II.

If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a

foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further

religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability

to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it

must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to

progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller

understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of

life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that

man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent

Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural

exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this

criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest

form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it

only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human

mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But

if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a

man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already

proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its

adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this

particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at

religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so

far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of

origination.

But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to

support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for

apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated,

we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from

finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in

future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any

way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper

mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in

the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least

to confirm theism itself.

Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more

easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but

springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world

that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and

is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other

and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the

same root and then intertwine and support one another.

By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it

is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which

the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not

need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside.

Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root,

as will appear later.

Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or

presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but

as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit,

so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of

another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be

clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring

parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind

entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our

thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not

know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the

mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the

mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where

two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is

commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the

implications of some part of the general conception of things that we

already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part

or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or

presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way

or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest

very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to

their results.

Now as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing

of part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does,

without going on to think about the designer or his design; and without

explicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the

world and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part

without going back to God or forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far

as we use the argument from design to prove the existence of God, it

means that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events,

and then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For

although God is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet

design and creation is the prior cause of our knowing God, The

conception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a

rational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that

this same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see

design in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of

one of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length.

Now, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a

biologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities

of structure and function and development, upon which I can found

various arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general

characteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes

of life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully

developed; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I

may hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of

these adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are

based is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by

which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is

really as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is

a consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet

neither is derived from it through the other.

If, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain

regularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only

is the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that

particular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific

certainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and

moral scepticism.

It is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the "argument from

adaptability," but simply to show that it is logically (though not

really) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As

long as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is

one explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as

long as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were

designed; that the present anticipates and prepares for the future; that

the future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we

hold all upon which the "argument of adaptability" is strictly based.

And indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general

progressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater

harmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument

is a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world,

than is theism.

Though both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle

(i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from

adaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard

to show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than

atheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted,

then, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is

much more easily established.

There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted

explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from

theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for

by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a

preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to

imply a theistic origin and government of the universe.

Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world

independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely

popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic

existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by

Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed.

Any form of "monism" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form

of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than

idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some

sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for

non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this

philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any

way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability.

Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an

aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the

statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like

the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities

and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as

its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology,

psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the

simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable

and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the

positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no

generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts

without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some

preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we

really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in

with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven,

universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of

Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of

hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to

the positive information that physical science has collected and

classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the

lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of

the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly

statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it

more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in

its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution

a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or

uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the

back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our

thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is

furthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact

and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing

conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some

way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a

cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual

power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by

analogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to

the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the

law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something

equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely,

such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning

only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow

from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an

effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity

that might result either from an intelligent will or from something

equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a

governing force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with

Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances

of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this

mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as

to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful

positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic

criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to

facts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as "the continuous

progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent

potentialities in harmony with a preordained end," the latent

potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from

another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and

place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of

exterior observation.

The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of

the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the

scraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if

in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and

preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and

natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent

or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet

as in the case of water we must perforce introduce "a gravitating

tendency," so in the case of living organisms a "persisting" or

"struggling tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to

account for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter

of observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained

ends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and

finality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable

power which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be

explained.

Let us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from

adaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief

in theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher

moral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less

approximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in

our last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing.

Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its

popularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope,

the notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension,

but only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection

more difficult.

Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the

less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the

simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of

goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex

theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we

commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it.

It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that

the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most

perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain

apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however

more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification.

So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of

Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its

difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a

form which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it

is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection,

when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but

when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic

hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds

from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only

intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and

even requires theism as its rational complement.

This is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot illustrate our

contention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics

introduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion

he affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of

pleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to

construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men

may be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. "When we

have a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers," says Mr. Bain,

"we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly

reconstructed." [5] It is assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity,

i.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may

be of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of

body; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this assumption

pleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the

whole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible

nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application

infinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a

mere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his

_Types of Ethical Theory_. For "pleasure," though one simple word, has

an endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but

bound together only by a certain kind of analogy. The eye, the ear, the

palate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is

nothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response

to the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be

expressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial

identity of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound

and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to

compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour

is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word

pleasure is used not unreasonably of both.

Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its

seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word "existence" or "life"

(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly

concerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like "heat" or

"warmth;" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of

intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as

would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate

of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be

something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways.

Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim

of our conduct as "the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in

full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;" upon which Mr.

Sidgwick remarks[6] with justice: "Such a reduction of the notion of

'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important

contribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it

at least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary

notions of progress and development" in which "it is always implied that

certain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others,

independently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which

each form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings,

to whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too

paradoxical to assert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no

more than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of

fertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral

and intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held

to have attained the end of human existence more than some of the

pioneers and patterns of civilization." Nor is it only in the region of

ethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in

paradoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes

its popularity is gone.

