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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Time and Life, by Thomas H. Huxley
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+Title:  Time and Life
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+Author:  Thomas H. Huxley
+
+Release Date:  November, 2001  [Etext #2928]
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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Time and Life, by Thomas H. Huxley
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+
+TIME AND LIFE*
+MR. DARWIN'S "ORIGIN OF SPECIES"
+
+by Thomas H. Huxley
+
+
+
+
+    [footnote] *"Macmillan's Magazine", December 1859.
+
+EVERYONE knows that that superficial film of the earth's substance,
+hardly ten miles thick, which is accessible to human investigation, is
+composed for the most part of beds or strata of stone, the consolidated
+muds and sands of former seas and lakes, which have been deposited one
+upon the other, and hence are the older the deeper they lie.  These
+multitudinous strata present such resemblances and differences among
+themselves that they are capable of classification into groups or
+formations, and these formations again are brigaded together into still
+larger assemblages, called by the older geologists, primary, secondary,
+and tertiary; by the moderns, palaeozoic, mesozoic, and cainozoic: the
+basis of the former nomenclature being the relative age of the groups
+of strata; that of the latter, the kinds of living forms contained in
+them.
+
+Though but a film if compared with the total diameter of our planet, the
+total series of formations is vast indeed when measured by any human
+standard, and, as all action implies time, so are we compelled to
+regard these mineral masses as a measure of the time which has elapsed
+during their accumulation.  The amount of the time which they represent
+is, of course, in the inverse proportion of the intensity of the forces
+which have been in operation.  If, in the ancient world, mud and sand
+accumulated on sea-bottoms at tenfold their present rate, it is clear
+that a bed of mud or sand ten feet thick would have been formed then in
+the same time as a stratum of similar materials one foot thick would be
+formed now, and 'vice versa'.
+
+At the outset of his studies, therefore, the physical geologist had to
+choose between two hypotheses; either, throughout the ages which are
+represented by the accumulated strata, and which we may call 'geologic
+time', the forces of nature have operated with much same average
+intensity as at present, and hence the lapse of time which they
+represent must be something prodigious and inconceivable, or, in the
+primeval epochs, the natural powers were infinitely more intense than
+now, and hence the time through which they acted to produce the effects
+we see was comparatively short.
+
+The earlier geologists adopted the latter view almost with one consent.
+For they had little knowledge of the present workings of nature, and
+they read the records of geologic time as a child reads the history of
+Rome or Greece, and fancies that antiquity was grand, heroic, and
+unlike the present because it is unlike his little experience of the
+present.
+
+Even so the earlier observers were moved with wonder at the seeming
+contrast between the ancient and the present order of nature.  The
+elemental forces seemed to have been grander and more energetic in
+primeval times.  Upheaved and contorted, rifted and fissured, pierced
+by dykes of molten matter or worn away over vast areas by aqueous
+action, the older rocks appeared to bear witness to a state of things
+far different from that exhibited by the peaceful epoch on which the
+lot of man has fallen.
+
+But by degrees thoughtful students of geology have been led to perceive
+that the earliest efforts of nature have been by no means the
+grandest.  Alps and Andes are children of yesterday when compared with
+Snowdon and the Cumberland hills; and the so-called glacial epoch--that
+in which perhaps the most extensive physical changes of which any
+record remaining occurred--is the last and the newest of the
+revolutions of the globe.  And in proportion as physical
+geography--which is the geology of our own epoch--has grown into a
+science, and the present order of nature has been ransacked to find
+what, 'hibernice', we may call precedents for the phenomena of the
+past, so the apparent necessity of supposing the past to be widely
+different from the present has diminished.
+
+The transporting power of the greatest deluge which can be imagined
+sinks into insignificance beside that of the slowly floating, slowly
+melting iceberg, or the glacier creeping along at its snail's pace of a
+yard a day.  The study of the deltas of the Nile, the Ganges, and the
+Mississippi has taught us how slow is the wearing action of water, how
+vast its effects when time is allowed for its operation.  The reefs of
+the Pacific, the deep-sea soundings of the Atlantic, show that it is to
+the slow-growing coral and to the imperceptible animalcule, which lives
+its brief space and then adds its tiny shell to the muddy cairn left by
+its brethren and ancestors, that we must look as the agents in the
+formation of limestone and chalk, and not to hypothetical oceans
+saturated with calcareous salts and suddenly depositing them.
