Darwin and Modern Science Part 7

The strongest of all proofs of the theory, however, is afforded by cases of true "mimicry," those adaptations discovered by Bates in 1861, consisting in the imitation of one species by another, which becomes more and more like its model. The model is always a species that enjoys some special protection from enemies, whether because it is unpleasant to taste, or because it is in some way dangerous.

It is chiefly among insects and especially among b.u.t.terflies that we find the greatest number of such cases. Several of these have been minutely studied, and every detail has been investigated, so that it is difficult to understand how there can still be disbelief in regard to them. If the many and exact observations which have been carefully collected and critically discussed, for instance by Poulton ("Essays on Evolution", 1889-1907, Oxford, 1908, pa.s.sim, e.g. page 269.) were thoroughly studied, the arguments which are still frequently urged against mimicry would be found untenable; we can hardly hope to find more convincing proof of the actuality of the processes of selection than these cases put into our hands. The preliminary postulates of the theory of mimicry have been disputed, for instance, that diurnal b.u.t.terflies are persecuted and eaten by birds, but observations specially directed towards this point in India, Africa, America and Europe have placed it beyond all doubt. If it were necessary I could myself furnish an account of my own observations on this point.

In the same way it has been established by experiment and observation in the field that in all the great regions of distribution there are b.u.t.terflies which are rejected by birds and lizards, their chief enemies, on account of their unpleasant smell or taste. These b.u.t.terflies are usually gaily and conspicuously coloured and thus--as Wallace first interpreted it--are furnished with an easily recognisable sign: a sign of unpalatableness or WARNING COLOURS. If they were not thus recognisable easily and from a distance, they would frequently be pecked at by birds, and then rejected because of their unpleasant taste; but as it is, the insect-eaters recognise them at once as unpalatable booty and ignore them. Such IMMUNE (The expression does not refer to all the enemies of this b.u.t.terfly; against ichneumon-flies, for instance, their unpleasant smell usually gives no protection.) species, wherever they occur, are imitated by other palatable species, which thus acquire a certain degree of protection.

It is true that this explanation of the bright, conspicuous colours is only a hypothesis, but its foundations,--unpalatableness, and the liability of other b.u.t.terflies to be eaten,--are certain, and its consequences--the existence of mimetic palatable forms--confirm it in the most convincing manner. Of the many cases now known I select one, which is especially remarkable, and which has been thoroughly investigated, Papilio darda.n.u.s (merope), a large, beautiful, diurnal b.u.t.terfly which ranges from Abyssinia throughout the whole of Africa to the south coast of Cape Colony.

The males of this form are everywhere ALMOST the same in colour and in form of wings, save for a few variations in the spa.r.s.e black markings on the pale yellow ground. But the females occur in several quite different forms and colourings, and one of these only, the Abyssinian form, is like the male, while the other three or four are MIMETIC, that is to say, they copy a b.u.t.terfly of quite a different family the Danaids, which are among the IMMUNE forms. In each region the females have thus copied two or three different immune species. There is much that is interesting to be said in regard to these species, but it would be out of keeping with the general tenor of this paper to give details of this very complicated case of polymorphism in P. darda.n.u.s. Anyone who is interested in the matter will find a full and exact statement of the case in as far as we know it, in Poulton's "Essays on Evolution" (pages 373-375). (Professor Poulton has corrected some wrong descriptions which I had unfortunately overlooked in the Plates of my book "Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie", and which refer to Papilio darda.n.u.s (merope).

These mistakes are of no importance as far as and understanding of the mimicry-theory is concerned, but I hope shortly to be able to correct them in a later edition.) I need only add that three different mimetic female forms have been reared from the eggs of a single female in South Africa. The resemblance of these forms to their immune models goes so far that even the details of the LOCAL forms of the models are copied by the mimetic species.

