all the organisms which we see in the world “from one or a few original
organisms” by a process of development, and “it will not admit that
there has been any intervention of the divine power.” But when asked,
Whence did the original organisms spring? he replies: “As to the origin
of organisms, it (the hypothesis) withholds, for the present, any
definite expression. There are, however, many naturalists who incline
to believe in spontaneous generation.” Here we must admire, if not the
consistency, at least the sincerity, of the lecturer. He candidly
acknowledges that, as to the origin of organisms, the theory of
evolution “withholds, for the present, any definite expression.” This
phrase, stripped of its pretentious modesty, means that the advocates
of evolution, though often called upon to account by their theory for
the origin of organic life, and though obliged by the nature of the
case to show how life could have originated in matter alone “with no
intervention of the divine power,” have always failed to extricate
themselves from the difficulties of their position, and have never
offered an explanation deserving the sanction of science, or even the
attention of thoughtful men. The axiom _Omne vivum ex ovo_ still stares
them in the face. They cannot shut their eyes so as to lose sight of
it. At the same time they cannot explain the origin of the _ovum_
without abandoning their principles; for if the first _ovum_, or vital
organism, is not the product of evolution, then its existence cannot be
accounted for except by the intervention of the divine power, which
they are determined to reject; and if the first vital organism be
assumed to have been the product of evolution, then they cannot escape
the conclusion that it must have sprung from lifeless, inorganic
matter—a conclusion which few of them dare to maintain, as they clearly
see that it is absurd to expect from matter alone anything so cunningly
devised as is the least seed, egg, or cell of a living organism. To
confess, therefore, that the evolution theory cannot account for the
origin of the primitive organisms is to confess that the efforts of the
evolutionists towards banishing the intervention of the divine power
and suppressing creation have been, are, and will ever be ineffectual.
But this legitimate inference was carefully kept out of view by the
lecturer, who, not to spoil his argument, hastened to add that “many
naturalists incline to believe in spontaneous generation.” This,
however, far from making things better, will only make them worse. It
is only when a cause is nearly despaired of that the most irrational
fictions are resorted to in its defence. Now, spontaneous generation is
an irrational fiction. Even in our own time, when the world is full of
organic matter, and when the working of nature has been subjected to
the most searching investigations, the spontaneous formation of a
living organism without a parent of the same species is deemed to be
against reason; for reason cannot give the lie to the principle of
causality, by virtue of which nothing can be found in the effect which
is not contained in its cause. Hence very few naturalists (though Dr.
Draper calls them _many_) are so reckless as to support, or countenance
by their example, a belief in spontaneous generation. Nothing would be
easier to them than to imitate Dr. Draper by assuming without proof
what is not susceptible of proof; but, although some scientists have
adopted this convenient course, few have dared to follow them, because
the inadmissibility of spontaneous generation has been confirmed by the
best experimental methods of modern science itself. Now, if this is the
case in the present condition of the world, and with such an abundance
of organic matter, how can any one, with any show of reason, maintain
that in the remote ages of the world, and before any organic compound
had made its appearance on earth, cells and seeds and eggs burst forth
spontaneously from inorganic matter without the intervention of the
divine power?
At any rate, if it would be preposterous to assume that inert,
lifeless, unintelligent matter has the power of planning and making a
time-piece, a sewing-machine, a velocipede, or a wheelbarrow, how can a
man in his senses assume that the same inert, lifeless, and
unintelligent matter has the power to plan, form, and put together in
perfect harmony, due proportion, and providential order the organic
elements and rudiments of that immensely more complicated structure
which we call an _ovum_ or a seed, with its potentiality of life and
growth, and its indefinite power of reproduction? And who can believe
that the same inert, lifeless, and unintelligent matter has been so
inventive, so crafty, and so provident as to devise two sexes for each
animal species, and to make them so fit for one another, with so
powerful an instinct to unite with one another, as to ensure the
propagation of their kind for an indefinite series of centuries?
We need not develop this argument further. Books of natural history are
full of the beauties and marvels concealed in millions of minute
organisms, which proclaim to the world the wisdom of their contriver,
and denounce the folly of a science which bestows on dead matter the
honor due to the living God. Evolution of life under the hand of God
would have a meaning; but evolution of life “without the intervention
of the divine power” means nothing at all, as it is, in fact,
inconceivable.