+
+And while the inquirer has thus learnt that existing forces--'give them
+time'--are competent to produce all the physical phenomena we meet with
+in the rocks, so, on the other side, the study of the marks left in the
+ancient strata by past physical actions shows that these were similar
+to those which now obtain.  Ancient beaches are met with whose pebbles
+are like those found on modern shores; the hardened sea-sands of the
+oldest epochs show ripple-marks, such as may now be found on every
+sandy coast; nay, more, the pits left by ancient rain-drops prove that
+even in the very earliest ages, the "bow in the clouds" must have
+adorned the palaeozoic firmament.  So that if we could reverse the
+legend of the Seven Sleepers,--if we could sleep back through the past,
+and awake a million ages before our own epoch, in the midst of the
+earliest geologic times,--there is no reason to believe that sea, or
+sky, or the aspect of the land would warn us of the marvellous
+retrospection.
+
+Such are the beliefs which modern physical geologists hold, or, at any
+rate, tend towards holding.  But, in so doing, it is obvious that they
+by no means prejudge the question, as to what the physical condition of
+the globe may have been before our chapters of its history begin, in
+what may be called (with that licence which is implied in the often-used
+term "prehistoric epoch") "pre-geologic time."  The views indicated, in
+fact, are not only quite consistent with the hypothesis, that, in the
+still earlier period referred to, the condition of our world was very
+different; but they may be held by some to necessitate that hypothesis.
+The physical philosopher who is accurately acquainted with the velocity
+of a cannon-ball, and the precise character of the line which it
+traverses for a yard of its course, is necessitated by what he knows of
+the laws of nature to conclude that it came from a certain spot, whence
+it was impelled by a certain force, and that it has followed a certain
+trajectory.  In like manner, the student of physical geology, who fully
+believes in the uniformity of the general condition of the earth
+through geologic time, may feel compelled by what he knows of causation,
+and by the general analogy of nature, to suppose that our solar system
+was once a nebulous mass; that it gradually condensed, that it broke up
+into that wonderful group of harmoniously rolling balls we call planets
+and satellites, and that then each of these underwent its appointed
+metamorphosis, until at last our own share of the cosmic vapour passed
+into that condition in which we first meet with definite records of its
+state, and in which it has since, with comparatively little change,
+remained.
+
+The doctrine of uniformity and the doctrine of progression are,
+therefore, perfectly consistent; perhaps, indeed, they might be shown
+to be necessarily connected with one another.
+
+If, however, the condition of the world, which has obtained throughout
+geologic time, is but the sequel to a vast series of changes which took
+place in pre-geologic time, then it seems not unlikely that the
+duration of this latter is to that of the former as the vast extent of
+geologic time is to the length of the brief epoch we call the
+historical period; and that even the oldest rocks are records of an
+epoch almost infinitely remote from that which could have witnessed the
+first shaping of our globe.
+
+It is probable that no modern geologist would hesitate to admit the
+general validity of these reasonings when applied to the physics of his
+subject, whence it is the more remarkable that the moment the question
+changes from one of physics and chemistry to one of natural history,
+scientific opinions and the popular prejudices, which reflect them in a
+distorted form, undergo a sudden metamorphosis.  Geologists and
+palaeontologists write about the "beginning of life" and the
+"first-created forms of living beings," as if they were the most
+familiar things in the world; and even cautious writers seem to be on
+quite friendly terms with the "archetype" whereby the Creator was
+guided "amidst the crash of falling worlds."  Just as it used to be
+imagined that the ancient world was physically opposed to the present,
+so it is still widely assumed that the living population of our globe,
+whether animal or vegetable, in the older epochs, exhibited forms so
+strikingly contrasted with those which we see around us, that there is
+hardly anything in common between the two.  It is constantly tacitly
+assumed that we have before us all the forms of life which have ever
+existed; and though the progress of knowledge, yearly and almost
+monthly, drives the defenders of that position from their ground, they
+entrench themselves in the new line of defences as if nothing had
+happened, and proclaim that the 'new' beginning is the 'real'
+beginning.
