Joseph Addison and Others - "The De Coverley Papers"

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Sebastian Brandt - "The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 2"

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Editorial
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




"Other dangers in our climate to which are continually exposed the
deer, the roebuck, the fallow-deer, of perishing from the chase made
by man, have reduced them to the same necessity, restrained them to
similar habits, and have given rise to the same results.

"The ruminating animals only using their legs as supports, and not
having strong jaws, which are only exercised in cutting and browsing
on grass, can only fight by striking with the head, by directing
against each other the _vertex_ of this part.

"In their moments of anger, which are frequent, especially among the
males, their internal feelings, by their efforts, more strongly urge
the fluids toward this part of their head, and it there secretes the
corneous matter in some, and osseous matter mixed with corneous
matter in others, which gives origin to solid protuberances; hence
the origin of horns and antlers, with which most of these animals
have the head armed.

"As regards habits, it is curious to observe the results in the
special form and height of the giraffe (_camelopardalis_); we know
that this animal, the tallest of mammals, inhabits the interior of
Africa, and that it lives in localities where the earth, almost
always arid and destitute of herbage, obliges it to browse on the
foliage of trees, and to make continual efforts to reach it. It has
resulted from this habit, maintained for a long period in all the
individuals of its race, that its forelegs have become longer than
the hinder ones, and that its neck is so elongated that the
giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, raises its head and
reaches six meters in height (almost twenty feet).

"Among the birds, the ostriches, deprived of the power of flight,
and raised on very long legs, probably owe their singular
conformation to analogous circumstances.

"The result of habits is as remarkable in the carnivorous mammals as
it is in the herbivorous, but it presents effects of another kind.

"Indeed, those of these mammals which are habituated, as their race,
both to climb as well as to scratch or dig in the ground, or to tear
open and kill other animals for food, have been obliged to use the
digits of their feet; moreover, this habit has favored the
separation of their digits, and has formed the claws with which they
are armed.

"But among the carnivores there are some which are obliged to run in
order to overtake their prey; moreover, since these need and
consequently have the habit of daily tearing with their claws and
burying them deeply in the body of another animal, to seize and then
to tear the flesh, and have been enabled by their repeated efforts
to procure for these claws a size and curvature which would greatly
interfere in walking or running on stony soil, it has resulted in
this case that the animal has been obliged to make other efforts to
draw back these too salient and curved claws which would impede it,
and hence there has resulted the gradual formation of those special
sheaths in which the cats, tigers, lions, etc., withdraw their claws
when not in action.

"Thus the efforts in any direction whatever, maintained for a long
time or made habitually by certain parts of a living body to satisfy
necessities called out by nature or by circumstances, develop these
parts and make them acquire dimensions and a shape which they never
would have attained if these efforts had not become the habitual
action of the animals which have exercised them. The observations
made on all the animals known will everywhere furnish examples.

"Can any of them be more striking than that which the _kangaroo_
offers us? This animal, which carries its young in its abdominal
pouch, has adopted the habit of holding itself erect, standing only
on its hind feet and tail, and only changing its position by a
series of leaps, in which it preserves its erect attitude so as not
to injure its young.

"Let us see the result:

"1. Its fore legs, of which it makes little use, and on which it
rests only during the instant when it leaves its erect attitude,
have never reached a development proportionate to that of the other
parts, and have remained thin, very small, and weak;

"2. The hind legs, almost continually in action, both for supporting
the body and for leaping, have, on the contrary, obtained a
considerable development, and have become very large and strong;

"3. Finally, the tail, which we see is of much use in supporting the
animal and in the performance of its principal movements, has
acquired at its base a thickness and a strength extremely
remarkable.

"These well-known facts are assuredly well calculated to prove what
results from the habitual use in the animals of any organ or part;
and if, when there is observed in an animal an organ especially well
developed, strong, and powerful, it is supposed that its habitual
use has not produced it, that its continual disuse will make it lose
nothing, and, finally, that this organ has always been such since
the creation of the species to which this animal belongs, I will ask
why our domestic ducks cannot fly like wild ducks--in a word, I
might cite a multitude of examples which prove the differences in us
resulting from the exercise or lack of use of such of our organs,
although these differences might not be maintained in the
individuals which follow them genetically, for then their products
would be still more considerable.

"I shall prove, in the second part, that when the will urges an
animal to any action, the organs which should execute this action
are immediately provoked by the affluence of subtile fluids (the
nervous fluid), which then become the determining cause which calls
for the action in question. A multitude of observations prove this
fact, which is now indisputable.

"It results that the multiplied repetitions of these acts of
organization strengthen, extend, develop, and even create the organs
which are necessary. It is only necessary attentively to observe
that which is everywhere occurring to convince ourselves of the
well-grounded basis of this cause of organic developments and
changes.

