Part 5

Most writers call this method _historical_, because history is the chief means by which it seeks to trace causes. Others call it _genetic_, because it goes back, whenever it can, to origins. It might also be called _comparative_, because it compares, not only things which are widely separated in time, but also things which are separated in space, things which differ in form or tendency because they have a common origin, and things which differ in origin because they have a common form or tendency. Whether the institutions, arts, and usages of mankind, or the species of plants and animals, are in question, the study of history, together with the comparative study of what now exists, results in increased attention to development, and this again brings to light the continuity of all natural agents and processes—continuity in time and continuity among co-existences. Since the new method has succeeded in tracing the causes of many phenomena which once seemed to obey no law, it has done much to strengthen the belief in universal causation.

Down to the middle of the eighteenth century the book of Genesis had been almost unanimously accepted in Europe as the only source of information concerning the origin of the world, of man, of languages, of arts and sciences. The whole duration of the world was restricted to so brief a space that slow development was impossible, and it was assumed that early history of every kind must be miraculous.[17]

Montesquieu (_Esprit des Lois_, 1748) was the first to exhibit on an impressive scale the power of the historical method. Natural development, determined by unalterable conditions, was with him the key to the right understanding of the past. It is well known that here and there a great thinker had before Montesquieu framed something like the same conception. The Politics of Aristotle[18] and Vico's study of the historical evolution of the Roman law (1725) are memorable anticipations. By 1748, the date of the _Esprit des Lois_, or 1749, the date of Buffon's first volumes, which come next before us, Newton's _Principia_ had made students of physics and astronomy practically familiar with the notion of universal causation.

Buffon's place in the history of science is that of one who accomplished great things in spite of weaknesses peculiarly alien to the scientific spirit. It was mainly he who, by strenuous exertions and largely at his own cost, transformed the gardens from which the king's physicians used to procure their drugs into what we now know as the Jardin des Plantes. By the untiring labours of fifty years he produced a Natural History in thirty-six volumes crowded with plates. Having won for himself a place side by side with Montesquieu and Gibbon, he employed it to direct attention to the larger questions of biology and geology. He was a pronounced freethinker, who promulgated bold views with a dexterity which saved him from condemnation by the theological tribunals. When his opinions were declared to be contrary to the teaching of the Church, he printed a conciliatory explanation, but never cancelled the passages objected to, which continued to appear in a succession of editions. His deficiencies, we must admit, were serious. He was a poor observer (partly because of short sight), and had no memory for small details. His enemies were able to taunt him with absurd mistakes, such as that cows shed their horns. He alienated the two foremost naturalists of the eighteenth century, Linnæus and Réaumur, by ignorant and scornful criticisms. His strong propensity to speculation, insufficiently checked by care to verify, might have brought him under the sarcastic remark of Fontenelle, that ignorance is less apparent when it fails to explain _what is_, than when it undertakes to explain _what is not_.

Buffon's fame is not seriously impaired by the fact that his great work is no longer read except by those who study the course of scientific thought. Few productions of the human intellect retain their value after a hundred years, and scientific treatises become obsolete sooner than others. It is consoling to recollect that, if their energy is quickly dissipated, it is at least converted into light.

In a history of biology Buffon is naturally a more important figure than Montesquieu. Buffon had imbibed evolutionary views from the _Protogæa_ of Leibnitz, which in turn made use of certain hypotheses of Descartes.[19] The _Histoire Naturelle_ inclines to some theory of evolution, especially in the later volumes. At first Buffon teaches that species are fixed and wholly independent of one another; some years later he is ready to believe that all quadrupeds may be derived from some forty original forms, while in a third and subsequent passage he puts the question whether all vertebrates may not have had a common ancestor. He does not shrink from saying that one general plan of structure pervades the whole animal kingdom—a belief that he could never have adequately supported by facts; Baer long afterwards (1828) searched in vain for evidence on this very point, while Darwin in 1859 admitted that his arguments and facts only proved common descent for each separate phylum of the animal kingdom;[20] he inferred _from analogy_ that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form.[21] Elsewhere Buffon makes bold to declare that Nature in her youthful vigour threw off a number of experimental forms of life, some of which were approved and adopted, while others were allowed to survive in order to give mankind a wider conception of her projects. There is generally some gleam of truth in Buffon's most fantastic speculations, but we often wish that he could have attended to the warning of Bossuet: "Le plus grand dérèglement de l'esprit est de croire les choses parce qu'on veut qu'elles soient."

