The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 · Herbert Spencer
IV.
Another difficulty in the way of my view, supposed to be fatal, is that presented by the Honey-ants--aberrant members of certain ant-colonies which develop so enormously the pouch into which the food is drawn, that the abdomen becomes little else than a great bladder out of which the head, thorax, and legs protrude. This, it is thought, cannot be accounted for otherwise than as a consequence of specially endowed eggs, which it has become profitable to the community for the queen to produce. But the explanation fits in quite easily with the view I have set forth. No one will deny that the taking in of food is the deepest of vital requirements, and the correlative instinct a dominant one; nor will any one deny that the instinct of feeding young is less deeply seated--comes later in order of time. So, too, every one will admit that the worker-bee or worker-ant before regurgitating food into the mouth of a larva must first of all take it in. Hence, alike in order of time and necessity, it is to be assumed that development of the nervous structures which guide self-nutrition, precedes development of the nervous structures which guide the feeding of larvæ. What, then, will in some cases happen, supposing there is an arrested development consequent on innutrition? It will in some cases happen that while the nervous centres prompting and regulating deglutition are fully formed, the formation of those prompting and regulating the regurgitation of the food into the mouths of larvæ are arrested. What will be the consequence? The life of the worker is mainly passed in taking in food and putting it out again. If the putting out is stopped its life will be mainly passed in taking in food. The receptacle will go on enlarging and it will eventually assume the monstrous form that we see.[137]
Here, however, to exclude misinterpretations, let me explain. I by no means deny that variation and selection have produced, in these insect-communities, certain effects such as Mr. Darwin suggested. Doubtless ant-queens vary; doubtless there are variations in their eggs; doubtless differences of structure in the resulting progeny sometimes prove advantageous to the stirp, and originate slight modifications of the species. But such changes, legitimately to be assumed, are changes in single parts--in single organs or portions of organs. Admission of this does not involve admission that there can take place numerous correlated variations in different and often remote parts, which must take place simultaneously or else be useless. Assumption of this is what Professor Weismann's argument requires, and assumption of this we have seen to be absurd. Before leaving the general problem presented by the social insects, let me remark that the various complexities of action not explained by inheritance from pre-social or semi-social types, are probably due to accumulated and transmitted knowledge. I recently read an account of the education of a butterfly, carried to the extent that it became quite friendly with its protector and would come to be fed. If a non-social and relatively unintelligent insect is capable of thus far consciously adjusting its actions, then it seems a reasonable supposition that in a community of social insects there has arisen a mass of experience and usage into which each new individual is initiated; just as happens among ourselves. We have only to consider the chaos which would result were we suddenly bereft of language, and if the young were left to grow up without precept and example, to see that very probably the polity of an insect community is made possible by the addition of intelligence to instinct, and the transmission of information through sign-language.
Not content with this abstract form of the question I put it also in a concrete form, and granted for the nonce Professor Weismann's assumption: taking the case of the rudimentary hind limbs of the whale. I said that though, during those early stages of decrease in which the disused limbs were external, natural selection probably had a share in decreasing them, since they were then impediments to locomotion, yet when they became internal, and especially when they had dwindled to nothing but remnants of the femurs, it is impossible to suppose that natural selection played any part: no whale could have survived and initiated a more prosperous stirp in virtue of the economy achieved by such a decrease. The operation of natural selection being out of the question, I inquired whether such a decrease, say of one-half when the femurs weighed a few ounces, occurring in one individual, could be supposed in the ordinary course of reproduction to affect the whole of the whale species inhabiting the Arctic Seas and the North Atlantic Ocean; and so on with successive diminutions until the rudiments had reached their present minuteness. I asked whether such an interpretation could be rationally entertained. No reply. Now in the absence of replies to these two questions it seems to me that the verdict must go against Professor Weismann by default. If he has to surrender the hypothesis of _panmixia_, what results? All that evidence collected by Mr. Darwin and others, regarded by them as proof of the inheritance of acquired characters, which was cavalierly set aside on the strength of this alleged process of panmixia, is reinstated. And this reinstated evidence, joined with much evidence since furnished, suffices to establish the repudiated interpretation.
"There is great variety as to the constituents of the community and economy of the species in White Ants. One of the simplest conditions known is that studied by Grassi in the case of the European species Calotermes flavicollis. In this species there is no worker caste; the adult forms are only of two kinds, viz., soldiers, and the males and females; the sexes are externally almost indistinguishable, and there are males and females of soldiers as well as of the winged forms, though the sexual organs do not undergo their full development in any soldier whether male or female. "The soldier is not however a mere instance of simple arrested development. It is true that there is in it arrested development of the sexual organs, but this is accompanied by change of form of other parts--changes so extreme that one would hardly suppose the soldier to have any connection with either the young or the adult of the winged forms. "Now according to Grassi the whole of the individuals when born are undifferentiated forms (except as to sex), and each one is capable of going on the natural course of development and thus becoming a winged insect, or can be deviated from this course and made into a soldier; this is accomplished by the White Ants by special courses of feeding.
