The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
§ 90. Still there remains a difficulty. It may be said that admitting
functional change to be the initiator of variation--granting that the
physiological units of an organism long subject to new conditions, will
tend to become modified in such way as to cause change of structure in
offspring; yet there will still be no cause of the supposed heterogeneity
among the physiological units of different individuals. There seems
validity in the objection, that as all the members of a species whose
circumstances have been altered will be affected in the same manner, the
results, when they begin to show themselves in descendants, will show
themselves in the same manner: not multiform variations will arise, but
deviations all in one direction.
The reply is simple. The members of a species thus circumstanced will _not_
be similarly affected. In the absence of absolute uniformity among them,
the functional changes caused in them will be more or less dissimilar. Just
as men of slightly-unlike dispositions behave in quite opposite ways under
the same circumstances; or just as men of slightly-unlike constitutions get
diverse disorders from the same cause, and are diversely acted on by the
same medicine; so, the insensibly-differentiated members of a species whose
conditions have been changed, may at once begin to undergo various kinds of
functional changes. As we have already seen, small initial contrasts may
lead to large terminal contrasts. The intenser cold of the climate into
which a species has migrated, may cause in one individual increased
consumption of food to balance the greater loss of heat; while in another
individual the requirement may be met by a thicker growth of fur. Or, when
meeting with the new foods which a new region furnishes, accident may
determine one member of the species to begin with one kind and another
member with another kind; and hence may arise established habits in these
respective members and their descendants. Now when the functional
divergences thus set up in sundry families of a species have lasted long
enough to affect their constitutions, and to modify somewhat the
physiological units thrown off in their reproductive cells, the divergences
produced by these in offspring will be of divers kinds. And the original
homogeneity of constitution having been thus destroyed, variation may go on
with increasing facility. There will result a heterogeneous mixture of
modifications of structure caused by modifications of function; and of
still more numerous correlated modifications, indirectly so caused. By
natural selection of the most divergent forms, the unlikenesses of parents
will be rendered more marked, and the limits of variation wider. Until at
length the divergences of constitutions and modes of life, become great
enough to lead to segregation of the varieties.
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