Against all his shortcomings we must set the fact that Buffon strove to interpret the present by the past, the past by the present, geology by astronomy, geographical distribution by the physical history of the continents. One of his maxims expresses the fundamental thought of Lyell's _Principles of Geology_: "Pour juger de ce qui est arrivé, et même de ce qui arrivera, nous n'avons qu'à examiner ce qui arrive."

Hard-and-fast distinctions are the marks of imperfect theory. Early philosophers distinguished hot and cold, wet and dry, light and dark, male and female, as things different in kind. In later times organic and inorganic, animal and vegetable, the activities of matter and the activities of mind, have been sharply separated. But as knowledge increases these distinctions melt away; it is perceived that the extreme cases are either now connected by insensible gradations, or else spring historically from a common root. Hutton, Lyell, and their successors have made it clear that the history of the earth calls for no agents and no assumptions beyond those that are involved in changes now going on; the present is heir by unbroken descent to the past. Continuity has been established between all forms of energy. Even the chemical elements, once the emblems of independence, give indications that they too had a common origin. The nebular hypothesis, which has been steadily rendered more probable by the scientific discoveries of two centuries, traces all that can be perceived by the senses to a homogeneous vapour, and lays the burden of proof on those who believe that continuity has its limits. Every history, whether of planetary systems, or of the earth's crust, or of human civilisations, religions, and arts, is recognised as a continuous development with progressive differentiation.

Amateur Students of Living Animals.

A history of biology would be incomplete which took no notice of every-day observations of the commonest forms of life. Some of the best are due to the curiosity of men with whom natural history was no more than an occasional recreation. William Turner (a preacher, who became Dean of Wells), Charles Butler (a schoolmaster), Caius and Lister (physicians), Claude Perrault (a physician and architect), Méry and Poupart (surgeons), Frisch (a schoolmaster and philologue), Lyonet (an interpreter and confidential secretary), Roesel (a miniature painter), Henry Baker (a bookseller, who gained a competence by instructing deaf mutes), Leroy (ranger to the King of France), Stephen Hales, Gilbert White and William Kirby (country parsons), and William Spence (a drysalter) were all amateurs in natural history. To this list we might add Willughby, Ray, Leeuwenhoek, Réaumur, De Geer, Buffon, the Hubers, and George Montagu, who were either so fortunate in their worldly circumstances or so devoted to science as to make it their chief, or even their sole pursuit, though they did not look to it for bread. A large proportion of the naturalists whose names have been quoted occupied themselves with the habits and instincts of animals, and biology has been notably enriched by their observations. To Englishmen the most familiar name is that of Gilbert White, in whom were combined thirst for knowledge, exactness in description, and a feeling for the poetry of nature.

White used his influence to encourage what may be called _live natural history_, which, as he understood it, "abounds in anecdote[22] and circumstance." He bids his correspondents to "learn as much as possible the manners of animals; they are worth a ream of descriptions." His example has done more than his exhortations. He focusses a keen eye upon any new or little-known animal, such as the noctule, the harvest-mouse, or the mole-cricket; detects natural contrivances little, if at all, noticed before, such as the protective resemblance of the stone-curlew's young; dwells upon the practical applications of natural history, such as the action of earthworms in promoting the fertility of soils; and combines facts which a dull man would be careful to put into separate pigeon-holes, such as the different ways in which a squirrel, a field-mouse, and a nuthatch extract the kernels of hazel-nuts.

The many amateurs of the eighteenth century naturally demanded books written to suit them, and illustrated books with coloured plates, coming out in parts, found a ready sale. Some were devoted to insects, others to microscopic objects. In accordance with prevalent belief, the writers made a point of tracing the hand of Providence in the minutest organisms; many popular treatises were altogether devoted to natural theology. Some few of these natural history miscellanies contained original work, which has not yet lost its interest. The best is Roesel's _Insecten-belustigungen_ (four vols. 4to., 1746-61), memorable among other things for containing the original description of Amœba. For English readers Henry Baker wrote _The Microscope Made Easy_ (1743) and _Employment for the Microscope_ (1753).

Intelligence and Instinct in the Lower Animals.

The period with which we are now concerned (1741-1789) initiated the profitable discussion of the mental powers of animals. We are unable for lack of space to follow the investigation from period to period, and must condense into one short section whatever its history suggests.

In the year 1660 Aristotelians were still discoursing about the vegetative and sensitive souls which bridged the gulf between inanimate matter and the thinking man. Descartes had tried to prove that the bodies of men and animals are machines actuated by springs like watches. Man, however, according to Descartes, possesses a soul wholly different in its properties from his body, and apparently incapable of being acted upon by it. Man only can think; animals are capable only of physical sensations, and have no consciousness. Into speculations like these we shall not venture, being- content, like Locke, "to sit down in quiet ignorance of those things which upon examination are proved to be beyond the reach of our capacities." We shall merely note here and there facts ascertained by observation or experiment, and plain inferences drawn from such facts.

