Chapter 7

Very considerable latitude of opinion is allowed. Hence we find in the Transactions, papers for and against evolution,--for and against Darwinism. It would be easy to quote extracts, pertinent to our subject, more than enough to fill a volume much larger than the present. We must content ourselves with a few citations from the discussion on a paper in favor of the credibility of Darwinism,[36] and another in favor of the doctrine of evolution.[37] In summing up the debates on these two topics, the chairman, Rev. Walter Mitchell, presented with great clearness and force his reasons for regarding Darwinism as incredible and impossible. In his protracted remarks he contrasts the Scriptural doctrine, that of the Vestiges of Creation, and that of Darwin on the origin of species. He thus states the doctrine of the Bible on the subject: "If," he says, "science be another name for real knowledge; if science be the pursuit of sound wisdom; if science be the pursuit of truth itself; I say that man has no right to reject anything that is true because it savors of God. Well, what is this hypothesis--older than that of Darwin--which does, and does alone, account for all the observed facts, or all that which we can read, recorded in the book of Nature? It is, that God created all things very good; that He made every vegetable after its own kind; that He made every animal after its own kind; that He allowed certain laws of variation, but that He has ordained strict, though invisible and invincible barriers, which prevent that variation from running riot, and which includes it within strict and well defined limits. This is a hypothesis which will account for all that we have learnt from the works of Nature. It admits an intelligent Being as the Author of all the works of creation, animate as well as inanimate; it leaves no mysteries in the animate world unaccounted for. There is one thing which the animate, as well as the inanimate world declares to man, one thing everywhere plainly recorded, if we will only read it, and that is the impress of design, the design of infinite wisdom. Any theory which comes in with an attempt to ignore design as manifested in God's creation, is a theory, I say, which attempts to dethrone God. This the theory of Darwin does endeavor to do. If asked how our old theory accounts for such uniformity of design in the midst of such perplexing variety as we find in nature, we reply, that this can only be accounted for on one admission, that the whole is the work of one Author, built according, as it were, to one style; that it represents the unity of one mind with the infinite power of adapting all its works in the most perfect manner for the uses for which they were created." "Whewell has boldly maintained, and he has never been controverted, that all real advances in the sciences of physiology and comparative anatomy,--such as that made by Harvey in discovering the circulation of the blood,--have been made by those who not only believed in the existence of design everywhere manifested in the animate world, but were led by that belief to make their discoveries."

When discussing the paper of Mr. Henslow on evolution, he says: "In speaking of this paper I must commend the exceeding reverent tone in which the author has discussed the subject, and I should like to see all such subjects discussed in a similar tone. The view which Mr. Henslow brings forward, however, does not appear to be a very original one. It was the first view ever brought forward on the doctrine of evolution, and I was the first one to point out that the whole doctrine was one of retrograde character. The whole tone and character of this paper, except that which relates to the attributes and moral government of God,[38] is nothing more or less than the same view of the doctrine of evolution which created such a sensation in this country when that famous book came out, 'The Vestiges of Creation.' So far as I can understand the arguments of Mr. Darwin, they have simply been an endeavor to eject out of the idea of evolution the personal work of the Deity. His whole endeavor has been to push the Creator farther and farther back out of view. The most laborious part of Darwin's attempt at reasoning,--for it is not true reasoning,--the most laborious part of his logic and reasoning, is intended to eliminate, as perfectly as any of the atheistical authors have endeavored to do, the idea of design. Now, setting revelation aside, the manner in which the unknown author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' treated this subject, satisfactorily showed that the doctrine of evolution was not in itself an atheistical doctrine, nor did it deny the existence of design. So far as I could understand and make out, having carefully read the book at the time it came out and afterwards, and having carefully analyzed and compared it and Mr. Darwin's book with each other, so far as I could understand it, the doctrine of the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' was simply, that God created all things, and that when He created matter He impressed on it certain laws; that matter, being evolved according to those laws, should produce beings and organs mutually adapted to one another and to the world; and that every successive development which should be produced was essentially foreseen, foreknown, and predetermined by the Deity. His idea, for instance, of the evolution of an eye from a more simple organ was that the ultimate eye--man's eye, for instance--was to be a perfect optical instrument, and that its perfection depended on the previous design by the Creator, that at a certain period it should appear in a body quite adapted for its purposes. There is one question,--and not the only one, but we must consider it as an important question,--whether you can maintain a doctrine of evolution which shall not be atheistical, and which shall admit the great argument of design? That is one thing; but the next thing is, does such a doctrine as that accord either with revelation or with the facts of science? I do not believe that it can be made to agree with what we believe to be the revealed Word of God, and I do not believe that it has in the least degree been proved that the doctrine is consistent with sound science."