It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to

be, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an

irrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in

a prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate

tendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the

struggling, or persisting, or self-asserting tendency; a simplification

like that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner.

This flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all

things to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic

structure and function has been shaped and determined by its

struggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its

own onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles

it has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the

candlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and

spreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions.

Often, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be

more effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less

favourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can

move about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal

perish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down

those rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and

intelligence, and associative instincts and the rest, we increase the

appliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of

survival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are

dealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness,

intelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to

it; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and

multiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is

generated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one

has designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of

life's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form

and movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of

gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the

human and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the

action of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result.

Now if seeing and hearing and thinking do not constitute life, but are

only chance discoveries helpful to life; if we do not live in order to

eat and to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in order to

live, we ask ourselves, what then is this life which is none of these

things and to which they are all subordinate? And when once we begin

subtracting those functions which minister to life and which life has

selected for its own service, we find there is absolutely nothing left

to serve. Taking the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement,

nutrition, growth, generation, we find there is nothing over called

"life" distinct from these. This is the first and fundamental

incoherence of the theory; life has simply no meaning apart from those

functions which we speak of as ministering to life; unless we mean by

life the mere cohering together of the bodily organism--an end more

effectually secured without any such complex apparatus, by a stone or by

an elementary atom.

If existence in that sense, be the force or principle whose persistence

and self-assertion is the cause of all evolution, it is impossible to

conceive how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be indestructible

and constant in quantity, should trouble themselves to struggle at all;

since the amount of that kind of existence can neither be lessened nor

increased. And as motion is also assumed to be a constant quantity, it

is plain that what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some special

collocation and grouping of atoms with some correspondingly particular

determination of motion, called "life;" but what "life" is, apart from

the means it is supposed to have selected for itself, does not appear.

Another difficulty attendant on this false simplification is the

complete subversion of that scale of dignity or excellence upon which we

range the various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves at the

top--not merely in obedience to a pardonable vanity, but, as has

hitherto been supposed, in obedience to a trustworthy intuition which,

without attempting to apply a common measure to things incommensurable,

judges life to be higher than death; consciousness than unconsciousness;

mind than mere sensation; and in general, what includes and surpasses,

than what is included and surpassed. We see that the organic world

presupposes the ministry of the inorganic; and the animal world, that of

the plant world; and that the human world depends on the ministry of all

three; and our whole conception of this world as "cosmos" is simply the

filling in of this hierarchic framework. Yet this old structure falls to

pieces under the new simplification. If "life" (as vaguely conceived) be

the first beginning and the last end (or rather result) of the whole

process of evolution, if it be the _summum bonum_, then the "highest"

creature means, the most life-producing.

Now if we put "money" instead of "life," and begin to classify men by

this standard, we see how it inverts the old-world ideas of social

hierarchy. True it is, the man of letters or of high artistic gifts

can produce a certain amount of money, but has little chance against

the inventor of a new soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes

the worst policy, and a thousand other maxims have to be reformed. Yet

this is a trifling _boule-versement_ compared with that which would

have to be introduced into our scientific classification were

"life-productivity" (in the vague) taken as the criterion of excellence.

For we cannot any longer determine the rank of an animal by its organic

complexity, since, _ceteris paribus_, this is a defect rather than

otherwise.

To secure life more simply is better than to secure the same amount by

means of complex apparatus. Of course when the favouring conditions are

altered, then any apparatus that makes life still possible is an

advantage; but till that crisis arises it is only an encumbrance. When

life can be secured only at the cost of greater labour and exertion and

cunning, it is well to be capable of these things, but surely those

animals are more to be envied that have no need of these things. It is

only on the hypothesis of an unkindly environment that complexity of

organization is an excellence.

Furthermore, although these accidental variations allow certain

creatures to survive in crises of difficulty, yet they also make the

conditions of their survival more complicated and hard to secure. All

that differentiates man from an amoeba has enabled him to get safe

through certain straits where the lower forms of life were left behind

to perish; but it has also made it impossible for him to live in the

simpler conditions he has escaped from; like a parvenu whose luxurious

habits have gradually created a number of new necessities for him, which

make a return to his original poverty and hardships quite impracticable.

If the development of lungs has allowed animals to come out of the water

into the air, it has also prevented their going back again. Furthermore,

a considerable amount of vital energy is consumed in the production,

support, and repair of all this supplementary, life-preserving

apparatus; just as, much of the national wealth for whose protection

they exist is absorbed by a standing army and other military

preparations. And in fact of two countries otherwise equal in wealth,

that is surely the better off which has no need of being thus armed up

to the teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be compared to the

overcoat and umbrella with which one sets out on a threatening morning;

very desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should it clear up.