+
+Without for an instant denying or endeavouring to soften down the
+considerable positive differences (the negative ones are met by another
+line of argument) which undoubtedly obtain between the ancient and the
+modern worlds of life, we believe they have been vastly overstated and
+exaggerated, and this belief is based upon certain facts whose value
+does not seem to have been fully appreciated, though they have long
+been more or less completely known.
+
+The multitudinous kinds of animals and plants, both recent and fossil,
+are, as is well known, arranged by zoologists and botanists, in
+accordance with their natural relations, into groups which receive the
+names of sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species.
+Now it is a most remarkable circumstance that, viewed on the great
+scale, living beings have differed so little throughout all geologic
+time that there is no sub-kingdom and no class wholly extinct or
+without living representatives.
+
+If we descend to the smaller groups, we find that the number of orders
+of plants is about two hundred; and I have it on the best authority
+that not one of these is exclusively fossil; so that there is
+absolutely not a single extinct ordinal type of vegetable life; and it
+is not until we descend to the next group, or the families, that we
+find types which are wholly extinct.  The number of orders of animals,
+on the other hand, may be reckoned at a hundred and twenty, or
+thereabouts, and of these, eight or nine have no living representatives.
+The proportion of extinct ordinal types of animals to the existing
+types, therefore, does not exceed seven per cent.--a marvellously small
+proportion when we consider the vastness of geologic time.
+
+Another class of considerations--of a different kind, it is true, but
+tending in the same direction--seems to have been overlooked.  Not only
+is it true that the general plan of construction of animals and plants
+has been the same in all recorded time as at present, but there are
+particular kinds of animals and plants which have existed throughout
+vast epochs, sometimes through the whole range of recorded time, with
+very little change.  By reason of this persistency, the typical form of
+such a kind might be called a "persistent type," in contradistinction
+to those types which have appeared for but a short time in the course of
+the world's history.  Examples of these persistent types are abundant
+enough in both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms.  The oldest group
+of plants with which we are well acquainted is that of whose remains
+coal is constituted; and as far as they can be identified, the
+carboniferous plants are ferns, or club-mosses, or Coniferae, in many
+cases generically identical with those now living!
+
+Among animals, instances of the same kind may be found in every
+sub-kingdom.  The 'Globigerina' of the Atlantic soundings is identical
+with that which occurs in the chalk; and the casts of lower silurian
+'Foraminifera', which Ehrenberg has recently described, seem to
+indicate the existence at that remote period of forms singularly like
+those which now exist.  Among the corals, the palaeozoic 'Tabulata' are
+constructed on precisely the same type as the modern millepores; and if
+we turn to molluscs, the most competent malacologists fail to discover
+any generic distinction between the 'Craniae', 'Lingulae' and
+'Discinae' of the silurian rocks and those which now live.  Our
+existing 'Nautilus' has its representative species in every great
+formation, from the oldest to the newest; and 'Loligo', the squid of
+modern seas, appears in the lias, or at the bottom of the mesozoic
+series, in a form, at most, specifically different from its living
+congeners.  In the great assemblage of annulose animals, the two highest
+classes, the insects and spider tribe, exhibit a wonderful persistency
+of type.  The cockroaches of the carboniferous epoch are exceedingly
+similar to those which now run about our coal-cellars; and its locusts,
+termites and dragon-flies are closely allied to the members of the same
+groups which now chirrup about our fields, undermine our houses, or
+sail with swift grace about the banks of our sedgy pools.  And, in like
+manner, the palaeozoic scorpions can only be distinguished by the eye
+of a naturalist from the modern ones.
+
+Finally, with respect to the 'Vertebrata', the same law holds good:
+certain types, such as those of the ganoid and placoid fishes, having
+persisted from the palaeozoic epoch to the present time without a
+greater amount of deviation from the normal standard than that which is
+seen within the limits of the group as it now exists.  Even among the
+'Reptilia'--the class which exhibits the largest proportion of entirely
+extinct forms of any one type,--that of the 'Crocodilia', has persisted
+from at least the commencement of the Mesozoic epoch up to the present
+time with so much constancy, that the amount of change which it exhibits
+may fairly, in relation to the time which has elapsed, be called
+insignificant.  And the imperfect knowledge we have of the ancient
+mammalian population of our earth leads to the belief that certain of
+its types, such as that of the 'Marsupialia', have persisted with
+correspondingly little change through a similar range of time.
