_Princ.i.p.al Dawson._
Dr. Dawson, as we are informed, is regarded as the first palaeontologist, and among the first geologists, in America. In his "Story of Earth and Man,"[39] he pa.s.ses in review the several geological periods recognized by geologists; describes as far as knowable the distribution of land and water during each period, and the vegetable and animal productions by which they were distinguished. His book from beginning to end is anti-Darwinian. In common with other naturalists, his attention is directed princ.i.p.ally to the doctrine of evolution, which he endeavors to prove is utterly untenable. That Mr. Darwin"s theory excludes teleology is everywhere a.s.sumed as an uncontroverted and uncontrovertible fact. "The evolutionist doctrine," he says, "is itself one of the strangest phenomena of humanity. It existed, and most naturally, in the oldest philosophy and poetry, in connection with the crudest and most uncritical attempts of the human mind to grasp the system of nature; but that in our day a system dest.i.tute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague a.n.a.logies and figures of speech, and by the arbitrary and artificial coherence of its own parts, should be accepted as philosophy, and should find able adherents to string on its thread of hypotheses our vast and weighty stores of knowledge, is surpa.s.singly strange.... In many respects these speculations are important, and worthy the attention of thinking men. They seek to revolutionize the religious belief of the world, and if accepted would destroy most of the existing theology and philosophy. They indicate tendencies among scientific thinkers, which, though probably temporary, must, before they disappear, descend to lower strata, and reproduce themselves in grosser forms, and with most serious effects on the whole structure of society. With one cla.s.s of minds they const.i.tute a sort of religion, which so far satisfies the craving for truth higher than those which relate to immediate wants and pleasures. With another and perhaps larger cla.s.s, they are accepted as affording a welcome deliverance from all scruples of conscience and fears of a hereafter. In the domain of science evolutionism has like tendencies. It reduces the position of man, who becomes a descendant of inferior animals, and a mere term in a series whose end is unknown. It removes from the study of nature the ideas of final cause and purpose; and the evolutionist, instead of regarding the world as a work of consummate plan, skill, and adjustment, approaches nature as he would a chaos of fallen rocks, which may present forms of castles, and grotesque profiles of men and animals, but they are all fortuitous and without significance." (pp. 317, 318)
"Taking, then, this broad view of the subject, two great leading alternatives are presented to us. Either man is an independent product of the will of a Higher Intelligence, acting directly or through the laws and materials of his own inst.i.tution and production, or he has been produced by an unconscious evolution from lower things. It is true that many evolutionists, either unwilling to offend, or not perceiving the logical consequences of their own hypothesis, endeavor to steer a middle course, and to maintain that the Creator has proceeded by way of evolution. But the bare, hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English authority on evolution, leaves no place for this compromise, and shows that the theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, excludes the knowledge of a Creator and the possibility of his work. We have, therefore, to choose between evolution and creation, bearing in mind, however, that there may be a place in nature for evolution, properly limited, as well as for other things, and that the idea of creation by no means excludes law and second causes." (p. 321)
"It may be said, that evolution may be held as a scientific doctrine in connection with a modified belief in creation. The work of actual creation may have been limited to a few elementary types, and evolution may have done the rest. Evolutionists may still be theists. We have already seen that the doctrine, as carried out to its logical consequences, excludes creation and theism. It may, however, be shown that even in its more modified form, and when held by men who maintain that they are not atheists, it is practically atheistic, because excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving all things into the action of unintelligent forces. It is necessary to observe this, because it is the half-way-evolutionism, which professes to have a creator somewhere behind it, that is most popular; though it is, if possible, more unphilosophical than that which professes to set out with absolute and determined nonent.i.ty, or from self-existing stardust containing all the possibilities of the universe."
