Ray Lankester
Encyclopedia
Sir E. Ray Lankester KCB
, FRS (15 May 1847 – 13 August 1929) was a British
zoologist, born in London
.
An invertebrate
zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London
and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum
, and was awarded the Copley Medal
of the Royal Society
.
, a coroner and doctor-naturalist who helped abolish cholera
in London. Ray Lankester was probably named after the naturalist John Ray
: his father had just edited the memorials of John Ray for the Ray Society
.
In 1855 Ray went to boarding school at Leatherhead
, and in 1858 to St Paul's School. His university education was at Downing College, Cambridge
and Christ Church, Oxford
; he transferred from Downing, after five terms, at his parents' behest because Christ Church had better teaching in the form of the newly appointed George Rolleston
.
Lankester achieved first-class honours in 1868. His education was rounded off by study visits to Vienna
, Leipzig
and Jena
, and he did some work at the Marine Station at Naples
. He took the examination to become a Fellow
of Exeter College, Oxford
, and studied under Huxley before taking his MA.
Lankester therefore had a far better education than most English biologists of the previous generation, such as Huxley, Wallace
and Bates
. Even so, it could be argued that the influence of his father Edwin and his friends were just as important. Huxley was a close friend of the family, and whilst still a child Ray met Hooker
, Henfry, Clifford
, Gosse
, Owen
, Forbes
, Carpenter
, Lyell
, Murchison
, Henslow
and Darwin
.
He was a large man with a large presence, of warm human sympathies and in his childhood a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln
. His interventions, responses and advocacies were often colourful and forceful, as befitted an admirer of Huxley, for whom he worked as a demonstrator when a young man. In his personal manner he was not so adept as Huxley, and he made enemies by his rudeness. This undoubtedly damaged and limited the second half of his career.
Lankester appears, thinly disguised, in several novels. He is the model for Sir Roderick Dover in H.G. Wells' Marriage (Wells had been one of his students), and in Robert Briffault
's Europa, which contains a brilliant portrait of Lankester, including his friendship with Karl Marx
. He has also been suggested for Professor Challenger
in Arthur Conan Doyle
's The Lost World, but Doyle himself said that Challenger was based on a professor of physiology at the University of Edinburgh named William Rutherford.
Lankester never married. A finely decorated memorial plaque to him can be seen at the Golders Green Crematorium
, Hoop Lane, London.
in 1873. He co-edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
which his father had founded. From 1869 until his death he edited this journal (jointly with his father, 1869–71). He worked as one of Huxley's team at the new buildings in South Kensington
, and after the death of Francis Balfour became Huxley's intended successor.
Lankester was appointed Jodrell Professor of Zoology at University College London from 1874 to 1890, Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy
at Oxford University from 1891 to 1898, and director of the Natural History Museum from 1898 to 1907. He was a founder in 1884 of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. Influential as teacher and writer on biological theories, comparative anatomy, and evolution, Lankester studied the protozoa
, mollusca
, and arthropoda. He was knighted
in 1907, awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1913, and the Linnean Society of London
's Darwin-Wallace Medal
in 1908.
At University College London (the 'Godless Institute of Gower Street') Lankester taught W.F.R. Weldon (1860–1906) who went on to succeed him in the chair at UCL. Another interesting student was Alfred Gibbs Bourne
, who went on to hold senior positions in biology and education in the Indian Empire. When Lankester left to take up the Linacre chair at Oxford in 1891, the Grant Museum at UCL continued to grow under Weldon who added a number of extremely rare specimens. Weldon is perhaps best known for founding the science of biometry with Francis Galton
(1822–1911) and Karl Pearson
(1857–1936). He followed Lankester to Oxford in 1899.
After Huxley the most important influence on his thought was August Weismann
, the German zoologist who rejected Lamarkism, and wholeheartedly advocated natural selection
as the key force in evolution at a time when other biologists had doubts. Weismann's separation of germplasm
(genetic material) from soma (somatic cells) was an idea which took many years before its significance was generally appreciated. Lankester was one of the first to see its importance: his full acceptance of selection came after reading Weismann's essays, some of which he translated into English.