It remains to be said that in Madagascar a b.u.t.terfly, Papilio meriones, occurs, of which both s.e.xes are very similar in form and markings to the non-mimetic male of P. darda.n.u.s, so that it probably represents the ancestor of this latter species.

In face of such facts as these every attempt at another explanation must fail. Similarly all the other details of the case fulfil the preliminary postulates of selection, and leave no room for any other interpretation.

That the males do not take on the protective colouring is easily explained, because they are in general more numerous, and the females are more important for the preservation of the species, and must also live longer in order to deposit their eggs. We find the same state of things in many other species, and in one case (Elymnias undularis) in which the male is also mimetically coloured, it copies quite a differently coloured immune species from the model followed by the female. This is quite intelligible when we consider that if there were TOO MANY false immune types, the birds would soon discover that there were palatable individuals among those with unpalatable warning colours.

Hence the imitation of different immune species by Papilio darda.n.u.s!

I regret that lack of s.p.a.ce prevents my bringing forward more examples of mimicry and discussing them fully. But from the case of Papilio darda.n.u.s alone there is much to be learnt which is of the highest importance for our understanding of transformations. It shows us chiefly what I once called, somewhat strongly perhaps, THE OMNIPOTENCE OF NATURAL SELECTION in answer to an opponent who had spoken of its "inadequacy." We here see that one and the same species is capable of producing four or five different patterns of colouring and marking; thus the colouring and marking are not, as has often been supposed, a necessary outcome of the specific nature of the species, but a true adaptation, which cannot arise as a direct effect of climatic conditions, but solely through what I may call the sorting out of the variations produced by the species, according to their utility. That caterpillars may be either green or brown is already something more than could have been expected according to the old conception of species, but that one and the same b.u.t.terfly should be now pale yellow, with black; now red with black and pure white; now deep black with large, pure white spots; and again black with a large ochreous-yellow spot, and many small white and yellow spots; that in one sub-species it may be tailed like the ancestral form, and in another tailless like its Danaid model,--all this shows a far-reaching capacity for variation and adaptation that wide never have expected if we did not see the facts before us. How it is possible that the primary colour-variations should thus be intensified and combined remains a puzzle even now; we are reminded of the modern three-colour printing,--perhaps similar combinations of the primary colours take place in this case; in any case the direction of these primary variations is determined by the artist whom we know as natural selection, for there is no other conceivable way in which the model could affect the b.u.t.terfly that is becoming more and more like it.

The same climate surrounds all four forms of female; they are subject to the same conditions of nutrition. Moreover, Papilio darda.n.u.s is by no means the only species of b.u.t.terfly which exhibits different kinds of colour-pattern on its wings. Many species of the Asiatic genus Elymnias have on the upper surface a very good imitation of an immune Euploeine (Danainae), often with a steel-blue ground-colour, while the under surface is well concealed when the b.u.t.terfly is at rest,--thus there are two kinds of protective coloration each with a different meaning! The same thing may be observed in many non-mimetic b.u.t.terflies, for instance in all our species of Vanessa, in which the under side shows a grey-brown or brownish-black protective coloration, but we do not yet know with certainty what may be the biological significance of the gaily coloured upper surface.

In general it may be said that mimetic b.u.t.terflies are comparatively rare species, but there are exceptions, for instance Limenitis archippus in North America, of which the immune model (Danaida plexippus) also occurs in enormous numbers.

In another mimicry-category the imitators are often more numerous than the models, namely in the case of the imitation of DANGEROUS INSECTS by harmless species. Bees and wasps are dreaded for their sting, and they are copied by harmless flies of the genera Eristalis and Syrphus, and these mimics often occur in swarms about flowering plants without damage to themselves or to their models; they are feared and are therefore left unmolested.

