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THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN
A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity
to Environment
Being the Morse Lectures of 1895
by
JOHN M. TYLER
Professor of Biology, Amherst College
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1896
Morse Lectures
1893--THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN
MODERN THEOLOGY. By Rev. A.M.
Fairbairn, D.D. 8vo, $2.50
1894--THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. By Rev.
William Elliot Griffis, D.D.
12mo, $2.00.
1895--THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF
MAN. By Professor John M. Tyler.
12mo, $1.75.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION
The question.--The two theories of man's origin.--The argument
purely historical.--Means of tracing man's ancestry and
history.--Classification.--Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis.
CHAPTER II
PROTOZOA TO WORMS: CELLS, TISSUES, AND ORGANS
Amoeba: Its anatomy and physiology.--Development of the
cell.--Hydra: The development of digestive and reproductive organs,
and of tissues.--Forms intermediate between amoeba and hydra:
Magosphæra, volvox.--Embryonic development.--Turbellaria: Appearance
of a body wall, of ganglion, and nerve-cords.
CHAPTER III
WORMS TO VERTEBRATES: SKELETON AND HEAD
Worms and the development of organs.--Mollusks: The external
protective skeleton leads to degeneration or stagnation.--Annelids
and arthropods: The external locomotive skeleton leads
to temporary rapid advance, but fails of the goal.--Its
disadvantages.--Vertebrates: The internal locomotive skeleton leads
to backbone and brain.--Reasons for their dominance.--The primitive
vertebrate.
CHAPTER IV
VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN
The advance of vertebrates from fish through amphibia and reptiles
to mammals.--The development of skeleton, appendages, circulatory
and respiratory systems, and brain.--Mammals: The oviparous
monotremata.--Marsupials.--Placental mammals.--Development of the
placenta.--Primates.--Arboreal life and the development of the
hand.--Comparison of man with the highest apes.--Recapitulation of
the history of man's origin and development.--The sequence of
dominant functions.
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE OF FUNCTIONS
Mode of investigation.--Intellect.--Sense-perceptions.--Association.
--Inference and understanding.--Rational intelligence.--Modes of mental
or nervous action.--Reflex action, unconscious and comparatively
mechanical.--Instinctive action: The actor is conscious, but guided
by heredity.--Intelligent action.--The actor is conscious, guided by
intelligence resulting from experience or observation.--The will
stimulated by motives.--Appetites.--Fear and other prudential
considerations.--Care for young and love of mates.--The dawn of
unselfishness.--Motives furnished by the rational intelligence:
Truth, right, duty.--Recapitulation: The will, stimulated by ever
higher motives, is finally to be dominated by unselfishness and love
of truth and righteousness.--These rouse the only inappeasable
hunger, and are capable of indefinite development.--Strength of
these motives.--Their complete dominance the goal of human
development.
CHAPTER VI
NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT
The reversal of the sequence of functions leads to extermination,
degeneration, or, rarely, to stagnation.--Natural selection becomes
more unsparing as we go higher.--Extinction.--Severity of the
struggle for life.--Environment one.--But lower animals come into
vital relation with but a small part of it.--It consists of a myriad
of forces, which, as acting on a given form, may be considered as
one grand resultant.--Environment is thus a power making at first
for digestion and reproduction, then for muscular strength and
activity, then for shrewdness, finally for unselfishness and
righteousness.--An ultimate "power, not ourselves, making for
righteousness," a personality.--Our knowledge of this personality
may be valid, even though very incomplete.--Religion.--Conformity to
the spiritual in or behind environment is likeness to God.--The
conservative tendency in evolution.
CHAPTER VII
CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT
Human environment.--The development of the family as the school of
man's training.--The family as the school of unselfishness and
obedience.--The family as the basis of social life.--Society as an
aid to conformity to environment by increasing intelligence and
training conscience.--Mental and moral heredity.--Personal
magnetism.--Man's search for a king.--The essence of
Christianity.--Conformity to environment gives future supremacy, but
often at the cost of present hardship.--Conformity as obedience to
the laws of our being.--Environment best understood through the
study of the human mind.--Productiveness and prospectiveness of
vital capital.--Faith.
