igneous, 181;
      metamorphic, 104;
      sedimentary, 66, 93, 96, 107, 181;
      systems of, 103

    Rubidium, isotopes of, 173

    Rudiment, 293, 297, 301, 302;
      ontogenetic, 301, 302;
      phylogenetic, 301, 302

    Rudimentary, 299

    Rudimentary organs, 286, 291, 293, 298, 305;
      criticism of, 286;
      evolutionary argument from, 286;
      ontogenetic explanation of, 298;
      phylogenetic, 298
      —explanation of, 286

    Running birds, 114, 305


    S-R bonds, 204

    Salamander, 248

    Saurians, 60

    Savagery, not prior to civilization, 337

    Savages, descended from civilized ancestry not vice versa, 338

    Scandinavia, 110

    Scepticism, 198
      logic of, 198

    Scholastics, 191, 225

    Scholastic, theory of origin of concepts, 220

    Science, 188, 304, 359;
      as religion, 359;
      gives no heed to consequences, 360;
      its attitude towards philosophy, 188;
      sham, 304

    Scientists, 344, 348;
      many not satisfied with “evidence” for human evolution, 344;
      fallibility of, 348

    Scientific questions, decided by evidence, not by authority, 344

    Scotland, 107

    Sea-anemone, 261

    Sea floor, 113

    Sea-urchin, 119, 140;
      egg of, 140

    Second causes, 52, 71;
      efficacy finite, 71

    Sediment, 93, 103, 125;
      primordial, 125;
      universal layer of, 103

    Seedlings, 161

    Segregation, 25

    Selection, 11, 12, 13, 65, 152, 153, 306;
      artificial, 152
      —not on a par with natural selection, 152;
      intelligent and fortuitous, 152, 153;
      principle, 11, 12, 13, 65;
      values, 306

    Self, 205

    Self-fertilization, 159

    Self-observation, 224, 225;
      impossible for an organ, 226;
      power of, cannot reside in material organ, 224, 225;
      requires a spiritual principle, 225

    Self-regulation, 174, 176, 179

    Self-sacrifice, rendered meaningless, 356

    Semilunar fold, 296, 297

    Senescence, 26, 157, 160, 162;
      an inherent tendency of living matter, 160;
      tendency practically if not actually universal, 162

    Sensationists, 218

    Sensations, 209, 227, 242;
      intensity of, 227

    Sense, 204, 227, 228, 235, 254, 350;
      debilitated by powerful stimulus, 227;
      external, 204;
      organic nature of, 227;
      their power of reaction temporarily inhibited by process of
        repair, 227, 228

    Sense organs, 213, 251

    Sense-perception, 199, 203, 214, 219, 220, 227, 231, 235;
      a brain function 199;
      a psycho-organic function, 214;
      concerned with factual reality of existence, 219;
      involves a decomposition of neural tissue, 227;
      not independent of body, 227;
      organic function, 203

    Sensibility, organic, 244, 245

    Sensori-motor, 251

    Sensory functions of the nervous system, 199

    Sensual appetites, exhaustible, 232

    Sensual emotion, organic function, 203

    Sequence, 100, 107, 108;
      inverted or “wrong,” 107, 108;
      no invariable order of, 100;
      of fossiliferous strata, 100;
      “wrong,” 107, 107 _note_

    Serum, 15

    Sexual (gametic) incompatibility, 4, 5, 19, 20, 21

    Sharks, 80, 119, 296

    “Shell-craters,” 347

    Shoots, 160

    Sight, 217;
      intrinsic dependence on eye, 217;
      extrinsic dependence on object, 217

    Silurian, 92, 106, 111, 118;
      Middle, 92, 106

    Simia satyrus, 32

    Simple explanations not necessarily true, 350

    Siwalik beds, 95, 310

    Skeleton, 60, 61, 331;
      human, 331

    Skulls, 328, 329, 331, 333, 340, 341;
      fossil, 33, 341;
      human, 331

    Skull cap, 271, 313, 314, 324, 328

    Sleep, would interrupt process of relaying consciousness from
      thought to thought, 212, 213

    Sloth, 52

    Snapdragon, 88

    Social inequalities, artificial laws for benefit of rich, 361

    Socialism, 357, 360;
      Marxian, 357;
      Scientific, 357

    Sodium, 165, 166;
      bromide, 165;
      chloride, 165, 166;
      iodide, 165

