Part 4

3. The pulpit was once the chief means of instruction and of intellectual and moral stimulation for the people. The preacher was the people’s orator. The pulpit has in great measure lost its attractive power in this regard. The daily and weekly press have a greater influence in public instruction. The multiplication of cheap books also takes from the preacher a large share of his influence in this regard. Oratory in legislative bodies has to a great extent lost its influence. Its place has been taken by simple, compact, time-saving statements, often printed but not delivered. Committees do the work which used to be done after discussion before the public. So the people will not listen now to the pulpit orator of former generations. They demand short, crisp sermons that bristle with points, and are practical and helpful. In other words, the oratorical and highly intellectual character of the pulpit which used to attract worshipers no longer attracts them. They feel that they can get more benefit in this regard by reading in the comfort of the home. Multitudes of people can no longer be induced to attend church to be instructed by the minister or to get his judgment on topics of the time, or to be stirred by his eloquence; they can get all these things cheaper and easier by reading at home. When, now, this is re-enforced by the fact that multitudes dislike the doctrines of the Church, and resent them when they are preached, we can easily understand that church attendance should decline very greatly from this reason.

But this is no evidence that the Christian religion has declined. If men absent themselves from public worship because it is no longer necessary for them, as good citizens and as respectable members of society, to attend, or because they may get their instruction and stimulation elsewhere easier and with less expenditure of time and money, that is simply an evidence that attendance upon church in the past has been due in great measure to other than religious reasons, and that, these no longer holding, attendance has disappeared with them. The attendance upon public worship, though reduced so far as number is concerned, is now more simply and purely for religious reasons, and therefore minister and people may with greater freedom make the services more distinctly religious.

This is indeed the real situation that has emerged. The sermon has declined relatively in importance, and rightly so. It had an exaggerated importance in the Protestant Church, especially in the non-liturgical churches. There is a world-wide tendency now, which is increasing in power, to improve and enlarge the worship of the Church. Liturgies and ceremonies of worship are more discussed now in the Protestant world than are sermons and lectures, because it is becoming every day more evident that the Church is organized for common prayer and for public worship, and not merely to furnish a pulpit for a minister. The pulpit is more and more being merged in the worship, and is losing its domination over the worship. With this tendency goes increased attention to the Holy Sacraments, especially the Holy Communion, more frequent celebrations and more frequent participation, increased opportunity of worship during Sunday and during the week, and also therewith the greatly increased attention to the organization of the Church for aggressive Christian work. Those who think that the pulpit is everything in the public service naturally suppose that with the decline of the pulpit Christianity declines, but those who think that public worship is the essential thing in the Church rejoice at the changes that are taking place, and hold that Christianity is advancing. They maintain that it is not so important for the Church to gather large crowds to listen to the sermon as it is for the church doors to be ever open, with frequent services for the convenience and help of worshipers at any time, without regard to whether they are few or many, assured that thereby a much greater number of people are reached and benefited than by the former limited methods.

It is sometimes said that biblical criticism has undermined faith in Holy Scripture, and that, therefore, many absent themselves from public worship. But there is no real evidence for it. I doubt not that the opponents of biblical criticism drive many people from their congregations, just as they do when they attack the sure results of modern science, or expose their ignorance in the discussion of political and economical questions in which they have not been trained; but these people simply remove to other congregations where they will not be offended by obscurantism and intolerance. Biblical criticism really makes the Bible more attractive to the people, and its reading and exposition more interesting and influential in the Church.

A careful study of the situation makes it evident that the Christian religion is not declining in our land; but it is passing through a transition state, putting off antiquated dogmas, customs, and methods, and adapting itself to the modern world, and transferring itself so as to better accomplish its work. In no age has Christianity made more advance than in the century now drawing to a close.

* * * * *

The Indians of Bolivia are described by Sir Martin Conway as “an exceedingly bigoted folk, retaining under a mask of Christianity their ancient superstitions, little altered,” and are kept in order by priestly management rather than by force. Mr. Conway was seriously interfered with by them in the prosecution of his researches because the nature of his undertaking involved some outrage to their superstitions. They regard the mountains above the level of habitation as part of the other world, and holding, among other fancies, that a golden bull and a golden cross planted by supernatural agency stood on the summit of one of the peaks round the base of Mount Serata, thought that the object of the explorer’s expedition could be nothing else than to obtain possession of these priceless treasures. Hence they offered formidable opposition to him.

