On the Genesis of Species Part 17

As to Suarez, it will be enough to refer to Disp. xv., 2, n. 9, p. 508, t.

i. Edition _Vives_, Paris; also Nos. 13--15, and many other references{266} to the same effect could easily be given, but these may suffice.

It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities distinctly a.s.sert _derivative_ creation, and thus harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require.

It may indeed truly be said with Roger Bacon, "The saints never condemned many an opinion which the moderns think ought to be condemned."[278]

The various extracts given show clearly how far "evolution" is from any necessary opposition to the most orthodox theology. The same may be said of spontaneous generation. The most recent form of it, lately advocated by Dr.

H. Charlton Bastian,[279] teaches that matter exists in two different forms, the crystalline (or statical) and the colloidal (or dynamical) conditions. It also teaches that colloidal matter, when exposed to certain conditions, presents the phenomena of life, and that it can be formed from crystalline matter, and thus that the _prima materia_ of which these are diverse forms contains potentially all the mult.i.tudinous kinds of animal and vegetable existence. This theory moreover harmonizes well with the views here advocated, for just as crystalline matter builds itself, under suitable conditions, along _certain definite lines_, so a.n.a.logously colloidal matter has _its definite lines and directions_ of development. It is not collected in haphazard, accidental aggregations, but evolves according to its proper laws and special properties.

The perfect orthodoxy of these views is unquestionable. Nothing is plainer from the venerable writers quoted, as well as from a ma.s.s of other {267} authorities, than that "the supernatural" is not to be looked for or expected in the sphere of mere nature. For this statement there is a general _consensus_ of theological authority.

The teaching which the Author has received is, that G.o.d is indeed inscrutable and incomprehensible to us from the infinity of His attributes, so that our minds can, as it were, only take in, in a most fragmentary and indistinct manner (as through a gla.s.s darkly), dim conceptions of infinitesimal portions of His inconceivable perfection. In this way the partial glimpses obtained by us in different modes differ from each other; not that G.o.d is anything but the most perfect unity, but that apparently conflicting views arise from our inability to apprehend Him, except in this imperfect manner, _i.e._ by successive slight approximations along different lines of approach. Sir William Hamilton has said,[280] "Nature conceals G.o.d, and man reveals Him." It is not, according to the teaching spoken of, exactly thus; but rather that physical nature reveals to us one side, one aspect of the Deity, while the moral and religious worlds bring us in contact with another, and at first, to our apprehension, a very different one. The difference and discrepancy, however, which is at first felt, is soon seen to proceed not from the reason but from a want of flexibility in the imagination. This want is far from surprising. Not only may a man naturally be expected to be an adept in his own art, but at the same time to show an incapacity for a very different mode of activity.[281]

We rarely find an artist who takes much interest in jurisprudence, or {268} a prizefighter who is an acute metaphysician. Nay, more than this, a positive distaste may grow up, which, in the intellectual order, may amount to a spontaneous and unreasoning disbelief in that which appears to be in opposition to the more familiar concept, and this at all times. It is often and truly said, "that past ages were pre-eminently credulous as compared with our own, yet the difference is not so much in the amount of the credulity, as in the direction which it takes."[282]

Dr. Newman observes: "Any one study, of whatever kind, exclusively pursued, deadens in the mind the interest, nay the perception of any other. Thus Cicero says, that Plato and Demosthenes, Aristotle and Isocrates, might have respectively excelled in each other's province, but that each was absorbed in his own. Specimens of this peculiarity occur every day. You can hardly persuade some men to talk about anything but their own pursuit; they refer the whole world to their own centre, and measure all matters by their own rule, like the fisherman in the drama, whose eulogy on his deceased lord was 'he was so fond of fish.'"[283]

The same author further says:[284] "When anything, which comes before us, is very unlike what we commonly experience, we consider it on that account untrue; not because it really shocks our reason as improbable, but because it startles our imagination as strange. Now, revelation presents to us a perfectly different aspect of the universe from that presented by the sciences. The two informations are like the distinct subjects represented by the lines of the same drawing, which, accordingly as they are read {269} on their concave or convex side, exhibit to us now a group of trees with branches and leaves, and now human faces." ... "While then reason and revelation are consistent in fact, they often are inconsistent in appearance; and this seeming discordance acts most keenly on the imagination, and may suddenly expose a man to the temptation, and even hurry him on to the commission of definite acts of unbelief, in which reason itself really does not come into exercise at all."[285]

