The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 · Herbert Spencer
IV.
Among those who follow a controversy to its close, not one in a hundred turns back to its beginning to see whether its chief theses have been dealt with. Very often the leading arguments of one disputant, seen by the other to be unanswerable, are quietly ignored, and attention is concentrated on subordinate arguments to which replies, actually or seemingly valid, can be made. The original issue is thus commonly lost sight of. More than once I have pointed out that, as influencing men's views about Education, Ethics, Sociology, and Politics, the question whether acquired characters are inherited is the most important question before the scientific world. Hence I cannot allow the discussion with Professor Weismann to end in so futile a way as it will do if no summary of results is made. Here, therefore, I propose to recapitulate the whole case in brief. Primarily my purpose is to recall certain leading propositions which, having been passed by unnoticed, remain outstanding. I will turn, in the second place, to such propositions as have been dealt with; hoping to show that the replies given are invalid, and consequently that these propositions also remain outstanding. But something beyond a summing-up is intended. A few pages at the close will be devoted to setting forth new evidence which has come to light since the controversy commenced--evidence which many will think sufficient in itself to warrant a positive conclusion.
Singling out this last case, Professor Weismann made, or rather adopted from Dr. Romanes, what professed to be a reply but was nothing more than the blank form of a reply. It was said that though this extreme discriminativeness of the tongue-tip is of no use to mankind, it may have been of use to certain ancestral _primates_. No evidence of any such use was given; no imaginable use was assigned. It was simply suggested that there perhaps was a use. In my rejoinder, after indicating the illusory nature of this proceeding (which is much like offering a cheque on a bank where no assets have been deposited to meet it), I pointed out that had the evidence furnished by the tongue tip never been mentioned, the evidence otherwise furnished amply sufficed. I then drew attention to the fact that this evidence had been passed over, and tacitly inquired why. No reply.[132] * * * * * In his essay on "The All-Sufficiency of Natural Selection," Professor Weismann set out, not by answering one of the arguments I had used, but by importing into the discussion an argument used by another writer, which it was easy to meet. It had been contended that the smallness and deformity of the little toe are consequent upon the effects of boot-pressure, inherited from generation to generation. To this Professor Weismann made the sufficient reply that the fusion of the phalanges and otherwise degraded structure of the little toe, exist among peoples who go barefoot.
We come now to Professor Weismann's endeavour to disprove my second thesis--that it is impossible to explain by natural selection alone the co-adaptation of co-operative parts. It is thirty years since this was set forth in _The Principles of Biology_. In § 166 I instanced the enormous horns of the extinct Irish elk, and contended that in this, and in kindred cases, where for the efficient use of some one enlarged part many other parts have to be simultaneously enlarged, it is out of the question to suppose that they can have all spontaneously varied in the required proportions. In "The Factors of Organic Evolution," by way of enforcing this argument, which had, so far as I know, never been met, I dwelt upon the aberrant structure of the giraffe. And then, in the essay which initiated this controversy, I brought forward yet a third case--that of an animal which, previously accustomed only to walking, acquires the power of leaping.
In the first of his articles in the _Contemporary Review_ (September, 1893), Professor Weismann made no direct reply, but he made an indirect reply. He did not attempt to show how there could have taken place in the stag the "harmonious variation of the different parts that co-operate to produce one physiological result" (p. 311); but he contended that such harmonious variation _must_ have taken place, because the like has taken place in "the neuters of state-forming insects"--"animal forms which do not reproduce themselves, but are always propagated anew by parents which are unlike them" (p. 313), and which therefore cannot have transmitted acquired characters. Singling out those soldier-neuters which exist among certain kinds of ants, he described (p. 318) the many co-ordinated parts required to make their fighting organs efficient. He then argued that the required simultaneous changes can "only have arisen by a selection of the parent-ants dependent on the fact that those parents which produced the best workers had always the best prospect of the persistence of their colony. No other explanation is conceivable; _and it is just because no other explanation is conceivable, that it is necessary for us to accept the principle of natural selection_" (pp. 318-9). [This passage initiated a collateral controversy, which, as continually happens, has greatly obscured the primary controversy. It became a question whether these forms of neuter insects have arisen as Professor Weismann assumes, or whether they have arisen from arrested development consequent upon innutrition. To avoid entanglements I must for the present pass over this collateral controversy, intending to resume it presently, when the original issues have been dealt with.]