A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY.[A]

BY PROF. JOSEPH LE CONTE.

[A] In this article I have attempted to give only the development of geological thought.

Geology is one of the youngest of the sciences. It may almost be said to have been born of the present century. It is true that knowledge concerning the structure of the earth had been accumulating ever since the time of the Greeks and Romans; it is true that these materials became more abundant and were better organized in the eighteenth century; but this knowledge had not yet taken form as a distinct branch of science until about the end of that century. There are two distinctive marks of scientific as compared with popular knowledge: First, that its fundamental idea is clearly conceived; and, second, that its method is distinctly inductive.

1. FUNDAMENTAL IDEA.--The fundamental idea underlying geological thought is the history of the earth. Now, until the beginning of the present century the earth was not supposed to have any history. It was supposed to have been made at once, out of hand, about six thousand years ago, and to have remained substantially unchanged ever since as the necessary theater of human history. Changes were known to have taken place and in less degree to be still taking place, but these were not supposed to follow any law such as is necessary to constitute a history, and thus to constitute a science distinct from geography. Buffon, about the middle of the last century, did indeed bring out dimly the idea of an abyss of time, preceding the advent of man, in which the earth was inhabited by animals and plants wholly different from those of the present day, but he was compelled by the priests of the Sorbonne to retract these supposed irreligious views. So tardily was the fundamental idea of geology clearly conceived that Comte, the great originator of scientific philosophy, in his classification of the sciences in 1820, denied a place to geology because, according to him, it was not a distinct science at all, but only a field for the application of all the sciences. It is evident that he did not perceive the fundamental idea underlying geology and distinguishing it from geography--viz., a life history of the earth through all time. The claim of geology to a place in a scheme of classification is exactly the same as that of astronomy. As astronomy is a field for the application of mathematics, mechanics, physics, and, recently, chemistry, but is distinguished from them all by its characteristic fundamental idea of illimitable space, so geology is a field for the application of all other lower sciences, but is distinguished from them all by her characteristic fundamental idea of illimitable time. As all other sciences are terrestrial, but astronomy alone celestial, so all other sciences belong to the present--the “_now_”--but geology alone belongs to the illimitable past. The fundamental idea of the one is infinite _space_, of the other infinite, in sense of inconceivable, _time_. All other sciences, including astronomy, are but a flash-light view of Nature. Geology alone is a view of Nature in continuous movement, a life history--an evolution of Nature. This mode of thought began to dawn only in the closing years of the last and the opening years of the present century. It seems to have been first clearly conceived by the mind of Hutton in the last part of the eighteenth century.

2. INDUCTIVE METHOD APPLIED.--When the true idea underlying geology was clearly conceived and geology thus distinctly separated from other departments of science, geology may be said to have been born. But it was still in helpless infancy, its growth irregular, and even its continuous life uncertain, because a solid basis of inductive method was not yet laid. That basis was laid mainly by Hutton in 1795,[B] and still more clearly by Charles Lyell in 1830, in the principle that the study of _causes now in operation_ is the only true foundation of geology.

[B] Hutton’s Theory of the Earth.

Geological changes, of course, belong to the irrevocable past, and are therefore hopelessly removed from _direct_ observation. Their causes and process must be reconstructed by the skillful use of the scientific imagination. Until Lyell, more or less probable hypotheses seemed all that was possible. What a field was here for the conflict of opposite extreme views! But Lyell showed that “causes now in operation” are producing similar effects under our eyes, if we will only observe. From that moment geology became a truly inductive science and its indefinite progress assured.

These two events, then--viz., the conception of geology as a distinct science, and the introduction of a true scientific method--are the greatest epochs in the history of geological science. Some dim adumbrations of these appear before this century, especially the former in the mind of Buffon, and the latter somewhat fully in the mind of Hutton, but they were not generally accepted and had not become working principles until the beginning and even some time after the beginning of the nineteenth century. These must be borne in mind in all we have further to say of the progress of geology through the century.

