First Principles · Herbert Spencer
CHAPTER III. THE LAW OF EVOLUTION, CONTINUED.
Originally, monarchical authority was more baronial, and baronial authority more monarchical, than they afterwards became. Between modern priests and the priests of old times, who while officially teachers of religion were also warriors, judges, architects, there is a marked difference in definiteness of function. And among the people engaged in productive occupations, the like contrast would be found to hold: the industrial office has become more distinct from the military; and its various divisions from each other. A history of our constitution, reminding us how, after prolonged struggles, the powers of King, Lords, and Commons, have been gradually settled, would clearly exhibit analogous changes. Countless facts bearing the like construction would meet us, were we to trace the development of legislation: in the successive stages of which, we should find statutes made more precise in their provisions—more specific in their applications to particular cases. Even at the present time we see that each new law, beginning as a vague proposition, is, in the course of enactment, elaborated into specific clauses; and further that only after its interpretation has been established by judges’ decisions in courts of justice, does it reach its final definiteness. From the history of minor institutions like evidence may be gathered.
Religious, charitable, literary, and all other societies, beginning with ends and methods roughly sketched out and easily modifiable, show us how, by the accumulation of rules and precedents, the purposes become more distinct and the modes of action more restricted; until at last death often results from a fixity which admits of no adaptation to new conditions. Should it be objected that among civilized nations there are examples of decreasing definiteness, (instance the breaking down of limits between ranks,) the reply is, that such apparent exceptions are the accompaniments of a social metamorphosis—a change from the military or predatory type of social structure, to the industrial or mercantile type, during which the old lines of organization are disappearing and the new ones becoming more marked. That all organized results of social action, pass in the course of civilization through parallel phases, is demonstrable. Being, as they are, objective products of subjective processes, they must display corresponding changes; and that they do this, the cases of Language, of Science, of Art, clearly prove.
If we strike out from our sentences everything but nouns and verbs, we shall perceive how extremely vague is the expression of ideas in undeveloped tongues. When we note how each inflection of a verb or addition by which the case of a noun is marked, serves to limit the conditions of action or of existence, we see that these constituents of speech enable men more precisely to communicate their thoughts. That the application of an adjective to a noun or an adverb to a verb, narrows the class of things or changes indicated, implies that these additional words serve further to define the meaning. And similarly with other parts of speech. The like effect results from the multiplication of words of each order. When the names for objects, and acts, and qualities, are but few, the range of each is proportionately wide, and its meaning therefore unspecific. The similes and metaphors so abundantly used by aboriginal races, are simply vehicles for indirectly and imperfectly conveying ideas, which lack of words disables them from conveying directly and perfectly. In contrasting these figurative expressions, interpretable in various senses, with the expressions which we should use in place of them, the increase of exactness which wealth of language gives, is rendered very obvious.
Or to take a case from ordinary life, if we compare the speech of the peasant, who, out of his limited vocabulary, can describe the contents of the bottle he carries, only as “doctor’s-stuff” which he has got for his “sick” wife, with the speech of the physician, who tells those educated like himself the particular composition of the medicine, and the particular disorder for which he has prescribed it; we have vividly brought home to us, the precision which language gains by the multiplication of terms. Again, in the course of its evolution, each tongue acquires a further accuracy through processes which fix the meaning of each word. Intellectual intercourse tends gradually to diminish laxity of expression. By and by dictionaries give definitions. And eventually, among the most cultivated, indefiniteness is not tolerated, either in the terms used or in their grammatical combinations. Once more, languages considered as wholes, become gradually more distinct from each other, and from their common parent: as witness in early times the divergence from the same root of two languages so unlike as Greek and Latin, and in later times the development of three Latin dialects into Italian, French, and Spanish.
