Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860




Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere of
the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very wide
range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of my own
opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and sin, being
the _preserves_ of two great organized interests, have been guarded
against all reforming poachers with as great jealousy as the Royal
Forests. It is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow! It is so much
simpler to consign a soul to perdition, or gay masses, for money, to
save it, than to take the blame on ourselves for letting it grow up in
neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing influences! They hung
poor, crazy Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The ordinary of
Newgate preached to women who were to swing at Tyburn for a petty theft
as if they were worse than other people,--just as though he would not
have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if he had been born in
a den of thieves and bred up to steal or starve! The English law never
began to get hold of the idea that a crime was not necessarily a sin,
till Hadfield, who thought he was the Saviour of mankind, was tried for
shooting at George the Third;--lucky for him that he did not hit his
Majesty!

It is very singular that we recognize all the bodily defects that unfit
a man for military service, and all the intellectual ones that limit his
range of thought, but always talk at him as if all his moral powers were
perfect I suppose we must punish evil-doers as we extirpate vermin; but
I don't know that we have any more right to judge them than we have to
judge rats and mice, which are just as good as cats and weasels, though
we think it necessary to treat them as criminals.

The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly
studied, unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures
that I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a
branch of positive knowledge; but, for all that, we owe it an immense
debt. It has melted the world's conscience in its crucible and cast it
in a new mould, with features less like those of Moloch and more like
those of humanity. If it has failed to demonstrate its system of special
correspondences, it has proved that there are fixed relations between
organization and mind and character. It has brought out that great
doctrine of moral insanity, which has done more to make men charitable
and soften legal and theological barbarism than any one doctrine that I
can think of since the message of peace and good-will to men.

Automatic action in the moral world; the _reflex movement_ which _seems_
to be self-determination, and has been hanged and howled at as such
(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many centuries: until somebody
shall study this as Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action in
the bodily system, I would not give much for men's judgments of each
other's characters. Shut up the robber and the defaulter, we must. But
what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his cradle and bred in a
North-Street cellar? What if you are drinking a little too much wine and
smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son takes after you, and so
your poor grandson's brain being a little injured in physical texture,
he loses the fine moral sense on which you pride yourself, and doesn't
see the difference between signing another man's name to a draft and his
own?

I suppose the study of automatic action in the moral world (you see what
I mean through the apparent contradiction of terms) may be a dangerous
one in the view of many people. It is liable to abuse, no doubt.
People are always glad to get hold of anything which limits their
responsibility. But remember that our moral estimates come down to us
from ancestors who hanged children for stealing forty shillings' worth,
and sent their souls to perdition for the sin of being born,--who
punished the unfortunate families of suicides, and in their eagerness
for justice executed one innocent person every three years, on the
average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us.

I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to
you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it
a good one. _Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane_. They are
_in-sane_, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds,
is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the
greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, as far
as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,--for one angry man
is as good as another; restrain them from injury, promptly, completely,
and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs,--and
when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that
they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably,
remembering that nine-tenths of their perversity comes from outside
influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from
which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a
member of society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also that
there are _special influences_ which _work in the blood like ferments_,
and I have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited
may have more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which
admitted of a solution like that which I have mentioned?

Yours very truly,

* * * * *

_Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples._

MY DEAR PHILIP,--

I have been for some months established in this place, turning the
main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments
superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas
Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his
body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed
and thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed
creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not
quite dead enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being in court to
answer to a charge of assault and battery, you may guess that I have
been giving him a thrashing to settle off old scores; for he is a
tyrant, and has come pretty near killing his principal lady-assistant
with overworking her and keeping her out of all decent privileges.

Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty-two or -three years old,
I should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the usual
country-clergyman,--thrown on her own resources from an early age, and
the rest: a common story, but an uncommon person,--very. All conscience
and sensibility, I should say,--a cruel worker,--no kind of regard for
herself,--seems as fragile and supple as a young willow-shoot, but try
her and you find she has the spring in her of a steel crossbow. I am
glad I happened to come to this place, if it were only for her sake. I
have saved that girl's life; I am as sure of it as if I had pulled her
out of the fire or water.

