Chapter 5

Unexplained Origins.

The evolutionary scheme of development is, by its originators and defenders, accepted as a working hypothesis by which it is believed that the origin of all forms which matter has taken, and of the activities of living things, including man and human society, can be accounted for. It is an attempt to answer the old question, suggested to the thinking mind by a contemplation of nature: _Whence_ these things? It it a theory of origins.

Now, a hypothesis, being "a theory, or supposition, provisionally employed as an explanation of phenomena," must be verified before it can be accepted as truth. Moreover, it can stand _even as a hypothesis_ only if it meets the test of observation and experiment. It it can demonstrate its adaption to explain all the facts, it may, until another and better theory is propounded, be accepted as a theory. When it does not explain the facts, it must be modified or abandoned.

Since the evolutionary hypothesis is employed as an explanation of certain origins, a legitimate test of the theory is its adaptation to explain these origins. This test we now shall apply. We shall try to answer the question: Is the evolutionary theory entitled to the name of a working hypothesis? Is it able to account for those things which it is set forth by its spokesmen to account for? Does it account for the origin of the universe, of life, and of the various forms of life?

Scientists as a rule disclaim any intention to account, on the basis of their hypothesis, for the origin of matter. When it is suggested to them that any theory of origins should also account for the FIRST ORIGIN, the beginning of things, they direct us to philosophy: "Evolution is not concerned with the origin of matter; it takes matter for granted; the origin of matter is properly a philosophical and not a scientific problem."

Let us note the fallacies of this position. In the first place it is not proper to introduce the word "science" into this plea. Science is, indeed, only concerned with things that can be demonstrated by observation and from experience; and since no one has seen the beginning of matter, science is very properly not concerned with it. But evolution is not a science. It is a hypothesis, a theory. It is an explanation proposed for certain phenomena. 'And we have a right to demand that, if it wants recognition even as a theory, it must explain those phenomena. Now the principle of evolution is: All things have developed through certain forces which inhere in matter. In other words, without being acted upon from the outside, (without a creative word of God, for instance,) the unvierse [tr. note: sic] has come to be what it is to-day. In matter there are from the beginning certain forces inseparable from matter. These acted in such a way that very simple plants and animals became very complex; and this without any directing Intelligence. This is the evolutionary theory. Now, we hold that a theory which claims to account for the beginning of all animal life (and every species of animal life), for the beginning of plant life (and of every species of plant life), for the beginning of life germs, of the globe, of the sun and stars, cannot stop short when we press our questions still farther and ask: Whence is matter? Whence is force?

Nor, indeed, do evolutionists hesitate to express an opinion concerning the origin of matter and force. The universe, as it exists to-day, is made up of matter disposed in various forms,--stars, rock, plants, animals,--and endowed with energy in various forms; and from the earliest age of speculation, as we have seen, the human mind conceived of a time in which there was _unorganized_ matter, substance without form. Like the ancient Greek philosophers, evolutionists to-day try to formulate a working hypothesis to account for the origin of the universe. It is believed that, in a broad way, the _Nebular Hypothesis_ put forth by La Place indicated the manner in which the earth and the system to which it belongs have been evolved. We have outlined, briefly, in our first chapter, the main features of this theory. We shall now indicate the difficulties which stand in the way of its acceptance even as a working hypothesis.

1. The Nebular Hypothesis assumes that during a past endless time there has existed an incalculable number of original atoms. Let us understand that according to the so-called atomic theory, matter is composed of indivisible particles, called _atoms_. Since the discovery of radium this theory has been considerably modified, each atom now being understood to consist of many thousands of smaller particles, called electrons. However, whether we call them atoms or electrons, the smallest, indivisible particles of matter are assumed to have existed during infinite past time. Now, the origin of these simplest component parts of matter _remains an unsolved mystery_. The mind is unable even to formulate a guess with reference to their organization.

