Chapter 9

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 classification. 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 Agassiz had collected eight hundred species of the same fossil animal. Haeckel also says (p. 246), that there are no two zoölogists or any two botanists who agree altogether in their classification. 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 asserts the immutability of all those varieties of plants and animals, which naturalists, for the convenience of classification, 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 classifications 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 repetition 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 God 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 classification. 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 pronounce 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. Palæontologists 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 constitute 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. Principal 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."

A second fact which attests the primordial character and fixedness of species is, that every species as it first appears, is not in a transition state between one form and another, but in the perfection of its kind. Science has indeed discovered an ascending order in creation, which agrees marvellously with that given in the book of Genesis: first, vegetable productions; then the moving creatures in the sea; then terrestrial animals; and finally man. Naturalists, who utterly reject the Scriptures as a divine revelation, speak with the highest admiration of the Mosaic account of the creation, as compared with any other cosmogony of the ancient world. While there is in general an ascending series in these living forms, each was perfect in its kind.

Agassiz says that fishes existed contemporaneously with species of all the invertebrate sub-kingdoms in the Taconic, or sub-Cambrian strata. This is the extreme limit of known geological strata in which life is found to have existed. As the evolution of one species out of another requires, according to Darwin, millions of years, it is out of the question to trace these animals beyond the strata in which their remains are now found. Yet "crabs or lobsters, worms, cuttle-fish, snails, jelly-fish, star-fish, oysters, the polyps lived contemporaneously with the first known vertebrate animals that ever came into being--all as clearly defined by unmistakable ordinal or special characters as they are at the present moment."[52]

The foot of the horse is considered by zoölogists as "one of the most beautiful contrivances in nature." The remains of this animal found in what is called the Pliocene Period, show the foot to have been as perfect then as it is now.

Mr. Wallace says that man has existed on the earth a hundred thousand years, and that it is probable that he existed four hundred thousand years ago. Of course we do not believe this. We have little faith in the chronology of science. It gives no sure data for the calculation of time, hence we find them differing from four thousand to four hundred thousand years as to the time required for certain formations. The most trustworthy geologists teach that all that is known of the antiquity of man falls within the limits of Biblical chronology. The further, however, Darwinians push back the origin of man, the stronger, as against them, becomes the argument for the immutability of species. The earliest remains of man show that at his first appearance, he was in perfection. The oldest known human skull is that called the "Engis," because found in the cave of Engis in Belgium. Of this skull Professor Huxley says it may have belonged to an individual of one of the existing races of men. Principal Dawson, who has a cast of it, on the same shelf with the skulls of some Algonquin Indians, says it might be taken for the skull of an American Indian. Indeed, Dawson seems to think that these fossil human remains go to show that the earliest men were better developed than any of the extant races.

Thirdly. The historical evidence accessible all goes to prove the immutability of species. The earliest historical records and the oldest monuments prove that all extant animals were what they now are thousands of years ago.

Fourthly. The fact that hybrids cannot be perpetuated, that no device of man can produce a new species, is proof that God has fixed limits which cannot be passed. This Huxley himself admits to be an insuperable objection. So long as it exists, he says, Darwin's doctrine must be content to remain a hypothesis; it cannot pretend to the dignity of a theory. Another fact of like import is that varieties artificially produced, if let alone, uniformly revert to the simple typical form. It is only by the utmost care they can be kept distinct. All the highly prized varieties of horses, cattle, sheep, pigeons, etc., without human control, would be merged each class into one, with only the slight differences occasioned by diversities of climate and other external conditions. If in the sight of man it is important that the words of a book should be kept distinct, it is equally evident that in the sight of God it is no less important that the "units of nature" should not be mixed in inextricable and indistinguishable confusion.