Swammerdam and Réaumur, besides many naturalists of less eminence, recorded a host of observations on the activities of insects. They contributed little to the discussion except new facts, for habit led them to ascribe without reflection every contrivance to the hand of Providence or else to Nature. Some of their facts, however, made a deep impression, none more than the exact agreement of the cells of the honeycomb with the form which calculation showed to be most advantageous.[23] The coincidence has lost some of its interest since the discovery that the theoretically best form of cell is hardly ever realised.[24] Réaumur,[25] in describing the process by which a certain leaf-eating caterpillar makes a case for itself out of the epidermis of an elm-leaf, showed that the caterpillar is not devoid of that kind of intelligence which adapts measures to circumstances. He cut off the margin where the upper epidermis of the leaf passes into the lower one, a margin which the insect had intended to convert into one side of its case; the caterpillar sewed up the gap. He cut off a projection which was meant to form part of the triangular end of the case; the caterpillar altered its plan, and made that the head-end which was originally intended to lodge the tail. This observation anticipates a better-known example taken from the economy of the hive-bee by Pierre Huber, which is mentioned below.

Buffon[26] heard with impatience all expressions of admiration for the works of insects. His poor eyesight and his repugnance to minutiæ disinclined him to pay much attention to creatures so small, and he had set himself up as the rival of Réaumur in physics and natural history. To pour contempt upon insects gratified both feelings at once. Bees, he said, show no intelligence at all; their actions are purely automatic, and their much-vaunted architecture is merely the result of working in a crowd. The cells of the honeycomb are hexagonal, not by reason of forethought or contrivance, but because of mutual pressure; soaked peas in a confined space form hexagonal surfaces wherever they touch.

The elder Huber seems to have denied to bees every trace of intelligence, but his son Pierre found it hard to go so far.[27] He remarked that the storage-cells of a honeycomb are not always exactly alike; they may be lengthened, cut down, or curved, when requisite. Cells which had been rudely trimmed with a knife were repaired with such dexterity and concert as to suggest that even the hive-bee has "le droit de penser." Bees would under compulsion build upwards or sideways, instead of downwards, as they like to do. Finding that they sought to extend their combs in the direction of the nearest support, he covered the support with a sheet of glass, on which they could get no footing. They swerved at once from the straight line, and prolonged their comb towards the nearest _uncovered_ surface, though this obliged them to distort their cells. He was driven to the conclusion that bees possess "a little dose of judgment or reason." In our own time, when all conscious adaptation of means to ends is believed to be worthy of the name of _reason_, it requires no great courage to ask why we deny such an attribute to all the lower animals.

In spite of examples like this, the favourite expression "blind instinct" helped to strengthen the conviction that the mental processes of animals are unsearchable. It is impossible to deny that the epithet _blind_ is appropriate in many cases. A bird will sit an addled egg all summer, or vainly but repeatedly attempt to make its tunnel in the insufficient breadth of a mud wall (Geositta). Of course such instances do not show that _all_ the acts of the lower animals are devoid of intelligence.

Hume in 1739 and again in 1748 appealed to everyday observation of dogs, birds, and other animals of high grade. The facts seemed to him to show that animals as well as men are endowed with reason and able to draw inferences; he did not, however, credit them with the power of framing general statements, holding that experience operates on them, as on children and the generality of mankind, by "custom" alone. It is notorious that the dog and other higher animals learn by experience; Hume tells, for instance, how an old greyhound will leave the more fatiguing part of the chase to younger dogs, and place himself so as to meet the hare in her doubles. On the other hand (though Hume does not say so) man himself possesses non-educable instincts. In short, Hume sees no ground for drawing a line between the mental powers of man and those of the higher animals, though he attributes to man a power of demonstrative reasoning to which animals do not attain. In this he substantially agrees with Aristotle,[28] who maintained that in animals the germs of the psychical qualities of the man are evident, though, as in the child, they are undeveloped. Hume's teaching also accords with modern views; comparative anatomy, for instance, "is easily able to show that, physically, man is but the last term of a long series of forms, which lead by slow gradations from the highest mammal to the almost formless speck of living protoplasm, which lies on the shadowy boundary between animal and vegetable life."[29]

