THE PHYSIOLOGICAL VIEW OF DEGENERATION. DROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER has published,

in what Messrs. Macmillan call their "Nature Series," the very interesting lecture on "Degeneration," which he delivered last August before the British Association at Sheffield. The chief thesis of that lecture was that there are probably more species which have been modified downwards,—which have lost powers which they formerly had of adapting themselves to a variety of external conditions,—than has been commonly sup- posed; and that this, if true, so far from in any way con- flicting with the Darwinian principle of natural selection, is a remarkable illustration of it. Mr. Lankester puts Iris own case thus :—" Degeneration may be defined as a gradual change of the structure, in which the organism becomes adapted to /ess varied and less complex conditions of life; whilst Elaboration is a gradual change of structure, in

which the organism become3 adapted to more varied and more complex conditions of existence. In Elaboration, there is a

new expression of form, corresponding to a new perfection of work in the animal machine. In Degeneration, there is suppres- sion of form, corresponding to the cessation of work. Elabora- tion of some one organ may be a necessary accompaniment of degeneration of all the others ; in fact, this is very generally the case, and it is only when the total result of the Elaboration

of some organs, and the Degeneration of others, is such as to leave the animal in a buyer conditiou,—that is, fitted to less complex action and reaction in regard to its surroundings, than was the ancestral form with which we arc comparing it (either actually or in imagination), that we speak of that animal as an instance of Degeneration." The late Professor Clifford, if we remember rightly, in one of his essays, gives the same definition of " higher " and " lower,"—i.e., "higher" as more complex, more capable of adapting the organism to variations in the en- vironment; " lower," as more simple, less capable of varying with the changes in the environment. But neither Professor Lankester nor the late Professor Clifford has pursued the idea any further, or pressed his own line of thought to its natural limits. And it would be impossible to choose a better oppor- tunity than this lecture of Professor Lankester's on Degenera- tion for drawing out what the physiological idea of progress

really is, and where it seems to fail those who rely on it as a clue to the proper meaning of progress in the

intellectual and moral world. That Professor Lankester, no less than Professor Clifford, does regard this physio-

logical idea of " higher " and. "lower" as suggesting the basis at least for a definition of what is intellectually and

morally "higher" and "lower," this essay on Degeneration affords abundant proof. "Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which render its food and safety very easily ob- tained, seem to lead, as a rule, to Degeneration, just as an active, healthy man sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune, or as Rome degenerated when possessed of the riches of the ancient world." And again, he says at the conclusion of his lecture :--" It is well to remember that we are subject to the general laws of evolution, and are as likely to degenerate as to progress. As compared with the immediate forefathers of our civilisation—the ancient Creeks—we do not appear to have improved, so far as our bodily struc-

ture is concerned, nor, assuredly, so far as some of our mental capacities are concerned. Our powers of perceiving

and expressing beauty of form have certainly not increased

since the days of the Parthenon and Aphrodite of Melos. In matters of the reason, in the development of intellect, we may

seriously inquire bow the case stands. Does the reason of the average men of civilised Europe stand out clearly as an evid- ence of progress, when compared with that of the men of by-

gone ages ? Are all the inventions and figments of human superstition and folly, the self-inflicted torturing of mind, the reiterated substitution of wrong for right and of falsehood for

truth, which disfigure our modern civilisation, are these evidences

of progress ? In such respects we have, at least, reason to fear that we may be degenerate. Possibly we are all drifting, tend-

ing to the condition of intellectual Barnacles or Ascidians."

The Barnacle, we should state by way of explanation, is, accord- ing to Professor Lankester, a degenerate form of the Nauplius, "the history of which is very astonishing. After swimming

about for a time, the Barnaele-Nauplius fixes its bead against a piece of wood, and takes to a perfectly fixed, immobile state- of life Its organs of touch and of sight atrophy, its legs lose their locomotive function, and are simply used for bringing floating particles to the orifice of the stomach ; so that an eminent naturalist has compared one of these animals to a man standing on his head and kicking his food into his mouth." It is to a degeneration of this alarming kind that Professor Lankester suggests that the human race may be tending, as a consequence, we presume, of the atrophy of some of man's highest organic functions, and the consequent shrinking of the whole physical and moral area of his being.

