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WHAT IS DARWINISM?
BY
CHARLES HODGE,
PRINCETON, N. J.
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY.
1874.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & COMPANY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION 1
DIFFERENT THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE,
AND SPECIALLY OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL ORGANISMS.
1. The Scriptural Theory 3
2. The Pantheistic Theory 7
3. The Epicurean Theory 10
4. The Doctrine of Herbert Spencer 11
5. Hylozoic Theory 21
6. Unscriptural Forms of Theism 22
DARWIN'S THEORY 26
NATURAL SELECTION 31
SENSE IN WHICH DARWIN USES THE WORD NATURAL 40
THE THREE ELEMENTS OR DARWINISM 48
THE EXCLUSION OF DESIGN IN NATURE THE FORMATIVE IDEA
OF DARWIN'S THEORY 49
PROOF OF DARWIN'S DENIAL OF TELEOLOGY, FROM HIS OWN
WRITINGS 53
PROOF FROM THE EXPOSITIONS OF HIS THEORY BY ITS AVOWED
ADVOCATES.
Mr. Russell Wallace 64
Professor Huxley 72
Dr. Büchner 84
Carl Vogt 85
Prof. Haeckel 87
Strauss 147
PROOF FROM THE OBJECTIONS URGED BY THE OPPONENTS OF
MR. DARWIN'S THEORY.
Duke of Argyll 96
Agassiz 101
Professor Janet 105
M. Flourens 108
Rev. Walter Mitchell 111
Principal Dawson 119
RELATION OF DARWINISM TO RELIGION 125
CAUSES OF THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 126
THE EVOLUTION THEORY CONTRARY TO FACTS AND TO SCRIPTURE 141
SIR WILLIAM THOMSON ON TELEOLOGY 165
DR. ASA GRAY 174
DARWINISM TANTAMOUNT TO ATHEISM 177
WHAT IS DARWINISM?
This is a question which needs an answer. Great confusion and diversity
of opinion prevail as to the real views of the man whose writings have
agitated the whole world, scientific and religious. If a man says he is
a Darwinian, many understand him to avow himself virtually an atheist;
while another understands him as saying that he adopts some harmless
form of the doctrine of evolution. This is a great evil.
It is obviously useless to discuss any theory until we are agreed as to
what that theory is. The question, therefore, What is Darwinism? must
take precedence of all discussion of its merits.
The great fact of experience is that the universe exists. The great
problem which has ever pressed upon the human mind is to account for its
existence. What was its origin? To what causes are the changes we
witness around us to be referred? As we are a part of the universe,
these questions concern ourselves. What are the origin, nature, and
destiny of man? Professor Huxley is right in saying, "The question of
questions for mankind--the problem which underlies all others, and is
more interesting than any other--is the ascertainment of the place which
Man occupies in nature and of his relation to the universe of things.
Whence our race has come, what are the limits of our power over nature,
and of nature's power over us, to what goal are we tending, are the
problems which present themselves anew and with undiminished interest to
every man born into the world."[1] Mr. Darwin undertakes to answer these
questions. He proposes a solution of the problem which thus deeply
concerns every living man. Darwinism is, therefore, a theory of the
universe, at least so far as the living organisms on this earth are
concerned. This being the case, it may be well to state, in few words,
the other prevalent theories on this great subject, that the points of
agreement and of difference between them and the views of Mr. Darwin may
be the more clearly seen.
_The Scriptural Solution of the Problem of the Universe_.
That solution is stated in words equally simple and sublime: "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." We have here, first,
the idea of God. The word God has in the Bible a definite meaning. It
does not stand for an abstraction, for mere force, for law or ordered
sequence. God is a spirit, and as we are spirits, we know from
consciousness that God is, (1.) A Substance; (2.) That He is a person;
and, therefore, a self-conscious, intelligent, voluntary agent. He can
say I; we can address Him as Thou; we can speak of Him as He or Him.
This idea of God pervades the Scriptures. It lies at the foundation of
natural religion. It is involved in our religious consciousness. It
enters essentially into our sense of moral obligation. It is inscribed
ineffaceably, in letters more or less legible, on the heart of every
human being. The man who is trying to be an atheist is trying to free
himself from the laws of his being. He might as well try to free himself
from liability to hunger or thirst.
The God of the Bible, then, is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and truth.
As every theory must begin with some postulate, this is the grand
postulate with which the Bible begins. This is the first point.
The second point concerns the origin of the universe. It is not eternal
either as to matter or form. It is not independent of God. It is not an
evolution of his being, or his existence form. He is extramundane as
well as antemundane. The universe owes its existence to his will.
Thirdly, as to the nature of the universe; it is not a mere phenomenon.
