Darwinism as a World View
A strong group of scientists depended on philosophical metaphors in expressing their Darwinian affiliation. These scholars were not professionally conversant with the specific ramifications of evolutionary principles built into Darwinian thought. Nor were they necessarily involved in evolutionary research. They merely looked at the work of Darwin as a triumph of modern intellect and as a most sublime achievement of science as a body of knowledge, a method of thinking, and a world outlook. In this department Darwin's contributions found a great and
eloquent supporter in the famous neurophysiologist Ivan Pavlov. In "Experimental Psychology and Animal Psychopathology," a paper delivered at the Fourteenth International Congress of Medicine, held in Madrid in 1903, Pavlov professed his strict adherence to the Darwinian view of the scientific approach to the adaptation of organisms to the dynamics of environment. This approach had no use for the philosophical notion of teleology, a lure to vitalism.[106] In a speech delivered in London in 1906, Pavlov identified Thomas Huxley as an energetic supporter of the theory of evolution, the "greatest idea" in biology.[107] In a later speech he noted the profound influence of the Origin of Species on the intellectual world in general and on the scientific community in particular.[108]
Pavlov's article "Natural Science and the Brain," delivered in December 1909 at the Twelfth Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians, appeared in In Memory of Darwin (1910), a collection of essays honoring the one-hundredth anniversary of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species . The article made no specific reference either to Darwin or to the theory of evolution. But that did not make much difference: important was the fact that a widely read and discussed book made Pavlov's sentimental and philosophical allegiance to Darwinism firmly documented and generally known. Loyal to Darwinian principles, he claimed that only an experimental study of animal adaptation to the external environment can produce scientific knowledge on the elementary modes of behavior, which Pavlov identified as "higher nervous activity."
In 1913, in a paper presented at the Moscow Scientific Society, Pavlov made his assessment of Darwin's place in modern science clear and forthright:
In all justice, Charles Darwin must be given the major credit for stimulating and inspiring the modern comparative study of the higher [psychic] manifestations of animal life. In the second half of the last century, as every educated person knows, his brilliant explanation of [organic] development fertilized the entire intellectual sector of human activity, particularly the biological branch of natural science. The hypothesis of the animal origin of man has led to an absorbing interest in the study of the higher manifestations of animal life. The post-Darwinian period faces the task of finding the best way to answer this question and to organize a study of the problem.[109]
In 1916 Pavlov contributed a paper to a symposium honoring K. A. Timiriazev, the most ardent and consistent Russian Darwinist. Pavlov ended the paper by identifying Timiriazev as a "tireless champion of a
real scientific analysis in a region of biology" in which it was easy to stray along "false paths."[110] By "real scientific analysis" Pavlov could have meant only a defense of Darwin's evolutionary views, the main theme of Timiriazev's involvement in biological scholarship. Pavlov and Timiriazev were united in a firm belief that neovitalism was a metaphysical aberration in biology and that physiology, depending exclusively on the experimental method, was the backbone of biology.
Although Pavlov's expressions of a favorable attitude toward Darwin's contributions did not usually go beyond parenthetical statements, they placed the eminent neurophysiologist solidly in the camp of Darwinism, bolstering its defenses and carrying its influence to a new domain of scholarly activity. At this time the Russian anti-Darwinists found it much easier to attack the ghost of Darwin than to challenge Pavlov's firm hold on the scientific community. At a time when Darwinism was besieged from all sides, Pavlov's admiring attitude toward Darwin's philosophy contributed immensely to the strength of a vital tradition in national science.
Despite his frequent testimonials, Pavlov did little to place his own research within an evolutionary framework. He did not accept Karl von Nägeli's challenging idea that the real study of organic evolution belonged to a physiology built on the model of Newtonian mechanics. Severtsov saw organisms as morphological unities and as systems of adaptive mechanisms responding to changes in the habitat. Neither Pavlov nor any other Russian scientist undertook a systematic and comprehensive study of the physiological unity of organisms as adaptive or evolutionary mechanisms. Without mentioning Pavlov by name, Severtsov pointed out the difference between the evolutionary bent of morphology and the nonevolutionary interest of physiology:
For a given species it is irrelevant whether one of its organs has performed the same function for both ancestors and descendants. What is relevant is whether the performance of this function has become more efficient in the struggle for existence. It is exactly here that our view differs from that of physiologists: they study the functions of organs per se, we study these functions as means that help individual species in their struggle for survival. The changing organs are only the tools that help the descendants of a given living form create biologically significant active or passive adaptation mechanisms.[111]
During and immediately after World War I, Pavlov showed slight interest in linking the theory of conditioned reflexes to the Lamarckian principle of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.[112] Subsequently, he stated publicly that he was not a partisan of the theory of the heredity
of conditioned reflexes.[113] W. H. Gantt, Pavlov's American student, acknowledged his teacher's Lamarckian leanings, but he noted that Pavlov's "Lamarckism" consisted only of a few passing remarks. Working on the experimental foundations of the theory of unconditioned reflexes, Pavlov gave the problem of the inheritance of acquired characteristics only minor significance. Gantt thought that Darwin's and Pavlov's theories were mutually complementary: while Darwin treated adaptation of individual species to the habitat over long periods of time, Pavlov dealt with adaptation—by means of conditioned reflexes—within the life-spans of individual organisms.[114] In Severtsov's terminology, whereas Darwin's approach was historical, Pavlov opted for an essentially ahistorical approach.