Dr. Draper quotes Aristotle in favor of spontaneous generation. The
Greek philosopher, in the eighth book of his history of animals, when
speaking of the chain of living things remarks: “Nature passes so
gradually from inanimate to animate things that from their continuity
the boundary between them is indistinct. The race of plants succeeds
immediately that of inanimate objects, and these differ from each other
in the proportion of life in which they participate; for, compared with
minerals, plants appear to possess life, though when compared with
animals they appear inanimate. The change from plants to animals is
gradual; a person might question to which of these classes some marine
objects belong.” This doctrine is unobjectionable; but we fail to see
its bearing on spontaneous generation. Aristotle does not speak here of
a chain of beings genetically connected, nor does he derive the plant
from the mineral, or the animal from the plant. On the other hand, even
if we granted that Aristotle “referred the primitive organisms to
spontaneous generation,” we might easily explain the blunder by
reflecting that a pagan philosopher, having no idea of creation, could
not but err when philosophizing about the origin of things.
We need not follow our lecturer into the details of the Arabic
philosophy. When we are told that the Arabian philosophers “had
rejected the theory of creation and adopted that of evolution,” and
that they reached this conclusion “through their doctrine of emanation
and absorption rather than from an investigation of visible nature,” we
may well dismiss them without a hearing. Dr. Draper seems to be much
pained at the thought that a religious revolt against philosophy
succeeded in “exterminating” such progressive ideas so thoroughly that
they “never again appeared in Islam.” But that which causes him still
greater disgust is that “if the doctrine of the government of the world
by law was thus held in detestation by Islam, it was still more
bitterly refused by Christendom, in which the possibility of changing
the divine purposes was carried to its extreme by the invocation of
angels and saints, and great gains accrued to the church through its
supposed influence in procuring these miraculous interventions.” These
words, and others which we are about to quote, must have given great
pleasure to the assembled Unitarian ministers; for we all know that to
throw dirt at the church is a task singularly congenial to the natural
bent of the sectarian mind. But, be this as it may, whoever knows that
our lecturer is the author of the history of the conflict between
religion and science, so truly described by the late Dr. Brownson as “a
tissue of lies,” will agree that Dr. Draper’s denunciations deserve no
answer. When a man undertakes to speak of that of which he is
absolutely ignorant, the best course is to let him blunder till his
credit is entirely gone. The reader need not be informed that
Christendom never opposed the doctrine of “the government of the world
by law,” and never imagined that there was a “possibility of changing
the divine purposes” through the invocation of angels and saints;
whilst, if “miraculous interventions” brought “great gains to the
church,” the fact is very naturally explained by the principle that
“piety is useful for all things,” and that God’s intervention cannot be
barren of beneficial results. But Dr. Draper, who does not understand
how God’s intervention is compatible with the universal reign of law,
denies all miracles, and denounces the church as a school of deceit,
superstition, and hypocrisy, his hatred of miracles being his only
proof that all miracles are frauds. His assumption is that, because the
natural order is ruled by law, therefore no supernatural order can be
admitted; which, if true, would equally warrant the following: Because
bodies gravitate towards the centre of the earth, therefore no solar
attraction can be admitted.
The papal government, Dr. Draper assures us, could not tolerate
“universal and irreversible law.” How did he ascertain this? Perhaps he
thought that the papal government was embarrassed to reconcile
irreversible law with miracles. But the popes never taught or believed
that a miracle was a _reversal_ of law; they only taught that the
course of nature, without any law being reversed, was susceptible of
alteration, and that this alteration, when proceeding from a power
above nature, was miraculous. We fancy that even Dr. Draper must
concede this, unless he prefers to say with the fool that “there is no
God.”
“The Inquisition had been invented and set at work.” To do what? To
overthrow the “universal and irreversible law”? Certainly not. What was
it, then, called to do?
“It speedily put an end, not only in the south of France but all over
Europe, to everything supposed to be not in harmony with the orthodox
faith, by instituting a reign of terror.” It is scarcely necessary to
remark that what the lecturer calls “a reign of terror” was nothing but
self-defence against the murderous attacks of the Albigenses and other
cut-throats of the same dye, who were themselves the terror of
Christendom—a circumstance which Dr. Draper should not have ignored.
But whilst the Inquisition caused some terror to the enemies of
Christian society, it actually restored the reign of law and secured
the benefits of religious peace to countries which, but for its
remedial action, would have sunk again into a lawless barbarism. And if
the Inquisition “put an end to everything contrary to the orthodox
faith,” no thoughtful man will find fault with it. False doctrines are
a greater curse than even armed rebellions. Dr. Draper will surely not
complain that the United States “put an end” to the rebellion of the
Southern Confederates, though they were gallant fellows and fought for
what they believed to be their right. But, while he finds it natural
that thousands of valuable lives should have been destroyed for the
sake of the American Union, he pretends to be scandalized at the
punishment which the Inquisition, after regular trial, inflicted on a
few worthless and contumacious felons for the sake of religious and
civil peace and the preservation of the great Catholic union. Such is
the delicacy of his conscience! Then he continues:
“The Reign of Terror in revolutionary France lasted but a few
months, the atrocities of the Commune at the close of the
Franco-German war only a few days; but the reign of terror in
Christendom has continued from the thirteenth century with
declining energy to our times. Its object has been the forcible
subjugation of thought.”