It seems, then, that the highest organism is that which produces or

secures the greatest quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at the

cost of the least complexity of structure and function; while the lowest

is that which yields the least quantity at the greatest cost; and

between these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the ratio of

their complexity to their life-productivity--life being measured

mathematically (as something homogeneous) by its vigour, by its

duration, and by the amount of matter animated, whether in the

individual or in its progeny. It is obvious how, at this rate, our

zoological hierarchy is turned topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be

to show that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-turtle with

its centuries of vital existence.

It would be a monstrous allegation to say that any evolutionist would

defend these conclusions in all their crudity; but is only by thus

pushing implied principles to their results, that their incoherence can

be made plain. Once more, if this simple uniform thing called life be

the sole cause, determining organic Evolution and selecting accidental

variations, just in so far as they favour its own maintenance and

multiplication, then every organ, appliance, and faculty by which man

differs from the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving

contrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that case has but one

end--animal life; and chooses every means solely with a view to that

end. She does not care about pain or pleasure, or consciousness, or

knowledge, or truth, or morality, or society, or science, or religion,

for their own sakes; she cares for life only, and for these so far

as--like horns and teeth and claws--they are conducive to life.

Evolution therefore is governed by a blind non-moral principle--as blind

and ruthless as gravitation. This being so, the mind is for the sake of

the body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making for truth and

righteousness as for greater or even as for co-ordinate ends; but simply

for life, to which sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often

illusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing therefore in this

process of Nature to make us trust that our mind really makes for truth

as such, or that it has any essential tendency to greater correspondence

with reality, beyond what subserves to fuller animal existence. The fact

that a certain belief makes animal life possible is no proof of its

truth, but only of its expediency. The extent to which many pleasures

depend on illusion is proverbial; and pleasure is almost the note of

vital vigour, according to this philosophy.

Plainly, our argument from the adaptability of a belief to man's higher

moral needs, vanishes into thin air as soon as the key to the order of

nature is thus sought in a blind non-moral tendency, and when that which

is lowest is put at the top, and everything above it made to minister to

it.

But then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all

possibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except

so far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of

life. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a

contradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not

dwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by

others. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of

the order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos.

In its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows

itself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a

governing mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife

of primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how

many things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can

really be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make

an occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has

undertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less;

which really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is

creation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation.

It is from first to last an "aggregation" theory, and has to face the

insupportable burdens which such a theory brings with it. Haunted by a

false analogy drawn from the political organism whose members are

intelligent and self-directive, and who put themselves under an

intelligent government to be marshalled and directed to one common

end--haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it tries to explain how

independent and indestructible units, void of all intelligence, come

together into polities with no assignable government; and how these

groups or polities, which are nothing separate from the sum of their

components, are aggregated to one another in like manner; until at last

we come to the highest organism, which again is only the sum of its

ultimate atoms, and its activity the sum of their activities--the whole

distinction between highest and lowest organism being such as exists

between a society of two and a highly complex civilized state. And all

this political life is the spontaneous work of unintelligent units; that

is to say, we have results exceeding the highest ever attained by human

intelligence, long before intelligence or sentience has yet been

evolved.

Nobody will care to support "Pangenesis" as a theory of generation. To

suppose that there is a mysterious power which breaks a little fraction

off each of the bioplasts of which we are asserted to be the sum; that

having collected these fractions it arranges them all in the right order

within the compass of a single germ, and from that germ reproduces the

parent organism, is an hypothesis compared with which the creation of

the world in its entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils

and remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and intelligible. This is

no hyperbole. For if once we allow creation at all, the creation of the

world at any stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the creation

of primordial atoms. If any living thing were now created (e.g., a

grain of corn or a full ear) it would bear in itself the apparent

evidence of having _grown_ to its present state _ab ovo_; or the _ovum_

itself would seem to ground a similar false inference of having come

from a parent. Strange as such an idea may be, it is easy and pellucid

compared with the hypothesis of Pangenesis--still more when we remember

that this complex germ, which is a lion or a horse in small--itself the

elaboration of aeons of Evolution--can replicate itself with ease and

rapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a "cosmos" which differs in

degree, not in kind, from that described in the story of the Six Days.

Yet the more we look into it, the more clear is it that Pangenesis (and

not Polarigenesis or Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the

aggregation-theory of life.

And therefore to return to our former assertion, whatever we seem to

gain in simplicity of statement by this form of the Evolution theory, we

pay for dearly when we come to its application; nay more, as soon as we

attempt to translate the words into clear and distinct ideas, we are

left with nothing coherent that the mind can get hold of; and it is only

at this price that we can cut away the basis of the "argument from

adaptability," and with it the basis of all reason and morality. We must

therefore go on to examine if there be any alternative form of the same

philosophy more bearable.

I have forborne all criticism of the supposed _facts_ on which Evolution

is based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses.

Nor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate

hypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis,

e.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The

crudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in

dextrous application of the argument _a posse ad esse_.