Chapter XII: Part II: Systematics and History (2)

But what is known about the inheritance of those properties which beyond any doubt may be said to have originated in the adult individual as such, and of which lesions and adaptations proper, as shown for instance among amphibious plants, are instances of the two most typical groups?[150] Weismann did good service by putting an end to the scientific credulity which prevailed with regard to this subject. Weismann was led by his theory of the germ plasm to deny the inheritance of acquired characters of the typical kinds. He could not imagine how the effect of any agent upon the adult, be it of the merely passive or of the adaptive kind, could have such an influence upon the germ as to force it to produce the same effect in spite of the absence of that agent. In fact, that is what the inheritance of acquired characters would render necessary, and a very strange phenomenon it would be, no doubt. But, of course, taken alone, it could never be a decisive argument against such inheritance. I fully agree, that science is obliged to explain new facts by what is known already, as long as it is possible; but if it is no longer possible, the theory of course has to be changed, and not the facts. On this principle one would not neglect the fact of an inheritance of acquired properties, but on the contrary one perhaps might use it as a new evidence of vitalism.

[150] Certain English authors have applied the term “modification” to all kinds of organic properties acquired from without, whether they are adapted or not.

But are there any facts?

At this point we come to speak about the second group of Weismann’s reasonings. He not only saw the difficulty of understanding inheritance of acquired characters on the principles of the science of his time, but he also criticised the supposed facts; and scarcely any of them stood the test of his criticism. Indeed, it must fairly be granted that not one case is known which really proves the inheritance of acquired characters, and that injuries certainly are never found to be inherited. In spite of that, I do not believe that we are entitled to deny the possibility of the inheritance of a certain group of acquired characters in an absolute and dogmatic manner, for there are a few facts which seem at least to tend in the direction of such an inheritance, and which seem to show that it might be discovered perhaps one day, if the experimental conditions were changed.

I am not referring here to the few cases in which bacteria were made colourless or non-virulent by outside factors, or in which certain fungi were forced to permanent agamic reproduction by abnormal external conditions and were shown to retain their “acquired properties” after the external conditions had been restored. In these cases only reproduction by simple division occurred, and that does not imply the true problem of inheritance. Nor am I referring to the few cases of non-adaptive “modifications” found by Standfuss and Fischer, in which butterflies that had assumed an abnormal kind of pigmentation under the influence of abnormal temperature acting upon the pupa, were seen to form this same kind of pigmentation in the next generation under normal conditions of temperature. These cases, though important in themselves, are capable perhaps of a rather simple explanation, as in fact has been suggested. Some necessary means both of inheritance and of morphogenesis, the former being present in the propagation cells, may be said to have been changed or destroyed by heat, and therefore, what seems to be inherited after the change of the body only, would actually be the effect of a direct influence of the temperature upon the germ itself.[151] Let me be clearly understood: I do not say that it is so, but it may be so. What seems to me to be more important than everything and to have a direct bearing on the real discovery of the inheritance of acquired characters in the future, is this. In some instances plants which had been forced from without to undergo certain typical morphological adaptations, or at least changes through many generations, though they did not keep the acquired characters permanently in spite of the conditions being changed to another type, were yet found to lose the acquired adaptations not suddenly but only in the course of three or more generations. A certain fern, *Adiantum*, is known to assume a very typical modification of form and structure, if grown on serpentine; now Sadebeck,[152] while cultivating this serpentine modification of *Adiantum* on ordinary ground, found that the first generation grown in the ordinary conditions loses only a little of its typical serpentine character, and that the next generation loses a little more, so that it is not before the fifth generation that all the characters of the serpentine modification have disappeared. There are a few more cases of a similar type relating to plants grown in the plains or on the mountains. There also it was found to take time, or rather to take the course of *several* generations, until what was required by the new conditions was reached. Of course these cases are very very few compared with those in which a *sudden* change of the adaptive character, corresponding to the actual conditions, sets in; but it is enough that they do exist.

[151] Of course the inheritance of specific values from the results of fluctuating variations, leading to new averages of variability (see p. 265), may also be understood in this manner, the conditions of nourishment acting upon the adult and upon its germs equally well.

[152] *Berichte üb. d. Sitzung. d. Ges. f. Bot.*, Hamburg, 1887, 3 Heft.

Would it not be possible at least that adaptations which last for thousands of generations or more might in fact change the adaptive character into a congenital one? Then we not only should have inheritance of acquired characters, but should have a sort of explanation at the same time for the remarkable fact that certain histological structures of a very adapted kind are formed ontogenetically before any function exists, as is known to be the case with the structures in the bones of vertebrates, for instance. Experiments are going on at Paris, and perhaps in other places of scientific research also, which, it is hoped, will show that animals reared in absolute darkness for many generations will lose their perfectly formed eyes, and that animals from the dark with very rudimentary eyes will be endowed with properly functioning ones, after they have been reared in the light for generations. Such a result indeed would account for the many animals, of the most different groups, which live in dark caves and possess only rudiments of eyes: functional adaptation is no longer necessary, so-called atrophy by inactivity sets in, and the results “acquired” by it are inherited.[153]

[153] Quite recently Kammerer (*Arch. Entw. Mech.* 25, 1907, p. 7) has published very important experiments on the inheritance of “acquired” modifications with regard to the peculiarities of reproduction in *Salamandra atra* and *S. maculosa*. It seems rather improbable--though not absolutely impossible--that the germ cells were directly affected by the external modifying agent in this case.