This is how Dr. Draper manipulates history. It would be superfluous to
inform our readers that there has never been a reign of terror in
Christendom, except when and where Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglican
Puritans, or infidel revolutionists held the reins of power, and
crowned their apostasy by tyrannical persecution, by plundering, and
burning, and murdering, and demolishing, and prostituting whatever they
could lay their hands on, with that diabolical fiendishness and cool
brutality of which we had lately a new instance in the Paris Commune
here mentioned by the lecturer. This very mention of the Commune, and
of the reign of terror inaugurated by it, is a blunder on the part of
Dr. Draper. The heroes of the Commune belong to _his_ school; they are
infidels; they are men whose thought has not been “subjugated” by the
church; and to confess that their ephemeral triumph constituted a reign
of terror amounts to a condemnation of unsubjugated thought and a
vindication of the principle acted on by the church, that from
unbridled thought nothing can be expected but discord, confusion, and
violence. Yet Dr. Draper, who is a profound chemist, knows how to make
poison out of innocent drugs; and whilst the church aimed only at
_preserving_ the loyalty of her children from the attacks of heresy and
the snares of hypocrisy, the doctor depicts her as “subjugating”
thought. This is just what might be expected. The snake draws poison
from the same flowers from which the bee sucks honey:
Spesso del serpe in seno
Il fior si fa veleno;
Ma in sen dell’ ape il fiore
Dolce liquor si fa.
—_Metastasio_.
We have dwelt longer than we intended on this subject, which is, after
all, only a digression from the principal question; yet Dr. Draper
furnishes us with the opportunity of a further remark, which we think
we ought not to omit. He says: “The Reformation came. It did not much
change the matter. It insisted on the Mosaic views, and would tolerate
no natural science that did not accord with them.” On this fact we
argue as follows. If the reason why Catholics rejected certain theories
was that they were “under a reign of terror,” and that their thought
had been “forcibly subjugated,” it would seem that the Protestants,
whose thought could not be subjugated, who laughed at the Inquisition
and were inaccessible to terror, should have embraced those
long-forbidden theories, were it only for showing to the world that
they had broken all their chains and recovered unbounded liberty. What
could prevent them from throwing away the book of Genesis and reviving
the Arabian theory of evolution? Had they not rejected other parts of
the Bible? Had they not freed themselves from the confession of sins,
explained away the Real Presence, set at naught authority, and
inaugurated free-thought? The truth is that they could not resuscitate
a theory for which they could not account either by science or by
philosophy, and which would have involved them in endless difficulties.
It is common sense, therefore, and not reverence for the Mosaic views,
that compelled them to abide by the Biblical record of creation. The
consequence is that men of common sense had no need of being “forcibly
subjugated” to the Mosaic views, and that the Inquisition had nothing
to do with the matter. Hence Dr. Draper’s declamation against the
Inquisition was entirely out of place in a lecture on evolution. But
his bias against the church led him still further. He wanted to
denounce also the Congregation of the Index; and as he knew of no book
on evolution condemned by it, he charged it with having condemned the
works of Copernicus and Kepler. The reader may ask what these two great
men have done for the theory of evolution. The lecturer answers that
“the starting-point in the theory of evolution” among Christians “was
the publication by Copernicus of the book _De Revolutionibus Orbium
Cœlestium_.” At this we are tempted to smile; but he continues:
“His work was followed by Kepler’s great discovery of the three
laws that bear his name.... It was very plain that the tendency
of Kepler’s discovery was to confirm the dominating influence
of law in the solar system.... It was, therefore, adverse to
the Italian theological views and to the current religious
practices. Kepler had published an epitome of the Copernican
theory. This, as also the book itself of Copernicus, was placed
in the Index and forbidden to be read.”
It is evident that these statements and remarks have nothing to do with
the subject of evolution, and that they have been introduced into the
lecture for the mere purpose of slandering “the Italian theological
views” which were the views of the whole Christian world, and of
decrying the Congregation of the Index, which opposed as dangerous the
spreading of an opinion that was at that time a mere guess, and was
universally contradicted by the men of science. Dr. Draper ignores
altogether this last circumstance, and remarks that “after the
invention of printing the _Index Expurgatorius_ of prohibited books had
become essentially necessary to the religious reign of terror, and for
the stifling of the intellectual development of man. The papal
government, accordingly, established the Congregation of the Index.” It
is a great pity that we have no room here for instituting a comparison
between the intellectual development of the Catholic and of the
Protestant or the infidel mind. Such a comparison would show whether
the _Index Expurgatorius_ has stifled our intellectual development as
much as Protestant inconsistency, and the anarchy of thought which
followed, have stifled that of other people. We are still able, after
all, to fight our intellectual battles and to beat our adversaries with
good arguments, whereas they are sinking every day deeper into
scepticism, and know of no better weapons than arbitrary assumption,
flippancy, and misrepresentation.