Lankester was hugely influential, though perhaps more as a teacher than as a researcher. Ernst Mayr
said "It was Lankester who founded a school of selectionism at Oxford". Those he influenced (in addition to Weldon) included Edwin Stephen Goodrich
(Linacre chair in zoology at Oxford 1921-46) and (indirectly) Julian Huxley
(the evolutionary synthesis). In turn their disciples, such as E.B. Ford
(ecological genetics), Gavin de Beer
(embryology and evolution), Charles Elton
(ecology) and Alister Hardy
(marine biology) held sway during the middle years of the 20th century.
As a zoologist Lankester was a comparative anatomist of the Huxley school, working mostly on invertebrates. He was the first to show the relationship of the horseshoe crab
or Limulus to the Arachnida. His Limulus specimens can still be seen in the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL today. He was also a voluminous writer on biology for the general readership; in this he followed the example of his old mentor, Huxley.
and Anton Dohrn
(the founder and first director of the Stazione Zoologica
, Naples
). Connecting Dohrn's work with Darwinism, Lankester held that degeneration was one of three general avenues that evolution might take (the others being balance and elaboration). Degeneration was a suppression of form, "Any new set of conditions which render [a species'] food and safety very easily obtained, seem to lead to degeneration". Degeneration was well-known in parasites, and Lankester gave several examples. In Sacculina
, a genus of barnacles which is a parasite of crab
s, the female is little more than "a sac of eggs, and absorbed nourishment from the juices of its host by root-like processes" (+ wood-engraved
illustration). He called this degenerative evolutionary process in parasites retrogressive metamorphosis.
Lankester pointed out that retrograde metamorphosis could be seen in many species that were not, strictly speaking, degenerate. "Were it not for the recapitulative phases of the barnacle
, we may doubt whether naturalists would ever have guessed it was a crustacean
." The lizard Seps has limbs which are "ridiculously small", and Bipes, a burrowing lizard, has no front limbs, and rear limbs reduced to stumps. The Dibamidae
are legless lizards of tropical forests who also adopt the burrowing habit. Snakes, which have evolved unique forms of locomotion, and are probably derived from lizards. Thus degeneration or retrogressive metamorphosis sometimes occurs as species adapt
to changes in habit
or way of life.
As evidence of degeneration, Lankester identifies the recaptitulative development of the individual. This is the idea propagated by Ernst Haeckel
as a source of evolutionary evidence (recapitulation theory
). As antecedents of degeneration, Lankester lists:
He also considered the Axolotl
, a mole salamander
, which can breed whilst still in its gilled larval form without maturing into a terrestrial adult. Lankester noted that this process could take the subsequent evolution of the race into a totally different and otherwise improbable direction. This idea, which Lankester called super-larvation, is now called neoteny
.
Lankester extended the idea of degeneration to human societies, which carries little significance today, but it is a good example of a biological concept invading the social world. Lankester and H.G. Wells used the idea as a basis for propaganda in favour of social and educational reform.
had its own building in South Kensington
, but in financial and administrative matters it was subordinate to the British Museum
. Moreover, the Superintendent (= Director) of the NHM was the subordinate of the Principal Librarian of the BM, a fact which was bound to cause trouble since that august person was not a scientist. We can see that the conflict which took place was one aspect of the struggle undertaken, in their different ways, by Owen
, Hooker
, Huxley and Tyndall
to emancipate science from enslavement by traditional forces.
There was trouble from the moment Lankester put forward his candidature for the office vacated by Sir William Flower
, who was on the point of death. The Principal Librarian, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson
, the palaeographer, was also the Secretary to the Trustees, and hence in a strong position to get his own way. There is good evidence that Thomson, an efficient and authoritarian figure, intended to take control of the whole Museum, including the Natural History departments. In the absence of Huxley, who had led most of the battles for over thirty years, it was left to the younger generation to struggle for the independence of science, Mitchell
, Poulton
, and Weldon
were his main supporters, and together they lobbied the Trustees, the Government and in the press to get their point over. Finally Lankester was appointed instead of Lazarus Fletcher (a relative nonentity).
