August 3, 1905] 



NA TURE 



319 



it should be when gerni-cplls are literally soaked for pro- 

 longed periods in' some virulent toxin such as that of 

 rhalaria. Presumalily ' the effect should be a harmful one, 

 arid it should act in much the same way on the germ- 

 cells of one individual as on those of another ; the race 

 should, therefore, by the accumulation of injury, steadily 

 deteriorate until it becomes extinct ; but in no case is this 

 observable. A disease may exterminate a susceptible race, 

 but there is no evidence that it is ever a cause of racial 

 degeneration. The same is true of races exposed to the 

 complex of harmful agencies which surround urban life — 

 filth, over-crowding, lack of light and air, of suitable food 

 and exercise, and so forth. None of the races which have 

 been . longest and most exposed to them have become de- 

 generate — for example, the Chinese, (he Hindoos, the 

 Egyptians, and the inhabitants of Europe. These races 

 have merely become permanently resistant, preeminently 

 capable of an urban existence. Red Indians and Poly- 

 nesians perish en masse under such conditions. There is 

 not an iota of evidence which demonstrates that the 

 children of peasants if removed at birth to the citv would 

 on the average be better developed than the descendants 

 of a line of slum dwellers. The legend that urban families 

 tend to become extinct within four generations is founded 

 on the fact that migration and inter-marriage betwi.xt 

 town and country is so great that no families purely urban 

 for- four generations exist. . . . ' 



Bearing in mind the fact that races grow resistant to 

 all diseases to which they are exposed, the only con- 

 ceivable non-miraculous cause of evolution (i.e. adaptation) 

 is natural selection. But natural selection cannot act when 

 any agency (e.g. malaria) causes a drift in a particular 

 direction, i.e. when all variations are unfavourable, and 

 offspring tend always to fall below the parental mean. 

 Sluder.ts. of evolution have generally thought of elimination 

 in terms of sudden death as by the agency of carnivorous 

 animals, when the individual who perishes dies in the ful- 

 ness of his strength,- and the individual who survives is 

 strengthened rather than weakened by his efforts to evade 

 destruction. • It is clear, however, when considering causes 

 of slow deterioration, which affect practicallv the whole 

 population during youth, that the doctrine of natural selec- 

 tion is, incompatible with the doctrine that variations are 

 caused by the direct action of the environment. It is clear 

 also that natural selection itself must always tend to establish 

 a'high degree of insusceptibility to direct action. A greater 

 or lesser degree of susceptibility of the germ-plasm is itself 

 a variation. The more susceptible tvpe of germ-plasrh 

 tends continually to be eliminated, and a high degree of 

 insusceptibility established. This is not the same thing 

 as saying that the germ-cells are inviolable and cannot be 

 injured. _ It is only implied that their ."hereditarv 

 tendencies" are implanted in them almost as firmly as 

 life. The behaviour of somatic cells confirms this view. 

 A glarid, for example, may be diseased for twenty years, 

 yet on recovery we do not find a new type. of cells; on the 

 contrary, the descendant cells are quite of the old type. 



No doubt many instances of the alleged direct action 

 of the environment on the germ-plasm have been recorded. 

 Thus medical men have published statistics to prove that 

 the children of alcoholics and consumptives tend to be 

 insane ; but as a rule this evidence is inconclusive in that 

 it fails to demonstrate that the proportion of insane is 

 higher among them than among the offspring of normal 

 parents. Numerous other factors of error, also, are not 

 taken into account. In some cases published by biologists 

 acquirements do not seem to have been clearly differ- 

 entiated from variations. Thus in the well known case of 

 Weismann's butterflies ("Germ-Plasm," p. 309) we are 

 not told that the darkening of colour produced by a 

 highpr temperature was accentuated during subsequent 

 generations by similar treatment, nor that the darkened 

 individuals reproduced their like in the absence of the high 

 temperature. .4 priori there is no apparent reason w-hv 

 acquirements should rot be made " in ■ the germ-cell stage 

 of the individual as well as during subsequent stages of 

 development. In other cases, as 'when plants 'have been 

 removed to a new environment, the effects of a different 

 survival of the fit have not apparently been taken into 

 account. It must be rememiiered that natural selection not 

 only adapts organisms to changing environments, but keeps 



them stable in staljle environments, arid so eliminates the 

 variations which appear in the new surroundings. ' 



It is not necessary, of course, to believe that variations 

 are never caused by the direct action of the environment. 

