The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 3, 1892-1893 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
Diametrically opposed to evolution by chance, are those theories which
attribute all progress to an inward necessary principle, or other form of
necessity. Many naturalists have thought that if an egg is destined to
go through a certain series of embryological transformations, from which
it is perfectly certain not to deviate, and if in geological time almost
exactly the same forms appear successively, one replacing another in the
same order, the strong presumption is that this latter succession was as
predeterminate and certain to take place as the former. So, Nägeli, for
instance, conceives that it somehow follows from the first law of motion
and the peculiar, but unknown, molecular constitution of protoplasm,
that forms must complicate themselves more and more. Kölliker makes one
form generate another after a certain maturation has been accomplished.
Weismann, too, though he calls himself a Darwinian, holds that nothing
is due to chance, but that all forms are simple mechanical resultants
of the heredity from two parents.[21] It is very noticeable that all
these different sectaries seek to import into their science a mechanical
necessity to which the facts that come under their observation do not
point. Those geologists who think that the variation of species is due
to cataclasmic alterations of climate or of the chemical constitution of
the air and water are also making mechanical necessity chief factor of
evolution.
Evolution by sporting and evolution by mechanical necessity are
conceptions warring against one another. A third method, which supersedes
their strife, lies enwrapped in the theory of Lamarck. According to
his view, all that distinguishes the highest organic forms from the
most rudimentary has been brought about by little hypertrophies or
atrophies which have affected individuals early in their lives, and have
been transmitted to their offspring. Such a transmission of acquired
characters is of the general nature of habit-taking, and this is the
representative and derivative within the physiological domain of the
law of mind. Its action is essentially dissimilar to that of a physical
force; and that is the secret of the repugnance of such necessitarians
as Weismann to admitting its existence. The Lamarckians further suppose
that although some of the modifications of form so transmitted were
originally due to mechanical causes, yet the chief factors of their first
production were the straining of endeavor and the overgrowth superinduced
by exercise, together with the opposite actions. Now, endeavor, since it
is directed toward an end, is essentially psychical, even though it be
sometimes unconscious; and the growth due to exercise, as I argued in
my last paper, follows a law of a character quite contrary to that of
mechanics.
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