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This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution

A >> Alpheus Spring Packard >> Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution




"Indeed, we may now be assured that nothing on the surface of the
terrestrial globe remains in the same state. Everything, after a
while, undergoes different changes, more or less prompt, according
to the nature of the objects and of circumstances. Elevated areas
are constantly being lowered, and the loose material carried down to
the lowlands. The beds of rivers, of streams, of even the sea, are
gradually removed and changed, as also the climate;[167] in a word,
the whole surface of the earth gradually undergoes a change in
situation, form, nature, and aspect. We see on every hand what
ascertained facts prove; it is only necessary to observe and to give
one's attention to be convinced of it.

"However, if, relatively to living beings, the diversity of
circumstances brings about for them a diversity of habits, a
different mode of existence, and, as the result, modifications in
their organs and in the shape of their parts, one should believe
that very gradually every living body whatever would vary in its
organization and its form.

"All the modifications that each living being will have undergone as
the result of change of circumstances which have influenced its
nature will doubtless be propagated by heredity (_generation_). But
as new modifications will necessarily continue to operate, however
slowly, not only will there continually be found new species, new
genera, and even new orders, but each species will vary in some part
of its structure and its form.

"I very well know that to our eyes there seems in this respect a
_stability_ which we believe to be constant, although it is not so
truly; for a very great number of centuries may form a period
insufficient for the changes of which I speak to be marked enough
for us to appreciate them. Thus we say that the flamingo
(_Phoenicopterus_) has always had as long legs and as long a neck
as have those with which we are familiar; finally, it is said that
all animals whose history has been transmitted for 2,000 or 3,000
years are always the same, and have lost or acquired nothing in the
process of perfection of their organs and in the form of their
different parts. We may be assured that this appearance of
_stability_ of things in nature will always be taken for reality by
the average of mankind, because in general it judges everything only
relatively to itself.

"But, I repeat, this consideration which has given rise to the
admitted error owes its source to the very great slowness of the
changes which have gone on. A little attention given to the facts
which I am about to cite will afford the strongest proof of my
assertion.

"What nature does after a great length of time we do every day by
suddenly changing, as regards a living being, the circumstances in
which it and all the individuals of its species are placed.

"All botanists know that the plants which they transplant from their
natal spot into gardens for cultivation there gradually undergo
changes which in the end render them unrecognizable. Many plants
naturally very hairy, there become glabrous or nearly so; a quantity
of those which were procumbent or trailing there have erect stems;
others lose their spines or their thorns; finally, the dimensions of
parts undergo changes which the circumstances of their new situation
infallibly produce. This is so well known that botanists prefer not
to describe them, at least unless they are newly cultivated. Is not
wheat (_Triticum sativum_) a plant brought by man to the state
wherein we actually see it, which otherwise I could not believe? Who
can now say in what place its like lives in nature?

"To these known facts I will add others still more remarkable, and
which confirm the view that change of circumstances operates to
change the parts of living organisms.

"When _Ranunculus aquatilis_ lives in deep water, all it can do
while growing is to make the end of its stalks reach the surface of
the water where they flourish. Then all the leaves of the plant are
finely cut or pinked.[168] If the same plant grows in shallower
water the growth of its stalks may give them sufficient extent for
the upper leaves to develop out of the water; then its lower leaves
only will be divided into hair-like joints, while the upper ones
will be simple, rounded, and a little lobed.[169] This is not all:
when the seeds of the same plant fall into some ditch where there is
only water or moisture sufficient to make them germinate, the plant
develops all its leaves in the air, and then none of them is divided
into capillary points, which gives rise to _Ranunculus hederaceus_,
which botanists regard as a species.

"Another very striking proof of the effect of a change of
circumstances on a plant submitted to it is the following:

"It is observed that when a tuft of _Juncus bufonius_ grows very
near the edge of the water in a ditch or marsh this rush then pushes
out filiform stems which lie in the water, are there deformed,
becoming disturbed (_tracantes_), proliferous, and very different
from that of _Juncus bufonius_ which grows out of water. This plant,
modified by the circumstances I have just indicated, has been
regarded as a distinct species; it is the _Juncus supinus_ of
Rotte.[170]

"I could also give citations to prove that the changes of
circumstances relative to organisms necessarily change the
influences which they undergo on the part of all that which environs
them or which acts on them, and so necessarily bring about changes
in their size, their shape, their different organs.

"Then among living beings nature seems to me to offer in an absolute
manner only individuals which succeed one another by generation.

"However, in order to facilitate the study and recognition of these
organisms, I give the name of _species_ to every collection of
individuals which during a long period resemble each other so much
in all their parts that these individuals only present small
accidental differences which, in plants, reproduction by seeds
causes to disappear.