+
+Thus it would appear to be demonstrable, that, notwithstanding the great
+change which is exhibited by the animal population of the world as a
+whole, certain types have persisted comparatively without alteration,
+and the question arises, What bearing have such facts as these on our
+notions of the history of life through geological time?  The answer to
+this question would seem to depend on the view we take respecting the
+origin of species in general.  If we assume that every species of
+animal and of plant was formed by a distinct act of creative power, and
+if the species which have incessantly succeeded one another were placed
+upon the globe by these separate acts, then the existence of persistent
+types is simply an unintelligible irregularity.  Such assumption,
+however, is as unsupported by tradition or by Revelation as it is
+opposed by the analogy of the rest of the operations of nature; and
+those who imagine that, by adopting any such hypothesis, they are
+strengthening the hands of the advocates of the letter of the Mosaic
+account, are simply mistaken.  If, on the other hand, we adopt that
+hypothesis to which alone the study of physiology lends any
+support--that hypothesis which, having struggled beyond the reach of
+those fatal supporters, the Telliameds and Vestigiarians, who so nearly
+caused its suffocation by wind in early infancy, is now winning at
+least the provisional assent of all the best thinkers of the day--the
+hypothesis that the forms or species of living beings, as we know them,
+have been produced by the gradual modification of pre-existing
+species--then the existence of persistent types seems to teach us
+much.  Just as a small portion of a great curve appears straight, the
+apparent absence of change in direction of the line being the exponent
+of the vast extent of the whole, in proportion to the part we see; so,
+if it be true that all living species are the result of the modification
+of other and simpler forms, the existence of these little altered
+persistent types, ranging through all geological time, must indicate
+that they are but the final terms of an enormous series of
+modifications, which had their being in the great lapse of pregeologic
+time, and are now perhaps for ever lost.
+
+In other words, when rightly studied, the teachings of palaeontology are
+at one with those of physical geology.  Our farthest explorations carry
+us back but a little way above the mouth of the great river of Life:
+where it arose, and by what channels the noble tide has reached the
+point when it first breaks upon our view, is hidden from us.
+
+The foregoing pages contain the substance of a lecture delivered before
+the Royal Institution of Great Britain many months ago, and of course
+long before the appearance of the remarkable work on the "Origin of
+Species" just published by Mr. Darwin, who arrives at very similar
+conclusions.  Although, in one sense, I might fairly say that my own
+views have been arrived at independently, I do not know that I can
+claim any equitable right to property in them; for it has long been my
+privilege to enjoy Mr. Darwin's friendship, and to profit by
+corresponding with him, and by, to some extent, becoming acquainted with
+the workings of his singularly original and well-stored mind.  It was
+in consequence of my knowledge of the general tenor of the researches
+in which Mr. Darwin had been so long engaged; because I had the most
+complete confidence in his perseverance, his knowledge, and, above all
+things, his high-minded love of truth; and, moreover, because I found
+that the better I became acquainted with the opinions of the best
+naturalists regarding the vexed question of species, the less fixed
+they seemed to be, and the more inclined they were to the hypothesis of
+gradual modification, that I ventured to speak as strongly as I have
+done in the final paragraphs of my discourse.
+
+Thus, my daw having so many borrowed plumes, I see no impropriety in
+making a tail to this brief paper by taking another handful of feathers
+from Mr. Darwin; endeavouring to point out in a few words, in fact,
+what, as I gather from the perusal of his book, his doctrines really
+are, and on what sort of basis they rest.  And I do this the more
+willingly, as I observe that already the hastier sort of critics have
+begun, not to review my friend's book, but to howl over it in a manner
+which must tend greatly to distract the public mind.
+
+No one will be better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted,
+if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest
+that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic
+misrepresentation.  Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or
+turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the
+extreme modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and
+plants which have been subjected to such artificial conditions as are
+imposed by domestication.  Breeds of dogs are more different from one
+another than are the dog and the wolf; and the purely artificial races
+of pigeons, if their origin were unknown, would most assuredly be
+reckoned by naturalists as distinct species and even genera.