In reference to the objection of evolutionists, that the origin of every new species, on the theistic doctrine, supposes "a miracle," an intervention of the divine efficiency without the agency of second causes, Princ.i.p.al Dawson asks, "What is the actual statement of the theory of creation as it may be held by a modern man of science? Simply this: that all things have been produced by the Supreme Creative will, acting either directly, or through the agency of the forces and material of his own production." (p. 340)
He thus sums up his argument against the doctrine of evolution, specially in its application to man: "Finally, the evolutionist picture wants some of the fairest lineaments of humanity, and cheats us with the semblance of man without the reality. Shave and paint your ape as you may, clothe him and set him up upon his feet, still he fails greatly of the "human form divine;" and so it is with him morally and spiritually as well. We have seen that he wants the instinct of immortality, the love of G.o.d, the mental and spiritual power of exercising dominion over the earth. The very agency by which he is evolved is of itself subversive of all these higher properties; the struggle for existence is essentially selfish, and, therefore, degrading. Even in the lower animals, it is a false a.s.sumption that its tendency is to elevate; for animals, when driven to the utmost verge of the struggle for life, become depauperated and degraded. The dog which spends its life in snarling contention with its fellow curs for insufficient food, will not be a n.o.ble specimen of its race. G.o.d does not so treat his creatures.
There is far more truth to nature in the doctrine which represents Him as listening to the young ravens when they cry for food. But as applied to man, the theory of the struggle for existence, and survival of the fittest, though the most popular phase of evolutionism at present, is nothing less than the basest and most horrible of superst.i.tions. It makes man not merely carnal but devilish. It takes his lowest appet.i.tes and propensities, and makes them his G.o.d and Creator. His higher sentiments and aspirations, his self-denying philanthropy, his enthusiasm for the good and true, all the struggles and sufferings of heroes and martyrs, not to speak of that self-sacrifice which is the foundation of Christianity, are, in the view of the evolutionist, mere loss and waste, failure in the struggle of life. What does he give us in exchange? An endless pedigree of b.e.s.t.i.a.l ancestors, without one gleam of high and holy tradition to enliven the procession; and for the future, the prospect that the poor ma.s.s of protoplasm, which const.i.tutes the sum of our being, and which is the sole gain of an indefinite struggle in the past, must soon be resolved again into inferior animals or dead matter. That men of thought and culture should advocate such a philosophy, argues either a strange mental hallucination, or that the higher spiritual nature has been wholly quenched within them. It is one of the saddest of many sad spectacles which our age presents." (p. 395)
FOOTNOTE:
[39] _The Story of Earth and Man_. By J. W. Dawson, LL. D., F. R. S., F.
G. S., Princ.i.p.al and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Montreal.
Author of _Archaia, Acadian Geology_, etc. Second edition. London, 1873, pp. 397.
_Relation of Darwinism to Religion._
The consideration of that subject would lead into the wide field of the relation between science and religion. Into that field we lack competency and time to enter; a few remarks, however, on the subject may not be out of place. Those remarks, we would fain make in a humble way irenical. There is need of an Irenic.u.m, for the fact is painfully notorious that there is an antagonism between scientific men as a cla.s.s, and religious men as a cla.s.s. Of course this opposition is neither felt nor expressed by all on either side. Nevertheless, whatever may be the cause of this antagonism, or whoever are to be blamed for it, there can be no doubt that it exists and that it is an evil.
The first cause of the alienation in question is, that the two parties, so to speak, adopt different rules of evidence, and thus can hardly avoid arriving at different conclusions. To understand this we must determine what is meant by science, and by scientific evidence. Science, according to its etymology, is simply knowledge. But usage has limited its meaning, in the first place, not to the knowledge of facts or phenomena, merely, but to their causes and relations. It was said of old, "[Greek: hoti] scientiae fundamentum, [Greek: dioti] fastigium." No amount of materials would const.i.tute a building. They must be duly arranged so as to make a symmetrical whole. No amount of disconnected data can const.i.tute a science. Those data must be systematized in their relation to each other and to other things. In the second place, the word is becoming more and more restricted to the knowledge of a particular cla.s.s of facts, and of their relations, namely, the facts of nature or of the external world. This usage is not universal, nor is it fixed. In Germany, especially, the word _Wissenschaft_ is used of all kinds of ordered knowledge, whether transcendental or empirical. So we are accustomed to speak of mental, moral, social, as well as of natural science. Nevertheless, the more restricted use of the word is very common and very influential. It is important that this fact should be recognized. In common usage, a scientific man is distinguished specially from a metaphysician. The one investigates the phenomena of matter, the other studies the phenomena of mind, according to the old distinction between physics and metaphysics. Science, therefore, is the ordered knowledge of the phenomena which we recognize through the senses. A scientific fact is a fact perceived by the senses. Scientific evidence is evidence addressed to the senses. At one of the meetings of the Victoria Inst.i.tute, a visitor avowed his disbelief in the existence of G.o.d. When asked, what kind of evidence would satisfy him? he answered, Just such evidence as I have of the existence of this tumbler which I now hold in my hand. The Rev. Mr. Henslow says, "By science is meant the investigation of facts and phenomena recognizable by the senses, and of the causes which have brought them into existence."[40] This is the main root of the trouble. If science be the knowledge of the facts perceived by the senses, and scientific evidence, evidence addressed to the senses, then the senses are the only sources of knowledge. Any conviction resting on any other ground than the testimony of the senses, must be faith. Darwin admits that the contrivances in nature may be accounted for by a.s.suming that they are due to design on the part of G.o.d. But, he says, that would not be science. Haeckel says that to science matter is eternal. If any man chooses to say, it was created, well and good; but that is a matter of faith, and faith is imagination.
