Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) - Samuel Butler (digital e reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Samuel Butler
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On Each Other, And Cannot Proselytise Or Convert The Rude Ground
Before It Has Been Tutored In The First Principles Of The Higher
Kinds Of Association.
Chapter 13 (Conclusion) Pg 142
Again, I Would Recommend The Reader To Beware Of Believing Anything
In This Book Unless He Either Likes It, Or Feels Angry At Being Told
It. If Required Belief In This Or That Makes A Man Angry, I Suppose
He Should, As A General Rule, Swallow It Whole Then And There Upon
The Spot, Otherwise He May Take It Or Leave It As He Likes. I Have
Not Gone Far For My Facts, Nor Yet Far From Them; All On Which I Rest
Are As Open To The Reader As To Me. If I Have Sometimes Used Hard
Terms, The Probability Is That I Have Not Understood Them, But Have
Done So By A Slip, As One Who Has Caught A Bad Habit From The Company
He Has Been Lately Keeping. They Should Be Skipped.
Do Not Let Him Be Too Much Cast Down By The Bad Language With Which
Professional Scientists Obscure The Issue, Nor By Their Seeming To
Make It Their Business To Fog Us Under The Pretext Of Removing Our
Difficulties. It Is Not The Ratcatcher's Interest To Catch All The
Rats; And, As Handel Observed So Sensibly, "Every Professional
Gentleman Must Do His Best For To Live." The Art Of Some Of Our
Philosophers, However, Is Sufficiently Transparent, And Consists Too
Often In Saying "Organism Which Must Be Classified Among Fishes,"
Instead Of "Fish," {179a} And Then Proclaiming That They Have "An
Ineradicable Tendency To Try To Make Things Clear." {179b}
If Another Example Is Required, Here Is The Following From An Article
Than Which I Have Seen Few With Which I More Completely Agree, Or
Which Have Given Me Greater Pleasure. If Our Men Of Science Would
Take To Writing In This Way, We Should Be Glad Enough To Follow Them.
The Passage I Refer To Runs Thus:-
"Professor Huxley Speaks Of A 'Verbal Fog By Which The Question At
Issue May Be Hidden'; Is There No Verbal Fog In The Statement That
The Aetiology Of Crayfishes Resolves Itself Into A Gradual Evolution
In The Course Of The Mesosoic And Subsequent Epochs Of The World's
History Of These Animals From A Primitive Astacomorphous Form? Would
It Be Fog Or Light That Would Envelop The History Of Man If We Said
That The Existence Of Man Was Explained By The Hypothesis Of His
Gradual Evolution From A Primitive Anthropomorphous Form? I Should
Call This Fog, Not Light." {180}
Especially Let Him Mistrust Those Who Are Holding Forth About
Protoplasm, And Maintaining That This Is The Only Living Substance.
Protoplasm May Be, And Perhaps Is, The Most Living Part Of An
Organism, As The Most Capable Of Retaining Vibrations, But This Is
The Utmost That Can Be Claimed For It.
Having Mentioned Protoplasm, I May Ask The Reader To Note The
Chapter 13 (Conclusion) Pg 143Breakdown Of That School Of Philosophy Which Divided The Ego From The
Non Ego. The Protoplasmists, On The One Hand, Are Whittling Away At
The Ego, Till They Have Reduced It To A Little Jelly In Certain Parts
Of The Body, And They Will Whittle Away This Too Presently, If They
Go On As They Are Doing Now.
Others, Again, Are So Unifying The Ego And The Non Ego, That With
Them There Will Soon Be As Little Of The Non Ego Left As There Is Of
The Ego With Their Opponents. Both, However, Are So Far Agreed As
That We Know Not Where To Draw The Line Between The Two, And This
Renders Nugatory Any System Which Is Founded Upon A Distinction
Between Them.
The Truth Is, That All Classification Whatever, When We Examine Its
Raison D'etre Closely, Is Found To Be Arbitrary--To Depend On Our
Sense Of Our Own Convenience, And Not On Any Inherent Distinction In
The Nature Of The Things Themselves. Strictly Speaking, There Is
Only One Thing And One Action. The Universe, Or God, And The Action
Of The Universe As A Whole.
Lastly, I May Predict With Some Certainty That Before Long We Shall
Find The Original Darwinism Of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (With An Infusion
Of Professor Hering Into The Bargain) Generally Accepted Instead Of
The Neo-Darwinism Of To-Day, And That The Variations Whose
Accumulation Results In Species Will Be Recognised As Due To The
Wants And Endeavours Of The Living Forms In Which They Appear,
Instead Of Being Ascribed To Chance, Or, In Other Words, To Unknown
Causes, As By Mr. Charles Darwin's System. We Shall Have Some
Idyllic Young Naturalist Bringing Up Dr. Erasmus Darwin's Note On
Trapa Natans, {181a} And Lamarck's Kindred Passage On The Descent Of
Ranunculus Hederaceus From Ranunculus Aquatilis {181b} As Fresh
Discoveries, And Be Told, With Much Happy Simplicity, That Those
Animals And Plants Which Have Felt The Need Of Such Or Such A
Structure Have Developed It, While Those Which Have Not Wanted It
Have Gone Without It. Thus, It Will Be Declared, Every Leaf We See
Around Us, Every Structure Of The Minutest Insect, Will Bear Witness
To The Truth Of The "Great Guess" Of The Greatest Of Naturalists
Concerning The Memory Of Living Matter.
