Critiques and Addresses Part 15

But now comes the further inquiry. Where was the highly differentiated Sauropsidan fauna of the Trias in Palaeozoic times? The supposition that the Dinosaurian, Crocodilian, Dicynodontian, and Plesiosaurian types were suddenly created at the end of the Permian epoch may be dismissed, without further consideration, as a monstrous and unwarranted a.s.sumption. The supposition that all these types were rapidly differentiated out of _Lacertilia_, in the time represented by the pa.s.sage from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic formation, appears to me to be hardly more credible, to say nothing of the indications of the existence of Dinosaurian forms in the Permian rocks which have already been obtained.

For my part, I entertain no sort of doubt that the Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals of the Trias are the direct descendants of Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals which existed in the latter part of the Palaeozoic epoch, but not in any area of the present dry land which has yet been explored by the geologist.

This may seem a bold a.s.sumption, but it will not appear unwarrantable to those who reflect upon the very small extent of the earth's surface which has. .h.i.therto exhibited the remains of the great Mammalian fauna of the Eocene times. In this respect, the Permian land Vertebrate fauna appears to me to be related to the Tria.s.sic much as the Eocene is to the Miocene. Terrestrial reptiles have been found in Permian rocks only in three localities; in some spots of France, and recently of England, and over a more extensive area in Germany. Who can suppose that the few fossils yet found in these regions give any sufficient representation of the Permian fauna?

It may be said that the Carboniferous formations demonstrate the existence of a vast extent of dry land in the present dry-land area, and that the supposed terrestrial Palaeozoic Vertebrate Fauna ought to have left its remains in the Coal-measures, especially as there is now reason to believe that much of the coal was formed by the acc.u.mulation of spores and sporangia on dry land. But if we consider the matter more closely, I think that this apparent objection loses its force. It is clear that, during the Carboniferous epoch, the vast area of land which is now covered by Coal-measures must have been undergoing a gradual depression. The dry land thus depressed must, therefore, have existed, as such, before the Carboniferous epoch--in other words, in Devonian times--and its terrestrial population may never have been other than such as existed during the Devonian, or some previous epoch, although much higher forms may have been developed elsewhere.

Again, let me say that I am making no gratuitous a.s.sumption of inconceivable changes. It is clear that the enormous area of Polynesia is, on the whole, an area over which depression has taken place to an immense extent; consequently a great continent, or a.s.semblage of subcontinental ma.s.ses of land, must have existed at some former time, and that at a recent period, geologically speaking, in the area of the Pacific. But if that continent had contained Mammals, some of them must have remained to tell the tale; and as it is well known that these islands have no indigenous _Mammalia_, it is safe to a.s.sume that none existed. Thus, midway between Australia and South America, each of which possesses an abundant and diversified mammalian fauna, a ma.s.s of land, which may have been as large as both put together, must have existed without a mammalian inhabitant. Suppose that the sh.o.r.es of this great land were fringed, as those of tropical Australia are now, with belts of mangroves, which would extend landwards on the one side, and be buried beneath littoral deposits on the other side, as depression went on; and great beds of mangrove lignite might acc.u.mulate over the sinking land. Let upheaval of the whole now take place, in such a manner as to bring the emerging land into continuity with the South-American or Australian continent, and, in course of time, it would be peopled by an extension of the fauna of one of these two regions--just as I imagine the European Permian dry land to have been peopled.

I see nothing whatever against the supposition that distributional provinces of terrestrial life existed in the Devonian epoch, inasmuch as M. Barrande has proved that they existed much earlier. I am aware of no reason for doubting that, as regards the grades of terrestrial life contained in them, one of these may have been related to another as New Zealand is to Australia, or as Australia is to India, at the present day. a.n.a.logy seems to me to be rather in favour of, than against, the supposition that while only Ganoid fishes inhabited the fresh waters of our Devonian land, _Amphibia_ and _Reptilia_, or even higher forms, may have existed, though we have not yet found them. The earliest Carboniferous _Amphibia_ now known, such as _Anthracosaurus_, are so highly specialized that I can by no means conceive that they have been developed out of piscine forms in the interval between the Devonian and the Carboniferous periods, considerable as that is. And I take refuge in one of two alternatives: either they existed in our own area during the Devonian epoch and we have simply not yet found them; or they formed part of the population of some other distributional province of that day, and only entered our area by migration at the end of the Devonian epoch. Whether _Reptilia_ and _Mammalia_ existed along with them is to me, at present, a perfectly open question, which is just as likely to receive an affirmative as a negative answer from future inquirers.

