world, of species, of man, of reason, conscience, religion--a large
measure of understanding has been reached by some thoughtful men. But
meanwhile new questions have arisen, questions about conduct,
regarding both the reality of morals and the rule of right action for
individuals and societies. And these problems, still far from
solution, may also be traced to the influence of Darwin. For they
arise from the renewed attention to heredity, brought about by the
search for the causes of variation, without which the study of the
selection of variations has no sufficient basis.
Even the existing understanding about origins is very far from
universal. On these points there were always thoughtful men who denied
the necessity of conflict, and there are still thoughtful men who deny
the possibility of a truce.
It must further be remembered that the earlier discussion now, as I
hope to show, producing favourable results, created also for a time
grave damage, not only in the disturbance of faith and the loss of
men--a loss not repaired by a change in the currents of debate--but in
what I believe to be a still more serious respect. I mean the
introduction of a habit of facile and untested hypothesis in religious
as in other departments of thought.
Darwin is not responsible for this, but he is in part the cause of it.
Great ideas are dangerous guests in narrow minds; and thus it has
happened that Darwin--the most patient of scientific workers, in whom
hypothesis waited upon research, or if it provisionally outstepped it
did so only with the most scrupulously careful acknowledgment--has led
smaller and less conscientious men in natural science, in history, and
in theology to an over-eager confidence in probable conjecture and a
loose grip upon the facts of experience. It is not too much to say
that in many quarters the age of materialism was the least
matter-of-fact age conceivable, and the age of science the age which
showed least of the patient temper of inquiry.
I have indicated, as shortly as I could, some losses and dangers
which in a balanced account of Darwin's influence would be discussed
at length.
One other loss must be mentioned. It is a defect in our thought which,
in some quarters, has by itself almost cancelled all the advantages
secured. I mean the exaggerated emphasis on uniformity or continuity;
the unwillingness to rest any part of faith or of our practical
expectation upon anything that from any point of view can be called
exceptional. The high degree of success reached by naturalists in
tracing, or reasonably conjecturing, the small beginnings of great
differences, has led the inconsiderate to believe that anything may in
time become anything else.
It is true that this exaggeration of the belief in uniformity has
produced in turn its own perilous reaction. From refusing to believe
whatever can be called exceptional, some have come to believe whatever
can be called wonderful.
But, on the whole, the discontinuous or highly various character of
experience received for many years too little deliberate attention.
The conception of uniformity which is a necessity of scientific
description has been taken for the substance of history. We have
accepted a postulate of scientific method as if it were a conclusion
of scientific demonstration. In the name of a generalisation which,
however just on the lines of a particular method, is the prize of a
difficult exploit of reflexion, we have discarded the direct
impressions of experience; or, perhaps it is more true to say, we have
used for the criticism of alleged experiences a doctrine of uniformity
which is only valid in the region of abstract science. For every
science depends for its advance upon limitation of attention, upon the
selection out of the whole content of consciousness of that part or
aspect which is measurable by the method of the science. Accordingly
there is a science of life which rightly displays the unity underlying
all its manifestations. But there is another view of life, equally
valid, and practically sometimes more important, which recognises the
immediate and lasting effect of crisis, difference, and revolution.
Our ardour for the demonstration of uniformity of process and of
minute continuous change needs to be balanced by a recognition of the
catastrophic element in experience, and also by a recognition of the
exceptional significance for us of events which may be perfectly
regular from an impersonal point of view.
An exorbitant jealousy of miracle, revelation, and ultimate moral
distinctions has been imported from evolutionary science into
religious thought. And it has been a damaging influence, because it
has taken men's attention from facts, and fixed them upon theories.
II
With this acknowledgment of important drawbacks, requiring many words
for their proper description, I proceed to indicate certain results of
Darwin's doctrine which I believe to be in the long run wholly
beneficial to Christian thought. These are:
The encouragement in theology of that evolutionary method of
observation and study, which has shaped all modern research:
The recoil of Christian apologetics towards the ground of religious
experience, a recoil produced by the pressure of scientific criticism
upon other supports of faith:
The restatement, or the recovery of ancient forms of statement, of the
doctrines of Creation and of divine Design in Nature, consequent upon
the discussion of evolution and of natural selection as its guiding
factor.
(1) The first of these is quite possibly the most important of all. It
was well defined in a notable paper read by Dr. Gore, now Bishop of
Birmingham, to the Church Congress at Shrewsbury in 1896. We have
learnt a new caution both in ascribing and in denying significance to
items of evidence, in utterance or in event. There has been, as in
art, a study of values, which secures perspective and solidity in our
representation of facts. On the one hand, a given utterance or event
cannot be drawn into evidence as if all items were of equal
consequence, like sovereigns in a bag. The question whence and whither
must be asked, and the particular thing measured as part of a series.
