3. On the Curious Matter of Traits Having Histories

The Senior Common Room had entered that period of late morning in which sunlight stretched itself across carpets with the appearance of having nowhere urgent to be. Professor Quillibrace sat reading. Miss Elowen Stray had several pages of notes open beside her. Mr Blottisham was standing near the mantelpiece with an air of premature certainty.

"Traits," he announced, "are among the most satisfactory things in biology."

Quillibrace looked up slowly.

"Indeed?"

"Entirely. Wings, beaks, fur, speed, intelligence, resistance to toxins. One has them."

He nodded decisively.

"Very sensible arrangement."

Quillibrace closed his book.

"You mean traits are properties possessed by organisms?"

"Precisely."

Elowen looked up.

"That does seem to be the ordinary picture."

Blottisham beamed.

"Organisms have traits in rather the same way one has spectacles or a moustache."

Quillibrace regarded him quietly.

"I suspect this comparison may prove more revealing than intended."

Blottisham frowned.

"I fail to see why."

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"Tell me, Mr Blottisham—where exactly does a trait reside?"

Blottisham looked surprised.

"In the organism, naturally."

"Entirely inside it?"

"Certainly."

Quillibrace nodded.

"So resistance to disease exists entirely within the organism?"

"Yes."

"And diet-sensitive development?"

Blottisham hesitated.

"...yes."

"And socially acquired behaviour?"

"...mostly yes."

"And microbial functions dependent upon external ecological communities?"

Blottisham blinked.

"Well that appears to be behaving rather badly."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Biology often does."

Elowen leaned forward.

"Because many traits seem to depend upon developmental history, environmental conditions, and ongoing interactions?"

"Quite."

Quillibrace lifted his teacup.

"The closer one examines traits, the less they resemble objects carried around by organisms."

Blottisham frowned.

"But organisms have them."

"Do they?"

"Yes."

"Or do we merely observe recurring patterns stabilising across time?"

Silence.

Blottisham looked suspicious.

"I dislike that question."

"I expected as much."

Elowen looked thoughtful.

"So perhaps traits are not origins of explanation but outcomes of repeated biological processes?"

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

"Very good."

He turned back toward Blottisham.

"Consider antibiotic resistance."

Blottisham nodded confidently.

"A trait."

"Yes."

Quillibrace paused.

"But where precisely is this trait?"

Blottisham spread his hands.

"In the organism."

"Is it?"

Quillibrace continued:

"Or is it a history of selective pressures, environmental exposure, biochemical organisation, developmental pathways and recurring ecological constraints that has achieved stable reproducibility?"

Blottisham stared.

"My trait appears to have become alarmingly large."

"Indeed."

"And temporally extensive."

"Quite."

"And socially complicated."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Traits have a regrettable tendency to acquire biographies."

Elowen smiled.

"So a trait is not simply a property at a moment in time."

"No."

"It is a stabilised history."

"Exactly."

Blottisham sat down slowly.

"I had imagined traits as rather tidy little biological possessions."

Quillibrace looked sympathetic.

"Many people do."

"But now they seem to be wandering through generations collecting experiences."

"Yes."

"And carrying around ecological baggage."

"Frequently."

Blottisham looked disturbed.

"I do not care for traits with personal histories."

Quillibrace sipped his tea.

"The difficulty, Mr Blottisham, is that persistence often disguises itself as possession."

Elowen had begun writing rapidly.

"So traits appear stable because certain relational configurations repeatedly re-actualise under similar conditions?"

"Precisely."

"What persists is not an object but a reproducible pattern."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Very good."

Blottisham looked into the fire with concern.

"Then what exactly is inheritance?"

Quillibrace considered.

"Not the transfer of objects."

"No?"

"No."

"The continuation of relational conditions that make similar stabilisations likely."

Silence.

Blottisham stared ahead for several moments.

Then:

"Good heavens."

"What is it now?" asked Elowen.

He looked up slowly.

"I appear to have spent my life imagining evolution as a sort of biological postal service."

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"Traits packaged into organisms and delivered to subsequent generations."

Quillibrace nodded thoughtfully.

"A charming image."

Blottisham looked increasingly troubled.

"But now I seem to be learning that nothing is actually being posted at all."

"No."

"Only histories continuing under constraint."

"Yes."

Blottisham sat in silence.

At length he sighed.

"I cannot help feeling that biology was considerably simpler before everything developed a past."

Quillibrace adjusted his spectacles.

"My dear Mr Blottisham—"

He paused.

"Everything had a past already."

Another pause.

"We merely keep discovering where it was hiding."