Lankester was appointed in 1898, and the outcome was inevitable. Eight years of conflict with Maunde Thomson followed, with Thomson constantly interferring in the affairs of the museum and obstructing Lankester's attempt to improve the museum. Lankester resigned in 1907, at the direction of Thomson, who had discovered a clause in the regulations which allowed him to call for the resignation of officials at the age of 60. Lazarus Fletcher
was appointed in his stead. There was a vast clamour in the press, and from foreign zoologists protesting at the treatment of Lankester. That Lankester had some friends in high places was shown by the Archbishop of Canterbury offering him an enhanced pension, and the knighthood that was bestowed on him the next year.
The issues raised by this affair did not end there. Eventually the NHM gained, first, its administrative freedom, then finally there was a complete separation from the BM. Today the British Library
, the British Museum and the Natural History Museum all occupy separate buildings, and have complete legal, administrative and financial independence from each other.
(the Woodbridge
and Felixstowe
area), and was an active member of the Rationalist group associated with the circle of Thomas Huxley
, Samuel Laing
and others. He was a friend of the Rationalist Edward Clodd
of Aldeburgh
. From 1901 to his death in 1929 he was Honorary President of the Ipswich Museum
. He became convinced of the human workmanship of the (now unfavoured) 'Pre-palaeolithic' implements and rostro-carinates, and championed their cause at the Royal Society in 1910-1912. Through correspondence he became the scientific mentor of the Suffolk prehistorian James Reid Moir (1879–1944). He was a friend of Karl Marx
in the latter's later years and was among the few persons present at his funeral.
Lankester was active in attempting to expose the frauds of Spiritualist mediums during the 1920s. He was an important writer of popular science, his weekly newspaper columns over many years being assembled and reprinted in a series of books entitled Science from an Easy Chair (first series, 1910; second series, 1912).
and the Internet archive:
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, FRS (15 May 1847 – 13 August 1929) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
zoologist, born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
An invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
, and was awarded the Copley Medal
Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
.
Life
E. (Edwin: his first name was never used) Ray Lankester was the son of Edwin LankesterEdwin Lankester
Edwin Lankester MRCS, FRS was an English surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera in London: he was the first public analyst in England.- Life :...
, a coroner and doctor-naturalist who helped abolish cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in London. Ray Lankester was probably named after the naturalist John Ray
John Ray
John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...
: his father had just edited the memorials of John Ray for the Ray Society
Ray Society
The Ray Society was instituted in 1844 and named after John Ray, the 17th century naturalist, as a scientific publishing organization whose activities are devoted mainly to the British flora and fauna. So far the Ray Society has published 169 volumes...
.
In 1855 Ray went to boarding school at Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
, and in 1858 to St Paul's School. His university education was at Downing College, Cambridge
Downing College, Cambridge
Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1800 and currently has around 650 students.- History :...
and Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
; he transferred from Downing, after five terms, at his parents' behest because Christ Church had better teaching in the form of the newly appointed George Rolleston
George Rolleston
George Rolleston MA MD FRCP FRS was an English physician and zoologist. He was the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1860 until his death in 1881...
.
Lankester achieved first-class honours in 1868. His education was rounded off by study visits to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
, and he did some work at the Marine Station at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. He took the examination to become a Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
, and studied under Huxley before taking his MA.
Lankester therefore had a far better education than most English biologists of the previous generation, such as Huxley, Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
and Bates
Henry Walter Bates
Henry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection in a shipwreck...
. Even so, it could be argued that the influence of his father Edwin and his friends were just as important. Huxley was a close friend of the family, and whilst still a child Ray met Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
, Henfry, Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour, with interesting applications in contemporary mathematical physics...
, Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science, virtually the inventor of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology...
, Owen
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
, Forbes
Edward Forbes
Professor Edward Forbes FRS, FGS was a Manx naturalist.-Early years:Forbes was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals,...
, Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.-Life:...
, Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
, Murchison
Roderick Murchison
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system.-Early life and work:...
, Henslow
John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.- Early life :...
and Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
.
He was a large man with a large presence, of warm human sympathies and in his childhood a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. His interventions, responses and advocacies were often colourful and forceful, as befitted an admirer of Huxley, for whom he worked as a demonstrator when a young man. In his personal manner he was not so adept as Huxley, and he made enemies by his rudeness. This undoubtedly damaged and limited the second half of his career.