Thus measured it is not less truly important, but it may be important
in a lower degree. On the other hand, and for exactly the same reason,
nothing that is real is unimportant. The "failures" are not mere
mistakes. We see them, in St. Augustine's words, as "scholar's faults
which men praise in hope of fruit."
We cannot safely trace the origin of the evolutionistic method to the
influence of natural science. The view is tenable that theology led
the way. Probably this is a case of alternate and reciprocal debt.
Quite certainly the evolutionist method in theology, in Christian
history and in the estimate of scripture, has received vast
reinforcement from biology, in which evolution has been the ever
present and ever victorious conception.
(2) The second effect named is the new willingness of Christian
thinkers to take definite account of religious experience. This is
related to Darwin through the general pressure upon religious faith of
scientific criticism. The great advance of our knowledge of organisms
has been an important element in the general advance of science. It
has acted, by the varied requirements of the theory of organisms, upon
all other branches of natural inquiry, and it held for a long time
that leading place in public attention which is now occupied by
speculative physics. Consequently it contributed largely to our
present estimation of science as the supreme judge in all matters of
inquiry,[218] to the supposed destruction of mystery and the
disparagement of metaphysics which marked the last age, as well as to
the just recommendation of scientific method in branches of learning
where the direct acquisitions of natural science had no place.
Besides this, the new application of the idea of law and mechanical
regularity to the organic world seemed to rob faith of a kind of
refuge. The romantics had, as Berthelot[219] shows, appealed to life
to redress the judgments drawn from mechanism. Now, in Spencer,
evolution gave us a vitalist mechanic or mechanical vitalism, and the
appeal seemed cut off. We may return to this point later when we
consider evolution; at present I only endeavour to indicate that
general pressure of scientific criticism which drove men of faith to
seek the grounds of reassurance in a science of their own; in a method
of experiment, of observation, of hypothesis checked by known facts.
It is impossible for me to do more than glance across the threshold of
this subject. But it is necessary to say that the method is in an
elementary stage of revival. The imposing success that belongs to
natural science is absent: we fall short of the unchallengeable
unanimity of the Biologists on fundamentals. The experimental method
with its sure repetitions cannot be applied to our subject-matter. But
we have something like the observational method of palaeontology and
geographical distribution; and in biology there are still men who
think that the large examination of varieties by way of geography and
the search of strata is as truly scientific, uses as genuinely the
logical method of difference, and is as fruitful in sure conclusions
as the quasi-chemical analysis of Mendelian laboratory work, of which
last I desire to express my humble admiration. Religion also has its
observational work in the larger and possibly more arduous manner.
But the scientific work in religion makes its way through difficulties
and dangers. We are far from having found the formula of its
combination with the historical elements of our apologetic. It is
exposed, therefore, to a damaging fire not only from unspiritualist
psychology and pathology but also from the side of scholastic dogma.
It is hard to admit on equal terms a partner to the old undivided rule
of books and learning. With Charles Lamb, we cry in some distress,
"must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward
experiment of intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of
reading?"[220] and we are answered that the old process has an
imperishable value, only we have not yet made clear its connection
with other contributions. And all the work is young, liable to be
drawn into unprofitable excursions, side-tracked by self-deceit and
pretence; and it fatally attracts, like the older mysticism, the
curiosity and the expository powers of those least in sympathy with
it, ready writers who, with all the air of extended research, have
been content with narrow grounds for induction. There is a danger,
besides, which accompanies even the most genuine work of this science
and must be provided against by all its serious students. I mean the
danger of unbalanced introspection both for individuals and for
societies; of a preoccupation comparable to our modern social
preoccupation with bodily health; of reflexion upon mental states not
accompanied by exercise and growth of the mental powers; the danger of
contemplating will and neglecting work, of analysing conviction and
not criticising evidence.
Still, in spite of dangers and mistakes, the work remains full of
hopeful indications, and, in the best examples,[221] it is truly
scientific in its determination to know the very truth, to tell what
we think, not what we think we ought to think,[222] truly scientific
in its employment of hypothesis and verification, and in growing
conviction of the reality of its subject-matter through the repeated
victories of a mastery which advances, like science, in the Baconian
road of obedience. It is reasonable to hope that progress in this
respect will be more rapid and sure when religious study enlists more
men affected by scientific desire and endowed with scientific
capacity.
