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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




"Assuredly, whatever has been his will, the omnipotence of his power
is always the same; and in whatever way this supreme will has been
manifested, nothing can diminish its greatness. As regards, then,
the decrees of this infinite wisdom, I confine myself to the limits
of a simple observer of nature. Then, if I discover anything in the
course that nature follows in her creations, I shall say, without
fear of deceiving myself, that it has pleased its author that she
possesses this power.

"The idea that was held as to species among living bodies was quite
simple, easy to grasp, and seemed confirmed by the constancy in the
similar form of the individuals which reproduction or generation
perpetuated. There still occur among us a very great number of these
pretended species which we see every day.

"However, the farther we advance in the knowledge of the different
organized bodies with which almost every part of the surface of the
globe is covered, the more does our embarrassment increase in
determining what should be regarded as species, and the greater is
the reason for limiting and distinguishing the genera.

"As we gradually gather the productions of nature, as our
collections gradually grow richer, we see almost all the gaps filled
up, and our lines of demarcation effaced. We find ourselves
compelled to make an arbitrary determination, which sometimes leads
us to seize upon the slightest differences between varieties to form
of them the character of that which we call species, and sometimes
one person designates as a variety of such a species individuals a
little different, which others regard as constituting a particular
species.

"I repeat, the richer our collections become, the more numerous are
the proofs that all is more or less shaded (_nuance_), that the
remarkable differences become obliterated, and that the more often
nature leaves it at our disposal to establish distinctions only
minute, and in some degree trivial peculiarities.

"But some genera among animals and plants are of such an extent,
from the number of species they contain, that the study and the
determination of these species are now almost impossible. The
species of these genera, arranged in series and placed together
according to their natural relations, present, with those allied to
them, differences so slight that they shade into each other; and
because these species are in some degree confounded with one another
they leave almost no means of determining, by expression in words,
the small differences which distinguish them.

"There are also those who have been for a long time, and strongly,
occupied with the determination of the species, and who have
consulted rich collections, who can understand up to what point
species, among living bodies, merge one into another (_fondent les
unes dans les autres_), and who have been able to convince
themselves, in the regions (_parties_) where we see isolated
species, that this is only because there are wanting other species
which are more nearly related, and which we have not yet collected.

"I do not mean to say by this that the existing animals form a very
simple series, one everywhere equally graduated; but I say that they
form a branching series, irregularly graduated, and which has no
discontinuity in its parts, or which at best has not always had, if
it is true that it is to be found anywhere (_s'il est vrai qu'il
s'en trouve quelque part_). It results from this that the species
which terminates each branch of the general series holds a place at
least on one side apart from the other allied species which
intergrade with them. Behold this state of things, so well known,
which I am now compelled to demonstrate.

"I have no need (_besoin_) of any hypothesis or any supposition for
this: I call to witness all observing naturalists.

"Not only many genera, but entire orders, and some classes even,
already present us with portions almost complete of the state of
things which I have just indicated.

"However, when in this case we have arranged the species in series,
and they are all well placed according to their natural relations,
if you select one of them, and it results in making a leap (_saut
pardessus_) over to several others, you take another one of them a
little less remote; these two species, placed in comparison, will
then present the greatest differences from each other. It is thus
that we had begun to regard most of the productions of nature which
occur at our door. Then the generic and specific distinctions were
very easy to establish. But now that our collections are very much
richer, if you follow the series that I have cited above, from the
species that you first chose up to that which you took in the second
place, and which is very different from the first, you have passed
from shade to shade without having remarked any differences worth
noticing.

"I ask what experienced zooelogist or botanist is there who has not
thoroughly realized that which I have just explained to you?

"Or how can one study, or how can one be able to determine in a
thorough way the species, among the multitude of known polyps of all
orders of radiates, worms, and especially of insects, where the
simple genera of Papilio, Phalaena, Noctua, Tinea, Musca, Ichneumon,
Curculio, Capricorn, Scarabaeus, Cetonia, etc., etc., already contain
so many closely allied species which shade into each other, are
almost confounded one with another? What a host of molluscan shells
exist in every country and in all seas which elude our means of
distinction, and exhaust our resources in this respect! Ascend to
the fishes, to the reptiles, to the birds, even to the mammals, and
you will see, except the lacunae which are still to be filled,
everywhere shadings which take place between allied species, even
the genera, and where after the most industrious study we fail to
establish good distinctions. Does not botany, which considers the
other series, comprising the plants, offer us, in its different
parts, a state of things perfectly similar? In short, what
difficulties do not arise in the study and in the determination of
species in the genera Lichena, Fucus, Carex, Poa, Piper, Euphorbia,
Erica, Hieracium, Solanum, Geranium, Mimosa, etc., etc.?