But enough of possibilities. Let us be content at present to know at least a few real instances with regard to the slowness of the process of what might be said to be “re-adaptation” in some plants. This process shows us a way by which our problem may some day be solved; it allows us to introduce inheritance of acquired characters as a legitimate hypothesis at least, which not only will explain many of the diversities in systematics historically, but also can be called, though not a *causa vera*, yet certainly more than a mere fiction.

OTHER PRINCIPLES WANTED

We have only dealt with the probability of the inheritance of morphological or physiological[154] adaptation. If that could really be considered as one of the factors concerned in the theory of descent, many, if not all of those congenital diversities among organic species which are of the type of a true structural correspondence to their future functional life, might be regarded as explained, that is, as reduced to one and the same principle. But nothing more than an explanation of *this* kind of diversities is effected by our principle, and very much more remains to be done, for organic diversities not only consist in specifications and differences as to histology, but are to a much more important degree, differences of organisation proper, that is, of the arrangement of parts, in the widest sense of the word.[155]

[154] We have not spoken about the hypothetic inheritance of pure physiological adaptations, for it is clear without further discussion that innate specific immunity, for instance, being a specific “adaptedness” (*see* p. 186) *might* be due to the inheritance of the results of active immunity as an adaptation, just as adaptive congenital structures *might* be due to such an inheritance.

[155] C. E. v. Baer clearly discriminated between the type, the degree of organisation, and the histological structure. All these three topics indeed have to be taken into account separately; the third alone is of the adaptive type. All of them may be independent of each other: the Amoeba may be as adapted histologically as is a high vertebrate, but it is of much lower type; and in its own type it is of a lower degree of organisation than Radiolaria are.

Would it be possible to interpret the origin of this sort of systematic diversities by a reasoning similar to that by which we have understood, at least hypothetically, congenital adaptedness?

Dogmatic Lamarckism, we know, uses two principles as its foundations; one of them, adaptation and its inheritance, we have studied with what may be called a partly positive result. The other is the supposed faculty of the organism to keep, to store, and to transfer those variations or mutations of a not properly adaptive sort which, though originating by chance, happen to satisfy some needs of the organism.

CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF STORING AND HANDING DOWN CONTINGENT VARIATIONS

Strange to say, this second hypothesis of dogmatic Lamarckism, invented with the express purpose of defeating Darwinism and taking the place of its fluctuating variability, which was found not to do justice to the facts--this second hypothesis of dogmatic Lamarckism is liable to just the same objections as dogmatic Darwinism itself.

As it is important to understand well the real logical nature of our objections to both of the great transformistic theories, we think it well to interrupt our argument for a moment, in order to consider a certain point which, though very important in itself, seems of only secondary importance to us in our present discussion. Dogmatic Darwinism--I do not say the doctrine of Charles Darwin--is materialistic at bottom, and indeed has been used by many to complete their materialistic view of the universe on its organic side. The word “materialism” must not necessarily be taken here in its metaphysical sense, though most materialists are dogmatic metaphysicians. It also can be understood as forming part of a phenomenological point of view. Materialism as a doctrine of science means simply this: that whether “nature” be reality or phenomenon, in any case there is but one ultimate principle at its base, a principle relating to the movements of particles of matter. It is this point of view which dogmatic Darwinism strengthens; on the theory of natural selection and fluctuating variations, due to accidental differences of nutrition, organisms are merely arrangements of particles of matter, nothing else; and moreover, their kinds of arrangement are understood, at least in principle. Lamarckism, on the other hand, is not materialistic, but most markedly vitalistic--psychistic even; it takes life for granted when it begins its explanations.

You may tell me that Darwin did the same, that he expressly states that his theory has nothing to do with the origin of life; that the title of his work is “The Origin of *Species*.” It would certainly be right to say so, at least with reference to Darwin personally; but in spite of that, it must be granted that Darwin’s doctrine contains a certain germ of materialism which has been fully developed by the Darwinian dogmatists, while Lamarckism is antimaterialistic by its very nature.

Now it is very important, I think, to notice that this difference between the two theories is unable to disguise one main point which is common to both: and it is to this point, and to this point only, that our chief objections against both these theories converge at present.