CHAPTER VIII
MAN
Composed of atoms and molecules, hence subject to chemical and
physical laws.--As a living being.--As an animal.--As a
vertebrate.--As a mammal.--As a social being.--As a personal and
moral being.--The conflict between the higher and the lower in
man.--As a religious being.--As hero.--He has not yet
attained.--Future man.--He will utilize all his powers, duly
subordinating the lower to the higher.--The triumph of the common
people.
CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE
Subject of the Bible.--_Man_: Body, intellect, heart.--_God_:
Law, sin, and penalty.--God manifested in Christ.--Salvation, the divine
life permeating man--Faith.--Prayer.--Hope.--The Church.--The
battle.--The victory.--The crown.
CHAPTER X
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
The struggle for existence.--Natural selection.--Correlation of
organs.--Fortuitous variation.--Origin of the fittest.--Nägeli's
theory: Initial tendency supreme.--Weismann and the Neo-Darwinians:
Natural selection omnipotent.--The Neo-Lamarckians.--Comparison of
the Neo-Darwinian and the Neo-Lamarckian views.--"Individuality" the
controlling power throughout the life of the organism.--Transmission
of special effects of use and disuse.--Summary.
CHART SHOWING SEQUENCE OF ATTAINMENTS AND OF DOMINANT FUNCTIONS
PHYLOGENETIC CHART OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
In the year 1865 Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, to whom the
world is indebted for the application of the principles of
electro-magnetism to telegraphy, gave the sum of ten thousand
dollars to Union Theological Seminary to found a lectureship in
memory of his father, the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., theologian,
geographer, and gazetteer. The subject of the lectures was to have
to do with "The relations of the Bible to any of the sciences." The
ten chapters of this book correspond to ten lectures, eight of which
were delivered as Morse Lectures at Union Theological Seminary
during the early spring of 1895. The first nine chapters appear in
form and substance as they were given in the lectures, except that
Chapters VI. and VII. were condensed in one lecture. Chapter X. is
new, and I have not hesitated to add a few paragraphs wherever the
argument seemed especially to demand further evidence or
illustration.
One of my friends, reading the title of these lectures, said: "Of
man's origin you know nothing, of his future you know less." I fear
that many share his opinion, although they might not express it so
emphatically.
It would seem, therefore, to be in order to show that science is now
competent to deal with this question; not that she can give a final
and conclusive answer, but that we can reach results which are
probably in the main correct. We may grant very cheerfully that we
can attain no demonstration; the most that we can claim for our
results will be a high degree of probability. If our conclusions are
very probably correct, we shall do well to act according to them;
for all our actions in life are suited to meet the emergencies of a
probable but uncertain course of events.
We take for granted the probable truth of the theory of evolution as
stated by Mr. Darwin, and that it applies to man as really as to any
lower animal. At the same time it concerns our argument but little
whether natural selection is "omnipotent" or of only secondary
importance in evolution, as long as it is a real factor, or which
theory of heredity or variation is the more probable.
If man has been evolved from simple living substance protoplasm, by
a process of evolution, it will some day be possible to write a
history of that process. But have we yet sufficient knowledge to
justify such an attempt?
Before the history of any period can be written its events must have
been accurately chronicled. Biological history can be written only
when the successive stages of development and the attainments of
each stage have been clearly perceived. In other words, the first
prerequisite would seem to be a genealogical[A] tree of the animal
kingdom. The means of tracing this genealogical tree are given in
the first chapter, and the results in the second, third, and fourth
chapters of this book.
[Footnote A: See Phylogenetic Chart, p. 310.]
Now, for some of the ancestral stages of man's development a very
high degree of probability can be claimed. One of man's earliest
ancestors was almost certainly a unicellular animal. A little later
he very probably passed through a gastræa stage. He traversed fish,
amphibian, and reptilian grades. The oviparous monotreme and the
marsupial almost certainly represent lower mammalian ancestral
stages. But what kind of fish, what species of amphibian, what form
of reptiles most closely resembles the old ancestor? How did each of
these ancestors look? I do not know. It looks as if our ancestral
tree were entirely uncertain and we were left without any foundation
for history or argument.
