Chapter XI

ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.—DIFFERENT HYPOTHESES.

I. The preceding chapter might enable me to dispense with a discussion of the applications which have been made of Darwinism to the history of man. Nevertheless, apart from the curious points in the subject itself, some discussion of it will be necessary, for it will not be devoid of instruction.

Lamarck endeavoured to show how, by means of his _theory of habit_, it was possible to conceive the direct transmutation of the chimpanzee into man. The Darwinists also agree in connecting man with the apes. Nevertheless none of them point out any of the species at present existing as our immediate ancestor; on this point they differ from their illustrious predecessor. It might be supposed that Vogt had determined this point if we take literally some passages of his _Leçons sur l’homme_. But the Genevese savant has clearly expressed his theory in his _Mémoire sur les Microcéphales_. He carries back the point of departure common to the two types to an _anterior ancestor_. Darwin, Wallace, Filippi, Lubbock, Haeckel, etc., connect man still more closely with the apes. The latter states his conclusions in the following terms:—

“The human race is a branch of the catarrhine group; he was developed in the old world, and sprang from apes of this group, which have long been extinct.”

II. Vogt disagrees with his scientific colleagues in an important point. He admits that different simian stocks may have given rise to different human groups. The populations of the old and the new world would thus be descendants of the different forms which are peculiar to the two continents. On this hypothesis, Australia and Polynesia, where there never have been apes, must necessarily have been peopled by means of migration.

The eminent professor of Geneva, moreover, always confines himself to a somewhat vague statement of his ideas relative to the genealogies which he thinks fit to attribute to the different groups of mankind.

III. Darwin and Haeckel have been bolder. The former has published an important work upon the _Descent of Man_, and the latter in his _History of the Creation of Organised Beings_ has treated the same subject in detail, and given the genealogical table of our supposed ancestors, starting from the most simple known animals. The master and the disciple agree almost invariably, and it is to Haeckel himself that Darwin refers the reader who is curious to know the human genealogy in detail. Let us glance rapidly at the origin assigned to us by the German naturalist.

Haeckel considers as the first ancestor of all living beings the _monera_, which are nothing more than the _amœbæ_ as understood by Dujardin. From this initial form man has reached the state in which we now find him, by passing through twenty-one typical transitory forms. In the present state of things our nearest neighbours are the anthropomorphous or _tailless catarrhine apes_, such as the orang, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, etc. All are sprung from the same stock, from the type of the _tailed catarrhine apes_, the latter are descended from the _prosimiæ_, a type which is now represented by the macaucos, the loris, etc. Next come the marsupials, which form the 17th stage of our evolution; further examination is useless.

Although the distance between anthropomorphous apes and man appears to be but small to Haeckel, he has nevertheless thought it necessary to admit the existence of an intermediate stage between ourselves and the most highly developed ape. This purely hypothetical being, of which not the slightest vestige has been found, is supposed to be detached from the tailless catarrhine apes, and to constitute the 21st stage of the modification which has led to the human form, Haeckel calls it the _ape-man_, or the _pithecoid man_. He denies him the gift of articulate speech as well as the development of the intelligence and self-consciousness.

Darwin also admits the existence of this link between man and apes. He says nothing as to his intellectual faculties. On the other hand he traces out his physical portrait, basing his remarks upon a certain number of exceptional peculiarities observed in the human species, which he regards as so many phenomena of _partial atavism_. “The earliest ancestors of man,” he says, “were without doubt once covered with hair; both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were acted on by many muscles, which now only occasionally reappear in man, but which are still normally present in the quadrumana. The great artery and nerve of the humerus ran through a supracondyloid foramen. At this, or some earlier period, the intestine gave forth a much larger diverticulum or cœcum than that now existing. The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the fœtus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land; the males were provided with canine teeth which served as formidable weapons.”

IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors Darwin connects him with the type of tailed catarrhines, and consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolutions. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal charms of Darwinism, whose force I am far from denying.

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, either by chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organisation itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of the original. It is the law of _permanent characterisation_ which _alone_ permits Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics and their numerous relations. It is by virtue of this law that _all_ the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs; _all_ the descendants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the doctrine.

It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types can be referred to a _common ancestor_, whose characters were not clearly developed, but the one cannot be the descendant of the other.

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast _in respect to type_. Their organs, as I have already remarked, correspond almost exactly term for term; but these organs are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a _walker,_ while in apes they necessitate his being a _climber_ just as strongly.