The *contingency* of the typical organic form is maintained by Darwinism as well as by Lamarckism: both theories, therefore, break down for almost the same reasons. The term “contingency” can signify very different relations, having but little in common; but it is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that there may be distinguished roughly two main classes of contingencies, which may provisionally be called the “contingency of being,” and the “contingency of occurring.” It is with the contingency of being that criticism of Darwinism and Lamarckism of the dogmatic type has to deal. Darwinism dealt with variations occurring at random; the organic form was the result of a fixation of only one kind of such variations, all others being extinguished by selection. In other terms, the specific organised form, as understood by Darwinism, was a unit only to the extent that all its properties related to one and the same body, but for the rest it was a mere aggregation or summation. It may be objected to this statement, that by being inherited in its specificity the Darwinian form proved to be a unit in a higher sense of the word, even in the opinion of dogmatic Darwinians; and this objection, perhaps, holds good as far as inheritance is concerned. But on the other hand, it must never be forgotten that the word “unit” had quite a vague and empty meaning even then, as indeed everything the organism is made up of is regarded as being in itself due to a contingent primary process, which has no relation to its fellow-processes. “Unit,” indeed, in spite of inheritance--which, by the way, is alleged also to be a merely materialistic event--means to Darwinians no more when applied to the organism than it does when applied to mountains or islands, where of course a sort of “unit” also exists in some sense, as far as one and the same body comes into account, but where every single character of this unit, in every single feature of form or of quality, is the result of factors or agents each of which is independent of every other.

To this sort of contingency of being, as maintained by Darwinians, criticism has objected, as we know, that it is quite an impossible basis of a theory of descent, since it would explain neither the first origin of an organ, nor any sort of harmony among parts or among whole individuals, nor any sort of restitution processes.

Now Lamarckism of the dogmatic kind, as will easily be seen, only differs from Darwinism in this respect, that what according to the latter happens to the organism passively by means of selection, is according to the former performed actively by the organism, by means of a “judgment”--by the retention and handing down of chance variations. The specificity of the form as a whole is contingent also according to Lamarckism. And, indeed, criticism must reject this contingency of being in exactly the same way as it rejected the contingency of form maintained by Darwinians.

As far as the inheritance of truly adaptive characters comes into account--that is, the inheritance of characters which are due to the active faculty of adaptation possessed by the organism, bearing a vitalistic aspect throughout--hardly anything could be said against Lamarckism, except that inheritance of acquired characters is still an hypothesis of small and doubtful value at present. But that *specific organisation proper* is due to *contingent* variations, which accidentally have been found to satisfy some needs of the individual and therefore have been maintained and handed down, this reasoning is quite an impossibility of exactly the same kind as the argument of Darwinism.

The process of restitution, perfect the very first time it occurs, if it occurs at all, is again the classical instance against this new sort of contingency, which is assumed to be the basis of transformism. Here we see with our eyes that the organism can do more than simply perpetuate variations that have occurred at random and bear in themselves no relation whatever to any sort of unit or totality. There *exists* a faculty of a certain higher degree in the organism, and this faculty cannot possibly have originated by the process which Lamarckians[156] assume. But if their principle fails in one instance, it fails as a *general* theory altogether. And now, on the other hand, as we actually see the individual organism endowed with a morphogenetic power, inexplicable by Lamarckism, but far exceeding the organogenetic faculty assumed by that theory, would it not be most reasonable to conclude from such facts, that there exists a certain organising power at the root of the transformism of species also, a power which we do not understand, which we see only partially manifested in the work of restitutions, but which certainly is not even touched by any of the Lamarckian arguments? There does indeed exist what Gustav Wolff has called primary purposefulness (“primäre Zweckmässigkeit”), at least in restitutions, and this is equally unexplainable by Darwinism and by the dogmatism of the Lamarckians.

[156] I repeat once more that we are dealing here with dogmatic “Neo-”Lamarckism exclusively. This theory indeed claims to explain *all* features and properties of organic bodies on the basis of the feeling of needs and storing of contingent fulfilments and on this basis alone, just as dogmatic “Neo”-Darwinism claims to account for *all* those phenomena on the ground of contingent variations and natural selection. Darwin himself, as we have seen, intentionally left unexplained certain primary features of life and therefore cannot be blamed for having failed to explain them, though even then his theory remains wrong. Lamarck personally considered a real primary organisatory law of phylogeny as being of fundamental importance, and therefore he is not in the least responsible if “Neo-Lamarckism” fails as a universal theory.

But before entering into this area of hypothesis, let us mention a few more objections to be made to the theory of the contingency of form as put forward by Lamarckians. In the first place, let us say a few words about the appropriateness of the term “contingency” as used in this connection. The forms are regarded as contingent by Lamarckians inasmuch as the variations which afterwards serve as “means” to the “needs” of the organism occur quite accidentally with regard to the whole organism. It might be said that these “needs” are not contingent but subject to an inherent destiny, but this plea is excluded by the Lamarckians themselves, when they say that the organism experiences no need until it has enjoyed the accidental fulfilment of the same. So the only thing in Lamarckian transformism which is not of a contingent character would be the psychological agent concerned in it, as being an agent endowed with the primary power of feeling needs after it has felt fulfilment, and of judging about what the means of future fulfilment are, in order to keep them whenever they offer. But these are characteristics of life itself, irrespective of all its specific forms, which alone are concerned in transformism. Now indeed, I think, we see as clearly as possible that Darwinism and Lamarckism, in spite of the great contrast of materialism and psychologism, shake hands on the common ground of the contingency of organic forms.