Among the contributors to In Memory of Darwin the physicist N. A. Umov, a well-known professor at Moscow University, enjoyed an enviable reputation as one of the earliest Russian commentators on quantum and relativity theories. An expert in the theory of earth magnetism, the diffusion of aqueous solutions, and optical qualities of opaque media, he expressed clearly articulated philosophical views, which in their total effect can be labeled scientific humanism. Like several other Russian scientists, including I. I. Mechnikov and V. I. Vernadskii, he equated the evolution of human intelligence with the steady expansion of a force of cosmic proportions.[115] He was the moving force in the founding of the Ledentsov Society, the first serious effort in Russia to set up a private foundation providing financial support for research in the natural sciences and technology. Umov's attitude was best expressed in the following statement:
The great thinkers Helmholtz and Darwin have removed the barriers from the roads leading to the understanding of human origin and life. The first disproved the existence of a special [vital] force in living nature . . . ; the second adduced incontrovertible evidence in support of genetic bonds between man and animal. New scientific studies have carried the idea of evolution to the study of inorganic nature as well. In consequence, science has shown that without exception all natural phenomena, regardless of their inner organization, are rational, that is, open to human reason for examination. Although there are secrets which cannot be decoded at this rime, [we must remember that] everything is part of nature—that there are no secrets outside nature.[116]
In an earlier paper, clearly inspired by Darwin's evolutionary idea, Umov postulated "the third law of thermodynamics," which worked in the opposite direction from the law of entropy. The processes of life, he said, lead to an increase in both the quantity and the harmony of the
organic world. In the "selective adaptation" of organisms he saw the real propelling force of this law. In the living universe, "selective adaptation is a weapon in the struggle against both disharmony and entropy"—it is Maxwell's demon selecting favorite molecules.[117] Umov did not pursue his intriguing ideas; he merely wanted to show how the various branches of modern physics combined with the grand idea of organic evolution to create a world view permeated by scientific optimism. He rejected vitalism for its negation of the possibility of creating a unified picture of nature.
Pavlov and Umov shared a cosmic outlook dominated by an organic blend of Darwinian evolutionism and the Newtonian mechanistic view of nature. P. P. Lazarev, a new physicist with old ideas, went so far as to claim that Newtonian physics was not only a source of models for a scientific study of organic evolution but also a fountain of information corroborating the basic principles of Darwin's theory. In an earlier article published in 1915 in Priroda he cited Helmholtz to show that Newtonian physics, which he thought was the high point in the evolution of science, gave full support to Darwin's notion of the purposive adaptation of organisms to their environment. He also credited Boltzmann with having adduced "physicochemical" arguments in favor of the struggle for existence as a prime mover of evolution.[118]
More than any other Russian scholar, Maksim Kovalevskii carried Darwin's ideas to the domain of sociology. In his studies of the history and social organization of the obshchina and in his analysis of the Caucasian legal customs he expressed himself in favor of an evolutionary approach to the universal history of human society, based on the use of the comparative method as the most reliable tool of sociological inquiry. In 1890, in a monograph on the origin of the family and private property, he noted the indebtedness of modern sociology and social history to Darwin's biological contributions. Darwin's "great law of evolution," he observed, exercised a growing influence on the study of social phenomena and had become a guiding force in "the philosophy of history and in the sciences of religion, law, and morality."[119]
In a later study Kovalevskii offered a detailed assessment of the influence of Darwinian biological thought on the development of modern social theory. He made four points. First, Darwin's major contribution was in influencing the emergence of an empirical approach to social phenomena and in adopting causal analysis as a method of sociological explanation. Second, there was no modern sociological orientation free of the influence of Darwin, his precursors, and his followers.[120] From the
first published essays of Herbert Spencer to the contemporary French school, which emphasized both struggle and solidarity as the nexus of social existence, all sociology, according to Kovalevskii, built upon biological foundations, and all sociological laws appeared as variations on the laws that, in Darwin's opinion, explained the origin of species.[121] Third, natural selection required major modifications to become a sociologically useful notion. Durkheim's "organic solidarity," Petr Kropotkin's "mutual aid," Lester Ward's "psychological method," and G. Tarde's "opposition universelle " indicated the preferred sociological responses to Darwin's ideas. Fourth, by planning for a society devoid of class struggle, Marx transformed sociology from a budding science into a utopia. No doubt Kovalevskii was reading his theoretical impulses and social vision into the sociological empire of Darwinism. He translated Darwin's science into his own world view. Nonetheless, he was generally considered the leading Russian sociologist of his time, and it came as no surprise in 1914 when the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences elected him to full membership.