2. A second postulate of the Nebular Hypothesis is the _origin of force and motion_ in the huge gas ball which existed in the beginning. La Place says that "at some point concentration took place in the homogeneous mass, this contraction produced radiation of heat and light, and through the differences in temperature, _motion_ and dynamic reaction were produced." The difficulty which inheres in this postulate is the unquestioned fact that all motion in nature follows certain immutable _laws_*, [*These laws, so far as known, form the basis of what we call physics and chemistry.] and _the origin of these laws_ is not accounted for by the theory. Laws never make themselves, and their complexity,--immeasurably beyond our power of exploration--yet everywhere adjusted to a definite end, is so intricate that their origin can by no means be accounted for by chance.

3. According to the theory matter was first in _"nebular" (gas) form,_ and that the gases existing diffused through space were, through the motion which originated, changed from a huge ball of fire-mist to a semi-solid sphere, which threw off smaller spheres (the planets) that gradually became solid. Now, this is contrary to our knowledge of gases. Gases may be produced from solids, but an incandescent gas will not, through simple motion, become a solid substance. Gases may be solidified, but only in two ways, by pressure or when greatly cooled,--when they become ice. But they do not retain this form when the pressure or the cooling agency is removed. Gases, as we know them, all have a tendency to expand indefinitely. They have no tendency to solidify, as the hypothesis presumes.

4. La Place assumed that the solar system when still in gaseous state, began to revolve upon its axis, and that, as the gas ball continued to revolve, it condensed. As condensation went on, the rotation became faster, and a ring of matter was thrown off from the hardening core. This ring again resolved itself into a rotating globe which, still in a fluid state, threw off other balls, which revolved around their mother, the first planet, even as the latter continued to follow an orbit around the central body, the sun. In this way the planets of the solar system, including the earth, (according to the theory), were evolved together with their satellites or moons. The difficulty attending this view of planetary evolution is found in the difference _between the movements of a number of satellites_ around the planets. While the satellites of the earth, of Jupiter and of Saturn revolve _from west to east,_ the moons of Uranus and Neptune have an orbital movement _from east to west_. This is regarded also by the friends of the Nebular Hypothesis as one of the gravest difficulties, since no mechanical law will explain the reverse movement of the satellites of the remotest planets when they, as well as Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest are supposed to have been cast off by the same central body.

5. According to the theory, the original atoms during the process of world-making united into _molecules_. The laws according to which atoms unite,--so that, for instance, the hydrogen atom each unites with two atoms of oxygen, and so down the list of all known existences,--these laws are among the assured results of scientific study. Now, the entire science of chemistry in all its branches is built upon the axiom that molecules are _absolutely unalterable_ and that molecules of the same kind are always absolutely identical. A molecule of water is always and invariably composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. A molecule of sulphuric acid invariably contains two atoms of hydrogen, one of sulphur, and four of oxygen. A molecule of potassium chlorate is always composed of just one atom of potassium chloride and three atoms of oxygen. Never is there any variation of these proportions in the same element, and a chemist will, without handling the elements, merely by mathematical calculation, unerringly produce new combinations, relying on the absolute constancy of the relations of atoms and molecules. Now, the theory that in the beginning of things, out of a mass of atoms diffused without form through space, molecules came into being, each kind or type composed of atoms according to a proportion peculiarly its own, cannot be accepted unless it is shown in what manner the laws came into existence according to which these combinations take place. Clerk Maxwell concludes a masterly statement of this aspect of the hypothesis by asking: "Who can restrain the ulterior question, Whence then these myriad types of the same letter imprinted on the earth, the sun, the stars, as if the very mould used here had been lent to Sirius, and passed on through the constellations? No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of the molecules throughout all time, and throughout the whole region of the stellar universe; for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule (as known to science) is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction."

The Origin of Life.