Let me now gather together the threads of my argumentation into the form of a connected hypothetical view of the manner in which the distribution of living and extinct animals has been brought about.

I conceive that distinct provinces of the distribution of terrestrial life have existed since the earliest period at which that life is recorded, and possibly much earlier; and I suppose, with Mr. Darwin, that the progress of modification of terrestrial forms is more rapid in areas of elevation than in areas of depression. I take it to be certain that Labyrinthodont _Amphibia_ existed in the distributional province which included the dry land depressed during the Carboniferous epoch; and I conceive that, in some other distributional provinces of that day, which remained in the condition of stationary or of increasing dry land, the various types of the terrestrial _Sauropsida_ and of the _Mammalia_ were gradually developing.

The Permian epoch marks the commencement of a new movement of upheaval in our area, which attained its maximum in the Tria.s.sic epoch, when dry land existed in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, as it does now. Into this great new continental area the Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles developed during the Palaeozoic epoch spread, and formed the great Tria.s.sic Arctogaeal province. But, at the end of the Tria.s.sic period, the movement of depression recommenced in our area, though it was doubtless balanced by elevation elsewhere; modification and development, checked in the one province, went on in that "elsewhere;"

and the chief forms of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles, as we know them, were evolved and peopled the Mesozoic continent. I conceive Australia to have become separated from the continent as early as the end of the Tria.s.sic epoch, or not much later. The Mesozoic continent must, I conceive, have lain to the east, about the sh.o.r.es of the North Pacific and Indian Oceans; and I am inclined to believe that it continued along the eastern side of the Pacific area to what is now the province of Austro-Columbia, the characteristic fauna of which is probably a remnant of the population of the latter part of this period.

Towards the latter part of the Mesozoic period the movement of upheaval around the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic once more recommenced, and was very probably accompanied by a depression around those of the Pacific. The Vertebrate fauna elaborated in the Mesozoic continent moved westward and took possession of the new lands, which gradually increased in extent up to, and in some directions after, the Miocene epoch.

It is in favour of this hypothesis, I think, that it is consistent with the persistence of a general uniformity in the positions of the great ma.s.ses of land and water. From the Devonian period, or earlier, to the present day, the four great oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Antarctic, may have occupied their present positions, and only their coasts and channels of communication have undergone an incessant alteration. And, finally, the hypothesis I have put before you requires no supposition that the rate of change in organic life has been either greater or less in ancient times than it is now; nor any a.s.sumption, either physical or biological, which has not its justification in a.n.a.logous phenomena of existing nature.

I have now only to discharge the last duty of my office, which is to thank you, not only for the patient attention with which you have listened to me so long to-day, but also for the uniform kindness with which, for the past two years, you have rendered my endeavours to perform the important, and often laborious, functions of your President a pleasure instead of a burden.

X.

MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS.[1]

The gradual lapse of time has now separated us by more than a decade from the date of the publication of the "Origin of Species"--and whatever may be thought or said about Mr. Darwin's doctrines, or the manner in which he has propounded them, this much is certain, that, in a dozen years, the "Origin of Species" has worked as complete a revolution in biological science as the "Principia" did in astronomy--and it has done so, because, in the words of Helmholtz, it contains "an essentially new creative thought."[2]

[Footnote 1: 1. "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection."

By A.R. Wallace. 1870.--2. "The Genesis of Species." By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. Second Edition. 1871.--3. "Darwin's Descent of Man."

_Quarterly Review_, July 1871.]

[Footnote 2: Helmholtz: "Ueber das Ziel und die Fortschritte der Naturwissenschaft." Eroffnungsrede fur die Naturforscherversammlung zu Innsbruck. 1869.]

And as time has slipped by, a happy change has come over Mr. Darwin's critics. The mixture of ignorance and insolence which, at first, characterized a large proportion of the attacks with which he was a.s.sailed, is no longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism. Instead of abusive nonsense, which merely discredited its writers, we read essays, which are, at worst, more or less intelligent and appreciative; while, sometimes, like that which appeared in the _North British Review_ for 1867, they have a real and permanent value.

