One aspect of Darwin’s thirteenth chapter that we did not get to discuss at length today is the distinction Darwin makes between what cannot be known and what is hidden. In particular, I am struck by the declaration Darwin makes on page 368 and 369, that “community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking,” rather than “some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike.” This distinction between the unknown and the hidden is one which Darwin’s approaches more subtly than some of his other statements within this chapter. However, in pursuing this line of argument, Darwin is establishing a compelling counter-argument to those naturalists who “think that something more is meant by the Natural System [and who] believe that it reveals the plan of the creator” (363). This “ordinary view” can provide us no real answers, for we cannot know a higher (perhaps divine) plan of creation. Darwin agrees with these naturalists that “something more is included in our classification, than mere resemblances,” however, this something more is not an unknown (and unknowable) plan of creation, but rather the propinquity of descent, “the bond—hidden as it is by the various degrees of modification” but which is “partially revealed to us by our classifications” (368).
If we read Darwin’s language closely, keeping in our minds his distinction between what cannot be known and what is merely hidden, the dynamic of seeing and knowing takes a place at the forefront of Darwin’s distinction between the ordinary view of some naturalists in approaching classification and Darwin’s view (albeit the correct view) that classification is based on the principle of modification by distinction. To Darwin, this “hidden bond of connexion which naturalists have sought under the term of the Natural System” is, by degrees of discovery, classification, and re-classification, slowly fleshing out “how the several members of each class are connected together by the most complex and radiating lines of affinities” (379-80). This complexity becomes apparent from a close comparison of species, classes, varieties, etc. and only further supports the theory, his theory, that all living things have “descended from one ancient but unseen parent, and consequently have inherited something in common” (362).
It is clear from the language which Darwin employs that he believes that some naturalists, especially those who strive to use and define the natural system as evidence of a plan of creation, have been caught in this inextricable web of affinities. They seek answers from the natural system that will, by their nature, remain unknown because of their inability to be known. He states, “We shall never, probably, disentangle the inextricable web of affinities between the members of any one class; but when we have a distinct object in view, and do not look to some unknown plan of creation, we may hope to make sure but slow progress” (380). The “distinct object in view” is to define and refine classifications through the lens of the natural system as a community of descent. Only through this approach can we explain the baffling and astonishing characteristics of the natural world, for Darwin remarks, “Nothing can be plainer than that wings are formed for flight, yet in how many insects do we see wings so reduced in size as to be utterly incapable of flight, and not rarely lying under wing-cases, firmly soldered together!” (394).
Employing a few of Darwin’s favorite words—some of the most beautiful and wonderful examples of the hidden nature of life, connected by chains of affinities, is the embryo, the smallest and earliest form of life. We look at the embryo and it is remarkably simple, yet it “reveals the structure of its progenitor…[and] It will reveal this community of descent, however much the structure of the adult may have been modified and obscured” (393). The infinite modifications which species have undergone and the assurance that species will forever be in a state of change and modification, only obscures the origins of an ancient shared progenitor. What is remarkable about Darwin’s argument, and the language he employs in chapter thirteen in particular, is that life is both infinitely simple and infinitely complex. He admits the web of life is inextricable, and that naturalists will in all probability be unable to ever completely define all the relationships and connections between the many species on this planet. However, in looking at the embryo, we are struck by common characteristics of all species, extinct, now living, or not yet born. This simple relationship lays at our feet, and it is through the pursuit of now hidden bonds that we can come to understand the origins of species.
--Steph
What is really at stake in this chapter, in my opinion, is the nature of knowledge. Agassiz hovers in the background here--his confidence that the world can be completely known, that it's possible to untangle the web, not because there's something hidden behind it, but because we have not learned to read properly what we see. Darwin, by contrast, positions himself as someone who knows both more and less than naturalists like Agassiz: he does not have all the data, but the does know the narrative that can make sense of infinite sets of data, both those he knows now and others he will know in the future.
ReplyDelete