"Moreover, every change acquired in an organ by a habit of use
sufficient to have produced it is then preserved by heredity
(_generation_) if it is common to the individuals which, in
fecundation, unite in the reproduction of their species. Finally,
this change is propagated, and thus is transmitted to all the
individuals which succeed and which are submitted to the same
circumstances, unless they have been obliged to acquire it by the
means which have in reality created it.

"Besides, in reproductive unions the crossings between the
individuals which have different qualities or forms are necessarily
opposed to the continuous propagation of these qualities and these
forms. We see that in man, who is exposed to so many diverse
circumstances which exert an influence on him, the qualities or the
accidental defects which he has been in the way of acquiring, are
thus prevented from being preserved and propagated by generation.
If, when some particular features of form or any defects are
acquired, two individuals under this condition should always pair,
they would reproduce the same features, and the successive
generations being confined to such unions, a special and distinct
race would then be formed. But perpetual unions between individuals
which do not have the same peculiarities of form would cause all the
characteristics acquired by special circumstances to disappear.

"From this we can feel sure that if distances of habitation did not
separate men the intermixture by generation would cause the general
characteristics which distinguish the different nations to
disappear.

"If I should choose to pass in review all the classes, all the
orders, all the genera, and all the species of animals which exist,
I should show that the structure of individuals and their parts,
their organs, their faculties, etc., etc., are in all cases the sole
result of the circumstances in which each species is found to be
subjected by nature and by the habits which the individuals which
compose it have been obliged to contract, and which are only the
product of a power primitively existing, which has forced the
animals into their well-known habits.

"We know that the animal called the _ai_, or the sloth (_Bradypus
tridactylus_), is throughout life in a condition so very feeble that
it is very slow and limited in its movements, and that it walks on
the ground with much difficulty. Its movements are so slow that it
is thought that it cannot walk more than fifty steps in a day. It is
also known that the structure of this animal is in direct relation
with its feeble state or its inaptitude for walking; and that should
it desire to make any other movements than those which it is seen to
make, it could not do it.

"Therefore, supposing that this animal had received from nature its
well-known organization, it is said that this organization has
forced it to adopt the habits and the miserable condition it is in.

"I am far from thinking so; because I am convinced that the habits
which the individuals of the race of the _ai_ were originally
compelled to contract have necessarily brought their organization
into its actual state.

"Since continual exposure to dangers has at some time compelled the
individuals of this species to take refuge in trees and to live in
them permanently, and then feed on their leaves, it is evident that
then they would give up making a multitude of movements that animals
which live on the ground perform.

"All the needs of the _ai_ would then be reduced to seizing hold of
the branches, to creeping along them or to drawing them in so as to
reach the leaves, and then to remain on the tree in a kind of
inaction, so as to prevent falling. Besides, this kind of
sluggishness would be steadily provoked by the heat of the climate;
for in warm-blooded animals the heat urges them rather to repose
than to activity.

"Moreover, during a long period of time the individuals of the race
of the _ai_ having preserved the habit of clinging to trees and of
making only slow and slightly varied movements, just sufficient for
their needs, their organization has gradually become adapted to
their new habits, and from this it will result:

"1. That the arms of these animals making continual efforts readily
to embrace the branches of trees, would become elongated;

"2. That the nails of their digits would acquire much length and a
hooked shape, by the continued efforts of the animal to retain its
hold;

"3. That their digits never having been trained to make special
movements, would lose all mobility among themselves, would become
united, and would only preserve the power of bending or of
straightening out all together;

"4. That their thighs, continually embracing both the trunks and the
larger branches of trees, would contract a condition of habitual
separation which would tend to widen the pelvis and to cause the
cotyloid cavities to be directed backward;

"5. Finally, that a great number of their bones would become fused,
and hence several parts of their skeleton would assume an
arrangement and a figure conformed to the habits of these animals,
and contrary to what would be necessary for them to have for other
habits.

"Indeed, this can never be denied, because, in fact, nature on a
thousand other occasions shows us, in the power exercised by
circumstances on habits, and in that of the influence of habits on
forms, dispositions, and the proportion of the parts of animals,
truly analogous facts.

"A great number of citations being unnecessary, we now see to what
the case under discussion is reduced.

"The fact is that divers animals have each, according to their genus
and their species, special habits, and in all cases an organization
which is perfectly adapted to these habits.

"From the consideration of this fact, it appears that we should be
free to admit either one or the other of the following conclusions,
and that only one of them is susceptible of proof.

"_Conclusion admitted up to this day_: Nature (or its Author), in
creating the animals, has foreseen all the possible kinds of
circumstances in which they should live, and has given to each
species an unchanging organization, as also a form determinate and
invariable in its different parts, which compels each species to
live in the places and in the climate where we find it, and has
there preserved its known habits.

