Chapter 7

The Fixity of Species.

A writer in the _"Lutheran Companion"_ recently said that his seven year old boy brought home a text book some months ago, called _"Home Geography for Primary Grades."_ On page 143 is found this statement about birds: "Ever so long ago, their grandfathers were not birds at all. Then they could not fly, for they had neither wings nor feathers. These grandfathers of our birds had four legs, a long tail and jaws with teeth. After a time feathers grew upon their bodies and their front legs become changed for flying. These were strange looking creatures. There are none living like them now."

One is tempted to disgress, [tr. note: sic] for a moment, from the subject at hand in order to draw, from this incident, an argument for the Christian Day School; but we shall desist. The quotation is here adduced to illustrate the vogue which evolution, specifically Darwinism, still maintains in the literature, even in the school-texts of our day. Babes and sucklings are introduced to the theory of evolutionary development, and the theory is presented with an assurance as if it were scientific truth. The words of Agassiz, prince of naturalists, apply to-day. "The manner in which the evolution theory in zoology is treated would lead those who are not special zoologists to suppose that observations have been made by which it can be inferred that there is in nature such a thing as change among organized beings actually taking place." He adds: "There is no such thing on record. It is shifting the ground from one field of observation to another to make this statement, and when the assertions go so far as to exclude from the domain of science those who will not be dragged into this mire of mere assertion, then it is time to protest."

Dr. J. B. Warren, of the University of California, more recently said: "If the theory of evolution be true, during the many thousands of years covered in whole or in part by present human knowledge, there would certainly be known at least a few instances, or at least one instance, of the evolution of one species from another. No such instance is known. Abstract arguments sound learned and appear imposing, so that many are deceived by them. But in this matter we remove the question from the abstract to the concrete. We are told that facts warrant the evolutionary theory. But do they? Where is one single fact?"

The hypothesis assumes that through environment, certain varieties of species (both of plants and animals) arose, and that the varieties best fitted, through their habits, structure, or color, to maintain themselves in the struggle for existence, survived the species less favorably endowed, and hence persisted. (We have quoted in our initial chapter the classical illustration of the dipper-birds from Wallace's _"Darwinism."_)

Now, as a matter of fact, we cannot prove that a single species has changed. These are the words of Darwin himself, quoted from _"Life and Letters,"_ Vol. III, p. 25: "There are two or three million of species on earth, sufficient field, one might think, for observation. But it must be said to-day that in spite of all the efforts of trained observers, not one change of a species into another is on record." Dr. N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard, asserts that "it has not been proved that a single species has been established solely or even mainly by the operation of Natural Selection." Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, has gone so far as to say that "the Darwinian theory of descent has, in the realms of nature, not a single fact to confirm it." Dr. Ethridge of the British Museum says: "In all this great museum there is not a particle of evidence of transmutation of species. Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts." Prof. Owen declares that "no instance of change of one species into another has ever been recorded by man." Dr. Martin, Sanitaetsrat, of Germany, who has conducted some highly technical experiments in the blood reactions of various animals and man, on which he bases his conclusions, says: "Since Darwin we have been accustomed to consider the concept 'species' as something insecure and unstable. The whole organic world must be thought of as fluid if the evolution theory is to find room for action. It required, indeed, all the great investigator's keenness to fence his theory against the difficulty which the lack of transitional forms occasioned, and against the fact that the rise of a new species has never been observed, much more against the fact that all processes in artificial breeding have not sufficed to fix permanently the changes which have been attained. We admire the clever structure of the theory, but there is no doubt that the obstinacy with which the organism clings to its species-characteristics is the point on which it is mortal. One is, [tr. note: sic] in fact, as much justified in speaking of a struggle to retain these characteristics as to speak of a struggle for existence."

Man has been able greatly to modify many vegetable productions. Witness the comparatively recent changes in the potato plant. The small, almost worthless tubers of the wild potato have changed, under the force of intelligent cultivation, to the large, starchy, nutritious vegetables, which furnish so many people a large portion of their food. Mind has been at work; mind and nature have changed the size, the quality, the productiveness of the _solatium tubcrosum;_ but neither mind nor nature, nor both combined, have, so far as we know, ever in the slightest degree changed the species. Potatoes are potatoes still, and always will be. The present law of vegetation is that intelligent cultivation of almost any plant will either change the original in one way or another, or, what is more likely, will produce several distinct varieties; but that all these changed forms are but mere modifications of the original species, and that, when deprived of intelligent cultivation, they all tend to revert to the original form. It is true that we see many and very diverse varieties of certain species, especially those that have received the most attention from the hands of man. The dog, for instance, exists as the great, shaggy Newfoundland or St. Bernard, or as the tight girted greyhound, as the petted poodle or the despised "yellow dog;" but in every case he is a dog, and not a wolf, and his fellow dogs recognize him as such, too. Hens differ amazingly; new breeds periodically come into existence and into fashion; but turn them loose, and they will all seek the barnyard, and soon your fancy breeds will become corrupt. They "revert to type." By the exercise of intelligent selection and training, man is able to emphasize certain points and to produce new breeds, but not to change the essential structure nor to alter the specific characteristics. The species are _fixed_. Huxley says:

