The Evolution of Man, V.2 by Ernst Haeckel (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

Here it may also be well to point out the great importance of anthropogeny, in the light of the biogenetic law, for the purposes of philosophy. The speculative philosophers who take cognizance of these ontogenetic facts, and explain them (in accordance with the law) phylogenetically, will advance the great questions of philosophy far more than the most distinguished thinkers of all ages have yet succeeded in doing. Most certainly every clear and consistent thinker must derive from the facts of comparative anatomy and ontogeny we have adduced a number of suggestive ideas that cannot fail to have an influence on the progress of philosophy. Nor can it be doubted that the candid statement and impartial appreciation of these facts will lead to the decisive triumph of the philosophic tendency that we call "Monistic" or "Mechanical," as opposed to the "Dualistic" or "Teleological," on which most of the ancient, medieval, and modern systems of philosophy are based. The Monistic or Mechanical philosophy affirms that all the phenomena of human life and of the rest of nature are ruled by fixed and unalterable laws; that there is everywhere a necessary causal connection of phenomena; and that, therefore, the whole knowable universe is a harmonious unity, a monon. It says, further, that all phenomena are due solely to mechanical or efficient causes, not to final causes. It does not admit free-will in the ordinary sense of the word. In the light of the Monistic philosophy the phenomena that we are wont to regard as the freest and most independent, the expressions of the human will, are subject just as much to rigid laws as any other natural phenomenon. As a matter of fact, impartial and thorough examination of our "free" volitions shows that they are never really free, but always determined by antecedent factors that can be traced to either heredity or adaptation. We cannot, therefore, admit the conventional distinction between nature and spirit. There is spirit everywhere in nature, and we know of no spirit outside of nature. Hence, also, the common antithesis of natural science and mental or moral science is untenable. Every science, as such, is both natural and mental. That is a firm principle of Monism, which, on its religious side, we may also denominate Pantheism. Man is not above, but in, nature.

It is true that the opponents of evolution love to misrepresent the Monistic philosophy based on it as "Materialism," and confuse the philosophic tendency of this name with a wholly unconnected and despicable moral materialism. Strictly speaking, it would be just as proper to call our system Spiritualism as Materialism. The real Materialistic philosophy affirms that the phenomena of life are, like all other phenomena, effects or products of matter. The opposite extreme, the Spiritualistic philosophy, says, on the contrary, that matter is a product of energy, and that all material forms are produced by free and independent forces. Thus, according to one-sided Materialism, the matter is antecedent to the living force; according to the equally one-sided view of the Spiritist, it is the reverse. Both views are Dualistic, and, in my opinion, both are false. For us the antithesis disappears in the Monistic philosophy, which knows neither matter without force nor force without matter. It is only necessary to reflect for some time over the question from the strictly scientific point of view to see that it is impossible to form a clear idea of either hypothesis. As Goethe said, "Matter can never exist or act without spirit, nor spirit without matter."

The human "spirit" or "soul" is merely a force or form of energy, inseparably bound up with the material sub-stratum of the body. The thinking force of the mind is just as much connected with the structural elements of the brain as the motor force of the muscles with their structural elements. Our mental powers are functions of the brain as much as any other force is a function of a material body. We know of no matter that is devoid of force, and no forces that are not bound up with matter. When the forces enter into the phenomenon as movements we call them living or active forces; when they are in a state of rest or equilibrium we call them latent or potential. This applies equally to inorganic and organic bodies. The magnet that attracts iron filings, the powder that explodes, the steam that drives the locomotive, are living inorganics; they act by living force as much as the sensitive Mimosa does when it contracts its leaves at touch, or the venerable Amphioxus that buries itself in the sand of the sea, or man when he thinks. Only in the latter cases the combinations of the different forces that appear as "movement" in the phenomenon are much more intricate and difficult to analyse than in the former.

Our study has led us to the conclusion that in the whole evolution of man, in his embryology and in his phylogeny, there are no living forces at work other than those of the rest of organic and inorganic nature. All the forces that are operative in it could be reduced in the ultimate analysis to growth, the fundamental evolutionary function that brings about the forms of both the organic and the inorganic. But growth itself depends on the attraction and repulsion of homogeneous and heterogeneous particles. Seventy-five years ago Carl Ernst von Baer summed up the general result of his classic studies of animal development in the sentence: "The evolution of the individual is the history of the growth of individuality in every respect." And if we go deeper to the root of this law of growth, we find that in the long run it can always be reduced to that attraction and repulsion of animated atoms which Empedocles called the "love and hatred" of the elements.

Thus the evolution of man is directed by the same "eternal, iron laws" as the development of any other body. These laws always lead us back to the same simple principles, the elementary principles of physics and chemistry. The various phenomena of nature only differ in the degree of complexity in which the different forces work together. Each single process of adaptation and heredity in the stem-history of our ancestors is in itself a very complex physiological phenomenon. Far more intricate are the processes of human embryology; in these are condensed and comprised thousands of the phylogenetic processes.