+
+These breeds are always produced in the same way.  The breeder selects a
+pair, one or other, or both, of which present an indication of the
+peculiarity he wishes to perpetuate, and then selects from the
+offspring of them those which are most characteristic, rejecting the
+others. From the selected offspring he breeds again, and, taking the
+same precautions as before, repeats the process until he has obtained
+the precise degree of divergence from the primitive type at which he
+aimed.
+
+If he now breeds from the variety thus established for some generations,
+taking care always to keep the stock pure, the tendency to produce this
+particular variety becomes more and more strongly hereditary; and it
+does not appear that there is any limit to the persistency of the race
+thus developed.
+
+Men like Lamarck, apprehending these facts, and knowing that varieties
+comparable to those produced by the breeder are abundantly found in
+nature, and finding it impossible to discriminate in some cases between
+varieties and true species, could hardly fail to divine the possibility
+that species even the most distinct were, after all, only exceedingly
+persistent varieties, and that they had arisen by the modification of
+some common stock, just as it is with good reason believed that
+turnspits and greyhounds, carrier and tumbler pigeons, have arisen.
+
+But there was a link wanting to complete the parallel.  Where in nature
+was the analogue of the breeder to be found?  How could that operation
+of selection, which is his essential function, be carried out by mere
+natural agencies?  Lamarck did not value this problem; neither did he
+admit his impotence to solve it; but he guessed a solution.  Now,
+guessing in science is a very hazardous proceeding, and Lamarck's
+reputation has suffered woefully for the absurdities into which his
+baseless suppositions led him.
+
+Lamarck's conjectures, equipped with a new hat and stick, as Sir Walter
+Scott was wont to say of an old story renovated, formed the foundation
+of the biological speculations of the 'Vestiges', a work which has done
+more harm to the progress of sound thought on these matters than any
+that could be named; and, indeed, I mention it here simply for the
+purpose of denying that it has anything in common with what essentially
+characterises Mr. Darwin's work.
+
+The peculiar feature of the latter is, in fact, that it professes to
+tell us what in nature takes the place of the breeder; what it is that
+favours the development of one variety into which a species may run,
+and checks that of another; and, finally, shows how this natural
+selection, as it is termed, may be the physical cause of the production
+of species by modification.
+
+That which takes the place of the breeder and selector in nature is
+Death.  In a most remarkable chapter, 'On the Struggle for Existence',
+Mr. Darwin draws attention to the marvellous destruction of life which
+is constantly going on in nature.  For every species of living thing,
+as for man, "Eine Bresche ist ein jeder Tag."--Every species has its
+enemies; every species has to compete with others for the necessaries
+of existence; the weakest goes to the wall, and death is the penalty
+inflicted on all laggards and stragglers.  Every variety to which a
+species may give rise is either worse or better adapted to surrounding
+circumstances than its parent.  If worse, it cannot maintain itself
+against death, and speedily vanishes again.  But if better adapted, it
+must, sooner or later, "improve" its progenitor from the face of the
+earth, and take its place.  If circumstances change, the victor will be
+similarly supplanted by its own progeny; and thus, by the operation of
+natural causes, unlimited modification may in the lapse of long ages
+occur.
+
+For an explanation of what I have here called vaguely "surrounding
+circumstances," and of why they continually change--for ample proof
+that the "struggle for existence" is a very great reality, and
+assuredly 'tends' to exert the influence ascribed to it--I must refer to
+Mr. Darwin's book.  I believe I have stated fairly the position upon
+which his whole theory must stand or fall; and it is not my purpose to
+anticipate a full review of his work.  If it can be proved that the
+process of natural selection, operating upon any species, can give rise
+to varieties of species so different from one another that none of our
+tests will distinguish them from true species, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis
+of the origin of species will take its place among the established
+theories of science, be its consequences whatever they may.  If, on the
+other hand, Mr. Darwin has erred, either in fact or in reasoning, his
+fellow-workers will soon find out the weak points in his doctrines, and
+their extinction by some nearer approximation to the truth will
+exemplify his own principle of natural selection.
+
+In either case the question is one to be settled only by the
+painstaking, truth-loving investigation of skilled naturalists.  It is
+the duty of the general public to await the result in patience; and,
+above all things, to discourage, as they would any other crimes, the
+attempt to enlist the prejudices of the ignorant, or the
+uncharitableness of the bigoted, on either side of the controversy.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Time and Life by Thomas H. Huxley
+