 PresunKibl\' the insusceptibility of the germ-plasm is due 

 to evolution, and evolution is never perfect. It is only 

 necessarv to believe that in circumstances normal to the 

 species the insusceptibility is so high that the amount of 

 variations produced by the direct action of the environment 

 is so minute as to be negligible, i.e. not a cause of racial 

 change. It is possible that when species are removed to 

 very new environments (e.g. European dogs to India' or 

 horses to the Falkland Islands) the germ-plasm is; some- 

 times changed by conditions to which natural selection has 

 not rendered it highly irisusceptible : but the deterioration' 

 which is said to resijit in such cases is clear evidence of 

 the necessity of this insusceptibility. If it be not estab- 

 lished the species must perish. 



G. Arciidall Reid. 



The Empire and University Life. 



In your issue of July 6 your powerful advocacy of a 

 higher and broader education in our great universities 

 casts me back in memory to more than fifty years ago, 

 when I first was transported with delight at F. von 

 .Schlegel's great generalisation of the unity of the Indo- 

 European family of languages. I was then astounded that 

 Oxford and Cambridge, through so many centuries, had 

 not seen this great truth. 



The theological and catastrophetic method had darkened 

 the mental vision of both Oxford and Cambridge ; 

 even the mighty Whewell, in 1846, wrote from Cam- 

 bridge : — " Not only, then, is the doctrine of the trans- 

 mutation of species in itself disproved by the best physio- 

 logical reasonings, but the additional assumptions which 

 are requisite to enable .its advocates to apply it to the 

 explanation of the Geological and other phenomena of 

 the earth, are altogether gratuitous and fantastical."' 



From Oxford, her powerful son, the G.O.M., could 

 not rise to feel that the first chapter of Genesis was a 

 sublime poem ; he could not rise to feel the truth of the 

 most elementary facts of geology ; so enchained was his 

 mind that he could not feel the poetry and spirituality of 

 the " Sacred Books of the East "; the Hindu philosophers 

 and poets give their ideal demi-gods a vast age, even to 

 qoo.ooo years ; but they know that it is poetry and ideal. 

 But Oxford's greatest son could not rise to such elemen- 

 tary generalisation ;■ he saw the great doctrine of "con- 

 tinuity " no wider than the concrete mythology of the 

 Hebrews — he believed in the literal and personal 

 Methuselah of 969 years ! 



These modern examples of bad inethod are but glaring 

 " instances " of the general bad method which permeates 

 societv, permeates the professions, above all, the pro- 

 fessions of theology and medicine. 



The Method (see Coleridge) of Oxford and Cambridge 

 in its influence on its sons always reminds me of the 

 words of Sismondi " ; writing of the " erudition " of the 

 Greeks of the tenth century, Sismondi says : — " Few (of 

 their) books seem better constructed to show the vanity 

 of erudition, and to place in strong contrast a vast extent 

 of knowledge, with a total incapacity of deriving any 

 useful results from it." " Were it necessary to choose 

 between the whole experience which has been acquired 

 and collected from the beginning of time, the whole rich 

 store of human wisdom, and the mere unschooled activity 

 of the human mind, the latter ought, without hesitation, 

 to be preferred. This is the precious and living germ 

 which we ought to watch over, to foster, to guard from 

 everv blight. This alone, if it remain uninjured, will 

 repair all losses : while, on the contrary, mere literary 

 wealth will not preserve one faculty, nor sustain one 

 virtue." 



We do not want revolution, but an active evolution, both 

 at Oxford and- Cambridge, based, as Coleridge said, 00 

 the " historic sense." . . ' • ■ 



May I add my personal experience, that I have, been 

 able to converse in a more genial, enlightened spirit and 



," 3rd ed., 1857, vol. iii. p. 48i# * - 

 ii.,pp. 258, 26i(:834). 



NO. 1H66, VOL. 72] 