No one will suspect me of thinking that the inconceivability of the negation is not a valid criterion, since, in "The Universal Postulate," published in the _Westminster Review_ in 1852 and afterwards in _The Principles of Psychology_, I contended that it is the ultimate test of truth. But then in every case there has to be determined the question--Is the negation inconceivable; and in assuming that it is so in the case named, lies the fallacy of the above-quoted passage. The three separate ways in which I dealt with this position of Professor Weismann are as follows:-- If we admit the assumption that the form of the soldier-ant has been developed since the establishment of the organized ant-community in which it exists, Professor Weismann's assertion that no other process than that which he alleges is conceivable, is true. But I pointed out that this assumption is inadmissible; and that no valid conclusion respecting the genesis of the soldier-ant can be drawn without postulating either the ascertained, or the probable, structure of those pre-social, or semi-social, ants from which the organized social ants have descended. I went on to contend that the pre-social type must have been a conquering type, and that therefore in all probability the soldier-ants represent most nearly the structures of those ancestral ants which existed when the society had perfect males and females and could transmit acquired characters, while the other members of the existing communities are degraded forms of the type.
No reply. A further argument I used was that where there exist different castes among the neuter-ants, as those seen in the soldiers and workers of the Driver ants of West Africa, "they graduate insensibly into each other" alike in their sizes and in their structures; and that Professor Weismann's hypothesis implies a special set of "determinants" for each intermediate form. Or if he should say that the intermediate forms result from mixtures of the determinants of the two extreme forms, there still remains the further difficulty that natural selection has maintained, for innumerable generations, these intermediate forms which are injurious deviations from the useful extreme forms. No reply. One further reason--fatal it seems to me--was urged in bar of his interpretation. No physical cause has been, or can be, assigned, why in the germ-plasm of any particular queen-ant, the "determinants" initiating these various co-operative organs, all simultaneously vary in fitting ways and degrees, and still less why there occur such co-ordinated variations generation after generation, until by their accumulated results these efficient co-operative structures have been evolved. I pointed out that in the absence of any assigned or assignable physical cause, it is necessary to assume a fortuitous concurrence of favourable variations, which means "a fortuitous concourse of atoms;" and that it would be just as rational, and much more consistent, to assume that the structure of the entire organism thus resulted.
"The great significance of intra-selection appears to me not to depend on its producing structures that are directly transmissible,--it cannot do that,--but rather consists in its causing a development of the germ-structure, acquired by the selection of individuals, which will be suitable to varying conditions.... We may therefore say that intra-selection effects the adaptation of the individual to its chance developmental conditions,--the suiting of the hereditary primary constituents to fresh circumstances" (p. 16).... "But as the primary variations in the phyletic metamorphosis occurred little by little, the secondary adaptations would probably as a rule be able to keep pace with them. Time would thus be gained till, in the course of generations, by constant selection of those germs the primary constituents of which are best suited to one another, the greatest possible degree of harmony may be reached, and consequently a definitive metamorphosis of the species involving all the parts of the individual may occur" (p. 19).
The connecting sentences, along with those which precede and succeed, would not, if quoted, give to the reader clearer conceptions than these by themselves give. But when disentangled from Professor Weismann's involved statements, the essential issues are, I think, clear enough. In the case of the stag, that daily working together of the numerous nerves, muscles, and bones concerned, by which they are adjusted to the carrying and using of somewhat heavier horns, produces on them effects which, as I hold, are inheritable, but which, as Professor Weismann holds, are not inheritable. If they are not inheritable, what must happen? A fawn of the next generation is born with no such adjustment of nerves, muscles and bones as had been produced by greater exercise in the parent, and with no tendency to such adjustment. Consequently if, in successive generations, the horns go on enlarging, all these nerves, muscles, and bones, remaining of the original sizes, become utterly inadequate. The result is loss of life: the process of adaptation fails. "No," says Professor Weismann, "we must conclude that the germ-plasm has varied in the needful manner." How so? The process of "intra-individual selection," as he calls it, can have had no effect, since the cells of the soma cannot influence the reproductive cells. In what way, then, has the germ-plasm gained the characters required for producing simultaneously all these modified co-operative parts. Well, Professor Weismann tells us merely that we must suppose that the germ-plasm acquires a certain sensitiveness such as gives it a proclivity to development in the requisite ways. How is such proclivity obtainable? Only by having a multitude of its "determinants" simultaneously changed in fit modes. Emphasizing the fact that even a small failure in any one of the co-operative parts may be fatal, as the sprain of an over-taxed muscle shows us, I alleged that the chances are infinity to one against the needful variations taking place at the same time. Divested of its elaboration, its abstract words and technical phrases, the outcome of Professor Weismann's explanation is that he accepts this, and asserts that the infinitely improbable thing takes place!