But the history of the development of anatomical details, however
important and desirable, is not the only history which can be
written, nor is it essential. It would be interesting to know the
size of brain, girth of chest, average stature, and the features of
the ancient Greeks and Romans. But this is not the most important
part of their history, nor is it essential. The great question is,
What did they contribute to human progress?
Even if we cannot accurately portray the anatomical details of a
single ancestral stage, can we perhaps discover what function
governed its life and was the aim of its existence? Did it live to
eat, or to move, or to think? If we cannot tell exactly how it
looked, can we tell what it lived for and what it contributed to the
evolution of man?
Now, the sequence of dominant functions or aims in life can be
traced with far more ease and safety, not to say certainty, than one
of anatomical details. The latter characterize small groups, genera,
families, or classes; while the dominant function characterizes all
animals of a given grade, even those which through degeneration
have reverted to this grade.
Even if I cannot trace the exact path which leads to the
mountain-top, I may almost with certainty affirm that it leads from
meadow and pasture through forest to bare rock, and thence over snow
and ice to the summit; for each of these forms a zone encircling the
mountain. Very similarly I find that, whatever genealogical tree I
adopt, one sequence in the dominance of functions characterizes them
all; digestion is dominant before locomotion and locomotion before
thought.
And it is hardly less than a physiological necessity that it should
be so. The plant can and does exist, living almost purely for
digestion and reproduction, and the same is true of the lowest and
most primitive animals. A muscular system cannot develop and do its
work until some sort of a digestive system has arisen to furnish
nutriment, any more than a steam-engine can run without fuel. And a
brain is of no use until muscle and sense-organs have appeared.
This sequence of dominant functions,[A] of physiological dynasties,
would seem therefore to be a fact. And our series of forms described
in the second, third, and fourth chapters is merely a concrete
illustration showing how this sequence may have been evolved. The
substitution of other terms in the anatomical series there
described--amoeba, volvox, etc.--would not affect this result. By
a change in the form of our history we have eliminated to a large
extent the sources of uncertainty and error. And the dominant
function of a group throws no little light on the details of its
anatomy.
[Footnote A: See condensed Chart of Development, etc., p. 309.]
If we can be satisfied that ever higher functions have risen to
dominance in the successive stages of animal and human development,
if we can further be convinced that the sequence is irreversible, we
shall be convinced that future man will be more and more completely
controlled by the very highest powers or aims to which this sequence
points. Otherwise we must disbelieve the continuity of history. But
the germs of the future are always concealed in the history of the
present. Hence--pardon the reiteration--if we can once trace this
sequence of dominant functions, whose evolution has filled past
ages, we can safely foretell something at least of man's future
development.
The argument and method is therefore purely historical. Here and
there we will try to find why and how things had to be so. But all
such digressions are of small account compared with the fact that
things were or are thus and so. And a mistaken explanation will not
invalidate the facts of history.
The subject of our history is the development, not of a single human
race nor of the movements of a century, but the development of
animal life through ages. And even if our attempts to decipher a few
pages here and there in the volumes of this vast biological history
are not as successful as we could hope, we must not allow ourselves
to be discouraged from future efforts. Even if our translation is
here and there at fault, we must never forget the existence of the
history. Some of the worst errors of biologists are due to their
having forgotten that in the lower stages the germs of the higher
must be present, even though invisible to any microscope. Our study
of the worm is inadequate and likely to mislead us, unless we
remember that a worm was the ancestor of man. And a biologist who
can tell us nothing about man is neglecting his fairest field.
Conversely history and social science will rest on a firmer basis
when their students recognize that many human laws and institutions
are heirlooms, the attainments, or direct results of attainments, of
animals far below man. We are just beginning to recognize that the
study of zoölogy is an essential prerequisite to, and firm
foundation for, that of history, social science, philosophy, and
theology, just as really as for medicine. An adequate knowledge of
any history demands more than the study of its last page. The
zoölogist has been remiss in not claiming his birthright, and in
this respect has sadly failed to follow the path pointed out by Mr.
