'Allgemeine Erdkunde,' Lotze's 'Mikrokosmus,' B. vi. c. 1, Duval's
'Des Rapports entre la Géographie et l'Economie Politique,' Cocker's
'Theistic Conception of the World,' ch. vii., &c., will be found a
rich store of teleological data as to the fitness of the earth to be
the dwelling-place and the schoolhouse of human beings. Of course,
those who attempt to prove this thesis require carefully to resist the
temptation to conceive of the relation of nature to man as not one of
cause and effect, of action and reaction, of mutual influence, but as
an immediate and inexplicable pre-established harmony like that which
Leibnitz supposed to exist between the body and the soul. This was
the theory which Cousin set forth in a celebrated lecture on the part
of geography in history. Regarding it I may quote the words which I
have used elsewhere: "This notion is not only purely conjectural, but
inconsistent with the innumerable facts which manifest that nature
does influence man, and that man does modify nature. It is impossible
to hold, either in regard to the body and soul, or in regard to nature
and man, _both_ the theory of mutual influence and of pre-established
harmony. All that, in either case, proves the former, disproves the
latter. The belief in a pre-established harmony between man and nature
is, indeed, considerably more absurd than in a pre-established harmony
between the body and soul; for when a body is born, a soul is in it,
which remains in it till death, and is never known to leave it in
order to take possession of some other body: but every country is not
created with a people in it, nor is every people permanently fixed
to a particular country. Imagination may be deceived for a moment
by an obvious process of association into this belief of certain
peoples being suited for certain lands, independently of the action
of natural causes--the Greeks, let us say, for Greece, the Indian for
the prairies and forests of America, the Malayan for the islands of
the Indian Archipelago; but a moment's thought on the fact that the
Turk has settled down where the Greeks used to be--that mighty nations
of English-speaking men are rising up where the Indian roamed, and
that Dutchmen are thriving in the lands of the Malayan, should suffice
to disabuse us. Besides, just as the dictum, 'Marriages are made in
heaven,' is seriously discredited by the great number that are badly
made, so the kindred opinion that every country gets the people which
suits it, and every people the country, as a direct and immediate
consequence of their pre-established harmony, is equally discredited by
the prevalence of ill-assorted unions, a great many worthless peoples
living in magnificent lands, while far better peoples have much worse
ones."--Philosophy of History in France and Germany, pp. 191, 192.
NOTE XVII., page 146.
THE ORGANIC KINGDOM AND DESIGN.
The order and system in the vegetable and animal kingdoms are
undeniable general facts, whatever may have been the secondary
agencies by which they have been produced; and the inference of
design from these facts is valid, whatever may have been the mode of
their production. The characters and relationships of organic forms
constitute a proof of intelligence, whether their genera and species
be the immediate and immutable expressions of the ideas of the Divine
Mind, or the slowly-reached results of evolution. Of course, if
there has been a process of evolution, it must have been one exactly
fitted to attain the result. But the discovery or exhibition of such
a process will be sufficient to cause a certain class of minds to
believe that there has been no cause but the process--that the process
completely explains both itself and the result, and leaves no room for
intelligence.
The character of the order and system in the organic world is so
extremely abstruse, subtle, and comprehensive, that all the attempts
at classification in botany prior to De Candolle, and in zoology prior
to Cuvier, were failures. The labours of the great naturalists and
biologists of the present century have, doubtless, accomplished much;
but the light reached is still but the feeble light of an early dawn.
Yet that light is most pleasant and satisfying to the eye of the mind.
The reason sees in it a profound significance and a wonderful beauty.
How, it may well be asked, can a scheme of order which tasks to such
an extent the powers of comprehension possessed by the human mind, and
yet which is perceived, when discovered, to be admirably rational, be
supposed to have originated elsewhere than in a Mind?