Ulrici quotes a distinguished German physiologist who believes in vital, as distinguished from physical forces; but he holds to spontaneous generation, not, as he admits, because it has been proved, but because the admission of any higher power than nature is unscientific.[41]
It is inevitable that minds addicted to scientific investigation should receive a strong bias to undervalue any other kind of evidence except that of the senses, _i. e._, scientific evidence. We have seen that those who give themselves up to this tendency come to deny G.o.d, to deny mind, to deny even self. It is true that the great majority of men, scientific as well as others, are so much under the control of the laws of their nature, that they cannot go to this extreme. The tendency, however, of a mind addicted to the consideration of one kind of evidence, to become more or less insensible to other kinds of proof, is undeniable. Thus even Aga.s.siz, as a zoologist and simply on zoological grounds, a.s.sumed that there were several zones between the Ganges and the Atlantic Ocean, each having its own flora and fauna, and inhabited by races of men, the same in kind, but of different origins. When told by the comparative philologists that this was impossible, because the languages spoken through that wide region, demonstrated that its inhabitants must have had a common descent, he could only answer that as ducks quack everywhere, he could not see why men should not everywhere speak the same language.
A still more striking ill.u.s.tration is furnished by Dr. Lionel Beale, the distinguished English physiologist. He has written a book of three hundred and eighty-eight pages for the express purpose of proving that the phenomena of life, instinct, and intellect cannot be referred to any known natural forces. He avows his belief that in nature "mind governs matter," and "in the existence of a never-changing, all-seeing, power-directing and matter-guiding Omnipotence." He avows his faith in miracles, and "those miracles on which Christianity is founded."
Nevertheless, his faith in all these points is provisional. He says that a truly scientific man, "if the maintenance, continuity, and nature of life on our planet should at some future time be fully explained without supposing the existence of any such supernatural omnipotent influence, would be bound to receive the new explanation, and might abandon the old conviction."[42] That is, all evidence of the truths of religion not founded on nature and perceived by the senses, amounts to nothing.
Now as religion does not rest on the testimony of the senses, that is on scientific evidence, the tendency of scientific men is to ignore its claims. We speak only of tendency. We rejoice to know or believe that in hundreds or thousands of scientific men, this tendency is counteracted by their consciousness of manhood--the conviction that the body is not the man,--by the intuitions of the reason and the conscience, and by the grace of G.o.d. No cla.s.s of men stands deservedly higher in public estimation than men of science, who, while remaining faithful to their higher nature, have enlarged our knowledge of the wonderful works of G.o.d.