There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction which had already been proved, as regards the inferior apes, by the works of Vicq d’Azyr, Lawrence, Serres, etc. The investigations of Duvernoy on the gorilla, of Gratiolet and M. d’Alix upon the chimpanzee, have established the fact that the anthropomorphous apes possess the same fundamental character in every point. Moreover, a glance at the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes, is a sufficiently convincing proof of the fact.

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical application of the law of _permanent characterisation_, is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already characterised as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A _walking animal cannot_ be descended from a _climbing_ one. This was clearly understood by Vogt. In placing man among the _primates_ he declares, without hesitation, that the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor) from which the different types of this family have originated and diverged.

We must then place the origin of man beyond the last ape if we wish to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the _prosimiæ_ of Haeckel, the loris, indris, etc. But these animals also are climbers; we must go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy traced by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the _marsupials_.

From man to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought to serve as land-marks. This difficulty causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin. We know that he considers the want of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is just as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical _pithecoid man,_ and it is not the only instance in which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical table. Take as an instance his words upon the _sozoura_ (14th stage), an amphibious animal which is equally unknown to science. “The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an intermediate type between the 13th and the 14th stage.”

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the 18th stage, and since it becomes, in consequence _necessary_ to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit the existence of _four unknown intermediate groups_, instead of one? Will be complete his genealogy in this manner? It is not for me to answer.

V. Darwin and Haeckel will most certainly think it very strange that a representative of the old school, a man who believes in the reality of species, should have the pretension to be better acquainted with the application of the laws of Darwinism than themselves, and to point out serious lapses in the applications they have made. Let us take our stand then on the ground of _facts_. There we shall at once find proof that this genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material anatomical error.

Both Darwin and Haeckel connect the simian series with a type which would now be represented by the _lemuridæ_, which the latter designates by the term _prosimiæ_. The only grounds which Darwin assigns for this opinion are certain characters taken especially from dentition. Haeckel goes back to embryogenesis.

We know that with the exception of the marsupials (kangaroos, sarrigue), and the monotremata (ornithorhynchus, echidna), all mammals have a _placenta_, an organ essentially composed of a network of blood-vessels, which unites the mother to the fœtus, and serves for the nutrition of the latter. With the ruminants, the edentata, and the cetacea, the placenta is _simple_ and _diffuse_, that is to say, the tufts of the blood-vessels are developed upon the entire surface of the fœtal envelope, and are in direct communication with the inner surface of the uterus. In the rest of the mammals the placenta is _double_; half being derived from the mother, and half from the fœtus, or rather its external envelope. A special membrane called the _Decidua_ covers the interior of the uterus, and unites the placentæ. Haeckel, correctly attaching great importance to these anatomical differences, divides mammals into two great groups: the _indeciduata_, which have no decidua, and the _deciduata_, which possess it.

Among the latter the placenta can surround the mammalian ovum like a girdle (_zonoplacentalia_), or form a kind of circular disc more or less developed (_discoplacentalia_). Man, apes, bats, insectivora, and rodents, present the latter arrangement, and thus form a natural group to which no _zonoplacential_, and, of course, no _indeciduate_ mammals can be admitted.

Haeckel, without the least hesitation, adds his _prosimiæ_ to the groups which I have just enumerated, that is to say, he attributes to them a decidua and a discoidal placenta. Now the anatomical investigations of MM. Alphonse Milne Edwards and Grandidier upon the animals brought by the latter from Madagascar place it beyond all doubt that the prosimiæ of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They are _indeciduata_. Far from any possibility of their being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principle laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of the zonoplacential mammals, the carnivora for instance, and ought to be connected with the pachydermata, the edentata and the cetacea.

Darwin and Haeckel will, perhaps reply that when they made their genealogies, the embryogenesis of the prosimiæ was not known. But why then represent them as one of the intermediate links to which they attach so much importance? Their process is always the same, considering the _unknown_ as a _proof_ in favour of their theory.

VI. The necessity, which I think has been clearly proved, of seeking elsewhere than among the prosimiæ for the link which is required between the marsupials and the apes, would not invalidate the relationship between the latter and man. There are, however, other facts which are irreconcilable with the theory.

M. Pruner Bey, resuming the descriptive and anatomical works which have been carried on till within the last few years, has shown that the comparison of man with the anthropomorphous apes brings to light a fact which is subject to very few exceptions, the existence, namely, of an _inverse order_ in the development of the principal organs. The researches of Welker upon the sphenoïdal angle of Virchow lead to the same conclusion, for in man the angle diminishes from the time of birth, whilst in the ape it is always increasing, so much so that sometimes it is effaced. It is upon the base of the cranium that the German anatomist has remarked this inverse order, the importance of which cannot escape notice.

