Darwiniana Part 7

"Ratio enim retinendi veram significationem diei naturalis est illa communis, quod verba Scripturae non sunt ad metaphoras transferenda, nisi vel necessitas cogit, vel ex ipsa scriptura constet, et maxime in historica narratione et ad instructionem fidei pertinente: sed haec ratio non minus cogit ad intelligendum proprie dierum numerum, quam diei qualitatem, QUIA NON MINUS UNO MODO QUAM ALIO DESTRUITUR SINCERITAS, IMO ET VERITAS HISTORIae. Secundo hoc valde confirmant alia Scripturae loca, in quibus hi s.e.x dies tanquam veri, et inter se distincti commemorantur, ut Exod. 20 dicitur, _s.e.x diebus operabis et facies omnia opera tua, septimo autem die Sabbatum Domini Dei tui est_. Et infra: _s.e.x enim diebus fecit Dominus caelum et terram et mare et omnia quae in eis sunt_, et idem repet.i.tur in cap. 31. In quibus locis sermonis proprietas colligi potest tum ex aequiparatione, nam c.u.m dicitur: _s.e.x diebus operabis_, propriissime intelligitur: tum quia non est verisimile, potuisse populum intelligere verba illa in alio sensu, et e contrario incredibile est, Deum in suis praeceptis tradendis illis verbis ad populum fuisse loquutum, quibus deciperetur, falsum sensum concipiendo, si Deus non per s.e.x veros dies opera sua fecisset."

These pa.s.sages leave no doubt that this great doctor of the Catholic Church, of unchallenged authority and unspotted orthodoxy, not only declares it to be Catholic doctrine that the work of creation took place in the s.p.a.ce of six natural days; but that he warmly repudiates, as inconsistent with our knowledge of the Divine attributes, the supposition that the language which Catholic faith requires the believer to hold that G.o.d inspired, was used in any other sense than that which He knew it would convey to the minds of those to whom it was addressed.

And I think that in this repudiation Father Suarez will have the sympathy of every man of common uprightness, to whom it is certainly "incredible"

that the Almighty should have acted in a manner which He would esteem dishonest and base in a man.

But the belief that the universe was created in six natural days is hopelessly inconsistent with the doctrine of evolution, in so far as it applies to the stars and planetary bodies; and it can be made to agree with a belief in the evolution of living beings only by the supposition that the plants and animals, which are said to have been created on the third, fifth, and sixth days, were merely the primordial forms, or rudiments, out of which existing plants and animals have been evolved; so that, on these days, plants and animals were not created actually, but only potentially.

The latter view is that held by Mr. Mivart, who follows St. Augustin, and implies that he has the sanction of Suarez. But, in point of fact, the latter great light of orthodoxy takes no small pains to give the most explicit and direct contradiction to all such imaginations, as the following pa.s.sages prove. In the first place, as regards plants, Suarez discusses the problem:--

"_Quomodo herba virens et caetera vegetabilia hoc_ [_tertio_] _die fuerint producta_.

[Footnote: _Loc. cit._ Lib. II. cap. vii. et viii. 1, 32, 35.]

"Praecipua enim difficultas hic est, quam attingit Div. Thomas 1, par. qu.

69, art. 2, an haec productio plantarum hoc die facta intelligenda sit de productione ipsarum in proprio esse actuali et formali (ut sic rem explicerem) vel de productione tantum in semine et in potentia. Nam Divus Augustinus libro quinto Genes, ad liter. cap. 4 et 5 et libro 8, cap. 3, posteriorem partem tradit, dicens, terram in hoc die accep.i.s.se virtutem germinandi omnia vegetabilia quasi concepto omnium illorum semine, non tamen statim vegetabilia omnia produxisse. Quod primo suadet verbis illis capitis secundi. _In die quo fecit Deus caelum et terram et omne virgultum agri priusquam germinaret_. Quomodo enim potuerunt virgulta fieri antequam terra germinaret nisi quia causaliter prius et quasi in radice, seu in semine facta sunt, et postea in actu producta? Secundo confirmari potest, quia verb.u.m illud _germinet terra_ optime exponitur potestative ut sic dicam, id est accipiat terra vim germinandi. Sicut in eodem capite dicitur _crescite et multiplicamini_. Tertio potest confirmari, quia actualis productio vegetabilium non tam ad opus creationis, quam ad opus propagationis pertinet, quod postea factum est. Et hanc sententiam sequitur Eucherius lib. 1, in Gen. cap. 11, et illi faveat Glossa, interli. Hugo. et Lyran. dum verb.u.m _germinet_ dicto modo exponunt. NIHILOMINUS CONTRARIA SENTENTIA TENENDA EST: SCILICET, PRODUXISSE DEUM HOC DIE HERBAM, ARBORES, ET ALIA VEGETABILIA ACTU IN PROPRIA SPECIE ET NATURA. Haec est communis sententia Patrum.--Basil. homil. 5; Exaemer.

