Nationalism and Culture (84 page)

courageous advocates in men like Spencer, Huxley, Vogt, Biichner and others.

The decisive victory of the doctrine of evolution was the appearance in 1859 of Darwin's great work, The Origin of Species hy Means of Natural Selection; in which connection it is worth noting that Darwin was not a specialist in the usual sense but, one might say, devoted himself to natural science as a hobby. We are confronted here with the same phenomenon which we can observe so frequently in connection with great discoveries and revolutionary intellectual achievements, and which merely affords further proof that in every field authority leads to ossification and sterility, while the free unfolding of ideas is always creative.

Contemporaneously with Darwin the English zoologist Alfred Russell Wallace, who was then pursuing his researches in Borneo, arrived at the same results, independently establishing the theory of natural selection in the same way as did Darwin. But the latter had in the course of his extended research gathered such a wealth of material and reviewed and elaborated it with such genius that Wallace modestly stepped back and conceded priority to his friend.

Darwin set to work very cautiously with the results of his rich experience, mostly achieved during that notable trip around the world on board the "Beagle" (1831-36), guarding himself against any generalizations that could not be established beyond cavil. So almost a quarter century went by before he laid his work before the public. Meanwhile he had spared no pains, but had conferred diligently with breeders and husbandmen to learn what experience had taught them. The experiments which had been carried out on domestic animals and cultivated plants in the course of artificial breeding served to confirm his conclusion that similar processes took place in nature and led to the origin of new species. So he was able with complete assurance to let the world know of the results of his prolonged studies and to support his conclusions with an inexhaustible array of facts.

Darwin came to the conclusion that alteration of species in nature is not the exception, but the rule. His observations had convinced him that related species were descended from a common ancestral form, and that the differences among them had been brought about in the course of time by changed conditions of life, migrations, changes in feeding habits and changes of climate. He supported this view chiefly by embryological researches by which he showed that the differences between embryos of the various genera of animals are much smaller than those between the developed individuals. So there was a quite special importance in the discovery that organs which serve the same purpose have in the embryo very similar forms even though they may have later, in the separate species, quite different appearances—a fact for which the only explana-

tion can be that the different species have sprung from a common origin. The changes which appeared later were gradually transmitted to the descendants, and in such manner that the entire sequence of acquired characters is repeated in the embryo.

Darwin recognized that adaptation of the different living beings to their environment is the most important law of life, and that species and individuals maintain themselves in the so-called "struggle for existence" the more easily in proportion as they possess the ability of adapting themselves to environmental conditions. Thus, the theory of descent and the doctrine of natural selection were the cornerstones of the modern idea of evolution and opened to it the broadest outlook upon every field of human research. Without them the splendid results of modern anthropology, physiology, psychology, sociology, and so on, would have been quite impossible. The impression produced by Darwin's work was overpowering. The idea of evolution had become so utterly strange to men during the period of political and intellectual reaction that most scholars regarded it as little more than a fairy tale. One can understand the powerful influence of the Darwinian theory upon his times only if one looks at what famous investigators who were his contemporaries had to say about it. Thus, Weismann, in his Vorlrdge uber die Deszenztheorie declares:

One cannot understand the eflFect of Charles Darwin's book on the origin of species if one does not know how completely the biologists of that time had abandoned general problems. I can only tell you that we younger men of the period, who were studying in the fifties, had no suspicion that a theory of evolution had ever been set forth, for no one spoke about it, and it was not even mentioned in lectures. It was as if all the teachers in our universities had drunk of Lethe and had completely forgotten that any such thing had ever been discussed, or even as if they were ashamed of these philosophical excursions of natural science, and wanted to protect youth from that sort of thing.

In his first work Darwin had left the question of the descent of man untouched on purpose j still it lay in the nature of his theory that man could not occupy an exceptional place in nature. It was, therefore, only logical that well-known investigators like Thomas Huxley and Ernst Haeckel should draw from the newly acquired understanding the inevitable conclusion and set man in his place as a member of the long line of organic living beings. By this the opponents of Darwinism were, of course, still more aroused against the new doctrine, especially after Huxley had published his book. Evidences of Man's Place in Nature; but no obstacles could bar the way of the victoriously advancing ideas. Not until 1871 did Darwin, in his great work. The Descent of Man and Natural

Selection wilh Regard to Sex, take a stand upon this much disputed problem and answer it in accord with his first work.

But the theory of the great English thinker was by no means finished with this book J just as little as was the theory of Copernicus in his time. It rather gave the impulse to new investigations and reflections by which some of Darwin's ideas were corrected and others carried further. Darwin, indeed, understood clearly that his theory needed much more work, knew only too well that ideas also must go through a definite process of development. Thus, for example, the idea of,natural selection as it had been developed by Darwin and Wallace in the course of time underwent much change to set its importance in correct relation to that of the other factors which cooperate with it in the modification of species. On the basis of the Darwinian theory of descent Spencer was able to prove that the countless genera of animals and plants on the earth had developed from a few simple organisms. Haeckel was able to go so far as to construct a family tree for the entire animal kingdom inclusive of man. In his Natiirliche Schdfjtmgsgeschkhte the German scholar attaches a special importance to the "biogenetic law" according to which the individual development of a living being is in high degree a brief and rapidly completed recapitulation of all the changes of form through which the entire ancestry of the genus has passed in the course of its natural evolution, and which are dependent on the physiological processes of inheritance (reproduction) and nutrition. This new insight into the processes of evolution led in turn to a whole series of new interpretations in the most widely separated fields of scientific investigation, by which the limits of our knowledge were very notably extended.

