The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science Part 17

"6. Groups of species, as genera and orders, do not usually begin with their highest or lowest forms, but with intermediate and generalized types, and they show a capacity for both elevation and degradation in their subsequent history.

"7. The history of life presents a progress from the lower to the higher, and from the simpler to the more complex, and from the more generalized to the more specialized. In this progress new types are introduced and take the place of the older ones, which sink to a relatively subordinate place and become thus degraded. But the physical and organic changes have been so correlated and adjusted that life has not only always maintained its existence, but has been enabled to a.s.sume more complex forms, and that older forms have been made to prepare the way for newer, so that there has been on the whole a steady elevation culminating in man himself. Elevation and specialization have, however, been secured at the expense of vital energy and range of adaptation, until the new element of a rational and inventive nature was introduced in the case of man.

"8. In regard to the larger and more distinct types, we can not find evidence that they have, in their introduction, been preceded by similar forms connecting them with previous groups; but there is reason to believe that many supposed representative species in successive formations are really only races or varieties.

"9. In so far as we can trace their history, specific types are permanent in their characters from their introduction to their extinction, and their earlier varietal forms are similar to their later ones.

"10. Palaeontology furnishes no direct evidence, perhaps never can furnish any, as to the actual transformation of one species into another, or as to the actual circ.u.mstances of creation of a species, but the drift of its testimony is to show that species come in _per saltum_, rather than by any slow and gradual process.

"11. The origin and history of life can not, any more than the origin and determination of matter and force, be explained on purely material grounds, but involve the consideration of power referable to the unseen and spiritual world.

"Different minds may state these principles in different ways, but I believe that, in so far as palaeontology is concerned, in substance they must hold good, at least as steps to higher truths."

B.--EVOLUTION AND CREATION BY LAW.

Evolutionist writers have a great horror of what they term "intervention." But they should be informed that the idea of a planning Creator does not involve intervention in an extraordinary or miraculous sense, any more than what we call the ordinary operations of nature. It is a common but childish prejudice that every discovery of a secondary cause diminishes so much of what is to be referred to the agency of G.o.d. On the contrary, such discoveries merely aid us in comprehending the manner of his action. But when evolutionists, in their zeal to get rid of creative intervention, trace all things to the interaction of insensate causes, they fall into the absurdity of believing in absolute unmitigated chance as the cause of perfect order. Evidences of this may be found by the score in Darwin's works on the origin of species. I quote, however, from another and usually clear thinker, Wallace, in a review of the Duke of Argyll's "Reign of Law," which appeared some years ago, but represents very well this phase of thought:

"'It is curious,' says the Duke of Argyll, 'to observe the language which this most advanced disciple of pure naturalism [Mr. Darwin]

instinctively uses, when he has to describe the complicated structure of this curious order of plants [the Orchids]. Caution in ascribing intentions to nature does not seem to occur to him as possible.

Intention is the one thing which he does see, and which, when he does not see, he seeks for diligently until he finds it. He exhausts every form of words and of ill.u.s.tration by which intention or mental purpose can be described. 'Contrivance'--'curious contrivance'--'beautiful contrivance'--these are expressions which occur over and over again.

Here is one sentence describing the parts of a particular species: 'the labellum is developed into a long nectary, _in order_ to attract lepidoptera, and we shall presently give reason for suspecting that the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of this viscid matter setting hard and dry.'" Many other examples of similar expressions are quoted by the duke, who maintains that no explanation of these "contrivances" has been or can be given, except on the supposition of a personal contriver, specially arranging the details of each case, although causing them to be produced by the ordinary processes of growth and reproduction.

"Now there is a difficulty in this view of the origin of the structure of orchids which the duke does not allude to. The majority of flowering plants are fertilized, either without the agency of insects, or, when insects are required, without any very important modification of the structure of the flower. It is evident, therefore, that flowers might have been formed as varied, fantastic, and beautiful as the orchids, and yet have been fertilized by insects in the same manner as violets or clover or primroses, or a thousand other flowers. The strange springs and traps and pitfalls found in the flowers of orchids can not be necessary _per se_, since exactly the same end is gained in ten thousand other flowers which do not possess them. Is it not, then, an extraordinary idea to imagine the Creator of the universe _contriving_ the various complicated parts of these flowers as a mechanic might contrive an ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle? Is it not a more worthy conception that they are some of the results of those general laws which were so co-ordinated at the first introduction of life upon the earth as to result necessarily in the utmost possible development of varied forms?"

A moment's thought is sufficient to show that there is no essential difference between the Creator contriving every detail of the structure of an orchid and his producing it through some intermediate cause, or his commanding it into existence by his almighty word. The same mental process, so to speak, of the contriver is implied in either case. But there is an immeasurable difference between any of those ideas and that of the orchid producing its parts spontaneously under the operation of insensate physical law, whatever that may be, alone. Again, in the same review, Wallace writes:

"The uncertainty of opinion among naturalists as to which are species and which varieties is one of Mr. Darwin's very strong arguments that these two names can not belong to things quite distinct in nature and origin. The reviewer says that this argument is of no weight, because the works of man present exactly the same phenomena, and he instances patent inventions, and the excessive difficulty of determining whether they are new or old. I accept the a.n.a.logy, and maintain that it is all in favor of Mr. Darwin's views; for are not all inventions of the same kind directly affiliated to a common ancestor. Are not improved steam-engines or clocks the lineal descendants of some existing steam-engine or clock? Is there ever a new creation in art or science any more than in nature? Did ever patentee absolutely originate any complete and entire invention no portion of which was derived from any thing that had been made or described before? It is, therefore, clear that the difficulty of distinguis.h.i.+ng the various cla.s.ses of inventions which claim to be new is of the same nature as the difficulty of distinguis.h.i.+ng varieties and species, because neither are absolute new creations, but both are alike descendants of pre-existing forms, from which and from each other they differ by varying and often imperceptible degrees. It appears, then, that however plausible this writer's objections may seem, whenever he descends from generalities to any specific statement his supposed difficulties turn out to be in reality strongly confirmatory of Mr.

Darwin's view."

Now that improved steam-engines are lineal descendants of other steam-engines is absolute nonsense, in any other aspect than that the structure of one suggested the structure of another to a contriving mind. We need not affirm this of G.o.d; but we may affirm that the plans of the creative mind const.i.tute the true link of connection between the different states and developments of inorganic and organic objects. This is the real meaning of creation by law, as distinguished from mere chance on the one hand, and arbitrary and capricious intervention on the other. Both of these extremes are equally illogical; and it can not be too frequently repeated that divine revelation avoids both by maintaining with equal firmness the agency of the Creator, and that agency not capricious, but according to plan and purpose; embracing not merely the action of the divine mind itself, but under it of all the forces and material things created.

C.--MODES OF CREATION.

A question often asked, but not easily answered, with reference to the creation of animals and plants, is--What was its precise method, and to what extent is such intervention conceivable. This is, it is true, not a properly scientific question, since science can not inform us of the act of creation. Nor is it properly a theological one, since revelation appeals to our faith in the facts, without giving us much information as to the mode. It can, therefore, be answered only conjecturally, except in so far as the law or plan of creation can be inferred from what is known, either from science or revelation, as to the history of life.

We may, in the first place, a.s.sume that law or plan must characterize creation. The Scriptural idea of it is not reconcilable with the supposition of a series of arbitrary acts any more than the scientific idea. The nature of these laws, as disclosed by Palaeontology, has been already considered in a preceding part of this Appendix. What we may conjecture as to the nature of the creative act itself, from a comparison of nature and revelation, may be summed up as follows:

1. If we reduce organized beings to their ultimate organisms--cells or plastids--and with Spencer and Haeckel suppose these to be farther divisible into still smaller particles or plastidules, each composed of several complex particles of alb.u.men or protoplasm, we may suppose the primary act of creation to consist in the aggregation of molecules of alb.u.minous matter into such plastidules bearing the same relations, as "manufactured articles," to the future cell that inorganic molecules bear to crystals, and possessing within themselves the potencies of organic forms. This is the nearest approach that we can make to the primary creative act, and its scientific basis is merely hypothetical, while revelation gives us no intimation as to any such const.i.tution of organized matter.

2. The formulae in Genesis, "Let the land produce," and "Let the waters produce," imply some sort of mediate creation through the agency of the land and the waters, but of what sort we have no means of knowing.

They include, however, the idea of the origin of the lower and humbler forms of life from material pre-existing in inorganic nature, and also the idea of the previous preparation of the land and the waters for the sustenance of the creatures produced.

3. The expression in the case of man--"out of the dust"--would seem to intimate that the human body was const.i.tuted of merely elementary matter, without any previous preparation in organic forms. It may, however, be intended merely to inform us that, while the spirit is in the image of G.o.d, the bodily frame is "of the earth earthy," and in no respect different in general nature from that of the inferior animals.

4. The Bible indicates some ways in which creatures may be modified or changed into new species, or may give rise to new forms of life. The human body is, we are told, capable of transformation into a new or spiritual body, different in many important respects, and the future general prevalence of this change is an article of religious faith.

The Bible represents the woman as produced from the man by a species of fission, not known to us as a natural possibility, except in some of the lower forms of life. The birth of the Saviour is represented as having been by parthenogenesis, and if it had pleased G.o.d that Jesus was to remain on earth as the progenitor of a new and higher type of man to replace that now existing, this might be regarded as the introduction of a new species. To what extent the Creator may have so acted on the const.i.tution of organized beings as to produce changes of this kind we have no means of knowing; but if he have done so, we may be sure that it has been in accordance with some definite plan or law.

5. We have a right to infer from Scripture that there must be some creative law which provides for the introduction of species, _de novo_, from unorganized matter, and which has been or is called into action by conditions as yet altogether unknown to us, and as yet inimitable, and therefore in some sense miraculous. Whether we shall ever by scientific investigation discover the law of this kind of divine intervention it is impossible to say. That all the theories of spontaneous generation and derivation hitherto promulgated are but wild guesses at it is but too evident.

6. Since in inorganic nature we meet with such ultimate facts as atoms of different kinds and with different properties; and ether of non-atomic const.i.tution, all of which seem to be necessary to the existence of the world as it is, we may expect in like manner to find at the basis of organic structures and phenomena varied kinds of ultimate organisms and forces, probably much more complicated than those of inorganic nature. The broad simplicity of existing theories of derivation and evolution is thus in itself a presumption against their truth, except as very partial explanations.

7. We have no right to consider the species "after their kinds" of revelation as coincident with the species recognized by science. Many of these may be merely races, the production of which in the course of time and in special circ.u.mstances may fall within the powers of created species, and which may merely be the phases of such species in time and place. Only the acc.u.mulation of vast additional stores of facts can enable us to have any certain opinion on this point, and till it is settled the doctrine of derivation must remain purely hypothetical.

8. The inference of evolutionists that because certain forms of life succeed each other in geological time, they must have been derived from each other, has an aspect of truth and simplicity; but the idea of law or plan in creation suggests that the link of connection may be of a less direct nature than mere descent with modification. This has been referred to under a previous head.

9. In the scheme of revelation all the successions and changes of organized beings, just as much as their introduction at first, belong to the will and plan of G.o.d. Revelation opposes no obstacle to any scientific investigation of the nature and method of this plan, nor does it contemplate the idea that any discoveries of this kind in any way isolate the Creator from his works. Farther, inasmuch as G.o.d is always present in all his works, one part of his procedure can scarcely be considered an "intervention" any more than another.

10. As an ill.u.s.tration of the hypothetical condition of this subject, and of the views which may be taken as to its details, I quote from a memoir of my own certain conclusions with reference to the origin of the species of land plants which are found in the older geological formations. The conclusions stated are at the end of a detailed consideration of these plants and the circ.u.mstances of their occurrence:

"(1.) Some of the forms reckoned as specific in the Devonian and Carboniferous formations may be really derivative races. There are indications that such races may have originated in one or more of the following ways: (_a_) By a natural tendency in synthetic types to become specialized in the direction of one or other of their const.i.tuent elements. In this way such plants as _Arthrostigma_ and _Psilophyton_ may have a.s.sumed new varietal forms. (_b_) By embryonic r.e.t.a.r.dation or acceleration,[151] whereby certain species may have had their maturity advanced or postponed, thus giving them various grades of perfection in reproduction and complexity of structure. The fact that so many Erian and Carboniferous plants seem to be on the confines of the groups of Acrogens and Gymnosperms may be supposed favorable to such exchanges. (_c_) The contraction and breaking up of floras which occurred in the Middle Erian and Lower Carboniferous may have been eminently favorable to the production of such varietal forms as would result from what has been called the 'struggle for existence.'

(_d_) The elevation of a great expanse of new land at the close of the Middle Erian and the beginning of the Coal period would, by permitting the extension of series over wide areas and fertile soils, and by removing the pressure previously existing, be eminently favorable to the production of new, and especially of improved, varieties.

"(2.) Whatever importance we may attach to the above supposed causes of change, we still require to account for the origin of our specific types. This may forever elude our observation, but we may at least hope to ascertain the external conditions favorable to their production. In order to attain even to this it will be necessary to inquire critically, with reference to every acknowledged species, what its claims to distinctness are, so that we may be enabled to distinguish specific types from mere varieties. Having attained to some certainty in this, we may be prepared to inquire whether the conditions favorable to the appearance of new varieties were also those favorable to the creation of new types, or the reverse--whether these conditions were those of compression or expansion, or to what extent the appearance of new types may be independent of any external conditions, other than those absolutely necessary for their existence.

I am not without hope that the further study of fossil plants may enable us thus to approach to a comprehension of the laws of the creation, as distinguished from those of the continued existence of species.

"In the present state of our knowledge we have no good ground either to limit the number of specific types beyond what a fair study of our material may warrant, or to infer that such primitive types must necessarily have been of low grade, or that progress in varietal forms has always been upward. The occurrence of such an advanced and specialized type as that of _Syringoxylon_ in the Middle Devonian should guard us against these errors. The creative process may have been applicable to the highest as well as to the lowest forms, and subsequent deviations must have included degradation as well as elevation. I can conceive nothing more unreasonable than the statement sometimes made that it is illogical or even absurd to suppose that highly organized beings could have been produced except by derivation from previously existing organisms. This is begging the whole question at issue, depriving science of a n.o.ble department of inquiry on which it has as yet barely entered, and antic.i.p.ating by unwarranted a.s.sertions conclusions which may perhaps suddenly dawn upon us through the inspiration of some great intellect, or may for generations to come baffle the united exertions of all the earnest promoters of natural science. Our present att.i.tude should not be that of dogmatists, but that of patient workers content to labor for a harvest of grand generalizations which may not come till we have pa.s.sed away, but which, if we are earnest and true to nature and its Creator, may reward even some of us."[152]

D.--PRESENT CONDITION OF THEORIES OF LIFE.

One of the most learned and ingenious essays on this subject recently published[153] states on its first page that all the varieties of opinion may be summed up under two heads:

"1. Those which require the addition to ordinary matter of an immaterial or spiritual essence, substance, or power, general or local, whose presence is the efficient cause of life; and,

"2. Those which attribute the phenomena of life solely to the mode of combination of the ordinary material elements of which the organism is composed, without the addition of any such immaterial essence, power, or force."

It is quite true that physiologists have up to this time argued out these two alternatives, and that at present the second is probably the more prevalent. It is however also true that neither includes or can possibly include the whole truth, and that enlightened theism may enable us to hold both, or all that is true in either. Undoubtedly we must hold that a higher spiritual power or Creator is necessary to the existence of life; but then this is necessary also to the existence of dead matter and force. So that if physiologists think proper to trace the whole phenomena of life to material causes, they do not on that account in any way invalidate the evidence for a spiritual Creator, nor for a spiritual element in the higher nature of man. Yet so inconceivably shallow is much of the biological reasoning of the day, that it is quite common to find physiologists referring all life to spontaneous and uncaused material agencies, because they have concluded that the arrangements of matter and force are sufficient to explain it; and, on the other hand, to find theistic writers accusing physiology of materialism, if it finds the causes of vital phenomena in material forces, as if G.o.d could be present only in those processes which we can not understand.

What we really know as to the material basis of life may be summed up in a few words. Chemically, life is based on compounds of the alb.u.minous group. These are highly complex in a molecular point of view, and seem to be formed in nature only where certain structures, those of the vegetable cell, exist under certain conditions. These alb.u.minous substances do not necessarily possess vital properties.

They may exist in a dead state just as other substances. Under certain conditions, however, those of forming part of a so-called living organism, they present phenomena of mechanical movement and molecular change, and of transformation or transmission of force, which enable them to transform themselves into various kinds of tissues, to nourish these when formed, and to establish a consensus of action between different parts of the organism; and these properties are vastly varied in detail according to the kind of organism in which they take place, and the conditions under which the organism exists. The actually living matter presents no distinct structure recognizable by the microscope, and can not be distinguished chemically from ordinary alb.u.men or protoplasm; but when living it must either exist in some peculiar and complex molecular arrangement unknown as yet to chemistry and physics, or must be actuated by some force or form of force called vital, and not as yet isolated or reduced to known laws or correlation. It does not concern theism or theology which of these may eventually prove to be the true view, or if it should be found, which is quite possible, that there is no real difference between them. In any case it is certain that in the lower animals, and in the merely physiological properties of man himself, living matter may act independently of any higher spiritual nature in the individual, though of course not independently of the higher power of G.o.d, which gave matter its properties and sustains them in their action. It is farther certain that in man the spiritual nature dominates and controls the vital, except when under abnormal conditions the latter unduly gains the mastery, and quenches altogether the spirit. In the language of the Bible, the merely vital endowments of the man belong to the flesh ([Greek: sarx]), and to the rational mind or soul ([Greek: psyche]).

The higher nature which man derives directly from G.o.d is the spirit ([Greek: pneuma]). Either of these parts of the complex humanity is capable of life ([Greek: zoe]) and of immortality. Either of them is capable of being in a state of death, though the import of this differs in its application to each. In Genesis, the body is composed of the ordinary earth-materials--the "dust of the ground." The higher nature is seen in the "shadow and likeness of G.o.d," and in the inbreathing of the Divine Spirit whereby man became a "living soul" in a higher sense than that in which the animals possess the ordinary "breath of life." With these views agree the later doctrines of the Bible as to the "trichotomy" of "body, soul, and spirit" in man, and of the added influence of the Spirit of G.o.d as acting on humanity.

E.--RECENT FACTS AS TO THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

Several recent statements as to new facts supposed to prove a preglacial antiquity for our species have been promulgated in scientific journals; but so great doubt rests upon them that they do not invalidate the statement that the earliest human remains belong to the postglacial age. I may refer to the following:

A very remarkable discovery was made in 1875 by Professor Rutimeyer, of Basle. In a brown coal deposit of Tertiary, or at least of "interglacial" age--whatever that may mean in Switzerland--he found some fragments of wood so interlaced as to resemble wattle or basket-work. Steenstrup has, however, re-examined the evidence, and adduces strong reasons for the conclusion that the alleged human workmans.h.i.+p is really that of beavers.

The Swedish geologists have shown that there is no properly Palaeolithic age in Scandinavia, and that even the reindeer had probably disappeared from Denmark and Sweden before their occupation by man. Some facts, however, seemed to indicate a residence of man in Sweden before the great post-pliocene subsidence. One of the most important of these is the celebrated hut of Sodertelge, referred to in this connection by Lyell. Recent observations have, however, shown that this hut was really covered by a landslip, and that its age may not be greater than eight centuries. Torel has recently explained this in the Proceedings of the Archaeological Congress of Stockholm.

The human bone found in the Victoria Cave at Settle, apparently under a patch of boulder-clay, has been regarded as a good evidence of the preglacial origin of man. It has, however, always appeared to readers of the description as a very doubtful case; and Professor Hughes, of Cambridge, has recently expressed the opinion that the drift covering the bone may be merely a "pocket" of that material disengaged from a cavity in the limestone by the wearing of the cliff.

The same geologist has also shown reason to believe that the supposed case of the occurrence of palaeolithic implements under boulder-clay near Brandon, discovered by Mr. Skertchley, and paraded by Geikie as a demonstration of the "interglacial" antiquity of man, in accordance with his system of successive glacial periods, is really an error, and has no foundation in the facts of the case.

Mr. Pengelly has endeavored to maintain the value of the deposit of stalagmite as a means of establis.h.i.+ng dates, in his "Notes of Recent Notices of the Geology of Devons.h.i.+re," Part I., 1874; but, I confess, with little success. He urges, in opposition to the Ingleborough Cave, that at Cheddar, where, according to him, no appreciable deposit whatever is taking place on the existing stalagmite. But this, of course, is evidence not applicable to the case in hand, as in the Cheddar case no stalagmite crust whatever would be produced. There are, no doubt, crevices and caves in which old stalagmite is even being removed or diminished in thickness. He farther a.s.serts that in Kent's Cave teeth of the cave bear and other extinct animals are found covered by not more than an inch and a half of stalagmite, and consequently that if this were deposited at the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum--the supposed rate on the "Jockey Cap" at Ingleborough--these animals must have lived in Devons.h.i.+re only six years ago, which is, of course, absurd. But he fails to perceive that this mode of occurrence is quite intelligible on the supposition of a rapid decrease in the amount of deposition in the later part of the stalagmite period. He farther refers to the fact that the thicker ma.s.ses of stalagmite, which correspond to the places of more active drip of water, are in the same position in both crusts of stalagmite.

This shows that the sources of water containing bicarbonate of lime have been the same from the first; but it proves nothing as to the rate of deposit.