The class of investigating minds is a small one, possibly even smaller
than that of reflecting minds. Very few persons at any period are able
to find out anything whatever. There are few observers, few
discoverers, few who even wish to discover truth. In how many
societies the problems of philology which face every person who speaks
English are left unattempted! And if the inquiring or the successfully
inquiring class of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the
class of those possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent
degree. During the last age this most distinguished class was to a
very great extent absorbed in the study of phenomena, a study which
had fallen into arrears. For we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means
of observation, means for travelling and acquisition, qualifying men
for a larger knowledge than had yet been attempted. These were now to
be directed with new accuracy and ardour upon the fabric and behaviour
of the world of sense. Our debt to the great masters in physical
science who overtook and almost outstripped the task cannot be
measured; and, under the honourable leadership of Ruskin, we may all
well do penance if we have failed "in the respect due to their great
powers of thought, or in the admiration due to the far scope of their
discovery."[223] With what miraculous mental energy and divine good
fortune--as Romans said of their soldiers--did our men of curiosity
face the apparently impenetrable mysteries of nature! And how natural
it was that immense accessions of knowledge, unrelated to the
spiritual facts of life, should discredit Christian faith, by the
apparent superiority of the new work to the feeble and unprogressive
knowledge of Christian believers! The day is coming when men of this
mental character and rank, of this curiosity, this energy and this
good fortune in investigation, will be employed in opening mysteries
of a spiritual nature. They will silence with masterful witness the
over-confident denials of naturalism. They will be in danger of the
widespread recognition which thirty years ago accompanied every
utterance of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer. They will contribute, in spite
of adulation, to the advance of sober religious and moral science.
And this result will be due to Darwin, first because by raising the
dignity of natural science, he encouraged the development of the
scientific mind; secondly because he gave to religious students the
example of patient and ardent investigation; and thirdly because by
the pressure of naturalistic criticism the religious have been driven
to ascertain the causes of their own convictions, a work in which they
were not without the sympathy of men of science.[224]
In leaving the subject of scientific religious inquiry, I will only
add that I do not believe it receives any important help--and
certainly it suffers incidentally much damaging interruption--from the
study of abnormal manifestations or abnormal conditions of
personality.
(3) Both of the above effects seem to me of high, perhaps the very
highest, importance to faith and to thought. But, under the third
head, I name two which are more directly traceable to the personal
work of Darwin, and more definitely characteristic of the age in which
his influence was paramount: viz. the influence of the two conceptions
of evolution and natural selection upon the doctrine of creation and
of design respectively.
It is impossible here, though it is necessary for a complete sketch of
the matter, to distinguish the different elements and channels of this
Darwinian influence; in Darwin's own writings, in the vigourous
polemic of Huxley, and strangely enough, but very actually for popular
thought, in the teaching of the definitely anti-Darwinian evolutionist
Spencer.
Under the head of the directly and purely Darwinian elements I should
class as preeminent the work of Wallace and of Bates; for no two sets
of facts have done more to fix in ordinary intelligent minds a belief
in organic evolution and in natural selection as its guiding factor
than the facts of geographical distribution and of protective colour
and mimicry. The facts of geology were difficult to grasp and the
public and theologians heard more often of the imperfection than of
the extent of the geological record. The witness of embryology,
depending to a great extent upon microscopic work, was and is beyond
the appreciation of persons occupied in fields of work other than
biology.
III
From the influence in religion of scientific modes of thought we pass
to the influence of particular biological conceptions. The former
effect comes by way of analogy, example, encouragement and challenge;
inspiring or provoking kindred or similar modes of thought in the
field of theology; the latter by a collision of opinions upon matters
of fact or conjecture which seem to concern both science and religion.
In the case of Darwinism the story of this collision is familiar, and
falls under the heads of evolution and natural selection, the doctrine
of descent with modification, and the doctrine of its guidance or
determination by the struggle for existence between related varieties.
These doctrines, though associated and interdependent, and in popular
thought not only combined but confused, must be considered separately.
It is true that the ancient doctrine of Evolution, in spite of the
ingenuity and ardour of Lamarck, remained a dream tantalising the
intellectual ambition of naturalists, until the day when Darwin made
it conceivable by suggesting the machinery of its guidance. And,
further, the idea of natural selection has so effectively opened the
door of research and stimulated observation in a score of principal
directions that, even if the Darwinian explanation became one day much
less convincing than, in spite of recent criticism, it now is, yet its
passing, supposing it to pass, would leave the doctrine of Evolution
immeasurably and permanently strengthened. For in the interests of the
theory of selection, "Fuer Darwin," as Mueller wrote, facts have been
collected which remain in any case evidence of the reality of descent
with modification.
But still, though thus united in the modern history of convictions,
though united and confused in the collision of biological and
traditional opinion, yet evolution and natural selection must be
separated in theological no less than in biological estimation.
Evolution seemed inconsistent with Creation; natural selection with
Providence and Divine design.