The several publications of Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart contain discussions of some of Mr. Darwin's views, which are worthy of particular attention, not only on account of the acknowledged scientific competence of these writers, but because they exhibit an attention to those philosophical questions which underlie all physical science, which is as rare as it is needful. And the same may be said of an article in the _Quarterly Review_ for July 1871, the comparison of which with an article in the same Review for July 1860, is perhaps the best evidence which can be brought forward of the change which has taken place in public opinion on "Darwinism."

The Quarterly Reviewer admits "the certainty of the action of natural selection" (p. 49); and further allows that there is an _a priori_ probability in favour of the evolution of man from some lower animal form, if these lower animal forms themselves have arisen by evolution.

Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart go much further than this. They are as stout believers in evolution as Mr. Darwin himself; but Mr. Wallace denies that man can have been evolved from a lower animal by that process of natural selection which he, with Mr. Darwin, holds to have been sufficient for the evolution of all animals below man; while Mr. Mivart, admitting that natural selection has been one of the conditions of the evolution of the animals below man, maintains that natural selection must, even in their case, have been supplemented by "some other cause"--of the nature of which, unfortunately, he does not give us any idea. Thus Mr. Mivart is less of a Darwinian than Mr.

Wallace, for he has less faith in the power of natural selection. But he is more of an evolutionist than Mr. Wallace, because Mr. Wallace thinks it necessary to call in an intelligent agent--a sort of supernatural Sir John Sebright--to produce even the animal frame of man; while Mr. Mivart requires no Divine a.s.sistance till he comes to man's soul.

Thus there is a considerable divergence between Mr. Wallace and Mr.

Mivart. On the other hand, there are some curious similarities between Mr. Mivart and the Quarterly Reviewer, and these are sometimes so close, that, if Mr. Mivart thought it worth while, I think he might make out a good case of plagiarism against the Reviewer, who studiously abstains from quoting him.

Both the Reviewer and Mr. Mivart reproach Mr. Darwin with being, "like so many other physicists," entangled in a radically false metaphysical system, and with setting at nought the first principles of both philosophy and religion. Both enlarge upon the necessity of a sound philosophical basis, and both, I venture to add, make a conspicuous exhibition of its absence. The Quarterly Reviewer believes that man "differs more from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread," and Mr. Mivart has expressed the opinion that there is more difference between man and an ape than there is between an ape and a piece of granite.[1]

[Footnote 1: See the _Tablet_ for March 11, 1871.]

And even when Mr. Mivart (p. 86) trips in a matter of anatomy, and creates a difficulty for Mr. Darwin out of a supposed close similarity between the eyes of fishes and cephalopods, which (as Gegenbaur and others have clearly shown) does not exist, the Quarterly Reviewer adopts the argument without hesitation (p. 66).

There is another important point, however, in which it is hard to say whether Mr. Mivart diverges from the Quarterly Reviewer or not.

The Reviewer declares that Mr. Darwin has, "with needless opposition, set at nought the first principles of both philosophy and religion"

(p. 90).

It looks, at first, as if this meant, that Mr. Darwin's views being false, the opposition to "religion" which flows from them must be needless. But I suspect this is not the right view of the meaning of the pa.s.sage, as Mr. Mivart, from whom the Quarterly Reviewer plainly draws so much inspiration, tells us that "the consequences which have been drawn from evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or not, to the prejudice of religion, by no means follow from it, and are in fact illegitimate" (p. 5).

I may a.s.sume, then, that the Quarterly Reviewer and Mr. Mivart admit that there is no necessary opposition between "evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or not," and religion. But then, what do they mean by this last much-abused term? On this point the Quarterly Reviewer is silent. Mr. Mivart, on the contrary, is perfectly explicit, and the whole tenor of his remarks leaves no doubt that by "religion" he means theology; and by theology, that particular variety of the great Proteus, which is expounded by the doctors of the Roman Catholic Church, and held by the members of that religious community to be the sole form of absolute truth and of saving faith.

According to Mr. Mivart, the greatest and most orthodox authorities upon matters of Catholic doctrine agree in distinctly a.s.serting "derivative creation" or evolution; "and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require" (p. 305).

