Many of the discoveries of modern science are made by proceeding7 from known phenomena8 to the unknown, or, more precisely9, from the well-known through the little-known to the hitherto unknown.
As to the validity of knowledge it is enough to say this—and pass on—all our knowledge is provisional and imperfect, and much of our ignorance is as transient as ourselves.
There are two chief ways in which historians deal with their subject-matter, though the moderns combine them. When oral tradition gives place to written records the lineal descendant of the bards11 and annalists collects his scanty12 authorities and compiles his story from them from beginning to end. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of Bede and Alfred, the Book of Howth, the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, the Chronicles of Froissart and the Memoirs13
of de Comines were composed in the only way that was then possible. But the muse14 of history entered on a deeper and more fruitful course when about ninety years ago the study of documents became an essential feature of historical work. It was then that the historian grew up, entered upon his finest inheritance and assumed his Greek title, Enquirer15, Student of facts, Man of research. He is now nothing if not a man of science as well as of letters. With a wealth of documents within his reach so great that the 3239 Vatican cases full of them formed by no means the richest collec-tion in the archives of Europe, he proceeds to read backwards16 correctly what many an earlier annalist read forwards falsely. “We are still at the beginning of the documentary age which is destined17 to make history independent of historians, to develop learning at the expense of writing, and to accomplish a revolu-tion in other sciences as well.”1
The Historian a Biologist.
It is not too much to say that he who studies history, national, political, constitutional, ecclesiastical, military or economic is as much a biologist in the widest sense as the botanist18 and zoologist1. Indeed these were till recently termed students of natural history, until the advance of knowledge gave us the various special groups of workers, conveniently called biologists. Though the study of human history by documents is an essential part of the historical method and the student may read his subject backwards, this would not of itself warrant the technical biologist in doing so, even though he be a child of Nature and part of her—“Nature’s insurgent19 son.” But some reflec-tion on the facts of certain provinces of science affords ample justifica-tion for the method. It is chiefly in questions of origin that it avails, while it fails in that form of research by experiment which is the glory of modern science. A few examples of the process of passing from the known to the unknown will illustrate20 the method.
Darwin.
Much of the Origin of Species and all of the Descent of Man was founded on this method; thus in the former the conceptions of struggle took their main rise from the work of Malthus on Human Popula-tion, and of variation from domesticated21 animals and plants, and this is true also of Wallace. A mere22 glance at the divisions of The Descent of Man shows that it could never have been attempted in any other than the backward way.
Geology.
In their researches on the crust of the earth Playfair, Hutton and Lyell did not pursue them by going down a coal mine till they came to the lowest available beds and work upward from these to the highest. Though for purposes of exposi-tion a great geologist23, as Sir Archibald Geikie, may expound24 the making of the earth from the lowest to the highest levels, and Professor Bonney tell us the Story of our Planet from beginning to end as if he had watched it unfolding, Lyell in his Principles of Geology shows how the studies of his great province began. There we have the backward reading of its story pursued by himself and other great ones, and where it led them. Commencing with the Pleistocene period and passing through Neocene and Eocene periods through the Mesozoic Era and its cretaceous, jurassic and triassic systems to the Newer Pal25?ozoic Era and its Permian, carboniferous, and Devonian systems, the older Pal?ozoic Era and its Silurian Ordovician and Cambrian systems, he reaches the unknown. But before all this patient research and its record is reached he treats, as he must, of consolida-tion and altera-tion of strata26, of petrifica-tion of organic remains27, elevation28 of strata, horizontal and inclined stratifica-tion, of faulting, denuda-tion, upheaval29 and subsidence as they combine to remodel30 the earth’s crust. The title of his classical work is significant—An Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation (it may be noted31 that in 1830 they were fond of capital letters and of underlining their words). If these great men had been condemned32 to the sole use of the method of the annalist in his treatment of human history, that of the coal mine in geology, this great province of knowledge would never have been what it is to-day.
At this point I think it well to state that this illuminating33 principle of Lyell is pursued in nearly all the matters of fact and their interpreta-tion contained in the following chapters, so that from time to time I shall have to employ the verb, coined for the purpose, when I attempt to “Lyell” them on behalf of Lamarck.
