“Die Phantasie ist ein unentbehrliches Gut; denn sie ist es, durch welche neue Combinationen zur Veranlassung wichtiger Entdeckungen gemacht werden. Die Kraft der Unterscheidung des isolirenden Verstandes sowohl, als der erweiternden und zum allgemeinen strebenden Phantasie sind dem Naturforscher in einem harmonischen Wechselwirken nothwendig. Durch StÖrung dieses Gleichgewichts wird der Naturforscher von der Phantasie zu TrÄumereien hingerissen, wÄhrend diese Gabe den talentvollen Naturforscher von hinreichender VerstandesstÄrke zu den wichtigsten Entdeckungen fÜhrt.”—Johannes MÜller, Archiv fÜr Anatomie, 1834.

B.

To many persons the conclusion that man is the naturally modified descendant of ape-like ancestors appears to be destructive of the belief in an immortal soul, and in the teachings of Christianity; and accordingly they either reject Darwinism altogether, or claim for man a special exemption from the mode of origin admitted for other animals.

It seems worth while, in order to secure a calm and unprejudiced consideration for the teachings of Darwinism, to point out to such persons that, as a matter of fact, whatever views we may hold with regard to a soul and the Christian doctrines, they cannot be in the smallest degree affected by the admission that man has been derived from ape-like ancestors by a process of natural selection, so long as the demonstrable fact, not denied by any sane person, is admitted, namely, that every individual man grows by a process of natural modification from a homogeneous egg-cell or corpuscle. Assuredly it cannot lower our conception of man’s dignity if we have to regard him as “the flower of all the ages,” bursting from the great stream of life which has flowed on through countless epochs with one increasing purpose, rather than as an isolated, miraculous being, put together abnormally from elemental clay, and cut off by such portentous origin from his fellow animals, and from that gracious Nature to whom he yearns with filial instinct, knowing her, in spite of fables, to be his dear mother.

A certain number of thoughtful persons admit the development of man’s body by natural processes from ape-like ancestry, but believe in the non-natural intervention of a Creator at a certain definite stage in that development, in order to introduce into the animal which was at that moment a man-like ape, something termed “a conscious soul,” in virtue of which he became an ape-like man. It appears to me perfectly legitimate and harmless for individuals to make such an assumption if their particular form of philosophy or of religion requires it. Such an assumption does not in any way traverse the inferences from facts to which Darwinism leads us; at the same time zoological science does not, and cannot be expected to, give any support to such an assumption. The gratuitous and harmless nature of the assumption so far as zoological science is concerned, and accordingly the baselessness of the hostility to Darwinism of those who choose to make it, may be seen by the consideration of a parallel series of facts and assumptions, which puts the matter clearly enough in its true light.

No one ventures to deny, at the present day, that every human being grows from the egg in utero, just as a dog or a monkey does; the facts are before us and can be scrutinised in detail. We may ask of those who refuse to admit the gradual and natural development of man’s consciousness in the ancestral series, passing from ape-like forms into indubitable man, “How do you propose to divide the series presented by every individual man in his growth from the egg? At what particular phase in the embryonic series is the soul with its potential consciousness implanted? Is it in the egg? in the foetus of this month or of that? in the new-born infant? or at five years of age?” This, it is notorious, is a point upon which Churches have never been able to agree; and it is equally notorious that the unbroken series exists—that the egg becomes the foetus, the foetus the child, and the child the man. On the other hand we have the historical series—the series, the existence of which is inferred by Darwin and his adherents. This is a series leading from simple egg-like organisms to ape-like creatures, and from these to man. Will those who cannot answer our previous inquiries undertake to assert dogmatically in the present case at what point in the historical series there is a break or division? At what step are we to be asked to suppose that the order of nature was stopped, and a non-natural soul introduced? The philosopher or theologian of this or that school may arbitrarily draw an imaginary line here or there in either series, and the evolutionist will not raise a finger to stop him. As long as truth in the statement of fact, and logic in the inference from observed fact are respected, there need be no hostility between evolutionist and theologian. The theologian is content in the case of individual development from the egg to admit the facts of individual evolution, and to make assumptions which lie altogether outside the region of scientific inquiry. So, too, it would seem only reasonable that he should deal with the historical series, and frankly accept the natural evolution of man from lower animals, declaring dogmatically, if he so please, but not as an inference of the same order as are the inferences of science, that something called the soul arrived at any point in the series which he may think suitable. At the same time, it would appear to be sufficient, even for the purposes of the theologian, to hold that whatever the two above-mentioned series of living things contain or imply, they do so as the result of a natural and uniform process of development, that there has been one “miracle” once and for all time. It should not be a ground of offence to any school of thinkers, that Darwinism, whilst leaving them free scope, cannot be made actually contributory to the support of their particular tenets.