I confess that this bold a.s.sertion interested me more than anything else in Mr. Mivart's book. What little knowledge I possessed of Catholic doctrine, and of the influence exerted by Catholic authority in former times, had not led me to expect that modern science was likely to find a warm welcome within the pale of the greatest and most consistent of theological organizations.

And my astonishment reached its climax when I found Mr. Mivart citing Father Suarez as his chief witness in favour of the scientific freedom enjoyed by Catholics--the popular repute of that learned theologian and subtle casuist not being such as to make his works a likely place of refuge for liberality of thought. But in these days, when Judas Iscariot and Robespierre, Henry VIII. and Catiline, have all been shown to be men of admirable virtue, far in advance of their age, and consequently the victims of vulgar prejudice, it was obviously possible that Jesuit Suarez might be in like case. And, spurred by Mr.

Mivart's unhesitating declaration, I hastened to acquaint myself with such of the works of the great Catholic divine as bore upon the question, hoping, not merely to acquaint myself with the true teachings of the infallible Church, and free myself of an unjust prejudice; but, haply, to enable myself, at a pinch, to put some Protestant bibliolater to shame, by the bright example of Catholic freedom from the trammels of verbal inspiration.

I regret to say that my antic.i.p.ations have been cruelly disappointed.

But the extent to which my hopes have been crushed can only be fully appreciated by citing, in the first place, those pa.s.sages of Mr.

Mivart's work by which they were excited. In his introductory chapter I find the following pa.s.sages:--

"The prevalence of this theory [of evolution] need alarm no one, for it is, without any doubt, perfectly consistent with the strictest and most orthodox Christian[1] theology" (p. 5).

[Footnote 1: It should be observed that Mr. Mivart employs the term "Christian" as if it were the equivalent of "Catholic."]

"Mr. Darwin and others may perhaps be excused if they have not devoted much time to the study of Christian philosophy; but they have no right to a.s.sume or accept without careful examination, as an unquestioned fact, that in that philosophy there is a necessary antagonism between the two ideas 'creation' and 'evolution,' as applied to organic forms.

"It is notorious and patent to all who choose to seek, that many distinguished Christian thinkers have accepted, and do accept, both ideas, i.e. both 'creation' and 'evolution.'

"As much as ten years ago an eminently Christian writer observed: 'The creationist theory does not necessitate the perpetual search after manifestations of miraculous power and perpetual "catastrophes."

Creation is not a miraculous interference with the laws of nature, but the very inst.i.tution of those laws. Law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic ideal of creation. With this notion they admitted, without difficulty, the most surprising origin of living creatures, provided it took place by _law_. They held that when G.o.d said, "Let the waters produce," "Let the earth produce," He conferred forces on the elements of earth and water, which enabled them naturally to produce the various species of organic beings. This power, they thought, remains attached to the elements throughout all time.' The same writer quotes St. Augustin and St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, 'in the inst.i.tution of nature, we do not look for miracles, but for the laws of nature,' And, again, St. Basil speaks of the continued operation of natural laws in the production of all organisms.

"So much for the writers of early and mediaeval times. As to the present day, the author can confidently affirm that there are many as well versed in theology as Mr. Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge, who would not be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his theory. Nay, they would not even be in the least painfully affected at witnessing the generation of animals of complex organization by the skilful artificial arrangement of natural forces, and the production, in the future, of a fish by means a.n.a.logous to those by which we now produce urea.

"And this because they know that the possibility of such phenomena, though by no means actually foreseen, has yet been fully provided for in the old philosophy centuries before Darwin, or even centuries before Bacon, and that their place in the system can be at once a.s.signed them without even disturbing its order or marring its harmony.

"Moreover, the old tradition in this respect has never been abandoned, however much it may have been ignored or neglected by some modern writers. In proof of this, it may be observed that perhaps no post-mediaeval theologian has a wider reception amongst Christians throughout the world than Suarez, who has a separate section[1] in opposition to those who maintain the distinct creation of the various kinds--or substantial forms--of organic life" (pp. 19-21).

[Footnote 1: Suarez; Metaphysica. Edition Vives. Paris, 1868, vol. i.

Disput. xv. -- 2.]

Still more distinctly does Mr. Mivart express himself, in the same sense, in his last chapter, ent.i.tled "Theology and Evolution" (pp.