A second cause of the alienation between science and religion, is the failure to make the due distinction between facts and the explanation of those facts, or the theories deduced from them. No sound minded man disputes any scientific fact. Religious men believe with Aga.s.siz that facts are sacred. They are revelations from G.o.d. Christians sacrifice to them, when duly authenticated, their most cherished convictions. That the earth moves, no religious man doubts. When Galileo made that great discovery, the Church was right in not yielding at once to the evidence of an experiment which it did not understand. But when the fact was clearly established, no man sets up his interpretation of the Bible in opposition to it. Religious men admit all the facts connected with our solar system; all the facts of geology, and of comparative anatomy, and of biology. Ought not this to satisfy scientific men? Must we also admit their explanations and inferences? If we admit that the human embryo pa.s.ses through various phases, must we admit that man was once a fish, then a bird, then a dog, then an ape, and finally what he now is? If we admit the similarity of structure in all vertebrates, must we admit the evolution of one from another, and all from a primordial germ? It is to be remembered that the facts are from G.o.d, the explanation from men; and the two are often as far apart as Heaven and its antipode.
These human explanations are not only without authority, but they are very mutable. They change not only from generation to generation, but almost as often as the phases of the moon. It is a fact that the planets move. Once it was said that they were moved by spirits, then by vortexes, now by self-evolved forces. It is hard that we should be called upon to change our faith with every new moon. The same man sometimes propounds theories almost as rapidly as the changes of the kaleidoscope. The amiable Sir Charles Lyell, England"s most distinguished geologist, has published ten editions of his "Principles of Geology," which so differ as to make it hard to believe that it is the work of the same mind. "In all the editions up to the tenth, he looked upon geological facts and geological phenomena as proving the fixity of species and their special creation in time. In the tenth edition, just published, he announces his change of opinion on this subject and his conversion to the doctrine of development by law."[43]
"In the eighth edition of his work," says Dr. Bree, "Sir Charles Lyell, the Nestor of geologists, to whom the present generation is more indebted than to any other for all that is known of geology in its advanced stage, teaches that species have a real existence in nature, and that each was endowed at the time of its creation with the attributes and organization by which it is now distinguished." The change on the part of this eminent geologist, it is to be observed, is a mere change of opinion. There was no change of the facts of geology between the publication of the eighth and of the tenth edition of his work, neither was there any change in his knowledge of those facts. All the facts relied upon by evolutionists, have long been familiar to scientific men. The whole change is a subjective one. One year the veteran geologist thinks the facts teach one thing, another year he thinks they teach another. It is now the fact, and it is feared it will continue to be a fact, that scientific men give the name of science to their explanations as well as to the facts. Nay, they are often, and naturally, more zealous for their explanations than they are for the facts. The facts are G.o.d"s, the explanations are their own.
The third cause of the alienation between religion and science, is the bearing of scientific men towards the men of culture who do not belong to their own cla.s.s. When we, in such connections, speak of scientific men, we do not mean men of science as such, but those only who avow or manifest their hostility to religion. There is an a.s.sumption of superiority, and often a manifestation of contempt. Those who call their logic or their conjectures into question, are stigmatized as narrow-minded, bigots, old women, Bible worshippers, etc.
Professor Huxley"s advice to metaphysicians and theologians is, to let science alone. This is his Irenic.u.m. But do he and his a.s.sociates let metaphysics and religion alone? They tell the metaphysician that his vocation is gone; there is no such thing as mind, and of course no mental laws to be established. Metaphysics are merged into physics.
Professor Huxley tells the religious world that there is over-whelming and crushing evidence (scientific evidence, of course) that no event has ever occurred on this earth which was not the effect of natural causes.
Hence there have been no miracles, and Christ is not risen.[44] He says that the doctrine that belief in a personal G.o.d is necessary to any religion worthy of the name, is a mere matter of opinion. Tyndall, Carpenter, and Henry Thompson, teach that prayer is a superst.i.tious absurdity; Herbert Spencer, whom they call their "great philosopher,"
_i. e._, the man who does their thinking, labors to prove that there cannot be a personal G.o.d, or human soul or self; that moral laws are mere "generalizations of utility," or, as Carl Vogt says, that self respect, and not the will of G.o.d, is the ground and rule of moral obligation. If any protest be made against such doctrines, we are told that scientific truth cannot be put down by denunciation (or as Vogt says, by barking). So doubtless the Pharisees, when our blessed Lord called them hypocrites and a generation of vipers, and said: "Ye compa.s.s sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of h.e.l.l than yourselves," doubtless thought that that was a poor way to refute their theory, that holiness and salvation were to be secured by church-membership and church-rites. Nevertheless, as those words were the words of Christ, they were a thunderbolt which reverberates through all time and s.p.a.ce, and still makes Pharisees of every name and nation tremble. Huxley"s Irenic.u.m will not do. Men who are a.s.siduously poisoning the fountains of religion, morality, and social order, cannot be let alone.