Darwin.
For palæontology, zoölogy, history, social and political science,
and philosophy are really only parts of one great science, of
biology in the widest sense, in distinction from the narrower sense
in which it is now used to include zoölogy and botany. They form an
organic unity in which no one part can be adequately understood
without reference to the others. You know nothing of even a
constellation, if you have studied only one of its stars. Much less
can the study of a single organ or function give an adequate idea of
the human body.
Only when we have attained a biological history can we have any
satisfactory conception of environment. As we look about us in the
world, environment often seems to us to be a chaos of forces aiding
or destroying good and bad, fit and unfit, alike.
But our history of animal and human progress shows us successive
stages, each a little higher than the preceding, and surviving, for
a time at least, because more completely conformed to environment.
If this be true, and it must be true unless our theory of evolution
be false, higher forms are more completely conformed to their
environment than lower; and man has attained the most complete
conformity of all. Our biological history is therefore a record of
the results of successive efforts, each attaining a little more
complete conformity than the preceding. From such a history we ought
to be able to draw certain valid deductions concerning the general
character and laws of our environment, to discover the direction in
which its forces are urging us, and how man can more completely
conform to it.
If man is a product of evolution, his mental and moral, just as
really as his physical, development must be the result of such a
conformity. The study of environment from this standpoint should
throw some light on the validity of our moral and religious creeds
and theories. It would seem, therefore, not only justifiable, but
imperative to attempt such a study.
Our argument is not directly concerned with modern theories of
heredity, or variation, or with the "omnipotence" or secondary
importance of natural selection. And yet Nägeli, and especially
Weismann, have had so marked an influence on modern thought that we
cannot afford to neglect their theories. We will briefly notice
these in the closing chapter.
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION
The story of a human life can be told in very few words. A youth of
golden dreams and visions; a few years of struggle or of neglected
opportunities; then retrospect and the end.
"We come like water, and like wind we go."
But how few of the visions are realized. Faust sums up the whole of
life in the twice-repeated word _versagen_, renounce, and history
tells a similar story. Terah died in Haran; Abraham obtained but a
grave in the land promised him and his children; Jacob, cheated in
marriage, bitterly disappointed in his children, died in exile,
leaving his descendants to become slaves in the land of Egypt; and
Moses, their heroic deliverer, died in the mountains of Moab in
sight of the land which he was forbidden to enter. You may answer
that it is no injury that the promise is too large, the vision too
grand, to be fulfilled in the span of a single life, but must become
the heritage of a race. But what has been the history of Abraham's
descendants? A death-grapple for existence, captivity, and
dispersion. Their national existence has long been lost.
Was there ever a nation of grander promise than Greece or Rome? But
Greece died of premature old age, and Rome of rottenness begotten
of sin. But each of them, you will say, left a priceless heritage to
the immortal race. But if Greece and Rome and a host of older
nations, of which History has often forgotten the very name, have
failed and died, can anything but ultimate failure await the race?
Is human history to prove a story told by an idiot, or does it
"signify" something? Is the great march of humanity, which Carlyle
so vividly depicts, "from the inane to the inane, or from God to
God?"
This is the sphinx question put to every thinking man, and on his
answer hangs his life. For according to that answer, he will either
flinch and turn back, or expend every drop of blood and grain of
power in urging on the march.
To this question the Bible gives a clear and emphatic answer. "God
created man in his own image," and then, as if men might refuse to
believe so astounding a statement, it is repeated, "in the image of
God created he him." When, and by what mode or process, man was
created we are not told. His origin is condensed almost into a line,
his present and future occupy all the rest of the book. Whence we
came is important only in so far as it teaches us humility and yet
assures us that we may be Godlike because we are His handiwork and
children, "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ of a heavenly
inheritance."