The difficulties which the theologian has to meet when he is called upon to give some account of the origin and nature of the soul, certainly cannot be said to have been increased by the establishment of the Darwinian theory. For from the earliest days of the Church, ingenious speculation has been lavished on the subject. As to the origin of the individual soul, Tertullian tells us as follows:—De Anima, ch. xix.—“Anima velut surculus quidam ex matrice Adami in propaginem deducta, et genitalibus semine foveis commodata. Pullulabit tam intellectu quam et sensu.”

Whilst St. Augustine says:—“Harum autem sententiarum quatuor de anima, utrum de propagine veniant, an in singulis quibusque nascentibus mox fiant, an in corpora nascentium jam alicubi existentes vel mittantur divinitus, vel sua sponte labantur, nullam temere affirmari oporteret: aut enim nondum ista quÆstio a divinorum librorum catholicis tractatoribus, pro merito suÆ obscuritatis et perplexitatis, evoluta atque illustrata est; aut si jam factum est, nondum in manus nostras hujuscemodi litterÆ provenerunt.”

C.

A very important form of degeneration, not touched on in the text, is that exhibited in the Mexican axolotl, where the larval form of a Salamander develops generative organs, and is arrested in its further progress to the adult parental form. It is not possible to class this with the other phenomena which I have enumerated as Degeneration, since there is no modification of an adult structure, but simple arrest, and retention of the larval structure in all its completeness. I should call the phenomenon exhibited by axolotl “arrest” or “super-larvation” rather than degeneration.

The result of super-larvation is in so far similar to that of those changes to which it is desirable to restrict the term “degeneration,” that it may be classed under “simplificative evolution” as opposed to “elaborative evolution.” That there is a very real difference between super-larvation and degeneration may best be seen by taking a case of each process and instituting a comparison. Axolotl proceeds regularly on its course of development from the egg, but instead of passing from the aquatic gilled condition to the terrestrial gill-less adult form of the Salamander, it remains arrested in the earlier condition, develops its reproductive organs, and propagates itself. There is no loss or atrophy in this case, but simply a dead stop in a progressive course. On the other hand, as we have seen, the Ascidian loses, by a process of atrophy and destruction, a powerful locomotive organ, a highly-developed eye, a relatively large nervous system. The former may be compared to a permanent childishness, the latter to the second childhood, which is really atrophy and decay. It is highly probable that super-larvation has taken place at various epochs and in various groups of the animal kingdom, just as it does in axolotl, and yet we cannot hope for evidence fitted to establish its occurrence in any one case, where it is no longer possible by exceptional conditions to recover (as in the case of axolotl, which can experimentally be made to advance to the Salamander phase by proper treatment), the discarded, more developed adult form. By super-larvation it would be possible for an embryonic form developed in relation to special embryonic conditions and not recapitulative of an ancestry, to become the adult form of the race, and thus to give to the subsequent evolution of that race a totally and otherwise improbable direction.

It seems also exceedingly probable that “super-larvation” does not occur only as in axolotl through premature maturation of the reproductive organs, but the phenomenon may develop itself more slowly by a gradual creeping forward, as it were, of larval features. Just as the adaptations acquired in, and having relation to, later life tend to show themselves in an early period of the development of the individual and out of due season; so do characters acquired by the early embryo, and having relation only to this early period of life tend to remain as permanent structures, and by their invasion to perturb the adult organization. Such perturbation may tend either to simplification or elaboration.

D.

The term (degeneration of language) includes two very distinct things; the one is degeneration of grammatical form, the other degeneration of the language as an instrument of thought. The former is a far commoner phenomenon than the latter, and, in fact, whilst actually degenerating so far as grammatical complexity is concerned, a language may be at the same time becoming more and more serviceable, or more and more perfect as an organ having a particular function. The decay of useless inflexions and the consequent simplification of language may be compared to the specialization of the one toe of the primitively five-toed foot of the horse, whilst the four others which existed in archaic horses are, one by one, atrophied. Taken by itself, this phenomenon may possibly be described as degeneration, but inasmuch as the whole horse is not degenerate but, on the contrary, specialized and elaborated, it is advisable to widely distinguish such local atrophy from general degeneration. In the same way language cannot, in relation to this question, be treated as a thing by itself—it must be regarded as a possession of the human organism, and the simplification of its structure merely means in most cases its more complete adaptation to the requirements of the organism.

True degeneration of language is therefore only found as part and parcel of a more general degeneration of mental activity. To some extent the conclusion that this or that language, as compared with its earlier condition, exhibits evidence of such degeneration, must be matter of taste and open to discussion. For instance, the English of Johnson may be regarded as degenerate when compared with that of Shakspeare. There is less probability of a difference of opinion as to the degeneracy of modern Greek as compared with “classical” Greek; or of some of the modern languages of Hindustan as compared with Sanskrit, and I am informed that the same kind of degeneration is exhibited by modern Irish as compared with old Irish. Degeneration, in the proper sense of the word, so far as it applies to language, would seem to mean simply a decay or diversion of literary taste and of literary production in the race to which such language may be appropriate.

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C.