"When these genera were established but a small number of species
were known, and then it was easy to distinguish them; but at present
almost all the gaps between them are filled, and our specific
differences are necessarily minute and very often insufficient.

"From this state of things well established we see what are the
causes which have given rise to them; we see whether nature
possesses the means for this, and if observation has been able to
give us our explanation of it.

"A great many facts teach us that gradually as the individuals of
one of our species change their situation, climate, mode of life, or
habits, they thus receive influences which gradually change the
consistence and the proportions of their parts, their form, their
faculties, even their organization; so that all of them participate
eventually in the changes which they have undergone.

"In the same climate, very different situations and exposures at
first cause simple variations in the individuals which are found
exposed there; but, as time goes on, the continual differences of
situation of individuals of which I have spoken, which live and
successively reproduce in the same circumstances, give rise among
them to differences which are, in some degree, essential to their
being, in such a way that at the end of many successive generations
these individuals, which originally belonged to another species, are
at the end transformed into a new species, distinct from the other.

"For example, if the seeds of a grass, or of every other plant
natural to a humid field, should be transplanted, by an accident, at
first to the slope of a neighboring hill, where the soil, although
more elevated, would yet be quite cool (_frais_) so as to allow the
plant to live, and then after having lived there, and passed through
many generations there, it should gradually reach the poor and
almost arid soil of a mountain side--if the plant should thrive and
live there and perpetuate itself during a series of generations, it
would then be so changed that the botanists who should find it there
would describe it as a separate species.

"The same thing happens to animals which circumstances have forced
to change their climate, manner of living, and habits; but for these
the influences of the causes which I have just cited need still more
time than in the case of plants to produce the notable changes in
the individuals, though in the long run, however, they always
succeed in bringing them about.

"The idea of defining under the word _species_ a collection of
similar individuals which perpetuate the same by generation, and
which have existed thus as anciently as nature, implies the
necessity that the individuals of one and the same species cannot
mix, in their acts of generation, with the individuals of a
different species. Unfortunately observation has proved, and still
proves every day, that this consideration has no basis; for the
hybrids, very common among plants, and the unions which are often
observed between the individuals of very different species among
animals, have made us perceive that the limits between these
species, supposed to be constant, are not so rigid as is supposed.

"In truth, nothing often results from these singular unions,
especially when they are very incongruous, as the individuals which
result from them are usually sterile; but also, when the disparities
are less great, it is known that the drawbacks (_defauts_) with
which it has to do no longer exist. However, this means alone
suffices to gradually create the varieties which have afterwards
arisen from races, and which, with time, constitute that which we
call _species_.

"To judge whether the idea which is formed of species has any real
foundation, let us return to the considerations which I have already
stated; they are, namely--

"1. That all the organic bodies of our globe are veritable
productions of nature, which she has created in succession at the
end of much time.

"2. That in her course nature has begun, and begins anew every day,
by forming the simplest organic bodies, and that she directly forms
only these--that is to say, only these first primitive germs
(_ebauches_) of organization, which have been badly characterized by
the expression of "spontaneous generations" (_qu'on a designees
mal-a-propos par l'expression de Generations spontanees_).

"3. That the first germs (_ebauches_) of the animals and plants were
formed in favorable places and circumstances. The functions of life
beginning and an organic movement established, these have
necessarily gradually developed the organs, so that after a time and
under suitable circumstances they have been differentiated, as also
the different parts (_elles les ont diversifies ainsi qui les
parties_).

"4. That the power of increase in each portion of organic bodies
being inherited at the first production (_effets_) of life, it has
given rise to different modes of multiplication and of regeneration
of individuals; and in that way the progress acquired in the
composition of the organization and in the forms and the diversity
of the parts has been preserved.

"5. That with the aid of sufficient time, of circumstances which
have been necessarily favorable, of changes that all parts of the
surface of the globe have successively undergone in their
condition--in a word, with the power that new situations and new
habits have in modifying the organs of bodies endowed with life--all
those which now exist have been imperceptibly formed such as we see
them.

"6. Finally, that according to a similar order of things, living
beings, having undergone each of the more or less great changes in
the condition of their organization and of their parts, that which
is designated as a species among them has been insensibly and
successively so formed, can have only a relative constancy in its
condition, and cannot be as ancient as nature.