Fifthly. The sudden appearance of new kinds of animals is another fact which Palæontologists urge against the doctrine of evolution. According to the view of geologists great changes have, at remote periods, occurred in the state of the earth. Continents have been submerged and the bottom of the sea raised above the surface of the waters. Corresponding changes have occurred in the state of the atmosphere surrounding the globe, and in the temperature of the earth. Accompanying or following these revolutions new classes of plants and animals appear, adapted to the new condition of the earth's surface. Whence do they come? They have, as Dawson expresses it, neither fathers nor mothers. Nothing precedes them from which they could be derived; and nothing of the same kind follows them. They live through their appointed period; and then, in a multitude of cases, finally disappear, and are in their turn followed by new orders or kinds. In other words, the links or connecting forms of this assumed regular succession or derivation are not to be found. This fact is so patent, that Hugh Miller, when arguing against the doctrine of evolution as proposed in the "Vestiges of Creation," says, that the record in the rocks seems to have been written for the very purpose of proving that such evolution is impossible.

We have the explicit testimony of Agassiz, as a Palæontologist, that the facts of geology contradict the theory of the transmutation of species. This testimony has been repeatedly given and in various forms. In the last production of his pen, he says: "As a Palæontologist I have from the beginning stood aloof from this new theory of transmutation, now so widely admitted by the scientific world. Its doctrines, in fact, contradict what the animal forms buried in the rocky strata of our earth tell us of their own introduction and succession upon the surface of the globe." "Let us look now at the earliest vertebrates, as known and recorded in geological surveys. They should, of course, if there is any truth in the transmutation theory, correspond with the lowest in rank or standing. What then are the earliest known vertebrates? They are Selachians (sharks and their allies) and Ganoids (garpikes and the like), the highest of all living fishes, structurally speaking." He closes the article from which these quotations are taken with the assertion, "that there is no evidence of a direct descent of later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals."[53] It will be observed that Agassiz is quoted, not as to matters of theory, but as to matters of fact. The only answer which evolutionists can make to this argument, is the imperfection of the geological record. When asked, Where are the immediate predecessors of these new species? they answer, They have disappeared, or, have not yet been found. When asked, Where are their immediate successors? the answer again is, They have disappeared.[54] This is an objection which Mr. Darwin, with his usual candor, virtually admits to be unanswerable. We have already seen, that he says, "Every one will admit that the geological record is imperfect; but very few can believe that it is so very imperfect as my theory demands."

Such are some of the grounds on which geologists and palæontologists of the highest rank assert that the theory of evolution has not the slightest scientific basis; and they support their assertion with an amount of evidence of which the above items are a miserable pittance.

Sixthly. There is another consideration of decisive importance. Strauss says, there are three things which have been stumbling-blocks in the way of science. First, the origin of life; second, the origin of consciousness; third, the origin of reason. These are equivalent to the gaps which, Principal Dawson says, exist in the theory of evolution. He states them thus: 1. That between dead and living matter. 2. That between vegetable and animal life. "These are necessarily the converse of each other: the one deoxidizes and accumulates, the other oxidizes and expends." 3. That "between any species of plant or animal, and any other species. It was this gap, and this only, which Darwin undertook to fill up by his great work on the origin of species, but, notwithstanding the immense amount of material thus expended, it yawns as wide as ever, since it must be admitted that no case has been ascertained in which an individual of one species has transgressed the limits between it and another species." 4. "Another gap is between the nature of the animal and the self-conscious, reasoning, and moral nature of man." (pp. 325-328)

First, as to the gap between death and life; this is what Dr. Stirling calls the "gulf of all gulfs, which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has ever been suggested."[55] This gulf Mr. Darwin does not attempt to bridge over. He admits that life owes its origin to the act of the Creator. This, however, the most prominent of the advocates of Darwinism say, is giving up the whole controversy. If you admit the intervention of creative power at one point, you may as well admit it in any other. If life owes its origin to creative power, why not species? If the stupendous miracle of creation be admitted, there is no show of reason for denying supernatural intervention in the operations of nature. Most Darwinians attempt to pass this gulf on the imaginary bridge of spontaneous generation. In other words, they say there is no gulf there. The molecules of matter, in one combination, may as well exhibit the phenomena of life, as in other combinations, any other kind of phenomena. The distinguished Sir William Thomson cannot trust himself to that bridge. "Dead matter," he says, "cannot become living matter without coming under the influence of matter previously alive. This seems to me as sure a teaching of science as the law of gravitation.... I am ready to adopt, as an article of scientific faith, true through all space and through all time, that life proceeds from life, and nothing but life."[56] He refers the origin of life on this earth to falling meteors, which bring with them from other planets the germs of living organisms; and from those germs all the plants and animals with which our world is now covered have been derived. Principal Dawson thinks that this was intended as irony. But the whole tone of the address, and specially of the closing portion of it, in which this idea is advanced, is far too serious to admit of such an explanation.

