THE TRIUMPH OF CATASTROPHISM OVER EVOLUTION
There is no fact in the history of science which is more certain than
that those great pioneers of Evolution in the Inorganic
world--Generelli, Desmarest and Hutton--utterly failed to recommend
their doctrines to general acceptance; and that, at the beginning of
last century, everything in the nature of evolutionary ideas was almost
universally discredited--alike by men of science and the world at large.
The causes of the neglect and opprobrium which befel all evolutionary
teachings are not difficult to discover. The old Greek philosophers saw
no more reason to doubt the possibility of creation by evolution, than
by direct mechanical means. But, on the revival of learning in Europe,
evolution was at once confronted by the cosmogonies of Jewish and
Arabian writers, which were incorporated in sacred books; and not only
were the ideas of the sudden making and destruction of the world and all
things in it regarded as revealed truth, but the periods of time
necessary for evolution could not be admitted by those who believed the
beginning of the world to have been recent, and its end to be imminent.
Thus 'Catastrophic' ideas came to be regarded as _orthodox_, and
evolutionary ones as utterly irreligious and damnable.
There are few more curious facts in the history of science than the
contrast between the reception of the teaching of the Saxon professor
Werner, and those of Hutton, the Scotch philosopher, his great rival.
While the enthusiastic disciples of the former carried their master's
ideas everywhere, acting with missionary zeal and fervour, and teaching
his doctrines almost as though they were a divine revelation, the
latter, surrounded by a few devoted friends, saw his teachings
everywhere received with persistent misrepresentation, theological
vituperation or contemptuous neglect. Even in Edinburgh itself, one of
Werner's pupils dominated the teaching of the University for half a
century, and established a society for the propagation of the views
which Hutton so strongly opposed.
When it is remembered that Hutton wrote at a time when 'heresy-hunting'
in this country had been excited to such a dangerous extent, through the
excesses of the French Revolution, that his contemporary, Priestley, had
been hounded from his home and country for proclaiming views which at
that time were regarded as unscriptural, it becomes less difficult to
understand the prejudice that was excited against the gentle and modest
philosopher of Edinburgh.
We have employed the term 'Catastrophism' to indicate the views which
were prevalent at the beginning of last century concerning the origin of
the rock-masses of the globe and their fossil contents. These views were
that at a number of successive epochs--of which the age of Noah was the
latest--great revolutions had taken place on the earth's surface; that
during each of these cataclysms all living things were destroyed; and
that, after an interval, the world was restocked with fresh assemblages
of plants and animals, to be destroyed in turn and entombed in the
strata at the next revolution.
Whewell, in 1830, contrasted this teaching with that of Hutton and Lyell
in the following passage:--'These two opinions will probably for some
time divide the geological world into two sects, which may perhaps be
designated the "Uniformitarians" and the "Catastrophists." The latter
has undoubtedly been of late the prevalent doctrine.' It is interesting
to note, as showing the confidence felt in their tenets by the
'Catastrophists' of that day, that Whewell adds 'We conceive that Mr
Lyell will find it a harder task than he imagines to overturn the
established belief[13]!'
Some authors have suggested that the doctrine taught by Generelli,
Desmarest and Hutton, and later by Scrope and Lyell, for which Whewell
proposed the somewhat cumbrous term 'Uniformitarianism,' but which was
perhaps better designated by Grove in 1866 as 'Continuity[14],' was
distinct from, and subsidiary to, Evolution--and this view could claim
for a time the support of a very great authority.
In 1869, Huxley delivered an address to the Geological Society, in which
he postulated the existence of 'three more or less contradictory systems
of geological thought,' under the names of 'Catastrophism,'
'Uniformitarianism' and 'Evolution.' In this essay, distinguished by all
his wonderful lucidity and forceful logic, Huxley sought to establish
the position that evolution is a doctrine, distinct from and _in advance
of_ that of uniformitarianism, and that Hutton and Playfair--'and to a
less extent Lyell'--had acted unwisely in deprecating the extension of
Geology into enquiries concerning 'the beginning of things[15].'
But there is no doubt that Huxley at a later period was led to qualify,
and indeed to largely modify, the views maintained in that address. In a
footnote to an essay written in April 1887, he asserts 'What I mean by
"evolutionism" is consistent and thoroughgoing uniformitarianism'; and
in the same year he wrote in his _Reception of the Origin of
Species_[16]: 'Consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution, as
much in the organic as in the inorganic world[17].'
It is not difficult to trace the causes of this change in the attitude
of mind with which Huxley regarded the doctrine of 'uniformitarianism.'