"But, it will be said, when it is necessary to suppose that, with
the aid of much time and of an infinite variation in circumstances,
nature has gradually formed the different animals that we know,
would we not be stopped in this supposition by the sole
consideration of the admirable diversity which we observe in the
instinct of different animals, and by that of the marvels of all
sorts which their different kinds of industry present?

"Will one dare to carry the spirit of system (_porter l'esprit de
systeme_) to the point of saying that it is nature, and she alone,
which creates this astonishing diversity of means, of ruses, of
skill, of precautions, of patience, of which the industry of animals
offers us so many examples! What we observe in this respect in the
class of insects alone, is it not a thousand times more than is
necessary to compel us to perceive that the limits of the power of
nature by no means permit her herself to produce so many marvels,
and to force the most obstinate philosophy to recognize that here
the will of the supreme author of all things has been necessary, and
has alone sufficed to cause the existence of so many admirable
things?

"Without doubt one would be rash, or rather wholly unreasonable, to
pretend to assign limits to the power of the first author of all
things; and by that alone no one can dare to say that this infinite
power has not been able to will that which nature herself shows us
she has willed.

"This being so, if I discover that nature herself brings about or
causes all the wonders just cited; that she creates the
organization, the life, even feeling; that she multiplies and
diversifies, within limits which are not known to us, the organs and
faculties of organic bodies the existence of which she sustains or
propagates; that she has created in animals by the single way of
_need_, which establishes and directs the habits, the source of all
actions, from the most simple up to those which constitute
_instinct_, industry, finally reason, should I not recognize in this
power of nature--that is to say, of existing things--the execution
of the will of its sublime author, who has been able to will that it
should have this power? Shall I any the less wonder at the
omnipotence of the power of the first cause of all things, if it has
pleased itself that things should be thus, than if by so many
(separate) acts of his omnipotent will he should be occupied and
occupy himself still continually with details of all the special
creations, all the variations, and all the developments and
perfections, all the destructions and all the renewals--in a word,
with all the changes which are in general produced in things which
exist?

"But I intend to prove in my 'Biologie' that nature possesses in her
_faculties_ all that is necessary to have to be able herself to
produce that which we admire in her works; and regarding this
subject I shall then enter into sufficient details which I am here
obliged to omit.[173]

"However, it is still objected that all we see stated regarding the
state of living bodies are unalterable conditions in the
preservation of their form, and it is thought that all the animals
whom history has transmitted to us for two or three thousand years
have always remained the same, and have lost nothing nor acquired
anything in the perfecting of their organs and in the form of their
parts.

"While this apparent stability has for a long time been accepted as
true, it has just been attempted to establish special proofs in a
report on the collections of natural history brought from Egypt by
the citizen Geoffroy."

Quotes three paragraphs in which the reporters (Cuvier and Geoffroy
St. Hilaire) say that the mummied animals of Thebes and Memphis are
perfectly similar to those of to-day. Then he goes on to say:

"I have seen them, these animals, and I believe in the conformity of
their resemblance with the individuals of the same species which
live to-day. Thus the animals which the Egyptians worshipped and
embalmed two or three thousand years ago are still in every respect
similar to those which actually live in that country.

"But it would be assuredly very singular that this should be
otherwise; for the position of Egypt and its climate are still or
very nearly the same as at former times. Therefore the animals which
live there have not been compelled to change their habits.

"There is, then, nothing in the observation which has just been
reported which should be contrary to the considerations which I
have expressed on this subject; and which especially proves that the
animals of which it treats have existed during the whole period of
nature. It only proves that they have existed for two or three
thousand years; and every one who is accustomed to reflect, and at
the same time to observe that which nature shows us of the monuments
of its antiquity, readily appreciates the value of a duration of two
or three thousand years in comparison with it.

"Hence, as I have elsewhere said, it is sure that this appearance of
the stability of things in nature will always be mistaken by the
average of mankind for the reality; because in general people only
judge of everything relatively to themselves.

"For the man who observes, and who in this respect only judges from
the changes which he himself perceives, the intervals of these
changes are _stationary conditions_ (_etats_) which should appear to
be limitless, because of the brevity of life of the individuals of
his species. Thus, as the records of his observations and the notes
of facts which he has consigned to his registers only extend and
mount up to several thousands of years (three to five thousand
years), which is an infinitely small period of time relatively to
those which have sufficed to bring about the great changes which the
surface of the globe has undergone, everything seems _stable_ to him
in the planet which he inhabits, and he is inclined to reject the
monuments heaped up around him or buried in the earth which he
treads under his feet, and which surrounds him on all sides.[174]

