Herbert Spencer

“ Nor is it easy to see how we are helped by the hypothesis of constitutional units. Take the feather in its budding state and ask how the group of such units, alike in structure and perpetually multiplying while the unfolding goes on, can be supposed by their mutual actions so to affect one another as eventually to produce the symmetrically-adjusted processes which constitute the terminal eye. Imagination, whatever licence may be given, utterly fails us. ”

“ Whatever be their supposed natures we are compelled to ascribe extreme complexity to these unknown somethings which have the power of organizing themselves into a structure of this or that species. If gemmules be alleged, then the ability of every organ and part of an organ to vary, implies that the gemmules it gives off are severally capable of receiving minute modifications of their ordinary structures: they must have many parts admitting of innumerable relations. ”

“ Here it is needless to specify the modifications of these hypotheses espoused by various biologists—all of them assuming that the structural traits of each species are expressed in certain units intermediate between morphological units and chemical units.
§ 97b. A true theory of heredity must be one which recognizes the relevant phenomena displayed by all classes of organism. We cannot assume two kinds of heredity, one for plants and another for animals. Hence a theory of heredity may be first tested by observing whether it is equally applicable to both kingdoms of living things. ”

“ Apparently each physiological unit, while having in a manner the whole organism as the structure which, along with the rest, it tends to form, has also an aptitude to take part in forming any local structure, and to assume its place in that structure under the influence of adjacent physiological units. ”

“ These strange facts presented by small aggregates of organic matter, which are the seats of extremely complex forces, will seem less incomprehensible if we observe what has taken place in a vast aggregate of inorganic matter which is the seat of very simple forces—the Solar System. ”

“ As before remarked, progressing science reveals complexity within complexity—tissues made up of cells, cells containing nuclei and cytoplasm, cytoplasm formed of a protoplasmic matrix containing granules; and if now we conclude that the unit of protoplasm is itself an inconceivably elaborate structure, we do but recognize the complexity as going still deeper. ”

“ Individuals are led into occupations and official posts, often quite new to them, by the wants of those around—are now influenced and now coerced into social arrangements which, as shown perhaps by gambling saloons, by shootings at sight, and by lynchings, are scarcely at all affected by the central government. Now the physiological units in each species appear to have a similar combination of capacities. Besides their general proclivity towards the specific organization, they show us abilities to organize themselves locally ”

“ Additional traits distinguish the units of each Mammalian order; and, again, those of every genus included in it; while others severally characterize the units of each species. Similarly with the varieties in each species, and the stirps in each variety. Now the ability of any component unit to carry within itself the traits of the sub-kingdom, class, order, genus, species, variety, and at the same time to bear the traits of immediate ancestors, can exist only in a something having multitudinous proximate elements arranged in innumerable ways. ”

“ In the first place it is assumed that the fragment of matter out of which each organism arises consists of two portions—one of them, the germ-plasm, reserved within the generative organ of the incipient individual, representing in its components the structure of the species, and gives origin to the germs of future individuals ”

“ Remembering that the ultimate units of matter of which the Solar System is composed are of the same kinds, and that they act on one another in conformity with the same laws, we see that, remote as the case is from the one we are considering in all other respects, it is similar in the respect that during organization the energies in each locality work effects which are almost independent of the effects worked by the general energies. In this vast aggregate, as in the minute aggregates now in question, the parts are practically autogenous. ”

“ We are shown, too, that whatever be the natures of the complex forces emanating from each, it will, as a matter of course, happen that the power of each will be relatively great in its own neighbourhood and become gradually smaller in parts increasingly remote: making more comprehensible the autogenous character of each local structure. ”

“ But a change of this kind can hardly account for a structural change in the vocal organs in Man. No hypothesis of gemmules or determinants or physiological units enables us to understand how removal of the testes prevents those developments of the larynx and vocal cords which take place if they remain.
The inadequacy of our explanations we at once see in presence of a structure like a peacock's tail-feather. Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is that all parts of every organ are continually giving off gemmules, which are consequently everywhere present in their due proportions. ”

“ This formation of a heterogeneous aggregate with its variously adapted parts, which while influenced by the whole are mainly self-formed, goes on among units of essentially the same natures, inherited from units who belonged to similar societies. And now, carrying this conception with us, we may dimly perceive how, in a developing embryo, there may take place the formation, first of the great divisions—the primary layers—then of the outlines of systems, then of component organs, and so on continually with the minor structures contained in major structures ”

“ The hypothesis that physiological units have everywhere a proclivity towards the organic form of the species, appears more congruous with the facts; but even this does not cover the cases in which a new worm grows from a lateral bud. The tendency to complete the individual structure might be expected rather to restrain this breaking of the lines of complete structure. ”