Lankester appears, thinly disguised, in several novels. He is the model for Sir Roderick Dover in H.G. Wells' Marriage (Wells had been one of his students), and in Robert Briffault
Robert Briffault
Robert Stephen Briffault was trained as a surgeon, but found fame as a social anthropologist and in later life as a novelist.- Biography :...
's Europa, which contains a brilliant portrait of Lankester, including his friendship with Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. He has also been suggested for Professor Challenger
Professor Challenger
George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character in a series of science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
in Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
's The Lost World, but Doyle himself said that Challenger was based on a professor of physiology at the University of Edinburgh named William Rutherford.
Lankester never married. A finely decorated memorial plaque to him can be seen at the Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson....
, Hoop Lane, London.
Career
Lankester became a Fellow of Exeter College, OxfordExeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
in 1873. He co-edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
Journal of Cell Science
The Journal of Cell Science is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of cell biology. The journal is published by the The Company of Biologists with 24 annual issues....
which his father had founded. From 1869 until his death he edited this journal (jointly with his father, 1869–71). He worked as one of Huxley's team at the new buildings in South Kensington
South Kensington
South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross....
, and after the death of Francis Balfour became Huxley's intended successor.
Lankester was appointed Jodrell Professor of Zoology at University College London from 1874 to 1890, Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy
Linacre Chair of Zoology
The position of Linacre Professor of Zoology in the University of Oxford was founded in 1860, initially as the Linacre Professorship of Physiology and then as the chair of Human and Comparative Anatomy, although its origins can be traced back a further 300 years, to the Linacre Lectureships at...
at Oxford University from 1891 to 1898, and director of the Natural History Museum from 1898 to 1907. He was a founder in 1884 of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. Influential as teacher and writer on biological theories, comparative anatomy, and evolution, Lankester studied the protozoa
Protozoa
Protozoa are a diverse group of single-cells eukaryotic organisms, many of which are motile. Throughout history, protozoa have been defined as single-cell protists with animal-like behavior, e.g., movement...
, mollusca
Mollusca
The Mollusca , common name molluscs or mollusksSpelled mollusks in the USA, see reasons given in Rosenberg's ; for the spelling mollusc see the reasons given by , is a large phylum of invertebrate animals. There are around 85,000 recognized extant species of molluscs. Mollusca is the largest...
, and arthropoda. He was knighted
British honours system
The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories...
in 1907, awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1913, and the Linnean Society of London
Linnean Society of London
The Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...
's Darwin-Wallace Medal
Darwin-Wallace Medal
The Darwin–Wallace Medal is a medal awarded by the Linnean Society of London for "major advances in evolutionary biology". Historically, the medals have been awarded every 50 years, beginning in 1908...
in 1908.
At University College London (the 'Godless Institute of Gower Street') Lankester taught W.F.R. Weldon (1860–1906) who went on to succeed him in the chair at UCL. Another interesting student was Alfred Gibbs Bourne
Alfred Gibbs Bourne
Sir Alfred Gibbs Bourne KCIE, DSc, FRS, FLS was a zoologist, botanist and educator....
, who went on to hold senior positions in biology and education in the Indian Empire. When Lankester left to take up the Linacre chair at Oxford in 1891, the Grant Museum at UCL continued to grow under Weldon who added a number of extremely rare specimens. Weldon is perhaps best known for founding the science of biometry with Francis Galton
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
(1822–1911) and Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the disciplineof mathematical statistics....
(1857–1936). He followed Lankester to Oxford in 1899.
August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
, the German zoologist who rejected Lamarkism, and wholeheartedly advocated natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
as the key force in evolution at a time when other biologists had doubts. Weismann's separation of germplasm
Germplasm
A germplasm is a collection of genetic resources for an organism. For plants, the germplasm may be stored as a seed collection or, for trees, in a nursery.-See also:*Germ plasm, the germ cell determining zone...
(genetic material) from soma (somatic cells) was an idea which took many years before its significance was generally appreciated. Lankester was one of the first to see its importance: his full acceptance of selection came after reading Weismann's essays, some of which he translated into English.