* * * * *

"It seems to me [as mistaken as] to expect some small creatures
which only live a year, which inhabit some corner of a building,
and which we may suppose are occupied with consulting among
themselves as to the tradition, to pronounce on the duration of the
edifice where they occur: and that going back in their paltry
history to the twenty-fifth generation, they should unanimously
decide that the building which serves to shelter them is eternal, or
at least that it has always existed; because it has always appeared
the same to them; and since they have never heard it said that it
had a beginning. Great things (_grandeurs_) in extent and in
duration are relative.[175]

"When man wishes to clearly represent this truth he will be reserved
in his decisions in regard to stability, which he attributes in
nature to the state of things which he observes there.[176]

"To admit the insensible change of species, and the modifications
which individuals undergo as they are gradually forced to vary their
habits or to contract new ones, we are not reduced to the unique
consideration of too small spaces of time which our observations can
embrace to permit us to perceive these changes; for, besides this
induction, a quantity of facts collected for many years throws
sufficient light on the question that I examine, so that does not
remain undecided; and I can say now that our sciences of observation
are too advanced not to have the solution sought for made evident.

"Indeed, besides what we know of the influences and the results of
heteroclite fecundations, we know positively to-day that a forced
and long-sustained change, both in the habits and mode of life of
animals, and in the situation, soil, and climate of plants, brings
about, after a sufficient time has elapsed, a very remarkable change
in the individuals which are exposed to them.

"The animal which lives a free, wandering life on plains, where it
habitually exercises itself in running swiftly; the birds whose
needs (_besoins_) require them unceasingly to traverse great spaces
in the air, finding themselves enclosed, some in the compartments of
our menageries or in our stables, and others in our cages or in our
poultry yards, are submitted there in time to striking influences,
especially after a series of regenerations under the conditions
which have made them contract new habits. The first loses in large
part its nimbleness, its agility; its body becomes stouter, its
limbs diminish in power and suppleness, and its faculties are no
longer the same. The second become clumsy; they are unable to fly,
and grow more fleshy in all parts of their bodies.

"Behold in our stout and clumsy horses, habituated to draw heavy
loads, and which constitute a special race by always being kept
together--behold, I say, the difference in their form compared with
those of English horses, which are all slender, with long necks,
because for a long period they have been trained to run swiftly:
behold in them the influence of a difference of habit, and judge for
yourselves. You find them, then, such as they are in some degree in
nature. You find there our cock and our hen in the condition we have
[made] them, as also the mixed races that we have formed by mixed
breeding between the varieties produced in different countries, or
where they were so in the state of domesticity. You find there
likewise our different races of domestic pigeons, our different
dogs, etc. What are our cultivated fruits, our wheat, our cabbage,
our lettuce, etc., etc., if they are not the result of changes which
we ourselves have effected in these plants, in changing by our
culture the conditions of their situation? Are they now found in
this condition in nature? To these incontestable facts add the
considerations which I have discussed in my _Recherches sur les
Corps vivans_ (p. 56 _et suiv._), and decide for yourselves.

"Thus, among living bodies, nature, as I have already said, offers
only in an absolute way individuals which succeed each other
genetically, and which descend one from the other. So the _species_
among them are only relative, and only temporary.

"Nevertheless, to facilitate the study and the knowledge of so many
different bodies it is useful to give the name of _species_ to the
entire collection of individuals which are alike, which reproduction
perpetuates in the same condition as long as the conditions of their
situation do not change enough to make their habits, their
character, and their form vary.

"Such is, citizens, the exact sketch of that which goes on in nature
since she has existed, and of that which the observation of her acts
has alone enabled us to discover. I have fulfilled my object if, in
presenting to you the results of my researches and of my experience,
I have been able to disclose to you that which in your studies of
this kind deserves your special attention.

"You now doubtless conceive how important are the considerations
which I have just exposed to you, and how wrong you would be if, in
devoting yourself to the study of animals or of plants, you should
seek to see among them only the multiplied distinctions that we have
been obliged to establish; in a word, if you should confine
yourselves to fixing in your memory the variable and indefinite
nomenclature which is applied to so many different bodies, instead
of studying Nature herself--her course, her means, and the constant
results that she knows how to attain."

On the next fly page are the following words: _Esquisse d'une
Philosophie zoologique_.


IV. _Lamarck's Views as published in 1806._[177]

"Those who have observed much and have consulted the great
collections, have been able to convince themselves that as gradually
as the circumstances of their habitat, of exposure to their
surroundings, of climate, food, mode of living, etc., have changed,
the characters of size, form, of proportion between the parts, of
color, of consistence, of duration, of agility, and of industry have
proportionately changed.

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