We must now say something about the great facts of evolutionary
philosophy which have shattered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and
have made it impossible for any sincere man to remain a Christian. To
say that Mr. Laing is absolutely certain of the all-sufficiency of
evolutionism to explain everything that is knowable to the human mind,
that he does not hint for a moment that this philosophy is found by the
"bell-wethers" of science to be every day less satisfactory as a
complete _rationale_ of the physical cosmos; is really to understate the
case for sheer lack of words to express the intensity of his conviction.
His fundamental fact is that, however theologians may shuffle out of the
first chapter of Genesis by converting days into periods, when we come
to the story of the Noachean Deluge, we are confronted with such a
glaring absurdity that we must at once allow that the Bible is full of
myths. For history and science show that man existed probably two
hundred thousand years ago, at all events not less than twenty thousand;
also that five thousand B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in
Egypt, whose monuments of that date give evidence to the full
development of racial and linguistic differences as now existing among
men; that this plants the common stem from which these have branched
off, in an indefinitely remote pre-historic period; that to suppose that
the present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who
lived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more
so, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which
populate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe,
were housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence
spread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent
seas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not
fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him
and apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene
period, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated
from the apes as ever. Therefore "all did not die in Adam," and seeing
this is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul,
the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45]
And indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and
that science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results
are incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter
condition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that "modern
science shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by
contemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years
before the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a
commencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering
works, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already
existing." [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence
for the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical
inquiries, and finds that history begins with "priestly organizations;"
[47] that the royal records are "made and preserved by special castes of
priestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great
extent precise in date and accurate in fact." Of course this does not
include Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many
thousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once
credited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast
of in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that
Herodotus "was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing
between fact and fable," that his "sources of information were often not
much better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;"
[48] and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion that the
Egyptian priests told him "that during the long succession of ages of
the three hundred and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose
statues they showed him in the Temple of the Sun, there had been no
change in the length of human life or the course of nature." [49] A
valuable piece of evidence _if_ Herodotus reports rightly, and _if_ the
priest was not like the average guide, and _if_ the statues answered to
real existences, and _if_ each of the three hundred and forty-five high
priests made a truthful assertion of the above to his successor for the
benefit of posterity.
Manetho's History is, however, the chief source of our information as to
the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. He was commissioned to compile
this History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, "from the most authentic temple
records and other sources of information," [50] whose infallibility is
taken for granted. He was "eminently qualified for such a task, being,"
as Mr. Laing will vouch, [51] "a learned and judicious man, and a priest
of Sebbenytus, one of the oldest and most famous temples." Let us by all
means read Manetho's History; but where is it? It is "unfortunately
lost, ... but fragments of it have been preserved in the works of
Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious
want of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers" [52] (so
different from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun),
"these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book,
contain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been
obviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their
chronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ... but
there can be _no doubt_ that his original work assigned an antiquity to
Menes of over 5500 B.C." [53] "On the whole, we have to fall back on
Manetho as the only authority for anything like precise dates and
connected history."
Manetho, however, needed confirmation against the aspersions of the
orthodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and
prone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic
minds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled
different provinces simultaneously. But this "effugium" was cut off by
the witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. "This has now
been done to such an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho is
confirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact acquired by science,
that nearly all his Kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have
existed, and that, successively." [54]
What is needed for the validity of this argument is a concurrence, which
could not possibly be fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted
testimony of Manetho and of the monuments. But first of all, what sort
of probability is there left of our possessing anything approximately
like the results of Manetho: and if we had them, of their historical
accuracy? Secondly, is it at all credible that so fragmentary and
fortuitous a record as survives in monuments (allowing again their very
dubious historical worth) should just happen to coincide with the
surviving fragments of our patch-work Manetho, king for king and dynasty
for dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe? On the contrary,
nothing would throw more suspicion on the interpretation of these
monuments than the assertion of such an improbable coincidence. What,
then, is the force of this argument from Egyptology? _If_ the records
from which Manetho compiled were historically accurate; _if_ he was
perfectly competent to understand them; _if_ he was scrupulously honest
and critical; _if_ from the tampered-with fragments in the Christian
Fathers we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge of his
results; and _if_ the Bible in the original text--whatever that may
be--undoubtedly asserts that man was not created till 4000 B.C., then
according to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned fifteen
hundred years previously, and according to others (Wilkinson), one
thousand years subsequently. Similarly as to the argument from
coincidence: _if_, as before, we possess Manetho's genuine list intact,
and _if_ we have the clear testimony of the monuments giving a precisely
similar record, this coincidence, apart from all independent value to be
given to Manetho or to the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause,
for which the most probable is the objective truth from which both these
veracious records have been copied. But the monuments are not written in
plain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that
Manetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for
example, [55] that the name "Snefura," deciphered on a tablet found at
the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third
dynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now _if_ there were no doubt about
the reading of this name on the tablet, and _if_ his date and dynasty
were as plainly there recorded, and _if_ all this tallies exactly with
equally precise particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be a
remarkable coincidence and would imply some common source, whether
record or fact. But if having credited Manetho with the record of such a
name and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a faintly similar name,
and concludes at once that the same name must be the same person, and
that therefore this is the oldest record in the world, the confirmation
is not so striking. That it is so in this instance we do not affirm; but
we should need the assertion of a man of more intellectual sobriety than
Mr. Laing to make it worth the trouble of investigating.