When the century opened, the war between the Neptunists and the Plutonists, between the Wernerites and the Huttonites, was still going on, but was approaching the usual result in such cases of dispute--viz., the recognition of the fact that there was truth on both sides, and they must be combined into a more comprehensive view. The chief difference of opinion still remaining was as to the relative importance of the two agencies, aqueous and igneous. Two great advances took place about the beginning of this century: William Smith, by patient, painstaking field observation and mapping, laid the foundation of stratigraphy; and Cuvier, by his profound and brilliant studies of the wonderful discoveries of extinct mammals in the Eocene basin of Paris, laid the foundations of paleontology. These researches placed in clearer light than ever before the existence of other time-worlds before the present one. William Smith published his tabular view of the British Strata in 1790, but his map was not completed and published until 1815. Cuvier’s great work on the Organic Remains of the Paris Basin was published in 1808.

Thus, early in the century the two bases of our science were laid by Smith and Cuvier. We now proceed to touch lightly only the main steps of subsequent growth through the century.

As, in the previous century and the early part of this, the discussion was between the opposite schools of Neptunists and Plutonists, with the final result of reconciliation in a more scientific view which combined these two surface views into a stereoscopic reality, so now the discussions began between catastrophism and uniformitarianism, and ended with a similar final result. Geologists, in the early part of the century, before the study of causes and processes now in operation was generally acknowledged as the only rational basis of a true scientific geology, seeing the frequent unconformities in the geological series and the apparently sudden changes of life forms associated with these unconformities, were naturally led to the conclusion that the whole history of the earth consisted of a series of sudden and violent catastrophes by which the bed of the ocean was suddenly raised and its waters precipitated on the land as a great wave of translation, carrying universal ruin and extermination of all life in its course. Such catastrophes were supposed to be followed by periods of quiet, during which the new earth was repeopled, by direct act of creation, with new forms of life adapted to the new conditions.

This view was in perfect accord with the then accepted doctrine of the supernatural origin and the permanence of species. Species were supposed to have been created at once, out of hand, without natural process, in some place (center of specific origin), spread in all directions as far as physical conditions would allow, but remained unchanged and unchangeable as long as they continued to live or until another universal exterminating catastrophe. Species are “medals of creation.” They are successive individuals struck from the same die, until the die is worn out or broken. Then a new die is made, and the process of coinage of identical individuals is renewed.

Thus the whole history of the earth was supposed to consist of a succession of alternate supernatural and natural events. The catastrophes were supernatural; the times of quiet were natural. The creation of new dies or creation of first individuals was supernatural; the coinage of individuals of successive generations was natural. But on the whole the successive conditions of physical geography and the successive faunas and floras were higher and more complex according to a preordained plan. The great apostles of catastrophism were Cuvier in France and Buckland in England. According to Buckland, the last of these great catastrophes was the Quaternary or drift period, and this period was, by him and by many others since, associated with the Noachian Deluge.

Lyell opposed this view with all his power. According to him we can not judge of geological causes and processes except by study of causes and processes now in operation and producing effects under our eyes. The slow operation of similar causes and processes is sufficient--given time enough--to account for all the phenomena in geological history. Thus arose the extreme opposite doctrine of _uniformitarianism_. Things have gone on from the beginning and throughout all time much as they are going on now. This view, of course, required illimitable time, and was of great service in enforcing this idea. But, in revulsion from the previous idea of catastrophism, it undoubtedly was pushed much too far.

Meanwhile the theory of evolution was incubating in the mind of Darwin. Even Lyell, while he established the doctrine of slow uniform changes so far as inorganic Nature was concerned, was still compelled to admit supernatural catastrophic changes in organic Nature. Species, even for Lyell, were still immutable--still there were supernatural creation of first individuals, and continuance of similar individuals by natural process of generation. On the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species by Descent with Modification, Lyell at once embraced the new view as a completion of his principle of causes now in operation and his doctrine of uniformitarianism. In a certain superficial sense evolution is certainly confirmatory of the doctrine of uniformity of causes and processes in the past and the present, but in a deeper sense it is quite contrary in its spirit. Uniformitarians of the Lyell school look upon geology as a chronicle of events--evolutionists as a life history of the earth. The one regards the slow changes as irregular, uncertain, without progress or purpose or goal; the other as an evolution to higher and higher conditions, as a gradual movement onward toward the present condition and toward man as its goal. The recognition of this is only now approaching clearness. If geology is the history of the evolution of the earth from primal chaos until now, then the conditions have changed at every step, and absolute uniformity is impossible. Extreme uniformitarianism is therefore untenable. Catastrophism and uniformitarianism are opposite extremes which must be combined and reconciled. This reconciliation is only now being completed, and we therefore put off its discussion for the present. Suffice it to say now that geologic thought in this regard has passed through three stages--catastrophism, uniformitarianism, and evolutionism. And this latter is the final stage, because (1) it is a complete reconciliation between the other two, and (2) because it is plastic and indefinitely modifiable and progressive, while the other two are equally rigid and unchangeable by their mutual antagonism.