In his “History of the Inductive Sciences,” Dr. Whewell says that the Greeks failed in physical philosophy because their “ideas were not distinct, and appropriate to the facts.” I do not quote this remark for its luminousness; since it would be equally proper to ascribe the indistinctness and inappropriateness of their ideas to the imperfection of their physical philosophy; but I quote it because it serves as good evidence of the indefiniteness of primitive science. The same work and its fellow on “The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” supply other evidences equally good, because equally independent of any such hypothesis as is here to be established. Respecting mathematics we have the fact that geometrical theorems grew out of empirical methods; and that these theorems, at first isolated, did not acquire the clearness which complete demonstration gives, until they were arranged by Euclid into a series of dependent propositions. At a later period the same general truth was exemplified in the progress from the “method of exhaustions” and the “method of indivisibles” to the “method of limits;” which is the central idea of the infinitesimal calculus. In early mechanics, too, may be traced a dim perception that action and re-action are equal and opposite; though for ages after, this truth remained unformulated.
And similarly, the property of inertia, though not distinctly comprehended until Kepler lived, was vaguely recognized long previously. “The conception of statical force,” “was never presented in a distinct form till the works of Archimedes appeared;” and “the conception of accelerating force was confused, in the mind of Kepler and his contemporaries, and did not become clear enough for purposes of sound scientific reasoning before the succeeding century.” To which specific assertions may be added the general remark, that “terms which originally, and before the laws of motion were fully known, were used in a very vague and fluctuating sense, were afterwards limited and rendered precise.” When we turn from abstract scientific conceptions to the concrete previsions of science, of which astronomy furnishes us with numerous examples, the like contrast is visible. The times at which celestial phenomena will occur, have been predicted with ever-increasing accuracy: errors once amounting to days, have been reduced down to seconds. The correspondence between the real and supposed forms of orbits, has been growing gradually more precise. Originally thought circular, then epicyclical, then elliptical, orbits are now ascertained to be curves which always deviate more or less from perfect ellipses, and which are ever undergoing change.
But the general advance of Science in definiteness, is best shown by the contrast between its qualitative stage, and its quantitative stage. At first, the facts ascertained were, that between such and such phenomena some connexion existed—that the appearances _a_ and _b_ always occurred together or in succession; but it was neither known what was the nature of the relation between _a_ and _b_, nor how much of _a_ accompanied so much of _b_. The development of Science has in part been the reduction of these vague connexions to distinct ones. Most relations have been determined as belonging to the classes mechanical, chemical, thermal, electric, magnetic, &c.; and we have learnt to infer the amounts of the antecedents and consequents from each other with an exactness that becomes ever greater. Were there space to state them, illustrations of this truth might be cited from all departments of physics; but it must suffice here to instance the general progress of chemistry. Besides the conspicuous fact that we have positively ascertained the constituent elements of an immense number of compounds which our ancestors could not analyze, and of a far greater number which they never even saw, there is the still more conspicuous fact that the combining equivalents of these elements are accurately calculated.
The beginnings of a like advance from qualitative to quantitative prevision, may be traced even in some of the higher sciences. Physiology shows it in the weighing and measuring of organic products, and of the materials consumed. By Pathology it is displayed in the use of the statistical method of determining the sources of diseases, and the effects of treatment. In Zoology and Botany, the numerical comparisons of Floras and Faunas, leading to specific conclusions respecting their sources and distributions, illustrate it. And in Sociology, questionable as are the conclusions usually drawn from the classified sum-totals of the census, from Board-of-Trade tables, and from criminal returns, it must be admitted that these imply a progress towards more accurate conceptions of social phenomena. That an essential characteristic of advancing Science is increase in definiteness, appears indeed almost a truism, when we remember that Science may be described as definite knowledge, in contradistinction to that indefinite knowledge possessed by the uncultured. And if, as we cannot question, Science has, in the slow course of ages, been evolved out of this indefinite knowledge of the uncultured; then, the gradual acquirement of that great definiteness which now distinguishes it, must have been a leading trait in its evolution.