Passing over the confirmation which he draws from the "known rate of the
deposit of Nile mud of about three inches a century," which would give a
mild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to pottery fished up from
borings in the mud, since he admits that "borings are not _very_
conclusive," we may notice how he deals with evidence from Chaldea on
much the same principles. Here, again, the source had been till lately
only "fragments quoted by later writers from the lost work of Berosus.
Berosus was a _learned priest_ of Babylon, who ... wrote in Greek a
history of the country from the most ancient times, compiled from the
annals preserved in the temples and from the oldest traditions." [56]
Still this "learned priest," though antecedently as competent a critic
as Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his accounts, that "no
historical value can be attached to them," which must be regretted,
since he pushes history back a quarter of a million years prior to the
Deluge, and the Deluge itself to about half a million years ago. Here,
therefore, we are thrown solely upon the independent value of the
monumental evidence, and must drop the argument from coincidence. This
evidence, we are told, "is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt,
where the lists of Manetho, &c.... The date of Sargon I. [57] (3800 B.C.)
rests mainly on the authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than three
thousand years later, and may have been mistaken." "The probability of
such a remote date is enhanced _by the certainty_ that a high
civilization existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C." If the evidence
for the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is "less conclusive" than that
for Egyptian, and rests on it for an argument _à pari_, it cannot be
said in any way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position.
These strictures are directed chiefly to showing Mr. Laing's incapacity
for anything like coherent reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently
he uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as demonstrated
certainties, without the faintest qualification, and builds up on them
his refutation of dogmatic Christianity.
However, it is only in his more recent work on _Human Origins_ that he
thus comes forward as an historian, in preparation for which he seems to
have devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and hieroglyphs and
mastered the subject thoroughly and exhaustively, before bursting forth
from behind the clouds to flood the world with new-born light.
It is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at the bottom of a
geological well, that he has found not only truth but, also man--among
the monsters,
Dragons of the prime
Who tare each other in their slime,
and has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing is before all else
an evolutionist, with an unshaken belief in spontaneous generation. He
is quite confident that force and atoms will explain everything. He
seems to mean force, pure and simple, without any intelligent direction;
atoms, ultimate, homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the
subsequent evolution depends on the _kind_ and _direction_ of force, or
on the _nature_ of the atoms; then there is a remoter question for
physics to determine; but if, as he implies, force and atoms are simple
and ultimate, then evolution is as fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more
so. All prior to force and atoms is "behind the veil." "The material
universe is composed of ether, matter, and energy." [58] Ether is a
billion times more elastic than air, "almost infinitely rare," [59] its
oscillations must be at least seven hundred billions per second, "it
exerts no gravitating or retarding force;" in short, Mr. Laing has to
confess some uncertainty about his original dogma as to the triple
constituents of the universe, and say "that it may be _almost doubted_
whether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything
more than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity." [60] "It
is clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do
not touch," and even these we must conceive of as "corks as it were
floating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper
movement," [61]--an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when
we remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. "A
cubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules,"
"the number of impacts received by each molecule of air during one
second will be 4,700 millions. The distance traversed between each
impact averages 95/1000000 of a millimetre," and so on with lines of
ciphers to overawe the gaping millions with Mr. Laing's minute certainty
as to the ultimate constitution of matter. [62]
As to _how_ atoms came into existence, he can only reply, "Behind the
veil, behind the veil;" for it is at this point at last that he becomes
agnostic.[63] The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as
inconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the origination of every
change in the phenomenal world were not just as unimaginable; we see
movement _in process_, and we see its results, but its inception is
unimaginable, and its efficient cause still more so.