I can only mention a few out of the multitude of books which treat of
design in the organic world. Among general works on natural theology it
may be sufficient to refer to those of Paley, Buchanan, and Tulloch;
and among special works to Professor Balfour's 'Phyto-Theology; or,
Botanical Sketches, intended to illustrate the Works of God in the
Structure, Functions, and General Distribution of Plants;' M'Cosh's
'Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation;' Agassiz's 'Structure of
Animal Life; being Six Lectures on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of
God, as manifested in His Works;' Kirby's 'Power, Wisdom, and Goodness
of God, as manifested in the Creation of Animals;' Roget's 'Animal and
Vegetable Physiology, considered in reference to Natural Theology;'
and Sir Charles Bell's 'The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments,
as evincing Design.' The three last-mentioned works are Bridgewater
Treatises.
It is a duty to call particular attention to the recent work of M.
Janet, 'Les Causes Finales.' Although M. Janet concedes, perhaps, too
much to the opponents of finality, his treatise contains the ablest
and most adequate discussion of the various problems suggested by the
indications which organic nature gives of design that has yet appeared.
It is eminently worthy of a careful study. I am glad to know that a
translation of this valuable work is in progress.
Among the masters of biological science, Cuvier, V. Baer, Agassiz, and
R. Owen may be named, as among those who have set the highest value on
the principle of finality. The essay on Classification of Agassiz, and
the various essays which Von Baer has published at different times, on
what he calls "Zielstrebigkeit," are specially important.
NOTE XVIII., page 148.
EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN ORGANISMS.
"The _savants_ are generally too much disposed to confound the doctrine
of final cause with the hypothesis of an invisible force acting
without physical means, as a _deus ex machinâ_. These two hypotheses,
far from reducing themselves the one to the other, are in explicit
contradiction; for he who says _design_ says at the same time _means_,
and, consequently, causes adapted to produce a certain effect. To
discover this cause is by no means to destroy the idea of design; it
is, on the contrary, to bring to light the condition, _sine quâ non_,
of the production of the end. To make clear this distinction we cite a
beautiful example, borrowed from M. Claude Bernard. How does it happen,
says this eminent physiologist, that the gastric juice, which dissolves
all aliments, does not dissolve the stomach itself, which is of
precisely the same nature as the aliments with which it is nourished?
For a long time the vital force was supposed to intervene--that is to
say, an invisible cause which, in some way, suspended the properties
of the natural agents, to prevent their producing their necessary
effects. The vital force would, by a sort of moral _veto_, forbid the
gastric juice to touch the stomach. We see that this would be a real
miracle. Everything is explained when we know that the stomach is lined
with a coating or varnish which is not attacked by the gastric juice,
and which protects the walls which it covers. Who does not see that
in refuting the omnipotence of the vital force, very far from having
weakened the principle of finality, we have given to it a wonderful
support? What could the most perfect art have done to protect the
walls of the stomach, but invent a precaution similar to that which
exists in reality? And how surprising it is that an organ destined to
secrete and use an agent most destructive to itself, is found armed
with a protective tunic, which must have always coexisted with it,
since otherwise it would have been destroyed before having had time
to procure for itself this defence--which excludes the hypothesis
of long gropings and happy occurrences."--Janet, 'Final Causes and
Contemporaneous Physiology,' Presb. Quart. Rev., April 1876.
Professor Tyndall gives a very graphic description of the combination
of remarkable arrangements by which the human ear is fitted to be an
organ of hearing. I quote from it the following words, and connect
with them some striking observations of Max Müller. "Finally, there is
in the labyrinth a wonderful organ, discovered by the Marchese Corti,
which is to all appearance a musical instrument, with its chords so
stretched as to accept vibrations of different periods, and transmit
them to the nerve-filaments which traverse the organ. Within the
ears of men, and without their knowledge or contrivance, this lute of
3000 strings has existed for ages, accepting the music of the outer
world, and rendering it fit for reception by the brain. Each musical
tremor which falls upon this organ selects from its tensioned fibres
the one appropriate to its own pitch, and throws that fibre into
unisonant vibration. And thus, no matter how complicated the motion of
the external air may be, those microscopic strings can analyse it and
reveal the constituents of which it is composed."--On Sound, p. 325.
