Picture - Cosmic Polymath

EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN REPRODUCTIVE ELEMENTS 151
other words, parents cannot transmit to their offspring a theological, legal, medical, or scientific training, acquired
habits, tricks of trade, handicrafts, &c., learned and practised by them during their lives. The philosopher cannot
transmit his book lore, the watchmaker his deft fingers, or the blacksmith his strong arm. While the arts
slightly modify pro tern, those parts of individuals trained in particular directions, they do not alter the atoms and
molecules and the cells and sexual elements of the race.
While the cells cannot be fundamentally altered by any form of training, they can, nevertheless, be improved
as regards volume and quality. This is the case in nerve cells, especially those occurring in the brain. The brain
of educated modern man is larger and of better quahty than that of the untutored savage. Education is based
on the capacity for improvement of the cerebral nerve centres of the individual up to a point. Mere education,
however, can never convert a weak into a strong brain : poets are born, not made. All the transmissible mental
pecuharities are the outcome of originally inherited brain cells. The most that can be said in favour of the
transmission of acquired characters is that by the continued cultivation for long periods of the cerebral nerve cells
in specific directions men and animals occasionally acquire certain tendencies and facilities ; the offspring of the bookworm
has a penchant for learning ; the children of hunting tribes take naturally to the chase ; the sheep-dog
rounds up sheep, and the sporting dog finds and sets at game. The tendencies and facihties referred to are,
however, by no means constant, and cannot consequently be regarded as genuine examples of the transmission of
acquired characters. Not unfrequently a strong intellectual father is succeeded by a weak imbecile son.
The advances of, and improvements in, types are traceable to original conformation and to favouring circum-
stances which individuals, in many cases, cannot control, but of which they freely avail themselves. The over-bred,
over-trained racehorse is not unfrequently beaten by a rank outsider, and a city to be healthy physically and mentally
must have its old effete blood frequently mixed with fresh young blood from the country.
All biological problems, whether physical or mental, must ultimately be referred to the atoms and molecules
of cells, and transmission and heredity are, in a sense, fixed quantities ; that is, they are not subject to accidental
fluctuations such as are claimed by Mr. Darwin in the production of species. Chance modifications at best influence
heredity only for brief intervals— plants and animals tending to breed back to their stereotyped originals.
The cell theory lends itself more to development than to evolution. Evolution imphes and carries with it the
idea of involution. We cannot take out what is not originally put in. Cells can develop or grow and repeat
themselves, but there are no grounds for beheving that they can alter themselves and assume new forms and
functions, which they would require to do if, in the lapse of time, they produced entirely new plants and animals,
as stated by evolutionists. Slight varieties and modifications in plants and animals (which are corrected in time)
do not countenance the theory of evolution, which requires the manufacture of plants and animals out of each
other by one long, continuous, unbroken process.
It is convenient to regard the cell as the structural unit from which all the tissues of the body, normal and
abnormal, proceed.
The cell theory in the hands of Schleiden and Schwann estabhshed a common ground as between plants and
animals, and enabled Kolliker and Remak to point out similar relations in embryology. It also permitted the great
Scottish anatomist. Professor John Goodsir, and the no less celebrated Professor Rudolph Virchow, to demonstrate
that " the various functions of the body, in health and disease, are but the outward expression of cell-activities."
Goodsir added much to our knowledge of the cell, and was clearly the pioneer and founder of the " Cellular
Pathology " which bulks so largely in modern medicine and surgery. As Goodsir's views, though very important,
are comparatively httle known, it is necessary to give a brief summary of them in this place. I quote from his
" Anatomical and Biographical Memoirs," published in 1868.^
" like all the early observers of ' the cell,' Goodsir met with difficulties. Granted a cell, with its walls, its
contents, its nucleus and nucleolus, what then ? Did the formation of cells depend on an endogenous or exogenous
growth, a fissiparous division, or a gemmiferous thrusting forth of new cells or materials ? Theory often ran in
advance of observation, and Goodsir, too anxious for a foremost place in the race of competition, went boldly onwards.
This mode of procedure could excite no surprise ; histology was an almost untrodden field, the explorers of which
were enthusiastic and impressionable. Goodsir, no less speculative than scientific, was not the least conspicuous
supporter of the new doctrines that bid fair, at one time, to make the cell the whole science of life. Of the lectures
dehvered (by him) in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in the summer of 1842 and winter
of 1842-4:3, a portion was devoted to the consideration of practical subjects—for example, surgical pathology ;
another portion embraced anatomical and physiological questions of current, or rather special, interest to the younger
members of his audience, and were afterwards woven into a work — ' Anatomical and Pathological Observations
{vid-e vol. xi. p. 387).
1 "Anatomical Memoirs, with a Biographical Memoir," A. & C. Black, Edinburgh,