A similar contrast has been remarked by Gratiolet upon the brain itself. The following are his observations upon this subject. In the ape the temporal sphenoïdal convolutions, which form the middle lobe, make their appearance and are completed before the anterior convolutions which form the frontal lobe. In man, on the contrary, the frontal convolutions are the first to appear, and those of the middle lobe are formed later.

It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of Darwinism, that an organised being cannot be a descendant of another whose development is in an inverse order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these principles, man cannot be considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever.

VII. I have said above that palæontology has never shown anything which recalls in the slightest degree the hypothetical _pithecoid man_ of Haeckel. A hope was felt that what could not be found among extinct forms might be found among living ones. Vogt has compared the brain of microcephali to that of the anthropomorphous apes, and Haeckel has represented in his genealogical table of idiots, crétins and microcephali as actual representatives of his _speechless man_. These beings, with their small brain and incomplete faculties, are, according to these two naturalists, cases of _atavism_, and recall the normal state of our most remote direct ancestors.

Here we have another instance of the curious method of reasoning familiar to Darwinists. Microcephalism, idiotcy, and crétinism constitute so many teratological or pathological states. They belong, consequently, to the very numerous groups of facts which have long been studied. If some of these facts can be regarded as _phenomena of atavism_, why should it be otherwise with the rest? Why attribute to atavism a single character only in crétins and microcephali, and refer the other to teratology and pathology? This is evidently an _entirely arbitrary_ kind of treatment, and as much opposed as possible to the true scientific method.

After the works of teratologists, after the experiments of Geoffroy, so ably resumed and completed by M. Dareste, the part played by pathogenic causes, even by external causes, in arrested development cannot be denied. Now microcephalism is nothing else than _arrested development_ acting on the cranium and its contents. But this is not an isolated case. Other organs and functions in microcephali suffer in the same manner. They have been proved to be always sterile, and certainly sterility is not a phenomenon which can be referred to atavism.

Thus among microcephali a teratogenic cause is clearly proved to have acted on part of the organism, viz., the generative organs. What reason can be alleged for attributing alterations of the cranium and brain to an entirely different cause? By virtue of what principle can two facts be separated, which observation has shown to be so intimately connected with each other? Why should the first be appealed to as an argument and nothing said about the second? Is it not evident that this is an entirely arbitrary kind of procedure, and actuated solely by the requirements of theory?

The general plan of the brain is fundamentally the same in all the mammalia and in man. Upon this point, as upon every other, the resemblance is greatest when the latter is compared with the anthropomorphous apes. When, for some reason or other, his brain is altered and reduced, as in the microcephali, is it at all surprising that fresh resemblances should arise. The contrary would be unintelligible.

This is a fact upon which Vogt has especially insisted, and he has described from this point of view several interesting details which render less general some of the results obtained by M. Gratiolet. But it is a remarkable fact that these new relations are not established with the most highly developed apes, but with the tailed apes of the new world, with the _platyrrhini_, which are excluded by Haeckel and Darwin from the human ancestral series. Thus, the Darwinian theory itself protests against the comparison between the microcephali and our pretended pithecoid ancestors.

The relations which we are discussing do not, moreover, reach a similarity which would authorise the conclusions of the Genevese savant. The brains of microcephali, though often less voluminous and less convoluted than those of the anthropoid apes, according to Gratiolet, do not become at all similar to them. This proposition is confirmed by the work of Vogt.

The case is the same with the skeleton as with the brain. I will here appeal to an authority, which none of my adversaries can reject, that, namely, of Huxley. After having protested against the statements of those who declare “that the structural differences between man and apes are small and insignificant,” the eminent anatomist adds that “every bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be distinguished from the corresponding human bone, and that, in the present state of creation at least, no intermediary being fills the gap which separates man from the troglodyte.” In the general conclusion of his book, Huxley moreover recognises the fact that the fossil human remains hitherto discovered do not indicate any approach towards the pithecoid form.

VIII. After the formal declarations of a naturalist, whose Darwinian convictions place him beyond all suspicion of partiality, how is it that we continually find the expression _simian character_ employed _à propos_ of the most insignificant modifications of some human type of which no one gives a precise description? It is, to say the least, an abuse of words, against which I have often protested. We have just seen that this expression assumes an anatomical fact which does not exist, and which, consequently, constitutes an error. It has, moreover, the inconvenience of being understood literally by the ignorant, and sometimes of deceiving even educated men, and of giving rise to a belief in imaginary degradations and comparisons.

