Chapter XVI: Introduction (4)

It is not inconceivable--although a clear proof of this is certainly as yet wanting--that a variety of the ancestral species would differ only in one single character, such as hairiness, colour, or marking, and such instances would thus agree precisely with the foregoing cases in which only the caterpillar or the butterfly formed a variety. All the more profound modifications however--such for instance as those which determine the difference between two species--are never limited to one character, but always affect several, this being explicable by correlation, which, as Darwin has shown in the case of dogs, may cause modifications in the skull of those breeds having hanging ears in consequence of this last character alone. It must be admitted however that one organ only would be originally affected by a modifying influence. Thus, I am acquainted with two species of a genus of Daphniacea which are so closely allied that they can only be distinguished from one another by a close comparison of individual details. But whilst most of the external and internal organs are almost identical in the two species the sperm-cells of the males differ in a most striking manner, in one species resembling an Australian boomerang in form and in the other being spherical! An analogous instance is furnished by _Daphnia Pulex_ and _D. Magna_, two species which were for a long time confounded. Nearly all the parts of the body are here exactly alike, but the antennæ of the males differ to a remarkable extent, as was first correctly shown by Leydig.

Similarly in the case of genera there may be observed an incongruence of such a kind that individual parts of the body may deviate to a greater or to a less extent than the corresponding parts in an allied genus. If, for instance, we compare a species of the genus of Daphniacea, _Sida_, with a species of the nearly allied genus _Daphnella_, we find that all the external and internal organs are in some measure dissimilar--nevertheless certain of these parts deviate to an especially large extent, and have without question become far more transformed than the others. This is the case, for example, with the antennæ and the male sexual organs. The latter, in _Daphnella_, open out at the sides of the posterior part of the body as long, boot-shaped generative organs, and in _Sida_ as small papillæ on the ventral side of this region of the body. If again we compare _Daphnella_ with the nearly allied genus _Latona_, it will be found that no part in the one is exactly similar to the corresponding part in the other genus, whilst certain organs differ more widely than others. This is the case for instance with the oar-like appendages which in _Latona_ are triramous, but in _Daphnella_, as in almost all the other Daphniacea, only biramous.

In families the estimation of the form-divergence of the systems of organs and parts of the body becomes difficult and uncertain: still it may safely be asserted that the two Cladocerous families _Polyphemidæ_ and _Daphniidæ_ differ much less from one another in the structure of their oar-like appendages than in that of their other parts, such as the head, shell, legs, or abdominal segments. In systematic groups of a still higher order, _i.e._ in orders, and still more in classes, we might be inclined to consider that all the organs had become modified to an equally great extent. Nevertheless it cannot be conclusively said that the kidneys of a bird differ from those of a mammal to the same extent as do the feathers from mammalian hair, since we cannot estimate the differences between quite heterogeneous things--it can only be stated that both differ greatly. Here also the facts are not such as would have been expected if transformation was the result of an internal developmental force; no uniform modification of _all_ parts takes place, but first one part varies (variety) and then others (species), and, on the whole, as the systematic divergence increases all parts become more and more affected by the transformation and all tend continually to appear changed to an equal extent. This is precisely what would be expected if the transforming impulses came from the environment. An equalization of the differences caused by transformation must be produced in two ways; first by correlation, since nearly every primary transformation must entail one or more secondary changes, and secondly because, as the period of time increases, more numerous parts of the body must become influenced by primary transforming factors.

A tempting theme is here also offered by attempting to trace the inequality of phyletic development to dissimilar external influences, and by demonstrating that individual organs have as a rule become modified in proportion to the divergence in the conditions of life by which they have been influenced, this action, during a given period of time, having been more frequent in the case of one organ than in that of the others, or, in brief, by showing the connection between the causes and effects of transformation.

It would be quite premature, however, to undertake such a labour at present, since it will be long before physiology is able to account for the fine distinctions shown by morphology, and further because we have as yet no insight into those internal adjustments of the organism which would enable us _à priori_ to deduce definite secondary changes from a given primary transformation. But so long as this is impossible we have no means of distinguishing correlative changes from the primary modifications producing them, unless they happen to arise under our observation.