The origin of life on our globe is not accounted for on the basis of the evolutionary hypothesis. At some time in the remote past, there must, according to the theory, have been a development of living substance from a mineral base. But if scientific experiment has shown anything it has shown the unreality of what was called "spontaneous generation." This term was very popular with the scientists of a century or two ago. It was believed that certain animal and vegetable forms gave birth, in the process of decay, to insect life. Putrefying meat gives rise to maggots. The origin of these grubs was referred to the power of "spontaneous generation." When the Italian naturalist Redi discovered that an exclusion of flies from meat was all that was necessary to prevent the production of grubs, the doctrine of spontaneous generation was thoroughly upset, for his time at least. But the microscope revealed in "pure" water the presence of thousands of small creatures, the infusoria. Again spontaneous generation was appealed to in order to explain their presence. But the famous experiments of Pasteur (related by Huxley in his lectures on The Origin of Species, Lecture III), proved conclusively that sterilized water will not produce living forms when the germs floating everywhere about in the air are excluded. Since that time all men of science agree that there is no such thing demonstrable as spontaneous generation. It has become an axiom that "Life only comes from life." But how the first germs of life originated, is a question for which there is no answer. Huxley admits: "Of the causes which led to the origination of living matter it may be said that we know absolutely nothing." "The present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the not living."

However, while spontaneous generation is "absolutely inconceivable" (Darwin), and while no experiments made on dead matter have ever produced living (plant and animal) matter, life must have originated at some time from non-life according to the evolutionary hypothesis. The theory assumes that at some time the globe was in an incandescent stage. At that time there could not have been any life on our earth. But as the earth cooled, it is held that by some chemico-electric action (electric force acting upon elements in favorable combinations), inert, lifeless matter became endowed with the property which we call life, and this original living substance is called protoplasm. From it, by successive modifications, slow in their operation, the teeming variety of living things is believed to have developed. Now it is a notable fact, that many evolutionists (among them Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-discoverer of the theory which goes under Darwin's name) frankly admit the inability to account for the origin of protoplasm. From mineral substances, protoplasm differs in that it possesses the power of growth, development, and reproduction. The very first vegetable cell "must have possessed altogether new powers," says Mr. Wallace, "that of extracting carbon from the air and that of indefinite reproduction. Here,"--note this admission,--"we have indications of _a new power_ at work." In other words, forces resident in matter no longer suffice. The evolutionistic principle breaks down.

Some fifty years ago it was thought that experimental proof had been found for the presence on earth of the original, simple, unorganized protoplasm; that the basis of all life on earth had been discovered,--in the depths of the ocean. The story of this "discovery" is entertainingly told by the Duke of Argyle in the _"Nineteenth Century"_ magazine. We quote from his article.

"Along with the earlier specimens of deep sea deposits sent home by naturalists during the first soundings in connection with the Atlantic telegraph cable, there was very often a sort of enveloping slimy mucus in the containing bottles which arrested the attention and excited the curiosity of the specialists to whom they were consigned. It was structureless to all miscroscopic examination. But so is all the protoplasmic matter of which the lowest animals are found. Could it be a widely diffused medium of this protoplasmic material, not yet specialized or individualized into organic forms, nor itself yet in a condition to build up inorganic skeletons for a habitation? Here was a grand idea. It would be well to find missing links; but it would be better to find the primordial substance out of which all living things had come. The ultra-Darwinian enthusiasts were enchanted. Haeckel clapped his hands and shouted _Eureka!_ loudly. Even the cautious and discriminating mind of Professor Huxley was caught by this new and grand generalization of the 'physical basis of life;' It was announced by him to the British Association in 1868. Dr. Will Carpenter took up the chorus. He spoke of 'a living expanse of protoplasmic substance,' penetrating with its living substance the 'whole mass' of the oceanic mud. A fine new Greek name was devised for this mother slime, and it was christened 'Bathybius,'" (from two Greek words meaning "depth" and "life,"), "from the consecrated deeps in which it lay. The conception ran like wildfire through the popular literature of science. Expectant imagination soon played its part. Wonderful movements were soon seen in this mysterious slime. It became an 'irregular network,' and it could be seen gradually 'altering its form,' so that 'entangled granules changed their relative positions."