He assures us 'I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the
_Principles of Geology_[18],' and again 'Lyell was for others as for me
the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin[19].' From the perusal
of the letters of Lyell, published in 1881, Huxley learned that the
author of the _Principles of Geology_ had, at a very early date, been
convinced that evolution was true of the organic as well as of the
inorganic world--though he had been unable to accept Lamarckism, or any
other hypothesis on the subject that had, up to that time, been
suggested. There can be little doubt, however, that a chief influence in
bringing about the change in Huxley's views was his intercourse with
Darwin--who was, from first to last, an uncompromising 'uniformitarian.'
We are fully justified, then, in regarding the teaching of Hutton and
Lyell (to which Whewell gave the name of 'uniformitarianism') as being
identical with evolution. The cockpit in which the great battle between
catastrophism and evolution was fought out, as we shall see in the
sequel, was the Geological Society of London, where doughty champions of
each of the rival doctrines met in frequent combat and long maintained
the struggle for supremacy.
Fitton has very truly said that 'the views proposed by Hutton failed to
produce general conviction at the time; and several years elapsed before
any one showed himself publicly concerned about them, either as an enemy
or a friend[20].' Sad is it to relate that, when notice was at last
taken of the memoir on the 'Theory of the Earth,' it was by bitter
opponents--such 'Philistines' (as Huxley calls them) as Kirwan, De Luc
and Williams, who declared the author to be an enemy of religion. Not
only did Hutton, unlike the writers of other theories of the earth, omit
any statement that his views were based on the Scriptures, but, carried
away by the beauty of the system of continuity which he advocated, he
wrote enthusiastically 'the result of this physical enquiry is that we
find no vestige of a beginning--no prospect of an end[21].' This was
unjustly asserted to be equivalent to a declaration that the world had
neither beginning nor end; and thus it came about that Wernerism,
Neptunism and Catastrophism were long regarded as synonymous with
Orthodoxy, while Plutonism and 'Uniformitarianism' were looked upon with
aversion and horror as subversive of religion and morality.
Almost simultaneously with the foundation of the Wernerian Society of
Edinburgh (in 1807) was the establishment in London of the Geological
Society. Originating in a dining club of collectors of minerals, the
society consisted at first almost exclusively of mineralogists and
chemists, including Davy, Wollaston, Sir James Hall, and later, Faraday
and Turner. The bitter but barren conflict between the Neptunists and
the Plutonists was then at its height, and it was, from the first,
agreed in the infant society to confine its work almost entirely to the
collection of facts, eschewing theory. During the first decade of its
existence, it is true, the chief papers published by the society were on
mineralogical questions; but gradually geology began to assert itself.
The actual founder and first president of the society, Greenough, had
been a pupil of Werner, and used all his great influence to discourage
the dissemination of any but Wernerian doctrines--foreign geologists,
like Dr Berger, being subsidised to apply the Wernerian classification
and principles to the study of British rocks. Thus, in early days, the
Geological Society became almost as completely devoted to the teaching
of Wernerian doctrines as was the contemporary society in Edinburgh.
Dr Buckland used to say that when he joined the Geological Society in
1813, 'it had a very _landed_ manner, and only admitted the professors
of geology in Oxford and Cambridge on sufferance.'
But, gradually, changes began to be felt in this aristocratic body of
exclusive amateurs and wealthy collectors of minerals. William Smith,
'the Father of English Geology'--though he published little and never
joined the society--exercised a most important influence on its work. By
his maps, and museum of specimens, as well as by his communications, so
freely made known, concerning his method of 'identifying strata by their
organic remains,' many of the old geologists, who were not aware at the
time of the source of their inspiration, were led to adopt entirely new
methods of studying the rocks. In this way, the accurate mineralogical
and geognostical methods of Werner came to be supplemented by the
fruitful labours of the stratigraphical palaeontologist. The new school
of geologists included men like William Phillips, Conybeare, Sedgwick,
Buckland, De la Beche, Fitton, Mantell, Webster, Lonsdale, Murchison,
John Phillips and others, who laid the foundations of British
stratigraphical geology.
But these great geological pioneers, almost without exception,
maintained the Wernerian doctrines and were firm adherents of
Catastrophism. The three great leaders--the enthusiastic Buckland, the
eloquent Sedgwick, and the indefatigable Conybeare--were clergymen, as
were also Whewell and Henslow, and they were all honestly, if
mistakenly, convinced that the Huttonian teaching was opposed to the
Scriptures and inimical to religion and morality. Buckland at Oxford,
and Sedgwick at Cambridge, made geology popular by combining it with
equestrian exercise; and Whewell tells us how the eccentric Buckland
used to ride forth from the University, with a long cavalcade of mounted
students, holding forth with sarcasm and ridicule concerning 'the
inadequacy of existing causes[22].'