The Arts, industrial and æsthetic, furnish illustrations perhaps still more striking. Flint implements of the kind recently found in certain of the later geologic deposits—implements so rude that some have held them to be of natural rather than of artificial origin—show the extreme want of precision in men’s first handyworks. Though a great advance on these is seen in the tools and weapons of existing savage tribes, yet an inexactness in forms and fittings, more than anything else distinguishes such tools and weapons from those of civilized races. In a less degree, the productions of semi-barbarous nations are characterized by like defects. A Chinese junk with all its contained furniture and appliances, nowhere presents a perfectly straight line, a uniform curve, or a true surface. Nor do the utensils and machines of our ancestors fail to exhibit a similar inferiority to our own. An antique chair, an old fireplace, a lock of the last century, or almost any article of household use that has been preserved for a few generations, will prove by contrast how greatly the industrial products of our time excel those of the past in their accuracy. Since planing machines have been invented, it has become possible to produce absolutely straight lines, and surfaces so truly level as to be air-tight when applied to each other.
While in the dividing-engine of Troughton, in the micrometer of Whitworth, and in microscopes that show fifty thousand divisions to the inch, we have an exactness as far exceeding that reached in the works of our great-grandfathers, as theirs exceeded that of the aboriginal celt-makers. In the Fine Arts there has been a parallel process. From the rudely carved and painted idols of savages, through the early sculptures characterized by limbs having no muscular detail, wooden-looking drapery, and faces devoid of individuality, up to the later statues of the Greeks or some of those now produced, the increased accuracy of representation is conspicuous. Compare the mural paintings of the Egyptians with the paintings of medieval Europe, or these with modern paintings, and the more precise rendering of the appearances of objects is manifest. So too is it with the delineations of fiction and the drama. In the marvellous tales current among Eastern nations, in the romantic legends of feudal Europe, as well as in the mystery-plays and those immediately succeeding them, we see great want of correspondence to the realities of life; not only in the predominance of supernatural events and extremely improbable coincidences, but also in the vaguely-indicated personages, who are nothing more than embodiments of virtue and vice in general, or at best of particular virtues and vices.
Through transitions that need not be specified, there has been a progressive diminution, in both fiction and the drama, of whatever is unnatural—whatever does not answer to real life. And now, novels and plays are applauded in proportion to the fidelity with which they exhibit individual characters with their motives and consequent actions; improbabilities, like the impossibilities which preceded them, are disallowed; and there is even an incipient abandonment of those elaborate plots which the realities of life rarely if ever furnish. Were it needful, it would be easy to accumulate evidences of various other kinds. The progress from myths and legends, extreme in their misrepresentations, to a history that has slowly become, and is still becoming, more accurate; the establishment of settled systematic methods of doing things, instead of the indeterminate ways at first pursued; and the great increase in the number of points on which conflicting opinion has settled down into exact knowledge; might severally be used further to exemplify the general truth enunciated. The basis of induction is, however, already sufficiently wide. Proof that all Evolution is from the indefinite to the definite, we find to be not less abundant than proof that all Evolution is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. The one kind of change is co-extensive with the other—is equally with it exhibited throughout Nature.