The detailed proofs which Hume was not enough of a naturalist to furnish were at length stated with admirable clearness and force by Leroy, whose _Letters on Animals_ form the most important contribution made to the discussion during our period. Georges Leroy ( 1723-1789) was _lieutenant des chasses_ under the last French kings, and had charge of the parks at Versailles and Marly. He wrote therefore with knowledge about the wolf, fox, deer, rabbit, and dog. His pages are enlivened by many touches of nature, interesting to readers who perhaps care little about psychology. Leroy attributes to the wolf observation, comparison, judgment. The wolf must mark the height of the fold which encloses a flock, and judge whether he can clear it with a sheep in his mouth. Wolf and she-wolf co-operate artfully in the running-down of prey. Sometimes the she-wolf will draw off the sheep-dog in pursuit, thus putting the flock at the mercy of her mate. Or one of the two will chase the quarry till it is out of breath, when the other can take up the running on advantageous terms. An old fox shows knowledge of the properties of traps, and will rather make a new outlet or suffer long famine than encounter them. But when he finds a rabbit already caught, he realises that the trap has lost its power to hurt. Sheep-dogs can be educated to mind things which do not interest wild dogs, or dogs of other breeds; when, for instance, the flock is driven past a patch of wheat, the dog in charge will take care that the sheep do not damage the crop. A trained sporting-dog learns at length to trust his own judgment, even in opposition to that of his master, and sportsmen know that they must direct young dogs, but leave old ones to act for themselves.

From the middle of the eighteenth century to the present day naturalists and psychologists have been labouring to distinguish instinct from intelligence. It is not hard to define well-marked examples of each, and to show that a typical instinct is _congenital_ (not the result of a process of education or self-education), _adaptive_ (conducive to the welfare of the organism), _co-ordinated by nerve-centres_ (thus excluding the superficially similar behaviour of the lowest animals and all plants), _actuating the whole organism_ (thus excluding most, if not all, reflex acts in the higher animals, as well as the wonderful adjustments effected by bone-corpuscles and other parts of organisms), and _common to all the members of a species or other group_ (thus excluding individual aptitudes).[30] In the same way it is easy to point out clear differences between a bird and a tree. But just as a definition which shall separate every animal from every plant has hitherto been sought in vain, so it has hitherto been impossible to frame a definition which while including all instincts shall admit no case of reflex action or intelligence. The most ambiguous cases of all are perhaps to be found in insects, where, as will shortly be explained, our information is ill-fitted to support precise distinctions.

Many naturalists entertain some form of what may be called the _use-and-disuse_ or _inherited-memory_ theory, supposing that the aptitudes of the offspring are influenced by the activities of the parent. Some cling to the belief that habits can be fixed and transmitted, and we must admit that the fixation and transmission of habits might explain a great deal. But all the evidence goes to prove that habits are not inherited at all, and that we must look elsewhere for the origin of instincts. Let naturalists who think differently try to account for the instincts of working bees or ants, which receive their psychical not less than their physical endowment from a long succession of ancestors, none of which worked for their living. Or let them try to explain the instances of spiders, insects, etc., which _after egg-laying_ practise instinctive arts for the defence of their brood, standing over the eggs, carrying them about, blocking the entrance of the burrow, etc. May we not say that it is impossible for the acts of a parent to influence the congenital instincts of offspring which have already lost connection with the mother? But surely a theory of instinct breaks down which fails to account for the expedients by which the worker-bee, the worker-ant, and the spider provide for the safety of the unhatched brood or for the welfare of the community.

Darwin's _Origin of Species_ threw a new light upon instinct by showing that natural selection can operate on the subtlest modifications. It can discriminate shades of hardiness to climate, shades of intellectual acuteness, or shades of courage. It can intensify qualities which appear only in adults past bearing or in individuals congenitally incapable of propagation. Human selection, though a blunt tool in comparison with natural selection, can originate a bold and hardy race of dogs, or showy double flowers incapable of producing seed. In the second case fertile single flowers continue the race, as in the garden Stock. Darwin pointed out that the barren double flowers of the Stock answer to the workers of social bees and ants, the fertile single flowers to the functional males and females. Every modification that works to the advantage or disadvantage of the race, whether we classify it as physical, intellectual, or moral, gives scope for the operation of natural selection.

The comparative psychology of small invertebrates, such as insects, is impeded by our imperfect knowledge of their nervous physiology. Introspection is here impossible; experimental physiology and pathology, which have done so much for the psychology of the higher vertebrates, almost impossible; analogy is a treacherous guide where the structures involved differ conspicuously. We have little to guide us in the psychology of insects except their behaviour, and that is often capable of a variety of interpretations. The only course is to adopt Pasteur's watchword, "Travaillons!"—the difficulties will diminish with time and labour.

The Food of Green Plants.