Man's Place in Nature, as affected by Darwinism.
When the Copernican astronomy was finally established through the
discoveries of Kepler and Newton, it might well have been pronounced the
greatest scientific achievement of the human mind; but it was still more
than that. It was the greatest revolution that had ever been effected in
Man's views of his relations to the universe in which he lives, and of
which he is--at least during the present life--a part. During the
nineteenth century, however, a still greater revolution has been
effected. Not only has Lyell enlarged our mental horizon in time as much
as Newton enlarged it in space, but it appears that throughout these
vast stretches of time and space with which we have been made acquainted
there are sundry well-marked changes going on. Certain definite paths of
development are being pursued; and around us on every side we behold
worlds, organisms, and societies in divers stages of progress or
decline. Still more, as we examine the records of past life upon our
globe, and study the mutual relations of the living things that still
remain, it appears that the higher forms of life--including Man
himself--are the modified descendants of lower forms. Zoölogically
speaking, Man can no longer be regarded as a creature apart by himself.
We cannot erect an order on purpose to contain him, as Cuvier tried to
do; we cannot even make a separate family for him. Man is not only a
vertebrate, a mammal, and a primate, but he belongs, as a genus, to the
catarrhine family of apes. And just as lions, leopards, and
lynxes--different genera of the cat-family--are descended from a common
stock of carnivora, back to which we may also trace the pedigrees of
dogs, hyænas, bears, and seals; so the various genera of platyrrhine and
catarrhine apes, including Man, are doubtless descended from a common
stock of primates, back to which we may also trace the converging
pedigrees of monkeys and lemurs, until their ancestry becomes
indistinguishable from that of rabbits and squirrels. Such is the
conclusion to which the scientific world has come within a quarter of a
century from the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species;" and
there is no more reason for supposing that this conclusion will ever be
gainsaid than for supposing that the Copernican astronomy will some time
be overthrown and the concentric spheres of Dante's heaven reinstated in
the minds of men.
It is not strange that this theory of man's origin, which we associate
mainly with the name of Mr. Darwin, should be to many people very
unwelcome. It is fast bringing about a still greater revolution in
thought than that which was heralded by Copernicus; and it naturally
takes some time for the various portions of one's theory of things to
become adjusted, one after another, to so vast and sweeping a change.
From many quarters the cry goes up,--If this be true, then Man is at
length cast down from his high position in the world. "I will not be
called a mammal, or the son of a mammal!" once exclaimed an acquaintance
of mine who perhaps had been brought up by hand. Such expressions of
feeling are crude, but the feeling is not unjustifiable. It is urged
that if man is physically akin to a baboon, as pigs are akin to horses,
and cows to deer, then Humanity can in nowise be regarded as occupying a
peculiar place in the universe; it becomes a mere incident in an endless
series of changes, and how can we say that the same process of evolution
that has produced mankind may not by and by produce something far more
perfect? There was a time when huge bird-like reptiles were the lords of
creation, and after these had been "sealed within the iron hills" there
came successive dynasties of mammals; and as the iguanodon gave place to
the great Eocene marsupials, as the mastodon and the sabre-toothed lion
have long since vanished from the scene, so may not Man by and by
disappear to make way for some higher creature, and so on forever? In
such case, why should we regard Man as in any higher sense the object of
Divine care than a pig? Still stronger does the case appear when we
remember that those countless adaptations of means to ends in nature,
which since the time of Voltaire and Paley we have been accustomed to
cite as evidences of creative design, have received at the hands of Mr.
Darwin a very different interpretation. The lobster's powerful claw, the
butterfly's gorgeous tints, the rose's delicious fragrance, the
architectural instinct of the bee, the astonishing structure of the
orchid, are no longer explained as the results of contrivance. That
simple but wasteful process of survival of the fittest, through which
such marvellous things have come into being, has little about it that is
analogous to the ingenuity of human art. The infinite and eternal Power
which is thus revealed in the physical life of the universe seems in
nowise akin to the human soul. The idea of beneficent purpose seems for
the moment to be excluded from nature, and a blind process, known as
Natural Selection, is the deity that slumbers not nor sleeps. Reckless
of good and evil, it brings forth at once the mother's tender love for
her infant and the horrible teeth of the ravening shark, and to its
creative indifference the one is as good as the other.
In spite of these appalling arguments the man of science, urged by the
single-hearted purpose to ascertain the truth, be the consequences what
they may, goes quietly on and finds that the terrible theory must be
adopted; the fact of man's consanguinity with dumb beasts must be
admitted. In reaching this conclusion, the man of science reasons upon
the physical facts within his reach, applying to them the same
principles of common-sense whereby our everyday lives are successfully
guided; and he is very apt to smile at the methods of those people who,
taking hold of the question at the wrong end, begin by arguing about all
manner of fancied consequences. For his knowledge of the history of
human thinking assures him that such methods have through all past time
proved barren of aught save strife, while his own bold yet humble method
is the only one through which truth has ever been elicited. To pursue
unflinchingly the methods of science requires dauntless courage and a
faith that nothing can shake. Such courage and such loyalty to nature
brings its own reward. For when once the formidable theory is really
understood, when once its implications are properly unfolded, it is seen
to have no such logical consequences as were at first ascribed to it. As
with the Copernican astronomy, so with the Darwinian biology, we rise to
a higher view of the workings of God and of the nature of Man than was
ever attainable before. So far from degrading Humanity, or putting it on
a level with the animal world in general, the Darwinian theory shows us
distinctly for the first time how the creation and the perfecting of Man
is the goal toward which Nature's work has all the while been tending.
It enlarges tenfold the significance of human life, places it upon even
a loftier eminence than poets or prophets have imagined, and makes it
seem more than ever the chief object of that creative activity which is
manifested in the physical universe.