The Principles of Biology Vol. I/Chapter III.3

§ 116. Just as the supposition that races of organisms have been specially created, is discredited by its origin; so, conversely, the supposition that races of organisms have been evolved, is credited by its origin. Instead of being a conception suggested and accepted when mankind were profoundly ignorant, it is a conception born in times of comparative enlightenment. Moreover, the belief that plants and animals have arisen in pursuance of uniform laws, instead of through breaches of uniform laws, is a belief which has come into existence in the most-instructed class, living in these better-instructed times. Not among those who have disregarded the order of Nature, has this idea made its appearance; but among those who have familiarized themselves with the order of Nature. Thus the derivation of this modern hypothesis is as favourable as that of the ancient hypothesis is unfavourable.

§ 117. A kindred antithesis exists between the two families of beliefs, to which the beliefs we are comparing severally belong. While the one family has been dying out the other family has been multiplying. As fast as men have ceased to regard different classes of phenomena as caused by special personal agents, acting irregularly; so fast have they come to regard these different classes of phenomena as caused by a general agency acting uniformly—the two changes being correlatives. And as, on the one hand, the hypothesis that each species resulted from a supernatural act, having lost nearly all its kindred hypotheses, may be expected soon to die; so, on the other hand, the hypothesis that each species resulted from the action of natural causes, being one of an increasing family of hypotheses, may be expected to survive.

Still greater will the probability of its survival and establishment appear, when we observe that it is one of a particular genus of hypotheses which has been rapidly extending. The interpretation of phenomena as results of Evolution, has been independently showing itself in various fields of inquiry, quite remote from one another. The supposition that the Solar System has been evolved out of diffused matter, is a supposition wholly astronomical in its origin and application. Geologists, without being led thereto by astronomical considerations, have been step by step advancing towards the conviction that the Earth has reached its present varied structure by modification upon modification. The inquiries of biologists have proved the falsity of the once general belief, that the germ of each organism is a minute repetition of the mature organism, differing from it only in bulk; and they have shown, contrariwise, that every organism advances from simplicity to complexity through insensible changes. Among philosophical politicians, there has been spreading the perception that the progress of society is an evolution: the truth that "constitutions are not made but grow," is seen to be a part of the more general truth that societies are not made but grow. It is now universally admitted by philologists that languages, instead of being artificially or supernaturally formed, have been developed. And the histories of religion, of science, of the fine arts, of the industrial arts, show that these have passed through stages as unobtrusive as those through which the mind of a child passes on its way to maturity. If, then, the recognition of evolution as the law of many diverse orders of phenomena, has been spreading; may we not say that there thence arises the probability that evolution will presently be recognized as the law of the phenomena we are considering? Each further advance of knowledge confirms the belief in the unity of Nature; and the discovery that evolution has gone on, or is going on, in so many departments of Nature, becomes a reason for believing that there is no department of Nature in which it does not go on.

§ 118. The hypotheses of Special Creation and Evolution, are no less contrasted in respect of their legitimacy as hypotheses. While, as we have seen, the one belongs to that order of symbolic conceptions which are proved to be illusive by the impossibility of realizing them in thought; the other is one of those symbolic conceptions which are more or less fully realizable in thought. The production of all organic forms by the accumulation of modifications and of divergences by the continual addition of differences to differences, is mentally representable in outline, if not in detail. Various orders of our experiences enable us to conceive the process. Let us look at one of the simplest.

There is no apparent similarity between a straight line and a circle. The one is a curve; the other is defined as without curvature. The one encloses a space; the other will not enclose a space though produced for ever. The one is finite; the other may be infinite. Yet, opposite as the two are in their characters, they may be connected together by a series of lines no one of which differs from the adjacent ones in any appreciable degree. Thus, if a cone be cut by a plane at right angles to its axis we get a circle. If, instead of being perfectly at right angles, the plane subtends with the axis an angle of 89° 59′, we have an ellipse which no human eye, even when aided by an accurate pair of compasses, can distinguish from a circle. Decreasing the angle minute by minute, this closed curve becomes perceptibly eccentric, then manifestly so, and by and by acquires so immensely elongated a form so as to bear no recognizable resemblance to a circle. By continuing this process the ellipse changes insensibly into a parabola. On still further diminishing the angle, the parabola becomes an hyperbola. And finally, if the cone be made gradually more obtuse, the hyperbola passes into a straight line as the angle of the cone approaches 180°. Here then we have five different species of line—circle, ellipse, parabola, hyperbola, and straight line—each having its peculiar properties and its separate equation, and the first and last of which are quite opposite in nature, connected together as members of one series, all producible by a single process of insensible modification.