"The evidence given by Grassi is not conclusive as to the young being all born alike; and it may be that there are some individuals born that could not be deviated from the natural course and made into soldiers. But there is one case which seems to show positively that the deviation Grassi believes to occur is real, and not due to the selection by the ants of an individual that though appearing to our eyes undifferentiated is not really so. This is that an individual can be made into a soldier after it has visibly undergone one half or more of the development into a winged form. The Termites can in fact operate on an individual that has already acquired the rudiments of wings and whose head is totally destitute of any appearance of the shape of the armature peculiar to the soldier, and can turn it into a soldier; the rudiments of the wings being in such a case nearly entirely re-absorbed." Grassi has been for many years engaged in investigating these phenomena, and there is no reason for rejecting his statement. We can scarcely avoid accepting it, and if so, Professor Weismann's hypothesis is conclusively disposed of. Were there different sets of "determinants" for the soldier-form and for the winged sexual form, those "determinants" which had gone a long way towards producing the winged sexual form, would inevitably go on to complete that form, and could not have their proclivity changed by feeding.
"Mr. J. H. Hart is Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Trinidad. He has sent me a copy of his report presented to the Legislative Council in March, 1893, and has drawn my attention to certain facts contained in it concerning the 'Parasol' ants--the leaf-cutting ants which feed on the fungi developed in masses of the cut leaves carried to their nests. Both Mr. Bates and Mr. Belt described these ants, but described, it seems, different, though nearly allied, species, the habits of which are partially unlike. As they are garden-pests, Mr. Hart was led to examine into the development and social arrangements of these ants; establishing, to that end, artificial nests, after the manner adopted by Sir John Lubbock. Several of the facts set down have an important bearing on a question now under discussion. The following extracts, in which they are named, I abridge by omitting passages not relevant to the issue:-- "'The history of my nests is as follows: Nos. 1 and 2 were both taken (August 9) on the same day, while destroying nests in the Gardens, and were portions of separate nests but of the same species. No. 3 was procured on September 5, and is evidently a different although an allied species to Nos. 1 and 2. "'Finding neither of my nests had a queen, I procured one from another nest about to be destroyed, and placed it with No. 1 nest. It was received by the workers, and at once attended by a numerous retinue in royal style. On August 30 I removed the queen from No. 1 and placed it with No. 2, when it was again received in a most loyal manner....
"'Ants taken from Nos. 1 and 2 and placed with No. 3 were immediately destroyed by the latter, and even the soldiers of No. 3, as well as workers or nurses, were destroyed when placed with Nos. 1 and 2. "'In nest No. 2, from which I removed the queen on August 30, there are now in the pupa stage several queens and several males. The forms of ant in nests Nos. 1 and 2 are as follows: (_a_) queen, (_b_) male (both winged, but the queen loses its wings after marital flight), (_c_) large workers, (_d_) small workers, and (_e_) nurses. In nest No. 3 I have not yet seen the queen or male, but it possesses--(_a_) soldier, (_b_) larger workers, (_c_) smaller workers, and (_d_) nurses; but these are different in form to those of nests No. 1 and No. 2. Probably we might add a third form of worker, as there are several sizes in the nest....
"'It is curious that in No. 1 nest, from which the queen was removed on August 30, new queens and males are now being developed, while in No. 2 nest, where the queen is at present, nothing but workers have been brought out, and if a queen larva or pupa is placed there it is at once destroyed, while worker larvæ or pupæ are amicably received. In No. 3 all the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ collected with the nest have been hatched, and no eggs have since made their appearance to date. There is no queen with this nest.... On November 14 I attempted to prove by experiment how small a number of "parasol" ants it required to form a new colony. I placed two dozen of ants (one dozen workers and one dozen nurses) in two separate nests, No. 4 and No. 5. With No. 4 I placed a few larvæ with a few rose petals for them to manipulate. With No. 5 I gave a small piece of nest covered with mycelium. On the 16th these nests were destroyed by small foraging ants, known as the "sugar" or "meat" ant, and I had to remove them and replace with a new colony. My notes on these are not sufficiently lengthy to be of much importance. But I noted four eggs laid on the 16th, or two days after being placed in their new quarters; no queen being present. The experiment is being continued. I may mention that in No. 4 nest, in which no fungus was present, the larvæ of all sizes appeared to change into the pupæ stage at once for want of food [a fact corresponding with the fact I have named as observed by myself sixty years ago in the case of wasp larvæ]. The circumstance tends to show that the development of the insect is influenced entirely by the feeding it gets in the larva stage.