Such was Bathybius, which once raised such a commotion in the world of science, but which is never heard of or even alluded to in scientific circles today. And now for the issue of this discovery of such mighty promise. In the year 1872, the "Challenger," commanded by John Murray, set out on a voyage of deep-sea exploration. "The naturalists of the 'Challenger' began their voyage in full Bathybian faith. But the sturdy mind of Mr. John Murray kept its balance--all the more easily since he never could himself find or see any trace of this protoplasm _when the dredges of the 'Challenger' came fresh from the ocean bottom_. Again and again he looked for it, but never could he discover it. It always hailed from England. The bottles sent there were reported to yield it in abundance, but somehow it seemed to be hatched in them. The laboratory in London was its unfailing source. The ocean never yielded it until it had been bottled. At last, one day on board the 'Challenger,' an accident revealed the mystery. One of Mr. Murray's assistants poured a large quantity of spirits of wine into a bottle containing some pure sea-water, when lo! the wonderful protoplasm Bathybius appeared! It was _the chemical precipitate of sulphate of lime_ produced by the mixture of alcohol and sea-water! Thereafter 'Bathybius' disappeared from science."

The term "protoplasm" has, indeed, been retained by writers on biology. The whole body of an animal, and the structure of plants, are understood to consist of cells. The cells consist of a colorless substance, and this is called "protoplasm." It is a substance of very complex chemical and physical make-up, in fact, no chemist has yet been able to analyze it and a famous biologist says that very probably it may never be analyzed (David Starr Jordan.) Protoplasm, like the white of egg, is the basic substance of life, yet in the variety of forms which it takes it is of _"almost unlimited complexity"_ (Jordan). Now, a new difficulty develops when this complex character of protoplasm as it is now found in animals and plants is considered. Clear (unmodified) protoplasm, as found in white of egg and in the white cells of the blood, is the structureless substance called albumen. However, protoplasm varies almost infinitely in consistency, in shape, in structure, and in function. It is sometimes so fluid as to be capable of forming in drops, sometimes semifluid, sometimes almost solid. In shape the cells may be club shaped, globe shaped, threaded, flat, conical. Some protoplasm produces fat, others produce nerve substances, others brain substances, bone, muscle, etc., each producing only its own kind, uninterchangeable with the rest. Lastly, there is the overwhelming fact that there is an infinite difference of protoplasm in the infinitely different plants and animals, in each of which _its own protoplasm but produces its own kind_. "Here are several thousand pieces of protoplasm; analysis can detect no difference in them. They are to us, let us say, as they are to Mr. Huxley, identical in power, in form, and in substance; and yet on all these several thousand little bits of apparently indistinguishable matter an element of difference so pervading and so persistent has been impressed, that of them all, not one is interchangeable with another! Each seed feeds its own kind. The protoplasm of the gnat will no more grow into the fly than it will grow into an elephant. Protoplasm is protoplasm; yes, but man's protoplasm is man's protoplasm, and the mushroom's the mushroom's." (Dr. Sterling, _"As Regards Protoplasm."_) Hence we are compelled to acknowledge not an identity of protoplasm in all substances, but an infinite diversity. It follows that the derivation of all plant and animal forms from an original speck or germ of living matter is not only un-proven, but is contradicted by biological science.

Darwin himself, like his co-laborer Wallace, was constrained to admit that the origin of life constitutes an unsolved problem. Matter and force do not account for it. Darwin accepted a divine fiat somewhere in the beginning. He says. "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into the first forms or into one." In other words, the creation of the first living being was an exceptional kind of power. But if, as Mr. Darwin says, life was breathed by the Creator into the first forms, this constitutes a break in the sufficiency of natural causes alone to produce life. If a special fiat was necessary at this point, why may it not have been at others? If by divine omnipotence, life is believed to have been originated, why shall we not believe that by divine omnipotence the various species of plants and animals were brought forth as related in the first chapter of the Bible? "If the Creator could breathe life into a few forms or into one, as Darwin thinks he did, without violating the law of his own being, and in accordance with the laws which he has established, it seems evident that he might at other times breathe life into other forms in accordance with his laws. I see no necessity for a logic that would compel the Creator to confine the number of his creative fiats to a few, or to one, nor which would limit the fiats to one time." (Fairhurst, _"Organic Evolution Considered."_)

Biological Barriers.