Haeckel"s Irenic.u.m amounts to much the same as that of Professor Huxley.
He forbids the right to speak on these vital subjects, to all who are not thoroughly versed in biology, and who are not entirely emanc.i.p.ated from the trammels of their long cherished traditional beliefs.[45] This, as the whole context shows, means that a man in order to be ent.i.tled to be heard on the evolution theory, must be willing to renounce his faith not only in the Bible, but in G.o.d, in the soul, in a future life, and become a monistic materialist.[46]
It is very reasonable that scientific men, in common with lawyers and physicians and other professional men, should feel themselves ent.i.tled to be heard with special deference on subjects belonging to their respective departments. This deference no one is disposed to deny to men of science. But it is to be remembered that no department of human knowledge is isolated. One runs into and overlaps another. We have abundant evidence that the devotees of natural science are not willing to confine themselves to the department of nature, in the common sense of that word. They not only speculate, but dogmatize, on the highest questions of philosophy, morality, and religion. And further, admitting the special claims to deference on the part of scientific men, other men have their rights. They have the right to judge of the consistency of the a.s.sertions of men of science and of the logic of their reasoning.
They have the right to set off the testimony of one or more experts against the testimony of others; and especially, they have the right to reject all speculations, hypotheses, and theories, which come in conflict with well established truths. It is ground of profound grat.i.tude to G.o.d that He has given to the human mind intuitions which are infallible, laws of belief which men cannot disregard any more than the laws of nature, and also convictions produced by the Spirit of G.o.d which no sophistry of man can weaken. These are barriers which no man can pa.s.s without plunging into the abyss of outer darkness.
If there be any truth in the preceding remarks, then it is obvious that there can be no harmony between science and religion until the evils referred to be removed. Scientific men must come to recognize practically, and not merely in words, that there are other kinds of evidence of truth than the testimony of the senses. They must come to give due weight to the testimony of consciousness, and to the intuitions of the reason and conscience. They must cease to require the deference due to established facts to be paid to their speculations and explanations. And they must treat their fellow-men with due respect. The Pharisees said to the man whose sight had been restored by Christ, "Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us!" Men of science must not speak thus. They must not say to every objector, Thou art not scientific, and therefore hast no right to speak. The true Irenic.u.m is for all parties to give due heed to such words as these, "If any man would be wise, let him become a fool, that he may be wise;" or these, "Be converted, and become as little children;" or these, "The Spirit of Truth shall guide you in all truth." We are willing to hear this called cant. Nevertheless, these latter words fell from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake.
So much, and it is very little, on the general question of the relation of science to religion. But what is to be thought of the special relation of Mr. Darwin"s theory to the truths of natural and revealed religion? We have already seen that Darwinism includes the three elements, evolution, natural selection, and the denial of design in nature. These points, however, cannot now be considered separately.
It is conceded that a man may be an evolutionist and yet not be an atheist and may admit of design in nature. But we cannot see how the theory of evolution can be reconciled with the declarations of the Scriptures. Others may see it, and be able to reconcile their allegiance to science with their allegiance to the Bible. Professor Huxley, as we have seen, p.r.o.nounces the thing impossible. As all error is antagonistic to truth, if the evolution theory be false, it must be opposed to the truths of religion so far as the two come into contact. Mr. Henslow, indeed, says Science and Religion are not antagonistic because they are in different spheres of thought. This is often said by men who do not admit that there is any thought at all in religion; that it is merely a matter of feeling. The fact, however, is that religion is a system of knowledge, as well as a state of feeling. The truths on which all religion is founded are drawn within the domain of science, the nature of the first cause, its relation to the world, the nature of second causes, the origin of life, anthropology, including the origin, nature, and destiny of man. Religion has to fight for its life against a large cla.s.s of scientific men. All attempts to prevent her exercising her right to be heard are unreasonable and vain.
