M. DAUDET ON EVOLUTION.
IN the play by M. Alphonse Daudet, which is now acted at Her Majesty's Theatre, "La Lutte pour in Vie," M. Daudet's object is to run down the doctrine that the conflict for existence tends to secure "the survival of the fittest." And this he does in a very shallow and inadequate manner. He seeks, according to the director of the theatre, to attack the theory on the ground that on this principle that which is most fundamental to all creatures is the physical life, and that the mental and moral life is mere superstructure, or, to use M. Daudet's own. words, that these evolutional doctrines are accursed ones, on the ground that when applied to life, "they go to seek out the brute at the foundation of man, and to re- vive in man that which remains in him on four paws, even after he has assumed his erect form." "Je vous dis que ces theories de Darwin sont scelerates, parce qn'elles rout chercher in brute au fond de rhomme, et qu'elles reveillent cc qui reste quatre pattes dans le quadrupede redresse." There is, no doubt, some excuse for this view in Mr. Darwin's unfor- tunate chapter on "The Descent of Man," in which he tries to explain the origin of ethical law in a mere gre- garious instinct, but though Mr. Darwin himself has handi- capped his theory with that very unsuccessful effort,—one which shows that he did attach to the doctrine of evolution something like the meaning which M. Daudet attributes to it, namely, that that which comes first is the true root of that which succeeds it and is grafted upon it,—yet it is a great mistake to suppose that evolution as a doctrine is really en- cumbered with this utterly unreasonable view. St. Paul was a better evolutionist than Darwin, when he said, "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. And so it is written the first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." The doctrine of evolution is a principle of method, not a law of causation. It is as absurd to ascribe the mental and moral life of man to the physical life, as its root and cause, as it is to ascribe the differential calculus or the theory of probabilities to the fingers with which we count, as their root and cause. You might as well say that because you must pass through youth to get to age, youth is the cause of age; or that because you must learn to spell before you learn to write, spelling is the cause of writing. "That is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual ;" and so, too, that is not first which is intellectual but that which is animal, and afterwards that which is intellectual, yet the intellectual has no more its root in the animal, than the spiritual has in the natural. Why even in all our imperfect human designs, that which comes first in execution is not that which can be regarded as the cause or substance of the completed whole. It is not the stone in which the architect works that is the cause of the architectural effect. It is not the colour in which the painter works that is the cause of the happy combination and inspiring influence of coloured surfaces in the picture. It is not the language with which the poet works that is the cause of "the consecration and the poet's dream." Nothing can be more utterly contrary to common-sense than to treat the foundation or rude com- mencement of a work as the germ of that work. The true " germ " is in the mind that conceives it, and that mind is not even shadowed forth till the conception is more or less worked out. You might far more justly regard the design of a cathedral as its cause, than the quarry from which the stones of which it is composed are taken. And so, too, you might far more justly regard all that differentiates man from the least inferior of the animals whose physical constitution most nearly resembles his own, as his cause, than the animal type on which the human nature is grafted.
And there is something peculiarly unfortunate in saying of any evolutional theory that it seeks for the brute as the founda- tion of the man, and "revives in him that which still remains on four paws" even in his erect posture. For it is of the very essence of the evolutional method that the higher element not only conquers the lower upon which it is grafted, but subdues and transmutes the lower into its own likeness. Evolution implies not only victory over the stock on which the new spirit is grafted, but a real transmutation or trans- formation—which is a sort of imperfect transubstantiation— of it too. Instead of reviving that part of the animal which may be said "to go on four paws," the evolutional theory emphasizes the new creation which takes place in the very process of exchanging the downward for the erect posture. Just as the life of the plant transforms mere clay into the delicate tissues of which the blossom and the fruit are com- posed, so the human body turns the food which passes into it into the texture of the nerves, and provides the channels of sensation, and perception, of pleasure and pain, and of all sorts of mental and moral conditions in which tissue is no longer mere matter, nor even mere flesh and blood, but becomes more or less identified with the will and the affections, and the soul and the spirit. Thus, evolution is the name for the trans- forming process which, instead of reviving the brute in man, finally subdues that brute nature in man, and transubstan- tiates it into a being who is incapable of anything brutal. M. Daudet has got hold of evolution by the wrong end.
The "struggle for life" is no doubt in its lower stages a struggle for food and enjoyment, which seems to involve much that is cruel. But that which sharpens the instincts and multiplies the powers of self-defence, and enlarges the resources of any race, is soon found to involve a general ex- tension of faculty which inspires it with sympathy towards some creatures and loyalty towards others, pity for weakness, reverence for goodness and for power, and so introduces a kindlier relation towards other beings, and subsequently even a certain self-distrust in the treatment of the exorbitant claims of self. All this of course implies the ever en- larging embodiment in organised beings of that creative spirit which is not even partially revealed in mere strife, but which is revealed so soon as the struggle for something definitely higher takes the place of mere rivalry and mutual destructive- ness. To treat evolution as if it were a name for the con- vulsion fits and triumphs of selfish self-will, is just like treating steam as if it were a mere name for the power which explodes engines and scalds men to death. Of course, before you have any chance of evolation you must have something to evolve, and you cannot have something to evolve without individuality, and individuality in its early stages means resistance to that which would encroach upon and destroy it. Hence it is that in the early stages of evolution there is so much of that which, in our far more mature stage of evolution, affronts and scandalises us, of what the Poet-Laureate called Nature "red in tooth and claw "—in other words, of indi- viduality resisting extinction. And there must be much power of resisting extinction before there can be any power of true and large development Still, to identify evolution with this lowest step in the process is, as we have said before, like identifying steam with its destructive instead of its construc- tive powers, or like identifying electricity with the lightning- flash that kills, instead of with the current that sends us timely warning of the storm, or enables us to communicate our thoughts instantaneously across oceans and continents. M. Daudet misses the whole meaning of evolution when he represents "the struggle for life" as a mere impersona- tion of selfish passion. The creative purpose is not even guessed, while the "straggle for life" results only in the organisation of selfish precautions that death shall come to others before it threatens self. That stage must be passed through, for until there is a self there is nothing to evolve. But the purpose served in the organisation of a self, is not really manifested at all until self shows the divine capacity to be unselfish, and then, and not till then, we get a glimpse of that transformation of the vile into the glorious which marks the whole course of evolution. The destructive animal in man—" la brute h, qnatres pattes "—is not the ex- planation of him, but rather the paradox which is explained away so soon as we see what man is capable of being, and what the natural man really becomes, under the law of evolution which St. Paul laid down for us.
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