“ The units of the soma-plasm are here recognized as having the same generative powers as the units of the germ-plasm. In so far as one organic kingdom and a considerable part of the other are concerned the doctrine is relinquished. Relinquishment is, indeed, necessitated even by the ordinary facts, and still more by the facts just instanced. Defence of it involves the assertion that where buds arise, normal or cauline, there exist in due proportion the various ids with their contained determinants—that these are diffused throughout the growing part of the soma ”

“ One leading example is that the parts constituting the alimentary canal, while jointly fitted to the nature of the food, are severally adapted to the successive stages at which the food arrives in its progress; and that in an analogous way the industries carried on by peoples forming different parts of a society, are primarily determined by the natures of things around—agriculture, pastoral and arable, special manufactures and minings, ship-building and fishing: the respective groups falling into fit combinations and becoming partially modified to suit their work. ”

“ Though the Sun affects the motions of the Moon, and though during the evolution of the Earth-and-Moon system the Sun exercised an influence, yet the relations of our world and its satellite in respect of masses and motions were in the main locally determined. ”

“ Everyone has at hand, not figuratively but literally, an illustration. Let him compare the veins on the backs of his two hands, either with one another or with the veins on another person's hands, and he will see that the branchings and inosculations do not correspond: there is no fixed pattern. But on progressing inwards from the extremities, the distribution of the veins becomes settled—there is a pattern-arrangement common to all persons. ”

“ These facts imply a predominating control by adjacent parts where control by the aggregate is less easy. A constant combination of forces which, towards the centre, produces a typical structure, fails to do this at the periphery where, during development, the play of forces is less settled. This peripheral vascular structure, not having become fixed because one arrangement is as good as another, is in each determined by the immediately surrounding influences. ”

“ The agricultural division will not as a whole prescribe the doings of its members. Spontaneous segregation will occur: some going to a pastoral region and some to a tract which promises good crops. Nor within each of these bodies will the organization be dictated by the whole. The pastoral group will separate itself into clusters who tend sheep on the hills and clusters who feed cattle on the plains. ”

“ What are we to say of the familiar fact that certain small organs which, with the approach to maturity, become active, entail changes of structure in remote parts—that after the testes have undergone certain final developments, the hairs on the chin grow and the voice deepens? It has been contended that certain concomitant modifications in the fluids throughout the body may produce correlated sexual traits ”

“ The component units of all its members have certain fundamental traits in common: all of them have proclivities towards formation of a vertebral column. Leaving behind the great assemblage of Fishes with its multitudinous types, each having special units of composition, we pass to the Amphibia, in the units of which there exist certain traits superposed upon the traits they have in common with those of Fishes. Through unknown links we ascend to incipient Mammalian types and then to developed Mammalian types, the units of which must have further superposed traits. ”

“ Yet a third group, recognizing the demand for wood, alike for agricultural and building purposes, will betake themselves to the adjacent forests. But in no case will the primary assemblage, before these separations, settle the arrangements and actions of each group: it will leave each group to settle them for itself. ”

“ Quite independently of the people on the hills and the plains and in the town, those in the forest will divide spontaneously into parties who cut down trees, parties who trim and saw them, parties who carry away the timbers ”

“ Already in § 77 I have illustrated the power which some plants possess of developing new individuals from mere fragments of leaves and even from detached scales. Striking as are the facts there instanced, they are scarcely more significant than some which are familiar. The formation of cauline buds, presently growing into shoots, shows us a kind of inheritance which a true theory must explain. As described by Kerner, such buds arise in Pimpernel, Toad-flax, etc., below the seed-leaves, even while yet there are no axils in which buds usually grow ”

“ Meanwhile those who have gravitated towards urban occupations will some of them make bricks or quarry stone, while others fall into classes who build walls, classes who prepare fittings, classes who supply furniture. ”

“ When to such examples as were given in § 36e we add the example yielded by recent experiments, showing that even a piece of bread, after subjection to pressure, exhibits diamagnetic properties unlike those it previously exhibited, we cannot doubt that these complex units composing living bodies are all of them seats of energies diffused around, enabling them to act and re-act so as to modify one another's states and positions. ”

“ Clearly this assemblage, though it may have within the constitutions of its units the potentialities of a specific structure, will not develop forthwith the details of that structure. The inherited natures of its units will first show themselves by separating into large groups devoted to strongly-distinguished occupations. The great mass, dispersing over promising lands, will make preparations for farming. ”

“ Then along with completion of the houses will go occupation of them by men who bake bread, who make clothing, who sell liquors, and so on. Thus each great group will go on organizing itself irrespective of the rest ”