Lankester was hugely influential, though perhaps more as a teacher than as a researcher. Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
said "It was Lankester who founded a school of selectionism at Oxford". Those he influenced (in addition to Weldon) included Edwin Stephen Goodrich
Edwin Stephen Goodrich
Edwin Stephen Goodrich , was an English zoologist, specialising in comparative anatomy, embryology, paleontology, and evolution. He held the Linacre Chair of Zoology in the University of Oxford from 1921 to 1946...
(Linacre chair in zoology at Oxford 1921-46) and (indirectly) Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
(the evolutionary synthesis). In turn their disciples, such as E.B. Ford
E.B. Ford
Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRS Hon. FRCP was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths...
(ecological genetics), Gavin de Beer
Gavin de Beer
Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer FRS was a British evolutionary embryologist. He was Director of the British Museum , President of the Linnean Society, and received the Royal Society's Darwin Medal for his studies on evolution.-Biography:...
(embryology and evolution), Charles Elton
Charles Sutherland Elton
Charles Sutherland Elton FRS was an English zoologist and animal ecologist. His name is associated with the establishment of modern population and community ecology, including studies of invasive organisms.-Personal life:...
(ecology) and Alister Hardy
Alister Hardy
Sir Alister Clavering Hardy, FRS was an English marine biologist, expert on zooplankton and marine ecosystems...
(marine biology) held sway during the middle years of the 20th century.
As a zoologist Lankester was a comparative anatomist of the Huxley school, working mostly on invertebrates. He was the first to show the relationship of the horseshoe crab
Horseshoe crab
The Atlantic horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, is a marine chelicerate arthropod. Despite its name, it is more closely related to spiders, ticks, and scorpions than to crabs. Horseshoe crabs are most commonly found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the northern Atlantic coast of North America...
or Limulus to the Arachnida. His Limulus specimens can still be seen in the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL today. He was also a voluminous writer on biology for the general readership; in this he followed the example of his old mentor, Huxley.
Invertebrates and degeneration
Lankester's books Developmental history of the Mollusca (1875) and Degeneration: a chapter in Darwinism (1880) established him as a leader in the study of invertebrate life histories. In Degeneration he adapted some ideas of Ernst HaeckelErnst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
and Anton Dohrn
Anton Dohrn
Felix Anton Dohrn was a prominent German Darwinist and the founder and first director of the Stazione Zoologica, Naples, Italy.-Family history:...
(the founder and first director of the Stazione Zoologica
Stazione Zoologica
The Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn is a research institute in Naples, Italy, devoted to basic research in biology. Research is largely interdisciplinary involving the fields of evolution, biochemistry, molecular biology, neurobiology, cell biology, biological oceanography, marine botany, molecular...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
). Connecting Dohrn's work with Darwinism, Lankester held that degeneration was one of three general avenues that evolution might take (the others being balance and elaboration). Degeneration was a suppression of form, "Any new set of conditions which render [a species'] food and safety very easily obtained, seem to lead to degeneration". Degeneration was well-known in parasites, and Lankester gave several examples. In Sacculina
Sacculina
Sacculina is a genus of barnacles that is a parasitic castrator of crabs. The adults bear no resemblance to the barnacles that cover ships and piers; they are recognised as barnacles because their larval forms are like other members of the barnacle class Cirripedia...
, a genus of barnacles which is a parasite of crab
Crab
True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
s, the female is little more than "a sac of eggs, and absorbed nourishment from the juices of its host by root-like processes" (+ wood-engraved
Wood engraving
Wood engraving is a technique in printmaking where the "matrix" worked by the artist is a block of wood. It is a variety of woodcut and so a relief printing technique, where ink is applied to the face of the block and printed by using relatively low pressure. A normal engraving, like an etching,...
illustration). He called this degenerative evolutionary process in parasites retrogressive metamorphosis.
Lankester pointed out that retrograde metamorphosis could be seen in many species that were not, strictly speaking, degenerate. "Were it not for the recapitulative phases of the barnacle
Barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod belonging to infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile suspension feeders, and have...
