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Adventures in Philosophy |
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by Pierre Lecomte du Noüy
If we accept the idea of evolution, we must recognize the fact that, on an average, since the beginning of the world it has followed an ascending path, always oriented in the same direction. The objection has been made that many transformations of animals did not constitute a progress; the exaggerated development of the antlers of a certain Cervidae, for instance. This is true, and that is the reason why we suggest the hypothesis of a finality comparable to gravitation in the above analogy, that is to say, a "telefinality" directing evolution as a whole. There is no doubt that there have been trials of all sorts, sometimes successful and sometimes unsuccessful. If we imagine a goal to be attained, acting like gravitation, once the start was given, all possible combinations had to be tried and their interest or their value proved b their reaction to the environment. If the new forms were badly adapted, incapable of serving as a starting point for a new stage of evolution, if they were surpassed by other strains, they disappeared progressively, or vegetated, cut off from the principal effort. The fate of the species itself thus becomes a secondary issue. What matters is the fate of the species considered as a link in evolution as a whole. Prodigies of adaptation were hardly more important than extraordinary performances in the circus. Adaptation and natural selection are no longer identified with evolution. The latter is differentiated from the former by its distant goal, which dominates all the species. In this hypothesis, and in opposition to what Darwin thought, the survival of the fittest can no longer be considered as the origin of the evolving strain, and the fittest of a certain line can eventually give birth to a species destined to disappear or vegetate if the external conditions (climate, etc.), are modified or if other individuals, more apt from the final teleologic point of view, displace them. Let us make this point quite clear: the properties or qualities of living organisms are not attributed to special principles as was done by the old vitalist doctrines, but it is simply assumed that a goal must be attained, by means of the most varied methods, in conformity with the physio-chemical laws and the ordinary biological laws. Nature often has recourse to chance, to probabilities, in living beings. Fish lay hundreds of thousands of eggs, as if they knew that, owing to the conditions under which these eggs will hatch, ninety per cent of them are destined to be destroyed. We can no more consider evolutive transformations separately than we can consider physiological functions separately, if we aim to understand the evolution of living beings or the psychology of man. In brief, evolution should be considered as a global phenomenon, irreversibly progressive, resulting from the combined activity of elementary mechanisms such as adaptation (Lamarck), natural selection (Darwin), and sudden mutations (Naudin -- de Vries). Evolution begins with amorphous living matter or beings such as the Coenocytes, still without cell structure, and ends in thinking Man, endowed with a conscience. It is concerned only with the principal line thus defined. It represents only those living beings which constitute this unique line zigzagging intelligently through the colossal number of living forms. Evolution, we repeat, is comprehensible only if we admit that it is dominated by a finality, a precise and distant goal. If we do not accept the reality of this orienting pole, not only are we forced to recognize that evolution is rigorously incompatible with our laws of matter, as we demonstrated above, but -- and this is serious -- that the appearance of moral and spiritual ideas remains an absolute mystery. Mystery for mystery, it seems wiser, more logical and more intelligent to choose the one which explains, thus satisfying our need to comprehend; the one which opens the doors to hope, rather than the one which closes those doors and explains nothing. Adaptation, natural selection, mutations are, on the contrary, mechanisms which have contributed to the slow edification of evolution without being themselves always progressive. Strictly speaking these mechanisms are not determining factors in general evolution, any more than the mason is a determining factor in the cathedral on which he works. The mason represents, in himself, a very complex element obeying physico-chemical, biological, human, social laws. His sole contact with the cathedral is his trowel, and from the point of view of the architect, he is only a trowel. His private life, his intimate tragedies, his illnesses are immaterial. For the bishop, who will the cathedral, the architect himself is but a means. The same is true of the processes lumped together under the generic name of "Mechanisms of Evolution." Each one contributes materially, statistically, to evolution, but the laws which they obey are not really identical with those of evolution which dominate and correlate them. In a similar way, the laws which govern the movements of particles in an atom are special and differ from those which govern the chemical properties of the atoms themselves. The latter are, as far as our actual science is concerned, without qualitative or quantitative relation to our psychological activity. To extrapolate and predict that such a relation will be discovered some day is not substantiated by facts, and entirely hypothetical. Indeed, man must beware more of scientific extrapolations than of moral ones, because his scientific experience has been much shorter than his psychological experience. New facts are frequently found in science which compel him to revise completely his former concepts. The history of science is made up of such revolutions: the atomic theory, the kinetic theory, the granular theories of electricity, energy, and light, radioactivity, relativity have successively transformed our point of view from top to bottom. The future of science is always at the mercy of new discoveries and new theories. The science of matter is not two hundred years old, while the science of man is over five thousand years old. Empirical psychology was highly advanced at the time of the third Egyptian dynasty, and great philosophers twenty-six hundred years ago displayed a knowledge of man which has not been surpassed, but only confirmed today. Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that moral extrapolations are much safer than scientific ones, even though they cannot be expressed mathematically.
Excerpted from Human Destiny, by Pierre Lecomte du Noüy |
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