Thus we find in fact just that distinctness between the ideas derived from physical science on the one hand and from religion on the other, which we might _a priori_ expect if there exists that distinctness between the natural and the miraculous which theological authorities lay down.

a.s.suming, for argument's sake, the truth of Christianity, it evidently has not been the intention of its Author to make the evidence for it so plain that its rejection would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. Conviction is not forced upon men in the way that the knowledge that the government of England is const.i.tutional, or that Paris is the capital of France, is forced upon all who choose to inquire into those subjects. The Christian system is one which puts on the strain, as it were, _every_ faculty of man's nature, and the intellect is not (any more than we should _a priori_ expect it to be) exempted from taking part in the probationary trial. A moral element enters into the acceptance of that system.

And so with natural religion--with those ideas of the supernatural, viz.

G.o.d, Creation, and Morality, which are anterior to revelation and repose upon reason. Here again it evidently has not been the intention of the Creator to make the evidence of His existence so plain that its non-recognition would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. {270} Conviction, as to theism, is not forced upon men as is the conviction of the existence of the sun at noon-day.[286] A moral element enters also here, and the a.n.a.logy there is in this respect between Christianity and theism speaks eloquently of their primary derivation from one common author.

Thus we might expect that it would be a vain task to seek anywhere in nature for evidence of Divine action, such that no one could sanely deny it. G.o.d will not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's crucible, or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, revelation appeals to _the whole_ of man's mental nature and not to the _reason alone_.[287]

None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence of the direct action of the first cause in merely natural phenomena ever eludes our grasp; for a.s.suredly those same phenomena will ever remain fundamentally inexplicable by physical science alone.

There being then nothing in either authority or reason which makes "evolution" repugnant to Christianity, is there anything in the Christian doctrine of "Creation" which is repugnant to the theory of "evolution"?

Enough has been said as to the distinction between absolute and derivative "creation." It remains to consider the successive "evolution" (Darwinian and other) of "specific forms," in a theological light.

As to what "evolution" is, we cannot of course hope to explain it completely, but it may be enough to define it as the manifestation to the intellect, by means of sensible impressions, of some ideal ent.i.ty (power, principle, nature, or activity) which before that manifestation was in{271} a latent, unrealized, and merely "potential" state--a state that is capable of becoming realized, actual, or manifest, the requisite conditions being supplied.

"Specific forms," kinds or species, are (as was said in the introductory chapter) "peculiar congeries of characters or attributes, innate powers and qualities, and a certain nature realized in individuals."

Thus, then, the "evolution of specific forms" means the actual manifestation of special powers, or natures, which before were latent, in such a successive manner that there is in some way a genetic relation between posterior manifestations and those which preceded them.

On the special Darwinian hypothesis the manifestation of these forms is determined simply by the survival of the fittest of many indefinite variations.

On the hypothesis here advocated the manifestation is controlled and helped by such survival, but depends on some unknown internal law or laws which determine variation at special times and in special directions.

Professor Aga.s.siz objects to the evolution theory, on the ground that "species, genera, families, &c., exist as thoughts, individuals as facts,"[288] and he offers the dilemma, "If species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the trans.m.u.tation theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of species?"

But the supporter of "evolution" need only maintain that the several "kinds" become manifested gradually by slight differences among the various individual embodiments of one specific idea. He might reply to the dilemma by saying, species do not exist _as species_ in the sense in which they are said to vary (variation applying only to the concrete embodiments of {272} the specific idea), and the evolution of species is demonstrated not by individuals _as individuals_, but as embodiments of different specific ideas.

Some persons seem to object to the term "creation" being applied to evolution, because evolution is an "exceedingly slow and gradual process."

Now even if it were demonstrated that such is really the case, it may be asked, what is "slow and gradual"? The terms are simply relative, and the evolution of a specific form in ten thousand years would be instantaneous to a being whose days were as hundreds of millions of years.

There are others again who are inclined absolutely to deny the existence of species altogether, on the ground that their evolution is so gradual that if we could see all the stages it would be impossible to say _when_ the manifestation of the old specific form ceased and that of the new one began. But surely it is no approach to a reason against the existence of a thing that we cannot determine the exact moment of its first manifestation.