"What we hear when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion
of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate
image. The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30
vibrations in one second, the highest to about 4000. Consider, then,
what happens in a _presto_, when thousands of voices and instruments
are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave crossing the
other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like spherical
bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturbance;
consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary notes, that each
instrument has its peculiar _timbre_, due to secondary vibrations;
and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all
this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what
we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine
what we call melody--both these elements being absent in the songs of
birds--that all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on
the two small organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception,
but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which
we call either pleasure or pain;--and it will be clear that we are
surrounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed
to call miraculous."--Science of Language, second series, p. 115.
The structure of the eye has often been described as an evidence of
design. There is an extremely interesting comparison of it with the
photographic camera in Le Conte's 'Religion and Science,' pp. 20-33.
The whole reading public knows the masterly chapter on "The Machinery
of Flight" in the Duke of Argyll's 'Reign of Law.'
NOTE XIX., page 149.
PSYCHOLOGY AND DESIGN.
The following writers treat at considerable length of the evidences of
design to be traced in the constitution of the mind: Sir Matthew Hale
in his 'Primitive Origination of Mankind;' Barrow in the seventh of
his 'Sermons on the Creed;' Bentley in the second sermon of his 'Boyle
Lecture;' Crombie in the second volume of his 'Natural Theology;' Lord
Brougham in his 'Discourse on Natural Theology,' sect. iii., pp. 52-80;
Turton's 'Natural Theology Considered,' pp. 65-160; Chalmers's 'Natural
Theology,' Book III.; Buchanan's 'Faith in God,' pp. 213-231; Tulloch's
'Theism,' pp. 182-247; and Ulrici's 'Gott und Mensch.'
The phenomena of animal instinct are of themselves an inexhaustible
source of instruction as to the Divine wisdom and goodness. "The
spinning machinery which is provided in the body of a spider is not
more accurately adjusted to the viscid secretion which is provided
for it, than the instinct of the spider is adjusted both to the
construction of its web and also to the selection of likely places
for the capture of its prey. Those birds and insects whose young
are hatched by the heat of fermentation, have an intuitive impulse
to select the proper materials, and to gather them for the purpose.
All creatures, guided sometimes apparently by senses of which we
know nothing, are under like impulses to provide effectually for the
nourishing of their young; and it is most curious and instructive
to observe that the extent of provision which is involved in the
process, and in the securing of the result, seems very often to be
greater as we descend in the scale of nature, and in proportion as the
parents are dissociated from the actual feeding or personal care of
their offspring. The mammalia have nothing to provide except food for
themselves, and have at first, and for a long time, no duty to perform
beyond the discharge of a purely physical function. Birds have more to
do--in the building of nests, in the choice of sites for these, and
after incubation in the choice of food adapted to the period of growth.
Insects, much lower in the scale of organisation, and subject to the
wonderful processes of metamorphosis, have to provide very often for a
distant future, and for successive stages of development not only in
the young but in the _nidus_ which surrounds them. Bees, if we are to
believe the evidence of observers, have an intuitive guidance in the
selection of food which has the power of producing organic changes in
the bodies of the young, even to the determination and development of
sex, so that, by the administration of it, under what may be called
artificial conditions, certain selected individuals can be made the
mothers and queens of future hives. These are but a few examples of
facts of which the whole animal world is full, presenting, as it does,
one vast series of adjustments between bodily organs and corresponding
instincts. But this adjustment would be useless unless it were part of
another adjustment--between the instincts and perceptions of animals
and those facts and forces of surrounding nature which are related
to them, and to the whole cycle of things of which they form a part.