In regard also to the FAITHFULNESS OF THE COPY the facts are quite in harmony with the theory, according to which the resemblance must have arisen and increased BY DEGREES. We can recognise this in many cases, for even now the mimetic species show very VARYING DEGREES OF RESEMBLANCE to their immune model. If we compare, for instance, the many different imitators of Danaida chrysippus we find that, with their brownish-yellow ground-colour, and the position and size, and more or less sharp limitation of their clear marginal spots, they have reached very different degrees of nearness to their model. Or compare the female of Elymnias undularis with its model Danaida genutia; there is a general resemblance, but the marking of the Danaida is very roughly imitated in Elymnias.

Another fact that bears out the theory of mimicry is, that even when the resemblance in colour-pattern is very great, the WING-VENATION, which is so constant, and so important in determining the systematic position of b.u.t.terflies, is never affected by the variation. The pursuers of the b.u.t.terfly have no time to trouble about entomological intricacies.

I must not pa.s.s over a discovery of Poulton's which is of great theoretical importance--that mimetic b.u.t.terflies may reach the same effect by very different means. ("Journ. Linn. Soc. London (Zool.)", Vol. XXVI. 1898, pages 598-602.) Thus the gla.s.s-like transparency of the wing of a certain Ithomiine (Methona) and its Pierine mimic (Dismorphia orise) depends on a diminution in the size of the scales; in the Danaine genus Ituna it is due to the fewness of the scales, and in a third imitator, a moth (Castnia linus var. heliconoides) the gla.s.s-like appearance of the wing is due neither to diminution nor to absence of scales, but to their absolute colourlessness and transparency, and to the fact that they stand upright. In another moth mimic (Anthomyza) the arrangement of the transparent scales is normal. Thus it is not some unknown external influence that has brought about the transparency of the wing in these five forms, as has sometimes been supposed. Nor is it a hypothetical INTERNAL evolutionary tendency, for all three vary in a different manner. The cause of this agreement can only lie in selection, which preserves and intensifies in each species the favourable variations that present themselves. The great faithfulness of the copy is astonis.h.i.+ng in these cases, for it is not THE WHOLE wing which is transparent; certain markings are black in colour, and these contrast sharply with the gla.s.s-like ground. It is obvious that the pursuers of these b.u.t.terflies must be very sharp-sighted, for otherwise the agreement between the species could never have been pushed so far. The less the enemies see and observe, the more defective must the imitation be, and if they had been blind, no visible resemblance between the species which required protection could ever have arisen.

A seemingly irreconcilable contradiction to the mimicry theory is presented in the following cases, which were known to Bates, who, however, never succeeded in bringing them into line with the principle of mimicry.

In South America there are, as we have already said, many mimics of the immune Ithomiinae (or as Bates called them Heliconidae). Among these there occur not merely species which are edible, and thus require the protection of a disguise, but others which are rejected on account of their unpalatableness. How could the Ithomiine dress have developed in their case, and of what use is it, since the species would in any case be immune? In Eastern Brazil, for instance, there are four b.u.t.terflies, which bear a most confusing resemblance to one another in colour, marking, and form of wing, and all four are unpalatable to birds. They belong to four different genera and three sub-families, and we have to inquire: Whence came this resemblance and what end does it serve? For a long time no satisfactory answer could be found, but Fritz Muller (In "Kosmos", 1879, page 100.), seventeen years after Bates, offered a solution to the riddle, when he pointed out that young birds could not have an instinctive knowledge of the unpalatableness of the Ithomiines, but must learn by experience which species were edible and which inedible. Thus each young bird must have tasted at least one individual of each inedible species and discovered its unpalatability, before it learnt to avoid, and thus to spare the species. But if the four species resemble each other very closely the bird will regard them all as of the same kind, and avoid them all. Thus there developed a process of selection which resulted in the survival of the Ithomiine-like individuals, and in so great an increase of resemblance between the four species, that they are difficult to distinguish one from another even in a collection. The advantage for the four species, living side by side as they do e.g. in Bahia, lies in the fact that only one individual from the MIMICRY-RING ("inedible a.s.sociation") need be tasted by a young bird, instead of at least four individuals, as would otherwise be the case. As the number of young birds is great, this makes a considerable difference in the ratio of elimination.