And Sedgwick at Cambridge was no less firmly opposed to evolutionary
doctrine, eloquently declaiming at all times against the unscriptural
tenets of the Huttonians.
I cannot better illustrate the complete neglect at that time by leading
geologists in this country of the Huttonian teaching than by pointing to
the Report drawn up in 1833, by Conybeare, for the British Association,
on 'The Progress, Actual State and Ulterior Prospects of Geological
Science[23].' This valuable memoir of 47 pages opens with a sketch of
the history of the science, in which the chief Italian, French and
German investigators are referred to, but the name of Hutton is not even
mentioned!
And if positive evidence is required of the contempt which the early
geologists felt for Hutton and his teachings, it will be found in the
same author's introduction to that classical work, the _Outlines of
Geology_ (1822), in which he says of Hutton, after praising his views
on granite veins and "trap rocks":--
'The wildness of many of his theoretical views, however, went
far to counterbalance the utility of the additional facts which
he collected from observation. He who could perceive in geology
nothing but the _ordinary_ operation of actual causes, carried
on in the same manner through infinite ages, without the trace
of a beginning or the prospect of an end, must have surveyed
them through the medium of a preconceived hypothesis alone[24].'
John Playfair, the brilliant author of the _Illustrations of the
Huttonian Theory_, died in 1819; under happier conditions his able work
might have done for Inorganic Evolution what his great master failed to
accomplish; but the dead weight of prejudice and the dread of anything
that seemed to savour of infidelity was, at the time of the great
European struggle against revolutionary France, too great to be removed
even by his lucid statements and eloquent advocacy. James Hall and
Leonard Horner, two faithful disciples of Hutton, who had joined the
infant Geological Society, forsook it early, the former leaving it on
account of the quarrel with the Royal Society, the latter retaining his
fellowship and interest, but going to live at Edinburgh. Greenough, 'The
Objector General,' as he was called, was left, fanatically opposing any
attempt to stem the current that had set so strongly in favour of
Wernerism and Neptunism, and the Catastrophic doctrines which all
thought to be necessary conclusions from them. The great heroic workers
of that day--while they were laying well and truly the foundations of
historical geology--were, one and all, indifferent to, or violently
opposed to, the Huttonian teaching. Neither Fitton nor John Phillips,
who at a later date showed sympathy with evolutionary doctrines, were
the men to fight the battle of an unpopular cause.
Attempts have been made by both Playfair and Fitton to explain how it
was that Hutton's teaching failed to arrest the attention it deserved.
The former justly asserted that the world was tired of the performances
issued under the title of 'theories of the earth'; and that the
condensed nature of Hutton's writings, with their 'embarrassment of
reasoning and obscurity of style[25]' are largely responsible for the
neglect into which they fell.
Fitton, in 1839, wrote in the _Edinburgh Review_, 'The original work of
Hutton (in two volumes) is in fact so scarce that no very great number
of our readers can have seen it. No copy exists at present in the
libraries of the Royal Society, the Linnean, or even the Geological
Society of London[26]!' He also points out that Hutton's work, and even
the more lucid _Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory_, were almost
unknown on the continent, owing to the isolation of Great Britain during
the war; and he even suggests that the popularity of Playfair in this
country may have not improbably led to the neglect of the original work
of Hutton[27].
On the continent, indeed, the authority of Cuvier was supreme, and in
his _Essay on the Theory of the Earth_, prefixed to his _Opus
magnum_--the _Ossemens Fossiles_--the great naturalist threw the whole
weight of his influence into the scale of Catastrophism. He maintained
that a series of tremendous cataclysms had affected the globe--the last
being the Noachian deluge--and that the floods of water that overspread
the earth, during each of these events, had buried the various groups of
animals, now extinct, that had been successively created.
If anything had been wanted in England to support and confirm the views
that were then supposed to be the only ones in harmony with the
Scriptures, it was found in the great authority of Cuvier. As Zittel
justly says, Cuvier's theory of 'World-Catastrophies'--'which afforded a
certain scientific basis for the Mosaic account of the "Flood," was
received with special cordiality in England, for there, more than in any
other country, theological doctrines had always affected geological
conceptions[28].' Britain, which had produced the great philosopher,
Hutton, had now become the centre of the bitterest opposition to his
teachings!
But 'the darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawn,' and
while the forces of reaction in this country appeared to be triumphant
over Hutton's teaching, there was in preparation, to use the words of
Darwin, a 'grand work' ... 'which the future historian will recognise as
having produced a revolution in natural science.'