William Shakespeare - "Leben und Tod Koenigs Richard des zweyten"

Edwin L. Sabin - "Pluck on the Long Trail"

W. D. Howells - "Annie Kilburn"

Jean Baptiste Poquelin [AKA Moliere] - "L'Avare"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
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




In the sixth chapter the author treats of the degradation and
simplification of the structure from one end to the other of the animal
series, proceeding, as he says, inversely to the general order of
nature, from the compound to the more simple. Why he thus works out this
idea of a general degradation is not very apparent, since it is out of
tune with his views, so often elsewhere expressed, of a progressive
evolution from the simple to the complex, and to his own classification
of the animal kingdom, beginning as it does with the simplest forms and
ending with man. Perhaps, however, he temporarily adopts the prevailing
method of beginning with the highest forms in order to bring out
clearly the successive steps in inferiority or degradation presented in
descending the animal scale.

We will glean some passages of this chapter which bear on his theory of
descent. Speaking of the different kinds of aquatic surroundings he
remarks:

"In the first place it should be observed that in the waters
themselves she [Nature] presents considerably diversified
circumstances; the fresh waters, marine waters, calm or stagnant
waters, running waters or streams, the waters of warm climates,
those of cold regions, finally those which are shallow and those
which are very deep, offer many special circumstances, each of which
acts differently on the animals living in them. Now, in a degree
equal to the make-up of the organization, the races of animals which
are exposed to either of these circumstances have been submitted to
special influences and have been diversified by them."

He then, after referring to the general degradation of the Batrachians,
touches upon the atrophy of legs which has taken place in the snakes:

"If we should consider as a result of _degradation_ the loss of legs
seen in the snakes, the _Ophidia_ should be regarded as constituting
the lowest order of reptiles; but it would be an error to admit this
consideration. Indeed, the serpents being animals which, in order to
hide themselves, have adopted the habit of gliding directly along
the ground, their body has lengthened very considerably and
disproportionately to its thickness. Now, elongated legs proving
disadvantageous to their necessity of gliding and hiding, very short
legs, being only four in number, since they are vertebrate animals,
would be incapable of moving their bodies. Thus the habits of these
animals have been the cause of the disappearance of their legs, and
yet the _batrachians_, which have them, offer a more degraded
organization, and are nearer the fishes" (p. 155).

Referring on the next page to the fishes, he remarks:--

"Without doubt their general form, their lack of a constriction
between the head and the body to form a neck, and the different fins
which support them in place of legs, are the results of the
influence of the dense medium which they inhabit, and not that of
the _degradation_ of their organization. But this modification
(_degradation_) is not less real and very great, as we can convince
ourselves by examining their internal organs; it is such as to
compel us to assign to the fishes a rank lower than that of the
reptiles."

He then states that the series from the lamprey and fishes to the
mammals is not a regularly gradated one, and accounts for this "because
the work of nature has been often changed, hindered, and diverted in
direction by the influences which singularly different, even contrasted,
circumstances have exercised on the animals which are there found
exposed in the course of a long series of their renewed generations."

Lamarck thus accounts for the production of the radial symmetry of the
medusae and echinoderms, his _Radiaires_. At the present day this
symmetry is attributed perhaps more correctly to their more or less
fixed mode of life.

"It is without doubt by the result of this means which nature
employs, at first with a feeble energy with _polyps_, and then with
greater developments in the _Radiata_, that the radial form has been
acquired; because the subtile ambient fluids, penetrating by the
alimentary canal, and being expansive, have been able, by an
incessantly renewed repulsion from the centre towards every point of
the circumference, to give rise to this radiated arrangement of
parts.

"It is by this cause that, in the Radiata, the intestinal canal,
although still very imperfect, since more often it has only a single
opening, is yet complicated with numerous radiating vasculiform,
often ramified, appendages.

"It is, doubtless, also by this cause that in the soft Radiates, as
the medusae, etc., we observe a constant isochronic movement,
movement very probably resulting from the successive intermissions
between the masses of subtile fluids which penetrate into the
interior of these animals and those of the same fluids which escape
from it, often being spread throughout all their parts.

"We cannot say that the isochronic movements of the soft Radiates
are the result of their respiration; for below the vertebrate
animals nature does not offer, in that of any animal, these
alternate and measured movements of inspiration and expiration.
Whatever may be the respiration of Radiates, it is extremely slow,
and is executed without perceptible movements" (p. 200).


_The Influence of Circumstances on the Actions and Habits of Animals._

It is in Chapter VII. that the views of Lamarck are more fully presented
than elsewhere, and we therefore translate all of it as literally as
possible, so as to preserve the exact sense of the author.

