348 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
internal rules (completely for discontinuity, and partly for directionality by
establishing channels—trajectories between facets—that must translate the impetus
into actual change).
In an interesting discussion, Galton distinguishes internally enjoined positions
of stability from clumping by simple descent, and he rejects the Darwinian
argument that taxonomic structure records differential shaping by natural selection:
"In the first place each race has a solidarity due to common ancestors and frequent
interbreeding. Secondly, some may think it, though not by myself, to have been
pruned into permanent shape by the long-continued action of natural selection. But,
in addition to these, I have for some years past maintained that a third cause exists
more potent than the other two, and sufficient by itself to mold a race, namely that
of definite positions of organic stability" (1894, p. 364).
Obviously struggling with a difficult concept that eludes precise formulation,
Galton seizes upon a variety of metaphors from "governments, crowds, landscapes,
and even from cookery and... from mechanical inventions" (1889, p. 22) to argue
that workable solutions may be viewed as isolated and stable islands in a sea of
largely empty space (impossible combinations). These "nucleating points" mark
physically possible places, predetermined by the structure of matter and space, not
a posteriori results of natural selection working as a contingent force in local
environments. (Today, of course, we would formulate this idea in Darwinian terms
as "multiple adaptive peaks," but Galton struggles with an alternate view, worthy
of our respect as an interesting option, of discontinuous solutions, internally set. In
Galton's mechanism, natural selection would still operate—but only in the negative
role of policing, and the facilitating task of providing a push into a preset channel.)
Only a few forms of government can lead to internal stability; only some
landscapes cohere; only a few combinations make flavorful dishes, despite a wide
range of ingredients. In a memorable defense of formalist preference for the
timelessness of distinct and stable configurations, and for downplaying the role of
historical specificity, Galton writes of crowds and public rituals: "Every variety of
crowd has its own characteristic features. At a national pageant, an evening party, a
race-course, a marriage, or a funeral, the groupings in each case recur so habitually
that it sometimes appears to me as if time had no existence, and that the ceremony
in which I am taking part is identical with others at which I had been present one
year, ten years, twenty years, or any other time ago" (1889, p. 23). Misidentifying
(as King Solomon) the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, Galton regrets the sameness that
such structural ahistoricity imposes. But he cannot disparage the way of the world:
"It is the triteness of these experiences that makes the most varied life monotonous
after a time, and many old men as well as Solomon have frequent occasion to
lament that there is nothing new under the sun" (1889, p. 24).
Morphotypes represent islands of stability, rare combinations of coherence
among available parts (for history only becomes relevant by providing an
inventory of availability). Natural selection may preserve these morphotypes once
they form by facet flipping, but their origin must be regarded as discontinuous