    Solemn burial, 331, 332, 343;
      most ancient instances, 332

    Solutreans, 333

    Soma, 13, 59, 303

    Somatella, 59

    Somatic cells, 13, 14, 17, 136, 156, 163

    Somites, 280

    Sophism, Comte’s like that of Zeno, 226

    Soul, 172, 179, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206,
      209, 210, 211, 216, 268, 311, 350, 361;
      definition of, 200;
      a “formative power” and “integrating” and unifying principle, 200,
        211;
      a vital entelechy, 210;
      as revealed in biology and psychology, 205;
      consubstantial with matter, 202;
      differs in kind, not merely in degree from bestial soul, 194;
      discarded by Descartes, 197;
      discarded by scientific psychology, 359;
      formal principle of life, 203;
      functional, 203, 206, 209
      —cannot be primary principle of life, 206;
      name, not reality of, rejected, 200;
      not a complete entity, 201;
      primary ground of life, 206;
      rejected in dynamic, not in entitive sense, 200, 201;
      spiritual, not a product of evolution, 193, 216, 268
      —originates by a creative act, 193, 268;
      subject of psychology, 197;
      subsistent in man, 202;
      substantial, 203, 209;
      term alleged to be meaningless, 200

    Specialism, advantages and disadvantages of, 189

    Species, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 19, 26, 37, 38, 74, 75, 78, 80, 83, 84,
      86, 87, 110, 111, 112, 119, 120-123, 131, 157, 256, 257, 312, 313,
      320, 334, 342;
      definition of, 4;
      change of, 4, 6;
      differentiation and multiplication of, 131;
      difficulty of distinguishing, 120-123;
      elementary, 17;
      extinct and extant, 120-123, 334;
      extinct, precarious basis for time-scale, 334;
      formation as contrasted with transformation of, 74, 75, 131;
      fossil, 3, 4, 83, 92, 120, 122, 312, 313;
      intermediate,
    absence of, 80, 83, 84, 334;
      intersterility of, 4, 5, 26, 38;
      only one human, 342;
      persistent, 123;
      syngamy, an essential requisite of, 5

    Species-by-species method, 87

    Spectral analysis of constitution of sun, 216

    Spectroscope, 144

    Speech, bestial, 245, 246

    Sperm, 156, 158, 159, 160;
      activation by means of, 159

    Spermists, 160

    Sphex gryphus (Sm), 261

    Spiders, 257

    Spiral cleavage, 278

    Spirit, 194, 311;
      definition of, 194

    Spiritual, 206

    Spiritualism, 202, 230, 231;
      Aristotelian, 230, 231
      —admits direct dependence of lower psychic functions on organism,
        230
      —admits indirect dependence of higher psychic functions upon
        organism, 231;
      Cartesian, 230;
      destroyed by facts of physiological psychology, 230;
      hylomorphic, 202;
      of Aristotle, 202;
      psychophysical of Descartes, 202, 203

    Spirituality, 203, 351;
      excludes co-agency of organism, 203;
      of human soul, 351

    Spiritual representations, 221

    Spleen, 301

    Splitters, 37

    Splitting, 121

    Spontaneous generation, 131, 132, 133, 136, 142, 148, 149, 167,
      179, 182, 185, 186;
      defined, 131-133;
      antiquity of, 133;
      old and new exception of, 167;
      philosophical “proof” of, 185

    Spontogenesis, an outlawed hypothesis, 164

    Spores, 134, 136, 156, 181;
      bacterial, 181

    Sporulation, 156, 157

    Springopora, 118

    Spy, 329, 330, 333;
      bones, 329;
      crania, capacity underestimated, 330

    Spy remains, 319, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 332;
      skeletons of No. 1 and No. 2, 327

    Squatting, a habit of savage races, 328

    Squirrel, 260

    Starfish, 140, 154, 382;
      egg of, 140;
      symmetry of, 154

    States, 203, 208;
      conscious or psychic, 203, 208;
      mental, active and passive, 208;
      of matter, not more real, 203

    Statistics, moral, 361

    Stems, 160

    Stentor, 174

    Sterility, interspecific, 5, 21, 38

    Sterilization, 134, 135

    Stimulators, 243

    Stimulus, 227, 228

    Stizus ruficornis, 247

    Stock, 310, 311;
      hylobatic and troglodyte, 310, 311;
      pithecoid, 311

    Stone implements, 329, 331, 334, 340, 342;
      characteristic, unsafe basis for time-scale, 334