I Dare Say The Public Will Not Object To This, And Am Very Sure That
None Of The Admirers Of Mr. Charles Darwin Or Mr. Wallace Will
Protest Against It; But It May Be As Well To Point Out That This Was
Not The View Of The Matter Taken By Mr. Wallace In 1858 When He And
Mr. Darwin First Came Forward As Preachers Of Natural Selection. At
That Time Mr. Wallace Saw Clearly Enough The Difference Between The
Theory Of "Natural Selection" And That Of Lamarck. He Wrote:-
"The Hypothesis Of Lamarck--That Progressive Changes In Species Have
Been Produced By The Attempts Of Animals To Increase The Development
Of Their Own Organs, And Thus Modify Their Structure And Habits--Has
Chapter 13 (Conclusion) Pg 144Been Repeatedly And Easily Refuted By All Writers On The Subject Of
Varieties And Species, . . . But The View Here Developed Tenders Such
An Hypothesis Quite Unnecessary. . . . The Powerful Retractile
Talons Of The Falcon And The Cat Tribes Have Not Been Produced Or
Increased By The Volition Of Those Animals, Neither Did The Giraffe
Acquire Its Long Neck By Desiring To Reach The Foliage Of The More
Lofty Shrubs, And Constantly Stretching Its Neck For This Purpose,
But Because Any Varieties Which Occurred Among Its Antitypes With A
Longer Neck Than Usual At Once Secured A Fresh Range Of Pasture Over
The Same Ground As Their Shorter-Necked Companions, And On The First
Scarcity Of Food Were Thereby Enabled To Outlive Them" (Italics In
Original). {182a}
This Is Absolutely The Neo-Darwinian Doctrine, And A Denial Of The
Mainly Fortuitous Character Of The Variations In Animal And Vegetable
Forms Cuts At Its Root. That Mr. Wallace, After Years Of Reflection,
Still Adhered To This View, Is Proved By His Heading A Reprint Of The
Paragraph Just Quoted From {182b} With The Words "Lamarck's
Hypothesis Very Different From That Now Advanced"; Nor Do Any Of His
More Recent Works Show That He Has Modified His Opinion. It Should
Be Noted That Mr. Wallace Does Not Call His Work "Contributions To
The Theory Of Evolution," But To That Of "Natural Selection."
Mr. Darwin, With Characteristic Caution, Only Commits Himself To
Saying That Mr. Wallace Has Arrived At Almost (Italics Mine) The Same
General Conclusions As He, Mr. Darwin, Has Done; {182c} But He Still,
As In 1859, Declares That It Would Be "A Serious Error To Suppose
That The Greater Number Of Instincts Have Been Acquired By Habit In
One Generation, And Then Transmitted By Inheritance To Succeeding
Generations," {183a} And He Still Comprehensively Condemns The "Well-
Known Doctrine Of Inherited Habit, As Advanced By Lamarck." {183b}
As For The Statement In The Passage Quoted From Mr. Wallace, To The
Effect That Lamarck's Hypothesis "Has Been Repeatedly And Easily
Refuted By All Writers On The Subject Of Varieties And Species," It
Is A Very Surprising One. I Have Searched Evolution Literature In
Vain For Any Refutation Of The Erasmus Darwinian System (For This Is
What Lamarck's Hypothesis Really Is) Which Need Make The Defenders Of
That System At All Uneasy. The Best Attempt At An Answer To Erasmus
Darwin That Has Yet Been Made Is "Paley's Natural Theology," Which
Was Throughout Obviously Written To Meet Buffon And The "Zoonomia."
It Is The Manner Of Theologians To Say That Such And Such An
Objection "Has Been Refuted Over And Over Again," Without At The Same
Time Telling Us When And Where; It Is To Be Regretted That Mr.
Wallace Has Here Taken A Leaf Out Of The Theologians' Book. His
Statement Is One Which Will Not Pass Muster With Those Whom Public
Opinion Is Sure In The End To Follow.
Did Mr. Herbert Spencer, For Example, "Repeatedly And Easily Refute"
Lamarck's Hypothesis In His Brilliant Article In The Leader, March
Chapter 13 (Conclusion) Pg 14520, 1852? On The Contrary, That Article Is Expressly Directed
Against Those "Who Cavalierly Reject The Hypothesis Of Lamarck And
His Followers." This Article Was Written Six Years Before The Words
Last Quoted From Mr. Wallace; How Absolutely, However, Does The Word
"Cavalierly" Apply To Them!
Does Isidore Geoffroy, Again, Bear Mr. Wallace's Assertion Out
Better? In 1859--That Is To Say, But A Short Time After Mr. Wallace
Had Written--He Wrote As Follows:-
"Such Was The Language Which Lamarck Heard During His Protracted Old
Age, Saddened Alike By The Weight Of Years And Blindness; This Was
What People Did Not Hesitate To Utter Over His Grave Yet Barely
Closed, And What Indeed They Are Still Saying--Commonly Too Without
Any Knowledge Of
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