Edward Drinker Cope

“ It is simply this: that when a brain, or other organ of consciousness, has once acquired an habitual movement, consciousness disappears from that act, and it enters the unconscious and generally automatic stage. ”

“ And the acts of other parts of the organism, which have been the outcome of this process, have produced the varied structures which to-day constitute the animal kingdom.
It is thus shown to a demonstration, by means of the principle of kinetogenesis, that evolution is essentially a process of mind. The source of the consciousness, which is back of it, is at present an unsolved problem. That it has existed and does exist, there can be no question, and there is no sufficient reason for supposing that it will not continue to exist. ”

“ The public mind is gradually awakening to the fact that the grandest truths of creation are being placed within their reach by the researches of contemporary science, and that the knowledge of the manner of the origin of the human race is no longer withheld from us.
The study of the fossil remains of animals has revealed an immense number of forms of life which in former ages have peopled the world. The study of geology has shown that the history of our planet is marked by successive deposits in water, which have become beds of rocks. ”

“ First, that consciousness is not necessary to a designed act which has become a habit, no matter how complicated that habit may be; second, that consciousness does reside in matter which has not acquired habits, and which therefore does not yet possess the structure which makes such habits possible.
We now have a true theory of the influence of the environment on an animal. Sensation being understood, the animal proceeds to adapt itself to its surroundings by the adoption of appropriate habits, from which appropriate structures arise. ”

“ So I have added to use the energy of effort, and the Lamarckian theory, completed, can be characterized as the theory of the origin of species, by effort, use, and disuse. A prominent cause of change of structure may be here referred to; and that is, change in consequence of excess or diminution of growth-energy, due to the action of use and effort in disturbing its equilibrium. That is to say, that excessive growth in one place has caused diminished growth in another, and vice versa. ”

“ Cope also exhibited the humeri and femora of Polycotylus, which were like those of Plesiosaurus, and measured 18 inches in length.
Mr. Thomas Meehan exhibited several specimens of the Maclura aurantiaca, the common osage orange, in which the plants were inarched together in pairs in a remarkable way. He said the osage orange was extensively grown as a hedge plant, and in digging up the one year plants, these united twins were usually found in the proportion of about one score in ten thousand. Double kernels were common occurrences in many seeds. ”

“ The former was thus shown to belong to the true Sauropterygia, and not to the Streptosauria, of which Elasmosaurus was the type. Several distal caudals were anchylosed, without chevron bones, and of depressed form, while proximal caudals had anchylosed diapophyses and distinct chevron bones. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the constant exercise of the mind in self-support and protection has developed the most wonderful of all machines, the human brain, whose function is the most wonderful of phenomena, the human [2] mind. ”

“ They comprised the half inch, or inch united portions before referred to. If these radicular portions of the seed were of the nature of root rather than of stem, we might expect to see lateral fibres push from them, as we do see from the true roots, which start out below the union. But these parts are as free from rootlets as any portion of the true stems above the cotyledon points, indicating, as had been suggested, that their properties were rather of stem than of root. ”

“ If acts affect structure, it is evident, that if the acts are beneficial, the structure they produce must be so also. From what has preceded, it is also evident that the more intelligent acts will produce correspondingly more beneficial structures than the less intelligent. But since these changes are only effected by long-continued movements on the part of an animal, it is clear that an act is likely to become automatic before it can become an important cause of evolution of animal forms. The history of animal movements has probably been as follows ”

“ Automatic acts display design for the well-being of the animal, but are invariable in their action, not changing immediately in adaptation to new or modified needs. Ratiocinative acts, on the other hand, are performed in accordance with circumstances as they arise, and are not rhythmical or invariable in their action. Their existence implies the presence of a certain development of mind, which the automatic acts do not so obviously display. Ratiocinative acts are very common in animals, as those who observe them can always testify. ”

“ In the first place, there has long been before the world a theory to account for these changes, and that is the doctrine of use and disuse, propounded by Lamarck. He believed that the use of a part of an animal caused it to grow larger, and that in consequence of disuse a part would grow smaller or become extinct. Another theory is frequently spoken of, as though it accounted for the origin of changes, and that is the Natural Selection of Darwin. ”

“ The exposition of the hypotheses of evolution which explain these facts must be reserved for another article. Suffice it to say here, that the study of the changes of structure displayed by the lines of evolution, has brought to light some very definite exhibitions of the application of energy. The illustration of the modus operandi of this creative energy is a very important chapter of evolution, and one that interests mankind practically, even more than as food for his intellectual activity. ”

“ In the ruminating animals (ox, deer, camel, etc.) and in the horse, among other living species, the ankle-joint is a very strong one, and yet admits of an extensive bending of the foot on the leg. It is a treble tongue-and-groove-joint; that is, two keels of the first bone of the foot, the astragalus, fit into two grooves of the lower bone of the leg, the tibia, while between these grooves a keel of the tibia descends to fill a corresponding groove of the astragalus. ”