"_My own conclusion_: Nature, in producing in succession every
species of animal, and beginning with the least perfect or the
simplest to end her work with the most perfect, has gradually
complicated their structure; and these animals spreading generally
throughout all the inhabitable regions of the globe, each species
has received, through the influence of circumstances to which it has
been exposed, the habits which we have observed, and the
modifications in its organs which observation has shown us it
possesses.

"The first of these two conclusions is that believed up to the
present day--namely, that held by nearly every one; it implies, in
each animal, an unchanging organization and parts which have never
varied, and which will never vary; it implies also that the
circumstances of the places which each species of animal inhabits
will never vary in these localities; for should they vary, the same
animals could not live there, and the possibility of discovering
similar forms elsewhere, and of transporting them there, would be
forbidden.

"The second conclusion is my own: it implies that, owing to the
influence of circumstances on habits, and as the result of that of
habits on the condition of the parts and even on that of the
organization, each animal may receive in its parts and its
organization, modifications susceptible of becoming very
considerable, and of giving rise to the condition in which we find
all animals.

"To maintain that this second conclusion is unfounded, it is
necessary at first to prove that each point of the surface of the
globe never varies in its nature, its aspect, its situation whether
elevated or depressed, its climate, etc., etc.; and likewise to
prove that any part of animals does not undergo, even at the end of
a long period, any modification by changes of circumstances, and by
the necessity which directs them to another kind of life and action
than that which is habitual to them.

"Moreover, if a single fact shows that an animal for a long time
under domestication differs from the wild form from which it has
descended, and if in such a species in domesticity we find a great
difference in conformation between the individuals submitted to
such habits and those restricted to different habits, then it will
be certain that the first conclusion does not conform to the laws of
nature, and that, on the contrary, the second is perfectly in accord
with them.

"Everything combines then to prove my assertion--namely, that it is
not the form, either of the body or of its parts, which gives rise
to habits, and to the mode of life among animals; but that it is on
the contrary the habits, the manner of living, and all the other
influencing circumstances which have, after a time, constituted the
form of the body and of the parts of animals. With the new forms,
new faculties have been acquired, and gradually nature has come to
form the animals as we actually see them.

"Can there be in natural history a consideration more important, and
to which we should give more attention, than that which I have just
stated?

"We will end this first part with the principles and the exposition
of the natural classification of animals."

In the fourth chapter of the third part (vol. ii. pp. 276-301) Lamarck
treats of the internal feelings of certain animals, which provoke wants
(_besoins_). This is the subject which has elicited so much adverse
criticism and ridicule, and has in many cases led to the wholesale
rejection of all of Lamarck's views. It is generally assumed or stated
by Lamarck's critics, who evidently did not read his book carefully,
that while he claimed that the plants were evolved by the direct action
of the physical factors, that in the case of all the animals the process
was indirect. But this is not correct. He evidently, as we shall see,
places the lowest animals, those without (or what he supposed to be
without) a nervous system, in the same category as the plants. He
distinctly states at the outset that only certain animals and man are
endowed with this singular faculty, "which consists in being able to
experience _internal emotions_ which provoke the wants and different
external or internal causes, and which give birth to the power which
enables them to perform different actions."

"The nervous fluid," he says, "can, then, undergo movements in certain
parts of its mass, as well as in every part at once; moreover, it is
these latter movements which constitute the _general movements_
(_ebranlements_) of this fluid, and which we now proceed to consider.

"The general movements of the nervous fluid are of two kinds;
namely,

"1. Partial movements (_ebranlements_), which finally become general
and end in a reaction. It is the movements of this sort which
produce feeling. We have treated of them in the third chapter.

"2. The movements which are general from the time they begin, and
which form no reaction. It is these which constitute internal
emotions, and it is of them alone of which we shall treat.

"But previously, it is necessary to say a word regarding the
_feeling of existence_, because this feeling is the source from
which the inner emotions originate.


"_On the Feeling of Existence._

"The feeling of existence (_sentiment d'existence_), which I shall
call _inner feeling_,[183] so as to separate from it the idea of a
general condition (_generalite_) which it does not possess, since it
is not common to all living beings and not even to all animals, is
a very obscure feeling, with which are endowed those animals
provided with a nervous system sufficiently developed to give them
the faculty of feeling.

"This sentiment, very obscure as it is, is nevertheless very
powerful, for it is the source of inner emotions which test
(_eprouvent_) the individuals possessing it, and, as the result,
this singular force urges these individuals to themselves produce
the movements and the actions which their wants require. Moreover
this feeling, considered as a very active _motor_, only acts thus by
sending to the muscles which necessarily cause these movements and
actions the nervous fluid which excites them....