Of course I'm in love with her, you say,--we always love those whom
we have benefited: "saved her life,--her love was the reward of his
devotion," etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In love, Philip? Well,
about that,--I love Helen Darley--very much: there is hardly anybody I
love so well. What a noble creature she is! One of those that just go
right on, do their own work and everybody else's, killing themselves
inch by inch without ever thinking about it,--singing and dancing
at their toil when they begin, worn and saddened after a while, but
pressing steadily on, tottering by-and-by, and catching at the rail by
the wayside to help them lift one foot before the other, and at last
falling, face down, arms stretched forward----

Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort of man that locks his door
sometimes and cries his heart out of his eyes,--that can sob like a
woman and not be ashamed of it? I come of fighting-blood on my mother's
side, you know; I think I could be savage on occasion. But I am
tender,--more and more tender as I come into my fulness of manhood. I
don't like to strike a man, (laugh, if you like,--I know I hit hard
when I do strike,)--but what I can't stand is the sight of these poor,
patient, toiling women, that never find out in this life how good they
are, and never know what it is to be told they are angels while they
still wear the pleasing incumbrances of humanity. I don't know what to
make of these cases. To think that a woman is never to be a woman again,
whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,--and that she should die
unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman,
waiting here all ready to make a man happy? Philip, do you know the
pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden
of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in
those earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to
let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so
close to the nerve of the soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You
used to tell me I was a Turk,--that my heart was full of pigeon-holes,
with accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but
I am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,--Brigham-Youngish, I mean;
at any rate, I always want to give a little love to all the poor things
that cannot have a whole man to themselves. If they would only be
contented with a little!

Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching. One of them,
Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; but
Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if it
were July with her, instead of May. I suppose it is all natural enough
that this girl should like a young man's attention, even if he were a
grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing's look
is unmistakable,--and yet she does not know the language it is
talking,--they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor
creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no danger
of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his life yet.
She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and fight to the
death for,--the old feral instinct, you know.

Pray, don't think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here
that I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her name is
Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in
this place. She is a portentous and mysterious creature. If I should
tell you all I know and half of what I fancy about her, you would
tell me to get my life insured at once. Yet she is the most painfully
interesting being,--so handsome! so lonely!--for she has no friends
among the girls, and sits apart from them,--with black hair like the
flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low-browed, scowling
beauty of face, and such eyes as were never seen before, I really
believe, in any human creature.

Philip, I don't know what to say about this Elsie. There is a mystery
around her I have not fathomed. I have conjectures about her which
I could not utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint the
possibilities which have suggested themselves to me. This I will
say,--that I do take the most intense interest in this young person, an
interest much more like pity than love in its common sense. If what I
guess at is true, of all the tragedies of existence I ever knew this is
the saddest, and yet so full of meaning! Do not ask me any questions,--I
have said more than I meant to already; but I am involved in strange
doubts and perplexities,--in dangers too, very possibly,--and it is a
relief just to speak ever so guardedly of them to an early and faithful
friend.

Yours ever, BERNARD.

P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortunius Licetus "De Monstris" among
your old books. Can't you lend it to me for a while? I am curious, and
it will amuse me.




ANNO DOMINI, 1860.


My youth is past!--this morn I stand,
With manhood's signet of command,
Firm-planted on life's middle-land!

Behind, the scene recedes afar,
Where cloudy mists and vapors mar
The lustre of my morning-star.

I mark the courses of my days,
Inwound through many a doubtful maze,--
To marvel at those devious ways!

They lead through hills and levels lone,
Green fields, and woodlands overgrown,
And where deep waters pulse and moan;--

By ruined tower, by darksome dell,
The home of night-birds fierce and fell,
Wherein strange shapes of Horror dwell;--

Out to the blessed sunshine free,
The breezy moors of liberty,
And skies outpouring harmony;--

By palace-wall, by haunted tomb,
Through bright and dark, through joy and gloom:
My life hath known both blight and bloom.

And now, as from some mountain-height,
Backward I strain my eager sight,
Till all the landscape melts in night;--

Then, whispering to my Heart, "Be bold!"
I turn from years whose "tale is told,"
To greet the Future's dawn of gold:

High hopes and nobler labors wait
Beyond that Future's opening gate,--
Brave deeds which hold the seeds of Fate.

Thy strength, O Lord, shall fire my blood,
Shall nerve my soul, make wise my mood,
And win me to the pure and good!

Or if, O Father, thou shouldst say,
"Dark Angel, close his mortal day!"
And smite me on my vanward way,--

Grant that in armor firm and strong,
Whilst pealing still Life's battle-song,
And struggling, manful, 'gainst the wrong,

Thy soldier, who would fight to win
No crown of dross, no bays of sin,
May fall amidst the foremost din

Of Truth's grand conflict, blest by Thee,--
And even though Death should conquer, see
How false, how brief his victory!

* * * * *



DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

[Continued.]


"I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and
dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most
naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained,--namely, that
each species has been independently created,--is erroneous. I am fully
convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to
what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other
and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged
varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.
Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main,
but not exclusive means of modification."

