Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (classic books to read .TXT) 📕

By Dividing Repeatedly,

So As To Form The Primary Embryonic Cells,  A Complex Mass Of Cells,

At First Essentially Similar,  Which,  However,  As They Go On

Multiplying,  Undergo Differentiations And Migrations,  Losing Their

Simplicity As They Do So.  Those Cells That Are Modified To Take Part

In The Proper Work Of The Whole Are Called Tissue-Cells.  In Virtue

Introduction Pg 9

Of Their Activities,  Their Growth And Reproductive Power Are Limited-

-Much More In Animals Than In Plants,  In Higher Than In Lower Beings.

It Is These Tissues,  Or Some Of Them,  That Receive The Impressions

From The Outside Which Leave The Imprint Of Memory.  Other Cells,

Which May Be Closely Associated Into A Continuous Organ,  Or More Or

Less Surrounded By Tissue-Cells,  Whose Part It Is To Nourish Them,

Are Called "Secondary Embryonic Cells," Or "Germ-Cells."  The Germ-

Cells May Be Differentiated In The Young Organism At A Very Early

Stage,  But In Plants They Are Separated At A Much Later Date From The

Less Isolated Embryonic Regions That Provide For The Plant's

Branching; In All Cases We Find Embryonic And Germ-Cells Screened

From The Life Processes Of The Complex Organism,  Or Taking No Very

Obvious Part In It,  Save To Form New Tissues Or New Organs,  Notably

In Plants.

 

 

 

 

 

Again,  In Ourselves,  And To A Greater Or Less Extent In All Animals,

We Find A System Of Special Tissues Set Apart For The Reception And

Storage Of Impressions From The Outer World,  And For Guiding The

Other Organs In Their Appropriate Responses--The "Nervous System";

And When This System Is Ill-Developed Or Out Of Gear The Remaining

Organs Work Badly From Lack Of Proper Skilled Guidance And Co-

Ordination.  How Can We,  Then,  Speak Of "Memory" In A Germ-Cell Which

Has Been Screened From The Experiences Of The Organism,  Which Is Too

Simple In Structure To Realise Them If It Were Exposed To Them?  My

Own Answer Is That We Cannot Form Any Theory On The Subject,  The Only

Question Is Whether We Have Any Right To Infer This "Memory" From The

Behaviour Of Living Beings; And Butler,  Like Hering,  Haeckel,  And

Some More Modern Authors,  Has Shown That The Inference Is A Very

Strong Presumption.  Again,  It Is Easy To Over-Value Such Complex

Instruments As We Possess.  The Possessor Of An Up-To-Date Camera,

Well Instructed In The Function And Manipulation Of Every Part,  But

Ignorant Of All Optics Save A Hand-To-Mouth Knowledge Of The

Properties Of His Own Lens,  Might Say That A Priori No Picture Could

Be Taken With A Cigar-Box Perforated By A Pin-Hole; And Our Ignorance

Of The Mechanism Of The Psychology Of Any Organism Is Greater By Many

Times Than That Of My Supposed Photographer.  We Know That Plants Are

Able To Do Many Things That Can Only Be Accounted For By Ascribing To

Them A "Psyche," And These Co-Ordinated Enough To Satisfy Their

Needs; And Yet They Possess No Central Organ Comparable To The Brain,

No Highly Specialised System For Intercommunication Like Our Nerve

Trunks And Fibres.  As Oscar Hertwig Says,  We Are As Ignorant Of The

Mechanism Of The Development Of The Individual As We Are Of That Of

Hereditary Transmission Of Acquired Characters,  And The Absence Of

Such Mechanism In Either Case Is No Reason For Rejecting The Proven

Fact.

 

However,  The Relations Of Germ And Body Just Described Led Jager,

Nussbaum,  Galton,  Lankester,  And,  Above All,  Weismann,  To The View

That The Germ-Cells Or "Stirp" (Galton) Were In The Body,  But Not Of

It.  Indeed,  In The Body And Out Of It,  Whether As Reproductive Cells

Introduction Pg 10

Set Free,  Or In The Developing Embryo,  They Are Regarded As Forming

One Continuous Homogeneity,  In Contrast To The Differentiation Of The

Body; And It Is To These Cells,  Regarded As A Continuum,  That The

Terms Stirp,  Germ-Plasm,  Are Especially Applied.  Yet On This View,

So Eagerly Advocated By Its Supporters,  We Have To Substitute For The

Hypothesis Of Memory,  Which They Declare To Have No Real Meaning

Here,  The Far More Fantastic Hypotheses Of Weismann:  By These They

Explain The Process Of Differentiation In The Young Embryo Into New

Germ And Body; And In The Young Body The Differentiation Of Its

Cells,  Each In Due Time And Place,  Into The Varied Tissue Cells And

Organs.  Such Views Might Perhaps Be Acceptable If It Could Be Shown

That Over Each Cell-Division There Presided A Wise All-Guiding Genie

Of Transcending Intellect,  To Which Clerk-Maxwell's Sorting Demons

Were Mere Infants.  Yet These Views Have So Enchanted Many

Distinguished Biologists,  That In Dealing With The Subject They Have

Actually Ignored The Existence Of Equally Able Workers Who Hesitate

To Share The Extremest Of Their Views.  The Phenomenon Is One Well

Known In Hypnotic Practice.  So Long As The Non-Weismannians Deal

With Matters Outside This Discussion,  Their Existence And Their Work

Is Rated At Its Just Value; But Any Work Of Theirs On This Point So

Affects The Orthodox Weismannite (Whether He Accept This Label Or

Reject It Does Not Matter),  That For The Time Being Their Existence

And The Good Work They Have Done Are Alike Non-Existent. {0e}

 

Butler Founded No School,  And Wished To Found None.  He Desired That

What Was True In His Work Should Prevail,  And He Looked Forward

Calmly To The Time When The Recognition Of That Truth And Of His

Share In Advancing It Should Give Him In The Lives Of Others That

Immortality For Which Alone He Craved.