In fact, man and the rest of the vertebrata are constructed upon the same fundamental plan. Between him and the other members of this group numerous relations exist. Organised beings are not crystals whose forms are mathematically defined; with the former the whole of the body and each part of this whole oscillate between limits whose extent has not yet been fixed, but which is at times considerable. By these very oscillations the customary relations are continually modified, not only between man and the apes, but between man and the rest of the vertebrata. If we compare man to any animal type whatever, if we apply the same method to this comparison, and the same terminology, we shall arrive at singular conclusions. I will quote a single example.

The most important fact in connection with the brain is certainly not its absolute development. It is the relation of this development to that of the rest of the body. The agreement upon this point, when animals are the subject of discussion, is general. It should be the same when the discussion is on man. Undoubtedly upon this ground of relative superiority or inferiority, upon which certain anthropologists so readily take their stand _à propos_ of races or individuals, the relations of which I speak constitute one of the most striking and essential characters.

I subjoin some of these relations taken from a table of Duvernoy, and in which the weight of the brain is taken as unity.

Man { Infant 1 : 22
{ Youth 1 : 25
{ Adult 1 : 30
{ Old 1 : 35

Apes { Saimiri 1 : 22
{ Saï 1 : 25
{ Ouisititi 1 : 28
{ Gibbon 1 : 48

Rodents { Field Mouse 1 : 31
{ Mouse 1 : 43

Carnivora { Mole 1 : 36
{ Dogs 1 : 47 1 : 305

Birds { Blue Tit 1 : 12
{ Canary 1 : 14
{ Cole Tit 1 : 18
{ Sparrow 1 : 25
{ Chaffinch 1 : 27

The man in question is the European White. Now from this table we see that from infancy to old age the relation of the brain to the rest of the body keeps diminishing. Are we to conclude then from this that the youth is _degraded_ relatively to the infant, and that the adult or the old man has assumed a _simian character_?

We see, moreover, that there ought to be some understanding as to the word _simian_ itself. If the gibbon, which belongs to the type of our supposed ancestors, has a brain relatively smaller than ours, it is otherwise with the three members of the genus cebus given in the table. The latter are superior to the anthropoid; the two first show exactly the same relation as the infant and youth; the third surpasses the adult man. But all three are surpassed by the two tits and the canary.

Consequently, if we are right in regarding the human race, or the human individual whose brain is below the mean by several grammes, as tending towards the anthropoid ape, we ought to consider the race, or the individual whose brain is above the mean as approximating to the cebus, or even the passerines or conirostres. If the first comparison is admissible, the second is equally so.

We can then say with the learned anatomist whose authority I have so often appealed to: “The microcephali, however reduced their brain may be, are not brutes; they are merely undeveloped men.” Or again, we may say with M. Best, whose testimony cannot be suspected in such a matter, that in their development apes do not resemble man, and, conversely, that the human type when degraded does not resemble the ape.

IX. From the pithecoid man of Darwin and Haeckel, from the speechless man who used his teeth as weapons, to the man of our age, the distance is still very great. How has it been filled up? How has this intelligence been developed which is able in many cases to hold nature herself in subjection? It is Wallace who has especially answered this question in the name of the theory of which he is one of the founders. We shall see at the same time that he admits the imperfection of this theory, when he discusses the peculiar attributes of the human species.

It is well known that this naturalist shares with Darwin and M. Naudin, the honour of having sought in natural selection for an explanation of organic origins. But our fellow countryman has confined himself to a sketch the fundamental character of which he has recently entirely modified. Darwin has embraced the problem as a whole and in its details; he has added to his first work several publications upon subjects very different in appearance, but all of which tend to the same end. He may with justice be considered as the chief of the school.

Wallace, who almost anticipated Darwin in the publication of ideas which are common to both, recognises him as his master on all occasions. He has discussed a small number of points in special memoirs which never cover much ground. From not attempting the solution of all the questions suggested by the theory, he has neither met with so many or such serious difficulties as his eminent rival. This, perhaps, explains the fact that he generally shows himself more precise and logical. He therefore, always possessed considerable authority among the partisans of Darwinism, until he published his special views on man.

According to Wallace, _immediate and personal utility_ is the only cause which sets _selection_ in action. This is fundamentally the theory of Darwin; but the latter has allowed himself to be influenced by comparisons or metaphors, which have raised sharp criticisms, which have perhaps deceived him, and which he employs more or less to evade his difficulties. We never meet with the same in Wallace, who accepts all the consequences to which his absolute principle leads him.

According to Wallace, _utility alone_ is able to account for the manner in which inferior animal forms could have produced apes, and afterwards a being having almost all the physical characters of man as he is now. This _race_ lived in herds scattered throughout the hot regions of the ancient continent. It was not, however, wanting in true sociability; it possessed the perception of sensations, but was incapable of thought; moral sense and sympathetic feelings were unknown to it. It was still only a _material outline_ of the human being, yet superior to the _tailed man_ of Darwin, and to the pithecoid man of Haeckel.