It should be premised that this paper was written for the single purpose of answering the question, What is Darwinism? The discussion of the merits of the theory was not within the scope of the writer. What follows, therefore, is to be considered only in the light of a practical conclusion.
1. The first objection to the theory is its _prima facie_ incredibility.
That a single plant or animal should be developed from a mere cell, is such a wonder, that nothing but daily observation of the fact could induce any man to believe it. Let any one ask himself, suppose this fact was not thus familiar, what amount of speculation, of arguments from a.n.a.logies, possibilities, and probabilities, could avail to produce conviction of its truth. But who can believe that all the plants and animals which have ever existed upon the face of the earth, have been evolved from one such germ? This is Darwin"s doctrine. We are aware that this apparent impossibility is evaded by the believers in spontaneous generation, who hold that such germ cells may be produced anywhere and at all times. But this is not Darwinism. Darwin wants us to believe that all living things, from the lowly violet to the giant redwoods of California, from the microscopic animalcule to the Mastodon, the Dinotherium,--monsters the very description of which fill us with horror,--bats with wings twenty feet in breadth, flying dragons, tortoises ten feet high and eighteen feet long, etc., etc., came one and all from the same primordial germ. This demand is the more unreasonable when we remember that these living creatures are not only so different, but are, as to plants and animals, directly opposed in their functions.
The function of the plant, as biologists express it, is to produce force, that of the animal to expend it. The plant, in virtue of a power peculiar to itself, which no art or skill of man can imitate, trans.m.u.tes dead inorganic matter into organic matter, suited to the sustenance of animal life, and without which animals cannot live. The gulf, therefore, between the plant and animal would seem to be impa.s.sable.
Further, the variations by which the change of species is effected are so trifling as often to be imperceptible, and their acc.u.mulation of them so slow as to evade notice,--the time requisite to accomplish any marked change must be counted by millions, or milliards of years. Here is another demand on our credulity. The apex is reached when we are told that all these trans.m.u.tations are effected by chance, that is, without purpose or intention. Taking all these things into consideration, we think it may, with moderation, be said, that a more absolutely incredible theory was never propounded for acceptance among men.
2. There is no pretence that the theory can be proved. Mr. Darwin does not pretend to prove it. He admits that all the facts in the case can be accounted for on the a.s.sumption of divine purpose and control. All that he claims for his theory is that it is possible. His mode of arguing is that if we suppose this and that, then it may have happened thus and so.
Amiable and attractive as the man presents himself in his writings, it rouses indignation, in one cla.s.s at least of his readers, to see him by such a mode of arguing reaching conclusions which are subversive of the fundamental truths of religion.
3. Another fact cannot fail to attract attention. When the theory of evolution was propounded in 1844 in the "Vestiges of Creation," it was universally rejected; when proposed by Mr. Darwin, less than twenty years afterward, it was received with acclamation. Why is this? The facts are now what they were then. They were as well known then as they are now. The theory, so far as evolution is concerned, was then just what it is now. How then is it, that what was scientifically false in 1844 is scientifically true in 1864? When a drama is introduced in a theatre and universally condemned, and a little while afterward, with a little change in the scenery, it is received with rapturous applause, the natural conclusion is, that the change is in the audience and not in the drama.
There is only one cause for the fact referred to, that we can think of.
The "Vestiges of Creation" did not expressly or effectually exclude design. Darwin does. This is a reason a.s.signed by the most zealous advocates of his theory for their adoption of it. This is the reason given by Buchner, by Haeckel, and by Vogt. It is a.s.signed also in express terms by Strauss, the announcement of whose death has diffused a feeling of sadness over all who were acquainted with his antecedents. In his last work, "The Old Faith and the New," he admits "that Darwin"s doctrine is a mere hypothesis; that it leaves the main points unexplained (Die Hupt und Cardinal-punkte noch unerklart sind); nevertheless, as he has shown how miracles may be excluded, he is to be applauded as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race." (p.