Ambros. lib. 3; Exaemer. cap. 8, 11, et 16; Chrysost. homil. 5 in Gen.

Damascene. lib. 2 de Fid. cap. 10; Theodor. Cyrilli. Bedae, Glossae ordinariae et aliorum in Gen. Et idem sent.i.t Divus Thomas, _supra_, solvens argumenta Augustini, quamvis propter reverentiam ejus quasi problematice semper procedat. Denique idem sentiunt omnes qui in his operibus veram successionem et temporalem distinctionem agnoscant."

Secondly, with respect to animals, Suarez is no less decided:--

"_De animalium ratione carentium productione quinto et s.e.xto die facta_. [Footnote: _Loc. cit_. Lib. II. cap. vii. et viii. 1, 32, 35.]

"32. Primo ergo n.o.bis certum sit haec animantia non in virtute tantum aut in semine, sed actu, et in seipsis, facta fuisse his diebus in quibus facta narrantur. Quanquam Augustinus lib. 3, Gen. ad liter, cap. 5 in sua persistens sententia contrarium sentire videatur."

But Suarez proceeds to refute Augustin's opinions at great length, and his final judgment may be gathered from the following pa.s.sage:--

"35. Tertio dicendum est, haec animalia omnia his diebus producta esse, IN PERFECTO STATU, IN SINGULIS INDIVIDUIS, SEU SPECIEBUS SUIS, JUXTA UNIUSCUJUSQUE NATURAM.... ITAQUE FUERUNT OMNIA CREATA INTEGRA ET OMNIBUS SUIS MEMBRIS PERFECTA."

As regards the creation of animals and plants, therefore, it is clear that Suarez, so far from "distinctly a.s.serting derivative creating," denies it as distinctly and positively as he can; that he is at much pains to refute St. Augustin's opinions; that he does not hesitate to regard the faint acquiescence of St. Thomas Aquinas in the views of his brother saint as a kindly subterfuge on the part of Divus Thomas; and that he affirms his own view to be that which is supported by the authority of the Fathers of the Church. So that, when Mr. Mivart tells us that Catholic theology is in harmony with all that modern science can possibly require; that "to the general theory of evolution, and to the special Darwinian form of it, no exception ... need be taken on the ground of orthodoxy;" and that "law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the Patristic ideal of creation," we have to choose between his dictum, as a theologian, and that of a great light of his Church, whom he himself declares to be "widely venerated as an authority, and whose orthodoxy has never been questioned."

But Mr. Mivart does not hesitate to push his attempt to harmonise science with Catholic orthodoxy to its utmost limit; and, while a.s.suming that the soul of man "arises from immediate and direct creation," he supposes that his body was "formed at first (as now in each separate individual) by derivative, or secondary creation, through natural laws" (p. 331).

This means, I presume, that an animal, having the corporeal form and bodily powers of man, may have been developed out of some lower form of life by a process of evolution; and that, after this anthropoid animal had existed for a longer or shorter time, G.o.d made a soul by direct creation, and put it into the manlike body, which, heretofore, had been devoid of that _anima rationalis_, which is supposed to be man's distinctive character.

This hypothesis is incapable of either proof or disproof, and therefore may be true; but if Suarez is any authority, it is not Catholic doctrine.

"Nulla est in homine forma educta de potentia materiae," [Footnote: Disput.

xv. -- x. No. 27.] is a dictum which is absolutely inconsistent with the doctrine of the natural evolution of any vital manifestation of the human body.

Moreover, if man existed as an animal before he was provided with a rational soul, he must, in accordance with the elementary requirements of the philosophy in which Mr. Mivart delights, have possessed a distinct sensitive and vegetative soul, or souls. Hence, when the "breath of life"

was breathed into the manlike animal's nostrils, he must have already been a living and feeling creature. But Suarez particularly discusses this point, and not only rejects Mr. Mivart's view, but adopts language of very theological strength regarding it.