"But, besides that at the end of a long period the totality of
individuals of such a species change as the circumstances which act
on them, those of these individuals which from special causes are
transported into very different situations from those where the
others occur, and then constantly submitted to other influences--the
former, I say, assume new forms as the result of a long habit of
this other mode of existence, and then they constitute a new
_species_, which comprehends all the individuals which occur in the
same condition of existence. We see, then, the faithful picture of
that which happened in this respect in nature, and of that which the
observation of its acts can alone discover to us."


III. _Lamarck's Views on Species, as published in 1803._

In the opening lecture[171] of his course at the Museum of Natural
History, delivered in prairial (May 20-June 18), 1803, we have a
further statement of the theoretical views of Lamarck on species and
their origin. He addresses his audience as "Citoyens," France still
being under the _regime_ of the Republic.

The brochure containing this address is exceedingly rare, the only copy
existing, as far as we know, being in the library of the Museum of
Natural History in Paris. The author's name is not even given, and there
is no imprint. Lamarck's name, however, is written on the outside of the
cover of the copy we have translated. At the end of the otherwise blank
page succeeding the last page (p. 46) is printed the words: _Esquisse
d'un Philosophie zoologique_, the preliminary sketch, however, never
having been added.

He begins by telling his hearers that they should not desire to burden
their memories with the infinite details and immense nomenclature of
the prodigious quantity of animals among which we distinguish an
illimitable number of species, "but what is more worthy of you, and of
more educational value, you should seek to know the course of nature."
"You may enter upon the study of classes, orders, genera, and even of
the most interesting species, because this would be useful to you; but
you should never forget that all these subdivisions, which could not,
however, be well spared, are artificial, and that nature does not
recognize any of them."

"In the opening lecture of my last year's course I tried to convince
you that it is only in the organization of animals that we find the
foundation of the natural relations between the different groups,
where they diverge and where they approach each other. Finally, I
tried to show you that the enormous series of animals which nature
has produced presents, from that of its extremities where are placed
the most perfect animals, down to that which comprises the most
imperfect, or the most simple, an evident modification, though
irregularly defined (_nuance_), in the structure of the
organization.

"To-day, after having recalled some of the essential considerations
which form the base of this great truth; after having shown you the
principal means by which nature is enabled to create (_operer_) her
innumerable productions and to vary them infinitely; finally, after
having made you see that in the use she has made of her power of
generating and multiplying living beings she has necessarily
proceeded from the more simple to the more complex, gradually
complicating the organization of these bodies, as also the
composition of their substance, while also in that which she has
done on non-living bodies she has occupied herself unremittingly in
the destruction of all preexistent combinations, I shall undertake
to examine under your eyes the great question in natural
history--What is a _species_ among organized beings?

"When we consider the series of animals, beginning at the end
comprising the most perfect and complicated, and passing down
through all the degrees of this series to the other end, we see a
very evident modification in structure and faculties. On the
contrary, if we begin with the end which comprises animals the most
simple in organization, the poorest in faculties and in organs--in a
word, the most imperfect in all respects--we necessarily remark, as
we gradually ascend in the series, a truly progressive complication
in the organization of these different animals, and we see the
organs and faculties of these beings successively multiplying and
diversifying in a most remarkable manner.

"These facts once known present truths which are, to some extent,
eternal; for nothing here is the product of our imagination or of
our arbitrary principles; that which I have just explained rests
neither on systems nor on any hypothesis: it is only the very simple
result of the observation of nature; hence I do not fear to advance
the view that all that one can imagine, from any motives whatever,
to contradict these great verities will always be destroyed by the
evidence of the facts with which it deals.

"To these facts it is necessary to add these very important
considerations, which observation has led me to perceive, and the
basis of which will always be recognized by those who pay attention
to them; they are as follows:

"Firstly, the exercise of life, and consequently of organic
movement, constitutes its activity, tends, without ceasing, not only
to develop and to extend the organization, but it tends besides to
multiply the organs and to isolate them in special centres
(_foyers_). To make sure whether the exercise of life tends to
extend and develop the organization, it suffices to consider the
state of the organs of any animal which has just been born, and to
compare them in this condition with what they are when the animal
has attained the period when its organs cease to receive any new
development. Then we will see on what this organic law is based,
which I have published in my _Recherches sur les Corps vivans_
(p. 8), _i.e._, that--

"'The special property of movement of fluids in the supple parts of
the living body which contain them is to open (_frayer_) there
routes, places of deposit and tissues; to create there canals, and
consequently different organs; to cause these canals and these
organs to vary there by reason of the diversity both of the
movements as well as the nature of the fluids which occur there;
finally to enlarge, to elongate, to divide and to gradually
strengthen (_affermir_) these canals and their organs by the matters
which are formed in the fluids in motion, which incessantly separate
themselves, and a part of which is assimilated and united with
organs while the rest is rejected.'

