Descent with modification

“ They are indeed actually modified, for that very pain, that very disappointment, are a beginning of modification; since we do not persist in what we abhor and follow, dragged along by force; and little by little we end by freeing ourselves. ”

“ But, since, in common with every other creature, Man is modifiable—since his modifications, like those of every other creature, are ultimately determined by surrounding conditions—and since surrounding conditions are in part constituted by social arrangements—it becomes requisite that the sociologist should acquaint himself with the laws of modification to which organized beings in general conform. ”

“ Now we have surmised that at this stage our subject has been modified, both physically and mentally, to a certain extent in approach to the human type, and there is precisely one special modification which would have been of paramount importance in view of the problem of advance in progress. ”

“ The former alters the substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot certainly be known beforehand. Reform is not a change in the substance or in the primary modification of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. ”

“ And granting this power of selection and modification, is it not possible that the sieve through which we are endeavouring to force ourselves may be ill-shapen, and calculated therefore to occasion needless destruction and deformity? ”

“ I knew that there is a manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, that is, a marked distinction between change and reformation. ”

“ And when we come to think of it, we find in the evolution of bodily form (which along with modification involves persistence of type) the explanation why persistence of type in subjects chosen for treatment in works of art should be so universal. It is because we are so averse to great changes and at the same time so averse to no change at all, that we have a bodily form, in the main, persistent and yet, at the same time, capable of modifications. ”

“ Modification means purposeful change--partially or wholly abandoning the old and replacing it with something new. In the course of these changes the conservative elements in man and in society, voluntarily or under coercion, give up the old and learn how to use the new. The learning process is always more or less painful, especially to people past middle age.
The world-wide revolution resulted from a long-continued related series of affirmations, punctuated and interrupted by contradictions and conflicts. ”

“ The effort to adapt was complicated by the fad that the conditions themselves were changing with a steadily increasing rapidity. The adaptation, mainly unconscious and almost always unwilling (for man in general hates voluntary change) , has lagged more and more behind the alterations in conditions. ”

“ But the power of adaptation is mainly dependent on the power of thinking certain new things sufficiently like certain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too much incommoded by the change—upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the new for the old. ”

“ And it may well be that there is something to be said in favour of modifying them—in fact it must be so, for all human things need at times to be revised and readapted to special and local conditions. ”

“ Neither those who were inclined towards the 'progressive transmutation' or 'development' doctrine, as it was then called, nor those who were opposed to it, had the slightest suspicion that the tendency to variation in living beings, which all admitted as a matter of fact ”

“ The men of to-day practise moral, not physical modification.
They allow their hearts to be influenced while resisting the exigencies of the external. Let your modification extend to the external only. Internally, be constant without modification.
"How shall you modify, and how shall you not modify? How reconcile the divergence?—By not admitting division.
I.e. "by being constant without modification," says Lin Hsi Chung. "There was the garden of Hsi Wei, the park of the Yellow Emperor, the palace of Shun, the halls of T'ang and Wu. ”

“ Does individual improvement transmit itself to descendants independently of personal teaching and example? Have artificially produced changes of structure or habit any inherent tendency to become congenitally transmissible and to be converted in time into fixed traits of constitution or character? Can the philanthropist rely on such a tendency as a hopeful factor in the evolution of mankind?—the only sound and stable basis of a higher and happier state of things being, as he knows or ought to know, the innate and constitutionally-fixed improvement of the race as a whole. ”

“ We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road—very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. ”

“ It would be strange if, in this universal mutation, man alone were unchangeable, and it is not true. "He also obeys the law of indefinite variation." Contrast the houseless savages with Newtons and Shakespeares ”

“ Whatever the course through which it has passed, whatever mutations it has undergone, whatever the force it has submitted to, its elementary constituents endure. Not only have they not been annihilated, they have not even been changed ”

“ Darwin’s title-page amount to when written out plainly, but to an assertion that the main means of modification has been the preservation of races whose variations have been unintentional, that is to say, not connected with effort or intention, devoid of mind or meaning, fortuitous, spontaneous, accidental, or whatever kindred word is least disagreeable to the reader? ”

“ 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. ”

“ For in the days of confusion and low tide of regression there are being established new modes of life and thought which through right adaptation will flow on into the full tide of progress. Revivals come which gather up and utilize the scattered and confused ideas of life, adapting and utilizing them by setting new standards and imparting new impulses of progress. ”

“ Transformations have passed, transformations are on the way. For mercy's sake, cannot they show us transformations in the act? Must the facts of the past and the facts of the future necessarily exclude the facts of the present? ”

“ Without change there can be no life. Even the mineral cannot resist change, and the higher we go in the scale of being, the more varied, complex, and wonderful do the changes become. Moreover, in progress and development among creatures of all grades we find two kinds of change—one slow, gradual, often almost imperceptible ”