This is the kernel of the new theory, the Darwinian creed, as recited
at the close of the introduction to the remarkable book under
consideration. The questions, "What will he do with it?" and "How far
will he carry it?" the author answers at the close of the volume: "I
cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all
the members of the same class." Furthermore, "I believe that all animals
have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants
from an equal or lesser number." Seeing that analogy as strongly
suggests a further step in the same direction, while he protests that
"analogy may be a deceitful guide," yet he follows its inexorable
leading to the inference that "probably all the organic beings which
have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial
form, into which life was first breathed."[a]

In the first extract we have the thin end of the wedge driven a little
way; in the last, the wedge is driven home.

We have already (in the preceding number) sketched some of the reasons
suggestive of such a theory of derivation of species,--reasons which
give it plausibility, and even no small probability, as applied to our
actual world and to changes occurring since the latest tertiary period.
We are well pleased at this moment to find that the conclusions we were
arriving at in this respect are sustained by the very high authority and
impartial judgment of Pictet, the Swiss palaeontologist. In his review
of Darwin's book,[b]--much the fairest and most admirable opposing one
that has yet appeared,--he freely accepts that _ensemble_ of natural
operations which Darwin impersonates under the now familiar name of
Natural Selection, allows that the exposition throughout the first
chapters seems "_a la fois prudent et fort_" and is disposed to accept
the whole argument in its foundations, that is, so far as it relates
to what is now going on, or has taken place in the present geological
period,--which period he carries back through the diluvial epoch to the
borders of the tertiary.[c] Pictet accordingly admits that the theory
will very well account for the origination by divergence of nearly
related species, whether within the present period or in remoter
geological times: a very natural view for him to take; since he
appears to have reached and published, several years ago, the pregnant
conclusion, that there most probably was some material connection
between the closely related species of two successive faunas, and that
the numerous close species, whose limits are so difficult to determine,
were not all created distinct and independent. But while accepting, or
ready to accept, the basis of Darwin's theory, and all its legitimate
direct inferences, he rejects the ultimate conclusions, brings some
weighty arguments to bear against them, and is evidently convinced that
he can draw a clear line between the sound inferences, which he favors,
and the unsound or unwarranted theoretical deductions, which he rejects.
We hope he can.

[Footnote a: P. 484, Engl. ed. In the new American edition, (_Vide_
Supplement, pp. 431, 432,) the principal analogies which suggest the
extreme view are referred to, and the remark is appended,--"But this
inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether
or not it be accepted. The case is different with the members of each
great class, as the Vertebrata or Articulata; for here we have in the
laws of homology, embryology, etc., some distinct evidence that all have
descended from a single primordial parent."]

[Footnote b: In _Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve_, Mars, 1860.]

[Footnote c: This we learn from his very interesting article, _De
la Question de l'Homme Fossile_, in the same (March) number of the
_Bibliotheque Universelle_.]

This raises the question, Why does Darwin press his theory to these
extreme conclusions? Why do all hypotheses of derivation converge so
inevitably to one ultimate point? Having already considered some of the
reasons which suggest or support the theory at its outset,--which may
carry it as far as such sound and experienced naturalists as Pictet
allow that it may be true,--perhaps as far as Darwin himself unfolds
it in the introductory proposition cited at the beginning of this
article,--we may now inquire after the motives which impel the theorist
so much farther. Here proofs, in the proper sense of the word, are not
to be had. We are beyond the region of demonstration, and have duly
probabilities to consider. What are these probabilities? What work
will this hypothesis do to establish a claim to be adopted in its
completeness? Why should a theory which may plausibly enough account for
the _diversification_ of the species of each special type or genus,
be expanded into a general system for the _origination_ or successive
diversification of all species, and all special types or forms, from
four or five remote primordial forms, or perhaps from one? We accept the
theory of gravitation because it explains all the facts we know, and
bears all the tests that we can put it to. We incline to accept the
nebular hypothesis, for similar reasons; not because it is proved,--thus
far it is wholly incapable of proof,--but because it is a natural
theoretical deduction from accepted physical laws, is thoroughly
congruous with the facts, and because its assumption serves to connect
and harmonize these into one probable and consistent whole. Can the
derivative hypothesis be maintained and carried out into a system on
similar grounds? If so, however unproved, it would appear to be a
tenable hypothesis, which is all that its author ought now to claim.
Such hypotheses as from the conditions of the case can neither be proved
nor disproved by direct evidence or experiment are to be tested only
indirectly, and therefore imperfectly, by trying their power to
harmonize the known facts, and to account for what is otherwise
unaccountable. So the question comes to this:

What will an hypothesis of the derivation of species explain which the
opposing view leaves unexplained?