The whole anti-Darwinistic criticism therefore of Gustav Wolff for instance, may also be applied to Lamarckism with only a few changes of words. How could the origin of so complete an organ as the eye of vertebrates be due to contingent variations? How could that account for the harmony of the different kinds of cells in this very complicated organ with each other and with parts of the brain? And how is it to be understood, on the assumption of contingency, that there are two eyes of almost equal perfection, and that there are two feet, two ears? Islands and mountains do not show such symmetry in *their* structures.

We shall not repeat our deduction of the origin of restitutions, of regeneration for instance, on the dogmatic Lamarckian theory. As we have said already, it would lead to absurdities as great as in the case of dogmatic Darwinism, and indeed we already have mentioned that Lamarckians would hardly even attempt to explain these phenomena. It follows that dogmatic Lamarckism fails as a general theory about form.[157]

[157] Compare also the excellent criticism of Lamarckism lately given by G. Wolff, *Die Begründung der Abstammungslehre*, München, 1907.

There is finally one group of facts often brought forward against Lamarckism by Darwinian authors[158] which may be called the logical *experimentum crucis* of this doctrine, an *experimentum* destined to prove fatal. You know that among the polymorphic groups of bees, termites, and ants, there exists one type of individuals, or even several types, endowed with some very typical features of organisation, but at the same time absolutely excluded from reproduction: how could those morphological types have originated on the plan allowed by the Lamarckians? Of what use would “judgment” about means that are offered by chance and happen to satisfy needs, be to individuals which die without offspring? Here Lamarckism becomes a simple absurdity, just as Darwinism resulted in absurdities elsewhere.

[158] It has also very often been said by Darwinians that Lamarckism is only able to explain those cases of adaptedness which relate to active functioning but not mere passive adapted characters, like “mimicry” for example. But this argument *taken by itself*, it seems to me, would not be fatal to Neo-Lamarckism in the special form August Pauly gave to this doctrine.

We were speaking about dogmatic Darwinism then, and it is about dogmatic Lamarckism that we are reasoning at present; both theories must fall in their dogmatic form, though a small part of both can be said to stand criticism. But these two parts which survive criticism, one offered by Lamarck, the other by Darwin, are far from being a complete theory of transformism, even if taken together: they only cover a small area of the field concerned in the theory of descent. Almost everything is still to be done, and we may here formulate, briefly at least, what we expect to be accomplished by the science of the future.

4. THE REAL RESULTS AND THE UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF TRANSFORMISM

What has been explained to a certain extent by the two great theories now current is only this. Systematic diversities consisting in mere differences as to intensity or number may perhaps owe their origin to ordinary variation. They may at least, if we are entitled to assume that heredity in some cases is able to hand on such variations without reversion, which, it must be again remarked, is by no means proved by the facts at present. Natural selection may share in this process by eliminating all those individuals that do not show the character which happens to be useful. That is the Darwinian part of an explanation of transformism which may be conceded as an hypothesis. On the other side, congenital histological adaptedness may be regarded hypothetically as due to an inheritance of adaptive characters which had been acquired by the organism’s activity, exerted during a great number of generations. That is the Lamarckian part in the theory of descent.

But nothing more is contributed to this theory either by the doctrine of Darwin or by that of Lamarck. So it follows that almost everything has still to be done; for no hypothesis at present accounts for the foundation of all systematics, viz., for the differences in organisation, in all that relates to the so-called types as such and the degree of complication in these types, both of which (types and degree of complication) are independent of histological adaptation and adaptedness.

What then do we know about any facts that might be said to bear on this problem? We have stated already at the end of our chapter devoted to the analysis of heredity that what we actually know about any deviation of inheritance proper, that is, about congenital differences between the parents and the offspring, relating to mere tectonics, is practically nothing: indeed, there are at our disposal only the few facts observed by de Vries or derived from the experience of horticulturalists and breeders. We may admit that these facts at least prove the possibility[159] of a discontinuous variation, that is of “mutation,” following certain lines of tectonics and leading to *constant* results; but everything else, that is everything about a real theory of phylogeny, must be left to the taste of each author who writes on the theory of the Living. You may call that a very unscientific state of affairs, but no other is possible.

[159] But nothing more. All “mutations” hitherto observed in nature or (comp. page 238, note 3) experimentally produced relate only to “varieties” and not to “species.” One could hardly say that the recent investigations about the production of mutations by *external* means have strengthened their importance for the general theory of transformism.