The evolution of man is practically taken for granted, the only question
being the _when_.
We have the old argument from embryonic transformism brought forward
without any hint that later investigation tends to show differentiation
further and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some,
in the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to
say "every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile
before arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man." [64] All that
can be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not
superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish--quite a different
thing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs
and functions in common with other species of the animal genus.
Mr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and human remains which he takes
to be those of tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike the
"dryopithecus" as ever, in fact, the reputedly oldest skulls [65] are a
decided improvement on the Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man
seems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-making, speaking animal
as now. So convinced is he of this essential and ineradicable difference
in his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeolithic flint flakes,
and so forth, he has "not the remotest doubt as to their being the work
of human hands,"--"as impossible to doubt as it would be if we had found
clasp-knives and carpenters adzes." [66] Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins,
who credits the "dryopithecus" with these productions, is a more
consistent evolutionist; but at present Mr. Laing is defending a thesis
as to _man's_ antiquity. Yet he has just said that these flint
instruments are "_only one step_ in advance of the rude, natural stone
which an _intelligent_ orang or chimpanzee might pick up to crack a
cocoa-nut with." Truly a very significant step, though it be only one.
How hard this is to reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and
ants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173, "These higher apes
remain creatures of very considerable intelligence.... There is a
chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens ... which can do _all but_
speak" [either it speaks, or it does not. It is precisely a case of the
"only one step" quoted above. Here if anywhere a "miss is as good as a
mile"], "which understands almost every word the keeper says to it, and
when told to sing will purse out its lips and try to utter connected
notes." [How on earth do we know what it is trying to do?] "In their
native state they (apes) form societies and obey a chief." [The old
fallacy of metaphors adverted to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet "no
animal has ever learned to speak," "no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever
been known to fashion any implement." [67] Their nearest approach to
invention is in the building of huts or nests, in which they "are very
inferior to most species of birds, to say nothing of insects." On the
other hand, "as regards tool-making, no human race is known which has
not shown some faculty in this direction." [68] "The difference is a very
fundamental one," and "may be summed up in the words 'arrested
development.'" Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They mean that
these animals have not developed the faculties of speech and
tool-making, which would have been most useful to them in the struggle
for existence, the reason being _that they did not_; and this reason is
exalted into a cause or law of "arrested development." Who or what
arrested it? The advantage of the term is that it implies that they were
on the point of developing, that they could "all but speak," were
"trying to utter connected notes," were "but one step" behind flint
axes, when some cosmic power said, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no
further."
If the dog had organs of speech or an instrument like the hand by which
to place himself in closer relation to the outer world, he would
doubtless be on a footing of mental equality with man, according to Mr.
Laing. [69] The elephant's trunk accounts for his superior sagacity, and
the horse suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot. [70] "Given a being
with man's brain, man's hand, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how
intelligence _must_ have been gradually evolved." [71] Now honestly it
seems to us that many animals are as well provided as man is with a
variety of flexible organs of communication with the outward world (for
example, the antennae of insects, the prehensile tails of some monkeys,
whose hands are as lithe as man's and articulated bone for bone and
joint for joint). But letting this pass, we thought evolutionists
allowed that structure is determined by function, rather than the
converse; and so the confession that "it is not so easy to see how this
difference of the structure arose," [72] surprises us, coming from Mr.
Laing; though why this difference should exist at all, on evolution
principles, is a far greater difficulty. Yet he confesses that "the
difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the
highest existing ape, [73] is too great to admit of one being possibly
the direct descendant of the other." The ape, then, is not a man whose
development is arrested. "The negro in some respects makes a slight
approximation, ... still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide
gulf from the chimpanzee or gorilla. Even the idiot is ... an arrested
man and, not an ape." [74]
Nearly all these (higher intellectual and moral) faculties appear in a
rudimentary state in animals.... Still there is this wide distinction
that even in the highest animals these faculties remain rudimentary and
seem incapable of progress, while even in the lowest races of man they
have reached a much higher level [75] and seem capable of almost
unlimited development. [76] Why does he not seek out the reason of this,
or is he satisfied with the _words_ "arrested development"? If I find a
child who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to be puzzled because it
cannot originate one as good, or go on even to something better? Am I to
ascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic faculty? Surely the same
poem proceeding from the lips of the poet and of the child he has
taught, are essentially different effects, though outwardly the same. If
there were a true living germ, it would most certainly develope. If the
savage developes through contact with the civilized man after centuries
of degradation, why have not domesticated dogs, who are, according to
Laing, their intellectual and moral equals, developed long ago?
