Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
One of the simplest ways of evolving a favourable environment
concurrently with the development of the individual organism, is that
the influence of each organism on the environment should be favourable
to the _endurance_ of other organisms of the same type. Further, if the
organism also favours the _development_ of other organisms of the same
type, you have then obtained a mechanism of evolution adapted to produce
the observed state of large multitudes of analogous entities, with high
powers of endurance. For the environment automatically develops with the
species, and the species with the environment.
The first question to ask is, whether there is any direct evidence for
such a mechanism for the evolution of enduring organisms. In surveying
nature, we must remember that there are not only basic organisms whose
ingredients are merely aspects of eternal objects. There are also
organisms of organisms. Suppose for the moment and for the sake of
simplicity, we assume, without any evidence, that electrons and hydrogen
nuclei are such basic organisms. Then the atoms, and the molecules, are
organisms of a higher type, which also represent a compact definite
organic unity. But when we come to the larger aggregations of matter,
the organic unity fades into the background. It appears to be but faint
and elementary. It is there; but the pattern is vague and indecisive. It
is a mere aggregation of effects. When we come to living beings, the
definiteness of pattern is recovered, and the organic character again
rises into prominence. Accordingly, the characteristic laws of inorganic
matter are mainly the statistical averages resulting from confused
aggregates. So far are they from throwing light on the ultimate nature
of things, that they blur and obliterate the individual characters of
the individual organisms. If we wish to throw light upon the facts
relating to organisms, we must study either the individual molecules and
electrons, or the individual living beings. In between we find
comparative confusion. Now the difficulty of studying the individual
molecule is that we know so little about its life history. We cannot
keep an individual under continuous observation. In general, we deal
with them in large aggregates. So far as individuals are concerned,
sometimes with difficulty a great experimenter throws, so to speak, a
flash light on one of them, and just observes one type of instantaneous
effect. Accordingly, the history of the functioning of individual
molecules, or electrons, is largely hidden from us.
But in the case of living beings, we can trace the history of
individuals. We now find exactly the mechanism which is here demanded.
In the first place, there is the propagation of the species from members
of the same species. There is also the careful provision of the
favourable environment for the endurance of the family, the race, or the
seed in the fruit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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