In those instinctive actions of the lower animals which involve the
most distant and the most complicated anticipations, it is certain
that the prevision involved is a prevision which is not in the animals
themselves. They appear to be, and beyond all doubt really are,
guided by some simple appetite, by an odour or a taste, and, in all
probability, they have generally as little consciousness of the ends
to be subserved as the suckling has of the processes of nutrition. The
path along which they walk is a path which they did not engineer. It is
a path made for them, and they simply follow it. But the propensities
and tastes and feelings which make them follow it, and the rightness
of its direction towards the ends to be attained, do constitute an
adjustment which may correctly be called mechanical, and is part of
a unity which binds together the whole world of life, and the whole
inorganic world on which living things depend."--Duke of Argyll on
Animal Instinct (Cont. Rev., July 1875).
Instinctive actions will not be shown to be less evidences of Divine
purpose by its being proved that intelligence, at least in the higher
animals, probably always co-operates in some degree with instinct, or
that much which is referred to instinct may be traced either directly
to experience or to the hereditary transmission of qualities originally
generated by experience.
NOTE XX., page 152.
HISTORY AND DESIGN.
The quotation is from the eighteenth--the concluding--volume of the
'Etudes sur l'Histoire de l'Humanité,' by Professor Laurent of Ghent.
I have given some account of his historical doctrine, and endeavoured
to defend the theistic inference which he has drawn from his laborious
survey of historical facts against the objections of Professor J.
B. Meyer, in my 'Philosophy of History in France and Germany,' pp.
321-330. Bunsen, in the work entitled 'God in History,' seeks to
establish the same great thesis.
"History," says Niebuhr, "shows, on a hundred occasions, an
intelligence distinct from nature, which conducts and determines
those things which may seem to us accidental; and it is not true
that history weakens our belief in Divine Providence. History is, of
all kinds of knowledge, the one which tends most decidedly to that
belief."--Lectures on the History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 59.
Süssmilch's celebrated treatise, 'Göttliche Ordnung in der Veränderung
des menschlichen Geschlechtes, &c.;' M'Cosh's 'Method of the Divine
Government;' and Gillett's 'God in Human Thought,' vol. ii. pp.
724-792, may be consulted as regards the evidences of Divine purpose to
be found in the constitution of society.
NOTE XXI., page 168.
HISTORY OF THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
The proof of the Divine existence from the order and adaptations of the
universe is known as the physico-theological or teleological argument.
It has also been sometimes called the cosmological argument; the very
word cosmos, like the Latin _mundus_ and our own universe, implying
order. It is so obvious and direct that it has presented itself to
the mind from very ancient times. It is implied in such passages of
Scripture as Job, xxxvii.-xli.; Ps. viii., xix., civ.; Isa. xl. 21-26;
Matt. vi. 25-32; Acts, xiv. 15-17, xvii. 24-28. Pythagoras laid great
stress on the order of the world; and it was mainly on that order
that Anaxagoras rested his belief in a Supreme Intelligence. Socrates
developed the argument from the adaptation of the parts of the body to
one another, and to the external world, with a skill which has never
been surpassed. His conversation with Aristodemus, as recorded in the
'Memorabilia' of Xenophon, is of wonderful interest and beauty. Few
will follow it even now without feeling constrained to join Aristodemus
in acknowledging that "man must be the masterpiece of some great
Artificer, carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and favour
of Him who thus formed it." Plato presents the argument specially in
the 'Timæus,' and his whole philosophy is pervaded by the thought that
God is the primary source and perfect ideal of all order and harmony.
Aristotle expressly maintains that "the appearance of ends and means
is a proof of design," and conceives of God as the ultimate Final
Cause. Cicero (De Nat. Deor., ii. c. 37) puts into the mouth of Balbus
an elaborate exposition of the design argument. The 'De Usu Partium'
of Galen is a treatise on natural theology, teaching design in the
structure of the body.
This proof is found more frequently than any other in the writings of
the fathers and scholastics. "When we see a vessel," says Theophilus,
"spreading her canvas, and majestically riding on the billows of the
stormy sea, we conclude that she has a pilot on board; thus, from the
regular course of the planets, the rich variety of creatures, we infer
the existence of the Creator."--Ad Autol., 5. Minucius Felix (c. 18)
compares the universe to a house, and Gregory of Nazianzum (Orat.,
xxviii. 6) compares it to a lyre, in illustrating the same argument.