"Indeed, as the result of organic or vital movements which are
produced in every animal, that which possesses a nervous system
sufficiently developed has physical sensibility and continually
receives in every inner and sensitive part impressions which
continually affect it, and which it feels in general without being
able to distinguish any single one.

"The sentiment of existence [consciousness] is general, since almost
every sensitive part of the body shares in it. 'It constitutes this
_me_ (_moi_) with which all animals, which are only sensitive, are
penetrated, without perceiving it, but which those possessing a
brain are able to notice, having the power of thought and of giving
attention to it. Finally, it is in all the source of a power which
is aroused by wants, which acts effectively only by emotion, and
through which the movements and actions derive the force which
produces them'....

"Finally, the inner feeling only manifests its power, and causes
movements, when there exists a system for muscular movement, which
is always dependent on the nervous system, and cannot take place
without it."

The author then states that these emotions of the organic sense may
operate in the animals and in man either without or with an act of their
will.

"From what has been said, we cannot doubt but that the inner and
general feeling which urges the animals possessing a nervous system
fitted for feeling should be susceptible of being aroused by the
causes which affect it; moreover, these causes are always the need
both of satisfying hunger, of escaping dangers, of avoiding pain, of
seeking pleasure, or that which is agreeable to the individual, etc.

"The emotions of the inner feeling can only be recognized by man,
who alone pays attention to them, but he only perceives those which
are strong, which excite his whole being, such as a view from a
precipice, a tragic scene, etc."

Lamarck then divides the emotions into physical and moral, the latter
arising from our ideas, thoughts--in short, our intellectual acts--in
the account of which we need not follow him.

In the succeeding chapter (V.) the author dilates on the force which
causes actions in animals. "We know," he says "that plants can satisfy
their needs without moving, since they find their food in the environing
_milieux_. But it is not the same with animals, which are obliged to
move about to procure their sustenance. Moreover, most of them have
other wants to satisfy, which require other kinds of movements and
acts." This matter is discussed in the author's often leisurely and
prolix way, with more or less repetition, which we will condense.

The lowest animals--those destitute of a nervous system--move in
response to a stimulus from without. Nature has gradually created the
different organs of animals, varying the structure and situation of
these organs according to circumstances, and has progressively improved
their powers. She has begun by borrowing from without, so to speak--from
the environment--the _productive force_, both of organic movements and
those of the external parts. "She has thus transported this force [the
result of heat, electricity, and perhaps others (p. 307)] into the
animal itself, and, finally, in the most perfect animals she has placed
a great part of this force at their disposal, as I will soon show."

This force incessantly introduced into the lowest animals sets in motion
the visible fluids of the body and excites the irritability of their
contained parts, giving rise to different contractile movements which we
observe; hence the appearance of an irresistible propensity (_penchant_)
which constrains them to execute those movements which by their
continuity or their repetition give rise to habits.

The most imperfect animals, such as the _Infusoria_, especially the
monads, are nourished by absorption and by "an internal inhibition of
absorbed matters." "They have," he says, "no power of seeking their
food, they have not even the power of recognizing it, but they absorb it
because it comes in contact with every side of them (_avec tous les
points de leur individu_), and because the water in which they live
furnishes it to them in sufficient abundance."

"These frail animals, in which the subtile fluids of the environing
_milieux_ constitute the stimulating cause of the orgasm, of
irritability and of organic movements, execute, as I have said,
contractile movements which, provoked and varied without ceasing by this
stimulating cause, facilitate and hasten the absorptions of which I have
just spoken." ...


_On the Transportation of the force-producing Movements in the Interior
of Animals._

"If nature were confined to the employment of its first
means--namely, of a force entirely external and foreign to the
animal--its work would have remained very important; the animals
would have remained machines totally passive, and she would never
have given origin in any of these living beings to the admirable
phenomena of sensibility, of inmost feelings of existence which
result therefrom, of the power of action, finally, of ideas, by
which she can create the most wonderful of all, that of thought--in
a word, intelligence.

"But, wishing to attain these grand results, she has by slow degrees
prepared the means, in gradually giving consistence to the internal
parts of animals; in differentiating the organs, and in multiplying
and farther forming the fluids contained, etc., after which she has
transported into the interior of these animals that force productive
of movements and of actions which in truth it would not dominate at
first, but which she has come to place, in great part, at their
disposition when their organization should become very much more
perfect.

"Indeed, from the time that the animal organization had sufficiently
advanced in its structure to possess a nervous system--even slightly
developed, as in insects--the animals provided with this
organization were endowed with an intimate sense of their existence,
and from that time the force productive of movements was conveyed
into the very interior of the animal.

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