However, as "evolution has become the axiom of science and is admitted
by every one who has the slightest pretensions to be considered a
competent authority," [77] it is preposterous to suppose man an
exception, whatever be the difficulties. [78] And so Mr. Laing, assuming
axiomatically that man and the ape have a common ancestor, is interested
to make the differences between them deeply marked, and that, as far
back as he can, for thereby "Human Origins" are pushed back by hundreds
of thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct from the ape as
recent man, the inference is that we are then as far from the source as
ever. Hence it is to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his
position. One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science,
hardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and
boldly classes it among the "exact sciences," whose subject-matter is
"flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human
skulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by
skilled experts." [79] "The conclusions of geology," up to the Silurian
period, "are approximate facts, not theories." [80]
If he means that the only legitimate data of geologists are facts of
observation, classified and recorded, well and good; but to deny that
they deal largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as the
premisses for inferences which are equally hypothetical, is palpably
absurd. First of all we are to "assume the principle of uniformity"
which Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable basis and to
have made the fundamental axiom of geological science. He "has shown
conclusively that while causes identical with ... existing causes will,
_if given sufficient time_, account for all the facts hitherto observed,
there is not a single fact which _proves_ the occurrence of a totally
different order of causes." [81] This, however, is (1) limited to the
period of geology which gives record of organic life, and not to the
earlier astronomical period; nor (2) does it exclude changes in
temperature, climate, distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it
"_affirm positively_ that there may not have been in past ages
explosions more violent than that of Krakatoa; lava-streams more
extensive than that of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful than
that which uplifted five or six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of
South America six or seven feet." [82] Now, seeing that all these
cataclysms have occurred within the brief limits of most recent time,
compared with which the period of pretended uniformity is almost an
eternity, what sort of presumption or probability is there that such
occurrences should have been confined to historical times; and is not
the presumption all the other way? Again, it is largely on the
supposition of this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing
argues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas Lyell's conclusion
warrants nothing of the kind, being simply: that present causes, "_given
sufficient time_," would produce the observed effects. [83]
Our tests of geologic time are denudation and deposition. We are told
"the present rate of denudation of a continent is known with
_considerable accuracy_ from careful measurements of the quantity of
solid matter carried down by rivers." [84] Now it is a considerable tax
on our faith in science to believe that the _débris_ of the Mississippi
can be so accurately gauged as to give anything like approximate value
to the result of one foot of continental denudation in 6,000 years. We
cannot of course suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered
observations, but an inference from the observations of some
comparatively insignificant period; and we have also to suppose that the
very few rivers which have been observed form a sufficient basis for a
conclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more feebly supported
generalization from more insufficient data it is hard to conceive. To
speak of it as "an _approximation_ based on our knowledge of the time in
which similar results on a smaller scale have been produced by existing
natural laws within the historical period," [85] is a very inadequate
qualification, especially when we have just been told that "here, at any
rate, we are on comparatively certain ground, ... these are measurable
facts which have been ascertained by competent observers." [86]
Assuming this rate of denudation as certain, and also the estimate of
the known sedimentary strata as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to
conclude that the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain mass which
ought to answer to certain fault 15,000 high, and therefore is presumed
to have vanished by denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000 years as
required for the process. [87]
"Reasoning from these _facts_, assuming the rate of change in the forms
of life to have been the same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological
phenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least," [88] "to account for
the undoubted facts of geology since life began." [89] On the other
hand, mathematical astronomy, [90] on theories which Mr. Laing complains
of as wanting the solidity of geological calculations (yet which do not
involve more, but fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past
existence of more than 15,000,000 years. [91] "It is evident that there
must be some fundamental error on one side or the other," [92] "for the
laws of nature are uniform, and there cannot be one code for
astronomers, and one for geologists." But while modestly relegating this
slight divergency among the "bell-wethers of science" (bell-wethers, I
presume, because the crowd follow them like sheep), to the "problems of
the future," Mr. Laing is quite confident that we should "distrust these
mathematical calculations," and rely on conclusions based on
_ascertained facts_ and undoubted deductions from them, rather than on
abstract and doubtful theories, "which would so reduce geological time
as to negative the idea of uniformity of law and evolution, and
introduce once more the chaos of catastrophes and supernatural
interferences."[93] As regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly
interested in putting it as far back as possible, since "a short date
for that period shortens that for which we have positive proof of the
existence of man, and ... a very short date ... brings us back to the
old theories of repeated and recent acts of supernatural interference."