, we may doubt whether naturalists would ever have guessed it was a crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
." The lizard Seps has limbs which are "ridiculously small", and Bipes, a burrowing lizard, has no front limbs, and rear limbs reduced to stumps. The Dibamidae
Dibamidae
Dibamidae is a family of legless lizards found in tropical forests. Relatively little is known about the dibamid lizards, which are native to Mexico, SE Asia, Indonesia, the Philippine Islands and western New Guinea....
are legless lizards of tropical forests who also adopt the burrowing habit. Snakes, which have evolved unique forms of locomotion, and are probably derived from lizards. Thus degeneration or retrogressive metamorphosis sometimes occurs as species adapt
Adaptation
An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
to changes in habit
Habit (biology)
Habit, when used in the context of biology, refers to the instinctive actions of animals and the natural tendencies of plants.In zoology, this term most often refers to specific behavioral characteristics, even when directly related to physiology...
or way of life.
As evidence of degeneration, Lankester identifies the recaptitulative development of the individual. This is the idea propagated by Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
as a source of evolutionary evidence (recapitulation theory
Recapitulation theory
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—and often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a disproven hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages...
). As antecedents of degeneration, Lankester lists:
- 1. ParasitismParasitismParasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that needed more than one host . These are now called macroparasites...
- 2. Fixity or immobility (sessileSessility (zoology)In zoology, sessility is a characteristic of animals which are not able to move about. They are usually permanently attached to a solid substrate of some kind, such as a part of a plant or dead tree trunk, a rock, or the hull of a ship in the case of barnacles. Corals lay down their own...
habit) - 3. Vegetative nutrition
- 4. Excessive reduction in size
He also considered the Axolotl
Axolotl
The axolotl , Ambystoma mexicanum, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the Tiger Salamander. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. It is also called ajolote...
, a mole salamander
Mole salamander
The mole salamanders are a group of salamanders endemic to North America, the only genus in the family Ambystomatidae...
, which can breed whilst still in its gilled larval form without maturing into a terrestrial adult. Lankester noted that this process could take the subsequent evolution of the race into a totally different and otherwise improbable direction. This idea, which Lankester called super-larvation, is now called neoteny
Neoteny
Neoteny , also called juvenilization , is one of the two ways by which paedomorphism can arise. Paedomorphism is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological development of an...
.
Lankester extended the idea of degeneration to human societies, which carries little significance today, but it is a good example of a biological concept invading the social world. Lankester and H.G. Wells used the idea as a basis for propaganda in favour of social and educational reform.
Trouble at the Museum
In Lankester's time the Natural History MuseumNatural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
had its own building in South Kensington
South Kensington
South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross....
, but in financial and administrative matters it was subordinate to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. Moreover, the Superintendent (= Director) of the NHM was the subordinate of the Principal Librarian of the BM, a fact which was bound to cause trouble since that august person was not a scientist. We can see that the conflict which took place was one aspect of the struggle undertaken, in their different ways, by Owen
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
, Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
, Huxley and Tyndall
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
to emancipate science from enslavement by traditional forces.
There was trouble from the moment Lankester put forward his candidature for the office vacated by Sir William Flower
William Henry Flower
Sir William Henry Flower KCB FRCS FRS was an English comparative anatomist and surgeon. Flower became a leading authority on mammals, and especially on the primate brain...
, who was on the point of death. The Principal Librarian, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson
Edward Maunde Thompson
Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, GCB was a British palaeographer and Principal Librarian and first Director of the British Museum. He is also noted for his study of William Shakespeare's handwriting in the manuscript of the play Sir Thomas More.-Biography:Thompson's father was Edward Thompson, Custos...
, the palaeographer, was also the Secretary to the Trustees, and hence in a strong position to get his own way. There is good evidence that Thomson, an efficient and authoritarian figure, intended to take control of the whole Museum, including the Natural History departments. In the absence of Huxley, who had led most of the battles for over thirty years, it was left to the younger generation to struggle for the independence of science, Mitchell
Peter Chalmers Mitchell
Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell CBE FRS DSc LLD , zoologist, was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903 to 1935. During this time he directed the policy of the London Zoo, and created the world's first open zoological park known as Whipsnade Wild Animal Park.- Early life :Peter...
, Poulton
Edward Bagnall Poulton
Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton, FRS was a British evolutionary biologist who was a lifelong advocate of natural selection...