And, in fact, it has been admitted by almost all who have dealt with transformism without prepossessions that such is the state of affairs. Lamarck himself, as we have mentioned already, was not blind to the fact that a sort of organisatory law must be at the base of all transformism, and it is well known that hypothetical statements about an original law of phylogeny have been attempted by Nägeli, Kölliker, Wigand, Eimer, and many others. But a full discussion of all these “laws” would hardly help us much in our theoretical endeavour, as all of them, it must be confessed, do little more than state the mere fact that some unknown principle of organisation must have been at work in phylogeny, if we are to accept the theory of descent at all.

It is important to notice that even such a convinced Darwinian as Wallace, who is well known to have been an independent discoverer of the elimination principle, admitted an exception to this principle in at least one case--with regard to the origin of man. But one exception of course destroys the generality of a principle.

As we ourselves feel absolutely incapable of adding anything specific to the general statement that there *must* be an unknown principle of transformism, if the hypothesis of descent is justified at all, we may here close our discussion of the subject.

5. THE LOGICAL VALUE OF THE ORGANIC FORM ACCORDING TO THE DIFFERENT TRANSFORMISTIC THEORIES

A few words only must be added about two topics: on the character of organic forms as regarded by the different transformistic theories, and on the relation of transformism in general to our concept of entelechy.

We have learnt that both Darwinism and Lamarckism, in their dogmatic shape, regard the specific forms of animals and plants as being contingent; in fact, it was to this contingency that criticism was mainly directed. We therefore are entitled to say that to Darwinism and Lamarckism organic forms are accidental in the very sense of the *forma accidentalis* of the old logicians. There are indefinite forms possible, according to these theories, and there is no law relating to these forms. Systematics, under such a view, must lose, of course, any really fundamental importance. “There is no rational system about organisms”: that is the ultimate statement of Darwinism and of Lamarckism on this doubtful question. Systematics is a mere catalogue, not at present only, but for ever, by the very nature of the organisms. It is not owing to the indefinite number of possible forms that both our theories came to deny the importance of systematics, but to the want of a *law* relating to this indefinite number: among chemical compounds indefinite possibilities also exist in some cases, but they obey the law of the general formula. It is very strange that Darwinians of all people are in the forefront of systematic research in all countries: do they not see that what they are trying to build up can only relate to accidental phenomena? Or have they some doubts about the foundations of their own theoretical views, in spite of the dogmatic air with which they defend them? Or is it the so-called historical interest which attracts them?

A new question seems to arise at this point: Have not we ourselves neglected history in favour of systematics and laws? Our next lecture, the last of this year, will give the answer to this question.

At present we continue our study of the possible aspects of systematics. It is not difficult to find out what meaning organic forms would assume under any phylogenetic theory opposed to the theories of contingency. It was their defence of contingency, that is, their lack of any law of forms, that caused these theories to be overthrown--reduced to absurdities even--and therefore, it follows that to assume any kind of transformistic law is at the same time to deny the accidental character of the forms of living beings.

There is no *forma accidentalis*. Does that mean that the *forma essentialis* is introduced by this mere statement? And what would *that* assert about the character of systematics?

THE ORGANIC FORM AND ENTELECHY

This problem is not as simple as it might seem to be at the first glance, and, in fact, it is insoluble at present. It is here that the relation of the hypothetic transformistic principle to our concept of entelechy is concerned.

We know that entelechy, though not material in itself, uses material means in each individual morphogenesis, handed down by the material continuity in inheritance. What then undergoes change in phylogeny, the means or the entelechy? And what would be the logical aspect of systematics in either case?

Of course there would be a law in systematics in any case; and therefore systematics in any case would be rational in principle. But if the transformistic factor were connected with the means of morphogenesis, one could hardly say that specific form as such was a primary essence. Entelechy would be that essence, but entelechy in its generality and always remaining the same in its most intimate character, as the specific diversities would only be due to a something, which is not form, but simply means to form. But the *harmony* revealed to us in every typical morphogenesis, be it normal or be it regulatory, seems to forbid us to connect transformism with the means of morphogenesis. And therefore we shall close this discussion about the most problematic phenomena of biology with the declaration, that we regard it as more congruent to the general aspect of life to correlate the unknown principle concerned in descent with entelechy itself, and not with its means. Systematics of organisms therefore would be in fact systematics of entelechies, and therefore organic forms would be *formae essentiales*, entelechy being the very essence of form in its specificity. Of course systematics would then be able to assume a truly rational character at some future date: there might one day be found a principle to account for the totality of possible[160] forms, a principle based upon the analysis of entelechy.[161] As we have allowed that Lamarckism hypothetically explains congenital adaptedness in histology, and that Darwinism explains a few differences in quantity, and as such properties, of course, would both be of a contingent character, it follows that our future rational system would be combined with certain accidental diversities. And so it might be said to be one of the principal tasks of systematic biological science in the future to discover the really rational system among a given totality of diversities which cannot appear rational at the first glance, one sort of differences, so to speak, being superimposed upon the other.

[160] The word “possible” relating to originating, of course, not to surviving. It is here that natural selection may acquire its logical importance alluded to above (see page 264).