Towards the earlier part of the tertiary period, adds Wallace, _an unknown cause_ began to accelerate the development of the intelligence in this anthropoid being. It soon played a preponderating part in the existence of man. The perfection of this faculty became incomparably _more useful_ than any other organic modification. Henceforward the powerful modifying agent of selection acted necessarily almost entirely in this direction. The physical characters already acquired remained almost unaltered, while the organs of the intelligence and the intelligence itself were perfected more and more in each generation. Animals unaffected by this _unknown cause_ which separates us from them, continued to undergo morphological transmutations, so that since the Miocene epoch there has been a great change in the terrestrial fauna. With man only did the form remain the same. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised to find in the Quaternary epoch skulls like those of Denise and Engis, resembling those of men of the present age.

The superiority acquired by the intelligence has, moreover, removed our race for ever from the law of the action of _morphological transmutations_. His intellectual and moral faculties only are from this time subject to the power of selection, which will cause the disappearance of inferior races and their replacement by a new race, the lowest individual of which would be, in our time, a superior man.

After having read the pages, of which I have just made a summary, we cannot but be surprised to find Wallace declare that natural selection by itself is incapable of producing from an _anthropoid animal_, a man such as we find in the most savage nations known to us. He thus makes the human species an exception to the laws, which, according to him, rule all other living beings. There is a double interest in following Darwin’s rival in this new path.

Wallace begins by reminding us that natural selection rests _entirely_ upon the principle of _immediate utility_, relative only to the conditions of the struggle maintained at the time by the individuals constituting the species. Darwin in all his works declares, on different occasions, this same principle, upon which rests, in fact, all his statements upon adaptation, the possibility of _retrogressive transmutations_, etc.

It results necessarily from this principle, that selection cannot produce _variations in any way injurious_ to any being whatever. Darwin has often declared that a single well-attested case of this kind would destroy his whole theory.

But it is evident, adds Wallace, that selection is as incapable of producing a _useless variation_; it cannot then develop an organ in proportions which would go beyond its degree of _present utility_.

Now Wallace shews very clearly that in the savage there are organs whose development is out of all proportion with their _present utility_, and even faculties and physical characters which are either useless or injurious, at least to the individual. “But,” says he, “if it can be proved that these modifications, though dangerous or useless at the time of their first appearance, have become much more useful, and are now indispensable to the complete development of the intellectual and moral nature of man, we ought to believe in the existence of an intelligent action, foreseeing and providing for the future, just as we should do, when we see a breeder set to work to produce a definite improvement in any direction in any cultivated plant or domestic animal.”

The relative development of the body and the brain, the organ of intelligence, is one of the points upon which our author insists most strongly. The height of the orang, he says, is almost equal to that of man; the gorilla is much taller and bigger. Nevertheless, if we represent by ten the average volume of the brain in the anthropoid apes, this same volume will be represented by twenty-six in savages, and by thirty-two in civilised men. The English naturalist also makes the remark, that among savages, the Esquimaux, for instance, we find individuals the capacity of whose skull almost reaches the maximum which is given for the most highly developed nations.

Finally, Wallace, relying upon the experiments and calculations of Galton, admits distinctly that though the brain of savages is to that of civilised man in the proportion of five to six, the intellectual manifestations are, at the most, that of one to one thousand. The material development is, then, out of all proportion to the function. A brain, a little more voluminous than that of the gorilla, would, in the eyes of the eminent traveller, be perfectly sufficient for the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, of Australia, Tasmania, and Tierra del Fuego.

Wallace explains the development of the ideas of justice and benevolence by the advantages which would result from them to the tribe and to each individual. But faculties essentially _individual_, and without _immediate_ utility to others, are not subject, according to him, to selection. “How,” says he, “could the struggle for existence, the victory of the most fitted and natural selection give any aid to the development of mental faculties,” such as ideal conceptions of space and time, of eternity and infinity, the artistic feeling, abstract ideas of number and form, without which arithmetic and geometry are impossible?

For a much more cogent reason, the development of the moral sense in the savage cannot be accounted for by considerations taken from _utility_, whether _individual_ or _collective_. Wallace insists upon this point at some length; he quotes examples which prove that this feeling exists, in all which is most delicate and most opposed to utilitarian notions, among the most savage tribes of Central India. We could give many examples of this fact; among others, that the Red-skins have the greatest respect for their word of honour, though it should entail torture and death.