Either his argument is a disguised admission of the inheritableness of acquired characters (the effects of "intra-selection") or else it is, as before, the assumption of a fortuitous concourse of favourable variations in the determinants--"a fortuitous concourse of atoms." * * * * * Leaving here this main issue, I return now to that collateral issue named on a preceding page as being postponed--whether the neuters among social insects result from specially modified germ-plasms or whether they result from the treatment received during their larval stages. For the substantiation of his doctrine Professor Weismann is obliged to adopt the first of these alternatives; and in his Romanes Lecture he found it needful to deal with the evidence I brought in support of the second alternative. He says that "poor feeding is not the _causa efficiens_ of sterility among bees, but is merely the stimulus which _not only results in the formation of rudimentary ovaries, but at the same time calls forth all the other distinctive characters of the workers_" (pp. 29-30); and he says this although he has in preceding lines admitted that it is "true of all animals that they reproduce only feebly or not at all when badly and insufficiently nourished:" a known cause being thus displaced by a supposed cause. But Professor Weismann proceeds to justify his interpretation by experimentally-obtained evidence.
He "reared large numbers of the eggs of a female blow-fly"; the larvæ of some he fed abundantly, but the larvæ of others sparingly; and eventually he obtained, from the one set flies of full size, and from the other small flies. Nevertheless the small flies were fertile, as well as the others. Here, then, was proof that innutrition had not produced infertility; and he contends that therefore among the neuter social insects, infertility has not resulted from innutrition. The argument seems strong, and to many will appear conclusive; but there are two differences which entirely vitiate the comparison Professor Weismann institutes. One of them has been pointed out by Mr. Cunningham. In the case of the blow-fly the food supplied to the larvæ though different in quantity was the same in quality; in the case of the social insects the food supplied, whether or not different in quantity, differs in quality. Among bees, wasps, ants, &c., the larvæ of the reproductive forms are fed upon a more nitrogenous food than are the larvæ of the workers; whereas the two sets of larvæ of the blow-fly, as fed by Professor Weismann, were alike supplied with highly nitrogenous food. Hence there did not exist the same cause for non-development of the reproductive organs. Here, then, is one vitiation of the supposed parallel. There is a second.
While the development of an embryo follows in a rude way the phyletic metamorphoses passed through by its ancestry, the order of development of organs is often gradually modified by the needs of particular species: the structures being developed in such order as conduces to self-sustentation and the welfare of offspring. Among other results there arise differences in the relative dates of maturity of the reproductive system and of the other systems. It is clear, _à priori_, that it must be fatal to a species if offspring are habitually produced before the conditions requisite for their survival are fulfilled. And hence, if the life is a complex one, and the care taken of offspring is great, reproduction must be much longer delayed than where the life is simple and the care of offspring absent or easy. The contrast between men and oxen sufficiently illustrates this truth. Now the subordination of the order of development of parts to the needs of the species, is conspicuously shown in the contrast between these two kinds of insects which Professor Weismann compares as though their requirements were similar. What happens with the blow fly?
If it is able to suck up some nutriment, to fly tolerably, and to scent out dead flesh, various of its minor organs may be more or less imperfect without appreciable detriment to the species: the eggs can be laid in a fit place, and that is all that is wanted. Hence it profits the species to have the reproductive system developed comparatively early--in advance, even, of various less essential parts. Quite otherwise is it with social insects, which take such remarkable care of their young; or rather to make the case parallel--quite otherwise is it with those types from which the social insects have descended, bringing into the social state their inherited instincts and constitutions. Consider the doings of the mason-wasp, or mason-bee, or those of the carpenter-bee. What, in these cases, must the female do that she may rear members of the next generation?
There is a fit place for building or burrowing to be chosen; there is the collecting together of grains of sand and cementing them into a strong and water-proof cell, or there is the burrowing into wood and there building several cells; there is the collecting of food to place along with the eggs deposited in these cells, solitary or associated, including that intelligent choice of small caterpillars which, discovered and carried home, are carefully packed away and hypnotized by a sting, so that they may live until the growing larva has need of them. For all these proceedings there have to be provided the fit external organs--cutting instruments, &c., and the fit internal organs--complicated nerve-centres in which are located these various remarkable instincts, and ganglia by which these delicate operations have to be guided. And these special structures have, some if not all of them, to be made perfect and brought into efficient action before egg-laying takes place. Ask what would happen if the reproductive system were active in advance of these ancillary appliances. The eggs would have to be laid without protection or food, and the species would forthwith disappear. And if that full development of the reproductive organs which is marked by their activity, is not needful until these ancillary organs have come into play, the implication, in conformity with the general law above indicated, is that the perfect development of the reproductive organs will take place later than that of these ancillary organs, and that if innutrition checks the general development, the reproductive organs will be those which chiefly suffer. Hence, in the social types which have descended from these solitary types, this order of evolution of parts will be inherited, and will entail the results I have inferred.