"Secondly, the continual employment of an organ, especially if it is
strongly exercised, strengthens this organ, develops it, increases
its dimensions, enlarges and extends its faculties.

"This second law of effects of exercise of life has been understood
for a long time by those observers who have paid attention to the
phenomena of organization.

"Indeed, we know that all the time that an organ, or a system of
organs, is rigorously exercised throughout a long time, not only its
power, and the parts which form it, grow and strengthen themselves,
but there are proofs that this organ, or system of organs, at that
time attracts to itself the principal active forces of the life of
the individual, because it becomes the cause which, under these
conditions, makes the functions of other organs to be diminished in
power.

"Thus not only every organ or every part of the body, whether of man
or of animals, being for a long period and more vigorously exercised
than the others, has acquired a power and facility of action that
the same organ could not have had before, and that it has never had
in individuals which have exercised less, but also we consequently
remark that the excessive employment of this organ diminishes the
functions of the others and proportionately enfeebles them.

"The man who habitually and vigorously exercises the organ of his
intelligence develops and acquires a great facility of attention, of
aptitude for thought, etc., but he has a feeble stomach and strongly
limited muscular powers. He, on the contrary, who thinks little does
not easily, and then only momentarily fixes his attention, while
habitually giving much exercise to his muscular organs, has much
vigor, possesses an excellent digestion, and is not given to the
abstemiousness of the savant and man of letters.

"Moreover, when one exercises long and vigorously an organ or system
of organs, the active forces of life (in my opinion, the nervous
fluid) have taken such a habit of acting (_porter_) towards this
organ that they have formed in the individual an inclination to
continue to exercise which it is difficult for it to overcome.

"Hence it happens that the more we exercise an organ, the more we
use it with facility, the more does it result that we perceive the
need (_besoin_) of continuing to use it at the times when it is
placed in action. So we remark that the habit of study, of
application, of work, or of any other exercise of our organs or of
any one of our organs, becomes with time an indispensable need to
the individual, and often a passion which it does not know how to
overcome.

"Thirdly, finally, the effort made by necessity to obtain new
faculties is aided by the concurrence of favorable circumstances;
they create (_creent_) with time the new organs which are adapted
(_propres_) to their faculties, and which as the result develop
after long use (_qu'en suite un long emploi developpe_).

"How important is this consideration, and what light it spreads on
the state of organization of the different animals now living!

"Assuredly it will not be those who have long been in the habit of
observing nature, and who have followed attentively that which
happens to living individuals (to animals and to plants), who will
deny that a great change in the circumstances of their situation and
of their means of existence forces them and their race to adopt new
habits; it will not be those, I say, who attempt to contest the
foundation of the consideration which I have just exposed.

"They can readily convince themselves of the solidity of that which
I have already published in this respect.[172]

"I have felt obliged to recall to you these great considerations, a
sketch of which I traced for you last year, and which I have stated
for the most part in my different works, because they serve, as you
have seen, as a solution of the problem which interests so many
naturalists, and which concerns the determination of _species_ among
living bodies.

"Indeed, if in ascending in the series of animals from the most
simply organized animalcule, as from the monad, which seems to be
only an animated point, up to the animals the most perfect, or whose
structure is the most complicated--in a word, up to animals with
mammae--you observe in the different orders which comprise this great
series a gradation, shaded (_nuance_), although irregular, in the
composition of the organization and in the increasing number of
faculties, is it not evident that in the case where nature would
exert some active power on the existence of these organized bodies
she has been able to make them exist only by beginning with the most
simple, and that she has been able to form directly among the
animals only that which I call the rough sketches or germs
(_ebauches_) of animality--that is to say, only these animalcules,
almost invisible and to some extent without consistence, that we see
develop spontaneously and in an astonishing abundance in certain
places and under certain circumstances, while only in contrary
circumstances are they totally destroyed?

"Do we not therefore perceive that by the action of the laws of
organization, which I have just now indicated, and by that of
different means of multiplication which are due to them (_qui en
derivent_), nature has in favorable times, places, and climates
multiplied her first germs (_ebauches_) of animality, given place to
developments of their organizations, rendered gradually greater the
duration of those which have originally descended from them, and
increased and diversified their organs? Then always preserving the
progress acquired by the reproductions of individuals and the
succession of generations, and aided by much time and by a slow but
constant diversity of circumstances, she has gradually brought about
in this respect the state of things which we now observe.