The illustrations furnished by the Solar System, supposing it to have had a nebular origin, are so obvious as scarcely to need indicating. That as a whole, it underwent a gradual concentration while assuming its present distribution of parts; and that there subsequently took place a like concentration of the matter forming each planet and satellite, is the leading feature of the hypothesis. The process of integration is here seen in its simplest and most decided form. Geologic evolution, if we trace it up from that molten state of the Earth’s substance which we are obliged to postulate, supplies us with more varied facts of like meaning. The advance from a thin crust, at first everywhere fissured and moveable, to a crust so solid and thick as to be but now and then very partially dislocated by disturbing forces, exemplifies the unifying process; as does likewise the advance from a surface covered with small patches of land and water, to one divided into continents and oceans—an advance also resulting from the Earth’s gradual solidification. Moreover, the collection of detritus into strata of great extent, and the union of such strata into extensive “systems,” becomes possible only as surfaces of land and water become wide, and subsidences great, in both area and depth; whence it follows that integrations of this order must have grown more pronounced as the Earth’s crust thickened. Different and simpler instances of the process through which mixed materials are separated, and the kindred units aggregated into masses, are exhibited in the detailed structure of the Earth. The phenomena of crystallization may be cited _en masse_, as showing how the unifications of similar elements take place wherever the conditions permit. Not only do we see this where there is little or no hindrance to the approach of the particles, as in the cases of crystals formed from solutions, or by sublimation; but it is also seen where there are great obstacles to their approach. The flints and the nodules of iron pyrites that are found in chalk, as well as the silicious concretions which occasionally occur in limestone, can be interpreted only as aggregations of atoms of silex or sulphuret of iron, originally diffused almost uniformly through the deposit, but gradually collected round certain centres, notwithstanding the solid or semi-solid state of the surrounding matter. Iron-stone as it ordinarily occurs, presents a similar phenomenon to be similarly explained; and what is called bog iron-ore supplies the conditions and the result in still more obvious correlation.
During the evolution of an organism, there occurs, as every physiologist knows, not only separation of parts, but coalescence of parts. In the mammalian embryo, the heart, at first a long pulsating blood-vessel, by and by twists upon itself and becomes integrated. The layer of bile-cells constituting the rudimentary liver, do not simply become different from the wall of the intestine in which they at first lie; but they simultaneously diverge from it and consolidate into an organ. The anterior segments of the cerebro-spinal axis, which are at first continuous with the rest, and distinguished only by their larger size, undergo a gradual union; and at the same time the resulting head consolidates into a mass clearly marked off from the rest of the vertebral column. The like process, variously exemplified in other organs, is meanwhile exhibited by the body as a whole; which becomes integrated, somewhat in the same way that the contents of an outspread handkerchief become integrated when its edges are drawn in and fastened to make a bundle. Analogous changes go on long after birth, and continue even up to old age.
In the human being that gradual solidification of the bony framework, which, during childhood, is seen in the coalescence of portions of the same bone ossified from different centres, is afterwards seen in the coalescence of bones that were originally distinct. The appendages of the vertebræ unite with the vertebral centres to which they belong—a change not completed until towards thirty. At the same time the epiphyses, formed separately from the main bodies of their respective bones, have their cartilaginous connexions turned into osseous ones—are fused to the masses beneath them. The component vertebræ of the sacrum, which remain separate till about the sixteenth year, then begin to unite; and in ten or a dozen years more their union is complete. Still later occurs the coalescence of the coccygeal vertebræ; and there are some other bony unions which are not completed until advanced age. To which add that the increase of density and toughness, going on throughout the tissues in general during life, may be regarded as the formation of a more highly integrated substance. The species of change thus illustrated under its several aspects in the unfolding of the human body, may be traced in all animals.
That mode of it which consists in the union of homogeneous parts originally separate, has been described by Milne-Edwards and others, as exhibited in various of the invertebrata; though it does not seem to have been included by them as an essential peculiarity in the process of organic development. We shall, however, be led strongly to suspect that progressive integration should form part of the definition of this process, when we find it displayed not only in tracing up the stages passed through by every embryo, but also in ascending from the lower living creatures to the higher. And here, as in the evolution of individual organisms, it goes on both longitudinally and transversely: under which different forms we may indeed most conveniently consider it. Of _longitudinal integration_, the sub-kingdom _Annulosa_ supplies abundant examples. Its lower members, such as worms and myriapods, are mostly characterized by the great number of segments composing them: reaching in some cases to several hundreds. But in the higher divisions—crustaceans, insects, and spiders—we find this number reduced down to twenty-two, thirteen, or even fewer; while, accompanying the reduction, there is a shortening or integration of the whole body, reaching its extreme in the crab and the spider.