[161] The discussions in the second volume of this book will show the possible significance of such an analysis. We at present are dealing with entelechy in a quasi-popular manner.

*C.* THE LOGIC OF HISTORY

History, in the strictest sense of the word, is the enumeration of the things which have followed one another in order of time. History deals with the single, with regard both to time and space. Even if its facts are complex in themselves and proper to certain other kinds of human study, they are nevertheless regarded by history as single. Facts, we had better say, so far as they are regarded as single, are regarded historically, for what relates to specific time and space is called history.

Taken as a simple enumeration or registration, history, of course, cannot claim to be a “science” unless we are prepared to denude that word of all specific meaning. But that would hardly be useful. As a matter of fact, what has actually claimed to be history, has always been more than a mere enumeration, even in biology proper. So-called phylogeny implies, as we have shown, that every one of its actual forms contains some rational elements. Phylogeny always rests on the assumption that only some of the characters of the organisms were changed in transformism and that what remained unchanged may be explained by the fact of inheritance.

But this, remember, was the utmost we were able to say for phylogeny. It remains fantastic and for the most part unscientific in spite of this small degree of rationality, as to which it is generally not very clear itself. For nothing is known with regard to the positive factors of transformism, and we were only able to offer the discussion of a few possibilities in place of a real theory of the factors of descent.

In spite of that it will not be without a certain logical value to begin our analysis of history in general by the discussion of possibilities again. Biology proper would hardly allow us to do more: for the simple “fact” of history is not even a “fact” in this science, but an hypothesis, albeit one of some probability.

As discussions of mere possibilities should always rest on as broad a basis as possible, we shall begin our analysis by raising two general questions. To what kinds of realities may the concept of history reasonably be applied? And what different types of “history” would be possible *a priori*, if the word history is to signify more than a mere enumeration?

1. THE POSSIBLE ASPECTS OF HISTORY

Of course, we could select one definite volume in space and call all the consecutive stages which it goes through, its history: it then would be part of its history that a cloud was formed in it, or that a bird passed through it on the wing. But it would hardly be found very suggestive to write the history of space-volumes. In fact, it is to *bodies* in space that all history actually relates, at least indirectly, for even the history of sciences is in some respect the history of men or of books. It may suffice for our analysis to understand here the word body in its popular sense.

Now in its relation to bodies history may have the three following aspects, as far as anything more than a simple enumeration comes into account. Firstly, it may relate to one and the same body, the term body again to be understood popularly. So it is when the individual history of the organism is traced from the egg to the adult, or when the history of a cloud or of an island or of a volcano is written. Secondly, the subject-matter of history may be formed by the single units of a consecutive series of bodies following each other periodically. To this variety of history the discoveries of Mendel and his followers would belong in the strictest sense, but so does our hypothetical phylogeny and a great part of the history of mankind. And lastly, there is a rather complicated kind of sequence of which the “history” has actually been written. History can refer to bodies which are in no direct relation with one another, but which are each the effect of another body that belongs to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. This sounds rather complicated; but it is only the strict expression of what is perfectly familiar to you all. Our sentence indeed is simply part of the definition of a history of art or of literature for instance--or, say, of a phylogenetic history of the nests of birds. The single pictures are the subjects of the history of art, and nobody would deny that these pictures are the effects of their painters, and that the painters are individuals of mankind--that is, that they are bodies belonging to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. Of course, it is only improperly that we speak of a history of pictures or of books or of nests. In fact, we are dealing with painters, and with men of letters or of science, and with certain birds, and therefore the third type of history may be reduced to the second. But it was not without value to pursue our logical discrimination as far as possible.

So far we have always spoken of history as being more than a mere enumeration, but we have not ascertained what this “more” signifies. It is not very difficult to do so: in fact, there are three different types of history, each of a different degree of importance with respect to the understanding of reality.

In the first place, history may start as a mere enumeration at the beginning, and at the end, in spite of all further endeavour, may *remain* that and nothing more. That may occur in the first as well as in the second group of our division of history with regard to its relation to bodies. Take a cloud and describe its history from the beginning to the end: there would never be much more than pure description. Or take one pair of dogs and describe them and their offspring for four generations or more: I doubt if you will get beyond mere descriptions in this case either. The only step beyond a mere enumeration which we can be said to have advanced in these instances, consists in the conviction, gained at the end of the analysis, that nothing more than such an enumeration is in any way *possible*.

Quite the opposite happens when “history” deals with the individual from the egg to the adult: here the whole series of historical facts is seen to form one whole. This case therefore we shall call not history, but *evolution*, an evolving of something; the word “evolution” being understood here in a much wider sense than on former occasions,[162] and *including*, for instance, the embryological alternative “evolutio” or “epigenesis.”

[162] See pp. 26, 45, 54, etc.