177) By "Wunder," or miracle, Strauss means any event for which natural causes are insufficient to account. "We philosophers and critical theologians," he says, "have spoken well when we decreed the abolition of miracles; but our decree (macht-spruch) remained without effect, because we could not show them to be unnecessary, inasmuch as we were unable to indicate any natural force to take their place. Darwin has provided or indicated this natural force, this process of nature; he has opened the door through which a happier posterity may eject miracles forever." Then follows the sentence just quoted, "He who knows what hangs on miracle, will applaud Darwin as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race." With Strauss and others of his cla.s.s, miracles and design are identical, because one as well as the other a.s.sumes supernatural agency. He quotes Helmholtz, who says, "Darwin"s theory, that adaptation in the formation of organisms may arise without the intervention of intelligence, by the blind operation of natural law;"
and then adds, "As Helmholtz distinguishes the English naturalist as the man who has banished design from nature, so we have praised him as the man who has done away with miracles. Both mean the same thing.[47]
Design is the miracle-worker in nature, which has put the world upside down; or as Spinoza says, has placed the last first, the effect for the cause, and thus destroyed the very idea of nature. Design in nature, especially in the department of living organisms, has ever been appealed to by those who desire to prove that the world is not self-evolved, but the work of an intelligent Creator." (p. 211) On page 175, he refers to those who ridicule Darwin, and yet are so far under the influence of the spirit of the age as to deny miracles or the intervention of the Creator in the course of nature, and says: "Very well; how do they account for the origin of man, and in general the development of the organic out of the inorganic? Would they a.s.sume that the original man as such, no matter how rough and unformed, but still a man, sprang immediately out of the inorganic, out of the sea or the slime of the Nile? They would hardly venture to say that; then they must know that there is only the choice between miracle, the divine hand of the Creator, and Darwin."
What an alternative; the Creator or Darwin! In this, however, Strauss is right. To banish design from nature, as is done by Darwin"s theory, is, in the language of the Rev. Walter Mitch.e.l.l, virtually "to dethrone the Creator."
Ludwig Weis, M. D., of Darmstadt, says it is at present "the mode" in Germany (and of course in a measure here), to glorify Buddhism.
Strauss, he adds, says, "Nature knows itself in man, and in that he expresses the thought which all Idealism and all Materialism make the grand end. To the same effect it is said, "In Man the All comprehends itself as conscious being (comes to self-consciousness); or, in Man the absolute knowledge (Wissen, the act of knowing) appears in the limits of personality." This was the doctrine of the Buddhist and of the ancient Chinese." Thus, as Dr. Weis says, "in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, philosophers and scientists have reached the point where the Chinese were two thousand years ago."
The only way that is apparent for accounting for evolution being rejected in 1844, and for its becoming a popular doctrine in 1866, is, that it happens to suit a prevailing state of mind. It is a fact, so far as our limited knowledge extends, that no one is willing to acknowledge himself, not simply an evolutionist, but an evolutionist of the Darwinian school, who is not either a Materialist by profession, or a disciple of Herbert Spencer, or an advocate of the philosophy of Hume.
There is another significant fact which goes to prove that the denial of design, which is the "creative idea" of Darwinism, is the main cause of its popularity and success. Professor Owen, England"s greatest naturalist, is a derivationist. Derivation and evolution are convertible terms. Both include the denial that species are primordial, or have each a different origin; and both imply that one species is formed out of another and simpler form. Professor Owen, however, although a derivationist, or evolutionist, is a very strenuous anti-Darwinian. He differs from Darwin as to two points. First, as to Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. He says that is inconsistent with facts and utterly insufficient to account for the origin of species. He refers the origin of species to an inherent tendency to change impressed on them from the beginning. And second, he admits design. He denies that the succession and origin of species are due to chance, and expresses his belief in the constant operation of creative power in the formation of species from the varied descendants of more generalized forms.[48] He believes "that all living things have been produced by such law (of variation) in time, their position and uses in the world having been preordained by the Creator."[49] Professor Owen says he has taught the doctrine of derivation (evolution) for thirty years, but it attracted little attention. As soon, however, as Darwin leaves out design, we have a prairie-fire. A prairie-fire, happily, does not continue very long; and while it lasts, it burns up little else than stubble.