Discussion was maintained about these points for many years and with
much dark heat. It ranged over many particular topics and engaged
minds different in tone, in quality, and in accomplishment. There was
at most times a degree of misconception. Some naturalists attributed
to theologians in general a poverty of thought which belonged really
to men of a particular temper or training. The "timid theism"
discerned in Darwin by so cautious a theologian as Liddon[225] was
supposed by many biologists to be the necessary foundation of an
honest Christianity. It was really more characteristic of devout
_naturalists_ like Philip Henry Gosse, than of religious believers as
such.[226] The study of theologians more considerable and even more
typically conservative than Liddon does not confirm the description of
religious intolerance given in good faith, but in serious ignorance,
by a disputant so acute, so observant and so candid as Huxley.
Something hid from each other's knowledge the devoted pilgrims in two
great ways of thought. The truth may be, that naturalists took their
view of what creation was from Christian men of science who naturally
looked in their own special studies for the supports and illustrations
of their religious belief. Of almost every labourious student it may
be said: "_Hic ab arte sua non recessit_." And both the believing and
the denying naturalists, confining habitual attention to a part of
experience, are apt to affirm and deny with trenchant vigour and
something of a narrow clearness "_Qui respiciunt ad pauca, de facili
pronunciant_."[227]
Newman says of some secular teachers that "they persuade the world of
what is false by urging upon it what is true." Of some early opponents
of Darwin it might be said by a candid friend that, in all sincerity
of devotion to truth, they tried to persuade the world of what is true
by urging upon it what is false. If naturalists took their version of
orthodoxy from amateurs in theology, some conservative Christians,
instead of learning what evolution meant to its regular exponents,
took their view of it from celebrated persons, not of the front rank
in theology or in thought, but eager to take account of public
movements and able to arrest public attention.
Cleverness and eloquence on both sides certainly had their share in
producing the very great and general disturbance of men's minds in the
early days of Darwinian teaching. But by far the greater part of that
disturbance was due to the practical novelty and the profound
importance of the teaching itself, and to the fact that the
controversy about evolution quickly became much more public than any
controversy of equal seriousness had been for many generations.
We must not think lightly of that great disturbance because it has, in
some real sense, done its work, and because it is impossible in days
of more coolness and light, to recover a full sense of its very real
difficulties.
Those who would know them better should add to the calm records of
Darwin[228] and to the story of Huxley's impassioned championship, all
that they can learn of George Romanes.[229] For his life was absorbed
in this very struggle and reproduced its stages. It began in a certain
assured simplicity of biblical interpretation; it went on, through the
glories and adventures of a paladin in Darwin's train, to the darkness
and dismay of a man who saw all his most cherished beliefs rendered,
as he thought, incredible.[230] He lived to find the freer faith for
which process and purpose are not irreconcilable, but necessary to one
another. His development, scientific, intellectual and moral, was
itself of high significance; and its record is of unique value to our
own generation, so near the age of that doubt and yet so far from it;
certainly still much in need of the caution and courage by which past
endurance prepares men for new emergencies. We have little enough
reason to be sure that in the discussions awaiting us we shall do as
well as our predecessors in theirs. Remembering their endurance of
mental pain, their ardour in mental labour, the heroic temper and the
high sincerity of controversialists on either side, we may well speak
of our fathers in such words of modesty and self-judgment as Drayton
used when he sang the victors of Agincourt. The progress of biblical
study, in the departments of Introduction and Exegesis, resulting in
the recovery of a point of view anciently tolerated if not prevalent,
has altered some of the conditions of that discussion. In the years
near 1858, the witness of Scripture was adduced both by Christian
advocates and their critics as if unmistakably irreconcilable with
Evolution.
Huxley[231] found the path of the blameless naturalist everywhere
blocked by "Moses": the believer in revelation was generally held to
be forced to a choice between revealed cosmogony and the scientific
account of origins. It is not clear how far the change in Biblical
interpretation is due to natural science, and how far to the vital
movements of theological study which have been quite independent of
the controversy about species. It belongs to a general renewal of
Christian movement, the recovery of a heritage. "Special
Creation"--really a biological rather than a theological
conception,--seems in its rigid form to have been a recent element
even in English biblical orthodoxy.
The Middle Ages had no suspicion that religious faith forbad inquiry
into the natural origination of the different forms of life.
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, an English Franciscan of the thirteenth
century, was a mutationist in his way, as Aristotle, "the Philosopher"
of the Christian Schoolmen, had been in his. So late as the
seventeenth century, as we learn not only from early proceedings of
the Royal Society, but from a writer so homely and so regularly pious
as Walton, the variation of species and "spontaneous" generations had
no theological bearing, except as instances of that various wonder of
the world which in devout minds is food for devotion.