Our author bases numerous arguments upon the physical examination of man. “It is perfectly certain,” he says, “that natural selection could not have produced the present naked body of man from an ancestor covered with hair, for such a modification, far from being useful, would be injurious, at least in certain respects;” in civilised man a number of movements are executed by the hand of which savages have not the slightest idea, although no anatomical difference exists in the structure of the superior members; the larynx of our singers is constructed similarly to that of savages, and, nevertheless, what a contrast between the sounds produced!

From all these facts Wallace concludes that the brain, hand, and larynx of savages possess _latent aptitudes_, which being temporarily _useless_ cannot be attributed to _natural selection_. Man, moreover, has not the power of acquiring them himself. Foreign intervention therefore is necessary, for the explanation of their existence. Wallace attributes this intervention to a _superior intelligence_ which acted on the human species, just as the latter has acted on the rock-pigeon to produce from it the pouter or the carrier, and which employed analogous processes.

In short, _natural selection_, regulated by the laws of nature only, is sufficient to produce wild species; _artificial_ or _human selection_ can produce improved races of animals and plants; a kind of _divine selection_ must have produced the present man, and can alone bring him to the highest pitch of intellectual and moral development.

In advancing this latter hypothesis, Wallace declares that it no more impairs the theory of natural selection than the latter is weakened by the fact of artificial selection. Few, I think, will accept this proposition. The chief apology for Darwinism in the eyes of men of science, its great charm to all its partisans, lies in the pretensions which it puts forward of connecting organic origins, those of man as well as those of plants, with the single action of second causes; and to explain the present state of living beings by physical and physiological laws, just as geology and astronomy explain the present state of the material world entirely by the general laws of matter. In making the intervention of an _intelligent will_ necessary for the realisation of the human being, Wallace has set himself in opposition to the very essence of the theory. Such is the opinion of most Darwinists, who have treated him somewhat as a deserter.

I am not therefore called upon to examine this latter hypothesis of Wallace. I am, however, at liberty to state that most of the facts, which have induced one of the founders of Darwinism to separate from his chief upon so important a point, retain all their value as objections. The mistake of Wallace consists in failing to see that his statements upon the subject of man apply equally to animals, and Claparède has justly reproached him with a want of logic on this point. He has been less happy in the answers which he has made to his old ally. Doubtless, he who regards the question exclusively from a Darwinian point of view, and accepts as true everything which I have endeavoured to shew to be false, will readily find a solution for many of the difficulties raised by Wallace. But his statements upon _latent aptitudes_, upon the superior faculties of the human mind, and upon the moral sense, are very difficult to refute. Claparède has only alluded to the former. Darwin has attempted to go further; but his theories and hypotheses upon these important questions do not appear to me to have given much satisfaction to the most devoted of his followers. I cannot here enter into a discussion, which, to have any value, should be carried to some length, and I refer the reader to the work upon the _Descent of Man_, and to my articles in the Journal des Savants.

X. I cannot close this short account of the origins, which have been attributed to man during late years, without mentioning the new theory which has lately been put forward by an eminent botanist, to whose works I have often had to allude. M. Naudin has been one of the most important of Darwin’s precursors. Six years before the English naturalist, he compared the action exercised by natural forces in the production of _species_ to the methods used by man in obtaining _races_; he admitted the _derivation_ and _filiation_ of species; he compared the vegetable kingdom to a tree “where roots, mysteriously hidden in the depths of cosmogenic time, have produced a limited number of branches successively divided and sub-divided. The first branches represent the primordial types of the kingdom, the subsequent ramifications the existing species.” We cannot fail to recognise in these words an idea very similar to Darwinism.

M. Naudin now proposes an _evolution theory_ which is very different. He “entirely excludes the hypothesis of natural selection, unless the sense of the word is changed so as to make it synonymous with _survival_.” He rejects no less strongly the idea of _gradual transmutations_, which require millions of years to effect the transmutation of a single plant. He insists, on the contrary, upon the _suddenness_ with which most of the variations observed in plants have been produced, and regards it as a representation of what must have taken place in the successive genesis of living beings. Let us remark in passing, that Darwin, in the last edition of his work recognises the reality of these _sudden leaps_, which have taken place without transitions between one generation and another, and confesses that he has not taken sufficient account of them in his earlier writings.