[94] Strange, that in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson as
an "extreme instance" of one who approaches the question with
"theological prepossessions;" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr.
Laing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian
civilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that
perfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering
advantage over them all. "An authority like Prestwich," who "cannot be
accused of theological bias," influenced, however, by a servile
astronomical bias, "reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell and
modern geologists assign a duration of more than 200,000 years;" [95]
which "shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as to this vitally
important problem;" for this time assigned by Prestwich "would be
clearly insufficient to allow for the development of Egyptian
civilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from savage and semi-animal
ancestors; as is _proved_ to be the case with the horse, stag, elephant,
ape," and so on. [96] Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere, is "the
first living authority on the tertiary and quaternary strata." [97] If,
then, astronomical prepossession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the
sin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is comparatively venial.
Prestwich's two objections are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) "the
difficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or
100,000 years without change and without progress." The former is "only
one degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession."
However, Prestwich has some "facts" as well as prepossessions, such as
"the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland,"[98] which does not
accord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers;[99] and the
quicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts
which, however, are met by "a _minute description_ of the successive
changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were
brought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they
may have required;" which is "in round numbers 60,000 years," as opposed
to Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000. [100] The 200,000 years for the ice-age
depends chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the earth's
orbitular eccentricity; but we are told it is open to the "objection
that it requires us to assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs"
of which two or three "must have occurred during each of the great
geological epochs. [101] This is opposed to geological evidence." "'Not
proven' is the verdict which most geologists would return." "The
confidence with which Croll's theory was first received has been a good
deal shaken." "We have to fall back, therefore, on the geological
evidence of deposition and denudation ... in any attempt to decide
between the 200,000 years of Lyell and the 20,000 years of
Prestwich." [102]
As to his arguments based on ancient human remains, their value depends
first on the accuracy of his geological conclusions, and then on
preclusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the remains from
upper strata to lower; on the certainty, moreover, of traces of design
in many of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instruments (which
Prestwich is doubtful about).[103] He takes care not to tell us that the
Carstadt skull which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully genuine
relic of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most
dubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to
the simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian,
though it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his
foregone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe
image, the oldest relic yet discovered, "revolutionizes our conception
of this early palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better
representation of the human form than the little idols of many
comparatively modern and civilized people," very like those in Mexico,
"believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish
conquest"--"and in truth, I believe, contemporaneous." [104]
As to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces everywhere the crudest
anthropomorphic method of interpretation such as we should expect to
find in a child or very ignorant person. In truth, Mr. Laing is in a
perfectly childish state of mind both as regards the Christian religion
and as regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects he dabbles
with.
For our own part we have at most a general idea as to what exactly the
Church does teach or may teach with regard to the interpretation of the
Scripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretation
of Genesiacal cosmogony, that now the literal six-day theory would be
very unsafe, forbids us to judge any present interpretation of other
parts by the number, noise, or notoriety of its adherents. The
universality of the Deluge is by no means the only tolerable
interpretation now; though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have
been most unsafe a century ago. All this does not mean giving up the
inspiration of the record, but determining gradually what is meant by
inspiration and the record. What could be less important to Christian
dogma than the date of the Deluge or of Adam's creation? If it were
proved that the original text _in this point_ had been hopelessly
corrupted, as the discrepancies between the LXX. numbers and the Hebrew
hint to be true to some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed
integrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the "son" of David, and
Zachæus is "son" of Abraham, what period may not an apparent single
generation stand for, especially in regard to the earlier Patriarchs? As
far as the prophetic import of the Deluge is concerned, a very small
local affair might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as we see
with regard to the enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the
rest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown
that everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy
writer. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and
brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of
information drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected
in the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a
fair presentment of the other side.
Here, then, we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which
is so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed
minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or
nothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to
judge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization
were barely sufficient. A congeries of dogmatic assertions and negations
raked together from the chief writers of a decadent school, discredited
twenty years ago by all men of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show
of logical order and reasoning which evades our grasp the instant we try
to lay critical hands on it; a profuse expression of disinterested
devotion to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional morality,
a racy, irreverent style, an elaborate display of miscellaneous
information; good paper, large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is
done.