“ No one denies that under new conditions new national characters are even now being molded, as witness the Americans. And if no one denies a process of adaptation everywhere and always going on, it is a manifest implication that adaptive modifications must be set up by every change of social conditions. ”

“ It is the form which changes, not the essence. The few great underlying elements from which character and happiness are evolved are permanent—their mutations are endless. Dull-minded, we take the mutations to mean shifting of principle. ”

“ The art of printing, interchange of books, and commercial intercourse will retard the progress of mutation and diversities; but no human means can prevent some changes, and the adaptation of language to diversities of condition and improvement. ”

“ The great law of variation teaches—both in the general theory of evolution and in the smaller field of biology where it becomes the theory of descent—that the variety of phenomena flows from an original unity, [Pg 15] the diversity of functions from a primitive identity, and the complexity of organization from a primordial simplicity. The conditions of existence for all individuals are, from their very birth, unequal. ”

“ It will not be able, in the long run, to lean upon mere theories and maxims; it will be forced by the actual development to undergo changes, to reform and to remodel itself in correspondence with the great laws of historical progress. ”

“ When a change is made in the state of any thing, how do we know that such a change has been for the better? By what signs do we distinguish an onward from a retrograde movement? Great changes are constantly taking place in the forms of matter, in the lives of men, in the constitution of states, in the whole structure and working of society. The elements, the passions, discoveries in literature, in art, all produce stupendous revolutions in human affairs. How do we know, that these various changes are for better or for worse, or that they carry us towards perfection or imperfection? ”

“ I said, "profess to develop a sort of ideal of any given species; but it takes many generations, by picking and choosing those that vary in the right direction, to accomplish anything of the kind; and, after all, the difference between the original and the improved form is mere development, not essential change." ”

“ Adaptation of means to an end may be produced in two ways that we at present know of; by processes of natural selection, and by the agency of an intelligence in which an image or idea of the end preceded the use of the means. In both cases the existence of the adaptation is accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end. ”

“ I only like a change when it is needful to alter something bad into something good, or something which is good into something better." Those who ask for the change have absolutely failed to prove that they offer us something better than what we possess. ”

“ It would seem that the necessity of reform arises from this, that our ideas, which are eternal, find themselves expressed in phrases and resulting in actions which belong to material environment—an environment, therefore, that perpetually changes in form. ”

“ Only thus can there be produced an adequately-strong conviction that all organic beings are modifiable, that modifications are inheritable, and that therefore the remote issues of any new influence brought to bear on the members of a community must be serious. ”

“ It is impossible, therefore, that this life can be retained, and it must be altered from the foundations upwards. But the question of its transformation does nor depend merely upon the material conditions of existence, and the change must involve the entire domain of human activity. ”

“ The change wrought is a transcendence of the earlier level of experience and valuation, not a widening and clarification of vision on that level. And the standards which govern on the new level serve not so much to condemn the old as to seal its consignment to disuse and oblivion. Least of all can a judgment or appraisal of the old from the standpoint of the new be taken for a transcript of the motives which led to the transition. ”

“ But where a special adaptation in some one variety of the same class of constructions is needful to accomplish an object peculiar to a new variety, the necessary amount of power never fails to be exerted. ”

“ In some cases a decided preponderance of the action, whether seen as a whole or looked at in detail, is recognised at once as due to design, purpose, forethought, skill, and effort, and then we properly disregard the undesigned element ”

“ The problem of change is given up, and we fall back upon our laws, persisting and appearing in successions of fleeting elements. If so, phenomena seem now to have become temporal illustrations of laws. ”

“ The position more generally expounded by the opponents of change is that our present modes of life give us the best possible results, considering the limitations of nature and human nature, and that the customs, institutions, and ideas we now have are the fruits of a ripe, a mellow, and a time-tested wisdom, that any radical innovations would, on the whole, put us in a worse position than that in which we find ourselves. ”

“ And that is why, lastly, existing philosophies cannot answer the purpose. For whether there is progress or not, at all events there is change; and the changed minds of each generation will require a difference in what has to satisfy their intellect. ”

“ To insist upon change and the new is to insist upon alteration of the old. In denying that the meaning of any genuine case of deliberation can be exhausted by treating it as a mere case of an established classification the value of classification is not denied. ”

“ You spoke of innovations, and I also believe it is ill to try experiments in states, unless the need be urgent, and unless it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the love of change that urgeth the reformation. Is not time the greatest innovator?—is he not always changing? ”

“ Every system is bound to prove too small, every reform ludicrously inadequate—be it never so radical—because material conditions are perpetually changing, while man in his mental, emotional and physical aspects remains always precisely the same. ”