"7. The habits as to sitting postures of Europeans differ from those of their prehistoric ancestors, the Cave-dwellers, &c., who probably squatted on the ground. "8. The sitting postures of Orientals are the same now as ever. They have retained the habits of their ancestors. The Europeans have not done so. "9. Want of use would induce changes in form and size, and so, gradually, small differences would be integrated till there would be total disappearance of the markings on the European skeleton, as no advantage would accrue to him from the possession of facets on his bones fitting them for postures not practised by him. "10. The facets seen on the bones of the Panjabi infant or foetus have been transmitted to it by the accumulation of peculiarities gained by habit in the evolution of its racial type--in which an acquisition having become a permanent possession, 'profitable to the individual under its conditions of life,' is transmitted as a useful inheritance. "11. These markings are due to the influence of certain positions, which are brought about by the use of groups of muscles, and they are the definite results produced by actions of these muscles. "12. The effects of the use of the muscles mentioned in No. 11 are transmitted to the offspring, for the markings are present in the _foetus-in-utero_, in the child at birth, and in the infant.
"13. The markings are instances of the transmission of acquired characters, which heritage in the individual, function subsequently develops." No other conclusion appears to me possible. _Panmixia_, even were it not invalidated by its unwarranted assumption as above shown, would be out of court: the case is not a case of either increase or decrease of size but of numerous changes of form. Simultaneous variation of co-operative parts cannot be alleged, since these co-operative parts have not changed in one way but in various ways and degrees. And even were it permissible to suppose that the required different variations had taken place simultaneously, natural selection cannot be supposed to have operated. The assumption would imply that in the struggle for existence, individuals of the European races who were less capable than others of crouching and squatting, gained by those minute changes of structure which incapacitated them, such advantages that their stirps prevailed over other stirps--an absurd supposition.
And now I must once more point out that a grave responsibility rests on biologists in respect of the general question; since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to wrong beliefs about social affairs and to disastrous social actions. In me this conviction has unceasingly strengthened. Though _The Origin of Species_ proved to me that the transmission of acquired characters cannot be the sole factor in organic evolution, as I had assumed in _Social Statics_ and in _The Principles of Biology_, published in pre-Darwinian days, yet I have never wavered in the belief that it is a factor and an all-important factor. And I have felt more and more that since all the higher sciences are dependent on the science of life, and must have their conclusions vitiated if a fundamental datum given to them by the teachers of this science is erroneous, it behoves these teachers not to let an erroneous datum pass current: they are called on to settle this vexed question one way or other. The times give proof. The work of Mr. Benjamin Kidd on _Social Evolution_, which has been so much lauded, takes Weismannism as one of its data; and if Weismannism be untrue, the conclusions Mr. Kidd draws must be in large measure erroneous and may prove mischievous.
POSTSCRIPT.--Since the foregoing pages have been put in type there has appeared in _Natural Science_ for September, an abstract of certain parts of a pamphlet by Professor Oscar Hertwig, setting forth facts directly bearing on Professor Weismann's doctrine respecting the distinction between reproductive cells and somatic cells. In _The Principles of Biology_, § 77, I contended that reproductive cells differ from other cells composing the organism, only in being unspecialized. And in support of the hypothesis that tissue-cells in general have a reproductive potentiality, I instanced the cases of the _Begonia phyllomaniaca_ and _Malaxis paludosa_. In the thirty years which have since elapsed, many facts of like significance have been brought to light, and various of these are given by Professor Hertwig. Here are some of them:-- "Galls are produced under the stimulus of the insect almost anywhere on the surface of a plant. Yet in most cases these galls, in a sense grown at random on the surface of a plant, when placed in damp earth will give rise to a young plant. In the hydroid _Tubularia mesembryanthemum_, when the polyp heads are cut off, new heads arise. But if both head and root be cut off, and the upper end be inserted in the mud, then from the original upper end not head-polyps but root filaments will arise, while from the original lower end not root filaments but head-polyps will grow.... Driesch, by separating the first two and the first four segmentation spheres of an _Echinus_ ovum, obtained two or four normal plutei, respectively one half and a quarter of the normal size.... So, also, in the case of _Amphioxus_, Wilson obtained a normal, but proportionately diminished embryo with complete nervous system from a separated sphere of a two- or four- or eight celled stage.... Chabry obtained normal embryos in cases where some of the segmentation-spheres had been artificially destroyed."
These evidences, furnished by independent observers, unite in showing, firstly, that all the multiplying cells of the developing embryo are alike; and, secondly, that the soma-cells of the adult severally retain, in a latent form, all the powers of the original embryo-cell. If these facts do not disprove absolutely Professor Weismann's hypothesis, we may wonderingly ask what facts would disprove it? Since Hertwig holds that all the cells forming an organism of any species primarily consist of the same components, I at first thought that his hypothesis was identical with my own hypothesis of "physiological units," or, as I would now call them, constitutional units. It seems otherwise, however; for he thinks that each cell contains "only those material particles which are bearers of cell-properties," and that organs "are the functions of cell-complexes." To this it may be replied that the ability to form the appropriate cell-complexes, itself depends upon the constitutional units contained in the cells.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.