Transfiguration

“ In Morphology we should not speak of Gestalt or fixed form, or if we do we should understand by it only a momentary phase of Bildung. Form is of interest not in itself but only as the manifestation of the inner activity of the living being. Over development, he says elsewhere, there presides a formative force, a bildende Kraft or Bildungstrieb, which works out the idea of the organism. Living things, in his view of them, strive to manifest an idea. They are Nature's works of art—and so, incidentally, they require an artist to interpret them. ”

“ There is wanted an "orthopaedic" treatment of the soul instead of the torture caused by the application of ready-made conventional shapes. The present system stamps out much that is original, uproots much that is truly natural, and distorts much into artificial and unnatural forms. ”

“ The dogma of creation, the mystic and dualistic doctrine of the isolated creation of each separate variety, was annihilated at one blow; the belief in transmutation has now for ever taken its place—the mechanistic and monistic doctrine of the metamorphosis of organic forms, of the descent of all the species of one natural class from a common parent-form. How complete a change the science of mechanical morphology has by this means been compelled to undergo, I have endeavoured to point out in my "General Morphology;" ”

“ It is precisely under this aspect that transmutation is of such inestimable value to morphology; it enables us to rise from the bare empirical knowledge of numberless isolated facts to a philosophical conception of their efficient causes. ”

“ The transmutation theory insists that they owe their origin to gradual transformations, and are not, therefore, the result of distinct creative acts. All agree, however, that we arrive at a lower stratum where no trace of life is to be found. ”

“ True, he states the method or law of that change. But the method is discovered by induction. Induction is in turn annihilated by evolution. The fabric as it rises loses its foundation, and floats in the air, a baseless vision. ”

“ Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science. ”

“ Absolute necessity of admitting transmutation of forms. The biography of the earth is thus, on the great scale, typical of individual life, even that of man, and the succession of species in the [356] progress of numberless ages is the counterpart of the transmutation of an individual from form to form. As in a dissolving view, new objects emerge from old ones, and new forms spontaneously appear without the exercise of any periodical creative act.
Life of man from infancy to maturity in accordance with his anatomy.For some days after birth the actions of the human being are merely reflex. ”

“ But the harmony revealed to us in every typical morphogenesis, be it normal or be it regulatory, seems to forbid us to connect transformism with the means of morphogenesis. And therefore we shall close this discussion about the most problematic phenomena of biology with the declaration, that we regard it as more congruent to the general aspect of life to correlate the unknown principle concerned in descent with entelechy itself, and not with its means. ”

“ Now these transmutations and conversions are symbolized in the wheel of metamorphosis, where man sits on the upper part, a beast lies at the bottom, a half-man, half-beast descends from the left, and a half-beast, half-man ascends from the right. This transmutation is shown where Jove, according to the diversity of the affections and the behaviour of those towards inferior things, invests himself with divers figures, entering into the form of beasts ”

“ II. The theory of transmutation, or descent, is an essential and indispensable element in [5] the monistic development hypothesis, because it is the one only scientific theory which rationally explains the origin of organic species—that is to say, by transformation—and reduces it to mechanical principles. III. The theory of Selection or Darwinism is, up to the present time, the most important of the various theories which seek to explain the transformation of species by mechanical principles, but it is by no means the only one. ”

“ In like manner the investigation and discovery of the latent configuration in bodies is a new thing, no less than the discovery of the Latent Process and of the Form. For as yet we are but lingering in the outer courts of nature, nor are we preparing ourselves a way into her inner chambers. Yet no one can endow a given body with a new nature, or successfully and aptly transmute it into a new body, unless he has attained a competent knowledge of the body so to be altered or transformed. ”

“ We concentrate a period of this evolution in a stable view which we call a form, and, when the change has become considerable enough to overcome the fortunate inertia of our perception, we say that the body has changed its form. But in reality the body is changing form at every moment; or rather, there is no form, since form is immobile and the reality is movement. What is real is the continual change of form: form is only a snapshot view of a transition. Therefore, here again, our perception manages to solidify into discontinuous images the fluid continuity of the real. ”

“ An equalization of the differences caused by transformation must be produced in two ways; first by correlation,519 since nearly every primary transformation must entail one or more secondary changes, and secondly because, as the period of time increases, more numerous parts of the body must become influenced by primary transforming factors. ”

“ What they mean no doubt is this:—If a body, in other respects not changed, be moved from its place, this is local motion; if without change of place or essence, it be changed in quality, this is alteration; if by reason of the change the mass and quantity of the body do not remain the same, this is augmentation or diminution; if they be changed to such a degree that they change their very essence and substance and turn to something else, this is generation and corruption. ”

“ For in the case of changes of configuration within our experience the figure is supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from the body. ”

“ It may be thought almost paradoxical that writers who are most in favour of transmutation (Mr. C. Darwin and Dr. J. Hooker, for example) are nevertheless among those who are most cautious, and one would say timid, in their mode of espousing the doctrine of progression; while, on the other hand, the most zealous advocates of progression are oftener than not very vehement opponents of transmutation. We might have anticipated a contrary leaning on the part of both, for to what does the theory of progression point? ”

“ In the present day we are too apt to regard the doctrine of transmutation, which formed the basis of alchemy, as a mere hallucination of the human mind; and to look upon the men who entertained it with mixed feelings of pity and contempt. ”