When watching "dissolving views," who can tell, whilst closely observing the gradual changes, exactly at what moment a new picture, say St. Mark's, Venice, can be said to have commenced its manifestation, or have begun to dominate a preceding representation of "Dotheboys' Hall"? That, however, is no reason for denying the complete difference between the two pictures and the ideas they respectively embody.

The notion of a special nature, a peculiar innate power and activity--what the scholastics called a "substantial form"--will be distasteful to many.

The objection to the notion seems, however, to be a futile one, for it is absolutely impossible to altogether avoid such a conception and such an a.s.sumption. If we refuse it to the individuals which embody the species, we must admit it as regards their component parts--nay, even if we accept the hypothesis of pangenesis, we are nevertheless compelled to attribute to each gemmule that peculiar power of reproducing its own nature (its own "substantial form"), with its special activity, and that remarkable {273} power of annexing itself to certain other well-defined gemmules whose nature it is also to plant themselves in a certain definite vicinity. So that in each individual, instead of one such peculiar power and activity dominating and controlling all the parts, you have an infinity of separate powers and activities limited to the several minute component gemmules.

It is possible that in some minds, the notion may lurk that such powers are simpler and easier to understand, because the bodies they affect are so minute! This absurdity hardly bears stating. We can easily conceive a being so small, that a gemmule would be to it as large as St. Paul's would be to us.

Admitting then the existence of species, and of their successive evolution, is there anything in these ideas hostile to Christian belief?

Writers such as Vogt and Buchner will of course contend that there is; but naturalists, generally, a.s.sume that G.o.d acts in and by the various laws of nature. And this is equivalent to admitting the doctrine of "derivative creation." With very few exceptions, none deny such Divine concurrence.

Even "design" and "purpose" are recognized as quite compatible with evolution, and even with the special "nebular" and Darwinian forms of it.

Professor Huxley well says,[289] "It is necessary to remark that there is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution." ... "The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not necessarily mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he a.s.sume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely thereby is he at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial {274} molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe."[290]

Professor Owen says, that natural evolution, through secondary causes, "by means of slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all adaptive mind, because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it to be the result[291] of a primary, direct, and sudden act of creational construction." ... "The succession of species by continuously operating law, is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such law, however discerned in the properties and successions of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress.

Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition."

Mr. Wallace[292] declares that the opponents of evolution present a less elevated view of the Almighty. He says: "Why should we suppose the machine too complicated to have been designed by the Creator so complete that it would necessarily work out harmonious results? The theory of 'continual interference' is a limitation of the Creator's power. It a.s.sumes that He could not work by pure law in the organic, as He has done in the inorganic world." Thus, then, there is not only no necessary antagonism between the general theory of "evolution" and a Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any strong theological bias.

{275} The very same may be said as to the special Darwinian form of the theory of evolution.

It is true Mr. Darwin writes sometimes as if he thought that his theory militated against even _derivative creation_.[293] This, however, there is no doubt, was not really meant; and indeed, in the pa.s.sage before quoted and criticised, the possibility of the Divine ordination of each variation is spoken of as a tenable view. He says ("Origin of Species," p. 569), "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone;" and he speaks of life "having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one," which is _more_ than the dogma of creation actually requires. We find then that no _in_compatibility is a.s.serted (by any scientific writers worthy of mention) between "evolution" and the co-operation of the Divine will; while the same "evolution" has been shown to be thoroughly acceptable to the most orthodox theologians who repudiate the intrusion of the supernatural into the domain of nature. A more complete harmony could scarcely be desired.

But if we may never hope to find, in physical nature, evidence of supernatural action, what sort of action might we expect to find there, looking at it from a theistic point of view? Surely an action the results of which harmonize with man's reason,[294] which is orderly, which {276} disaccords with the action of blind chance and with the "fortuitous concourse of atoms" of Democritus; but at the same time an action which, as to its modes, ever, in parts, and in ultimate a.n.a.lysis, eludes our grasp, and the modes of which are different from those by which we should have attempted to accomplish such ends.

Now, this is just what we _do_ find. The harmony, the beauty, and the order of the physical universe are the themes of continual panegyrics on the part of naturalists, and Mr. Darwin, as the Duke of Argyll remarks,[295]

"exhausts every form of words and of ill.u.s.tration by which intention or mental purpose can be described"[296] when speaking of the wonderfully complex adjustments to secure the fertilization of orchids. Also, we find co-existing with this harmony a mode of proceeding so different from that of man as (the direct supernatural action eluding us) to form a stumbling-block to many in the way of their recognition of Divine action at all: although nothing can be more inconsistent than to speak of the first cause as utterly inscrutable and incomprehensible, and at the same time to expect to find traces of a mode of action exactly similar to our own. It is surely enough if the results harmonize on the whole and preponderatingly with the rational, moral, and aesthetic instincts of man.