It is an entity, having real objective existence, or actuality. This
implies that matter is a substance endowed with certain properties, in
virtue of which it is capable of acting and of being acted upon. These
properties being uniform and constant, are physical laws to which, as
their proximate causes, all the phenomena of nature are to be referred.
Fourthly, although God is extramundane, He is nevertheless everywhere
present. That presence is not only a presence of essence, but also of
knowledge and power. He upholds all things. He controls all physical
causes, working through them, with them, and without them, as He sees
fit. As we, in our limited spheres, can use physical causes to
accomplish our purposes, so God everywhere and always coöperates with
them to accomplish his infinitely wise and merciful designs.
Fifthly, man a part of the universe, is, according to the Scriptures, as
concerns his body, of the earth. So far, he belongs to the animal
kingdom. As to his soul, he is a child of God, who is declared to be the
Father of the spirits of all men. God is a spirit, and we are spirits.
We are, therefore, of the same nature with God. We are God-like; so that
in knowing ourselves we know God. No man conscious of his manhood can be
ignorant of his relationship to God as his Father.
The truth of this theory of the universe rests, in the first place, so
far as it has been correctly stated, on the infallible authority of the
Word of God. In the second place, it is a satisfactory solution of the
problem to be solved,--(1.) It accounts for the origin of the universe.
(2.) It accounts for all the universe contains, and gives a satisfactory
explanation of the marvellous contrivances which abound in living
organisms, of the adaptations of these organisms to conditions external
to themselves, and for those provisions for the future, which on any
other assumption are utterly inexplicable. (3.) It is in conflict with
no truth of reason and with no fact of experience.[2] (4.) The
Scriptural doctrine accounts for the spiritual nature of man, and meets
all his spiritual necessities. It gives him an object of adoration,
love, and confidence. It reveals the Being on whom his indestructible
sense of responsibility terminates. The truth of this doctrine,
therefore, rests not only on the authority of the Scriptures, but on the
very constitution of our nature. The Bible has little charity for those
who reject it. It pronounces them to be either derationalized or
demoralized, or both.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Evidences of Man's Place in Nature._ London, 1864, p. 57.
[2] The two facts which are commonly urged as inconsistent with Theism,
are the existence of misery in the world, and the occurrence of
undeveloped or useless organs, as teeth in the jaws of the whale and
mammæ on the breast of a man. As to the former objection, sin, which is
the only real evil, is accounted for by the voluntary apostasy of man;
and as to undeveloped organs they are regarded as evidences of the great
plan of structure which can be traced in the different orders of
animals. These unused organs were--says Professor Joseph Le Conte, in
his interesting volume on Religion and Science, New York, 1874, p.
54--regarded as blunders in nature, until it was discovered that use is
not the only end of design. "By further patient study of nature," he
says, "came the recognition of another law beside use,--a law of order
underlying and conditioning the law of use. Organisms are, indeed,
contrived for use, but according to a preordained plan of structure,
which must not be violated." It is of little moment whether this
explanation be considered satisfactory or not. It would certainly be
irrational to refuse to believe that the eye was made for the purpose of
vision, because we cannot tell why a man has mammæ. A man might as well
refuse to admit that there is any meaning in all the writings of Plato,
because there is a sentence in them which he cannot understand.
_The Pantheistic Theory_.
This has been one of the most widely diffused and persistent forms of
human thought on this whole subject. It has been for thousands of years
not only the philosophy, but the religion of India, and, to a great
extent, of China. It underlies all the forms of Greek philosophy. It
crept into the Church, concealed under the disguise of Scriptural
terminology, in the form of Neo-Platonism. It was constantly reappearing
during the Middle Ages, sometimes in a philosophical, and sometimes a
mystical form. It was revived by Spinoza in the seventeenth century, and
subsequently became dominant in the philosophy and literature of Europe.
It is coming up again. Some distinguished naturalists are swinging round
from one pole to the opposite; from saying there is no God, to teaching
that everything is God. Sometimes, one and the same book in one half
teaches materialism, in the other half idealism: the one affirming that
everything is matter, the other that matter is nothing, but that
everything is mind, and mind is God.
The leading principles of the Pantheistic theory are,--(1.) That there
is an Infinite and Absolute Being. Of this Being nothing can be affirmed
but actuality. It is denied that it is conscious, intelligent, or
voluntary. (2.) It is subject to the blind necessity of self-evolution
or development. (3.) This development being necessary is constant; from
everlasting to everlasting. According to the Braminical doctrine,
indeed, there are successive cycles of activity and repose, each cycle
being measured by countless milliards of centuries. According to the
moderns, self-evolution being necessary, there can be no repose, so that
Ohne Welt kein Gott. (4.) The Finite is, therefore, the existence form
of the Infinite; all that is in the latter for the time being is in the
former. All that is possible is actual. (5.) The Finite is the Infinite,
or, to use theistic language, the World is God, in the sense that all
the world is and contains is the form in which God, at each successive
moment, exists. There is no power, save only the power manifested in
the world; no consciousness, intelligence, or voluntary activity, but in
finite things, and the aggregate of these is the power, consciousness,
intelligence, and activity of God. What we call sin is as much a form of
God's activity as what we call virtue. In other words, there is no such
thing as free agency in man, no such thing as sin or responsibility.
When a man dies he sinks into the abyss of being as a drop of water is
lost in the ocean. (6.) Man is the highest form of God's existence. God
is incarnate in the human race. Strauss says, that what the Church
teaches of Christ is not true of any individual man, but is true of
mankind. Or, as Feuerbach more concisely expresses it, "Man alone is our
God." The blasphemy of some of the German philosophers on this subject
is simply unutterable. In India we see the practical operation of this
system when it takes hold on the people. There the personification of
the Infinite as evil (the Goddess Kala) is the most popular object of
worship.
_Epicurean Theory._
Epicurus assumed the existence of matter, force and motion,--Stoff und
Kraft. He held that all space was filled with molecules of matter in a
state of rapid motion in every direction. These molecules were subject
to gravity and endowed with properties or forces. One combination of
molecules gave rise to unorganized matter, another to life, another to
mind; and from the various combinations, guided by unintelligent
physical laws, all the wonderful organisms of plants and animals have
arisen. To these combinations also all the phenomena of life, instinct,
and intelligence in the world are to be referred. This theory has been
adopted in our day by a large class of scientific men, especially in
Germany. The modern advocates of the theory are immeasurably superior to
the ancient Epicureans in their knowledge of astronomy, botany, zoölogy,
and biology; but in their theory of the universe, and in their mode of
accounting for all the phenomena of life and intelligence, they are
precisely on the same level. They have not added an idea to the system,
which has ever been regarded as the opprobrium of human thought.
Büchner, Moleschott, Vogt, hold that matter is eternal and
indestructible; that matter and force are inseparable: the one cannot
exist without the other. What, it is asked, is motion without something
moving? What is electricity without an electrified body? What is
attraction without molecules attracting each other? What is
contractibility without muscular fibre, or secretion without a secreting
gland? One combination of molecules exhibits the phenomena of life,
another combination exhibits the phenomena of mind. All this was taught
by the old heathen philosopher more than two thousand years ago. That
this system denies the existence of God, of mind as a thinking substance
distinct from matter, and of the possibility of the conscious existence
of man after death, are not inferences drawn by opponents, but
conclusions openly avowed by its advocates.
_Herbert Spencer's New Philosophy._
Mr. Darwin calls Spencer our "great philosopher." His is the speculating
mind of the new school of science. This gives to his opinions special
interest, although no one but himself is to be held responsible for his
peculiar views, except so far as others see fit to avow them. Mr.
Spencer postulates neither mind nor matter. He begins with Force. Force,
however, is itself perfectly inscrutable. All we know about it is, that
it is, that it is indestructible, and that it is persistent.
As to the origin of the universe, he says there are three possible
suppositions: 1st. That it is self-existent. 2d. That it is
self-created. 3d. That it is created by an external agency.[3] All these
he examines and rejects. The first is equivalent to Atheism, by which
Spencer understands the doctrine which makes Space, Matter, and Force
eternal and the causes of all phenomena. This, he says, assumes the idea
of self-existence, which is unthinkable. The second theory he makes
equivalent to Pantheism. "The precipitation of vapor," he says, "into
cloud, aids us in forming a symbolic conception of a self-evolved
universe;" but, he adds, "really to conceive self-creation, is to
conceive potential existence passing into actual existence by some
inherent necessity, which we cannot do." (p. 32). The Theistic theory,
he says, is equally untenable. "Whoever agrees that the atheistic
hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of
self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistic hypothesis is
untenable if it contains the same impossible idea." (p. 38). The origin
of the universe is, therefore, a fact which cannot be explained. It must
have had a cause; and all we know is that its cause is unknowable and
inscrutable.
When we turn to nature the result is the same. Everything is
inscrutable. All we know is that there are certain appearances, and that
where there is appearance there must be something that appears. But what
that something is, what is the noumenon which underlies the phenomenon,
it is impossible for us to know. In nature we find two orders of
phenomena, or appearances; the one objective or external, the other
subjective in our consciousness. There are an Ego and a non-Ego, a
subject and object. These are not identical. "It is," he says,
"rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of
appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a reality of which
they are appearances, for appearance without reality is unthinkable."
(p. 88). So far we can go. There is a reality which is the cause of
phenomena. Further than that, in that direction, our ignorance is
profound. He proves that space cannot be an entity, an attribute, or a
category of thought, or a nonentity. The same is true of time, of
motion, of matter, of electricity, light, magnetism, etc., etc. They all
resolve themselves into appearances produced by an unknown cause.
As the question, What is matter? is a crucial one, he dwells upon it in
various parts of his writings. Newton's theory of ultimate atoms;
Leibnitz's doctrine of monads; and the dynamic theory of Boscovich,
which makes matter mere centres of force, are all dismissed as
unthinkable. It is not very clear in what sense that word is to be
taken. Sometimes it seems to mean, meaningless; at others,
self-contradictory or absurd; at others, inconceivable, _i. e._ that of
which no conception or mental image can be formed; at any rate, it
implies what is unknowable and untenable. The result is, so far as
matter is concerned, that we know nothing about it. "Our conception of
matter," he says, "reduced to its simplest shape, is that of coexistent
positions that offer resistance, as contrasted with our conception of
space in which the coexistent positions offer no resistance." (p. 166).
Resistance, however, is a form of force; and, therefore, on the
following page, Spencer says, "that forces standing in certain
correlations, form the whole contents of our idea of matter."
When we turn from the objective to the subjective, from the external to
the inward world, the result is still the same. He agrees with Hume in
saying that the contents of our consciousness is a series of impressions
and ideas. He dissents, however, from that philosopher, in saying that
that series is all we know. He admits that impressions necessarily imply
that there is something that is impressed. He starts the question, What
is it that thinks? and answers, We do not know. (p. 63). He admits that
the reality of individual personal minds, the conviction of personal
existence is universal, and perhaps indestructible. Nevertheless that
conviction cannot justify itself at the bar of reason; nay, reason is
found to reject it. (p. 65). Dean Mansel says, that consciousness gives
us a knowledge of self as a substance and not merely of its varying
states. This, however, he says, "is absolutely negatived by the laws of
thought. The fundamental condition to all consciousness, emphatically
insisted upon by Mr. Mansel in common with Sir William Hamilton and
others, is the antithesis of subject and object.... What is the
corollary from this doctrine, as bearing on the consciousness of self?
The mental act in which self is known implies, like every other mental
act, a perceiving subject and a perceived object. If, then, the object
perceived is self, what is the subject that perceives? Or if it is the
true self which thinks, what other self can it be that is thought of?
Clearly, a true cognition of self implies a state in which the knowing
and the known are one--in which subject and object are identified; and
this Mr. Mansel rightly holds to be the annihilation of both. So that
the personality of which each is conscious, and of which the existence
is to each a fact beyond all others the most certain, is yet a thing
which cannot be known at all; knowledge of it is forbidden by the very
nature of human thought." (pp. 65, 66).
Mr. Spencer does not seem to expect that any man will be shaken in his
conviction by any such argument as that. When a man is conscious of
pain, he is not to be puzzled by telling him that the pain is one thing
(the object perceived) and the self another thing (the perceiving
subject). He knows that the pain is a state of the self of which he is
conscious. Consciousness is a form of knowledge; but knowledge of
necessity supposes an intelligent reality which knows. A philosophy
which cannot be received until men cease to believe in their own
existence, must be in extremis.
Mr. Spencer's conclusion is, that the universe--nature, or the external
world with all its marvels and perpetual changes,--the world of
consciousness with its ever varying states, are impressions or
phenomena, due to an inscrutable, persistent force.
As to the nature of this primal force or power, he quotes abundantly and
approvingly from Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Mansel, to prove that it
is unknowable, inconceivable, unthinkable. He, however, differs from
those distinguished writers in two points. While admitting that we know
no more of the first cause than we do of a geometrical figure which is
at once a circle and a square, yet we do know that it is actual. For
this conviction we are not dependent on faith. In the second place,
Hamilton and Mansel taught that we know that the Infinite cannot be a
person, self-conscious, intelligent, and voluntary; yet we are forced
by our moral constitution to believe it to be an intelligent person.
This Mr. Spencer denies. "Let those," he says, "who can, believe that
there is eternal war between our intellectual faculties and our moral
obligations. I, for one, admit of no such radical vice in the
constitution of things." (p. 108). Religion has always erred, he
asserts, in that while it teaches that the Infinite Being cannot be
known, it insists on ascribing to it such and such attributes, which of
course assumes that so far forth it is known. We have no right, he
contends, to ascribe personality to the "Unknown Reality," or anything
else, except that it is the cause of all that we perceive or experience.
There may be a mode of being, as much transcending intelligence and
will, as these transcend mechanical motion. To show the folly of
referring to the Unknown the attributes of our own spirits, he makes
"the grotesque supposition that the tickings and other movements of a
watch constituted a kind of consciousness; and that a watch possessed of
such a consciousness, insisted on regarding the watchmaker's actions as
determined like its own by springs and escapements." (p. 111). The vast
majority of men, instead of agreeing with Mr. Spencer in this matter,
will doubtless heartily, each for himself, join the German philosopher
Jacobi, in saying, "I confess to Anthropomorphism inseparable from the
conviction that man bears the image of God; and maintain that besides
this Anthropomorphism, which has always been called Theism, is nothing
but Atheism or Fetichism."[4]
Mr. Spencer, therefore, in accounting for the origin of the universe and
all its phenomena, physical, vital, and mental, rejects Theism, or the
doctrine of a personal God, who is extramundane as well as antemundane,
the creator and governor of all things; he rejects Pantheism, which
makes the finite the existence-form of the Infinite; he rejects Atheism,
which he understands to be the doctrine of the eternity and
self-existence of matter and force. He contents himself with saying we
must acknowledge the reality of an unknown something which is the cause
of all things,--the noumenon of all phenomena. "If science and religion
are to be reconciled, the basis of the reconciliation must be this
deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts,--that the Power which
the universe manifests is utterly inscrutable." (p. 46). "The ultimate
of ultimates is Force." "Matter and motion, as we know them, are
differently conditioned manifestations of force." "If, to use an
algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and Force, by the
symbols _x_, _y_, _z_; then we may ascertain the values of _x_ and _y_
in terms of _z_, but the value of _z_ can never be found; _z_ is the
unknown quantity, which must forever remain unknown, for the obvious
reason that there is nothing in which its value can be expressed." (pp.
169, 170).
We have, then, no God but Force. Atheist is everywhere regarded as a
term of reproach. Every man instinctively recoils from it. Even the
philosophers of the time of the French Revolution repudiated the charge
of atheism, because they believed in motion; and motion being
inscrutable, they believed in an inscrutable something, _i. e._ in
Force. We doubt not Mr. Spencer would indignantly reject the imputation
of atheism; nevertheless, in the judgment of most men, the difference
between Antitheist and Atheist is a mere matter of orthography.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] _First Principles of a New System of Philosophy._ By Herbert
Spencer. Second edition. New York, 1869, p. 30.
[4] _Von den göttlichen Dingen_, _Werke_, III. pp. 422, 425. Leipzig,
1816.
_Hylozoic Theory._
This theory assumes the universe to be eternal. There is nothing extra,
or antemundane. There is but one substance, and that substance is
matter. Matter, however, has an active and passive principle. Life and
rationality are among its attributes or functions. The universe,
therefore, is a living whole pervaded by a principle not only of life
but of intelligence. This hylozoic doctrine, some modern scientific men,
as Professor Tyndall, seem inclined to adopt. They tell us that matter
is not the dead and degraded thing it is commonly regarded. It is active
and transcendental. What that means, we do not know. The word
transcendental is like a parabola, in that there is no knowing where its
meaning ends. To say that matter is transcendental, is saying there is
no telling what it is up to. This habit of using words which have no
definite meaning is very convenient to writers, but very much the
reverse for readers. Some of the ancient Stoics distinguished between
the active and passive principles in the world, calling the one mind,
the other, matter. These however were as intimately united as matter and
life in a plant or animal.
_Theism in Unscriptural Forms._
There are men who are constrained to admit the being of God, who depart
from the Scriptural doctrine as to his relation to the world. According
to some, God created matter and endowed it with certain properties, and
then left it to itself to work out, without any interference or control
on his part, all possible results. According to others, He created not
only matter, but life, or living germs, one or more, from which without
any divine intervention all living organisms have been developed.
Others, again, refer not only matter and life, but mind also to the act
of the Creator; but with creation his agency ceases. He has no more to
do with the world, than a ship-builder has with the ship he has
constructed, when it is launched and far off upon the ocean. According
to all these views a creator is a mere _Deus ex machina_, an assumption
to account for the origin of the universe.
Another general view of God's relation to the world goes to the opposite
extreme. Instead of God doing nothing, He does everything. Second causes
have no efficiency. The laws of nature are said to be the uniform modes
of divine operation. Gravitation does not flow from the nature of
matter, but is a mode of God's uniform efficiency. What are called
chemical affinities are not due to anything in different kinds of
matter, but God always acts in one way in connection with an acid, and
in another way in connection with an alkali. If a man places a particle
of salt or sugar on his tongue, the sensation which he experiences is
not to be referred to the salt or sugar, but to God's agency. When this
theory is extended, as it generally is by its advocates, from the
external to the internal world, the universe of matter and mind, with
all their phenomena, is a constant effect of the omnipresent activity of
God. The minds of some men, as remarked above, are so constituted that
they can pass from the theory that God does nothing, to the doctrine
that He does everything, without seeing the difference. Mr. Russel
Wallace, the companion and peer of Mr. Darwin, devotes a large part of
his book on "Natural Selection," to prove that the organs of plants and
animals are formed by blind physical causes. Toward the close of the
volume he teaches that there are no such causes. He asks the question,
What is Matter? and answers, Nothing. We know, he says, nothing but
force; and as the only force of which we have any immediate knowledge
is mind-force, the inference is "that the whole universe is not merely
dependent on, but actually _is_, the will of higher intelligences, or of
one Supreme Intelligence."[5] This is a transition from virtual
materialism to idealistic pantheism. The effect of this admission on the
part of Mr. Wallace on the theory of natural selection, is what an
explosion of its boiler would be to a steamer in mid-ocean, which should
blow out its deck, sides, and bottom. Nothing would remain above water.
The Duke of Argyll seems at times inclined to lapse into the same
doctrine. "Science," he says, "in the modern doctrine of conservation of
energy and the convertibility of forces, is already getting a firm hold
of the idea, that all kinds of force are but forms of manifestations of
one central force issuing from some one fountain-head of power. Sir John
Herschel has not hesitated to say, 'that it is but reasonable to regard
the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a
consciousness or will existing somewhere.' And even if we cannot
certainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of
the one Omnipresent and All-pervading Will, it is at least in the
highest degree unphilosophical to assert the contrary,--to think or to
speak, as if the forces of nature were either independent of, or even
separate from the Creator's power."[6] The Duke, however, in the general
tenor of his book, does not differ from the common doctrine, except in
one point. He does not deny the efficiency of physical causes, or
resolve them all into the efficiency of God; but he teaches that God, in
this world at least, never acts except through those causes. He applies
this doctrine even to miracles, which he regards as effects produced by
second causes of which we are ignorant, that is, by some higher law of
nature. The Scriptures, however, teach that God is not thus bound; that
He operates through second causes, with them, or without them, as He
sees fit. It is a purely arbitrary assumption, that when Christ raised
the dead, healed the lepers, or gave sight to the blind, any second
cause intervened between the effect and the efficiency of his will. What
physical law, or uniformly acting force, operated to make the axe float
at the command of the prophet? or, in that greatest of all miracles,
the original creation of the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] _The Theory of Natural Selection._ By Alfred Russel Wallace. London,
1870, p. 368.
[6] _Reign of Law._ By the Duke of Argyle. Fifth edition, London, 1867,
p. 123.
_Mr. Darwin's Theory._
We have not forgotten Mr. Darwin. It seemed desirable, in order to
understand his theory, to see its relation to other theories of the
universe and its phenomena, with which it is more or less connected. His
work on the "Origin of Species" does not purport to be philosophical. In
this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer.
Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature
of matter, or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and
laborious observer; skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid
in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He
set before himself a single problem, namely, How are the fauna and flora
of our earth to be accounted for? In the solution of this problem, he
assumes:--
1. The existence of matter, although he says little on the subject. Its
existence however, as a real entity, is everywhere taken for granted.
2. He assumes the efficiency of physical causes, showing no disposition
to resolve them into mind-force, or into the efficiency of the First
Cause.
3. He assumes also the existence of life in the form of one or more
primordial germs. He does not adopt the theory of spontaneous
generation. What life is he does not attempt to explain, further than to
quote (p. 326), with approbation, the definition of Herbert Spencer, who
says, "Life depends on, or consists in, the incessant action and
reaction of various forces,"--which conveys no very definite idea.
4. To account for the existence of matter and life, Mr. Darwin admits a
Creator. This is done explicitly and repeatedly. Nothing, however, is
said of the nature of the Creator and of his relation to the world,
further than is implied in the meaning of the word.
5. From the primordial germ or germs (Mr. Darwin seems to have settled
down to the assumption of only one primordial germ), all living
organisms, vegetable and animal, including man, on our globe, through
all the stages of its history, have descended.
6. As growth, organization, and reproduction are the functions of
physical life, as soon as the primordial germ began to live, it began
to grow, to fashion organs however simple, for its nourishment and
increase, and for the reproduction, in some way, of living forms like
itself. How all living things on earth, including the endless variety of
plants, and all the diversity of animals--insects, fishes, birds, the
ichthyosaurus, the mastodon, the mammoth, and man--have descended from
the primordial animalcule, he thinks, may be accounted for by the
operation of the following natural laws, viz.:--
First, the law of Heredity, or that by which like begets like. The
offspring are like the parent.
Second, the law of Variation, that is, while the offspring are, in all
essential characteristics, like their immediate progenitor, they
nevertheless vary more or less within narrow limits, from their parent
and from each other. Some of these variations are indifferent, some
deteriorations, some improvements, that is, they are such as enable the
plant or animal to exercise its functions to greater advantage.
Third, the law of Over Production. All plants and animals tend to
increase in a geometrical ratio; and therefore tend to overrun
enormously the means of support. If all the seeds of a plant, all the
spawn of a fish, were to arrive at maturity, in a very short time the
world could not contain them. Hence of necessity arises a struggle for
life. Only a few of the myriads born can possibly live.
Fourth, here comes in the law of Natural Selection, or the Survival of
the Fittest. That is, if any individual of a given species of plant or
animal happens to have a slight deviation from the normal type,
favorable to its success in the struggle for life, it will survive. This
variation, by the law of heredity, will be transmitted to its offspring,
and by them again to theirs. Soon these favored ones gain the
ascendency, and the less favored perish; and the modification becomes
established in the species. After a time another and another of such
favorable variations occur, with like results. Thus very gradually,
great changes of structure are introduced, and not only species, but
genera, families, and orders in the vegetable and animal world, are
produced. Mr. Darwin says he can set no limit to the changes of
structure, habits, instincts, and intelligence, which these simple laws
in the course of millions or milliards of centuries may bring into
existence. He says, "we cannot comprehend what the figures 60,000,000
really imply, and during this, or perhaps a longer roll of years, the
land and waters have everywhere teemed with living creatures, all
exposed to the struggle for life, and undergoing change." (p. 354). "Mr.
Croll," he tells us, "estimates that about sixty millions of years have
elapsed since the Cambrian period, but this, judging from the small
amount of organic change since the commencement of the glacial period,
seems a very short time for the many and the great mutations of life,
which have certainly occurred since the Cambrian formation; and the
previous one hundred and forty million years can hardly be considered as
sufficient for the development of the varied forms of life which
certainly existed toward the close of the Cambrian period." (p. 379).
Years in this connection have no meaning. We might as well try to give
the distance of the fixed stars in inches. As astronomers are obliged to
take the diameter of the earth's orbit as the unit of space, so
Darwinians are obliged to take a geological cycle as their unit of
duration.
_Natural Selection._
As Natural Selection which works so slowly is a main element in Mr.
Darwin's theory, it is necessary to understand distinctly what he means
by it. On this point he leaves us no room for doubt. On p. 92, he says:
"This preservation of favorable variations, and the destruction of
injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or, the Survival of the
Fittest." "Owing to the struggle (for life) variations, however slight
and from whatever cause proceeding, if they be in any degree profitable
to the individuals of a species, in their infinitely complex relations
to other organic beings and to their physical conditions of life, will
tend to the preservation of such individuals, and will generally be
inherited by their offspring. The offspring also will thus have a better
chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which
are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called
this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's
power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer
of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and sometimes is
equally convenient." (p. 72). "Slow though the progress of selection may
be, if feeble man can do so much by artificial selection, I can see no
limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of
the co-adaptations between all organic beings, one with another, and
with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the
long course of time by nature's power of selection, or the survival of
the fittest." (p. 125). "It may be objected that if organic beings thus
tend to rise in the scale, how is it that throughout the world a
multitude of the lowest forms still exist; and how is it that in each
great class some forms are far more highly developed than others?... On
our theory the continuous existence of lowly forms offers no difficulty;
for natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, does not
necessarily include progressive development, it only takes advantage of
such variations as arise and are beneficial to each creature under its
complex relations of life.... Geology tells us that some of the lowest
forms, the infusoria and rhizopods, have remained for an enormous period
in nearly their present state." (p. 145). "The fact of little or no
modification having been effected since the glacial period would be of
some avail against those who believe in an innate and necessary law of
development, but is powerless against the doctrine of natural selection,
or the survival of the fittest, which implies only that variations or
individual differences of a favorable nature occasionally arise in a few
species and are then preserved." (p. 149)
This process of improvement under the law of natural selection includes
not only changes in the organic structure of animals, but also in their
instincts and intelligence. On entering on this part of his subject, Mr.
Darwin says, "I would premise that I have nothing to do with the origin
of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life
itself. We are concerned only with the diversities of instinct and of
other mental qualities within the same class." (p. 255) He shows that
even in a state of nature the instincts of animals of the same species
do in some degree vary, and that they are transmitted by inheritance. A
mastiff has imparted courage to a greyhound, and a greyhound has
transmitted to a shepherd-dog a disposition to hunt hares. Among
sporting dogs, the young of the pointer or retriever have been known to
point or to retrieve without instruction. "If," he says, "it can be
shown that instincts do vary ever so little, then I can see no
difficulty in natural selection preserving and continually accumulating
variations of instinct to any extent that was profitable. It is thus, as
I believe, that all the most complex and wonderful instincts have
arisen." (p. 257) He was rather unguarded in saying that he saw no
difficulty in accounting for the most wonderful instincts of animals. He
admits that he has found very great difficulty. He selects three cases
which he found it specially hard to deal with: that of the cuckoo, that
of the cell-building bee, and of the slave-making ant. He devotes much
space and labor in endeavoring to show how the instinct of the bee, for
example, in the construction of its cell, _might_ have been gradually
acquired. It is clear, however, that he was not able fully to satisfy
even his own mind; for he admits that "it will be thought that I have an
over-weening confidence in the principle of natural selection, when I do
not admit that such wonderful and well established facts do not
annihilate the theory." (p. 290) This remark was made with special
reference to the instincts of the ant, which he finds very hard to
account for. He adds, "No doubt many instincts of very difficult
explanation could be opposed to the theory of natural selection: cases
in which we cannot see how an instinct could possibly have originated;
cases in which no intermediate gradations are known to exist; cases of
instinct of such trifling importance that they could hardly have been
acted upon by natural selection; cases of instincts almost identically
the same in animals so remote in the scale of nature, that we cannot
account for their similarity by inheritance from a common progenitor,
and consequently cannot believe that they were independently acquired
through natural selection. I will not here enter on those cases, but
will confine myself to one special difficulty which at first appeared to
me insuperable, and actually fatal to the whole theory. I allude to
neuters, or sterile females in insect communities; for these neuters
often differ widely in instinct and structure from both the males and
the fertile females, and yet, from being sterile, they cannot propagate
their kind." (p. 289) He is candid enough to say, in conclusion, "I do
not pretend that the facts given in this chapter (on instinct)
strengthen in any great degree my theory; but none of the cases of
difficulty, to the best of my judgment, annihilate it." (p. 297) When it
is remembered that his theory is, that slight variations occurring in an
individual advantageous to it (not to its associates), in the struggle
for life, is perpetuated by inheritance, it is no wonder that the case
of sterile ants gave him so much trouble. Accidental sterility is not
favorable to the individual, and its being made permanent by
inheritance, is out of the question, for the sterile have no
descendants. Yet these sterile females are not degenerations, they are
in general larger and more robust than their associates.
We have thus seen that, according to Mr. Darwin, all the infinite
variety of structure in plants and animals is due to the law of natural
selection. "On the principle of natural selection with divergence of
character," he says, "it does not seem incredible that, from some such
low and intermediate form, both animals and plants have been developed,
and if we admit this, we must likewise admit that all the organized
beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some
one primordial form." (p. 573) We have seen also that he does not
confine his theory to organic structure, but applies it to all the
instincts and all the forms of intelligence manifested by irrational
creatures. Nor does he stop there; he includes man within the sweep of
the same law. "In the distant future I see open fields for far more
important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that
of the _necessary_ acquirement of each mental power and capacity by
gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."
(p. 577)
The "distant future" was near at hand. In his introduction to his work
on the "Descent of Man," he says, he had determined not to publish on
that subject, "as I thought that I should thus only add to the
prejudices against my views. It seemed to me sufficient to indicate, in
the first edition of my 'Origin of Species,' that by this work 'light
would be thrown on the origin of man and his history;' and this implies
that man must be included with other organic beings in any general
conclusion respecting his manner of appearance on this earth. Now the
case wears a wholly different aspect. When a naturalist like Carl Vogt
(we shall see in what follows what kind of a witness he is) ventures to
say in his address as President of the National Institution of Geneva
(1869), 'Personne, en Europe au moins, n'ose plus soutenir la création
indépendante et de toutes piéces, des espéces,'--it is manifest that at
least a large number of naturalists must admit that species are the
modified descendants of other species; and this especially holds good of
the younger and rising naturalists.... Of the older and honored chiefs
in natural science, many unfortunately are still opposed to evolution in
every form." Carl Vogt would not write thus. To him no man is honored
who does agree with him, and any man who believes in God he execrates.
In 1871, Mr. Darwin ventured on the publication of his "Descent of Man."
In that work, he endeavors to show that the proximate progenitor of man
is the ape. He says "there is less difference of structure between the
two, than between the higher and lower forms of apes themselves." Not
only so, but he attempts to show that the mental faculties of man are
derived by slight variations, long continued, from the measure of
intellect possessed by lower animals. He even says, that there is less
difference in intelligence between man and the higher mammals, than
there is between the intelligence of the ant and that of the coccus,
insects of the same class.[7]
In like manner he teaches that man's moral nature has been evolved by
slow degrees from the social instincts common to many animals. (pp. 68,
94) The moral element, thus derived, he admits might lead to very
different lines of conduct. "If men," he says, "were reared under the
same conditions as hives-bees, there can hardly be a doubt, that our
unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to
kill all their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile
daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (vol. i. p. 70)
"Lower animals, especially the dog, manifest love, reverence, fidelity,
and obedience; and it is from these elements that the religious
sentiment in man has been slowly evolved by a process of natural
selection." (vol. i. p. 65)