And half-way between enumeration and evolution there now stands a type of history which is more than the one and less than the other: there is a kind of intelligible connection between the consecutive historical stages and yet the concept of a whole does not come in. The geological history of a mountain or of an island is a very clear instance of this class. It is easy to see here, how what *has been* always becomes the foundation of what *will be* in the *next* phase of the historical process. There is a sort of *cumulation* of consecutive phases, the later ones being impossible without the earlier. So we shall speak of the type of “historical cumulation” as standing between evolution and bare temporal sequence. By means of historical cumulations history may fairly claim to “explain” things. We “understand” a mountain or an island in all its actual characteristics, if we know its history. This “historical understanding” rests on the fact that what first appeared as an inconceivable complex has been resolved into a sequence of single events, each of which may claim to have been explained by actually existing sciences. The complex has been explained as being, though not a real “whole,” yet a sum of singularities, every element of which is familiar.

But you may tell me that my discussion of evolution and of cumulation, as the higher aspects of history, is by no means complete; nay, more--that it is altogether wrong. You would certainly not be mistaken in calling my analysis incomplete. We have called one type of history evolution, the other cumulation; but how have these higher types been reached? Has historical enumeration itself, which was supposed to stand at the beginning of all analysis, or has “history” itself in its strictest sense, as relating to the single as such, risen unaided into something more than “history”? By no means: history has grown beyond its bounds by the aid of something from without. It is unhistorical elements that have brought us from mere history to more than history. We have created the concept of evolution, not from our knowledge of the single line of events attendant on a single egg of a frog, but from our knowledge that there are billions or more of frogs’ eggs, all destined to the same “history,” which therefore is not history at all. We have created the concept of cumulation not from the historical study of a single mountain, but from our knowledge of physics and chemistry and so-called dynamical geology: by the aid of these sciences we “understood” historically, and thus our understanding came from another source than history itself.

2. PHYLOGENETIC POSSIBILITIES

Does history always gain its importance from what it is not? Must history always lose its “historical” aspect, in order to become of importance to human knowledge? And can it *always* become “science” by such a transformation? We afterwards shall resume this discussion on a larger scale, but at present we shall apply what we have learned to hypothetic phylogeny. What then are the possibilities of phylogeny, to what class of history would it belong if it were complete? Of course, we shall not be able to answer this question fully; for phylogeny is *not* complete, and scarcely anything is known about the factors which act in it. But in spite of that, so much, it seems to me, is gained by our analysis of the possible aspects of history and of the factors possibly concerned in transformism, that we are at least able to formulate the possibilities of a phylogeny of the future in their strict logical outlines.

Darwinism and Lamarckism, regarding organic forms as contingent, must at the same time regard organic history as a cumulation; they indeed *might* claim to furnish an historical explanation in the realm of biology--if only their statements were unimpeachable, which as we have seen, they are not.

But any transformistic theory, which locates the very principle of phylogeny in the organism itself, and to which therefore even organic forms would be not accidental but essential, might be forced to regard the descent of organisms as a true evolution. The singularities in phylogenetic history would thus become links in one whole: history proper would become more than history. But I only say that phylogeny *might* be evolution, and in fact I cannot admit more than this *a priori*, even on the basis of an internal transformistic principle, as has been assumed. Such a principle also might lead always from one typical state of organisation to the next: but *ad infinitum*.[163] Then phylogeny, though containing what might in some sense be called “progress,” would not be “evolution”; it might even be called cumulation in such a case, in spite of the internal transforming principle, though, of course, cumulation from within would always mean something very different from cumulation from without.[164]

[163] An immanent vitalistic phylogeny *without* a pre-established end has recently been advocated by H. Bergson (*L’évolution créatrice*, Paris, 1907).

[164] In this connection the problem may be raised, whether there can be such a thing as unchangeable “species” in spite of the mutability of the individuals. Compare page 251, note 1.

But we must leave this problem an open question, as long as our actual knowledge about transformism remains as poor as it is. We need only add, for the sake of logical interest, that phylogeny, as a true evolution, would necessarily be characterised by the possibility of being repeated.

3. THE HISTORY OF MANKIND

We only assume hypothetically that phylogeny has happened, and we know scarcely anything about the factors concerned in it. Now, it certainly would be of great importance, if at least in a small and definite field of biology we were able to state a little more, if the *mere fact* of phylogeny, of “history,” were at least beyond any doubt within a certain range of our biological experience. And indeed there is one department of knowledge, where history, as we know, *has happened*, and where we also know at least some of the factors concerned in it.

I refer to the history of mankind; and I use the expression not at all in its anthropological or ethnographical sense, as you might expect from a biologist, but in its proper and common sense as the history of politics and of laws and of arts, of literature and of sciences: in a word, the history of civilisation. Here is the only field, where we know that there actually *are* historical facts: let us try to find out what these facts can teach us about their succession.

The theory of history in this narrower meaning of the word has been the subject of very numerous controversies in the last twenty years, especially in Germany, and these controversies have led very deeply into the whole philosophical view of the universe. We shall try to treat our subject as impartially as possible.