Now has Science any answer to this vital question? Perhaps. But this
much is certain; it can foretell the future only from the past. Its
answer to the question _whither_ must be an inference from its
knowledge as to _whence_ we have come. The Bible looks mainly at the
present and future; Science must at least begin with the study of
the past. The deciphering of man's past history is the great aim of
Biology, and ultimately of all Science. For the question of Man's
past is only a part of a greater question, the origin of all living
species.
We may say broadly that concerning the origin of species two
theories, and only two, seem possible. The first theory is that
every species is the result of an act of immediate creation. And
every true species, however slightly it may differ from its nearest
relative, represents such a creative act, and once created is
practically unchangeable. This is the theory of immutability of
species. According to the second theory all higher, probably all
present existing, species are only mediately the result of a
creative act. The first living germ, whenever and however created,
was infused with power to give birth to higher species. Of these and
their descendants some would continue to advance, others would
degenerate. Each theory demands equally for its ultimate explanation
a creative act; the second as much as, if not more than, the first.
According to the first theory the creative power has been
distributed over a series of acts, according to the second theory it
has been concentrated in one primal creation. The second is the
theory of the mutability of species, or, in general, of evolution,
but not necessarily of Darwinism alone.
The first theory is considered by many the more attractive and
hopeful. Now a theory need not be attractive, nor at first sight
appear hopeful, provided only it is true. But let me call your
attention to certain conclusions which, as it appears to me, are
necessarily involved in it. Its central thought is the practical
immutability of species. Each one of these lives its little span of
time, for species are usually comparatively short-lived, grows
possibly a very little better or worse, and dies. Its progress has
added nothing to the total of life; its degeneration harmed no one,
hardly even itself; it was doomed from the start. Progress there has
been, in a sense. The Creator has placed ever higher forms on the
globe. But all the progress lies in the gaps and distances between
successive forms, not in any advance made, or victory won, by the
species or individual. The most "aspiring ape," if ever there was
such a being, remains but an ape. He must comfort himself with the
thought that, while he and his descendants can never gain an inch,
the gap between himself and the next higher form shall be far
greater than that between himself and the lowest monkey.
And if this has been the history of thousands of other species, why
should it not be true of man also? Who can wonder that many who
accept this theory doubt whether the world is growing any better, or
whether even man will ever be higher and better than he now is?
Would it not be contrary to the whole course of past history, if you
can properly call such a record a history, if he could advance at
all? Now I have no wish to misrepresent this or any honestly
accepted theory, but it appears to me essentially hopeless, a record
not of the progress of life on the globe, but of a succession of
stagnations, of deaths. I can never understand why some very good
and intelligent people still think that the theory of the immediate
creation of each species does more honor to the Creator and his
creation than the theory of evolution. Evolution is a process, not
a force. The power of the Creator is equally demanded in both cases;
only it is differently distributed. And evolution is the very
highest proof of the wisdom and skill of the Creator. It elevates
our views of the living beings, must it not give a higher conception
of Him who formed them?
The plant in its first stages shows no trace of flowers, but of
leaves only. Later a branch or twig, similar in structure to all the
rest, shortens. The cells and tissues which in other twigs turn into
green leaves here become the petals and other organs of the rose or
violet. Let us suppose for a moment that every rose and violet
required a special act of immediate creation, would the springtime
be as wonderful as now? Would the rose or violet be any more
beautiful, or are they any less flowers because developed out of
that which might have remained a common branch? The plant at least
is glorified by the power to give rise to such beauty. And is not
the creation of the seed of a violet or rose something infinitely
grander than the decking of a flowerless plant with newly created
roses? The attainment of the highest and most diversified beauty and
utility with the fewest and simplest means is always the sign of
what we call in man "creative" genius. Is not the same true of God?
I think you all feel the force of the argument here.