_Oct. Nov._ 1895.
[Footnote 1: M.S. 319.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid. 319.]
[Footnote 3: M.S. 229, 230.]
[Footnote 4: P.F. 279.]
[Footnote 5: P.F. 280]
[Footnote 6: Ibid.]
[Footnote 7: P.F. 281, 282.]
[Footnote 8: Ibid.]
[Footnote 9: Ibid. 210.]
[Footnote: 10 M.S. Preface]
[Footnote 11: "These subjects ... have been to me the solace of a long
life, the delight of _many quiet days_, and the soother of many troubled
ones ... a source of enjoyment.
"'The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.'" (H.O. 3.)]
[Footnote: 12 M.S. 319.]
[Footnote: 13 Ibid. 320.]
[Footnote: 14 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.]
[Footnote 15: This expression seems inconsistent with his here and
elsewhere explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of
gathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas of
morality as explained by Kant and by other intuitionists.]
[Footnote 16: M.S. 180.]
[Footnote 17: M.S. 285.]
[Footnote 18: M.S. 216.]
[Footnote 19: M.S. 294.]
[Footnote 20: M.S. 298, 299.]
[Footnote 21: P.F. 297. "The truth is that morals are built on a far
surer foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone
to-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of the
'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the human race
from primeval savages, have by 'natural selection' and 'heredity' become
almost instinctive." (How careless is this terminology. In the previous
page he denies morality to be a matter of hereditary instinct.)]
[Footnote 22: P.F. 206.]
[Footnote 23: Ibid. 207.]
[Footnote 24: P.P. 204.]
[Footnote 25: M.S. Preface.]
[Footnote 26: H.O. 3.]
[Footnote 27: P.P. 3.]
[Footnote 28: "The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the
support and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially of the
weak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense majority, cannot
disappear without a painful wrench, and leaving for a time a great blank
behind." (M.S. 284.)]
[Footnote 29: xxxiii.]
[Footnote 30: M.S. 261.]
[Footnote 31: P.F. 176.]
[Footnote 32: P. 177.]
[Footnote 33: P.F. 192.]
[Footnote 34: P. 245.]
[Footnote 35: P.F. 222.]
[Footnote 36: Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration
as the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, "It is perfectly
obvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith ... all the
discoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton down to Lyall and
Darwin, are simple delusions."]
[Footnote 37: M.S. 215.]
[Footnote 38: Ibid. 251.]
[Footnote 39: "The _simplest straightforward evidence_ of the _earliest_
Christian writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias."
(P.F. 236.) "What does Papias say? Practically this: that he preferred
oral tradition to written documents.... This is a _perfectly clear_ and
_intelligible_ statement made apparently in good faith without any
dogmatic or other prepossession.... It has always seemed to me that all
theories ... were comparatively worthless which did not take into
account _the fundamental fact_ of this statement of Papias." (238.) "The
_clear_ and _explicit_ statement of Papias." (250.)]
[Footnote 40: PP. 258--260.]
[Footnote 41: P. 262.]
[Footnote 42: P.F. 266.]
[Footnote 43: With regard to this "very precise statement," it is
noticeable that Matthew speaks of "Mary the mother of James and Joses;"
Mark, of "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Salome,"
but not "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment
at the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a
common name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of
the women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important
as evidencing Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.]
[Footnote 44: P.F. 235]
[Footnote 45: M.S. 332 ff.]
[Footnote 46: H.O. 2.]
[Footnote 47: H.O. 8.]
[Footnote 48: H.O. II]
[Footnote 49: H.O. 9 and 199.]
[Footnote 50: H.O. 10.]
[Footnote 51: This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion.
"Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who _must have
had_ access to all the temples and royal records and other literature of
Egypt, and who _must have been_ also conversant with foreign literature
to have been selected as the best man to write a complete history of his
native country." (H.O. 22.)]
[Footnote 52: He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and
Syncellus a "Father." We might mention that from the fragments of
Africanus' _Pentabiblion Chronicon_, preserved in Eusebius, the author
places the Creation at 5499 B.C., which is certainly hardly compatible
with his giving such fragments of Manetho as would place Menes one year
before that date. If we know nothing of Manetho's results except through
these "orthodox" sources, it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version
of them should have any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to
this, that because their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what
he wants, they have been tampered with.]