M. Naudin admits the existence of a _protoplasma_ or _primordial blastema_, the origin of which he does not pretend to explain nor its entrance into action. Under the influence of the _organo-plastic_ or _evolutive force_ there were formed _proto-organisms_ of a very simple structure, asexual, and endowed with the power of producing by buds and with a great activity _meso-organisms_, similar to the first, though already more complicated. With each generation forms are multiplied, and become more pronounced, and nature rapidly passes on to the _adult state_. The beings in question were not, however, _species_. They were not complete beings, but merely a kind of _larvæ_, whose sole duty was to serve as transitions between the primitive blastema and the definite forms. Dispersed in different regions of the globe, they have carried everywhere the germs of future forms which _evolution_ had to produce from them. From the _creative_ character which distinguished it at first, the evolutive force exhausted by its very action, acquired a _preservative_ character. Forms are now _integrated_. They preserve, however, a residue of _plasticity_; they vary under the influence of certain conditions, and hence results the multitude of forms which the same species now presents.

The proto- and meso-organisms contained in themselves, each according to its position in the order of evolution, the rudiments of kingdoms, branches, classes, orders, families, and genera. Points where they were fixed, became so many _centres of creation_. Moreover, they have not engendered simultaneously all the forms which they were capable of producing. There have been considerable intervals between the production of living beings, which explains why groups of the same order have not been contemporaneous.

Organic types, even those least marked, have not passed into each other. The paths followed by the evolutive force have always been divergent. “Let us picture to ourselves,” says M. Naudin, “the meso-organism which has been the source of the mammalia; ever since its appearance, all the mammalian orders, including the human order, were fermenting in it. Before their appearance, they were virtually distinct, in the sense that the evolutive forces were already distributed, and the method of their effecting, each in its proper time, the production of these different orders, already defined. This is a similar phenomenon to that of the evolution of organs in a growing embryo, where we see springing from a common and uniform origin, parts at first similar, but which are impelled in a determinate direction each by its own particular _future_.”

M. Naudin, as we see, in order to support his theory, appeals to the embryogenic phenomena, to which the Darwinists also look for testimony in favour of their doctrines. The learned botanist, however, attaches much more importance to the metamorphoses which take place subsequently to the egg. He recognises _true proto-organisms_ in the pro-embryo of mosses, in the larvæ of insects, and of many other inferior animals. He lays particular stress upon the phenomena of alternate generation, as representing what has already taken place, or better, as representing in part “the ancient and general process of creation.”

According to M. Naudin, man was subject to the common law, and the Mosaic account is at the same time very true and full of instruction. In its first phase, mankind was concealed within a temporary organism, already distinct from all others, and incapable of contracting an alliance with any of them. This is Adam, who sprang from a primordial blastema called _clay_ in the Bible. At this epoch, he was, properly speaking, neither male nor female; the two sexes were not yet differentiated. “It is from this larval form of mankind, that the evolutive force effected the completion of the species. For the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam had to pass through a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to the nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis.” This is the sleep mentioned in the Bible, during which the work of differentiation was accomplished, to use the words of M. Naudin, by a process of germination, similar to that of medusæ and ascidians. Mankind, thus constituted physiologically, would retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid production of the various great human races.

Passing over the comparisons established by M. Naudin, I will confine myself to a single observation upon all these ideas; properly speaking, they do not form a _scientific theory_.

When we fertilise by artificial means the egg of a frog, we know that we determine an entire series of phenomena, which results in the formation of a germ, then in that of an embryo, which will be established by a succession of metamorphoses, in that of a tadpole, which will be equally subject to metamorphoses, and in that of a definite animal which will assume all the characters of the species. So far as man can _make a being_, we _make a frog_ when we fertilise an egg.

If the _first cause_, with which M. Naudin immediately connects his primordial blastema, has made potentially in this blastema all past, present, and future beings, as well as the power of producing them at the proper time, with all their distinctive characters, _It_ has, in reality, _created_ all these beings _en masse_. We do not see what kind of action is reserved for _second causes_; unless it is, perhaps, the power of accelerating or retarding, of obstructing or favouring the appearance of types of different value, when number and relations have been immutably determined beforehand. But M. Naudin has not even mentioned their part in this _evolution_ of the organic world. That science which is only occupied with second causes has, therefore, nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin. It can neither praise nor criticise it.

XI. To explain the origin of the world in which we live, that of beings surrounding us, and our own, is evidently one of the most general aspirations of the human mind. The most civilised nations, as well as the most savage tribes, have satisfied this want in one way or another. Even Australians, whatever may have been said to the contrary, have their rudimentary cosmogony, which those who have taken some interest in the matter, have made them relate.

In all cases, man has at first connected his cosmogonic conceptions with his religious belief. Then among the most advanced ancient nations, independent spirits have sought for an explanation of nature in natural phenomena. But from want of precise knowledge, all their hypothetical conceptions have no fundamental value.

With us also, the purely religious cosmogony has long been accepted as an article of faith. What was called science was confounded with dogma, itself relying upon interpretations of the Bible in harmony with the knowledge of the time.