There were at one time no flowering plants. The time came at last
for their appearance. Which is the higher, grander mode of producing
them, immediate creation of every flowering species, or development
of the flower out of the green leaves of some old club moss or
similar form? The latter seems to me at least by far the higher
mode. And to have created a ground-pine which could give rise to a
rose seems far more difficult and greater than to have created both
separately. It requires more genius, so to speak. It gives us a far
higher opinion of the ground-pine; does it disgrace the rose? We can
look dispassionately at plants. The rose is still and always a rose,
and the oak an oak, whatever its origin. And I believe that we shall
all readily admit that evolution is here a theory which does the
highest honor to the wisdom and power of the Creator. What if the
animal kingdom is continually blossoming in ever higher forms? Does
not the same reasoning hold true, only with added force? I firmly
believe that we should all unhesitatingly answer, yes, could we but
be assured that all men would everywhere and always believe that we,
men, were the results of an immediate creative act.
But why do we so strenuously object to the application to ourselves
of the theory of evolution? One or two reasons are easily seen. We
have all of us a great deal of innate snobbery, we would rather have
been born great than to have won greatness by the most heroic
struggle. But is man any less a man for having arisen from something
lower, and being in a fair way to become something higher? Certainly
not, unless I am less a man for having once been a baby. It is only
when I am unusually cross and irritable that I object to being
reminded of my infancy. But a young child does not like to be
reminded of it. He is afraid that some one will take him for a baby
still. And the snob is always desperately afraid that some one will
fail to notice what a high-born gentleman he is.
Now man can relapse into something lower than a brute; the only
genuine brute is a degenerate man. And we all recognize the strength
of tendencies urging us downward. Is not this the often unrecognized
kern of our eagerness for some mark or stamp that shall prove to all
that we are no apes, but men? It is not the pure gold that needs the
"guinea stamp." If we are men, and as we become men, we shall cease
to fear the theory of evolution. Now this is not the only, or
perhaps the greatest, objection which men feel or speak against the
theory. But I must believe that it has more weight with us than we
are willing to admit.
But some say that the theory of immediate creation and immutability
of species is the more natural and has always been accepted, while
the theory of evolution is new and very likely to be as short-lived
as many another theory which has for a time fascinated men only to
be forgotten or ridiculed.
But the idea of evolution is as old as Hindu philosophy. The old
Ionic natural philosophers were all evolutionists. So Aristophanes,
quoting from these or Hesiod concerning the origin of things, says:
"Chaos was and Night, and Erebus black, and wide Tartarus. No earth,
nor air nor sky was yet; when, in the vast bosom of Erebus (or
chaotic darkness) winged Night brought forth first of all the egg,
from which in after revolving periods sprang Eros (Love) the much
desired, glittering with golden wings; and Eros again, in union with
Chaos, produced the brood of the human race." Here the formative
process is a birth, not a creation; it is evolution pure and simple.
"According to the ancient view," says Professor Lewis, "the present
world was a growth; it was born, it came from something antecedent,
not merely as a cause but as its seed, embryo or principium.
Plato's world was a 'zoon,' a living thing, a natural production."
Furthermore, to the ancient writers of the Bible the idea of origin
by birth from some antecedent form--and this is the essential idea
of evolution--was perfectly natural. They speak of the "generations
of the heavens and the earth" as of the "generations" of the
patriarchs. The first book of the Bible is still called Genesis, the
book of births. The writer of the ninetieth Psalm says, "Before the
mountains were born, or ever thou hadst brought to birth the earth
and the world." And what satisfactory meaning can you give to the
words, "Let the earth bring forth," and "the earth brought forth,"
in immediate proximity to the words, "and God made," unless while
the ultimate source was God's creative power, the immediate process
of formation was one of evolution.
The Bible is big and broad enough to include both ideas, the human
mind is prone to overestimate the one or the other. Traces, at
least, of a similar mode of thought persisted by the Greek Fathers
of the Church, and disappeared, if ever, with the predominance of
Latin theology. To the oriental the idea of evolution is natural.
The earth is to him no inert, resistant clod; she brings forth of
herself.
But our ancestors lived on a barren soil beneath a forbidding sky.