The atom, the molecule, the life-germ,--these are the barriers which stand against the evolutionistic conception of origins on the physical side. We proceed to investigate the points at which _biology_ touches our problem, and again three barriers call for notice and investigation: The difference between plants and animals; the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates; and the difference between mammals and all other vertebrates.

1. _Whence the animal kingdom?_ This stage in the scale of life, the advance from vegetable to the animal kingdom, is, to quote Mr. Wallace, again "completely beyond all possibility of explanation by _matter,_ its laws and forces. It is the introduction of _sensation or consciousness,_ constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms." Plants live, animals live _and feel;_ and they have consciousness. At this point again, only a thorough-going materialist will deny the working of an outside power, a power not resident in matter, but altering and molding matter from without and endowing it with new abilities. Only an act of this Power Without could endow living substance with feeling and consciousness. No one can here any longer appeal to that undefined chemico-electric action by which some attempt to account for protoplasm. Mr. Wallace says: "Here all idea of mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, an _ego_ should start into existence,--a thing that _feels,_ that is _conscious_ of its own existence. Here we have the certainty that something new has arisen,--a being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation--such as the statement that life is 'the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm,' or that the whole existing organic universe from the amoeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was developed--can afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery."

2. _Whence the backbone?_ All animals are divided into vertebrates and invertebrates, the animals with a backbone and animals without. Between these two groups the barrier of backbone stands impassable till it is explained how a butterfly could become a bird, or a snail a serpent, or a star fish acquire the skeleton of the shark. These two groups, the vertebrate animals and the invertebrate, must be regarded as fundamentally distinct.

3. _Whence the breast?_ Vertebrates are either mammals or submammals. The breastless tribes are brids, [tr. note: sic] reptiles, and fishes. These are far beneath in the scale, while the mammal, by its peculiar endowment in that it gives suck to its young, stands elect, aloft, and apart. Till it is shown how an animal that never got milk from its mother stumbled on the capacity of giving what was never given it, _the breast_ will stand, against all dreams of development, companion-barrier to the backbone. Nor is there an animal that can be regarded as a connecting link between these two master groups.

The "theistic" evolutionist, who believes that God at various times "helped out" the forces residing in matter, by creating something new, is inclined to say that at each of these points,--the origin of the first sentient animal, the origin of the first vertebrate, and of the first mammal,--God by his omnipotence caused a new type to originate. Aside from the fact that "forces resident in matter," the basic idea of the evolutionistic theory, here begins to become somewhat faint as a background even for a "theistic" conception of development, it is evident that we have already reached a point far down the scale of organic evolution in which the admission must be made that no possible working of forces within matter can account for the change. Again we say, if we already admit that the various great types of animal life could not originate without a special creative act of God, then why should we not accept the record of Genesis which says that the various species of plants and the various species of animals were created, each a separate species, in the beginning? Once admit special creative acts, and there is no longer any need for a hypothesis of evolution.

Man.

The difficulty which stands in the way of accepting, on purely scientific grounds, the descent of man from a brute ancestor, is, first of all a biological (physiological) difficulty. Among all the mammalia (to accept the classification of man with that group), man alone has a perfect brain. By this we mean the physiologically and structurally perfect brain. It is present even in the lowest man--present in the negro or the Australian Bushman as in the civilized American; and absent in all living beings below man--absent in the ape or the elephant as truly as in the lowest mammals, the kangaroo or the duckbill. Its sign is _language,_ capacity of _progress, culture_. All healthy human brains are structurally perfect; the highest brute brains are structurally imperfect. The least cultivated human being is susceptible of culture; a savage not only possesses the endowment of language but may be educated to appreciate the art of a Raphael or a Shakespeare. The brains of all other living beings are circumscribed by instinct, which never progresses. The perfect brain thus introduces another impassable biological barrier dividing the world of life.