The significance of these contrasts, as bearing upon the general doctrine of Evolution, will be seen when it is pointed out that they are parallel to those which arise during the development of individual _Annulosa_. In the lobster, the head and thorax form one compact box, made by the union of a number of segments which in the embryo were separable. Similarly, the butterfly shows us segments so much more closely united than they were in the caterpillar, as to be, some of them, no longer distinguishable from each other. The _Vertebrata_ again, throughout their successively higher classes, furnish like instances of longitudinal union. In most fishes, and in reptiles that have no limbs, the only segments of the spinal column that coalesce, are those forming the skull. In most mammals and in birds, a variable number of vertebræ become fused together to form the sacrum; and in the higher quadrumana and man, the caudal vertebræ also lose their separate individualities in a single _os coccygis_. That which we may distinguish as _transverse integration_, is well illustrated among the _Annulosa_ in the development of the nervous system.
Leaving out those most degraded forms which do not present distinct ganglia, it is to be observed that the lower annulose animals, in common with the larvæ of the higher, are severally characterized by a double chain of ganglia running from end to end of the body; while in the more perfectly formed annulose animals, this double chain becomes more or less completely united into a single chain. Mr. Newport has described the course of this concentration as exhibited in insects; and by Rathke it has been traced in crustaceans. During the early stages of the _Astacus fluviatilis_, or common cray-fish, there is a pair of separate ganglia to each ring. Of the fourteen pairs belonging to the head and thorax, the three pairs in advance of the mouth consolidate into one mass to form the brain, or cephalic ganglion. Meanwhile, out of the remainder, the first six pairs severally unite in the median line, while the rest remain more or less separate. Of these six double ganglia thus formed, the anterior four coalesce into one mass; the remaining two coalesce into another mass; and then these two masses coalesce into one. Here we see longitudinal and transverse integration going on simultaneously; and in the highest crustaceans they are both carried still further.
The _Vertebrata_ clearly exhibit transverse integration in the development of the generative system. The lowest of the mammalia—the _Monotremata_—in common with birds, to which they are in many respects allied, have oviducts which towards their lower extremities are dilated into cavities, severally performing in an imperfect way the function of a uterus. “In the _Marsupialia_ there is a closer approximation of the two lateral sets of organs on the median line; for the oviducts converge towards one another and meet (without coalescing) on the median line; so that their uterine dilatations are in contact with each other, forming a true ‘double uterus....’ As we ascend the series of ‘placental’ mammals, we find the lateral coalescence becoming more and more complete.... In many of the _Rodentia_ the uterus still remains completely divided into two lateral halves; whilst in others these coalesce at their lower portions, forming a rudiment of the true ‘body’ of the uterus in the human subject. This part increases at the expense of the lateral ‘cornua’ in the higher herbivora and carnivora; but even in the lower quadrumana the uterus is somewhat cleft at its summit.”[10]
In the social organism integrative changes are not less clearly and abundantly exemplified. Uncivilized societies display them when wandering families, such as the bushmen show us, unite into tribes of considerable numbers. Among these we see a further progress of like nature everywhere manifested in the subjugation of weaker tribes by stronger ones; and in the subordination of their respective chiefs to the conquering chief. The partial combinations thus resulting, which among aboriginal races are being continually formed and continually broken up, become, among the superior races, both more complete and more permanent. If we trace the metamorphoses through which our own society, or any adjacent one, has passed, we see this unification from time to time repeated on a larger scale and with increasing stability. The aggregation of juniors and the children of juniors under elders and the children of elders; the consequent establishment of groups of vassals bound to their respective nobles; the subordination afterwards established of groups of inferior nobles to dukes or earls; and the still later establishment of the kingly power over dukes or earls; are so many instances of increasing consolidation.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.