“ Without such response on the part of the animal, the greater part of the world would have remained uninhabited by all but the lowest forms of life, and these too might have been extinguished. From the simplest temporary methods of defense and protection, animals have developed the habits of laying up stores, of building houses, of the arts of the chase, of migrations over wide territories. ”

“ It is one of the peculiar advantages of the North American Continent to the scientist that the geological structure of its great interior is comparatively simple, so that its history can be easily read. It follows that the history of the succession of life is recorded with the same regularity, and may be read by those who will bestow the necessary labor upon it. ”

“ Darwin and others, who treat of natural selection as though it were a cause of new structures, always premise by admitting that "there is in organic beings a natural tendency to variation." It is in accounting for this variation that the Lamarckian hypothesis is useful, and probably expresses a great law of organic nature. ”

“ Rigorously, however, the so-called voluntary acts do not proceed from any freedom or will proper on the part of an animal. They appear to do so, because they display intelligence of a higher order than the automatic acts, although it is true that intelligent design is not wanting from the latter either. ”

“ There are also numerous characters, chiefly of an ornamental nature, as color, etc., which are the direct result of the physical impress of the environment, as temperature, light, humidity, movements of the medium, etc., which are only influenced by the animal as it places itself, by its movements, within or without the range of their influence. ”

“ But they certainly also came from the Condylarthra.
There is a remarkable likeness between the history of the development of the reptiles and that of the higher mammals, in one respect, and that is, that they have apparently all been derived from a single order, which occupied the earth at one (an early geological) period. As reptiles are inferior to mammals in the scale, so they are of earlier origin. The primitive reptilian order first appeared in force on the earth during the Permian epoch—that populous time which immediately followed the age of the true coal. ”

“ Some of these degenerate lines inhabit the deep sea; others have become movably sessile, attaching themselves to fixed bodies. Others have found protection in an external armor of bony plates rather than in activity and sensibility. But many fishes are in their especial way wonderful exemplars of animal energy, though none of them rise high in the scale of intelligence. ”

“ While naturalists are generally agreed as to the importance of this principle in modifying the results of the creative energy, but few of them regard it as explaining in any way the origin of the changes with which it deals. In the very nature of things, "selection" can not act until alternatives have been presented. ”

“ A few decades later saw the science of chemistry emerge from the empirical and enter the philosophical stage. It has been reserved for the second half of the century to witness the discovery of the facts and principles of the history of life on the earth. ”

“ A remarkable type of quadrupeds known as lemurs at present inhabits Madagascar and some parts of Africa and Malaysia. These creatures, known by the Germans as Halbaffen, or half-apes, present a curious combination of the characters of monkeys and carnivora of the raccoon pattern. ”

“ These tendons and bones exercise a constant pressure on each side of the middle line, when the animal is running or walking, and this pressure, together with the concussion with the ground, appears to have permitted the protrusion of the middle line in the form of a keel, while the lateral parts have been supported and even compressed. ”

“ In tracing the lines of these animals backward in time we have made the following discoveries: First, the infoldings of the enamel of the molars become shallower, and are finally represented by the valleys between four hills or tubercles, which stand to each other so as to be inclosed by a square figure. The number of the molar teeth increases. If incisor teeth were absent, they appear. The toes increase in number, becoming five on all the feet. The step becomes plantigrade or flat-footed, the heel reaching the ground. ”

“ Then we have discovered the ancestor of the true fishes. We have the ancestor of all the reptiles, of the birds, and of the mammals. If we considered the mammals, or milk-givers, separately, we have traced up a great many lines to their points of departure from very primitive things. ”

“ In tracing the successive changes of structure of these creatures, one is forced to believe that degeneracy has played an important part. The bones of the skull have so diminished in number as to leave it in some cases in a condition comparable to that of the primitive fishes. ”

“ The land-saurians include types that walked on the hind legs and had many bird-like characters of the hinder feet and of the pelvis. The flying saurians present affinities in the same direction. The class of birds presents many perfections both general and special. ”

“ The automatic acts increase in relative importance as we descend the scale of being, but as they also display a general beneficial design it is not possible to draw the line between them and the ratiocinative. ”

“ The reptilian ancestors of the mammals do not possess these keels.
Now, the lines of mammalian descent displayed by paleontology are characterized, among other things, in most instances, by the gradual elevation of the heel above the ground, so that the animal walks on its toes. ”

“ On the contrary, the surface above the weaker lines between the bones not having been subject to the impact of the blows, and influenced by gravity, remains to fill the grooves, and to form the keels which we observe. ”