The lecturer goes on to say that Newton’s book substituted mechanical
force for the finger of Providence; and thus “the reign of law, that
great essential to the theory of evolution, was solidly established.”
This sentence contains three errors. The first is that the Newtonian
theory of mechanical force suppresses Providence. The second is that
the reign of law was not solidly established before the publication of
Newton’s work. The third is that the establishment of the law of
mechanical forces lends support to the theory of evolution. Is this the
result of “intellectual development,” as understood by Dr. Draper?
Newton, whose intellect was undoubtedly more developed than that of the
lecturer, did not substitute mechanical force for the finger of
Providence, but continued to acknowledge the finger of Providence as
the indispensable foundation of his scientific theory. Nor did he
imagine that his theory was calculated to establish the reign of law.
The reign of law was already perfectly established, so much so that it
was on this very ground that Newton based his deductions. Finally,
neither Newton, nor any really “developed intellect,” ever confounded
the mechanical with the vital forces so as to argue from the law of
gravitation to the law of animal propagation. From this we can form an
estimate of the intellectual development of man by free-thought. The
lecturer blunders in philosophy by contrasting law against Providence;
he blunders in history by attributing to Newton the discovery of the
reign of law; and he blunders in logic by tracing the theory of
evolution to a mere law of mechanics.
Further on Dr. Draper gives a sketch of Lamarck’s theory. Lamarck was
Darwin’s precursor. He advocated the doctrine of descent. According to
him, organic forms originated by spontaneous generation, the simplest
coming first, and the complex being evolved from them.
“So far from meeting with acceptance,” says Dr. Draper, “the
ideas of Lamarck brought upon him ridicule and obloquy. He was
as much misrepresented as in former days the Arabian
nature-philosophers had been. The great influence of Cuvier,
who had made himself a champion of the doctrine of permanence
of species, caused Lamarck’s views to be silently ignored or,
if by chance they were referred to, denounced. They were
condemned as morally reprehensible and theologically
dangerous.”
The fact is, however, that there had been no necessity of
“misrepresenting” Lamarck’s ideas, and that his infant Darwinism was
condemned not only as morally reprehensible and theologically
dangerous, but also as scientifically false. Cuvier had certainly the
greatest influence on the views regarding this branch of knowledge; but
his influence was not the result of a Masonic conspiracy, as is the
case with certain modern celebrities, but the honest result of deep
knowledge and strict reasoning; for men were not yet accustomed to
believe without proofs, and scientists had not yet forgotten
philosophy.
Dr. Draper tells his audience that Geoffroy St. Hilaire “became the
opponent of Cuvier, and did very much to break down the influence of
that zoölogist.” Yes; but did he succeed in his effort? Did he destroy
the peremptory arguments of the great zoölogist? Did he convince the
scientific world, or make even a score of converts? No. The influence
of Cuvier remained unimpaired, and evolution did not advance a step.
Then Mr. Darwin came. Mr. Darwin is, we have reason to believe, the
mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that infidel clique whose well-known
object is to do away with all idea of a God. Owing to this
circumstance, he was sure to have followers. A few professors in
Germany, and a few others in England, proclaimed with boldness the new
theory; they wrote articles, delivered lectures, printed pamphlets in
his honor; his works were widely advertised and strongly recommended;
and the curiosity of the public, which had been raised by all these
means, was carefully entertained by the scientific press. People read
Darwin and smiled; read Wallace, the friend of Darwin, and were not
converted; read Huxley, the great Darwinian oracle, and remained
obdurate. Only two classes of men took to the new theory—professors of
unbelief and simpletons. Thus Darwinism in Europe, in spite of the
great efforts of its friends, has been a failure. Here in America the
same means have been employed with the same effect. No sooner was
anything published in England or Germany in support of the new theory
than some worthy associate of the European infidels republished it for
the American people. New original articles were also added by some of
our professors; and even Mr. Huxley did not disdain to devote his
versatile eloquence to the enlightenment of our free but benighted
citizens concerning the subject of evolution. What has been the result?
Are the American people converted to the new doctrine? No. They laugh
at it. The failure of Darwinism is as conspicuous and as complete in
America as it has been in Europe.