 

Lamarckian Views Have Never Lacked Defenders Here And In America.  Of

The English,  Herbert Spencer,  Who However,  Was Averse To The

Vitalistic Attitude,  Vines And Henslow Among Botanists,  Cunningham

Among Zoologists,  Have Always Resisted Weismannism; But,  I Think,

None Of These Was Distinctly Influenced By Hering And Butler.  In

America The Majority Of The Great School Of Palaeontologists Have

Been Strong Lamarckians,  Notably Cope,  Who Has Pointed Out,  Moreover,

That The Transformations Of Energy In Living Beings Are Peculiar To

Them.

 

We Have Already Adverted To Haeckel's Acceptance And Development Of

Hering's Ideas In His "Perigenese Der Plastidule."  Oscar Hertwig Has

Been A Consistent Lamarckian,  Like Yves Delage Of The Sorbonne,  And

These Occupy Pre-Eminent Positions Not Only As Observers,  But As

Discriminating Theorists And Historians Of The Recent Progress Of

Biology.  We May Also Cite As A Lamarckian--Of A Sort--Felix Le

Dantec,  The Leader Of The Chemico-Physical School Of The Present Day.

 

But We Must Seek Elsewhere For Special Attention To The Points Which

Butler Regarded As The Essentials Of "Life And Habit."  In 1893 Henry

P. Orr,  Professor Of Biology In The University Of Louisiana,

Published A Little Book Entitled "A Theory Of Heredity."  Herein He

Insists On The Nervous Control Of The Whole Body,  And On The

Transmission To The Reproductive Cells Of Such Stimuli,  Received By

Introduction Pg 11

The Body,  As Will Guide Them On Their Path Until They Shall Have

Acquired Adequate Experience Of Their Own In The New Body They Have

Formed.  I Have Found The Name Of Neither Butler Nor Hering,  But The

Treatment Is Essentially On Their Lines,  And Is Both Clear And

Interesting.

 

In 1896 I Wrote An Essay On "The Fundamental Principles Of Heredity,"

Primarily Directed To The Man In The Street.  This,  After Being Held

Over For More Than A Year By One Leading Review,  Was "Declined With

Regret," And Again After Some Weeks Met The Same Fate From Another

Editor.  It Appeared In The Pages Of "Natural Science" For October,

1897,  And In The "Biologisches Centralblatt" For The Same Year.  I

Reproduce Its Closing Paragraph:-

 

 

 

 

 

"This Theory [Hering-Butler's] Has,  Indeed,  A Tentative Character,

And Lacks Symmetrical Completeness,  But Is The More Welcome As Not

Aiming At The Impossible.  A Whole Series Of Phenomena In Organic

Beings Are Correlated Under The Term Of Memory,  Conscious And

Unconscious,  Patent And Latent. . . .  Of The Order Of Unconscious

Memory,  Latent Till The Arrival Of The Appropriate Stimulus,  Is All

The Co-Operative Growth And Work Of The Organism,  Including Its

Development From The Reproductive Cells.  Concerning The Modus

Operandi We Know Nothing:  The Phenomena May Be Due,  As Hering

Suggests,  To Molecular Vibrations,  Which Must Be At Least As Distinct

From Ordinary Physical Disturbances As Rontgen's Rays Are From

Ordinary Light; Or It May Be Correlated,  As We Ourselves Are Inclined

To Think,  With Complex Chemical Changes In An Intricate But Orderly

Succession.  For The Present,  At Least,  The Problem Of Heredity Can

Only Be Elucidated By The Light Of Mental,  And Not Material

Processes."

 

 

 

 

 

It Will Be Seen That I Express Doubts As To The Validity Of Hering's

Invocation Of Molecular Vibrations As The Mechanism Of Memory,  And

Suggest As An Alternative Rhythmic Chemical Changes.  This View Has

Recently Been Put Forth In Detail By J. J. Cunningham In His Essay On

The "Hormone {0f} Theory Of Heredity," In The Archiv Fur

Entwicklungsmechanik (1909),  But I Have Failed To Note Any Direct

Effect Of My Essay On The Trend Of Biological Thought.

 

Among Post-Darwinian Controversies The One That Has Latterly Assumed

The Greatest Prominence Is That Of The Relative Importance Of Small

Variations In The Way Of More Or Less "Fluctuations," And Of

"Discontinuous Variations," Or "Mutations," As De Vries Has Called

Them.  Darwin,  In The First Four Editions Of The "Origin Of Species,"

Attached More Importance To The Latter Than In Subsequent Editions;

He Was Swayed In His Attitude,  As Is Well Known,  By An Article Of The

Introduction Pg 12

Physicist,  Fleeming Jenkin,  Which Appeared In The North British

Review.  The Mathematics Of This Article Were Unimpeachable,  But They

Were Founded On The Assumption That Exceptional Variations Would Only

Occur In Single Individuals,  Which Is,  Indeed,  Often The Case Among

Those Domesticated Races On Which Darwin Especially Studied The

Phenomena Of Variation.  Darwin Was No Mathematician Or Physicist,

And We Are Told In His Biography That He Regarded Every Tool-Shop

Rule Or Optician's Thermometer As An Instrument Of Precision:  So He

Appears To Have