As to Mr. Darwin's theory, it is obvious from the passages already quoted that he considers its characteristic feature is not evolution, nor even natural selection, but the denial of teleology, or of intelligent control. Mr. Darwin admits the original creation of one or a few forms of life; and Mr. Mitchell, in his comments on Mr. Warington's defence of his theory, asks, "Why am I to limit the work of the Creator to the simultaneous or successive creations of ten or twelve commencements of the animate creation? Why, simply for the purpose of evading the evidence of design as manifested in the adaptation of all the organs of every animate creature to its wants, which can only be done by so incredible an hypothesis as that of Mr. Darwin. I say fearlessly, that any hypothesis which requires us to admit that the formation of such complex organs as the eye, the ear, the heart, the brain, with all their marvellous structures and mechanical adaptations to the wants of the creatures possessing them, so perfectly in harmony, too, with the laws of inorganic matter, affords no evidence of design; that such structures could be built up by gradual chance improvements, perpetuated by the law of transmission, and perfected by the destruction of creatures less favorably endowed, is so incredible, that I marvel to find any thinking man capable of adopting it for a single moment." It is useless to multiply quotations. Darwinism is never brought up either formally or incidentally, that its exclusion of design in the formation of living organisms is not urged as the main objection against the whole theory.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] _The Credibility of Darwinism_. By George Warington, Esq., F. C. S., M. V. I.

[37] _On certain Analogies between the Methods of Deity in Nature and Revelation_. By Rev. G. E. Henslow, M. A., F. L. S., M. V. I.

[38] The second part of Mr. Henslow's paper concerns "the methods of the Deity as revealed to us in the Bible." The same is substantially true of his work, _The Theory of Evolution_.

_Principal Dawson._

Dr. Dawson, as we are informed, is regarded as the first palæontologist, and among the first geologists, in America. In his "Story of Earth and Man,"[39] he passes 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 principally to the doctrine of evolution, which he endeavors to prove is utterly untenable. That Mr. Darwin's theory excludes teleology is everywhere assumed 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 destitute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague analogies 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 surpassingly 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 class of minds they constitute 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 class, 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 institution 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 nonentity, 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, Principal 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 God, 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 assumption 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 noble specimen of its race. God 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 superstitions. It makes man not merely carnal but devilish. It takes his lowest appetites and propensities, and makes them his God 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 bestial ancestors, without one gleam of high and holy tradition to enliven the procession; and for the future, the prospect that the poor mass of protoplasm, which constitutes 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., Principal 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 Irenicum, for the fact is painfully notorious that there is an antagonism between scientific men as a class, and religious men as a class. 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] scientiæ fundamentum, [Greek: dioti] fastigium." No amount of materials would constitute a building. They must be duly arranged so as to make a symmetrical whole. No amount of disconnected data can constitute 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 class 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 Institute, a visitor avowed his disbelief in the existence of God. 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 assuming that they are due to design on the part of God. 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 God, 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 Agassiz, as a zoölogist and simply on zoölogical grounds, assumed 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 illustration 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 God. No class 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 God.