Anthropology34.
The anthropologist35 could hardly make a start with his research, if, knowing nothing of his own anatomy36, physiology37, customs and beliefs, he tried to interpret the physical features, habits, manners, customs and rites38 of an African tribe. Without such prior knowledge he would find it a profitless task to journey to the banks of the Zambesi and bring back any intelligible39 history of the aborigines. If he did not know the games of a European child how could he
understand the variants40 of them such as the writer of Savage41 Childhood2 expounds42 so well?
The Sources of Rivers.
To trace the course and source of a river is a simple task through the work of modern geographers43, and such a pursuit illustrates45 well the two methods here considered, but it is doubtful if any river was ever traced originally from its fountain head to its mouth. The backward way of such explora-tion, from the nature of the case, has always been taken, and men have traced the more or less finished products of the lower stretches, backward, still backwards, even as in the Indus, to the still-unknown. The earliest thinkers and seekers in the plains of Bengal were familiar with much of their great sacred and composite river as it flowed into its delta46. Slowly, laboriously47, here a little and there a little, they learned its stupendous story. They found the plateau of Tibet in the Himalayas where the twin-sisters, Brahmaputra and Ganges were born, and saw how from the one high cradle they parted on their eastward48 course for a thousand miles with the mountain-chain between them, and how, coming together again, the one descending49 through Assam and the other flowing through the plains, reinforced by the Jumna, they united to form the Ganges-Brahmaputra. A great subject indeed for the early geographer44, but one which he could only follow in the backward way. Again how well known and revered50 in Egypt was the Nile for thousands of years before its source in Victoria Nyanza could be traced, even though Nero might send his explorers as far as the marshes51 of the White Nile, and Ptolemy’s search for it might lead him to guess the riddle52, and assign it to two great lakes!
Genealogy53.
Not many of us can trace our ancestry54 in the direct male line to the 8th century by authentic55 and written documents as did a Hebrew friend of mine, thus effectually meeting the doubts of a prospective56 brother-in-law who asked him as to his fitness to enter a family which was able to produce a stray peer of the realm in its roll. On the other hand a man who has lost his parents in childhood may know nothing of them but that his father’s name was A. Mann, and that he was buried in a Kentish churchyard. He may go on a pilgrimage and find there recorded the fact that A. Mann was the son of A. Mann, Gent, who came from Northumberland. He will doubtless make another pilgrimage and find there a large vault57,
and over it an imposing58 record of many a Mann, and yet further he may go, and from the Heralds’ College find out the still earlier deriva-tion of his ancestors.
Detection of a Crime.
There are two chief ways of detecting a crime. By oral evidence from eye-witnesses or confession59 of the accused you may get direct proof, though even here are pitfalls60 from careless and hasty witnesses on the one hand, or on the other from a strange perversion61 of mind of the confessing person which is well enough known to forensic62 medicine. You may thus bring home to the accused his guilt63 by the method of the annalist. Or you may employ the more common method of studying circumstantial evidence; the story of the crime is read backwards and a verdict of guilty is given. This is the main stuff of which the prevalent detective story is composed.
A Parable64.
A plain parable may well conclude this chapter.
As I mused65 on the chain of life I found a piece of whipcord which had been lying by for twenty-five years since some of it was used for rigging a model yacht, and this very efficient product of human art seemed to speak to me on the subject of my musings. Perhaps if Huxley could extract from a piece of chalk or lumps of coal two magnificent expositions on geology and biology, this little trifle of cord might afford a text on a way of looking at living things which should be useful in this old case of Lamarck v. Weismann—and others.
