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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 59
II. Of Definition—specific Nature of the Process Alleged
II. Of Definition—specific Nature of the Process Alleged.
It is not enough to say generally, this evolution is a process of nature, in origination from a previously existing something. For definition here has to be specific. And in that general sense there are various other evolutionary processes of nature, from which, in order to adequate clearness of science, the process in the present case has to be distinguished. There are the twain evolutions of growth and decay, the generative evolution of individual offspring from parentage, the logical evolution of conclusion from pre misses, and the æsthetic imaginative evolution of poetry, from what in the "maker's" mind is "sown a natural body" to be "raised a spiritual body." What, then, is the distinctive in the present case as compared with those other cases. And the answer, doubtless, is—Contribution of real specific difference. This is not merely said by us. It is seen by science in the nature of the thing. Since the distinctive result in this case is origin of species, the distinctive in process has to be, contribution of specific difference, constituting the new species, making it to be as new and distinct. This, and nothing else. This, or nothing to the purpose—nothing but delusion or baptism of cloud. If there be shown in nature any such thing as contribution of specific difference, then evolutionism is an established theory of origin of species; if not, not.
nature, soften back into the variety,—perhaps on its way toward final delinquescence into protoplasm, or dissolution into that slime which the Challenger has found in place of the bathybius of Evolutionary imagination. And so the distinctness in specie's as in variety will be, not permanent because essential as the form in a statue of bronze, but only complexional and therefore evanescent, like a fading picture on canvas, or dyer's colour in cloth, or discolouration of a flooded river. Here then, when we come to propositions, may rise a question of the reality of species in nature; or, of the reality of nature as specific; and consequently, of the possibility or competency of natural science, as distinguished from a mere natural history which, in absence of knowledge of specific natures, can be only a more or less elevated gossip, about illusory surface aspects of a nature that is unreal. But at our present stage of definitions, we need only say that, though species should be really the same sort of thing as variety, nevertheless a new species has in it something new, distinct from all else in the world; and that this new something, in respect of which the species differs, is of course a specific difference, so far as it goes and so long as it endures. Though it should be superficial and fleeting as the ripple on the lake, the shadow on the hill side, or e'en—
As the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm,—
still, the origination of it is a contribution of a specific difference, constituting the new species, giving it being as now and distinct enough.
Notes of criticism of two famous phrases—voces signatae—of evolutionism, "spotaneous generation" and "natural selection." They are loose poetical metaphors instead of exact scientific definitions. They are logically nonsensical; but rhetorically effective thus far, that through baptism of cloud they lead into worship of a wilderness calf, (l.) "Spontaneous generation." Here the "spontaneous" means that life is originated not from any previous life; while "generation" has no meaning except as implying that the origination is from previous life parental. Through this nonsence we land in the view (if view it may be called) that to inquire about pro longation of old chain (say, zinc or copper) is the way to ascertain a out origination of new metal (say bronzo, by fusion of these. (2.) "Natural selection" "Natural" here has to mean, without directing intelligence; for the word is employed by way of contrast to ("artificial selection) man's intervention of directing intelligence in the production of new varieties Now "selection" has no meaning except as imply in that there is directing intelligence operative in the process as appearing in the result. The nonsense here conducts through cloud to the co fused impression. (1) that the intrinsic nature of the process is affected by the absence or presence of directing intelligence in the exprinsic occasion of it; or (2), that in inquiring how, in what way or wanner nature contributes a specific difference, we are dealing with the truth or falsehood of evolutionism, that is, with the question of fact whether there is or is not any such contribution made by nature anyhow, no matter how,
Darwin's specialty is, that he places the cause of specific differentiation in the cosmical conditions of the general system of nature around, while other evolutionists place the cause in the previously existing specific nature of individual bodies. That makes a difference only between two schools of evolutionism, two modes of evolution. It presupposes that evo uti n, somehow, by prosess of nature, is a fact; while the present question is, whether in fact there is any such thing as natural evolution, causing the origination of specific life [gap — ]n the world.
(To be Concluded Next Week.)