But the experiences which most clearly illustrate the process of general evolution, are our experiences of special evolution, repeated in every plant and animal. Each organism exhibits, within a short time, a series of changes which, when supposed to occupy a period indefinitely great, and to go on in various ways instead of one way, give us a tolerably clear conception of organic evolution at large. In an individual development, we see brought into a comparatively infinitesimal time, a series of metamorphoses equally great with each of those which the hypothesis of evolution assumes to have taken place during immeasurable geologic epochs. A tree differs from a seed in every respect—in bulk, in structure, in colour, in form, in chemical composition. Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can it be said—Now the seed ceases to be and the tree exists. What can be more widely contrasted than a newly-born child and the small, semi-transparent, gelatinous spherule constituting the human ovum? The infant is so complex in structure that a cyclopædia is needed to describe its constituent parts. The germinal vesicle is so simple that it may be defined in a line. Nevertheless, nine months suffice to develop the one out of the other; and that, too, by a series of modifications so small, that were the embryo examined at successive minutes, even a microscope would not disclose any sensible changes. Aided by such facts, the conception of general evolution may be rendered as definite a conception as any of our complex conceptions can be rendered. If, instead of the successive minutes of a child's fœtal life, we take the lives of successive generations of creatures—if we regard the successive generations as differing from one another no more than the fœtus differs in successive minutes; our imaginations must indeed be feeble if we fail to realize in thought, the evolution of the most complex organism out of the simplest. If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years; there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.

Doubtless many minds are so unfurnished with those experiences of Nature out of which this conception is built, that they find difficulty in forming it. Looking at things rather in their statical than in their dynamical aspects, they never realize the fact that, by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated. The surprise they feel on finding one whom they last saw as a boy, grown into a man, becomes incredulity when the degree of change is greater. To such, the hypothesis that by any series of changes a protozoon can give origin to a mammal, seems grotesque—as grotesque as Galileo's assertion of the Earth's movement seemed to his persecutors; or as grotesque as the assertion of the Earth's sphericity seems now to the New Zealanders. But those who accept a literally-unthinkable proposition as quite satisfactory, may not unnaturally be expected to make a converse mistake.

§ 119. The hypothesis of evolution is contrasted with the hypothesis of special creations, in a further respect. It is not simply legitimate instead of illegitimate, because representable in thought instead of unrepresentable; but it has the support of some evidence, instead of being absolutely unsupported by evidence. Though the facts at present assignable in direct proof that by progressive modifications, races of organisms which are apparently distinct from antecedent races have descended from them, are not sufficient; yet there are numerous facts of the order required. Beyond all question unlikenesses of structure gradually arise among the members of successive generations. We find that there is going on a modifying process of the kind alleged as the source of specific differences: a process which, though slow, does, in time, produce conspicuous changes—a process which, to all appearance, would produce in millions of years, any amount of change.

In the chapters on "Heredity" and "Variation," contained in the preceding Part, many such facts were given, and more might be added. Although little attention has been paid to the matter until recent times, the evidence already collected shows that there take place in successive generations, alterations of structure quite as marked as those which, in successive short intervals, arise in a developing embryo—nay, often much more marked; since, besides differences due to changes in the relative sizes or parts, there sometimes arise differences due to additions and suppressions of parts. The structural modification proved to have taken place since organisms have been observed, is not less than the hypothesis demands—bears as great a ratio to this brief period, as the total amount of structural change seen in the evolution of a complex organism out of a simple germ, bears to that vast period during which living forms have existed on the Earth.

We have, indeed, much the same kind and quantity of direct evidence that all organic beings have arisen through the actions of natural causes, which we have that all the structural complexities of the Earth's crust have arisen through the actions of natural causes. Between the known modifications undergone by organisms, and the totality of modifications displayed in their structures, there is no greater disproportion than between the observed geological changes, and the totality of geological changes supposed to have been similarly caused. Here and there are sedimentary deposits now slowly taking place. At this place a shore has been greatly encroached on by the sea during recorded times; and at another place an estuary has become shallower within some generations. In one region an upheaval is going on at the rate of a few feet in a century; while in another region occasional earthquakes cause slight variations of level. Appreciable amounts of denudation by water are visible in some localities; and in other localities glaciers are detected in the act of grinding down the rocky surfaces over which they glide. But these changes are infinitesimal compared with the aggregate of changes to which the Earth's crust testifies, even in its still extant systems of strata. If, then, the small changes now being wrought on the Earth's crust by natural agencies, yield warrant for concluding that by such agencies acting through vast epochs, all the structural complexities of the Earth's crust have been produced; do not the small known modifications produced in races of organisms by natural agencies, yield warrant for concluding that by natural agencies have been produced all those structural complexities which we see in them?