Russian historians, concerned with the methodological and theoretical problems of their discipline, made a habit of carrying Darwin's suggestive ideas into their own academic fields. P. G. Vinogradov, whose expertise in the social history of medieval England earned him an academic position at Oxford University, believed that the notion of evolution, as applied to both nature and society, stood out as the greatest and potentially most fertile product of the modern scientific mind. In his view, "natural science began to exercise a real influence on the study of history only after it absorbed the ideas of transformation and development and adopted the historical method."[122] The main contribution of Darwinism consisted not only of making evolution a central problem in biology but also of pointing out its significance for the social sciences. While Darwin concentrated on biological change, his followers laid the foundations for a comprehensive "philosophical explanation of the theory of evolution."[123] The future of human society, as Vinogradov saw it, depended primarily on knowledge of the universal laws of nature.
The Ministry of Public Education kept particularly vigilant control over the selection of professors who taught philosophy on the university level. During the 1890s it became clear that only persons identified with idealistic metaphysics were allowed to hold the title of professor of philosophy. For this reason there was not a single philosophy professor in Russian universities willing to match the forthright assertion of John Dewey, a Columbia University professor of philosophy, that the real
strength of Darwinian influence on philosophy was in conquering "the phenomena of life for the principle of transition," and in freeing "the new logic for application to mind and morals and life." Darwin, Dewey continued, "emancipated, once for all, genetic and experimental ideas as an organon of asking questions and looking for explanations."[124] Nor did Russia produce a single university professor of philosophy ready to agree with Harald Höffding, professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, who wrote that Darwin, whose contributions he valued as much as those of Copernicus and Newton, deserved full credit for pointing out the verifiable base of the notion of the origin of species.[125]
Outside the universities, the philosophical situation was very different. Idealistic metaphysicists were here, too, but so were the writers favoring a close alliance of philosophy and science. One of the more accomplished and influential of these writers was Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov, editor of the journal Science Review and recipient of a doctorate in natural philosophy from Heidelberg University in 1892, with a dissertation on a specific aspect of differential equations. In 1895–98 Filippov published Philosophy of Reality, a two-volume synthesis of philosophy and science. He viewed philosophy as a systematic study of the basic principles and ideas of contemporary science and as an effort to create an "integrated scientific world view."[126] He operated on the assumption that his approach was the only acceptable path to sound philosophical discourse and that philosophers must rely primarily on scientific knowledge. The Philosophy of Reality presents the ideal of evolution as the most basic and penetrating link between individual sciences. Without evolution, the unity of scientific disciplines could not be based on concrete knowledge. Such topics as cosmogony, evolutionary paleontology, organic evolution, and psychological and sociological evolution form the heart of the study. The huge volumes stand out as a critical synthesis of modern scientific knowledge.
The study has some major flaws; for example, it needs a more precise structure of individual chapters, its selection of scientists who contributed to the elucidation of the idea of evolution tends to be fortuitous, and it does not give a clear picture of the relative significance of individual subsidiary topics. Despite these omissions, the study was a major success, primarily because it helped counterbalance the mysticism of academic philosophy. It introduced Russia to the fresh rays of modern philosophy grounded in science and opposed to metaphysical obscurantism. The Philosophy of Reality depicted the triumph of the evolution-
ary principle in modern scientific thought, introduced Darwin's work as a fundamental contribution to modern philosophy and to a new world outlook, and presented the main trends in the development of evolutionary thought after the publication of the Origin of Species . Written simply and lucidly, it gave the general reader a comprehensive idea of evolution as the cornerstone of modern secular thought.
Filippov belonged to the group of evolutionists who favored Lamarckism no less than Darwinism. He saw only a limited use for the struggle for existence and natural selection in the evolutionary process, but he was ready to admit that the triumph of the evolutionary principle owed more to Darwin than to any other scientist. It was Darwin who made the universality of transformism both a scientific and a philosophical conception and who opened many new avenues for a future elaboration of the evolutionary idea. Above all, Filippov showed that negative criticism of the struggle for existence and natural selection should in no way interfere with the recognition of Darwin as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Despite the striking "weaknesses" of individual principles built into his theory, Darwin won the day because he allowed no room for "forces and impulses acting independently of the known laws of nature," which made his theory acceptable to "a majority of natural scientists."[127]