These interesting mimicry-rings (trusts), which have much significance for the theory, have been the subject of numerous and careful investigations, and at least their essential features are now fully established. Muller took for granted, without making any investigations, that young birds only learn by experience to distinguish between different kinds of victims. But Lloyd Morgan's ("Habit and Instinct", London, 1896.) experiments with young birds proved that this is really the case, and at the same time furnished an additional argument against the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE.

In addition to the mimicry-rings first observed in South America, others have been described from Tropical India by Moore, and by Poulton and Dixey from Africa, and we may expect to learn many more interesting facts in this connection. Here again the preliminary postulates of the theory are satisfied. And how much more that would lead to the same conclusion might be added!

As in the case of mimicry many species have come to resemble one another through processes of selection, so we know whole cla.s.ses of phenomena in which plants and animals have become adapted to one another, and have thus been modified to a considerable degree. I refer particularly to the relation between flowers and insects; but as there is an article on "The Biology of Flowers" in this volume, I need not discuss the subject, but will confine myself to pointing out the significance of these remarkable cases for the theory of selection. Darwin has shown that the originally inconspicuous blossoms of the phanerogams were transformed into flowers through the visits of insects, and that, conversely, several large orders of insects have been gradually modified by their a.s.sociation with flowers, especially as regards the parts of their body actively concerned. Bees and b.u.t.terflies in particular have become what they are through their relation to flowers. In this case again all that is apparently contradictory to the theory can, on closer investigation, be beautifully interpreted in corroboration of it. Selection can give rise only to what is of use to the organism actually concerned, never to what is of use to some other organism, and we must therefore expect to find that in flowers only characters of use to THEMSELVES have arisen, never characters which are of use to insects only, and conversely that in the insects characters useful to them and not merely to the plants would have originated. For a long time it seemed as if an exception to this rule existed in the case of the fertilisation of the yucca blossoms by a little moth, p.r.o.nuba yuccasella. This little moth has a sickle-shaped appendage to its mouth-parts which occurs in no other Lepidopteron, and which is used for pus.h.i.+ng the yellow pollen into the opening of the pistil, thus fertilising the flower. Thus it appears as if a new structure, which is useful only to the plant, has arisen in the insect.

But the difficulty is solved as soon as we learn that the moth lays its eggs in the fruit-buds of the Yucca, and that the larvae, when they emerge, feed on the developing seeds. In effecting the fertilisation of the flower the moth is at the same time making provision for its own offspring, since it is only after fertilisation that the seeds begin to develop. There is thus nothing to prevent our referring this structural adaptation in p.r.o.nuba yuccasella to processes of selection, which have gradually transformed the maxillary palps of the female into the sickle-shaped instrument for collecting the pollen, and which have at the same time developed in the insect the instinct to press the pollen into the pistil.

In this domain, then, the theory of selection finds nothing but corroboration, and it would be impossible to subst.i.tute for it any other explanation, which, now that the facts are so well known, could be regarded as a serious rival to it. That selection is a factor, and a very powerful factor in the evolution of organisms, can no longer be doubted. Even although we cannot bring forward formal proofs of it IN DETAIL, cannot calculate definitely the size of the variations which present themselves, and their selection-value, cannot, in short, reduce the whole process to a mathematical formula, yet we must a.s.sume selection, because it is the only possible explanation applicable to whole cla.s.ses of phenomena, and because, on the other hand, it is made up of factors which we know can be proved actually to exist, and which, IF they exist, must of logical necessity cooperate in the manner required by the theory. WE MUST ACCEPT IT BECAUSE THE PHENOMENA OF EVOLUTION AND ADAPTATION MUST HAVE A NATURAL BASIS, AND BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION OF THEM. (This has been discussed in many of my earlier works. See for instance "The All-Sufficiency of Natural Selection, a reply to Herbert Spencer", London, 1893.)