Hegel says, in the introduction to his *Phänomenologie des Geistes*: “*Die Philosophie muss sich hüten erbaulich sein zu wollen*” (“Philosophy must beware of trying to be edifying”). These words, indeed, ought to be inscribed on the lintel of the door that leads into historical methodology, for they have been sadly neglected by certain theoretical writers. Instead of analysing history in order to see what it would yield to philosophy, they have often made philosophy, especially moral philosophy, the starting-point of research, and history then has had to obey certain doctrines from the very beginning.

We shall try as far as we can not to become “erbaulich” in our discussions. We want to learn from history for the purposes of philosophy, and we want to learn from history as from a phenomenon in time and in space, just as we have learnt from all the other phenomena regarding life in nature. Every class of phenomena of course may be studied with respect to generalities as well as with respect to particulars. The particular, it is true, has not taught us much in our studies so far. Perhaps it may be successful in the domain of history proper.

If I take into consideration what the best authors of the last century have written about human history with respect to its general value, I cannot help feeling that none of them has succeeded in assigning to history a position where it would really prove to be of great importance for the aims of philosophical inquiry. Is that the fault of the authors or of human history? And what then would explain the general interest which almost every one takes, and which I myself take in history in spite of this unsatisfactory state of things?

CUMULATIONS IN HUMAN HISTORY

Let us begin our analytical studies of the value and the meaning of human history, by considering some opinions which deserve the foremost place in our discussion, not as being the first in time, but as being the first in simplicity. I refer to the views of men like Buckle, Taine, and Lamprecht, and especially Lamprecht, for he has tried the hardest to justify theoretically what he regards the only scientific aim of history to be. If we may make use of our logical scheme of the three possible aspects of history, it is clear from the beginning that the history of mankind, as understood by the three authors we have named, but most particularly by Lamprecht, is neither a mere enumeration nor a true evolution, but that it has to do with *cumulations*, in the clearest of their possible forms. The processes of civilisation among the different peoples are in fact to be compared logically with the origin of volcanoes or mountain-ranges in Japan, or in Italy, or in America, and show us a typical series of consecutive phases, as do these. There exists, for instance, in the sphere of any single civilisation an economic system, founded first on the exchange of natural products, and then on money. There are, or better, perhaps, there are said to be, characteristic phases succeeding one another in the arts, such as the “typical,” the “individualistic,” and the “subjective” phases. Any civilisation may be said to have its “middle ages,” and so on. All these are “laws” of course in the meaning of “rules” only, for they are far from being elemental, they are not “principles” in any sense. And there are other sorts of “rules” at work for exceptional cases: revolutions have their rules, and imperialism, for instance, has its rules also.

Now, as the consecutive phases of history have been shown to be true cumulations, it follows that the rules which are revealed by our analysis, are rules relating to the very origin of cumulations also. The real *element* upon which the cumulation-phases, and the cumulation-rules together rest, is the human individual as the bearer of its psychology. Nobody, it seems to me, has shown more clearly than Simmel that it is the human individual, *qua* individual, which is concerned in *every* kind of history.

History, viewed as a series of cumulations, may in fact claim to satisfy the intellect by “explaining” a good deal of historical facts. It explains by means of the elemental factor of individual psychology, which every one knows from himself, and by the simple concept that there is a cumulation, supported by language and by writing as its principal factors, which both of course rest on psychology again. Psychology, so we may say, is capable of leading to cumulation phenomena; the cumulations in history are such that we are able to understand them by our everyday psychology; and history, so far as it is of scientific value, consists exclusively of cumulations.

No doubt there is much truth in such a conception of history; but no doubt also, it puts history in the second rank as compared with psychology; just as geology stands in the second rank as compared with chemistry or physics. Geology and human history may lead to generalities in the form of rules, but these rules are *known* to be not elemental but only cumulative; and moreover, we know the elements concerned in them. The elements, therefore, are the real subjects for further studies in the realm of philosophy, but not the cumulations, not the rules, which are known to be due to accidental constellations. Of course, the “single” is the immediate subject of this sort of history, but the single as such is emphatically pronounced to be insignificant, and the cumulations and the cumulative rules, though “singles” in a higher sense of the word, are shown to be anything but elementalities.

Therefore, on a conception of human history such as that of Buckle, Taine, Lamprecht, and others, we, of course, ought to take an interest in history, because what is “explained” by historical research touches all of us most personally every day and every year. But our philosophy, our view of the world, would remain the same without history as it is with it. We only study history, and especially the history of our own civilisation, because it is a field of actuality which directly relates to ourselves, just as we study for practical purposes the railway time-tables of our own country, but not of Australia; just as we study the local time-table in particular.

If the mere *rerum cognoscere causas* is regarded as the criterium of science, history of Lamprecht’s type of course is a science, for its explanations rest upon the demonstration of the typical constellations and of the elemental factor or law from which together the next constellations are known necessarily to follow. But history of this kind is not a science in the sense of discovering *den ruhenden Pol in der Erscheinungen Flucht*.

HUMAN HISTORY NOT AN “EVOLUTION”