If only deductively reached, this conclusion would, I think, be fully justified. But now observe that it is more than deductively reached. It is established by observation. Professor Riley, Ph.D., late Government Entomologist of the United States, in his annual address as President of the Biological Society of Washington,[134] on January 29, 1894, said:-- "Among the more curious facts connected with these Termites, because of their exceptional nature, is the late development of the internal sexual organs in the reproductive forms." (p. 34.) Though what has been shown of the Termites has not been shown of the other social insects, which belong to a different order, yet, considering the analogies between their social states and between their constitutional requirements, it is a fair inference that what holds in the one case holds partially, if not fully, in the other. Should it be said that the larval forms do not pass into the pupa state in the one case as they do in the other, the answer is that this does not affect the principle. The larva carries into the pupa state a fixed quantity of tissue-forming material for the production of the imago. If the material is sufficient, then a complete imago is formed. If it is not sufficient, then, while the earlier formed organs are not affected by the deficiency, the deficiency is felt when the latest formed organs come to be developed, and they are consequently imperfect.
_Forms in a Termes Colony under Normal Conditions._ 1. Youngest larvæ. / \ / \ / \ 2. Larvæ [of those] unfit 3. Larvæ [that will be] fit for reproduction. for reproduction. / \ / \ / \ / \ 4. Larvæ of 5. Larvæ of 8. Nymphs of 9. Nymphs of 2nd workers. soldiers. 1st form. form. | | | 6. Workers. 7. Soldiers. 10. Winged forms. | 11. True royal pairs. Hence as, in this family tree, the royal pair includes male and female, it results that there are _five_ different adult forms (Grassi says there are two others) arising from like eggs or larvæ; and Professor Weismann's hypothesis becomes proportionately complicated. Let us observe what the complications are.
It often happens in controversy--metaphysical controversy more than any other--that propositions are accepted without their terms having been mentally represented. In public proceedings documents are often "taken as read," sometimes with mischievous results; and in discussions propositions are often taken as thought when they have not been thought and cannot be thought. It sufficiently taxes imagination to assume, as Professor Weismann does, that two sets of "ids" or of "determinants" in the same egg are, throughout all the cell-divisions which end in the formation of the _morula_, kept separate, so that they may subsequently energize independently; or that if they are not thus kept separate, they have the power of segregating in the required ways. But what are we to say when three, four, and even five sets of "ids" or bundles of "determinants" are present? How is dichotomous division to keep these sets distinct; or if they are not kept distinct, what shall we say to the chaos which must arise after many fissions, when each set in conflict with the others strives to produce its particular structure? And how are the conquering determinants to find they ways out of the _mêlée_ to the places where they are to fulfil their organizing functions? Even were they all intelligent beings and each had a map by which to guide his movements, the problem would be sufficiently puzzling. Can we assume it to be solved by unconscious units?
Thus even had Professor Weismann shown that the special structures of the different individuals in an insect-community are not due to differences in the nurtures they receive, which he has failed to do, he would still be met by this difficulty in the way of his own view, in addition to the three other insuperable difficulties grouped together in a preceding section. * * * * * The collateral issue, which has occupied the largest space in the controversy, has, as commonly happens, begotten a second generation of collateral issues. Some of these are embodied in the form of questions put to me, which I must here answer, lest it should be supposed that they are unanswerable and my view therefore untenable. In the notes he appends to his Romanes Lecture, Professor Weismann writes:-- "One of the questions put to Spencer by Ball is quite sufficient to show the utter weakness of the position of Lamarckism:--if their characteristics did not arise among the workers themselves, but were transmitted from the pre-social time, how does it happen that the queens and drones of every generation can give anew to the workers the characteristics which they themselves have long ago lost?" (p. 68).
It is curious to see put forward in so triumphant a manner, by a professed naturalist, a question so easily disposed of. I answer it by putting another. How does it happen that among those moths of which the female has but rudimentary wings, she continues to endow the males of her species with wings? How does it happen, for example, that among the _Geometridæ_, the peculiar structures and habits of which show that they have all descended from a common ancestor, some species have winged females and some wingless females; and that though they have lost the wings the ancestral females had, these wingless females convey to the males the normal developments of wings? Or, still better, how is it that in the _Psychidæ_ there are apterous worm-like females, which lay eggs that bring forth winged males of the ordinary imago form? If for males we read workers, the case is parallel to the cases of those social insects, the queens of which bequeath characteristics they have themselves lost. The ordinary facts of embryonic evolution yield us analogies. What is the most common trait in the development of the sexes? When the sexual organs of either become pronounced, the incipient ancillary organs belonging to the opposite sex cease to develop and remain rudiments, while the organs special to the sex, essential and nonessential, become fully developed. What, then, must happen with the queen-ant, which, through countless generations, has ceased to use certain structures and has lost them from disuse? If one of the eggs which she lays, capable, as Professor Weismann admits, of becoming queen, male, or worker of one or other kind, does not at a certain stage begin actively to develop its reproductive system, then those organs of the ancestral or pre-social type which the queen has lost begin to develop, and a worker results.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.