    Stratification, 102;
      scheme of, universal, 102;
      synchronous deposition of, different in mineral content, 102

    Stratigraphers, 106

    Stratigraphic, 101, 102, 107;
      continuity, 101;
      facts, 107;
      horizons, 101;
      sequence, 101
        —invariable order of, 102

    Stratigraphy, 93

    Strata, 66, 83, 87, 92-96, 102, 103,108, 109, 116, 119, 120, 125;
      classification of, 103;
      concrete sequence of, 109;
      dated by fossils and fossils by strata, 94;
      fossiliferous, 92, 96, 102, 109, 116, 119
        —classification of, 119
        —European classification of, 102;
      how characterized, 96;
      intervening, skipped, 120;
      mineral, 102;
      substitution of fossiliferous for lithological, 103;
      substitution of fossiliferous for mineral, 103;
      wrong order of, 108;
      “younger” and “older,” 108, 116

    Strontium, isotopes of, 173

    Structures, 122, 284;
      constant and adaptive, 122;
      distinction influenced by personal equation, 122;
      embryonic, undifferentiated, 284;
      homologous and adaptive, 122

    Struggles for existence, 291

    Sturgeons, 119

    Sub-archæan beginnings of life impenetrable, 126

    Subject, 205, 207, 208;
      abiding, of our thoughts, feelings and desires, 205;
      active, 208;
      of thought, active, 207

    Subjective abstractions, phenomenalist objectivation of, 209

    Subjectless thought, an abstraction, 209

    Submicron, 140, 183 _note_

    Submicroscopic dimensions, no obstacle to manifestation of vital
      phenomena, 170

    Submicroscopic organisms show genetic continuity, reproductiveness
      and typical vital power, 169, 170

    Subspecies, 334, 342

    Substages, 96, 103

    Substance, 209

    Substantial composite of body and soul, 203

    Succession, 75, 76;
      to be distinguished from filiation, 75;
      not descent, 75, 76

    Sunlight, once richer in actinic rays, 148

    Superciliary ridges, 272

    Superorganic, 240

    Superorganic functions, 214, 227;
      have soul as their exclusive agent and recipient, 214

    Superorganic functions, soul alone active cause and receptive
      subject, 203

    Supernatural, 186, 187;
      defined, 187

    Supernumerary, 303, 304, 306;
      mammary glands, 304;
      organs, 303, 304

    Superposition, 93, 101, 111;
      as a criterion of comparative antiquity, 93;
      criterion of, confined to local areas, 101
      —not available
    for correlation of strata in different localities, 101;
      only safe means of distinguishing between spatial and
        chronological distribution, 101, 111;
      restricted to local areas, 93

    Suppression of organs, 305

    Sweden, 289

    Syllogisms, of no avail against facts, 226

    Symbiosis, 52, 124

    Symbiotes, 46, 53

    Synapsis, 17, 25

    Syngamy, 5, 25, 156, 157-161;
      essential to biparental inheritance, 160;
      means of rejuvenation, 161;
      qualification of a true species, 5

    Synthesis, chemical, spontaneous and artificial, 151, 152

    Systems, 96, 101, 141, 142, 151;
      colloidal, 142;
      complete polyphasic, 142;
      how determined, 96;
      of rocks, 96;
      of strata, 101;
      polyphasic, 141;
      protoplasmic, 141, 142;
      simple, 151

    Systematist, 46, 121


    Tactisms, 204

    Tactualist, 219

    Taenia, 248

    Taiga, 91

    Tarantula, 247, 263

    Tasmanian blacks, 325

    Tautomerism, 202

    Taxonomic questions, 334

    Taxonomist, 128

    Taxonomy, 36, 37, 38, 77, 101, 121, 122, 123, 320;
      fossil, 101, 122
      —basis of correlation, 101
      —arbitrary and unreliable, 122;
      homology, basis of, 36;
      influence of palæontology, 77;
      need of revision in, 121, 123

    Teleological, 225

    Teleology, 154, 240, 248, 249, 259, 267;
      a material expression of intelligence, 259;
      does not entail vibrant intelligence, 259;
      its combination with sentient consciousness, 240;
      of organisms, 154;
      of artefacts, 154;
      psychic
    implication of, 154;
      unconscious, 240