The hypothesis of Evolution then, has direct support from facts which, though small in amount, are of the kind required; and the ratio which these facts bear to the generalization based on them, seems as great as is the ratio between facts and generalization which, in another case, produces conviction.

§ 120. Let us put ourselves for a moment in the position of those who, from their experiences of human modes of action, draw differences respecting the mode of action of that Ultimate Power manifested to us through phenomena. We shall find the supposition that each kind of organism was separately designed and put together, to be much less consistent with their professed conception of this Ultimate Power, than is the supposition that all kinds of organisms have resulted from one unbroken process. Irregularity of method is a mark of weakness. Uniformity of method is a mark of strength. Continual interposition to alter a pre-arranged set of actions, implies defective arrangement in those actions. The maintenance of those actions, and the working out by them of the highest results, implies completeness of arrangement. If human workmen, whose machines as at first constructed require perpetual adjustment, show their increasing skill by making their machines self-adjusting; then, those who figure to themselves the production of the world and its inhabitants by a "Great Artificer," must admit that the achievement of this end by a persistent process, adapted to all contingencies, implies greater skill than its achievement by the process of meeting the contingencies as they severally arise.

So, too, it is with the contrast under its moral aspect. We saw that to the hypothesis of special creations, a difficulty is presented by the absence of high forms of life during immeasurable epochs of the Earth's existence. But to the hypothesis of evolution, absence of them is no such obstacle. Suppose evolution, and this question is necessarily excluded. Suppose special creations, and this question can have no satisfactory answer. Still more marked is the contrast between the two hypotheses, in presence of that vast amount of suffering entailed on all orders of sentient beings by their imperfect adaptations to their conditions of life, and the further vast amount of suffering entailed on them by enemies and by parasites. We saw that if organisms were severally designed for their respective places in Nature, the inevitable conclusion is that these innumerable kinds of inferior organisms which prey on superior organisms, were intended to inflict all the pain and mortality which results. But the hypothesis of evolution involves us in no such dilemma. Slowly, but surely, evolution brings about an increasing amount of happiness. In all forms of organization there is a progressive adaptation, and a survival of the most adapted. If, in the uniform working out of the process, there are evolved organisms of low types which prey on those of higher types, the evils inflicted form but a deduction from the average benefits. The universal multiplication of the most adapted must cause the spread of those superior organisms which, in one way or other, escape the invasions of the inferior; and so tends to produce a type less liable to the invasions of the inferior. Thus the evils accompanying evolution are ever being self-eliminated. Though there may arise the question—Why could they not have been avoided? there does not arise the question—Why were they deliberately inflicted? Whatever may be thought of them, it is clear that they do not imply gratuitous malevolence.

§ 121. In all respects, then, the hypothesis of evolution contrasts favourably with the hypothesis of special creation. It has arisen in comparatively-instructed times and in the most cultivated class. It is one of those beliefs in the uniform concurrence of phenomena, which are gradually supplanting beliefs in their irregular and arbitrary concurrence; and it belongs to a genus of these beliefs which has of late been rapidly spreading. It is a definitely-conceivable hypothesis; being simply an extension to the organic world at large, of a conception framed from our experiences of individual organisms; just as the hypothesis of universal gravitation was an extension of the conception which our experiences of terrestrial gravitation had produced. This definitely-conceivable hypothesis, besides the support of numerous analogies, has the support of direct evidence. We have proof that there is going on a process of the kind alleged; and though the results of this process, as actually witnessed, are minute in comparison with the totality of results ascribed to it, yet they bear to such totality a ratio as great as that by which an analogous hypothesis is justified. Lastly, that sentiment which the doctrine of special creations is thought necessary to satisfy, is much better satisfied by the doctrine of evolution; since this doctrine raises no contradictory implications respecting the Unknown Cause, such as are raised by the antagonist doctrine.

And now, having observed how, under its most general aspects, the hypothesis of organic evolution commends itself to us by its derivation, by its coherence, by its analogies, by its direct evidence, by its implications; let us go on to consider the several orders of facts which yield indirect support to it. We will begin by noting the harmonies between it and sundry of the inductions set forth in Part II.