In my General Morphology, which appeared in 1866, I made the first attempt to apply the theory of evolution, as reformed by Darwin, to the whole province of biology, and especially to provide with its assistance a mechanical foundation for the science of organic forms. The intimate relations that exist between all parts of organic science, especially the direct causal nexus between the two sections of evolution--ontogeny and phylogeny--were explained in that work for the first time by transformism, and were interpreted philosophically in the light of the theory of descent. The anthropological part of the General Morphology (Book 7) contains the first attempt to determine the series of man's ancestors (volume 2 page 428). However imperfect this attempt was, it provided a starting-point for further investigation. In the thirty-seven years that have since elapsed the biological horizon has been enormously widened; our empirical acquisitions in paleontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny have grown to an astonishing extent, thanks to the united efforts of a number of able workers and the employment of better methods. Many important biological questions that then appeared to be obscure enigmas seem to be entirely settled. Darwinism arose like the dawn of a new day of clear Monistic science after the dark night of mystic dogmatism, and we can say now, proudly and gladly, that there is daylight in our field of inquiry.

Philosophers and others, who are equally ignorant of the empirical sources of our evidence and the phylogenetic methods of utilising it, have even lately claimed that in the matter of constructing our genealogical tree nothing more has been done than the discovery of a "gallery of ancestors," such as we find in the mansions of the nobility. This would be quite true if the genealogy given in the second part of this work were merely the juxtaposition of a series of animal forms, of which we gathered the genetic connection from their external physiognomic resemblances. As we have sufficiently proved already, it is for us a question of a totally different thing--of the morphological and historical proof of the phylogenetic connection of these ancestors on the basis of their identity in internal structure and embryonic development; and I think I have sufficiently shown in the first part of this work how far this is calculated to reveal to us their inner nature and its historical development. I see the essence of its significance precisely in the proof of historical connection. I am one of those scientists who believe in a real "natural history," and who think as much of an historical knowledge of the past as of an exact investigation of the present. The incalculable value of the historical consciousness cannot be sufficiently emphasised at a time when historical research is ignored and neglected, and when an "exact" school, as dogmatic as it is narrow, would substitute for it physical experiments and mathematical formulae. Historical knowledge cannot be replaced by any other branch of science.

It is clear that the prejudices that stand in the way of a general recognition of this "natural anthropogeny" are still very great; otherwise the long struggle of philosophic systems would have ended in favour of Monism. But we may confidently expect that a more general acquaintance with the genetic facts will gradually destroy these prejudices, and lead to the triumph of the natural conception of "man's place in nature." When we hear it said, in face of this expectation, that this would lead to retrogression in the intellectual and moral development of mankind, I cannot refrain from saying that, in my opinion, it will be just the reverse; that it will promote to an enormous extent the advance of the human mind. All progress in our knowledge of truth means an advance in the higher cultivation of the human intelligence; and all progress in its application to practical life implies a corresponding improvement of morality. The worst enemies of the human race--ignorance and superstition--can only be vanquished by truth and reason. In any case, I hope and desire to have convinced the reader of these chapters that the true scientific comprehension of the human frame can only be attained in the way that we recognise to be the sole sound and effective one in organic science generally--namely, the way of Evolution.

INDEX.

Abiogenesis.

Accipenser.

Abortive ova.

Achromatin.

Achromin.

Acoela.

Acoustic nerve, the.

Acquired characters, inheritance of.

Acrania, the.

Acroganglion, the.

Adam's apple, the.

Adapida.

Adaptation.

After-birth, the.

Agassiz, L.

Age of life.

Alimentary canal, evolution of the. structure of the.

Allantoic circulation, the.

Allantois, development of the.

Allmann.

Amblystoma.

Amitotic cleavage.

Ammoconida.

Ammolynthus.

Amnion, the. formation of the.

Amniotic fluid, the.

Amoeba, the.

Amphibia, the.

Amphichoerus.

Amphigastrula.

Amphioxus, the. circulation of the. coelomation of the. embryology of the. structure of the.

Amphirhina.

Anamnia, the.

Anatomy, comparative.

Animalculists.

Animal layer, the.

Annelids, the.

Annelid theory, the.

Anomodontia.

Ant, intelligence of the.

Anthropithecus.

Anthropogeny.

Anthropoid apes, the.

Anthropology.

Anthropozoic period.

Antimera.

Anura.

Anus, the.

Anus, formation of the.

Aorta, the. development of the.

Ape and man.

Ape-man, the.

Apes, the.

Aphanocapsa.

Aphanostomum.

Appendicaria.

Appendix vermiformis, the.

Aquatic life, early prevalence of.

Ararat, Mount.

Archenteron.

Archeolithic age.

Archicaryon.

Archicrania.

Archigastrula.

Archiprimas.

Arctopitheca.

Area, the germinative.

Aristotle.

Arm, structure of the.

Arrow-worm, the.

Arterial arches, the. cone, the.

Arteries, evolution of the.

Articulates, the. skeleton of the.

Articulation.

Aryo-Romanic languages, the.

Ascidia,