    Teleosts, 120

    Telic, 150, 249;
      phenomena of nature, 249

    Terebratulina, striata, 118, 120;
      caput serpentis, 118

    Termitomyia, 46

    Termitoxenia Heimi, 48

    Tertiary, 72, 82, 99, 100, 104, 109, 111, 112, 113, 118, 154, 270,
      308, 311;
      ancestor, 312;
      Man, 154

    Tertiary envelopes of eggs, 300

    Tethelin, 294

    Tethys, 109

    Tetraploid race, 23, 45;
      origin of, not yet observed, 23

    Tetraploidy, 22, 23, 44

    Thigh, bone, 316, 317

    Third eyelid, 296, 297

    Third Interglacial Period, latter half of, 331

    Thoatherium, 78

    Thought, 218-222, 227, 229, 230, 233;
      and imagery, concomitant but incommensurable, 219;
      digs below phenomenal surface, 219;
      distinguished from imagery, 218, 219;
      intellectual, steady, lucid and continuous, 229;
      not function of material organism, 233;
      power does not always degenerate with old age, 230;
      presupposes imagery, 221;
      proceeds with complete ease after initial exertion of
        imagination, 229;
      rational, 222, 224, 231, 233
        —has spiritual soul for source and subject, 233
        —reflective, 224
        —spiritual, 222
        —superorganic function of, 231;
      reflective, a superorganic function, 227;
      requires substrate of sensible images, 220
        —on which it is objectively dependent, 222;
      some in all individuals, 219;
      spiritual, 222;
      untranslatable into adequate imagery, 219

    Thrust faults, 107

    Thrust planes like bedding planes, 108

    Thymus, 299, 300, 301, 302;
      an ontogenetic rudiment, 301, 302

    Thyroid glands, 292, 294, 295, 301

    Thyroxin, 294

    Time-value, 75, 82, 83, 84, 95, 96, 101;
      of geological formations, dubious, 75;
      of index fossils, 95, 96
        —affords no basis for scientific certainty, 101

    Tissue, lymphatic, 301

    Tissue cells, 13, 14, 136, 156

    Tonsils, 301

    Tools, use of, by animals, 261

    Trachelocerca, 138

    Training, 244, 245, 256

    Transformism, 3, 4, 6, 16, 24, 25, 32, 40, 43, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59,
      61, 67, 69-72, 75, 80, 84, 109, 117, 123, 124, 126, 127, 131, 263,
      268, 343;
      definition of, 3;
      impotent to explain origin of intelligence, 216, 233 _note_, 263;
      interpretation, not corollary, of fossil facts, 126;
      monophyletic, 69, 70;
      “natural” explanation of homology, 52;
      proofs for, empirical, aphoristic, and aposterioristic, 55, 56;
      rests on personal belief rather than on facts, 127;
      ultra-partisans of, 343;
      unconcerned with origin of life, 131;
      unifies origins in time, but not in space, 69

    Transformist, 38

    Transmutation, 6, 28, 35, 40, 50, 65, 69, 70, 71, 73, 123, 193

    Trial and error, 241, 243

    Triassic, 118, 119

    Trilobites, 100, 117

    Triploidy, 21, 22

    Troglodyte, 34, 50, 314,
      type, 314

    Troglodytes niger, 33, 314

    Tropisms, 204

    Tubercule of Darwin, not homologous with apex of horse’s ear, 303

    Tubers, 160

    Tubules, nephridial or excretory, 280

    Types, 54, 55, 66, 83, 84, 92, 116-120, 123, 124, 141, 328, 329,
      334, 335, 336;
      Ancestral, 92, 117, 276;
      annectant, 92;
      approximation in, 66;
      common ancestral, 83;
      Crô-Magnon, 332, 334, 335;
      no evidence of its descent from Neanderthal
    type, 334;
      generalized, 54, 55, 81, 84;
      are abstractions, 54, 55;
      generic, 116, 117;
      persistence of, 118, 123;
      Grimaldi, 332;
      intergradent, 83;
      invertebrate, 117;
      modern, 116, 120, 334;
      Neanderthaloid, 329, 335;
      persistent, 116;
      persistence of, 119;
      phyletic, 116, 117;
      permanence of, 118;
      specific, 116, 141
      —persistence of, 118, 123;
      fossil doctrine of their invariable sequence, 104, 312


