Spencer Heath Archive

Item 709

Taping by Spencer MacCallum on the occasion of his asking Heath to review George Gaylord Simpson’s The Meaning; of Evolution. Elkridge, Maryland

August 11, 1956

     This book, The Meaning of Evolution, by George Gaylord Simpson, is very comprehensive. What makes it so, in part at least, is that it deals with evolution in two aspects: First, what it is, and second, what it means.

    In the first aspect, it is a very comprehensive presentation of the facts by apt selection from widely various fields. This is the main bulk of the book. Yet through it all is reference to meaning, and with it all the problem of physical materialism versus psychic telism. For the most part, the author takes no certain stand. Yet before he concludes, he characterizes evolution in materialistic terms. For all this, he announces that with man, a new level or stage of evolution begins. He very creditably distinguishes human nature from all other nature. He holds that man is only man in respect to that about him which distinguishes him from all other evolutionary forms. He announces man as specifically unique. He recognizes that all his past is in some sense or degree vestigial in his present, yet sets him apart from all that man transcends — from all lower forms.

    Structurally, the distinction cannot be finely drawn; he must look to the function that man alone can perform. This introduces relation to the environment within which he acts and interacts. Albeit somewhat casually, he discovers man as the only living form that increasingly modifies his environment favorably to himself and his kind.

    The author has much to say about higher and lower forms. He reviews the various “ages” of dominance — mammalian, reptilian, and so forth, in terms of their prevalence on the earth, and gives the palm to the insects as of now. He leaves the question somewhat open, but lays ground for a criterion in the creativeness upon environment as the distinguishing function of mankind. He includes in environment the human as well as the non-human environment. In this, he almost sets out that by necessity man only performs his unique function in organization with his fellow man. This is a profound point of view, implying far more than the author seems to develop. He maintains (page 179) that “man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind.” But he goes on to say that he is far more than an animal. He starts something new in evolution. Whether that something new springs out of his animal nature or is imposed upon him from above, so to speak, he does not explain. He leaves open a wide zone for creative thinking and dreams of high destinies. Yet he holds that man must become finally extinct, wherein he must at last lose everything that marks him as unique. The book is very comprehensive, extremely suggestive, yet seemingly paradoxical. But it provides foundation structure for further building in which its paradoxes may be resolved.