"If you breed from the male and female of the same race, you of course have offspring of the like kind, and if you make the offspring breed together, you obtain the same result, and if you breed from these again, you will still have the same kind of offspring; there is no check. But if you take members of two distinct species, however similar they may be to each other, and make them breed together, _you will find a check_. If you cross two such species with each other, then--although you may get offspring in the case of the first cross, yet, if you attempt to breed from the products of that crossing, which are what are called hybrids-- that is, if you couple a male and a female hybrid--then the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all; there will be no result whatsoever.

"The reason of this is quite obvious in some cases; the female hybrids, although possessing all the external appearances and characteristics of perfect animals, are physiologically imperfect and deficient in the structural parts of the reproductive elements necessary to generation. It is said to be invariably the case with the male mule, the cross between the ass and the mare; and hence it is that although crossing the horse with the ass is easy enough, and is constantly done as far as I am aware, if you take two mules, a male and a female, and endeavor to breed from them, you get no offspring whatever; no generation will take place. This is what is called the sterility of the hybrids between two distinct species." (Huxley, _"On the Origin of Species."_ p. 212.) He continues:

"Thus you see that there is a great difference between 'mongrels,' which are crosses between distinct races, and 'hybrids,' which are crosses between distinct species. The mongrels are, so far as we know, fertile with one another. But between species, in many cases, you cannot succeed in obtaining even the first cross; at any rate it is quite certain that the hybrids are often absolutely infertile one with another.

"Here is a feature, then, great or small as it may be, which distinguishes natural species of animals. Can we find any approximation to this in the different races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common stock? Up to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative one. As far as we know at present, there is nothing approximating to this check. In crossing the breeds, between the fantail and the pouter, the carrier and the tumbler, or any other variety or race you may name--so far as we know at present--there is no difficulty in breeding together the mongrels." However, he continues, as soon as you remove the conditions which produced the new variety,--as when you permit pigeons to mate promiscuously,--no matter how different the varieties may have been, you will have, in a few generations of pigeons, the same blue rock pigeon with the black bars across the wings. No new species has originated. All varieties, in a free state, revert to type. "This," says Huxley, "is certainly a very remarkable circumstance."

Fairhurst points out the difficulties in which the evolutionist becomes involved through the fixity of species. He writes: "It is well known that as a rule distinct species will not cross, and that if they do cross the offspring are not fertile. On the other hand, it is true that all _varieties_ of a species readily cross, producing fertile offspring. This has commonly been regarded as a well-defined distinction between varieties and species. If the varieties of pigeons which are so different from each other did not freely cross, and if the mongrel offspring were not fertile, Darwin's argument as to the production of new _species_ under domestication would be complete. The fact is, we do not know of the origin of any two species of animals that do not cross and whose offspring are not fertile; in other words, we do not know of the origin of _species,_ but only of _varieties_. The origin of species that will not cross and produce fertile offspring is _assumed_ from the origin of varieties that do cross and produce fertile offspring. This leaves the evolutionists to account for one of the most difficult things in connection with this theory, namely, how did varieties of animals of the same species become cross-sterile?* [[*So that they were unable to interbreed. Only if such cross-sterility exists, could they exist thereafter as independent new species.--G.]] Several things must occur simultaneously before cross-sterility between parent and offspring could occur and become effective, namely, a number of individuals must be born at the same time possessing the same variation, the variation must be useful, these individuals must be fertile with each other, they must be cross-sterile with the parent form," as, otherwise, the offspring would revert to type, "and, finally, the few, if any, individuals thus produced and being widely scattered through the species, must find each other before they could propagate. I regard it impossible that these things could all occur simultaneously." (_"Organic Evolution,"_ p. 333.)

Mr. Huxley is forced to this admission: "After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural." And again. "Our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding from a common stock are fertile with one another, that link will be wanting."

In a recent book, _"Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry,"_ George Ticknor Curtis says: "The whole doctrine of the development of distinct species out of other species makes demands upon our credulity which the [tr. note: sic] irreconcilable with the principles of belief by which we regulate, or ought to regulate, our acceptance of new matter of belief."