"Possent praeterea his adjungi argumenta theologica, ut est illud quod sumitur ex illis verbis Genes. 2. _Formavit Deus hominem ex limo terrae et inspiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitae et factus est h.o.m.o in animam viventem_: ille enim spiritus, quam Deus spiravit, anima rationalis fuit, et PER EADEM FACTUS EST h.o.m.o VIVENS, ET CONSQUENTER, ETIAM SENTIENS.

"Aliud est ex VIII. Synodo Generali quae est Constantinopolitana IV. can.

11, qui sic habet. _Apparet quosdam in tantum impietatis venisse ut homines duas animas habere dogmatizent: talis igitur impietatis inventores et similes sapientes, c.u.m Vetus et Novum Testamentum omnesque Ecclesiae patres unam animam rationalem hominem habere a.s.severent, Sancta et universalis Synodus anathematizat_." [FOOTNOTE: Disput. xv. "De causa formali substantiali," -- x. No. 24.]

Moreover, if the animal nature of man was the result of evolution, so must that of woman have been. But the Catholic doctrine, according to Suarez, is that woman was, in the strictest and most literal sense of the words, made out of the rib of man.

"Nihilominus sententia Catholica est, verba illa Scripturae esse ad literam intelligenda. AC PROINDE VERE, AC REALITER, TULISSE DEUM COSTAM ADAMae, ET, EX ILLA, CORPUS EVae FORMa.s.sE." [Footnote: _Tractatus de Opere_, Lib.

III. "De hominis creatione," cap. ii. No. 3.]

Nor is there any escape in the supposition that some woman existed before Eve, after the fas.h.i.+on of the Lilith of the rabbis; since Suarez qualifies that notion, along with some other Judaic imaginations, as simply "d.a.m.nabilis." [Footnote: _Ibid_. Lib. III. cap. iv. Nos. 8 and 9]

After the perusal of the "Tractatus de Opere" it is, in fact, impossible to admit that Suarez held any opinion respecting the origin of species, except such as is consistent with the strictest and most literal interpretation of the words of Genesis. For Suarez, it is Catholic doctrine, that the world was made in six natural days. On the first of these days the _materia prima_ was made out of nothing, to receive afterwards those "substantial forms" which moulded it into the universe of things; on the third day, the ancestors of all living plants suddenly came into being, full-grown, perfect, and possessed of all the properties which now distinguish them; while, on the fifth and sixth days, the ancestors of all existing animals were similarly caused to exist in their complete and perfect state, by the infusion of their appropriate material substantial forms into the matter which had already been created. Finally, on the sixth day, the _anima rationalis_--that rational and immortal substantial form which is peculiar to man--was created out of nothing, and "breathed into" a ma.s.s of matter which, till then, was mere dust of the earth, and so man arose. But the species man was represented by a solitary male individual, until the Creator took out one of his ribs and fas.h.i.+oned it into a female.

This is the view of the "Genesis of Species" held by Suarez to be the only one consistent with Catholic faith: it is because he holds this view to be Catholic that he does not hesitate to declare St. Augustin unsound, and St.

Thomas Aquinas guilty of weakness, when the one swerved from this view and the other tolerated the deviation. And, until responsible Catholic authority--say, for example, the Archbishop of Westminster--formally declares that Suarez was wrong, and that Catholic priests are free to teach their flocks that the world was _not_ made in six natural days, and that plants and animals were _not_ created in their perfect and complete state, but have been evolved by natural processes through long ages from certain germs in which they were potentially contained, I, for one, shall feel bound to believe that the doctrines of Suarez are the only ones which are sanctioned by Infallible Authority, as represented by the Holy Father and the Catholic Church.

I need hardly add that they are as absolutely denied and repudiated by Scientific Authority, as represented by Reason and Fact. The question whether the earth and the immediate progenitors of its present living population were made in six natural days or not is no longer one upon which two opinions can be held.