Darwin and Wallace believed that they had found an adequate explanation of the alterations in living forms in the mechanical selection of the best, and were convinced that this selection occurred as the result of a constant struggle between the different species—and also within the same species—in the course of which the weak species and individuals succumbed and only the strong were able to survive. We know that Darwin was strongly influenced in the development of this theory by the reading of Malthus' book on the population problem. He later greatly revised this opinion and, especially in his work on the origin of man, reached essentially different results. But the theory of the "struggle for existence" as it was first presented, in incomplete and one-sided form, exercised a powerful influence on a whole line of distinguished investigators, especially on the founders of the so-called "social Darwinism." Men came to regard nature as a monstrous battlefield on which the weak were pitilessly trodden down by the strong and, in fact, believed that within every genus there went on a sort of perpetual civil war arising from natural necessities. A large number of scholars, among them Huxley

and Spencer, at first saw human society also in this light and were of the firm conviction that they were on the track of a natural law of universal validity. Thus Hobbes' "war of all against all" became once more the unalterable course of nature, which could be changed by no ethical considerations, and the advocates of "social Darwinism" never tired of mouthing the gloomy declaration of Malthus that the table of life is not spread for everyone. This notion no doubt arose from the bourgeois attitude of the scholars without their being themselves aware of it. Capitalistic society had made the principle of free competition the cardinal point of economics; what, therefore, was simpler than to see in this merely an extension of that same struggle which, according to the view of many distinguished Darwinians, was to be seen everywhere in nature, and which not even man could escape? In this way justification was found for every human exploitation and oppression, by tracing it to the operation of an inexorable natural law. Huxley, in his well-known work, The Struggle for Existence and Its Bearing on Man, had with the consistency that was characteristic of him unreservedly advocated this point of view, and thus, contrary to his intention, forged a weapon for social reaction which even today is occasionally made to serve it as a means of defense. The thinkers of the period took these things the more seriously because the most of them were so firmly convinced of the inexorable struggle in nature that they assumed it unconditionally without taking the trouble to examine the assumption carefully.

There were at that time only a few supporters of the Darwinian theory who questioned the correctness of this view. To this few belonged most notably the Russian zoologist Kessler, who as early as 1880 at a natural science congress in St. Petersburg announced his opinion that along with the brutal struggle with tooth and claw in nature there prevails still another law which finds expression in mutual assistance within the society of living species and contributes essentially to the maintainance of the race. This idea, which Kessler merely referred to hurriedly, was given a far-reaching application by Peter Kropotkin in his well-known work, Mutual Aid — a Factor of Evolution. Kropotkin showed, on the basis of a wealth of factual material, that the presentation of nature as an unlimited battlefield was only a caricature of life which does violence to the real facts.*^ Like Kessler, he also emphasized the importance for the preservation of the species of its members' living together in societies and the instincts of mutual aid and solidarity which grow out of it. This second form of the struggle for existence seemed to him of incomparably

' Kropotkin first published his work in separate installments in the English periodical Nineteenth Century (September, 1890, to June, 1896). His latest work, Die Ethik (Berlin, 1923), which unfortunately was not completed, constitutes a valuable supplement to the earlier publication.

greater importance, as well for the preservation of the individual as for the maintainance of the race, than the brutal warfare of the strong against the weak, a view which is confirmed by the noticeable degeneracy of those species which have no social life and try to maintain themselves by their mere physical superiority. While Kessler was of the opinion that the instinct of sympathy is a result of parental affection and the care of offspring, Kropotkin took the standpoint that we are dealing here simply with a result of social living together which man inherited from his animal ancestors, who, like him, lived in societies. Thus regarded, man was not the creator of society, but society the creator of man. This view, which has since been accepted by numerous investigators, is, especially for sociology, of wide applicability, for it throws a new light on the whole evolutionary history of man and stimulates most fruitful reflections.

It would lead us too far to enter in detail into all the numerous evolutionary factors of the Darwinian theory. The theory of selection and, more especially, the problem of heredity, have given rise to a whole series of scientific investigations which have advanced the evolutionary doctrine in general even if their outcome has not always been very successful. Many theories which were thus set up appear, perhaps, all too daring and too lacking in foundationj still one must not forget that it is not the positive results alone that serve to advance an idea. Hypotheses also can inspire to new considerations and greatly accelerate research. This is especially true of the Weismannian theory of inheritance and of all the attempts at explanation in this field that have been made by meritorious investigators like Mendel, Naegeli, de Vries, Roux and their numerous followers, as also by the advocates of neo-Lamarckianism, and by the defenders and opponents of the mutation theory. The most of these attempts at explanation have, beyond doubt, contributed to the further development of the theory of evolution, though they are in detail far too complicated for one to estimate with certainty their actual importance for the future. It would be labor lost, to atternpt a survey of an intellectual phenomenon of such enormous range as the modern theory of evolution according to its national constituents. A whole army of thinkers and investigators of all peoples and nations, of whom only a few of the best-known names can here be mentioned, has contributed to the universal upbuilding of this theory and given it intellectual impetus. No nation could escape its influence. It has directed the entire thought of the men of our cultural circle into definite lines, revalued all previous assumptions concerning man and the universe and brought forth an entirely new conception of all the problems of life. What importance, after all, have all the trifling peculiarities distinguishing members of different human groups—which at the best are all that can be established and which are, in the end, only results of trained-in understandings, ideas