    Ultramicron, 144, 168;
      destitute of reproductive power, 168;
      may not be natural unit, 168;
      of colloidal solutions, 168

    Ultramicroscope, 140, 144;
      limit of, 140

    Ultraspiritualism of Descartes, 199, 202

    Ultra-violet rays, 148, 184

    Unchange, not explained by theory of exchange, 123

    Understanding, 235

    Ungulates, 78, 82;
      fossil, 82

    Uniformitarianism, 67, 68

    Uniformity of nature, 149, 186;
      only justification for reconstruction of the past, 149;
      principle of, 169

    Union of soul and body, according to Descartes, 198, 199

    Units, 144, 162, 163, 166, 167, 168, 170, 174-177, 199-201;
      difference between, 170;
      inorganic, 144, 163, 166, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 201
      —and living, 170, 175-177
      —incapable of other than transitive action, 174, 177;
      living and non-living, 199, 200;
      natural, 168;
      new, of life to be discovered, 167;
      of nature, non-living, 162, 163

    Universe, Stone Book of, 127

    Uranium, 146

    Urea, 173

    Ureter, 282

    Uroleptus mobilis, 138, 161

    Urosthenic, 270

    Ursus spelaeus, 326, 329

    Use, 291

    Utility, 291


    Valence, 165;
      atomic, 165;
      molecular (residual), 165

    Variation, 9, 18, 40, 41, 42, 45, 63, 64, 88, 303;
      agencies of, 42;
      cause of modification, 41;
      converges and diverges, 63, 64;
      fluctuational, 9, 303;
      heritable, 42;
      intra-specific, 43;
      mutational, a change of loss, 18;
      non-inheritable, 42;
      process of diversifying, 40, 45;
      trans-specific, 43, 88
        —no experimental evidence of, 45

    Varieties, 334, 342

    Vault, 329, 332

    Vegetarians, 236

    Versatility, 257, 258, 259;
      distinctive mark of intelligence, 257, 258

    Vertebræ, 279

    Vertebrate, 60

    Vertebrata, 119, 270, 271, 279-284, 292, 297, 300, 302;
      amniotic, 280-282;
      anamniotic, 280, 282

    Vestigial remnants, 299

    Viability, 4, 5, 25, 26, 43, 44

    Vibration, 209;
      pure, 209;
      without vibrant medium, 209

    Vinegar fly, 19, 85

    Violet, 25, 159

    Visceral arches and clefts, 278, 279

    Visualist, 219

    Vital activity, 201

    Vital continuity, 134, 139, 155;
      genetic, first article of, 134;
      law of, 134, 155;
      law of, 139;
      its fourth article, 139

    Vital force, no special, 201

    Vitality, 150;
      eludes art of chemist, 150

    Vital principle, 172, 200, 203;
      as defined by Neo-Vitalists, 172;
      entitive, not dynamic, 172;
      term alleged to be meaningless, 200;
      term in disfavor, 200

    Vivisection, 360

    Volcanic bombs, 346-348

    Volition, 221, 231, 233;
      not function of the material organism, 233;
      presupposes conception, 221;
      rational, has spiritual soul for source and subject, 233;
      rational, superorganic, 231


    Walrus, 296

    Wasp, predatory, 247, 263

    Weddas, cranial capacity of, 315

    Weight, 315

    Whale, 35, 46, 60, 279;
      flipper of, 35, 60, 279

    White Leghorns, 19

    Wild Kirchli, industry of, 331

    Will, 221, 232, 235;
      insatiable, 232;
      of man, free, 232;
      self-determining or reflexive, 232;
      superior to sensual appetite, 235

    Wing venation, 49 _note_, 49

    Wisconsin, Cambrian sediments of, 105

    Wolffian duct, 281, 282

    Woods Hole, 23, 42, 47

    World War, 359

    Worm, 249

    Wormwood, 248, 255;
      common, 255

    Würtzburg, School of, 219


    X-rays, 144, 317


    Yoldia Sea, 289

    Yolk-sac, 276


    Zamia, 118

    Zebra, 81

    Zones, stratigraphic, 96, 103, 106;
      zoögeographical, 99

    Zoölogists, 66, 77

    Zoölogy, 35, 37, 55, 126, 304

    Zoöpsychologists, 240

    Zygote, 25, 136, 156-158

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68574 ***