PART III

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

FROM all the facts that we have brought together, the general conclusion becomes plain that retrogression, notwithstanding the etymology of the word, does not imply a return to the ancestral condition.

Rudimentary organs and institutions resemble the primitive states of these, in so far as they no longer possess certain parts which the primitive stages did not yet possess. None the less, profound differences exist between the primitive and the reduced forms. In the primitive condition the institution or organ is capable of varying in the direction of new uses; in the reduced form, after a certain degree of atrophy, there is no longer the possibility of redevelopment to resume old or to acquire new functions. These observations apply equally to biology and to sociology.

Magnan and Legrain, in their work on degenerate persons, came to similar conclusions. They came to regard degenerate persons as abnormal, chiefly because they were devoid of the power to reacquire the normal condition and quite unlike their primitive ancestors, who, although

possibly brutal and unintelligent, were normal beings with the activity and stamina necessary for future progress.

The following two diagrams, borrowed from these authors, represent clearly the differences between the initial and reduced condition of an organ or institution :

:

In the diagrams the ascending lines represent the progressive evolution of an organ or institution; the descending lines represent the degenerative evolution. From the point a, representing the primitive condition progressive evolution passes towards o, an imaginary perfect condition of the organ. Along the upward line, however, the points. a, b, c, d, etc., represent obstacles to further progress-that is to say, factors tending towards degeneration. From these points lines of degeneration pass towards z, and the condition at z, although representing that at a, is not identical

with a, and is not reached by a sliding backwards down the line o, a.

Thus, although the most recently acquired features may disappear first, degeneration is not an actual retracing of steps until the point of departure is reached. The degenerate condition is a new point, and really the term retrogressive evolution is misleading.

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BOOK III

CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE

EVOLUTION

PART I

ATROPHY OF ORGANS AND INSTITUTIONS

The factors of atrophy

THE causes which are active in producing degeneration are various, but they may all be referred to the limited nature of the means of subsistence, that is to say, of nourishment in the case of organisms, and of capital and labour in the case of institutions. This limitation produces a struggle between the individuals (societies or organisms) and between their component parts.

In the course of the perpetual struggle for existence among the different parts of an individual, the institutions or organs which have ceased to be functional tend to disappear, their nourishment being absorbed by the active parts.

1. Biology. In biology the struggle for existence among component parts appears clearly as a factor of degeneration in the case of accidental atrophy. This is to be seen, for instance, in the atrophy of