Many people are willing to admit that selection explains adaptations, but they maintain that only a part of the phenomena are thus explained, because everything does not depend upon adaptation. They regard adaptation as, so to speak, a special effort on the part of Nature, which she keeps in readiness to meet particularly difficult claims of the external world on organisms. But if we look at the matter more carefully we shall find that adaptations are by no means exceptional, but that they are present everywhere in such enormous numbers, that it would be difficult in regard to any structure whatever, to prove that adaptation had NOT played a part in its evolution.

How often has the senseless objection been urged against selection that it can create nothing, it can only reject. It is true that it cannot create either the living substance or the variations of it; both must be given. But in rejecting one thing it preserves another, intensifies it, combines it, and in this way CREATES what is new. EVERYTHING in organisms depends on adaptation; that is to say, everything must be admitted through the narrow door of selection, otherwise it can take no part in the building up of the whole. But, it is asked, what of the direct effect of external conditions, temperature, nutrition, climate and the like? Undoubtedly these can give rise to variations, but they too must pa.s.s through the door of selection, and if they cannot do this they are rejected, eliminated from the const.i.tution of the species.

It may, perhaps, be objected that such external influences are often of a compelling power, and that every animal MUST submit to them, and that thus selection has no choice and can neither select nor reject. There may be such cases; let us a.s.sume for instance that the effect of the cold of the Arctic regions was to make all the mammals become black; the result would be that they would all be eliminated by selection, and that no mammals would be able to live there at all. But in most cases a certain percentage of animals resists these strong influences, and thus selection secures a foothold on which to work, eliminating the unfavourable variation, and establis.h.i.+ng a useful colouring, consistent with what is required for the maintenance of the species.

Everything depends upon adaptation! We have spoken much of adaptation in colouring, in connection with the examples brought into prominence by Darwin, because these are conspicuous, easily verified, and at the same time convincing for the theory of selection. But is it only desert and polar animals whose colouring is determined through adaptation? Or the leaf-b.u.t.terflies, and the mimetic species, or the terrifying markings, and "warning-colours" and a thousand other kinds of sympathetic colouring? It is, indeed, never the colouring alone which makes up the adaptation; the structure of the animal plays a part, often a very essential part, in the protective disguise, and thus MANY variations may cooperate towards ONE common end. And it is to be noted that it is by no means only external parts that are changed; internal parts are ALWAYS modified at the same time--for instance, the delicate elements of the nervous system on which depend the INSTINCT of the insect to hold its wings, when at rest, in a perfectly definite position, which, in the leaf-b.u.t.terfly, has the effect of bringing the two pieces on which the marking occurs on the anterior and posterior wing into the same direction, and thus displaying as a whole the fine curve of the midrib on the seeming leaf. But the wing-holding instinct is not regulated in the same way in all leaf-b.u.t.terflies; even our indigenous species of Vanessa, with their protective ground-colouring, have quite a distinctive way of holding their wings so that the greater part of the anterior wing is covered by the posterior when the b.u.t.terfly is at rest.

But the protective colouring appears on the posterior wing and on the tip of the anterior, TO PRECISELY THE DISTANCE TO WHICH IT IS LEFT UNCOVERED. This occurs, as Standfuss has shown, in different degree in our two most nearly allied species, the uncovered portion being smaller in V. urticae than in V. polychloros. In this case, as in most leaf-b.u.t.terflies, the holding of the wing was probably the primary character; only after that was thoroughly established did the protective marking develop. In any case, the instinctive manner of holding the wings is a.s.sociated with the protective colouring, and must remain as it is if the latter is to be effective. How greatly instincts may change, that is to say, may be adapted, is shown by the case of the Noctuid "shark" moth, Xylina vetusta. This form bears a most deceptive resemblance to a piece of rotten wood, and the appearance is greatly increased by the modification of the innate impulse to flight common to so many animals, which has here been transformed into an almost contrary instinct. This moth does not fly away from danger, but "feigns death,"

that is, it draws antennae, legs and wings close to the body, and remains perfectly motionless. It may be touched, picked up, and thrown down again, and still it does not move. This remarkable instinct must surely have developed simultaneously with the wood-colouring; at all events, both cooperating variations are now present, and prove that both the external and the most minute internal structure have undergone a process of adaptation.