"We do not here have to do with a line of argument, but with the
examination of a positive fact, which is more general than is
supposed, and which has not received the attention it deserves,
doubtless because, very often, it is quite difficult to discover.
This fact consists in the influence which circumstances exert on the
different organisms subjected to them.

"In truth, for a long time there has been noticed the influence of
different states of our organization on our character, our
propensities (_penchants_), our actions, and even our ideas; but it
seems to me that no one has yet recognized that of our actions and
of our habits on our organization itself. Now, as these actions and
these habits entirely depend on the circumstances in which we
habitually find ourselves, I shall try to show how great is the
influence which these circumstances exercise on the general form, on
the condition of the parts, and even on the organization of living
bodies. It is therefore this very positive fact which is to be the
subject of this chapter.

"If we have not had numerous occasions to plainly recognize the
effects of this influence on certain organisms which we have
transported under entirely new and different circumstances, and if
we had not seen these effects and the changes resulting from them
produced, in a way, under our very eyes, the important fact in
question would have always remained unknown.

"The influence of circumstances is really continuously and
everywhere active on living beings, but what renders it difficult
for us to appreciate this influence is that its effects only become
sensible or recognizable (especially in the animals) at the end of a
long period.

"Before stating and examining the proofs of this fact, which
deserves our attention, and which is very important for a zooelogical
philosophy, let us resume the thread of the considerations we had
begun to discuss.

"In the preceding paragraph we have seen that it is now an
incontrovertible fact that, in considering the animal scale in a
sense the inverse of that of nature, we find that there exists in
the groups composing this scale a continuous but irregular
modification (_degradation_) in the organization of animals which
they comprise, an increasing simplification in the organization of
these organisms; finally, a proportionate diminution in the number
of faculties of these beings.

"This fact once recognized may throw the greatest light on the very
order which nature has followed in the production of all the
existing animals; but it does not show why the structure of animals
in its increasing complexity from the more imperfect up to the most
perfect offers only an irregular gradation, whose extent presents a
number of anomalies or digressions which have no appearance of order
in their diversity.

"Now, in seeking for the reason of this singular irregularity in the
increasing complexity of organization of animals, if we should
consider the outcome of the influences that the infinitely
diversified circumstances in all parts of the globe exercise on the
general form, the parts, and the very organization of these animals,
everything will be clearly explained.

"It will, indeed, be evident that the condition in which we find all
animals is, on one side, the result of the increasing complexity of
the organization which tends to form a regular gradation, and, on
the other, that it is that of the influences of a multitude of very
different circumstances which continually tend to destroy the
regularity in the gradations of the increasing complexity of the
organization.

"Here it becomes necessary for me to explain the meaning I attach to
the expression _circumstances influencing the form and structure of
animals_--namely, that in becoming very different they change, with
time, both their form and organization by proportionate
modifications.

"Assuredly, if these expressions should be taken literally, I should
be accused of an error; for whatever may be the circumstances, they
do not directly cause any modification in the form and structure of
animals.

"But the great changes in the circumstances bring about in animals
great changes in their needs, and such changes in their needs
necessarily cause changes in their actions. Now, if the new needs
become constant or very permanent, the animals then assume new
_habits_, which are as durable as the needs which gave origin to
them. We see that this is easily demonstrated and even does not need
any explanation to make it clearer.

"It is then evident that a great change in circumstances having
become constant in a race of animals leads these animals into new
habits.

"Now, if new circumstances, having become permanent in a race of
animals, have given to these animals new _habits_--that is to say,
have led them to perform new actions which have become
habitual--there will from this result the use of such a part by
preference to that of another, and in certain cases the total lack
of use of any part which has become useless.

"Nothing of all this should be considered as a hypothesis or as a
mere peculiar opinion; they are, on the contrary, truths which
require, in order to be made evident, only attention to and the
observation of facts.

"We shall see presently by the citation of known facts which prove
it, on one side that the new wants, having rendered such a part
necessary, have really by the result of efforts given origin to this
part, and that as the result of its sustained use it has gradually
strengthened it, developed, and has ended in considerably increasing
its size; on the other side we shall see that, in certain cases, the
new circumstances and new wants having rendered such a part wholly
useless, the total lack of use of this part has led to the result
that it has gradually ceased to receive the development which the
other parts of the animal obtain; that it gradually becomes
emaciated and thin; and that finally, when this lack of use has been
total during a long time, the part in question ends in disappearing.
All this is a positive fact; I propose to give the most convincing
proofs.