Mr. J. J. Murphy[297] has brought strongly forward the evidence of "intelligence" throughout organic nature. He believes "that there is something in organic progress which mere Natural Selection among spontaneous variations will not account for," and that "this something is that organizing intelligence which guides the action of the inorganic forces, and forms structures which neither Natural Selection nor any other unintelligent agency could form."

{277} This intelligence, however, Mr. Murphy considers may be unconscious, a conception which it is exceedingly difficult to understand, and which to many minds appears to be little less than a contradiction in terms; the very first condition of an intelligence being that, if it knows anything, it should at least know its own existence.

Surely the evidence from physical facts agrees well with the overruling, concurrent action of G.o.d in the order of nature; which is no miraculous action, but the operation of laws which owe their foundation, inst.i.tution, and maintenance to an omniscient Creator of whose intelligence our own is a feeble adumbration, inasmuch as it is created in the "image and likeness"

of its Maker.

This leads to the final consideration, a difficulty by no means to be pa.s.sed over in silence, namely the ORIGIN OF MAN. To the general theory of Evolution, and to the special Darwinian form of it, no exception, it has been shown, need be taken on the ground of orthodoxy. But in saying this, it has not been meant to include the soul of man.

It is a generally received doctrine that the soul of every individual man is absolutely created in the strict and primary sense of the word, that it is produced by a direct or supernatural[298] act, and, of course, that by such an act the soul of the first man was similarly created. It is therefore important to inquire whether "evolution" conflicts with this doctrine.

Now the two beliefs are in fact perfectly compatible, and that either on the hypothesis--1. That man's body was created in a manner different in kind from that by which the bodies of other animals were created; or 2.

That it was created in a similar manner to theirs.

One of the authors of the Darwinian theory, indeed, contends that even{278} as regards man's body, an action took place different from that by which brute forms were evolved. Mr. Wallace[299] considers that "Natural Selection" alone could not have produced so large a brain in the savage, in possessing which he is furnished with an organ beyond his needs. Also that it could not have produced that peculiar distribution of hair, especially the nakedness of the back, which is common to all races of men, nor the peculiar construction of the feet and hands. He says,[300] after speaking of the prehensile foot, common without a single exception to all the apes and lemurs, "It is difficult to see why the prehensile power should have been taken away" by the mere operation of Natural Selection. "It must certainly have been useful in climbing, and the case of the baboons shows that it is quite compatible with terrestrial locomotion. It may not be compatible with perfectly easy erect locomotion; but, then, how can we conceive that early man, _as an animal_, gained anything by purely erect locomotion? Again, the hand of man contains latent capacities and powers which are unused by savages, and must have been even less used by palaeolithic man and his still ruder predecessors. It has all the appearance of an organ prepared for the use of civilized man, and one which was required to render civilization possible." Again speaking of the "wonderful power, range, flexibility, and sweetness of the musical sounds producible by the human larynx," he adds, "The habits of savages give no indication of how this faculty could have been developed by Natural Selection; because it is never required or used by them. The singing of savages is a more or less monotonous howling, and the females seldom sing at all. Savages certainly never choose their wives for fine voices, but for rude health, and strength and physical beauty. s.e.xual selection could not therefore have developed this wonderful power, which only comes into play among civilized people. It seems as if the organ had been prepared in antic.i.p.ation of the future {279} progress of man, since it contains latent capacities which are useless to him in his earlier condition. The delicate correlations of structure that give it such marvellous powers, could not therefore have been acquired by means of Natural Selection."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIBRES OF CORTI.]

To this may be added the no less wonderful faculty in the ear of appreciating delicate musical tones, and the harmony of chords.

It matters not what part of the organ subserves this function, but it has been supposed that it is ministered to by the fibres _of Corti_.[301] Now it can hardly be contended that the preservation of any race of men in the struggle for life could have depended on such an extreme delicacy and refinement of the internal ear,[302]--a perfection only fully exercised in the enjoyment and appreciation of the most exquisite musical performances.