The case is the same with all structural variations of animal parts, which are not absolutely insignificant. When the insects acquired wings they must also have acquired the mechanism with which to move them--the musculature, and the nervous apparatus necessary for its automatic regulation. All instincts depend upon compound reflex mechanisms and are just as indispensable as the parts they have to set in motion, and all may have arisen through processes of selection if the reasons which I have elsewhere given for this view are correct. ("The Evolution Theory", London, 1904, page 144.)

Thus there is no lack of adaptations within the organism, and particularly in its most important and complicated parts, so that we may say that there is no actively functional organ that has not undergone a process of adaptation relative to its function and the requirements of the organism. Not only is every gland structurally adapted, down to the very minutest histological details, to its function, but the function is equally minutely adapted to the needs of the body. Every cell in the mucous lining of the intestine is exactly regulated in its relation to the different nutritive substances, and behaves in quite a different way towards the fats, and towards nitrogenous substances, or peptones.

I have elsewhere called attention to the many adaptations of the whale to the surrounding medium, and have pointed out--what has long been known, but is not universally admitted, even now--that in it a great number of important organs have been transformed in adaptation to the peculiar conditions of aquatic life, although the ancestors of the whale must have lived, like other hair-covered mammals, on land. I cited a number of these transformations--the fish-like form of the body, the hairlessness of the skin, the transformation of the fore-limbs to fins, the disappearance of the hind-limbs and the development of a tail fin, the layer of blubber under the skin, which affords the protection from cold necessary to a warm-blooded animal, the disappearance of the ear-muscles and the auditory pa.s.sages, the displacement of the external nares to the forehead for the greater security of the breathing-hole during the brief appearance at the surface, and certain remarkable changes in the respiratory and circulatory organs which enable the animal to remain for a long time under water. I might have added many more, for the list of adaptations in the whale to aquatic life is by no means exhausted; they are found in the histological structure and in the minutest combinations in the nervous system. For it is obvious that a tail-fin must be used in quite a different way from a tail, which serves as a fly-brush in hoofed animals, or as an aid to springing in the kangaroo or as a climbing organ; it will require quite different reflex-mechanisms and nerve-combinations in the motor centres.

I used this example in order to show how unnecessary it is to a.s.sume a special internal evolutionary power for the phylogenesis of species, for this whole order of whales is, so to speak, MADE UP OF ADAPTATIONS; it deviates in many essential respects from the usual mammalian type, and all the deviations are adaptations to aquatic life. But if precisely the most essential features of the organisation thus depend upon adaptation, what is left for a phyletic force to do, since it is these essential features of the structure it would have to determine? There are few people now who believe in a phyletic evolutionary power, which is not made up of the forces known to us--adaptation and heredity--but the conviction that EVERY part of an organism depends upon adaptation has not yet gained a firm footing. Nevertheless, I must continue to regard this conception as the correct one, as I have long done.

I may be permitted one more example. The feather of a bird is a marvellous structure, and no one will deny that as a whole it depends upon adaptation. But what part of it DOES NOT depend upon adaptation?

The hollow quill, the shaft with its hard, thin, light cortex, and the spongy substance within it, its square section compared with the round section of the quill, the flat barbs, their short, hooked barbules which, in the flight-feathers, hook into one another with just sufficient firmness to resist the pressure of the air at each wing-beat, the lightness and firmness of the whole apparatus, the elasticity of the vane, and so on. And yet all this belongs to an organ which is only pa.s.sively functional, and therefore can have nothing to do with the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE. Nor can the feather have arisen through some magical effect of temperature, moisture, electricity, or specific nutrition, and thus selection is again our only anchor of safety.