No one can read the address referred to without being impressed, and even awed, by the immensity and grandeur of the field of knowledge which falls legitimately within the domain of science. The perusal of that discourse produces a feeling of humility analogous to the sense of insignificance which every man experiences when he thinks of himself as a speck on the surface of the earth, which itself is but a speck in the immensity of the universe. And when a man of mere ordinary culture sees Sir William Thomson surveying that field with a mastery of its details and familiarity with all the recondite methods of its investigation, he feels as nothing in his presence. Yet this great man, whom we cannot help regarding with wonder, is so carried away by the spirit of his class as to say, "Science is bound, by the everlasting law of honor, to face fearlessly every problem which can fairly be brought before it. If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power." And, therefore, instead of invoking Creative Power, he accounts for the origin of life on earth by falling meteors. How he accounts for its origin in the places whence the meteors came, he does not say. Yet Sir William Thomson believes in Creative Power; and in a subsequent page, we shall quote his explicit repudiation of the atheistic element in the Darwinian theory.

Strauss quotes Dubois-Reymond, a distinguished naturalist, as teaching that the first of these great problems, viz. the origin of life, admits of explanation on scientific (i. e., in his sense, materialistic) principles; and even the third, viz. the origin of reason; but the second, or the origin of consciousness, he says, "is perfectly inscrutable." Dubois-Reymond holds that "the most accurate knowledge of the essential organism reveals to us only matter in motion; but between this material movement and my feeling pain or pleasure, experiencing a sweet taste, seeing red, with the conclusion 'therefore I exist,' there is a profound gulf; and it 'remains utterly and forever inconceivable why to a number of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, etc., it should not be a matter of indifference how they lie or how they move; nor, can we in any wise tell how consciousness should result from their concurrent action.' Whether," adds Strauss, "these _Verba Magistri_ are indeed the last word on the subject, time only can tell."[57] But if it is inconceivable, not to say absurd, that sense-consciousness should consist in the motion of molecules of matter, or be a function of such molecules, it can hardly be less absurd to account for thought, conscience, and religious feeling and belief on any such hypothesis. It may be said that Mr. Darwin is not responsible for these extreme opinions. That is very true. Mr. Darwin is not a Monist, for in admitting creation, he admits a dualism as between God and the world. Neither is he a Materialist, inasmuch as he assumes a supernatural origin for the infinitesimal modicum of life and intelligence in the primordial animalcule, from which without divine purpose or agency, all living things in the whole history of our earth have descended. All the innumerable varieties of plants, all the countless forms of animals, with all their instincts and faculties, all the varieties of men with their intellectual endowments, and their moral and religious nature, have, according to Darwin, been evolved by the agency of the blind, unconscious laws of nature. This infinitesimal spark of supernaturalism in Mr. Darwin's theory, would inevitably have gone out of itself, had it not been rudely and contemptuously trodden out by his bolder, and more logical successors.

The grand and fatal objection to Darwinism is this exclusion of design in the origin of species, or the production of living organisms. By design is meant the intelligent and voluntary selection of an end, and the intelligent and voluntary choice, application, and control of means appropriate to the accomplishment of that end. That design, therefore, implies intelligence, is involved in its very nature. No man can perceive this adaptation of means to the accomplishment of a preconceived end, without experiencing an irresistible conviction that it is the work of mind. No man does doubt it, and no man can doubt it. Darwin does not deny it. Haeckel does not deny it. No Darwinian denies it. What they do is to deny that there is any design in nature. It is merely apparent, as when the wind of the Bay of Biscay, as Huxley says, "selects the right kind of sand and spreads it in heaps upon the plains." But in thus denying design in nature, these writers array against themselves the intuitive perceptions and irresistible convictions of all mankind,--a barrier which no man has ever been able to surmount. Sir William Thomson, in the address already referred to, says: "I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent zoölogical speculations. Reaction against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on 'Paley's Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect of turning attention from the solid irrefragable argument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But overpowering proof of intelligence and benevolent design lie all around us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler."