The Spontaneous Activity Of The Organism

What is particularly luminous in all the theories that express the most

recent anti-Darwinian tendency is that they tend to bring into prominence

the mysterious powers of living organisms, by means of which, instead of

passively waiting for natural selection and the continual accumulation of

unceasing variations, they are able spontaneously and of themselves to

bring forth what is necessary for self-maintenance, often what is new a d

different, of course not unlimitedly, but with considerable freedom and

often with a surprising range of possibilities. It is, perhaps, partly the

fault of the one-sidedness of strict Darwinism that this consideration has

been so slowly brought into prominence and subjected to investigation and

experiment. It is bound up with the capacity that all forms of life have

of reacting spontaneously to "stimuli" and, to a certain extent, of

helping themselves if the conditions of existence be unfavourable. They

are able, for instance, to produce protective adaptations against cold or

heat, to "regenerate" lost parts, often to replace entire organs that have

been lost, and, under certain circumstances, to produce new organs

altogether. If all this be true, it seems almost like caprice to follow

only the roundabout theory of the struggle for existence, and not to take

account of these spontaneous capacities of the living organism directly

and before all other factors in the attempt to explain evolution. There is

no end to the illustrations that are being adduced, that must force

investigation to pass from merely superficial considerations of the

struggle for existence type to the deeper and more real problems

themselves.



An effectively modified and adapted type of Alpine flora has not been

evolved by a laborious process of selection lasting for many thousand

years; the organism may quickly and immediately produce the new characters

by its own reaction. Crustaceans gradually transferred from a salt-water

to a fresh-water habitat, or conversely, produce in a few generations the

type of a new "species" with correlated variations (Schmankewitsch). Birds

weaned by careful experiment from a diet of seeds to one of flesh, or

conversely, produce changes of effective correlation and adaptation in the

characters of their alimentary system. Plants that have been deprived of

their normal organs for absorbing water and prevented from growing new

ones produce entirely new and effective "hydatodes."(50)



It is instructive to notice that Darwinism seems likely to be robbed of

its stock illustration, namely, "protective coloration." By its own

internal power of reaction, and sometimes within one generation, and even

in the lifetime of an individual, an organism may assume the colour of the

substratum beneath it (soles, grasshoppers), of its surroundings (Eimer's

tree frogs), the colour and spottiness of the granite rock on which it

hangs, the colour of the leaves and twigs among which it lives (Poulton's

butterfly pupae), and even that of the brightly coloured sheets of paper

amidst which it is kept imprisoned. Certain spiders assume a white, pink,

or greenish "protective coloration" corresponding to the tinted blossom of

the plants which they frequent, and so on.(51) Eimer alleged that direct

psychical factors co-operated in bringing about these changes. In any

case, all this carries us far beyond the domain of mere naturalistic

factors into the mystery of life itself. Even what is called the

"influence of the external world," and the "active acquirement of new

characters," have their basis and the reason of their possibility in this

domain. And the whole domain is saturated through and through with

"teleology."



A recognition of the impressive secret of the organism led Gustav Wolff to

become a very pronounced critic of Darwinism, especially in the form of

Weismannism. As far back as 1896, in a lecture "On the present position of

Darwinism," in which he dealt only with Weismann, he criticised and

analysed that author's last attempt to uphold Darwinism by the

construction of his theory of "germinal selection." He concluded with the

wish:



"That a spirit of earnestness would once more enter into biological

investigation, which would no longer attempt to find in nature just what

it wanted to find, but would be ready to follow truth at all costs, and to

approach the riddle of life with an open mind."



His "Beitraege zur Kritik der Darwinischen Lehre," which appeared first as

papers in the "Biologisches Centralblatt," did not see the light in book

form until 1898. The doctrine of selection was regarded as so unassailable

that no publisher would take the risk of the book. Its appearance is a

sure indication of the general modification of opinions that had taken

place in the interval. The first and second essays are merely critical

objections to the theory of selection, very similar to those frequently

urged before, but more precisely stated.(52) The third is intended to show

that there is in the forms of life themselves, as a faculty of adaptation

peculiar to them, a primary purposiveness, which is unquestionably active

throughout the lifetime and development of every individual, but which is

also the deepest cause of "phylogenesis," or the formation of a race. This

doctrine makes both the Darwinian and Lamarckian theories merely

secondary. For the phenomena which suggest the Lamarckian interpretation

presuppose this most essential factor--the primary adaptiveness. Wolff

concludes with a very striking instance--discovered by himself--of this

primary adaptiveness of the organism--the regeneration of the lens in the

newt's eye.



More comprehensively, but from a precisely similar standpoint, Driesch has

followed up the discussion of this problem.(53) He is, of all modern

investigators, perhaps the one who has most persistently and thoroughly

worked out the problem of causal and teleological interpretation, and he

has also thrown much light on the scientific and epistemological aspects

of the problem. That he could, in a recent volume of the "Biologisches

Zentralblatt," write a respectful and sympathetic exposition of the

Hegelian nature-philosophy--as regards its aims, though not its methods--is

as remarkable a symptom as we can instance of the modern trend of views

and opinions.(54)