But--it will be objected--the substance of which the feather consists, this peculiar kind of h.o.r.n.y substance, did not first arise through selection in the course of the evolution of the birds, for it formed the covering of the scales of their reptilian ancestors. It is quite true that a similar substance covered the scales of the Reptiles, but why should it not have arisen among them through selection? Or in what other way could it have arisen, since scales are also pa.s.sively useful parts?

It is true that if we are only to call adaptation what has been acquired by the species we happen to be considering, there would remain a great deal that could not be referred to selection; but we are postulating an evolution which has stretched back through aeons, and in the course of which innumerable adaptations took place, which had not merely ephemeral persistence in a genus, a family or a cla.s.s, but which was continued into whole Phyla of animals, with continual fresh adaptations to the special conditions of each species, family, or cla.s.s, yet with persistence of the fundamental elements. Thus the feather, once acquired, persisted in all birds, and the vertebral column, once gained by adaptation in the lowest forms, has persisted in all the Vertebrates, from Amphioxus upwards, although with constant readaptation to the conditions of each particular group. Thus everything we can see in animals is adaptation, whether of to-day, or of yesterday, or of ages long gone by; every kind of cell, whether glandular, muscular, nervous, epidermic, or skeletal, is adapted to absolutely definite and specific functions, and every organ which is composed of these different kinds of cells contains them in the proper proportions, and in the particular arrangement which best serves the function of the organ; it is thus adapted to its function.

All parts of the organism are tuned to one another, that is, THEY ARE ADAPTED TO ONE ANOTHER, and in the same way THE ORGANISM AS A WHOLE IS ADAPTED TO THE CONDITIONS OF ITS LIFE, AND IT IS SO AT EVERY STAGE OF ITS EVOLUTION.

But all adaptations CAN be referred to selection; the only point that remains doubtful is whether they all MUST be referred to it.

However that may be, whether the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE is a factor that has cooperated with selection in evolution, or whether it is altogether fallacious, the fact remains, that selection is the cause of a great part of the phyletic evolution of organisms on our earth. Those who agree with me in rejecting the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE will regard selection as the only GUIDING factor in evolution, which creates what is new out of the transmissible variations, by ordering and arranging these, selecting them in relation to their number and size, as the architect does his building-stones so that a particular style must result. ("Variation under Domestication", 1875 II. pages 426, 427.) But the building-stones themselves, the variations, have their basis in the influences which cause variation in those vital units which are handed on from one generation to another, whether, taken together they form the WHOLE organism, as in Bacteria and other low forms of life, or only a germ-substance, as in unicellular and multicellular organisms. (The Author and Editor are indebted to Professor Poulton for kindly a.s.sisting in the revision of the proof of this Essay.)

IV. VARIATION. By HUGO DE VRIES.

Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam.

I. DIFFERENT KINDS OF VARIABILITY.

Before Darwin, little was known concerning the phenomena of variability.

The fact, that hardly two leaves on a tree were exactly the same, could not escape observation: small deviations of the same kind were met with everywhere, among individuals as well as among the organs of the same plant. Larger aberrations, spoken of as monstrosities, were for a long time regarded as lying outside the range of ordinary phenomena. A special branch of inquiry, that of Teratology, was devoted to them, but it const.i.tuted a science by itself, sometimes connected with morphology, but having scarcely any bearing on the processes of evolution and heredity.

Darwin was the first to take a broad survey of the whole range of variations in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. His theory of Natural Selection is based on the fact of variability. In order that this foundation should be as strong as possible he collected all the facts, scattered in the literature of his time, and tried to arrange them in a scientific way. He succeeded in showing that variations may be grouped along a line of almost continuous gradations, beginning with simple differences in size and ending with monstrosities. He was struck by the fact that, as a rule, the smaller the deviations, the more frequently they appear, very abrupt breaks in characters being of rare occurrence.

Among these numerous degrees of variability Darwin was always on the look out for those which might, with the greatest probability, be considered as affording material for natural selection to act upon in the development of new species. Neither of the extremes complied with his conceptions. He often pointed out, that there are a good many small fluctuations, which in this respect must be absolutely useless. On the other hand, he strongly combated the belief, that great changes would be necessary to explain the origin of species. Some authors had propounded the idea that highly adapted organs, e.g. the wings of a bird, could not have been developed in any other way than by a comparatively sudden modification of a well defined and important kind. Such a conception would allow of great breaks or discontinuity in the evolution of highly differentiated animals and plants, shortening the time for the evolution of the whole organic kingdom and getting over numerous difficulties inherent in the theory of slow and gradual progress. It would, moreover, account for the genetic relation of the larger groups of both animals and plants. It would, in a word, undoubtedly afford an easy means of simplifying the problem of descent with modification.

Darwin, however, considered such hypotheses as hardly belonging to the domain of science; they belong, he said, to the realm of miracles. That species have a capacity for change is admitted by all evolutionists; but there is no need to invoke modifications other than those represented by ordinary variability. It is well known that in artificial selection this tendency to vary has given rise to numerous distinct races, and there is no reason for denying that it can do the same in nature, by the aid of natural selection. On both lines an advance may be expected with equal probability.

His main argument, however, is that the most striking and most highly adapted modifications may be acquired by successive variations. Each of these may be slight, and they may affect different organs, gradually adapting them to the same purpose. The direction of the adaptations will be determined by the needs in the struggle for life, and natural selection will simply exclude all such changes as occur on opposite or deviating lines. In this way, it is not variability itself which is called upon to explain beautiful adaptations, but it is quite sufficient to suppose that natural selection has operated during long periods in the same way. Eventually, all the acquired characters, being transmitted together, would appear to us, as if they had all been simultaneously developed.

Correlations must play a large part in such special evolutions: when one part is modified, so will be other parts. The distribution of nourishment will come in as one of the causes, the reactions of different organs to the same external influences as another. But no doubt the more effective cause is that of the internal correlations, which, however, are still but dimly understood. Darwin repeatedly laid great stress on this view, although a definite proof of its correctness could not be given in his time. Such proof requires the direct observation of a mutation, and it should be stated here that even the first observations made in this direction have clearly confirmed Darwin's ideas. The new evening primroses which have sprung in my garden from the old form of Oenothera Lamarckiana, and which have evidently been derived from it, in each case, by a single mutation, do not differ from their parent species in one character only, but in almost all their organs and qualities. Oenothera gigas, for example, has stouter stems and denser foliage; the leaves are larger and broader; its thick flower-buds produce gigantic flowers, but only small fruits with large seeds. Correlative changes of this kind are seen in all my new forms, and they lend support to the view that in the gradual development of highly adapted structures, a.n.a.logous correlations may have played a large part. They easily explain large deviations from an original type, without requiring the a.s.sumption of too many steps.

Monstrosities, as their name implies, are widely different in character from natural species; they cannot, therefore, be adduced as evidence in the investigation of the origin of species. There is no doubt that they may have much in common as regards their manner of origin, and that the origin of species, once understood, may lead to a better understanding of the monstrosities. But the reverse is not true, at least not as regards the main lines of development. Here, it is clear, monstrosities cannot have played a part of any significance.

Reversions, or atavistic changes, would seem to give a better support to the theory of descent through modifications. These have been of paramount importance on many lines of evolution of the animal as well as of the vegetable kingdom. It is often a.s.sumed that monocotyledons are descended from some lower group of dicotyledons, probably allied to that which includes the b.u.t.tercup family. On this view the monocotyledons must be a.s.sumed to have lost the cambium and all its influence on secondary growth, the differentiation of the flower into calyx and corolla, the second cotyledon or seed-leaf and several other characters.