Ambrose, Athanasius, Augustine, Basil the Greek, Chrysostom, &c.,
employ it. So do Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, &c.
The opposition of Bacon and Descartes to final causes had no influence
in preventing theologians from insisting on their existence. From
Boyle and Derham to Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, an enormous
literature appeared in England devoted to this end. Germany, also,
in the second half of the eighteenth century, was almost as much
overflooded with Lithotheologies, Hydrotheologies, Phytotheologies,
Insectotheologies, &c., as it at present is with works on Darwinism.
In France, Fenelon in his 'Démonstration de l'Existence de Dieu,' and
Bernardin de Saint Pierre in his 'Etudes' and 'Harmonies de la Nature,'
eloquently, although not perhaps very solidly or cautiously, reasoned
from the wonders of nature to the wisdom of God.
Hume and Kant, by their criticisms of the design argument, rendered to
it the great service of directing attention to the principles on which
it proceeds. Theologians had previously gone on merely accumulating
illustrative instances and instituting minute investigations into the
constitutions of the complex objects which they selected with this
view. Attention was thus distracted from what really needed argument.
Hume and Kant showed men the real point at issue.
Although Kant rejected the argument, he speaks of it in these terms:
"This proof deserves to be mentioned at all times with respect. It
is the oldest, the clearest, and the most suited to the ordinary
understanding. It animates the study of nature, because it owes its
existence to thought, and ever receives from it fresh force. It brings
out reality and purpose where our observation would not of itself have
discovered them, and extends our knowledge of nature by exhibiting
indications of a special unity whose principle is beyond nature. This
knowledge, moreover, directs us to its cause--namely, the inducing
idea, and increases our faith in a supreme originator to an almost
irresistible conviction."
I must refer to the Notes from XIII. to XX. inclusive, for the titles
of recent works on the design argument.
"The assertion appears to be quite unfounded that, as science advances
from point to point, final causes recede before it, and disappear
one after the other. The principle of design changes its mode of
application, indeed, but it loses none of its force. We no longer
consider particular facts as produced by special interpositions; but
we consider design as exhibited in the establishment and adjustment of
the laws by which particular facts are produced. We do not look upon
each particular cloud as brought near to us that it may drop fatness
on our fields; but the general adaptation of the laws of heat and air
and moisture to the promotion of vegetation does not become doubtful.
We do not consider the sun as less intended to warm and vivify the
tribes of plants and animals because we find that, instead of revolving
round the earth as an attendant, the earth, along with other planets,
revolves round him. We are rather, by the discovery of the general laws
of nature, led into a scene of wider design, of deeper contrivance, of
more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they appear driven
farther from us by such extension of our views, embrace us only with a
vaster and more majestic circuit. Instead of a few threads connecting
some detached objects, they become a stupendous network, which is wound
round and round the universal frame of things."--Whewell, 'History of
Scientific Ideas,' vol. ii. pp. 253, 254.
NOTE XXII., page 182.
CREATION AND EVOLUTION.
Creation is the _only_ theory of the _origin_ of the universe.
Evolution assumes either the creation or the self-existence of
the universe. The evolutionist must choose between creation and
non-creation. They are opposites. There is no intermediate term. The
attempt to introduce one--the Unknowable--can lead to no result; for
unless the Unknowable is capable of creating, it can account for the
origin of nothing. All attempts to explain even the formation of the
universe, either by the evolution of the Unknowable or by evolution
out of the Unknowable, must be of a thoroughly delusive character. The
evolution of what is known can alone have significance either to the
ordinary or scientific mind. Nothing can be conceived of as subject
to evolution which is not of a finite and composite nature. Nothing
can be evolved out of a finite and composite existence which was not
previously involved in it. And what gives to anything its limits and
constitution must be more perfect than itself. [Greek: To prôton ou
sperma estin, alla to teleion.]