"How grand is this consideration, and especially how remote is it
from all that is generally thought on this subject! Moreover, the
astonishment which its novelty and its singularity may excite in you
requires that at first you should suspend your judgment in regard to
it. But the observation which establishes it is now on record
(_consignee_), and the facts which support it exist and are
incessantly renewed; however, as they open a vast field to your
studies and to your own researches, it is to you yourselves that I
appeal to pronounce on this great subject when you have sufficiently
examined and followed all the facts which relate to it.

"If among living bodies there are any the consideration of whose
organization and of the phenomena which they produce can enlighten
us as to the power of nature and its course relatively to the
existence of these bodies, also as to the variations which they
undergo, we certainly have to seek for them in the lowest classes of
the two organic kingdoms (the animals and the plants). It is in the
classes which comprise the living bodies whose organization is the
least complex that we can observe and bring together facts the most
luminous, observations the most decisive on the origin of these
bodies, on their reproduction and their admirable diversification,
finally on the formation and the development of their different
organs, the whole process being aided by the concurrence of
generations, of time, and of circumstances.

"It is, indeed, among living bodies the most multiplied, the most
numerous in nature, the most prompt and easy to regenerate
themselves, that we should seek the most instructive facts bearing
on the course of nature and on the means she has employed to create
her innumerable productions. In this case we perceive that,
relatively to the animal kingdom, we should chiefly give our
attention to the invertebrate animals, because their enormous
multiplicity in nature, the singular diversity of their systems of
organization and of their means of multiplication, their increasing
simplification, and the extreme fugacity of those which compose the
lowest orders of these animals, show us much better than the others
the true course of nature, and the means which she has used and
which she is still incessantly employing to give existence to all
the living bodies of which we have knowledge.

"Her course and her means are without doubt the same for the
production of the different plants which exist. And, indeed, though
it is not believed, as some naturalists have wrongly held, but
without proof, that plants are bodies more simple in organization
than the most simple animals, it is a veritable error which
observation plainly denies.

"Truly, vegetable substance is less surcharged with constituent
principles than any animal substance whatever, or at least most of
them, but the substance of a living body and the organization of
these bodies are two very different things. But there is in plants,
as in animals, a true gradation in organization from the plant
simplest in organization and parts up to plants the most complex in
structure and with the most diversified organs.

"If there is some approach, or at least some comparison to make
between vegetables and animals, this can only be by opposing plants
the most simply organized, like fungi and algae, to the most
imperfect animals like the polyps, and especially the amorphous
polyps, which occur in the lowest order.

"At present we clearly see that in order to bring about the
existence of animals of all the classes, of all the orders, and of
all the genera, nature has had to begin by giving existence to those
which are the most simple in organization and lacking most in organs
and faculties, the frailest in constituency, the most ephemeral, the
quickest and easiest to multiply; and we shall find in the
_amorphous_ or _microscopic polyps_ the most striking examples of
this simplification of organization, and the indication that it is
solely among them that occur the astonishing germs of animality.

"At present we only know the principal law of the organization, the
power of the exercise of the functions of life, the influence of the
movement of fluids in the supple parts of organic bodies, and the
power which the regenerations have of conserving the progress
acquired in the composition of organs.

"At present, finally, relying on numerous observations, seeing that
with the aid of much time, of changes in local circumstances, in
climates, and consequently in the habits of animals, the progression
in the complication of their organization and in the diversity of
their parts has gradually operated (_a du s'operer_) in a way that
all the animals now known have been successively formed such as we
now see them, it becomes possible to find the solution of the
following question:

"What is a _species_ among living beings?

"All those who have much to do with the study of natural history
know that naturalists at the present day are extremely embarrassed
in defining what they mean by the word species.

"In truth, observation for a long time has shown us, and shows us
still in a great number of cases, collections of individuals which
resemble each other so much in their organization and by the
_ensemble_ of their parts that we do not hesitate to regard these
collections of similar individuals as constituting so many species.

"From this consideration we call _species_ every collection of
individuals which are alike or almost so, and we remark that the
regeneration of these individuals conserves the species and
propagates it in continuing successively to reproduce similar
individuals.

"Formerly it was supposed that each species was immutable, as old as
nature, and that she had caused its special creation by the Supreme
Author of all which exists.

"But we can impose on him laws in the execution of his will, and
determine the mode which he has been pleased to follow in this
respect, so it is only in this way that he permits us to recognize
it by the aid of observation. Has not his infinite power created an
order of things which successively gives existence to all that we
see as well as to all that which exists and which we do not know?

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