, and Weldon
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon DSc FRS generally called Raphael Weldon, was an English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry...
were his main supporters, and together they lobbied the Trustees, the Government and in the press to get their point over. Finally Lankester was appointed instead of Lazarus Fletcher (a relative nonentity).
Lankester was appointed in 1898, and the outcome was inevitable. Eight years of conflict with Maunde Thomson followed, with Thomson constantly interferring in the affairs of the museum and obstructing Lankester's attempt to improve the museum. Lankester resigned in 1907, at the direction of Thomson, who had discovered a clause in the regulations which allowed him to call for the resignation of officials at the age of 60. Lazarus Fletcher
Lazarus Fletcher
Sir Lazarus Fletcher was a British geologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1889 and won the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in 1912. Fletcher was knighted in 1916....
was appointed in his stead. There was a vast clamour in the press, and from foreign zoologists protesting at the treatment of Lankester. That Lankester had some friends in high places was shown by the Archbishop of Canterbury offering him an enhanced pension, and the knighthood that was bestowed on him the next year.
The issues raised by this affair did not end there. Eventually the NHM gained, first, its administrative freedom, then finally there was a complete separation from the BM. Today the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, the British Museum and the Natural History Museum all occupy separate buildings, and have complete legal, administrative and financial independence from each other.
Rationalism
Lankester had close family connections with SuffolkSuffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
(the Woodbridge
Woodbridge, Suffolk
Woodbridge is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. It is in the East of England, not far from the coast. It lies along the River Deben, with a population of about 7,480. The town is served by Woodbridge railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. Woodbridge is twinned with...
and Felixstowe
Felixstowe
Felixstowe is a seaside town on the North Sea coast of Suffolk, England. The town gives its name to the nearby Port of Felixstowe, which is the largest container port in the United Kingdom and is owned by Hutchinson Ports UK...
area), and was an active member of the Rationalist group associated with the circle of Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS was an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution....
, Samuel Laing
Samuel Laing (science writer)
Samuel Laing, , was a British railway administrator, politician, and influential writer on science and religion during the Victorian era.He was born at Edinburgh on the 12th of December 1810...
and others. He was a friend of the Rationalist Edward Clodd
Edward Clodd
Edward Clodd was an English banker, writer and anthropologist. He cultivated a very wide circle of literary and scientific friends, who periodically met at Whitsun gatherings at his home at Aldeburgh, Suffolk....
of Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
. From 1901 to his death in 1929 he was Honorary President of the Ipswich Museum
Ipswich Museum
Ipswich Museum is a registered museum of culture, history and natural heritage located on High Street in Ipswich, the County Town of the English county of Suffolk...
. He became convinced of the human workmanship of the (now unfavoured) 'Pre-palaeolithic' implements and rostro-carinates, and championed their cause at the Royal Society in 1910-1912. Through correspondence he became the scientific mentor of the Suffolk prehistorian James Reid Moir (1879–1944). He was a friend of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
in the latter's later years and was among the few persons present at his funeral.
Lankester was active in attempting to expose the frauds of Spiritualist mediums during the 1920s. He was an important writer of popular science, his weekly newspaper columns over many years being assembled and reprinted in a series of books entitled Science from an Easy Chair (first series, 1910; second series, 1912).
Publications
His professional writings include:- A Monograph of the Cephalaspidian Fishes (1870)
- Developmental History of the Mollusca (1875)
- Degeneration: a chapter in Darwinism (1880)
- Limulus: An Arachnid (1881)
- The Advancement of Science (1889), collected essays
- A Treatise on Zoölogy (1900–09), (editor)
- Extinct Animals (1905)
- Nature and Man (1905)
External links
A list of open access books by Ray Lankester is available through Biodiversity Heritage Library:- http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/1242
and the Internet archive:
- Developmental History of the Mollusca (1875)
- http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/11154
- Degeneration: a chapter in Darwinism (1880)
- http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/4740
- The advancement of science. Occasional essays & addresses (1890)
- Zoölogical Articles (1891)
- http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/1682
- Zoological articles contributed to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (1891)
- The kingdom of man (1907)
- Science from an easy chair (1913)
- Science from an easy chair; a second series (1913)
- Diversions of a naturalist (1915)
- Secrets of earth and sea (1920)