"In the plants, where there are no movements, and, consequently, no
habits properly so called, great changes in circumstances do not
bring about less great differences in the development of their
parts; so that these differences originate and develop certain of
them, while they reduce and cause several others to disappear. But
here everything operates by the changes occurring in the nutrition
of the plant, in its absorptions and transpirations, in the amount
of heat, light, air, and humidity which it habitually receives;
finally, in the superiority that certain of the different vital
movements may assume over others.

"Between individuals of the same species, some of which are
constantly well nourished, and in circumstances favorable to their
entire development, while the others live under reversed
circumstances, there is brought about a difference in the condition
of these individuals which gradually becomes very remarkable. How
many examples could I not cite regarding animals and plants, which
would confirm the grounds for this view! Now, if the circumstances
remain the same, rendering habitual and constant the condition of
individuals badly fed, diseased, or languishing, their internal
organization becomes finally modified, and reproduction between the
individuals in question preserves the acquired modifications, and
ends in giving rise to a race very distinct from that of the
individuals which unceasingly meet with circumstances favorable to
their development.

"A very dry spring-time is the cause of the grass of a field growing
very slowly, remaining scraggy and puny, flowering and fruiting
without growing much.

"A spring interspersed with warm days and rainy days makes the same
grass grow rapidly, and the harvest of hay is then excellent.

"But if any cause perpetuates the unfavorable circumstances
surrounding these plants, they vary proportionally, at first in
their appearance and general condition, and finally in several
particulars of their characters.

"For example, if some seed of any of the grasses referred to should
be carried into an elevated place, on a dry and stony greensward
much exposed to the winds, and should germinate there, the plant
which should be able to live in this place would always be badly
nourished, and the individuals reproduced there continuing to exist
under these depressing circumstances, there would result a race
truly different from that living in the field, though originating
from it. The individuals of this new race would be small, scraggy,
and some of their organs, having developed more than others, would
then offer special proportions.

"Those who have observed much, and who have consulted the great
collections, have become convinced that in proportion as the
circumstances of habitat, exposure, climate, food, mode of life,
etc., come to change, the characters of size, form, proportion
between the parts, color, consistence, agility, and industry in the
animals change proportionally.

"What nature accomplishes after a long time, we bring about every
day by suddenly changing, in the case of a living plant, the
circumstances under which it and all the individuals of its species
exist.

"All botanists know that the plants which they transplant from their
birthplace into gardens for cultivation gradually undergo changes
which at last render them unrecognizable. Many plants naturally
very hairy then become glabrous, or almost so; many of those which
were creeping and trailing, then become erect; others lose their
spines or their prickles; others still, from the woody and perennial
condition which their stem possesses in a warm climate, pass, in our
climate, into an herbaceous condition, and among these several are
nothing more than annual plants; finally, the dimensions of their
parts themselves undergo very considerable changes. These effects of
changes of circumstances are so well known that botanists prefer not
to describe garden plants, at least only those which have been newly
cultivated.

"Is not cultivated wheat (_Triticum sativum_) only a plant brought
by man into the condition in which we actually see it? Who can tell
me in what country such a plant lives in a state of nature--that is
to say, without being there the result of its culture in some
neighboring region?

"Where occur in nature our cabbage, lettuce, etc., in the condition
in which we see them in our kitchen-gardens? Is it not the same as
regards a number of animals which domestication has changed or
considerably modified?

"What very different races among our fowls and domestic pigeons,
which we have obtained by raising them in different circumstances
and in different countries, and how vainly do we now endeavor to
rediscover them in nature!

"Those which are the least changed, without doubt by a more recent
process of domestication, and because they do not live in a climate
which is foreign to them, do not the less possess, in the condition
of some of their parts, great differences produced by the habits
which we have made them contract. Thus our ducks and our domestic
geese trace back their type to the wild ducks and geese; but ours
have lost the power of rising into the high regions of the air, and
of flying over extensive regions; finally, a decided change has
been wrought in the state of their parts compared with that of
animals of the race from which they have descended.

"Who does not know that such a native bird, which we raise in a cage
and which lives there five or six years in succession, and after
that replaced in nature--namely, set free--is then unable to fly
like its fellows which have always been free? The slight change of
circumstance operating on this individual has only diminished its
power of flight, and doubtless has not produced any change in the
shape of its parts. But if a numerous series of generations of
individuals of the same race should have been kept in captivity for
a considerable time, there is no doubt but that even the form of the
parts of these individuals would gradually undergo notable changes.
For a much stronger reason, if, instead of a simple captivity
constantly maintained over them, this circumstance had been at the
same time accompanied by a change to a very different climate, and
if these individuals by degrees had been habituated to other kinds
of food, and to other kinds of movements to obtain it; certainly
these circumstances, united and becoming constant, would insensibly
form a new and special race.

