Herbert Spencer - The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)

Rapid in all directions, scientific progress has during the last generation been more rapid in the direction of Biology than in any other; and had this work been one dealing with Biology at large, the hope of bringing it up to date could not have been rationally entertained. But it is a work on the Principles of Biology; and to bring an exposition of these up to date, seemed not impossible with such small remnant of energy as is left me. Slowly, and often interrupted by ill-health, I have in the course of the last two years, completed this first volume of the final edition.

Numerous additions have proved needful. What was originally said about vital changes of matter has been supplemented by a chapter on "Metabolism." Under the title "The Dynamic Element in Life," I have added a chapter which renders less inadequate the conception of Life previously expressed. A gap in preceding editions, which should have been occupied by some pages on "Structure," is now filled up. Those astonishing actions in cell-nuclei which the microscope has of late revealed, will be found briefly set forth under the head of "Cell-Life and Cell-Multiplication." Further evidence and further thought have resulted in a supplementary chapter on "Genesis, Heredity, and Variation"; in which certain views enunciated in the first edition are qualified and developed. Various modern ideas are considered under the title "Recent Criticisms and Hypotheses." And the chapter on "The Arguments from Embryology" has been mainly rewritten. Smaller increments have taken the shape of new sections incorporated in pre-existing chapters. They are distinguished by the following section-marks: — § 8 a , § 46 a , § 87 a , § 100 a , § 113 a , § 127 a , §§ 130 a - 130 d . There should also be mentioned a number of foot-notes of some significance not present in preceding editions. Of the three additional appendices the two longer ones have already seen the light in other shapes.

After these chief changes have now to be named the changes necessitated by revision. In making them assistance has been needful. Though many of the amendments have resulted from further thought and inquiry, a much larger number have been consequent on criticisms received from gentlemen whose aid I have been fortunate enough to obtain: each of them having taken a division falling within the range of his special studies. The part concerned with Organic Chemistry and its derived subjects, has been looked through by Mr. W. H. Perkin, Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor of Organic Chemistry, Owens College, Manchester. Plant Morphology and Physiology have been overseen by Mr. A. G. Tansley, M.A., F.L.S., Assistant Professor of Botany, University College, London. Criticisms upon parts dealing with Animal Morphology, I owe to Mr. E. W. MacBride, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Professor of Zoology in the McGill University, Montreal, and Mr. J. T. Cunningham, M.A., late Fellow of University College, Oxford. And the statements included under Animal Physiology have been checked by Mr. W. B. Hardy, M.A., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Demonstrator of Physiology in the University. Where the discoveries made since 1864 have rendered it needful to change the text, either by omissions or qualifications or in some cases by additions, these gentlemen have furnished me with the requisite information.

Save in the case of the preliminary portion, bristling with the technicalities of Organic Chemistry (including the pages on "Metabolism"), I have not submitted the proofs, either of the new chapters or of the revised chapters, to the gentlemen above named. The abstention has resulted partly from reluctance to trespass on their time to a greater extent than was originally arranged, and partly from the desire to avoid complicating my own work. During the interval occupied in the preparation of this volume the printers have kept pace with me, and I have feared adding to the entailed attention the further attention which correspondence and discussion would have absorbed: feeling that it was better to risk minor inaccuracies than to leave the volume unfinished: an event which at one time appeared probable. I make this statement because, in its absence, one or other of these gentlemen might be held responsible for some error which is not his but mine.

Yet another explanation is called for. Beyond the exposition of those general truths constituting the Principles of Biology as commonly accepted, the original edition of this work contained sundry views for which biological opinion did not furnish any authority. Some of these have since obtained a certain currency; either in their original forms or in modified forms. Misinterpretations are likely to result. Readers who have met with them in other works may, in the absence of warning, suppose, to my disadvantage, that I have adopted them without acknowledgment. Hence it must be understood that where no indication to the contrary is given the substance is unchanged. Beyond the corrections which have been made in the original text, there are, in some cases, additions to the evidence or amplifications of the argument; but in all sections not marked as new, the essential ideas set forth are the same as they were in the original edition of 1864.

The aim of this work is to set forth the general truths of Biology, as illustrative of, and as interpreted by, the laws of Evolution: the special truths being introduced only so far as is needful for elucidation of the general truths.

For aid in executing it, I owe many thanks to Prof. Huxley and Dr. Hooker. They have supplied me with information where my own was deficient; 1and, in looking through the proof-sheets, have pointed out errors of detail into which I had fallen. By having kindly rendered me this valuable assistance, they must not, however, be held committed to any of the enunciated doctrines that are not among the recognized truths of Biology.

The successive instalments which compose this volume, were issued to the subscribers at the following dates: – No. 7 (pp. 1-80) in January, 1863; No. 8 (pp. 81-160) in April, 1863; No. 9 (pp. 161-240) in July, 1863; No. 10 (pp. 241-320) in January, 1864; No. 11 (pp. 321-400) in May, 1864; and No. 12 (pp. 401-476) in October, 1864.

§ 1. Of the four chief elements which, in various combinations, make up living bodies, three are gaseous under all ordinary conditions and the fourth is a solid. Oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen are gases which for many years defied all attempts to liquefy them, and carbon is a solid except perhaps at the extremely high temperature of the electric arc. Only by intense pressures joined with extreme refrigerations have the three gases been reduced to the liquid form. 2There is much significance in this. When we remember how those redistributions of Matter and Motion which constitute Evolution, structural and functional, imply motions in the units that are redistributed; we shall see a probable meaning in the fact that organic bodies, which exhibit the phenomena of Evolution in so high a degree, are mainly composed of ultimate units having extreme mobility. The properties of substances, though destroyed to sense by combination, are not destroyed in reality. It follows from the persistence of force, that the properties of a compound are resultants of the properties of its components — resultants in which the properties of the components are severally in full action, though mutually obscured. One of the leading properties of each substance is its degree of molecular mobility; and its degree of molecular mobility more or less sensibly affects the molecular mobilities of the various compounds into which it enters. Hence we may infer some relation between the gaseous form of three out of the four chief organic elements, and that comparative readiness displayed by organic matters to undergo those changes in the arrangement of parts which we call development, and those transformations of motion which we call function.