Questions these which ought to be entertained before we take up the
arguments which have been advanced against this theory. We can only
glance at some of the considerations which Darwin adduces, or will be
sure to adduce in the future and fuller exposition which is promised.
To display them in such wise as to indoctrinate the unscientific reader
would require a volume. Merely to refer to them in the most general
terms would suffice for those familiar with scientific matters, but
would scarcely enlighten those who are not. Wherefore let these trust
the impartial Pictet, who freely admits, that, "in the absence of
sufficient direct proofs to justify the possibility of his hypothesis,
Mr. Darwin relies upon indirect proofs, the bearing of which is real and
incontestable"; who concedes that "his theory accords very well with the
great facts of comparative anatomy and zooelogy,--comes in admirably to
explain unity of composition of organisms, also to explain rudimentary
and representative organs, and the natural series of genera and
species,--equally corresponds with many palaeontological data,--agrees
well with the specific resemblances which exist between two successive
faunas, with the parallelism which is sometimes observed between the
series of palaeontological succession and of embryonal development,"
etc.; and finally, although he does not accept the theory in these
results, he allows that "it appears to offer the best means of
explaining the manner in which organized beings were produced in epochs
anterior to our own."

What more than this could be said for such an hypothesis? Here,
probably, is its charm, and its strong hold upon the speculative mind.
Unproven though it be, and cumbered _prima facie_ with cumulative
improbabilities as it proceeds, yet it singularly accords with great
classes of facts otherwise insulated and enigmatic, and explains many
things which are thus far utterly inexplicable upon any other scientific
assumption.

We have said (p. 116) that Darwin's hypothesis is the natural complement
to Lyell's uniformitarian theory in physical geology. It is for the
organic world what that popular view is for the inorganic; and the
accepters of the latter stand in a position from which to regard the
former in the most favorable light. Wherefore the rumor that the
cautious Lyell himself has adopted the Darwinian hypothesis need not
surprise us. The two views are made for each other, and, like the two
counterpart pictures for the stereoscope, when brought together, combine
into one apparently solid whole.

If we allow, with Pictet, that Darwin's theory will very well serve for
all that concerns the present epoch of the world's history,--an epoch
which this renowned palaeontologist regards as including the diluvial or
quaternary period,--then Darwin's first and foremost need in his onward
course is a practicable road from this into and through the tertiary
period, the intervening region between the comparatively near and the
far remote past. Here Lyell's doctrine paves the way, by showing that in
the physical geology there is no general or absolute break between the
two, probably no greater between the latest tertiary and the quaternary
period than between the latter and the present time. So far, the
Lyellian view is, we suppose, generally concurred in. Now as to the
organic world, it is largely admitted that numerous tertiary species
have continued down into the quaternary, and many of them to the present
time. A goodly percentage of the earlier and nearly half of the later
tertiary mollusca, according to Des Hayes, Lyell, and, if we mistake
not, Bronn, still live. This identification, however, is now questioned
by a naturalist of the very highest authority. But, in its bearings on
the new theory, the point here turns not upon absolute identity so
much as upon close resemblance. For those who, with Agassiz, doubt the
specific identity in any of these cases, and those who say, with Pictet,
that "the later tertiary deposits contain in general the _debris_ of
species _very nearly related_ to those which still exist, belonging to
the same genera, but specifically different," may also agree with Pictet
that the nearly related species of successive faunas must or may have
had "a material connection." Now the only material connection that
we have an idea of in such a case is a genealogical one. And the
supposition of a genealogical connection is surely not unnatural in such
cases,--is demonstrably the natural one as respects all those tertiary
species which experienced naturalists have pronounced to be identical
with existing ones, but which others now deem distinct. For to identify
the two is the same thing as to conclude the one to be the ancestors of
the other. No doubt there are differences between the tertiary and
the present individuals, differences equally noted by both classes of
naturalists, but differently estimated. By the one these are deemed
quite compatible, by the other incompatible, with community of origin.
But who can tell us what amount of difference is compatible with
community of origin? This is the very question at issue, and one to be
settled by observation alone. Who would have thought that the peach and
the nectarine came from one stock? But, this being proved, is it now
very improbable that both were derived from the almond, or from some
common amygdaline progenitor? Who would have thought that the cabbage,
cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and kohlrabi are derivatives of one
species, and rape or colza, turnip, and probably rutabaga, of another
species? And who that is convinced of this can long undoubtingly hold
the original distinctness of turnips from cabbages as an article of
faith? On scientific grounds may not a primordial cabbage or rape be
assumed as the ancestor of all the cabbage races, on much the same
ground that we assume a common ancestry for the diversified human races?
If all our breeds of cattle came from one stock, why not this stock from
the auroch, which has had all the time between the diluvial and the
historic periods in which to set off a variation perhaps no greater than
the difference between some sorts of cattle?

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