"Where do we find, in nature, this multitude of races of _dogs_,
which, as the result of domesticity to which we have reduced these
animals, have been brought into their present condition? Where do we
find these bull-dogs, greyhounds, water spaniels, spaniels,
pug-dogs, etc., etc., races which present among themselves much
greater differences than those which we admit to be specific in wild
animals of the same genus?

"Without doubt, a primitive single race, very near the wolf, if it
is not itself the true type, has been submitted by man, at some
period, to the process of domestication. This race, which then
offered no difference between its individuals, has been gradually
dispersed by man into different countries, with different climates;
and after a time these same individuals, having undergone the
influences of their habitats, and of the different habits they were
obliged to contract in each country, have undergone remarkable
changes, and have formed different special races. Now, the man who,
for commercial reasons or from interests of any other kind, travels
a very great distance, having carried into a densely populated
place, as for example a great capital, different races of dogs
originated in some very distant country, then the increase of these
races by heredity (_generation_) has given rise successively to all
those we now know.

"The following fact proves, as regards plants, how a change in any
important circumstance leads to a change in the parts of their
organisms.

"So long as _Ranunculus aquatilis_ is submerged in the water, its
leaves are all finely incised and the divisions hair-like; but when
the stalks of this plant reach the surface of the water, the leaves
which grow out in the air are wider, rounded, and simply lobed. If
some feet from the same plant the roots succeed in pushing into a
soil only damp, without being submerged, their stalks then are
short, none of their leaves are divided into capillary divisions,
which gives rise to _Ranunculus hederaceus_, which the botanists
regard as a species whenever they meet with it.

"There is no doubt that as regards animals important changes in the
circumstances under which they are accustomed to live do not produce
alteration in their organs; for here the changes are much slower in
operating than in plants, and, consequently, are to us less marked,
and their cause less recognizable.

"As to the circumstances which have so much power in modifying the
organs of living beings, the most influential are, doubtless, the
diversity of the surroundings in which they live; but besides this
there are many others which, in addition, have a considerable
influence in the production of the effects in question.

"It is known that different localities change in nature and quality
owing to their position, their nature, and their climate, as is
easily seen in passing over different places distinguished by
special features; hence we see a cause of variation for the animals
and plants which live in these different places. But what we do not
sufficiently know, and even what we generally refuse to believe, is
that each place itself changes with time in exposure, in climate, in
nature, and quality, although with a slowness so great in relation
to our own continuance that we attribute to it a perfect stability.

"Now, in either case, these changed localities proportionally change
the circumstances relative to the organisms which inhabit them, and
the latter then give rise to other influences bearing on these same
beings.

"We perceive from this that, if there are extremes in these changes,
there are also gradations--namely, degrees which are intermediate
and which fill the interval. Consequently there are also gradations
in the differences which distinguish what we call _species_.

"It is then evident that the whole surface of the earth offers, in
the nature and situation of the matters which occupy its different
points, a diversity of circumstances which is throughout in relation
with that of the forms and parts of animals, independent of the
special diversity which necessarily results from the progress of the
composition of organization in each animal.

"In each locality where animals can live, the circumstances which
establish there an order of things remain for a long time the same,
and really change there only with a slowness so great that man
cannot directly notice them. He is obliged to consult monuments to
recognize that in each one of these places the order of things that
he discovers there has not always been the same, and to perceive
that it will change more.

"The races of animals which live in each of these places should,
then, retain their customary habits there also for a long time;
hence to us seems an apparent constancy of races which we call
_species_--constancy which has originated among us the idea that
these races are as ancient as nature.

"But in the different points of the earth's surface which can be
inhabited, nature and the situation of the places and climates
constitute there, for the animals as for the plants, _different
circumstances_ of all sorts of degrees. The animals which inhabit
these different places should then differ from each other, not only
on account of the state of nature of the organization in each race,
but, besides, by reason of the habits that the individuals of each
race there are forced to have; so, in proportion as he traverses the
larger parts of the earth's surface the observing naturalist sees
circumstances changing in a manner somewhat noticeable; he
constantly sees that the species change proportionately in their
characters.

"Now, the true order of things necessary to consider in all this
consists in recognizing:

"1. That every slight change maintained under the circumstances
where occur each race of animals, brings about in them a real change
in their wants.

"2. That every change in the wants of animals necessitates in them
other movements (_actions_) to satisfy the new needs, and
consequently other habits.

"3. That every new want necessitating new actions to satisfy it,
demands of the animal which feels it both the more frequent use of
such of its parts of which before it made less use, which develops
and considerably enlarges them, and the use of new parts which
necessity has caused to insensibly develop in it by the effects of
its inner feelings; which I shall constantly prove by known facts.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.