The fact that it did not so come into being stands upon as sound a basis as any fact of history whatever. It is not true that existing plants and animals came into being within three days of the creation of the earth out of nothing, for it is certain that innumerable generations of other plants and animals lived upon the earth before its present population. And when, Sunday after Sunday, men who profess to be our instructors in righteousness read out the statement, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," in innumerable churches, they are either propagating what they may easily know, and, therefore, are bound to know, to be falsities; or, if they use the words in some non-natural sense, they fall below the moral standard of the much-abused Jesuit.

Thus far the contradiction between Catholic verity and Scientific verity is complete and absolute, quite independently of the truth or falsehood of the doctrine of evolution. But, for those who hold the doctrine of evolution, all the Catholic verities about the creation of living beings must be no less false. For them, the a.s.sertion that the progenitors of all existing plants were made on the third day, of animals on the fifth and sixth days, in the forms they now present, is simply false. Nor can they admit that man was made suddenly out of the dust of the earth; while it would be an insult to ask an evolutionist whether he credits the preposterous fable respecting the fabrication of woman to which Suarez pins his faith. If Suarez has rightly stated Catholic doctrine, then is evolution utter heresy. And such I believe it to be. In addition to the truth of the doctrine of evolution, indeed, one of its greatest merits in my eyes, is the fact that it occupies a position of complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that vigorous and consistent enemy of the highest intellectual, moral, and social life of mankind--the Catholic Church. No doubt, Mr. Mivart, like other putters of new wine into old bottles, is actuated by motives which are worthy of respect, and even of sympathy; but his attempt has met with the fate which the Scripture prophesies for all such.

Catholic theology, like all theologies which are based upon the a.s.sumption of the truth of the account of the origin of things given in the Book of Genesis, being utterly irreconcilable with the doctrine of evolution, the student of science, who is satisfied that the evidence upon which the doctrine of evolution rests, is incomparably stronger and better than that upon which the supposed authority of the Book of Genesis rests, will not trouble himself further with these theologies, but will confine his attention to such arguments against the view he holds as are based upon purely scientific data--and by scientific data I do not merely mean the truths of physical, mathematical, or logical science, but those of moral and metaphysical science. For by science I understand all knowledge which rests upon evidence and reasoning of a like character to that which claims our a.s.sent to ordinary scientific propositions. And if any one is able to make good the a.s.sertion that his theology rests upon valid evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology will take its place as a part of science.

The present antagonism between theology and science does not arise from any a.s.sumption by the men of science that all theology must necessarily be excluded from science, but simply because they are unable to allow that reason and morality have two weights and two measures; and that the belief in a proposition, because authority tells you it is true, or because you wish to believe it, which is a high crime and misdemeanour when the subject matter of reasoning is of one kind, becomes under the _alias_ of "faith" the greatest of all virtues when the subject matter of reasoning is of another kind.

The Bishop of Brechin said well the other day:--"Liberality in religion--I do not mean tender and generous allowances for the mistakes of others--is only unfaithfulness to truth." [Footnote: Charge at the Diocesan Synod of Brechin. _Scotsman_, Sept. 14, 1871.] And, with the same qualification, I venture to paraphrase the Bishop's dictum: "Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth."

Elijah's great question, "Will you serve G.o.d or Baal? Choose ye," is uttered audibly enough in the ears of every one of us as we come to manhood. Let every man who tries to answer it seriously ask himself whether he can be satisfied with the Baal of authority, and with all the good things his wors.h.i.+ppers are promised in this world and the next. If he can, let him, if he be so inclined, amuse himself with such scientific implements as authority tells him are safe and will not cut his fingers; but let him not imagine he is, or can be, both a true son of the Church and a loyal soldier of science.

And, on the other hand, if the blind acceptance of authority appears to him in its true colours, as mere private judgment _in excelsis_, and if he have the courage to stand alone, face to face with the abyss of the eternal and unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by "Infallibility," but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a h.e.l.l of honest men will, to him, be more endurable than a paradise full of angelic shams.

Mr. Mivart a.s.serts that "without a belief in a personal G.o.d there is no religion worthy of the name." This is a matter of opinion. But it may be a.s.serted, with less reason to fear contradiction, that the wors.h.i.+p of a personal G.o.d, who, on Mr. Mivart's hypothesis, must have used language studiously calculated to deceive His creatures and wors.h.i.+ppers, is "no religion worthy of the name." "Incredible est, Deum illis verbis ad populum fuisse locutum quibus deciperetur," is a verdict in which, for once, Jesuit casuistry concurs with the healthy moral sense of all mankind.

Having happily got quit of the theological aspect of evolution, the supporter of that great truth who turns to the scientific objections which are brought against it by recent criticism, finds, to his relief, that the work before him is greatly lightened by the spontaneous retreat of the enemy from nine-tenths of the territory which he occupied ten years ago.

Even the Quarterly Reviewer not only abstains from venturing to deny that evolution has taken place, but he openly admits that Mr. Darwin has forced on men's minds "a recognition of the probability, if not more, of evolution, and of the certainty of the action of natural selection" (p.

49).

I do not quite see, myself, how, if the action of natural selection is _certain_, the occurrence of evolution is only _probable_; inasmuch as the development of a new species by natural selection is, so far as it goes, evolution. However, it is not worth while to quarrel with the precise terms of a sentence which shows that the high water mark of intelligence among those most respectable of Britons, the readers of the _Quarterly Review_, has now reached such a level that the next tide may lift them easily and pleasantly on the once-dreaded sh.o.r.e of evolution.

Nor, having got there, do they seem likely to stop, until they have reached the inmost heart of that great region, and accepted the ape ancestry of, at any rate, the body of man. For the Reviewer admits that Mr. Darwin can be said to have established:

"That if the various kinds of lower animals have been evolved one from the other by a process of natural generation or evolution, then it becomes highly probable, _a priori_, that man's body has been similarly evolved; but this, in such a case, becomes equally probable from the admitted fact that he is an animal at all" (p. 65).

From the principles laid down in the last sentence it would follow that if man were constructed upon a plan as different from that of any other animal as that of a sea-urchin is from that of a whale, it would be "equally probable" that he had been developed from some other animal as it is now, when we know that for every bone, muscle, tooth, and even pattern of tooth, in man, there is a corresponding bone, muscle, tooth, and pattern of tooth, in an ape. And this shows one of two things--either that the Quarterly Reviewer's notions of probability are peculiar to himself, or that he has such an overpowering faith in the truth of evolution that no extent of structural break between one animal and another is sufficient to destroy his conviction that evolution has taken place.

But this by the way. The importance of the admission that there is nothing in man's physical structure to interfere with his having been evolved from an ape is not lessened because it is grudgingly made and inconsistently qualified. And instead of jubilating over the extent of the enemy's retreat, it will be more worth while to lay siege to his last stronghold--the position that there is a distinction in kind between the mental faculties of man and those of brutes, and that in consequence of this distinction in kind no gradual progress from the mental faculties of the one to those of the other can have taken place.

The Quarterly Reviewer entrenches himself within formidable-looking psychological outworks, and there is no getting at him without attacking them one by one.

He begins by laying down the following proposition. "'Sensation' is not 'thought,' and no amount of the former would const.i.tute the most rudimentary condition of the latter, though sensations supply the conditions for the existence of 'thought' or 'knowledge'" (p. 67).

This proposition is true, or not, according to the sense in which the word "thought" is employed. Thought is not uncommonly used in a sense co-extensive with consciousness, and, especially, with those states of consciousness we call memory. If I recall the impression made by a colour or an odour, and distinctly remember blueness or muskiness, I may say with perfect propriety that I "think of" blue or musk; and, so long as the thought lasts, it is simply a faint reproduction of the state of consciousness to which I gave the name in question, when it first became known to me as a sensation.

Now, if that faint reproduction of a sensation, which we call the memory of it, is properly termed a thought, it seems to me to be a somewhat forced proceeding to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between thoughts and sensations. If sensations are not rudimentary thoughts, it may be said that some thoughts are rudimentary sensations. No amount of sound const.i.tutes an echo, but for all that no one would pretend that an echo is something of totally different nature from a sound. Again, nothing can be looser, or more inaccurate, than the a.s.sertion that "sensations supply the conditions for the existence of thought or knowledge." If this implies that sensations supply the conditions for the existence of our memory of sensations or of our thoughts about sensations, it is a truism which it is hardly worth while to state so solemnly. If it implies that sensations supply anything else, it is obviously erroneous. And if it means, as the context would seem to show it does, that sensations are the subject-matter of all thought or knowledge, then it is no less contrary to fact, inasmuch as our emotions, which const.i.tute a large part of the subject-matter of thought or of knowledge, are not sensations.

More eccentric still is the Quarterly Reviewer's next piece of psychology.