[Footnote 53: H.O. 11.]
[Footnote 54: H.O. 22.]
[Footnote 55: H.O. 17.]
[Footnote 56: H.O. 42.]
[Footnote 57: "There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a
perfectly historical personage. _A statue of him has been found at
Agade."_ (H.O. 55.)]
[Footnote 58: M.S. 50.]
[Footnote 59: Ibid.]
[Footnote 60: P.F. 28.]
[Footnote 61: M.S. 61.]
[Footnote 62: "Matter is made of molecules; molecules are made of atoms;
atoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form all the
complex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order] by virtue of
the attractive and repulsive forces which are the result of polarity."
(P.F, 223.)]
[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself _agnostic_ as
being a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or
revived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic
materialist, and by no means an "agnostic" in the wider sense of general
scepticism.]
[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.]
[Footnote 65: "Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the
oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial
period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no
very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the
contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that "five hundred
thousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race
has existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type
of modern man," (Cf. P.F. 158.)]
[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.]
[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.]
[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.]
[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.]
[Footnote 70: The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent
by progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an
animal specialized for ... the rapid progression of a bulky body over
plains or deserts" [a definition which applies equally to the camel,
&c.]. It commenced existence as a "pentadactyle plantigrade bunodont."
For some indefined reason "the first step was to walking on the toes
instead of on the flat of the foot, ... which became general in most
lines of their descendants. For galloping on hard ground _it is evident_
that one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more
serviceable than four short and weak toes." [But why should it gallop
more than other animals; or why on the _hard_ ground in the deserts and
plains; or would not _four_ strong and long toes have been better than
one?] "The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the
progress ... by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the
modern horse." But we thought evolution was a change from the
homogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the
change from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole,
if the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The
advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground
in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees.
(P.F. 143.)]
[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.]
[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.]
[Footnote 73: "A wide gap which has never been bridged over." (Huxley,
P.F. 150.)]
[Footnote 74: But cf. M.S. 181. "Attempt after attempt has been made to
find some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to base a
generic distinction between man and the brute creation." (P.F. 149.)]
[Footnote 75: Cf. "It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction)
was the original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required
a good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no
means an obvious one." (M.S. 204.)]
[Footnote 76: P.F. 153.]
[Footnote 77: P.F. 135.]
[Footnote 78: "The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the
physical development of the individual man and from the origin and
growth" [as though he had explained their origin] "of all the faculties
which specially distinguish him from the brute creation, ... all point to
the conclusion that he is the product of evolution." (M.S. 210.) "Man
... whose higher faculties of intelligence and morality are _so clearly_
... the products of evolution and education." (M.S. 182.)]
[Footnote 79: H.O. 260.]
[Footnote 80: M.S. 48.]
[Footnote 81: P.F. 17.]
[Footnote 82: P.F. 17, 18. "The conclusion is therefore certain that the
land at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and again risen
as much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its present position,
&c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any extent.... In fact the more
we study geology the more we are impressed with the fact that the normal
states of the earth is and always has been one of incessant changes."
(M.S. 35--9.)]
[Footnote 83: i.e., Lyell says: Present causes could give these effects,
given the time. Laing says: Therefore, since they have given these
effects, we must suppose the time.]
[Footnote 84: P.F. 18]
[Footnote 85: P.F. 74.]
[Footnote 86: Ibid.]
[Footnote 87: P.F. 20.]
[Footnote 88: M.S. 34, 41.]
[Footnote 89: P.F. 6.]
[Footnote 90: P.F. 23.]
[Footnote 91: M.S. 46.]
[Footnote 92: P.F. 24.]
[Footnote 93: P.F. 32.]
[Footnote 94: P.F. 66.]
[Footnote 95: "Thus giving to palæolithic man no greater antiquity than
perhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted to
the so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go back
further than from 10,000 to 15,000 years before the time of neolithic
man." (57.)]
[Footnote 96: P.F. 67.]
[Footnote 97: M.S. 109.]
[Footnote 98: Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the
_Nineteenth Century_, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the
geologists of high standing "who have lately come to believe in some
sudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions in very
recent times."]
[Footnote 99: 74.]
[Footnote 100: P.F. 84.]
[Footnote 101: P.F. 69, 70.]
[Footnote 102: P.F. 70.]
[Footnote 103: H.O. 364.]
[Footnote 104: H.O. 388.]