Should I learn the story of the whipcord forwards like an annalist, or backward like a modern historian? Clearly it could be done in a measure by either method. Here was a highly finished product of which either might furnish the story, and of which, we may suppose, I knew nothing. I tried the backward way, and by the aid of a needle began to unravel66 it. The cord was as good as if just made, slender, strong, twisted, with some glazing67 on the twisted threads. It showed three main bundles, and each of these was composed of two smaller ones. The substance of all these six was found when examined with a lens to consist of minute silky fibres varying from a quarter of an inch to an inch in length. This was all I could learn without a stronger magnifying power or a chemical analysis, and the direct search was at an end. I gathered since then that the first three bundles were called “strands68,” and the two composing each of these “yarns69,” and that the fibres were from a plant called hemp70. This did not carry the story deep or far, and illustrates
how often in the backward method facts have to be supplemented by inference. But I had learnt some undoubted facts and some inferences from them nearly as certain. Some mind of man had conceived and hands carried out the division of the bundles of fibres into three strands, had twisted them somehow so as to reduce their length by a quarter and yet not far enough to rupture71 them, and had thus fitted them the better for their purpose by a reinforcement of tensile strength due to the twisting. I could also see that this same mind had seen it better to divide each of these strands into two yarns before the final twisting, and that in framing the yarns the silky fibres of the plant had been squeezed together by some powerful agency and yet not disintegrated72, and that the finished product had been immersed in a protective substance which gave it a slight glaze73. In short, I, though a child in these matters, read much of the story of this cord in terms of mind dealing74 with given organic matter. I may add that I did not imagine myself a little Paley, and that I do not intend to “take in” the reader as to the argument from design and final causes, even though this parable may feebly resemble Paley’s study of a watch. The conclusion was perfectly75 clear that certain directing grey cells of a certain brain had interfered76 with and acted upon some plastic vegetable matter, and one could at the “strand” stage, the “yarn” stage, and the “fibre” stage see mind writ10 large.
The Forward Way.
The limits of the former method are obvious, but I might also attempt to follow the little story as a crime is followed and described by eye-witnesses. So I go to an old-fashioned rope-factory and ask the foreman questions about the making of twine77, cords, ropes and cables. He shows me bundles of hemp; he calls them Russian, Italian or American, and goes on to tell me how the fibre is “heckled” or combed, how “tow” is separated from “line,” and how the yarns are pressed together and twisted, how they are at first rough and bristly, and are then dressed, polished, and “sized” with such a starch78 as that of the potato. When I proceed to ask him about the plant itself his interest flags, and he becomes vague. He says, “You had better ask the Head, young Mr. X., he knows these things better.” I find the Head with his golf clubs over his shoulder and about to start on his “business,” and he is polite, but says he knows very little about the origin of his hemp. “You should go over the way and ask Messrs. Y. if they will let you see the expert who advises them in their business, he will know.” The expert is at home and kindly79 and fully80 describes to me the early home of
the wild Cannabis Sativa in a moderate climate of Asia, the rich soil it needs for its growth and the various countries of the world into which it has been introduced; and the bast-fibres of the bark of this plant which from remote antiquity81 has supplied the silky stuff. He then tells me how the stems are dried and crushed, and then of the important stage of fermenta-tion or “retting” in water, how they are again beaten in a “break,” then rubbed and “scutched,” and finally “heckled” or combed; and, as to analytic82 chemistry, he tells me that the chief constituent83 is cellulose. This quest is now over and I know much I could not find out by the backward method, though the dependence84 of its rival upon the presence of honest and capable eye-witnesses is not less obvious. It is not alone in ecclesiastical history that cheats and forgers of documents exist. In the world of Nature there may be, for all we know, biological False Decretals that may lead us far astray, such perhaps as Amphioxous and Arch?opteryx, and the Pseudo-Isidore who produced them may yet be discovered.
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zoologist
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| n.动物学家 | |
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zoologists
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| 动物学家( zoologist的名词复数 ) | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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enquirer
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| 寻问者，追究者 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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insurgent
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| adj.叛乱的，起事的；n.叛乱分子 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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expound
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| v.详述；解释；阐述 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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remodel
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| v.改造，改型，改变 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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anthropologist
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| n.人类学家，人类学者 | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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variants
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| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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expounds
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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geographers
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| 地理学家( geographer的名词复数 ) | |
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geographer
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| n.地理学者 | |
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illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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delta
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| n.（流的）角洲 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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revered
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| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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forensic
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| adj.法庭的，雄辩的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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glaze
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| v.因疲倦、疲劳等指眼睛变得呆滞，毫无表情 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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78
starch
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| n.淀粉；vt.给...上浆 | |
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79
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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80
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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81
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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82
analytic
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| adj.分析的，用分析方法的 | |
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83
constituent
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| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
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84
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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