With these fundamental principles in mind, we proceed to touch briefly the most important advances during the century.

EVOLUTION OF EARTH FORMS.

The idea of the progressive development of the earth in its greater features throughout all geologic time by the action of forces resident in the earth itself preceded the acceptance of the evolution of organic forms. We have said that the fundamental idea of geology is that of the evolution of the earth through all time. Now, it was Dana who first studied geology wholly from this point of view. For him geology was the development of the earth as a unit. Before him, doubtless, geology was a kind of history--i. e., a chronicle of thrilling events--but Dana first made it a philosophic history. Before Dana, geology was an account of the succession of formations and their fossil contents. Dana made it an account of the evolution of earth forms and the concomitant and resulting evolution of organic forms. It is true that first and for a long time his evolutional conception was incomplete. It is true that while he attributed the evolution of earth forms to natural causes and processes, he still shrank from applying similar causes to the changes in life forms, but this was the almost necessary result of the then universal belief in the supernatural origin and the unchangeableness of organic forms. He lived to make his conception of evolution as a natural process, both of the earth and of organic forms, complete.

_Ocean Basins and Continents._--If we divide geological causes and processes into two general kinds as to their origin--viz., internal, or earth-derived, and external, or sun-derived--evidently the former is the original and fundamental kind. These determine earth forms, while the other only modify them; these determine the great features, the other only the lesser features; the former rough-hews the earth features, the latter shapes them. It is the effects of these interior earth forces which are the most important to study. And among these effects the most fundamentally important of all is the formation of those greatest features--the ocean basins and continental arches. The most probable view is that they are formed by unequal radial contraction in the secular cooling of the earth. The earth was certainly at one time an incandescently hot mass, which gradually cooled and contracted to its present temperature and size. Now, if it were perfectly homogeneous both in density and in conductivity in all parts, then, cooling and contracting equally in every part, it would retain its symmetric oblate-spheroid form, though diminishing in size. But if there were any, the least, heterogeneity either in density or especially in conductivity over large areas, then the more conductive areas, contracting more rapidly toward the center radially, would form hollows or basins, and the less conductive areas would stand out as higher arches. Thus were formed the oceanic basin and the continental arches of the lithosphere. The same causes which produced would continue to increase them, and thus the ocean basins would increase in depth and the continents in height.

The hydrosphere is still to be added. In the beginning of this process doubtless the lithosphere was hot enough to maintain all the water in the form of vapor in the atmosphere. But when the surface was cool enough the water would precipitate and partly or wholly cover the earth--whether partly or wholly would depend on the amount of precipitated water and the amount of inequality which had already taken place. The amount of water, as we know, is sufficient, if the inequalities were removed, to cover the whole surface two and a half miles deep. Inasmuch as the forming of the inequalities is progressive and still going on, it seems improbable that the inequalities had become sufficiently great, at the time of precipitation, to hold the waters. If this be so, then the primeval ocean was universal and the future continents existed only as continental banks in the universal ocean.

However this may have been, there seems little doubt that the same cause which produced the inequalities continued to operate to increase them. The ocean basins, so far as these causes are concerned, must have become deeper and deeper, and the continents larger and larger. In spite of many oscillations producing changes mostly on the margins, but sometimes extending over wide areas in the interior of the continent, this, on the whole, seems to be in accordance with the known geological history of the earth. If so, then _the oceanic basins have always been oceanic basins, and the places of the continents have always been substantially the same_. This introduces a subject on which there has been much discussion recently--viz.: