The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer.
Passing from Mr. Darwin as the representative of that class of
naturalists who have undertaken to assign the pedigree of man by
tracing the stages of his development back to the lowest and crudest
form of animal life, I now come to a philosopher whose speculations
carry the doctrine of evolution through every field of inquiry, and
who, finding, as he supposes, evidence of its operation throughout all
the other realms of the physical and the moral word, contends that it
also obtains in the animal kingdom. It were to be wished that this
writer, whose intellect is of the order of minds to which we naturally
look for a judicial treatment of such themes, had been a little less
dogmatic in his treatment of the doctrine of special creations. Mr.
Spencer has, indeed, consistently recognized the necessity of trying
the question between the hypothesis of special creations and the
hypothesis of evolution, as one to be decided, if it is to be decided
at all, only by an examination of evidence. But to one who approaches
this question in a spirit of inquiry, and with a desire to learn
whatever can be said on both sides, it is somewhat disappointing to
find that the most eminent writer of the evolution school is unjust
in his treatment of the belief which he opposes. There can be no
objection to advocacy, or to strong and decided advocacy, when settled
convictions are to be vindicated. But with advocacy we may expect that
kind of fairness which consists in a full recognition of the opposite
argument. A great master of dialectics once laid it down as a maxim of
advocacy, "State the case of your opponent as strongly as you know how,
stronger if possible than he states it himself, and then answer it, if
you can." Some instances in which Mr. Spencer has not followed this
wise rule may now be mentioned:
1. He attacks with great vigor the hypothesis that living beings
resulted from special creations, as a primitive hypothesis; and because
it is a very ancient belief he pronounces it to be probably untrue. He
even goes so far as to assert that its antiquity raises a presumption
against it. He classes it among a family of beliefs which began in
primitive ages, and which have one after another been destroyed by
advancing knowledge, until this one is almost the only member of the
family that survives among educated people.[57] He says that if you
catechise any one who holds this belief as to the source from which he
derived it, he is forced to confess that it was put into his mind in
childhood, as one portion of a story which, as a whole, he has long
since rejected. It will give way at last, along with all the rest of
the family of beliefs which have already been given up. It may be that
the arguments of those whose controversial writings on this subject
Mr. Spencer had before him, relied on the antiquity of this belief
as one of the strongest proofs of its probable truth. I have not
looked to see how any writer on that side of the question has used the
antiquity of the doctrine of special creations. But it is certainly
not in accordance with the sound rule, even of advocacy, to state the
argument in support of the belief which you oppose with less than the
force that may be given to it, whether your opponents have or have not
given to it the true force that belongs to it. The mere antiquity of
the belief in special creations has this force and no more: that a
belief which began in the primitive ages of mankind, and has survived
through all periods of advancing knowledge, must have something to
recommend it. It is not one of those things that can be swept away with
contempt as a nursery-tale, originating in times of profound ignorance
and handed down from generation to generation without inquiry. That it
has survived, after the rejection of other beliefs that originated at
the same period--survived in minds capable of dealing with the evidence
in the light of increasing knowledge--is proof that it has something
more to rest upon than the time of its origin. If some of its defenders
now assert its antiquity as the sole or the strongest argument in its
favor, its opponents should not assume that this is the only or the
best argument by which it can be supported. Nor can it be summarily
disposed of by classifying it as one of a family of beliefs that
originated in times of ignorance, and that have mostly disappeared from
the beliefs held by educated people. Its association with a special
class of mistaken beliefs affords no intrinsic improbability of its
truth. Every belief has come to be regarded as a mistaken or a true
one, not according to its associated relations with other beliefs that
have come to be regarded as unfounded, but according to the tests that
the knowledge of the age has been able to apply to it. Take the whole
catalogue of beliefs that began to be held in the darkest ages, and
it will be found that their association has had no influence beyond
inducing incorrect habits of reasoning on certain subjects, or a
habit of accepting the official authority of those who claimed to be
the special custodians of truth. These intellectual habits have been
temporary in their influence, and have gradually changed. Every one of
the beliefs that have been given up by the lettered or the unlettered
part of mankind, has been given up because better knowledge of a
special character has come to show that it is unfounded, and because
mere official authority has ceased to have the power that it once
had. If a belief has survived from a remote antiquity among those who
are competent to judge of the evidence in its favor, by comparing the
phenomena that increasing knowledge has accumulated, the force of the
fact that it has so survived is not weakened by its association for a
period with other beliefs that are now rejected.
Mr. Spencer asserts that, as the supposition of special creations is
discredited by its origin in a time when men were profoundly ignorant,
so conversely the supposition that races of organisms have been
gradually evolved is credited by its origin, because it is a belief
that has come into existence in the most instructed class, living in
these better instructed times. This is a kind of argumentation that is
often the result of a love of antithesis. The soundness of the last
branch of the proposition appears to depend upon the soundness of the
first branch. Make it to appear that the origin of the elder hypothesis
is unfavorable by reason of the time of its origin, and it seems to
follow that the origin of the modern hypothesis is favorable by reason
of its time of origin. But this antithesis does not express the exact
truth in either branch of it. It is not because of its antiquity, or
of the character of the times in which it was first believed, that
the doctrine of special creations can be shown to be irrational or
improbable. There is no presumption against the truth of any belief,
to be derived from the fact that it was held by persons who also held
some erroneous beliefs on other subjects. If there were, nothing could
be worthy of belief unless it could show a recent origin, or at least
until demonstration of its truth had overcome the presumption against
it. On the other hand, there is no presumption in favor of the truth
of a new theory to be derived from the fact that it is new, or that it
originated among those who think that they do not hold any erroneous
beliefs, or because it originated in a comparatively very enlightened
age. Every physical and every moral theory, unless we mean to be
governed by mere authority, whether it is ancient or recent, must be
judged by its merits, according to the evidence.
2. Another of Mr. Spencer's naked assertions is that the belief in
special creations is "not countenanced by a single fact." Not only did
no man "ever see a special creation," but "no one ever found indirect
proof of any kind that a special creation had taken place." In support
of this sweeping dogma, he adduces a habit of the naturalists who
maintain special creations to locate them in some region remote from
human observation.[58] This is another instance of not stating the case
of your adversary as strongly as you might state it, or as he states
it himself. "While no naturalist and no other person who believes in
special creations ever saw one take place, indirect and circumstantial
evidence tending to show that the earth is full of them has been
accumulated to an enormous amount." It is a monstrous extravagance to
assert that the hypothesis is "absolutely without support of any kind."
What if Mr. Spencer's opponents were to retort that no man ever saw
an instance in which an animal of a distinct species had been evolved
out of one of an entirely different organization; that there is no
external evidence to support the hypothesis of such derivations, and
that the naturalists of the evolution school habitually place the scene
of operations in the region of scientific imagination? The discovery
of truth is not likely to be much advanced by this mode of attacking
opposite opinions, yet it could be used with as much propriety on the
one side of this question as on the other.
3. Next, and completing the misrepresentation, we have the assertion
that, "besides being absolutely without evidence to give it external
support, this hypothesis of special creations can not support itself
internally--can not be framed into a coherent thought.... Immediately
an attempt is made to elaborate the idea into anything like definite
shape, it proves to be a pseud-idea, admitting of no definite shape.
Is it supposed that a new organism when specially created is created
out of nothing? If so, there is a supposed creation of matter, and the
creation of matter is inconceivable, implies the establishment of a
relation in thought between nothing and something--a relation of which
one term is absent--an impossible relation.... Those who entertain
the proposition that each kind of organism results from divine
interposition do so because they refrain from translating words into
thoughts. The case is one of those where men do not really believe,
but _believe they believe_. For belief, properly so called, implies
a mental representation of the thing believed; and no such mental
representation is here possible."[59]
When I first read this passage I could hardly trust the evidence
of my eye-sight. It seemed as if the types must have in some way
misrepresented the distinguished writer; for I could scarcely conceive
how a man of Mr. Spencer's reputation as a thinker could have
deliberately penned and published such a specimen of logic run riot. It
reads like some of the propositions propounded by the scholastics of
the middle ages. But, having assured myself that the American edition
of his work is a correct reprint, and having carefully pondered and
endeavored to ascertain his meaning, I was forced to the conclusion
that he supposes this to be a conclusive answer to the idea of absolute
creation in respect to anything whatever, because, when put into a
logical formula, one term of the relation is nothing, and the other
term is something. Logical formulas are not always the best tests of
the possibility of an intellectual conception, or of what the mind
can represent to itself by thought, although to a certain class of
readers or hearers they often appear to be a crushing refutation of the
opposite opinion or belief against which they are employed.
Is there in truth anything impossible because it is unthinkable
in the idea of absolute creation? Is the creation of matter, for
example, inconceivable? It certainly is not if we adopt the postulate
of an infinite Creator. That postulate is just as necessary to the
evolutionist who maintains the ordination of fixed laws or systems
of matter, by the operation of which the organized forms of matter
have been evolved, as it is to those who maintain that these forms
are special creations. Who made the laws that have been impressed
upon matter? Were they made at all, or were they without any origin,
self-existing and eternal? If they were made, they were made out of
nothing, for nothing preceded them. Then apply to them the logical
formula, and say that one term of the relation is absent--is mere
nothingness--and so there is an impossible relation, a relation in
thought between nothing and something, which is inconceivable. This
dilemma is not escaped by asserting, as Mr. Spencer does, that "the
creation of force is just as inconceivable as the creation of matter."
It is necessary to inquire what he means by a "conceivable" idea. If he
means that we can not trace or understand the process by which either
force or matter was created, our inability may be at once conceded.
But if he means that, granting the postulate of an infinite creating
power, we can not conceive of the possibility that matter and all
the forces that reside in it or govern it were called into being by
the will of that power, the assertion is not true. Human faculties
are entirely equal to the conception of an infinite creating power,
whatever may be the strength or the weakness of the proof by which
the existence of such a power is supported; and if there is such a
power it is a contradiction in terms to assert that absolute creation,
or the formation of "something" out of "nothing," is an impossible
conception. Such an assertion is simply a specious play upon words, or
else it involves the negation of an infinite creating power. The term
"creation," as used in all modern philosophy, implies, _ex vi termini_,
the act of causing to exist; and, unless we assume that nothing which
exists was ever caused to exist, we must suppose that the causing power
was alike capable of giving existence to matter and to the forces that
reside in it.
The reason why the Greek philosophers did not embrace the idea of
absolute creation was not because it was an unthinkable idea, or one
incapable of representation in thought. They were, as we have seen,
surrounded by a mythology which attributed the origin of the world
to polytheistic agencies. They struggled against the cosmogony of
poetical and popular traditions in an effort to find a cause of a
different character. Monotheism, the conception of the one only and
omnipotent God, freed philosophy from the great want which had hampered
its speculations. This want was the conception of divine power, as
abstracted from substance or the qualities of substance. When this
conception had been obtained, absolute creation was seen to be a
legitimate deduction from the illimitable scope and nature of the power
which monotheism imputed to the Being supposed to preside over the
universe, and to have existed before all the objects which the universe
contains: and this conception of the act of creation thus became
equally capable of representation in words and in thought. You may say
that it has no evidence to support it; that it leads to contradictory
ideas of the attributes claimed for the Creator; that upon the
hypothesis of those attributes, his works are inexplicable. Whether
you can say this truly or not, you can not say that absolute creation
is inconceivable; and unless you mean to claim that neither matter nor
force was ever created, that there never was a being competent to make
either the one or the other to exist, you can not deny the probability
that both were called into being by a definite and specific exercise
of power. Mr. Spencer's philosophy manifestly leads to the conclusion
that there is no God, or no such God as the hypothesis of special
creations supposes, or such as the hypothesis of evolution necessarily
calls for. If I understand him rightly, he rejects the idea of any
creation, whether of matter, or force, or the properties of matter, or
even of law of any kind, physical or moral. Hence it is that I admit
the necessity of treating the existence of the Omnipotent Creator as an
independent question to be judged upon moral evidence; and hence, too,
in reasoning upon the probable methods of the Almighty, I maintain that
the postulate of his existence is alike necessary to the evolutionist
and to those who believe in special creations, and that both must adopt
the same cardinal attributes as attributes of his power and character.
It is well to pursue this particular topic somewhat further, because
this special difficulty arising from the creation of something out of
nothing, triumphantly propounded by a certain class of philosophers,
is echoed by others as if it concluded the question. The received
meaning of language is often a great help to the mind in representing
to itself in thought the idea that is expressed by the word. The word
contains and suggests the thought. Lexicographers are the learned
persons, one part of whose business it is to exhibit the thought that
is represented by a word, not according to the popular and, perhaps,
uncertain or erroneous use of the term, or according to its secondary
meanings, but according to the exact correspondence between the word
and the idea which it conveys in its primary and philosophic usage.
The definition given to our English verb "create," in its primary
and philosophical sense, is: "To produce," "to bring into being from
nothing"; "to cause to exist." "Creation," as a noun expressing the
act described by the verb, is defined as "the act of creating: the act
of causing to exist, and _especially_, the act of bringing this world
into existence." "Created," as the past participle which describes what
has been done, is defined as "formed from nothing: caused to exist;
produced; generated."[60] This is the sense in which the word is used
in the English version of the first verse of the book of Genesis: "In
the beginning God _created_ the heavens and the earth"; and whatever
may be said about the source from which Moses derived his knowledge
of the fact which he relates, there can be no doubt about the nature
of the fact which he intended to assert. Now, does the lexicographer,
when he describes creation as the act of causing something to exist,
or the act of producing something out of nothing, present an idea
that is incapable of mental representation--a relation impossible in
thought? What he means to express is clear enough. Is the idea which he
expresses impossible to be conceived by the mind?
It will be a good test of this supposed insuperable difficulty to
apply the term "creation" to some human act. When Shakespeare composed
the tragedy of "Hamlet," he created something in the sense which we
are here considering.[61] He created that something out of nothing:
for he caused something to exist which did not exist before. He did
not merely inscribe certain words upon paper, by the material process
of writing, and afterward cause the same words to be repeated by the
material process of printing upon another paper. He gave intellectual
existence to certain male and female persons of his imagination,
carried them through certain periods of their imaginary lives, and
made them and their history an imperishable intellectual idea. It is
entirely immaterial to the present discussion that such a product of
the imagination presents to us nothing but intellectual ideas; that
Hamlet and Ophelia, and the King and Queen, and all the rest of the
_dramatis personæ_, were mere creatures of the poet's fancy. Although
they were nothing but intellectual conceptions, they were "creations"
in the sense of being intellectual products that never existed in idea
before the poet made them, and therefore they were made out of nothing.
Now, although we can not look into the mind of Shakespeare and describe
the process by which he formed these creatures of his imagination,
we experience no difficulty when we contemplate these imaginary
personages, in representing in thought what we mean when we say that
he "created" them. It would be simple absurdity to say that he did not
create these ideal persons, because the notion of creation implies
the formation of something out of nothing. That is the very meaning
of creation in its primary and philosophical sense; and, when applied
to works of the human imagination, it presents to us an idea that is
perfectly capable of representation in thought.
Pass from this illustration of the idea of human creation to the
hypothesis of a supreme being, possessing infinite power, and existing
before the material universe began. The hypothesis of his existence
includes the power to call into being things that had no previous
being, whether these things be matter and material properties or
moral and intellectual ideas. The whole realms of possible existence,
spiritual and material, the whole void which consists in mere
nothingness, are, according to the hypothesis, under his absolute sway.
He holds the power of absolute creation; and the power this hypothesis
imputes to him is no more incapable of representation in thought
than is the inferior and limited power of creation, which we know
to be performed by the finite human intellect, and which we have no
difficulty in conceiving as a true creating faculty. When Watt formed
the steam-engine, he did something more than to place certain portions
of matter in certain relations, and make them to operate in a certain
manner so as to produce a certain effect. He made the intellectual plan
of a certain arrangement of matter; and to this act of giving being to
something, both intellectual and physical, which did not exist before,
we ascribe in its true sense the act of creation, and the idea we
express by the term is perfectly capable of mental representation.
"Those," says Mr. Spencer, "who entertain the proposition that each
kind of organism results from a divine interposition, do so because
they refrain from translating words into thoughts"; and he adds, quite
truly, that there is no assignable mode or conceivable way in which the
making of a new organism can be described. Let this be applied to some
new mechanical structure produced by the intellect and hand of man. It
is a result or product of human interposition. When we describe this
human product as an invention, do we refrain from translating words
into thoughts because we can not describe the process of invention? or,
in other words, because we can not assign the mode in which the mind
of the inventor reached his conception, are we to conclude that he did
not attain to the conception which is plainly embodied in the machine
that stands before our eyes? If we say that he created something, do we
make a statement that can not be consistently imagined because we can
not assign the mode in which his mind operated when it thought out the
idea and constructed the plan? We can see how he put together certain
material substances, and how they operate; but we can not see or
describe the mental process by which he obtained his conception. Yet
we ascribe to his act, and rightly ascribe to it, the idea of creation;
and the term represents a thought of the mind that is as capable of
being imagined as the word is of being spoken and understood.
When Raphael painted the Sistine Madonna, he formed in his mind an
image of the heaven-chosen mother of Christ, and the marvelous skill of
his artist hand transferred that face of surpassing loveliness to the
canvas. The story that it tells may be a fiction or a fact. The image
is a reality. It was a new existence; and, if we call it a creation,
do we use a word which we can not translate into thought because we do
not know how the painter attained to that sweet conception of the human
mother's tenderness, and the dignity of her appointed office as the
handmaiden of the Lord?
There is nothing unphilosophical in thus ascribing what is done by
finite human faculties and what is done by the infinite Creator to
a power that is of the same nature, but which in the one being is
limited and imperfect, and in the other is superhuman and boundless.
If we know, as we certainly do, that weak and finite man can perform
some acts of creation, can cause some things to exist that did not
previously exist, how much more may we safely conclude that a being
of infinite powers can call into existence, out of the primeval
nothingness, objects of the most stupendous proportions, of the
nicest adaptations, of the most palpable uses--can cause matter and
force and law to be where before all was vacuity, where force was
unknown, where law had never operated! When the mind contemplates that
Omnipotent Power, it reaches forth to an awful presence; but it does
not contemplate something of which it can not conceive, for its own
inferior faculties teach it that creation is a possible occurrence.
We do not need to be and are not indebted to superstition, to
tradition, or to deceptive words, for the idea of creation. At an
immeasurable distance from the Almighty Power, we ourselves are
constantly creating; and it is when we do so that our acts resemble
his in their nature, however below his productions may be the
productions of our poor human faculties. It is one of the proofs of
our relationship to the infinite Creator, a proof for which we are not
indebted solely to revelation, that we are endowed in this imperfect
degree with a power that resembles his. It is also one of the chief
of the characteristics that distinguish man from the other animals:
for, wonderful as are the constructions made by some of them, they are
uniformly made under the involuntary and uncontrollable impulse of an
implanted instinct; whereas, the constructions of man are made by the
exercise of a constructive faculty that is guided by his will, which
enables him to effect variations of structure entirely unattainable
by any other being that exists on this earth. All the other animals
are confined in the exercise of their constructive faculties to
an invariable model, appointed for each of them according to the
circumstances of its being. The range of choice is bounded by the
limitations of the instinct under which the animal is compelled to do
its work. It may appear to select a favorable site for its habitation,
to cull its materials with judgment, to guard against disturbance from
the elements or from enemies. But we have not much reason to suppose
that any of these things are done from anything but an irresistible
impulse, and we certainly have no reason to suppose that the animal has
the moral power to do them or to refrain from them. To man alone does
there appear to have been given the power of varying his constructions
by the exercise of an intelligent will; and that will is bounded only
by the limitations of his power over matter: so that, in respect to
material structures, the power of man to make creations approaches
nearest to the power of the Almighty Creator, and is, within its
limitations, a true creating power. In the realm of intellectual or
ideal creations, the resemblance of human and divine power is the same,
and the limitations upon the former are those fixed by the finite
nature of human faculties.[62]
4. Mr. Spencer has a great deal to urge against "the current
theology," and he treats of some of the theological difficulties in
which those who espouse the hypothesis of special creations entangle
themselves.[63] I have nothing to do with the current theology. I do
not borrow from it or rely upon it, and do not undertake to disentangle
its professors from any of the difficulties in which they may have
involved themselves. The only question that interests me is, whether
the objections propounded by this philosopher as an answer to the
hypothesis of special creations present insuperable difficulties to
one who does not depend upon the current theology for arguments,
explanations, or means of judgment. I shall therefore endeavor to
state fairly and fully the chief of the supposed difficulties, without
considering the answer that is made to them by those who are taken as
the representatives of the current theology.
Put into a condensed form, one of Mr. Spencer's grand objections
to the belief in special creations of organized beings is that it
involves a deliberate intention on the part of the Creator to produce
misery, suffering, pain, and an incalculable amount of evil, or else
that there was an inability to prevent these results. Omitting for
the present the human race, and confining our first view to the other
animals, the earth is largely peopled by creatures which inflict on
each other and on themselves a vast amount of suffering. The animals
are endowed with countless different pain-inflicting appliances and
instincts; the earth has been a scene of warfare among all sentient
creatures; and geology informs us that, from the earliest eras which
it records, there has been going on this universal carnage. Throughout
all past time there has been a perpetual preying of the superior upon
the inferior--a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong. In
almost every species, the number of individuals annually born is such
that the majority die of starvation or by violence before arriving at
maturity. But this is not all. Not only do the superior animals prey
upon the inferior, for which there may be suggested some compensating
benefit by the sustentation of a higher order of life through the death
of the lower, or by leaving the most perfect members of a species to
continue that species, but the inferior prey upon the superior, and
organisms that are incapable of feeling have appliances for securing
their prosperity at the expense of misery to organisms capable of
happiness. Of the animal kingdom, as a whole, more than half, it is
said, are parasites, and almost every known animal has its peculiar
species. Passing over the evils thus inflicted on animals of inferior
dignity and coming to man, we find that he is infested by animal and
vegetable parasites of which two or three dozens may be distinctly
enumerated; which are endowed with constitutions fitting them to live
by absorbing the juices of the human body, furnished with appliances by
which they root themselves in the human system, and made prolific in
an almost incredible degree. They produce great suffering, sometimes
cause insanity, and not infrequently death.[64]
The dilemma that is supposed to be created by these facts for those
who believe in the doctrine of special creations is this: If any
animals are special creations, all are so; and each animal must be
supposed to have been created for the special purposes that are
apparent upon an examination of its structure and mode of life. As the
superior are constantly preying upon the inferior, and as there are
numerous inferior animals that are constantly inflicting evil upon
the superior, it results that malevolence rather than benevolence was
a characteristic attribute of the creating power, or else that the
power which is supposed to have created was unable to make the perfect
creation which the hypothesis of infinite benevolence calls for.
Infinite goodness fails to be demonstrated by a world that is full of
misery, caused by special appliances to bring it about; and infinite
power can not have existed, unless it comprehended the power to produce
perfect and universal happiness.
I pass entirely aside from the argument which is drawn from the
supposed manifestations of Almighty power in the creation of
diversified forms of animal and vegetable life, because that argument
leads doubtless to the inquiry whether the Almighty made these
manifestations to demonstrate his power to himself, or made them to
demonstrate it to his human creatures. Admitting the fact, as Mr.
Spencer puts it, that millions of these demonstrations took place on
earth when there were no intelligent beings to contemplate them--a
statement that is said to be verified by the deductions of geology
and paleontology--an inquiry into the period or the purpose of these
manifestations of divine power as manifestations only, merely leads
us into some of the arguments of the current theology. There is
another realm of thought and reasoning into which it will be far more
profitable to enter. It is that realm which lies outside of tradition
and the teachings of theologians, and which takes the hypothesis of
infinite power and infinite goodness, not as something which we have
been taught to believe, but as a postulate of philosophical reasoning;
and, applying this hypothesis to the known facts of the animal and
vegetable world, endeavors to ascertain whether these facts necessarily
create an insuperable difficulty in the hypothesis which lies at the
basis of all sound reasoning on the subject. For I must again insist,
and shall endeavor specifically to show, that this hypothesis of
infinite power and goodness is equally necessary to the evolutionist
and to the believer in special creations, unless all speculation on the
genesis of the world is to end in blind chance, and the negation of a
personal creating power of any kind.
What, then, is the true philosophical mode of dealing with the
existence in the world of physical and moral evil, in reference to
the hypothesis of infinite power and infinite goodness? I do not
ask what is a perfect demonstration of the problem of physical and
moral evil--although I think that the natural solution is very near
to demonstration; but the inquiry which I now make is. What is the
reasonable mode of comparing the existence of suffering, pain, misery,
and their immediate agencies, with the supposition of an all-wise,
all-powerful, and perfectly beneficent Creator?[65]
What we have to do, in the first place, is to contemplate the scope
of infinite goodness; or, in other words, to consider that infinite
benevolence is, in its very nature, guided by unerring wisdom, and
consequently that its methods, its plans, and its results are as far
beyond the methods, plans, and results which our imperfect benevolence
would adopt or achieve, as infinite power is beyond our finite and
imperfect capacity. This does not call upon us to conceive of something
that is inconceivable, or that can not be represented in thought;
for power and goodness are qualities that we know to exist: we know
that they exist in degrees; and that what exists in a measurable and
limited degree may exist without measurable limitation, or in absolute
perfection. The philosophic mode of regarding perfect goodness requires
us to consider its methods and results with reference to its perfect
character, and not to measure them by the inferior standards of human
wisdom. Following out this obvious truth, we have next to inquire
whether the physical and moral evil which we see ought to destroy the
very idea of an infinitely benevolent Creator, and to compel us to
regard him as a malevolent being, or else to destroy our belief in
his infinite power, because his power has been unable to make a world
of perfect happiness and enjoyment for his creatures. If this dilemma
seriously exists, it is just as great a difficulty for the hypothesis
of evolution as it is for that of special creations, and it drives
both schools into the utter negation of any intelligent causing power
adequate to produce what we see.
In the next place, let us see what is the sum total of the physical
and moral evil in the animal kingdom, which, in reference to the sum
total of happiness, is supposed to create this formidable impeachment
of the Almighty benevolence on the one hand, or of the Almighty power
on the other. As to the order of things which permits the superior
animals to prey upon the inferior, there is an explanation which lies
on the surface of the facts, and which would seem to satisfy all the
requirements of philosophic reasoning, whatever may be the mode in
which this part of the moral problem is dealt with by theologians.
We find the fact to be that, as we rise higher and higher in the
scale of organized beings, the superior are capable of happiness
in a greater degree than the inferior, in some proportion to the
superiority of their organization. The comparative duration of life
among the different animals also enters into the estimate of the sum
total of happiness. As a general rule, the inferior organizations
are individually more short-lived than the superior. Now, it might
have pleased the Creator to cause all animals to be fed by manna from
heaven, or to find their sustenance only in vegetable products; and
he could thus have dispensed with the carnivorous appetite, and have
rendered it unnecessary for the superior to prey upon and destroy the
inferior. But, although he could thus have made a world from which the
misery of this perpetual carnage would have been absent, and which
would have been so far a world of perfect happiness, the fact is
that this law of universal destruction is so shaped as to follow the
increasing capacity for happiness and enjoyment which moves through
the ascending scale of the organized beings. It also follows another
obvious purpose of the carnivorous appetite and of the permission to
indulge it. A large part of the whole animal kingdom is so constructed
that sustentation requires animal food. The blood, the tissues, the
whole substance of some animal structures require to be renewed by
similar substances; and although life may sometimes be continued by the
assimilation of vegetable substances alone, it is not the life for
which the animal was formed, because it is not always the life which
makes the full end of its being, and realizes its best capacity for
enjoyment and for the continuation of its species. In some cases, the
carnivorous appetite is withheld. The animal lives and thrives best
upon a vegetable diet, and so far as the flesh of these animals enters
into the wholesome and beneficial food of man, the animal fulfills one
purpose of its existence. Some animals, before they become fit food
for man, have been nourished by the substance of still other animals.
In all this variety of modes in which animal food is prepared for
man, and in the whole of the stupendous economy by which the superior
organizations prey upon the inferior in order that each species may
continue itself and may fulfill the purposes of its existence, we may
without any difficulty trace an obvious reason for the permission that
has been given to such destruction of individual life. When to the sum
total of happiness and benefit which this permission bestows on each
of the orders of the inferior animals according to its capacity for
enjoyment, whether it does or does not enter into the food of man,
whether it comes or never comes within the reach of his arm, we add
the sum total of happiness and benefit which this law of universal
destruction bestows on man, so far as he avails himself of it, we shall
find no reason to impeach the Divine Goodness or to adopt a conclusion
derogatory to the Infinite Power. We may dismiss the difficulty that is
supposed to arise from the warfare of the superior upon the inferior
beings, because that warfare, when we trace it through all its stages,
involves no sort of deduction from the perfect character of the Divine
Goodness or the Divine Power.
Next, we come to the liability of animals, man included, to be preyed
upon by parasites, creatures of a very inferior order when compared
to the animals which they infest. I have looked in vain through Mr.
Spencer's speculations for any explanation which makes the existence
of the parasitic animals a support to the theory of evolution without
involving the same impeachment of the Divine Power or the Divine
Goodness which is supposed to be involved in the hypothesis of special
creations. We are indeed told that evolution brings about an increasing
amount of happiness, all evils being but incidental; that, applying
alike to the lowest and to the highest forms of organization, there is
in all cases a progressive adaptation, and a survival of the fittest.
"If," it is argued, "in the uniform working of the process, there are
evolved organisms of low types, which prey on those of higher types,
the evils inflicted form but a deduction from the average benefits. The
universal and necessary tendency toward supremacy and multiplication
of the best, applying to the organic creation as a whole as well as
to each species, is ever diminishing the damage done, tends ever
to maintain those most superior organizations which, in one way or
another, escape the invasions of the inferior, and so tends to produce
a type less liable to the invasions of the inferior. Thus the evils
accompanying evolution are ever being self-eliminated."[66]
Admitting, for the argument's sake, that this is true, how does the
hypothesis of evolution meet the difficulty? The parasitic inferior
organizations exist, and they have existed, more or less, as long as we
have known anything of the superior organizations on which they prey.
They have inflicted and still inflict an incalculable amount of evil,
an untold diminution of the happiness that might have been enjoyed if
they had never existed. The mode in which they came into existence,
whether by the process of evolution or by special creations of their
respective forms, does not affect the amount of evil which their
ravages have produced and are still producing. If they exist under an
order of things which has made them the products of an evolving process
that has formed them out of still lower types, while they exist they
have the same power of inflicting evil as if they had been specially
made in their respective types without the former existence of any
other type. If they owe their existence to the process of evolution,
they exist under a system that was designed to lead to their production
by the operation of uniform laws working out a uniform process; and
under this process, so long as they are produced by it, they imply
gratuitous malevolence, just as truly as they do if they are supposed
to have been specially created. The evils which they have inflicted
and still inflict were deliberately inflicted, unless we suppose that
the hypothetical process of evolution was not a system ordained by any
supreme and superhuman power, but was a result of blind chance; that
the system was not created, but, without the volition of any power
whatever, grew out of nothing.
The compensating tendency of the evolution system to evolve superior
organisms, which in one way or other "will escape the parasitic
invasions," by becoming less liable to them, and so to diminish the
damage done, as a sum total, finds a corresponding result in the system
of special creations by a different process and at a more rapid rate.
For the hypothesis of special creations, rightly regarded, does not
assume the special creation of each individual animal as a miraculous
or semi-miraculous interposition of divine power; and even when we
apply it to the lowest types of animals it implies only the formation
of that type with the power in most cases of continuing its species.
Assuming the parasitic animals to be in this sense special creations,
the superior organisms on which they prey during their existence may
become less liable to their invasions by an infinity of causes which
will diminish and finally put an end to the parasitic ravages. In
the progress of medical science man may be wholly relieved from the
worst and most obscure parasites that have ever infested him, without
waiting for their evolution into some other type of animal that does
not desire or need to prey upon the human system, or without waiting
to have the human organism developed into one that will not be exposed
to such causes of suffering or death. We know already that very simple
precautions will ward off from man some of the most subtle of these
enemies; and even in the case of animals lower than man we know that
instinct teaches them how to avoid the ravages of some of the parasites
to which they are exposed, even if there are others which they can not
now escape.
So that, viewing as a whole the amount of misery inflicted by the
inferior organisms upon the superior, and looking from the first
forward to the last "syllable of recorded time," we are able upon
either of the two hypotheses respecting the origin of animals to
reach certain definite conclusions, which may be stated as follows:
This world was not intended to be a state of unmixed and unbroken
individual happiness for any of the animal organisms. Death for every
individual in some form was necessary to the carrying on and the
carrying out of the scheme of average enjoyment and the accomplishment
of a sum total of benefit that becomes larger and larger as time goes
on; and, although death without suffering might have been ordained,
the moral purpose for which suffering was allowed to precede death
required that it should be permitted in numberless cases and forms,
and by almost numberless agencies, although not always made necessary.
This great purpose can be discerned without taking into view at all
the idea of a future state of existence for man or any of the other
terrestrial beings, and looking only at the moral development of man
individually and collectively as an agent in the promotion of happiness
on this earth. Man, however he originated, stands at the head of the
whole animal kingdom. If for himself and for all the inferior animal
organisms death without suffering had been ordained as the universal
rule, he would have been without the full strength of the moral
stimulus which now leads him to relieve, to palliate, to diminish, and,
as far as possible, to terminate every kind of suffering for himself
and the superior organisms that are below him in the scale, which are
the most capable of enjoyment and happiness, next after himself, in
their various proportionate capacities. He would have had no strong
motive for exterminating the inferior and noxious organisms excepting
for his own individual and immediate benefit; no reason for extending
the protection of his scientific acquirements to the lower animals
excepting to promote his own immediate advantage. Human society would
have been without that approach to moral perfection which is indicated
by a tenderness for life in all its forms, where its destruction is
not needed by some controlling necessity or expediency, and by the
alleviation of suffering in all its forms for the sake of increasing
the sum total of possible happiness. Human life itself would have been
less sacred in human estimation if there had been no suffering to draw
forth our sympathies and to stimulate us to the utmost contention
against its evils. Civilization would have been destitute of that which
is now its highest and noblest attribute. Wars would have been more
frequent among the most advanced portions of the human race; pestilence
would not have been encountered with half the vigor or the skill which
now wage battle against it; poverty would have been left to take care
of itself, or would have been alleviated from only the lowest and most
selfish motives, which would have left half its evils to be aggravated
by neglect. As the world has been constituted, and as we have the
strongest reason to believe it will continue to the end, there is to
be added to the immeasurable sum of mere animal enjoyment of life that
other immeasurable sum of moral happiness which man derives from doing
good and from the cultivation of his power to do it--an acquisition
and accumulation of benefit which would have been wanting if there had
been no physical suffering to awaken pity and to prompt our exertions
for its relief.
So that the objection that the hypothesis of infinite goodness required
a world where physical pain would have been unknown to any of its
organisms, where human sorrow would never have been felt, where human
tears would have never flowed, and where death would have been always
and only euthanasia, is by no manner of means a necessary conclusion,
as the existence of suffering is no impeachment of the Infinite Power.
If we consider man only in the light of his rank at the head of all the
terrestrial beings, and as therefore capable of the greatest amount
of benefit, to himself and to the other creatures, and if we regard
him individually as nothing more than a being dwelling on this earth
for a short-lived existence and endowed with the power of perpetuating
his species, he would have been morally an inferior being to what he
is now capable of becoming, and human society would have been far
below what it can be made and what we know that to a large degree it
already is, if physical suffering had been excluded from the world. All
this can be discerned without the aid of revelation; it can be seen
by the eye of philosophic reason alone; and it is all equally true
upon any hypothesis of the physical origin of man or any other living
creature on this earth, unless we suppose that the whole animal kingdom
came into being without any intentional design, without any plan of
intentional benefit, without any purpose, and without the conscious
exertion of any power of any kind.
And, if the question is asked, What is to be the end of this world? or
if we go forward in imagination toward the probable end of all this
animal life, I can not see that the hypothesis of evolution has more
to recommend it than the hypothesis of special creations in reference
to the perfectibility of the world, or to the sum of approximate
perfection that seems to be attainable. As, upon either of the two
hypotheses, a perfect world does not even now seem to have demanded
an absence of suffering, since suffering tends obviously to produce
greater benefit than could have followed from its absence, so, in
the remotest conceivable future, a nearer and nearer approximation
to a state of universal happiness will continue to be worked out by
physical and moral causes, which will be as potent under the system of
special creations as they can be supposed to be under the system of
evolution. It is true that the moral causes will supplement and aid
the physical under either of the two systems. But one difficulty with
the evolution theory as the sole method by which the past or present
inhabitants of the world have come into existence is that, so far as
we can judge, it has done and completed its work just as effectually
and finally as special creation appears to have terminated in certain
forms, some of which are extinct and some of which are living. Take
the Darwinian pedigree of man, as stated in a former chapter, or any
other mode of tracing the supposed stages of animal evolution. The
process has hypothetically culminated in man. At whatever species in
the ascending scale you pause, you find that the particular type of
animal has either become extinct or that it has continued and still
continues to be produced in that same type, with only such variations
and incidental differences as have resulted from changed conditions
of life, and from the intermingling of different breeds of the same
animal. I do not now speak of the theory, which admits, of course, of
the hypothetical development of every known animal, past or present,
out of its supposed predecessors. But I speak of the facts as yet
revealed by the researches of naturalists among all the extinct and
living forms of animal life. If there had ever been discovered any one
instance in which it could be claimed by satisfactory proof that an
animal of a distinct species had been evolved out of races of animals
of a fundamentally different organization, and without the special
interposition of any creating power operating to make a new organism,
we should certainly have it cited and relied upon as a fact of the
utmost importance. I do not say that it would be reasonable to expect
direct and ocular demonstration of such a product, any more than it
would be reasonable to expect direct and ocular demonstration of an
act of special creation. But I say that it could be shown by proofs
that ought to be satisfactory if there were any evidence from which the
inference that such a fact ever occurred could be reasonably drawn;
just as it is possible to draw the inference of special creation by
reasonable deduction from the evidence that tends to establish it as
a safe conclusion. But if there has ever been such an instance of the
evolution of any known species of animal out of other species shown by
satisfactory proof, or if we assume such an occurrence in the past as
the theory calls for, what reason have we to suppose that the process
of evolution is still going on, and to expect it to go on to the end
of time? We must judge of the future by the past, for we have no other
means of judging it. The past and the present both show, so far as we
can yet perceive by the facts, that each distinct and peculiar type
of animal life remains a perfect and completed production, however it
was fashioned or grew into that type; and that, so far as we have any
means of actual knowledge, no crosses of different races of that animal
produce anything but incidental variations of structure and mode of
life. It is a mere hypothesis that they produce distinct species.
Apply this to the most important of the supposed connections between
different animals according to the theory of evolution--that between
man and the monkey. The theory calls for the intermediate link or
links. Nothing can be yet found that shows the pedigree without
eking it out by general reasoning, and by assumptions that are more
or less imaginary. But suppose that the chain of proof were complete,
what would it show? It would show that the process of evolution has
culminated in man, as its crown and summit, and has there stopped. For,
whatever may have been the length of time required for the production
of this result, we know what the product is. We have the history of man
as an animal for a period of time that has been quite long enough to
show that, after he had become in his essential structure as an animal
what we know him to be, no subsequent intermingling of the races or
families into which the species became divided has produced any change
in his essential structure, or any new organs or any differences but
differences in the development of powers which are to be found in him
at all the stages of his known existence as parts of his characteristic
animal structure. The period of his known existence is certainly
infinitely small when compared with the whole indefinite future. It
is long enough, however, to afford some basis of reasoning about the
future; and, short as it is, it tends very strongly to show that the
further development of man on earth is to be chiefly a moral and
intellectual development; that in physical structure he is a completed
type; and that whatever superiorities of mere animal life he may
attain to hereafter are to be such improvements as can be worked out,
within the limits of his animal constitution, by the science which his
accumulating experience and knowledge will enable him to apply to the
physical and moral well-being of his race.
To return now to the line of thought from which these suggestions have
diverged. If, as we have every reason to believe upon either hypothesis
of man's origin, he is a completed animal, standing by original
creation or by the effect of the evolution process at the head of the
whole animal kingdom in the apparent purpose of his existence, his
agency and his power in promoting the sum of happiness on earth, for
himself and all the other animals, are the same upon either hypothesis
of his origin. The hypothesis of his origin by evolution gives him no
greater power over his own happiness or that of the other creatures
than he has if we suppose him to have been specially created; and it is
only by adopting the belief that in his own constitution he is to be
hereafter developed into a being incapable of suffering, or one vastly
less capable of suffering than the animal called man now is, that the
theory of evolution, even in regard to the sum total of happiness on
earth, has any advantage over the theory of special creations. If we
suppose the future gradual development of a terrestrial being standing
still higher in the animal scale than man now stands, exempt from the
suffering which man now suffers, we have a great amount of suffering
hereafter eliminated from the world by a certain process. But how does
this better satisfy the idea of infinite goodness in the power that
devised the process, than the hypothesis of special creation which has
formed man as an ultimate product of the divine benevolence and power
acting together, endowed him with the faculty of eliminating pain and
evil from the circumstances of his existence, by his own exertions,
and furnished him with the strongest motives as well as with almost
immeasurable means for diminishing the amount of evil for himself and
all the other beings within his reach?
5. Another of the specific objections urged by Mr. Spencer against
the doctrine of special creations is so put that it is manifestly
directed against one of the positions assumed by the representatives
of the current theology. The learned philosopher begins this part of
his argument by imputing to those who assert this doctrine as their
reason for maintaining it, that it "honors the Unknown Cause of
things," and that they think any other doctrine amounts to an exclusion
of divine power from the world. To encounter this supposed reason for
maintaining the doctrine of special creations, he proceeds to ask
whether the divine power "would not have been still better demonstrated
by the separate creation of each individual than it is by the separate
creation of each species? Why should there exist this process of
natural generation? Why should not omnipotence have been proved by the
supernatural production of plants and animals everywhere throughout
the world from hour to hour? Is it replied that the Creator was able
to make individuals arise from one another in natural selection, but
not to make species thus arise? This is to assign a limit to power
instead of magnifying it. Is it replied that the occasional miraculous
origination of a species was practicable, but that the perpetual
miraculous origination of countless individuals was impracticable? This
also is a derogation. Either it was possible or not possible to create
species and individuals after the same general methods. To say that it
was not possible is suicidal in those who use this argument; and, if it
was possible, it is required to say what end is served by the special
creation of species that would not be better served by the special
creation of individuals?"[67] I must again disclaim any participation
in the views of those who contemplate this question with reference
to the manifestations of divine power by one method of its supposed
action or another, or who are influenced by the idea of honoring or
dishonoring the Creator. This is not a question of the mode in which
the Creator has chosen to manifest his power for the purpose of making
it more impressive in the eyes of his intelligent human creatures or
more palpable to their perceptions. Nor is it a question, excepting for
the theologian who begins to reason upon it from a peculiar point of
view, by what belief we best honor the Creator, or the power which Mr.
Spencer describes as the "Unknown Cause." In the eye of philosophic
reason, apart from all the religious dogmas that have been taught by
human interpretations of revelation, this is a question of the probable
mode in which the assumed omnipotent power has acted; and it is not a
question of how we can best honor or magnify that power by believing
that it has acted in one mode and not in another. We have to take,
first, the postulate of an infinitely powerful Creator, whose existence
is an independent inquiry, which we are to make out upon evidence that
satisfies the mind. The hypothesis of his existence and attributes
includes the power to create species and to establish the process of
natural generation for the continuation of each species, or the power
to make separate creations of each individual, as Mr. Spencer phrases
it, "from hour to hour." In either mode of action, the power was the
same. It is no derogation from it to suppose that the one or the other
mode was adopted. It is no augmentation of it to suppose that the one
was adopted instead of the other. It is simply a question of what
does the evidence show, to the reasonable satisfaction of the human
mind, to have been most probably the method that was chosen by a power
that could adopt any method whatever. If we find that the creation of
species and the establishment of the process of natural generation for
the multiplication of individuals is upon the whole sustained by a
predominating weight of evidence, it is safe to adopt the belief that
this hypothesis of the Almighty method is in accordance with the facts.
If the evidence fails to show that species have arisen from each other
in the same way that individuals have arisen from each other in natural
succession, we have no reason to conclude that such has been the fact.
On the other hand, if the evidence shows, by reasonably satisfactory
proofs, that a process has been established for the evolution of
distinct species out of other and different species, similar to
the process by which individuals arise from each other by natural
generation, it will be safe to conclude that such has been the fact.
Upon either hypothesis, the power of the Creator remains the same.
Nor is it in any degree necessary to consider in what sense the one
method of action or the other was "miraculous," or that the one was an
occasional and the other a perpetual exercise of power. The special
creations of individuals from hour to hour would be just as miraculous
as the special creation of species, and it would be occasional,
although the occasions would be indefinite in number. The special
creation of species would be just as miraculous as the special creation
of individuals, but the occasional exercise of such a power would be
limited by the number of species, each of which would be a finality
in itself. The dilemma that is suggested by Mr. Spencer is a dilemma
only for those who think it necessary to mingle the idea of honoring
or dishonoring the Creator by one or another mode of interpreting his
works, with a question of his probable method of action. His method of
action is to be judged upon the evidence which a study of his works
discloses.
6. Mr. Spencer, in summing up his objections to the doctrine of
special creations, has said that it not only "fails to satisfy men's
intellectual need of an interpretation," but that it also "fails to
satisfy their moral sentiment"; that "their moral sentiment is much
better satisfied by the doctrine of evolution, since that doctrine
raises no contradictory implications respecting the Unknown Cause, such
as are raised by the antagonist doctrine."[68] I have already suggested
what seems to me a sufficient answer to the supposed contradictory
implications respecting the goodness and power of the Almighty Creator.
But it is here worthy of the further inquiry, What has been the
influence upon the sacredness of human life, in human estimation, of
a belief in any other theory of man's origin, or of no belief on the
subject, compared with the effect of a belief in the doctrine that he
is a creature of an Almighty Creator, formed by an exercise of infinite
power for the enjoyment of greater happiness on earth than any other
creature, and therefore having a peculiarly sacred individual right to
the life that has been given to him? This, to be sure, does not afford
a direct test of the probable truth of the hypothesis respecting his
origin. But the answer to this inquiry will afford some test of the
claim upon our consideration that may be put forward for any other
hypothesis than the one that embraces the full idea of man's special
creation, even if we do not look beyond this world. Compare, then, the
civilization of the Romans at the period when it was at its highest
development (the age of Julius and Augustus Cæsar), when in many
respects it was a splendid civilization. Neither among the vulgar,
nor among the most cultivated; not among the most accomplished of the
statesmen or philosophers, was there any such belief as the simple
belief in the relation between Creator and creature, such as had been
held by a people who were regarded by the Romans as barbarians, in
respect to man and all the other animals; or such a belief as is now
held by the least educated peasant of modern Europe. One consequence
of the absence of this belief, or of the want of a vivid perception of
it, was that the highest persons in the Roman state, men possessed of
all the culture and refinement of their age, not only furnished for the
popular amusement combats of wild beasts of the most ferocious natures,
but they provided gladiatorial shows in which human beings, trained for
the purpose, were by each other "butchered to make a Roman holiday."
The statesmen who thus catered to the popular tastes, and never
thought of correcting them, subjected themselves to enormous expenses
for the purpose; and all that was noble and dignified and cultured of
both sexes, as well as the rabble, looked on with delight at the horrid
spectacle. But this was not all. The Roman law, in many ways a code
of admirable ethics, in utter disregard of the natural rights of men,
left the life of the slave within the absolute power of the master,
without any mitigation of the existing law of nations which made slaves
of the captive in war and his posterity. Compare all this with the
civilization of any modern country in which the life or liberty of
man can be taken away only by judicial process and public authority,
for actual crime; in which institutions exist for the relief of human
suffering and for the prevention of cruelty to the inferior creatures;
and then say whether the belief in special creations is not a doctrine
that has worked vast good in the world, and one that should not be
scouted because it is a "primitive belief."
Again, compare the ages in modern Europe when statesmen and politicians
of the highest standing with entire impunity employed assassination for
political ends, with periods in the same countries when assassination
had come to be regarded not only with abhorrence, but as incapable of
justification for any end whatever, public or private, and then say
whether the world can lose its belief that man is a special creation of
God, without losing one of the strongest safeguards of human life that
can be derived from any belief on the subject. All these, and a great
many similar considerations, while they do not prove the hypothesis
of special creation, show strongly that, unlike some of the family of
beliefs with which it was associated in the darkest ages, this one
has worked no mischiefs; that, on the contrary, it has been producing
moral, social, and political benefits in all the ages in which it has
been most vividly present to the popular faith. The command, "Thou
shalt do no murder," from whatever source it came, whether it was
delivered to Moses on the mount of fire, or came from the teachings of
Nature and the dictates of social expediency, whether it is a divine or
a human law, or both, has unhappily been broken in all times, in all
lands, and in all conditions of civilization. It is broken still. But
it has never yet ceased, for its moral foundation and for the moral
sanction of all the methods which have aimed to enforce it, to rest
on the belief that man is peculiarly the child of God, whose life is
sacred beyond the life of all other creatures. Whether any other belief
of man's origin will afford an equally good foundation for that law,
is a question which modern scientific speculation may or may not be
able to answer. If its speculations conduct to the conclusion that the
"unknown cause" has not specially caused anything, has not established
any relation of Creator and creature, that is sufficiently special to
imply divine care for the creature, we know what the answer must be.
The theologian is not the only person who has occasion to examine the
doctrine of evolution; it must be examined by the statesman as well.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] "The Principles of Biology," by Herbert Spencer, vol. i, p. 334
_et seq._ I use the American edition, D. Appleton & Co., 1881.
[58] "Biology," i, p. 336.
[59] "Biology," i, pp. 336, 337.
[60] Webster's "Dictionary of the English Language."
[61] Let it be remembered that the sense which is here considered
comprehends not only material objects, but also ideas, images, and
in short whatever, in its kind, had no previous existence. This is
just as true of an original poem, or picture, or statue, or musical
composition, as it is of a machine that is both original and new as a
piece of mechanism.
[62] Perhaps I owe an apology to a large class of readers for having
bestowed so much attention upon the logical formula with which Mr.
Spencer aims to dispose of the idea of creation. But I have observed,
especially among young persons and others whose habits of thinking
are unformed or not corrected by sound and comprehensive reasoning, a
popular reception of this particular dogma, which makes it necessary
to subject it to some careful analysis. In fact, one of my chief
objects in writing this book has been to contribute what I might
to the formation of habits of testing philosophical and scientific
theories by something better than specious assumptions which can be
thrown into the plausible form of logical propositions. There is
nothing more valuable than logic, when its forms represent a true and
correct ratiocination; and, when they do not, there is nothing that is
more delusive. It needs some discipline of mind to enable people to
see when logic is valuable and when it is not.
[63] "Biology," i, p. 340 _et seq._
[64] This is given almost _verbatim_ from Mr. Spencer's "Biology," i,
p. 340 _et seq._
[65] In treating of the existence of physical and moral evil, I do
not mean to include sin in the discussion. I mean now by moral evil
that loss or diminution of happiness, for the individual or a race,
which results from physical evil produced by causes for which the
sufferer is not responsible. The sin that is in the world is a matter
that is to be considered entirely with reference to the accountability
of man as a moral being; and the reasons which may be assigned for
its permission may be quite distinct from those which relate to the
existence of physical suffering for which man is not responsible upon
any rational theory of moral accountability.
[66] "Biology," i, p. 354.
[67] "Biology," i, p. 339.
[68] "Biology," i, pp. 344, 355.