4. All the evidence we have in favor of the fixedness of species is, of course, evidence not only against Darwinism, but against evolution in all its forms. It would seem idle to discuss the question of the mutability of species, until satisfied what species is. This, unhappily, is a question which it is exceedingly difficult to answer. Not only do the definitions given by scientific men differ almost indefinitely, but there is endless diversity in cla.s.sification. Think of four hundred and eighty species of humming-birds. Haeckel says that one naturalist makes ten, another forty, another two hundred, and another one, species of a certain fossil; and we have just heard that Aga.s.siz had collected eight hundred species of the same fossil animal. Haeckel also says (p. 246), that there are no two zoologists or any two botanists who agree altogether in their cla.s.sification. Mr. Darwin says, "No clear line of demarcation has yet been drawn between species and sub-species, and varieties." (p. 61) It is absolutely necessary, therefore, that a distinction should be made between artificial and natural species. No man a.s.serts the immutability of all those varieties of plants and animals, which naturalists, for the convenience of cla.s.sification, may call distinct species. Haeckel, for example, gives a list of twelve species of man. So any one may make fifty species of dogs, or of horses.
This is a mere artificial distinction, which amounts to nothing. There is far greater difference between a pouter and a carrier pigeon, than between a Caucasian and a Mongolian. To call the former varieties of the same species, and the latter distinct species, is altogether arbitrary.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding the arbitrary cla.s.sifications of naturalists, it remains true that there are what Professor Dana calls "units" of the organic world. "When individuals multiply from generation to generation, it is but a repet.i.tion of the primordial type-idea, and the true notion of the species is not in the resulting group, but in the idea or potential element which is the basis of every individual of the group."[50] Dr. Morton"s definition of species as "primordial organic forms," agrees with that given by Professor Dana; and both agree with the Bible, which says that G.o.d created plants and animals each after its kind. A primordial form is a form which was not evolved out of some other form, but which began to be in the form--subject to such varieties as we see in the dog, horse, and man--in which it continued during the whole period of its existence.
The criteria of these primordial forms or species of nature, are, (1.) Morphological. Animals, however, may approach very nearly in their structure, and yet belong to different species. It is only when the peculiarities of structure are indicative of specialty of design, that they form a safe ground of cla.s.sification. If the teeth of one animal are formed to fit it to feed on flesh, and those of another to fit it to feed on plants; if one has webbed feet and another not; then, in all such cases, difference of structure proves difference of kind. (2.) Physiological; that is, the internal nature, indicated by habits and instincts, furnishes another safe criterion. (3.) Permanent fecundity.
The progenitors of the same species reproduce their kind from generation to generation; the progeny of different species, although nearly allied, do not. It is a fixed law of nature that species never can be annihilated, except by all the individuals included in them dying out; and that new species cannot be produced. Every true species is primordial. It is this fact, that is, that no variety, with the essential characteristics of species, has ever been produced, that forces, as we saw above, Professor Huxley to p.r.o.nounce Mr. Darwin"s doctrine to be an unproved hypothesis. Species continue; varieties, if let alone, always revert to the normal type. It requires the skill and constant attention of man to keep them distinct.
Now that there are such forms in nature, is proved not only from the testimony of the great body of the most distinguished naturalists, but by all the facts in the case.
First, the fact that such species are known to have existed unchanged, through what geologists consider almost immeasurable periods of time.
Palaeontologists tell us that Trilobites abounded from the primordial age down to the Carboniferous period, that is, as they suppose, through millions of years. More wonderful still, the little animals whose remains const.i.tute the chalk formations which are spread over large areas of country, and are sometimes a hundred feet thick, are now at work at the bottom of the Atlantic. Princ.i.p.al Dawson tells us, with regard to Mollusks existing in a sub-fossil state in the Post-pliocene clays of Canada, that "after carefully studying about two hundred species, and of some of these, many hundreds of specimens, I have arrived at the conclusion that they are absolutely unchanged.... Here again we have an absolute refusal, on the part of all these animals, to admit that they are derived, or have tended to sport into new species."[51]
On the previous page he says, "Pictet catalogues ninety-eight species of mammals which inhabited Europe in the Post-glacial period. Of these fifty-seven still exist unchanged, and the remainder have disappeared.
Not one can be shown to have been modified into a new form, though some of them have been obliged, by changes of temperature and other conditions, to remove into distant and now widely separated regions."