However, the derivation of man from brute ancestry is attended by another and even greater difficulty. The brain, after all, is but an organ, it is the organ of _Mind_. Man possesses faculties of intellect (reason, imagination, the artistic faculties, etc.) and, above all, a moral nature, which raises him far above the brute. These faculties could not possibly have been developed by means of forces resident in matter or by means of the laws which are made to account for the physical universe.

The very term "evolution" implies the development of something that was at first involved, or essentially infolded, in that in which evolution began. In man there are attributes and faculties not shown by lower orders. Evolution, seeking to be consistent, answers: "It is true that faculties cannot be evolved out of a thing unless they exist in a crude and undeveloped state in that thing, but these higher faculties _do exist_ in the lower orders, potentially, or in a germ form and are developed and become operative only in the higher forms of life."

Evolutionists do not shrink from this application of their theory to the human mind. The attributes of a Shakespeare and the moral nature of a Paul were, essentially or potentially (capable of development), in the star fish and the jelly fish. The difference is not one of kind but of development and degree. Man has these faculties developed, the animals have them undeveloped. In the _"Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,"_ published by his son, is a letter from Mr. Darwin to W. Graham, written in 1881, from which I quote the following: "I have no practice in abstract reasoning, and I may be all astray. Nevertheless, you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done. But then, with me, the horrid doubt always arises _whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the lower animals, are of any value, or are at all trustworthy."_ Again he says (p. 528), in another letter written to Sir C. Lyell: "Grant a simple archetypal creature, like the mud-fish or lepidosiren (mud eel) with five senses and some vestige of mind, and I believe natural selection will account for the production of every vertebrate animal, including, of course, man."

Observe that this language is very definite. It says that the mind of man, with all its wonderful attributes and faculties, was evolved from the mind of the lower animals--and he goes as low as the mud-fish and the eel that live in the slime of the swamps. Now, whoever wishes to believe such a preposterous assumption can do so. He is able to believe almost anything, and to disbelieve everything. Mr. Darwin himself says he looks upon man's convictions as of no value, because they are the convictions of a mind derived from the mind of lower animals; nor can one blame him for being skeptical. Our point, however, is that there is such a tremendous difference between the intellectual and moral faculties of man and the barely instinctive impulses of the lower creatures, that no one can see any connection between the two, unless there is some serious defect in his own mental or moral perceptions. Every instinct and conviction of the human mind rises in indignant repudiation of the theory of man's descent.

There are even among thoroughgoing Darwinians some who draw the line at this (necessary) application of the development idea. Wallace says, at the conclusion of his defense of Darwinism: "The faculties of man could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the world in general, and also of man's physical organism"--the human body. He finds in the origin of Mind clear indications of "an unseen universe--a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate." (_"Darwinism,"_ p. 320.) Yet the development of mind through merely physical forces is upheld to the present day by the majority of evolutionists. The doctrine is even found in public school texts. In Davis' _"Physical Geography,"_ a high-school text, we read page 341:

"The greater intelligence of many land animals than of sea animals should also be regarded as a result of the development of land animals amid a greater variety of geographical conditions than is found in the seas. . . . The wonderful intelligence of man has been developed on the lands, because only on the lands is to be found the great variety of form, climate and products which can stimulate the development of high intelligence. It would have been as impossible for man to develop as an inhabitant of the dark and monotonous ocean floor as it has been for civilization to arise out of the frozen and lonesome lands of the Antarctic regions."

Thus even the children of our generation are taught a doctrine which is not only unproven but so far falls short of explaining that which it was invented to explain that it cannot, by any correct definition, even be dignified with the name of a "working hypothesis." It is a theory of origins which fails to account for one thing precisely--Origins.