Evolution, Old & New: Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck,; as compared with that of Charles Darwin — John Shaqi
Evolution, Old & New: Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck,; as compared with that of Charles DarwinButler, Samuel
Philosophy
Evolution, Old & New: Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck,; as compared with that of Charles Darwin
Butler, Samuel
Evolution (Biology) -- History
The purposiveness, which even Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck still less, seem
never to have quite recognized in spite of their having insisted so much
on what amounts to the same thing, now comes into full view. It is seen
that the organs external to the body, and those internal to it are, the
second as much as the first, things which we have made for our own
convenience, and with a prevision that we shall have need of them; the
main difference between the manufacture of these two classes of organs
being, that we have made the one kind so often that we can no longer
follow the processes whereby we make them, while the others are new
things which we must make introspectively or not at all, and which are
not yet so incorporate with our vitality as that we should think they
grow instead of being manufactured. The manufacture of the tool, and the
manufacture of the living organ prove therefore to be but two species of
the same genus, which, though widely differentiated, have descended as
it were from one common filament of desire and inventive faculty. The
greater or less complexity of the organs goes for very little. It is
only a question of the amount of intelligence and voluntary
self-adaptation which we must admit, and this must be settled rather by
an appeal to what we find in organism, and observe concerning it, than
by what we may have imagined _a priori_.
Given a small speck of jelly with some kind of circumstance-suiting
power, some power of slightly varying its actions in accordance with
slightly varying circumstances and desires--given such a jelly-speck
with a power of assimilating other matter, and thus, of reproducing
itself, given also that it should be possessed of a memory, and we can
show how the whole animal world can have descended it may be from an
amoeba without interference from without, and how every organ in every
creature is designed at first roughly and tentatively but finally
fashioned with the most consummate perfection, by the creature which has
had need of that organ, which best knew what it wanted, and was never
satisfied till it had got that which was the best suited to its varying
circumstances in their entirety. We can even show how, if it becomes
worth the Ethiopian's while to try and change his skin, or the leopard's
to change his spots, they can assuredly change them within a not
unreasonable time and adapt their covering to their own will and
convenience, and to that of none other; thus what is commonly conceived
of as direct creation by God is moved back to a time and space
inconceivable in their remoteness, while the aim and design so obvious
in nature are shown to be still at work around us, growing ever busier
and busier, and advancing from day to day both in knowledge and power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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