Little Masterpieces of Science: The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer
History
Little Masterpieces of Science: The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer
Evolution (Biology); Natural history
We have seen that man incessantly presents individual differences in all
parts of his body and in his mental faculties. These differences or
variations seem to be induced by the same general causes, and to obey
the same laws as with the lower animals. In both cases similar laws of
inheritance prevail. Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his
means of subsistence; consequently he is occasionally subjected to a
severe struggle for existence, and natural selection will have effected
whatever lies within its scope. A succession of strongly marked
variations of a similar nature is by no means requisite; slight
fluctuating differences in the individual suffice in the work of natural
selection. We may feel assured that the inherited effects of the
long-continued use or disuse of parts will have done much in the same
direction with natural selection. Modifications formerly of importance,
though no longer of any special use, are long-inherited. When one part
is modified other parts change through the principle of correlation, of
which we have instances in many curious cases of correlated
monstrosities. Something may be attributed to the direct and definite
action of the surrounding conditions of life, such as abundant food,
heat or moisture; and, lastly, many characters of slight physiological
importance, some indeed of considerable importance, have been gained
through sexual selection.
No doubt man, as well as every other animal, presents structures, which,
as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of any
service to him, nor to have been so during any former period of his
existence, either in relation to his general conditions of life, or of
one sex to the other. Such structures cannot be accounted for by any
form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of
parts. We know, however, that many strange and strongly marked
peculiarities of structure occasionally appear in our domesticated
productions, and if the unknown causes which produce them were to act
more uniformly, they would probably become common to all the individuals
of the species. We may hope hereafter to understand something about the
causes of such occasional modifications, especially through the study of
monstrosities; hence, the labours of experimentalists, such as those of
M. Camille Dareste, are full of promise for the future. In general we
can only say that the cause of each slight variation and of each
monstrosity lies much more in the constitution of the organism than in
the nature of the surrounding conditions; though new and changed
conditions certainly play an important part in exciting organic changes
of many kinds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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