Science, properly so called, is entirely the creation of modern times. The rapidity, the grandeur of its developments, fill one of the most magnificent pages of human history. Relying entirely upon experiment and observation, it could not fail to contradict certain beliefs, which were drawn from a book written in an entirely different sense to its own, and explained by the aid of data which were incomplete or false. Between the representatives of the past and those of the new era, the struggle was inevitable. It needed to be sharp, and it was so. It is now keener than ever.

Circumstances of every kind have destroyed in many minds the old faith of our ancestors. Carried away by the general stream, many in the matter of religious belief, have arrived at absolute denial. The need of an explanation of the universe is still felt by these uneasy minds; and since they have no belief in the Bible, they have turned their attention to science.

The latter has already given them magnificent answers in astronomy and in geology. Before irrefutable facts, the later upholders of the ancient biblical interpretations have either been obliged to withdraw, or to be silent. No one believes in the immobility of the earth, in creation having taken place in six days of twenty-four hours each, or in the simultaneous appearance of all animals, or all plants. Astronomy has made known to us the genesis of worlds; geology has taught us how continents and seas, valleys and mountains are formed, thus evolving some of the grandest results due to the action of second causes in the inorganic empire.

There remains the organic empire, plants, animals, and man himself. Here curiosity is excited, and the want of explanation becomes more pressing, but unfortunately observation and experiment are equally at fault.

Some men, eminent in science and in the richness of their imaginations, have thought themselves able to do without it. Reviving the methods of the Greek philosophers, they have thought it possible to explain living nature and the entire universe, by connecting certain facts with conceptions, which are almost entirely intellectual. Once started in this path, they are readily elated at their own thoughts. When the positive knowledge which has been accumulated by the long-continued labours of their illustrious predecessors, has embarrassed their speculations, they have at once, so to speak, thrown it overboard; they have pushed to the utmost the more or less logical development of their _à priori_, and have nothing but irony and disdain for those who hesitate to follow them.

These men could not but excite admiration. They spoke in the name of science alone; by its means they replied to aspirations perfectly justifiable on such a topic; they produced theories which charmed by their fulness and the apparent precision of their explanations. They were able consequently to influence even those men of science who had not gone to the bottom of things, and much more so the general public, who are always satisfied to believe what they are told.

The nature of the resistance which they have met with from time to time was calculated to increase the splendour of their triumph. Men as imprudent as ill-judged have attacked them in the name of dogma. Scientific discovery has degenerated into controversy; both parties have become excited, and in the two camps it has been considered necessary to deny all the statements of the enemy; they have vied with each other in violence, and _savants_, who pretended to speak in the name of free thought, have not shown themselves the less intolerant.

I will only remind the one party of the trial of Galileo, and the other of the theories of Voltaire denying the existence of fossils.

Others have resisted the impulse of the time; they have remained faithful to method, the mother of modern science; they have carefully preserved their inheritance of solid and precise knowledge, acquired from past centuries. They cannot on that account be accused of acting from routine or be considered as retrograding. As warmly as the most ardent partisans of the so-called advanced theories, they have applauded all the progress, and have received with equal favour new ideas, on the condition of exposing them to experiment and observation. But when they meet with questions the solution of which is at present impossible, and will perhaps always be so, they have not hesitated to answer:—WE DO NOT KNOW;—and when they find purely metaphysical theories are being imposed upon them, they have protested in the name of experiment and observation.

I venture to say that I have always remained faithful to the ranks of this phalanx, to which the future distinctly belongs. For this reason, to those who question me upon the problem of our origin, I do not hesitate to answer in the name of science:—I DO NOT KNOW.

I do not on that account anathematise those who consider they ought to act otherwise, nor do I greatly blame their boldness. The study of second causes has enabled man to explain scientifically the present constitution of the inorganic world; and it is quite legitimate to attempt to account for the present state of the organic world by causes of the same nature; perhaps success will one day crown our efforts, and should they for ever remain unrewarded, as they have hitherto done, they will still possess a certain utility. These efforts of the imagination provoke new research, make new openings, and thus render a service to real science in the world of facts, as well as in that of ideas. If Darwin had not been actuated by his preconceptions, he would probably never have accomplished his excellent work upon the 150 races of pigeons, nor developed his theory of the struggle for existence and natural selection, which accounts for so many facts.

Unfortunately, from having forgotten the works of their predecessors, Darwin and his followers have drawn erroneous conclusions from these premises. They imagine they have given explanations when they have given none. This is what I have endeavoured to show. I have been obliged to resume the debate; it is for the impartial and unprejudiced reader to decide between us.