“ If at this point of Man's development, a process of fusion and integration were substituted for dissociation as the normal means of dealing with experiences difficult to reconcile with one another, we seem to have a most important clue to the vast development which at this stage led, on the one hand, to the growth of intelligence and on the other to the growth of the cerebrum. ”

“ A modification of structure caused by the special use of a certain organ takes place in probably over 90 per cent of the whole human race, male and female. The records of art, of language, and the evidence of actual remains, tend to show that the habitude in question, with the attendant modification, goes back to very ancient, even perhaps to palæolithic times.60 I refer to the preferential use of the right hand and the enlargement of structure thus brought about in the right hand and arm. Every right-handed adult man and woman shows [Pg 82] this enlargement of bony and muscular structure. ”

“ Adaptation, or transmutation is, on the other hand, essentially the consequence of material influences, which the substance of the organism experiences from the material surrounding it,—in the widest sense of the word from the160 conditions of life. The external influences of the latter are communicated to the individual parts of the body by the molecular processes of nutrition. In every act of Adaptation the individual molecular motion of the protoplasm, peculiar to each part, disturbs and modifies the whole individual, or part of it, by mechanical, physical, or chemical influences. ”

“ We, who thousands of years ago passed through the transition, from the personal, animal view of life to the socialized view, imagine that that transition was an inevitable and natural one; but this transition through which we have been passing for the last eighteen hundred years seems arbitrary, unnatural, and alarming. ”

“ The human body on this Earth owes its form and its state of being to the atmospheric environment, and to the conditions of density, of weight, and of nutrition, by means of which terrestrial evolution operates.
The human being proceeds from the fusion [210] of a microscopic masculine corpuscle with a minute feminine ovule. This fusion gives birth to a little cell which is transformed into the embryo, in which gradually appear the heart, the head, the limbs, and the different organs. ”

“ If it be true that the world as my Presentment consists in the transmutations occurring in that particular part of the energetic system which constitutes the real substratum of the brain, then phenomena as a whole must arise in transmutation, in a process of Becoming rather than in a state of Being, and Space must be the content, the condition, in which that process proceeds. ”

“ The deep-seated rhythms of growth which, as I venture to think, are the chief basis of morphological heredity, bring about similarities of form, which endure in the absence of conflicting forces; but a new system of forces, introduced by altered environment and habits, impinging on those particular parts of the fabric which lie within this particular field of force, will assuredly not be long of manifesting itself in notable and inevitable modifications of form. ”

“ For each adaptation of the vocal organs must be in some form or other, and form is a bodily limitation. Further, we know very well that all bodies are composite, but where you see composition you see also dissolution, and dissolution, as the notion implies, is the same thing as destruction. ”

“ Both the transmitter and the material transmitted are physical in their nature, but how can an idea or feeling such as our idea of eternity, or of infinity, or aesthetic, or moral sense be transmitted through a tube? How then can we apply the concept of transmission-function to consciousness and the physical world where the two are totally different in nature? ”

“ This law of adaptation is extremely important for the explanation of the phenomenon of division of labour, or polymorphism. We can see this very easily in our own selves; for instance, in the activity of our two hands. We usually accustom our right hand to quite different work from that which we give our left, and in consequence of the different occupation there arises a different formation of the two hands. The right hand, which we use much more than the left, shows a stronger development of the nerves, muscles, and bones. ”

“ The Puddlesby Psychical Society believes in the Transmigration of Souls. As I am not a member myself I'm afraid that that is all I can tell you about it. It is a little difficult at first sight, perhaps, to see the connection between Transmigration and rubber tyres, but if you will have patience I think I can promise to show you that at least.
One night our Mr. Bowles came home late from a meeting of the P.P.S., fell asleep at once and had what he regarded as a "transmigratory experience in a retrogressive sense." The world was not the world he knew. ”

“ Transmutation therefore is, when a thing loseth its form, and is so altered, that it is altogether unlike to its former substance, and form, but assumes ano [Pg 62] ther form, another essence, another colour, another vertue, another nature, or property, as if a Metall bee made glasse, or stone: if a stone bee made a coale: if wood be made a coal: clay be made a stone, or a brick: a skin bee made glew: cloth bee made paper, and many such like things. All these are Transmutations of Naturall things. ”

“ Never, perhaps, was it shown more clearly than with reference to the present question that innovation may be retrograde—that a proposed change, if carried out, may involve a return to a lower stage of development. What is the very essence of all advance to a higher stage, of being, save differentiation? We see what was at first homogeneous, uniform in structure, become resolved into distinct tissues and members. ”

“ Even supposing, say I, that there is an imperceptible transition from the Pithecanthropos to man, affecting his thigh, his skull, his brain, his entire body, have we then found a transition from the animal to man? ”

“ By this strange operation the human frame was commonly so transformed and disfigured as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would be twitched right and left to a half-round with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before. ”

“ Or is the internal quantity of a body actually or necessarily unchangeable? Can more than one individual corporeal substance simultaneously occupy exactly the same space? (This is not possible naturally, for impenetrability is a natural consequence of local extension; but it is possible miraculously—if all the bodies, or all except one, be miraculously deprived of local or spatial extension.) Can the same individual body be present at the same time in totally different and distant places? ”