Abstract
It is of philosophical and epistemological interest to examine how Darwin conceived the process of division of labour within Natural History. Darwin observed the advantages brought by division of labour to the human economy, and considered that the principle of divergence within nature, which is, according to him, one of the two ‘keystones’ of his theory, gave comparable advantages. This led him to re-examine Milne-Edwards’ view on the notion of division of physiological labour, and to introduce this with modifications into his naturalist writings. After a short review of the Darwinian historiography dealing with this issue, I first show the conceptual confusion into which Darwin plunges, when using a so-called economic argument to defend his thesis of the maximization of beings in a given territory due to division of labour. Following this I propose several hypotheses to explain these shifts, recurring in Darwin’s texts, from one conception and from one application to another, of the division of labour.
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Notes
Richards (2012) showed that, in the absence of any systematic, continuous favouring of extreme forms (as in artificial selection), sympatric speciation was considered by Darwin as the only solution to render the process referred to by naturalists as the ‘swamping problem’, (i.e. the dilution of extremes due to the effects of interbreeding) compatible with the empirical correlations he discovered when studying Botanical Statistics, namely between dominant species (species with many individuals, spread out through several regions) and large genera and species (with many distinctive species and varieties, respectively). On the importance of these statistical studies in botany in the formation of Darwin’s thought, see also Browne (1980).
Thanks to Robert Richards for the reminder that Darwin had crossed out the word ‘land’ and replaced it with the word ‘labour’ in his manuscript. On this point, see also Kohn (2009, p. 90).
This difference in extension of the concept of division of physiological labour, and its implications, has been once well perceived by the first French translator of The Origin of Species, Clémence Royer (1875).
Several objections and strong convictions led Darwin to have a number of reservations about the validity of the old idea of a linear hierarchy of organization or scale of beings. These objections and convictions concern: (1) the critical implications of his evolutionary theory, involving the inevitability of the reference to the environment in any axiological consideration of species; (2) the existence of degenerative processes in the evolution of many lineages (this is particularly the case in parasitism); (3) the existence of an irreducible plurality of branches, as shown by Cuvier and Von Baer; (4) the naturalists’ ambiguity and the lack of consensus within the naturalist community as to the identity of the criteria of perfection of beings, and even the impossibility of ever establishing any consensus on this point. Nevertheless, Darwin remained attached to the idea of a hierarchy of living forms, and occasionally could not resist indulging in reflections as to its rational basis. It is this concern which led him on occasion to consider the division of physiological labour, with precisely the meaning and extension that Milne-Edwards conferred to it (DL1.1) (intra-organic division, cooperation between divided parts, effect on organic productivity), as the best criterion of organic perfection. His correspondence with J.D. Hooker in the 1850’s notably confirms this point. Thus, in a letter dated 27 June 1854, Darwin states: “With respect to ‘highness’ & ‘lowness’, my ideas are only eclectic & not very clear. It appears to me that an unavoidable wish to compare all animals with men, as supreme, causes some confusions; & I think that nothing besides some such vague comparison is intended, or perhaps is even possible, when the question is whether two kingdoms such as the articulata or mollusca are the highest. Within the same kingdom, I am inclined to think that ‘highest’ usually means that form which has undergone most ‘morphological differentiation’ from the common embryo or archetype of the class; but then every now & then one is bothered (as Milne Edwards has remarked) by ‘retrograde development’, ie the mature animal having fewer & less important organs than its own embryo. The specialisation of parts to different functions, or ‘the division of physiological labour’ of Milne Edwards exactly agrees (& to my mind is the best definition when it can be applied) with what you state in your idea in regard to plants.” (Darwin 1989, p. 197).
We can find other passages from Darwin which instead suggest that the suboptimal exploitation of resources by organisms is not clear proof of the adaptive superiority of the specialist over the generalist, or of the differentiated body (i.e. herbivore or carnivore) over the less differentiated body (i.e. omnivore). The specialist is generally a better competitor than the generalist, but the generalist could be better at seizing new and non-occupied niches, and evading the competition. In the Descent of Man (1871), for instance, Darwin writes: “It must not, however, be supposed that groups of organic beings are always supplanted and disappear as soon as they have given birth to other and more perfect groups. The latter, though victorious over their predecessors, may not have become better adapted for all places in the economy of nature. Some old forms appear to have survived from inhabiting protected sites, where they have not been exposed to very severe competition […] we must not fall into the error of looking at the existing members of any lowly-organised group as perfect representatives of their ancient predecessors.” (Darwin 1871, p. 212). See also the developments in the Origin (Darwin 1872, pp. 98–99 and 307) and in Animals and Plants (Darwin 1868, p. 8).
Pearce, and others scholars he refers to, do not seem to see the problem of comparing preexisting organic roles in the body with a new and unoccupied place in nature: “As Limoges and others have suggested, it is likely that Darwin saw a parallel between this tendency of parts to take on diverse roles in the animal economy and the tendency of species to diverge into new places in the economy of nature.” (Pearce 2010, p. 515).
One could recall for instance the fable from Jean de La Fontaine, Les Membres et l’Estomac (1668), which tells the poetic story of organs abandoning their duties toward the stomach one by one, as an allegory of a people’s abandonment of its royalty.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was the topic of a talk in a shortened form, initially in French, at the 19th Annual Congress of the Société d’Histoire et d’Epistémologie des Sciences de la Vie (France, Lyon, March 28–29 2013). I would like to address my acknowledgments to Richard Crossley and Wendy Charvet for their valued assistance in the English translation of the paper, and to Robert Richards for his attentive reading of a prior version of the manuscript. Many thanks also to my two anonymous reviewers for their very useful criticisms, commentaries and suggestions, and to Staffan Mueller-Wille, Editor in Chief of History and Philosophy of Life Sciences, who has kindly offered a scrupulous proofreading of the whole text.
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D’Hombres, E. The Darwinian muddle on the division of labour: an attempt at clarification. HPLS 38, 1–22 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-015-0090-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-015-0090-x