Now, man or any other animal is, according to Professor Lan- kester, degenerate,—i.e., in a "lower "condition than his ancestors, if lie is fitted for "less complex action and reaction in regard to his surroundings" than his ancestors. The Barnacle is lower than the Nauplius, because its organs of touch and sight are atrophied, and its legs have lost their locomotive function. Modern man, therefore, would, according to this doctrine, be lower than his ancestor at any given stage of history, if on a balance of the whole faculties displayed at the present and the former period, it were proved that he had lost more power of 'adapting himself to the variations of external conditions than he had gained ; and this, remember, even though his mere physical wants be as well, or better, satisfied than before Apparently, it is because the physical wants of the Barnacle are, though fewer, better satisfied than those of the Nauplius, that the Nauplitts degenerates into the Barnacle. So far, then, from the mere better adaptation of our means of living to our wants being a test of progress, it must be regarded as physiologically very likely to result in degenera- tion, if it tends in any way to diminish the number of our activities, or of the spurs to activity. Professor Lan- kester is not as clear as he might have been on the cause which produces the inactivity of the Nauplius, and that conse- quent atrophy of his sight and touch and locomotive muscles, which changes him into a Barnacle. We suppose it to be that in this stationary fashion he thrives best, so far as mere feeding goes. So that if we could imagine Professor Lankester warning the Nauplius against his probable degeneration into a Barnacle, what we might imagine him saying would be something of this kind :—" Oh, Nauplius, by attaching your head to this wooden structure, you will, it is true, be secure of a permanent and sufficient supply of nutritive food, but you will pay as the price of that excellent housekeeping the loss of your vision, of your sense of touch, and of your power to travel. I recommend you, then, to prefer the risk of starvation or of frequent hunger in connection with your present considerable powers of adapt- ing yourself to the variations of your environment,—con- siderable, I mean, in relation to all other matters ex- cept the needs of the stomach,—rather than to secure the adaptation of food to your cravings at so great a cost as the sacrifice of touch, eyesight, and locomotion." But supposing the Nauplius to be. capable of conducting an argument, might it not reply, "Oh, physiologist, for me the only use of eye and touch and travel, is to supply me with food ! As yet, I have found myself incapable of taking pleasure in seeing, or touching, or moving, for its own sake. If I sacrifice food to these means of getting food, I sacrifice the end to the means ; and how will the means compensate me, if they do not lead me to the end ? It is no object to me to be 'fitted for more complex action and reaction in regard to my surroundings.' That may interest you, but me it interests not at all. Wherefore, I am going to attach my head to this wooden ship, and to let my powers, if so it must be, dwindle into harmony with my most urgent wants."

Nor do we see what the physiologist could rejoin to such an answer, even supposing he were addressing a much more reasonable being than the Nauplius. Why is it a duty, why is it even in any mental or moral sense a security for pro- gress, to prefer " elaboration " and "expression of form" to degeneration and suppression of form which fit the creatures which submit to them to earn their bread ? Of course we under- stand at once why this is so, if there be a higher Being at the summit of this universe of ours, into more complete sympathy and communion with whom every addition of a new power and evolution of new expression brings us a step or two further. But if that be not so, whet reason can be assigned for pre- ferring higher elaboration of organs and new forms of expres- sion, for their own sake only, and at the cost of additional risk to life itself ? Why is it in any true sense a higher thing to win a more doubtful awl less sufficient livelihood by the help of more elaborate organs, than it is to win a more sufficient livelihood by the help of simpler and fewer organs ? What right have the physiologists to use the terms "higher" and " lower " in any mental or moral sense, of functional elaboration, existing, apparently, for elaboration's sake ? The physiologist may say that from his point of view, it is this steady process of elaboration which has developed creatures of a type no higher than the Nauplius, into man, and that as he knows the result, he cannot but confide in the further application of the process which produced this result. But this is precisely where the physiological idea of progress breaks down. Physiology cannot tell us,—even proclaims its incapacity to tell us,--what sort of elaboration is safe, and where simplification would be safer. Mr. Lankester, for instance, has nothing to suggest with regard to human civilisation, except that we may be, for all we know, degenerating from the Greek standard, of human natare,—and assuredly appear

to have so degenerated so far as our knowledge of the beauty of the human form goes and our power of re- producing it. But the natural criticism on this is, that if we have degenerated in that respect from the Hellenic standard, it is not for want of elaboration and new expres- sion, but much rather on account of too much elaboration and new expression. It is the new complexity of life, the com- plexity of the motives which produce and elaborate dress, the comparative depreciation of the purely physical elements of life, and the complicated arrangements needful to adapt human life to a vast number of industries and physical conditions of which the Greeks knew nothing, which have done so much to spoil modern as compared with ancient sculpture. In our own belief, we have been drawn into this elaboration of the elements of human life by the same great spiritual attractions which created the Athens of the time of Plato out of a world of Barbarians. It is in obedience to a spiritual force above us, that we continue to pursue a line of development which no man can foresee, which no physiological estimate of progress would sanction, and which no human force could control. But if it were really true that there was no meaning to be given to the words " higher " and "lower," except the greater or less elaboration of the contrivances for adapting human life to the universe man lives in, we should be quite unable to tell, first, what the choice of the "higher," as distinguished from the "lower," kind of evolution for the future would require from us ; and next, on what grounds it is to be regarded as the duty of every man to prefer a more precarious life in a more elaborate form, to a surer and more amply-supplied life in a simpler form. Indeed, the only instance in which the physio- logist's view of progress regards human civilisation as clearly stationary or retrograde, appears to us an instance in which we have degenerated in one great art, only because we have accepted the authority of spiritual instincts leading us into a higher condition of moral and spiritual life. And yet, in this case, the physiological view of progress appears to be unfavourable to the line of evolution taken, and to sanction in its place that simplification and suppression of form which it had itself defined as Degeneration.