They were frozen in winter and parched in summer. Nature was to them
no kind foster-mother, but a cruel stepmother, training them by
stern discipline to battle with her and the world. They peopled the
earth with gnomes and cobolds and giants, and their nymphs were the
Valkyre. Their God was Thor, of the thunderbolt and hammer, and who
yet lived in continual dread of the hostile powers of Nature. A
Norse prophet or prophetess standing beside Elijah at Horeb would
have bowed down before the earthquake or the fire; the oriental
waited for the "still small voice." And we are heirs to a Latin
theology grafted on to the Thor-worship of our pagan ancestors. The
idea of a Nature producing beneficently and kindly at the word of a
loving God is foreign to all our inherited modes of thought. And our
views of the heart of Nature are about as correct as those of our
ancestors were of God. A little more of oriental tendencies of
thought would harm neither our theology nor our life.
What, then, is the biblical idea of Nature? God speaks to the earth,
in the first chapter of Genesis, and the earth responds by "giving
birth" to mountains and living beings. It is evidently no mere
lifeless, inert clod, but pulsating with life and responsive to the
divine commands. While yet a chaos it had been brooded over by the
Divine Spirit. It is like the great "wheels within wheels," with
rings full of eyes round about, which Ezekiel saw in his vision by
the river Chebar. "When the living creatures went, the wheels went
by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the
earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to
go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were
lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creatures
(or of life) was in the wheels." And above the living creatures was
the firmament and the throne of God. So Nature may be material, but
it is material interpenetrated by the divine; if you call it a
fabric, the woof may be material but the warp is God. This view
contains all the truth of materialism and pantheism, and vastly
more than they, and it avoids their errors and omissions.
To the old metaphysical hypothesis of evolution Mr. Darwin gave a
scientific basis. It had always been admitted that species were
capable of slight variation and that this divergence might become
hereditary and thus perhaps give rise to a variety of the parent
species. But it was denied that the variation could go on increasing
indefinitely, it seemed soon to reach a limit and stop. Early in the
present century Lamarck had attempted to prove that by the use and
disuse of organs through a series of generations a great divergence
might arise resulting in new species. But the theory was crude,
capable at best of but limited application, and fell before the
arguments and authority of Cuvier. The times were not ripe for such
a theory. Some fifty years later, Mr. Darwin called attention to the
struggle for existence as a means of aggregating these slight
modifications in a divergence sufficient to produce new species,
genera, or families. His argument may be very briefly stated as
follows:
1. There is in Nature a law of heredity; like begets like.
2. The offspring is never exactly like the parent; and the members
of the second generation differ more or less from one another. This
is especially noticeable in domesticated plants and animals, but no
less true of wild forms. If the parent is not exactly like the other
members of the species, some of its descendants will inherit its
peculiarities enhanced, others diminished.
3. Every species tends to increase in geometrical progression. But
most species actually increase in number very slowly, if at all. Now
and then some insect or weed escapes from its enemies, comes under
favorable food conditions, and multiplies with such rapidity that it
threatens to ravage the country. But as it multiplies it furnishes
an abundance of food for the enemies which devour it, or of food and
place for the parasites in and upon it; and they increase with at
least equal rapidity. Hence while the vanguard increases
prodigiously in numbers, because it has outrun these enemies, the
rear is continually slaughtered. And thus these plagues seem in
successive generations to march across the continent.
And yet even they give but a faint idea of the reproductive powers
of plants and animals. The female fish produces often many
thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of eggs. Insects
generally from a hundred to a thousand. Even birds, slowly as they
increase, produce in a lifetime probably at least from twelve to
twenty eggs. Now let us suppose that all these eggs developed, and
all the birds lived out their normal period of life, and reproduced
at the same rate. After not many centuries there would not be
standing room on the globe for the descendants of a single pair.
Again, of the one hundred eggs of an insect let us suppose that only
sixty develop into the first larval, caterpillar, stage. Of these
sixty, the number of members of the species remaining constant, only
two will survive. The other fifty-eight die--of starvation,
parasites, or other enemies, or from inclement weather. Now which
two of all shall survive? Those naturally best able to escape their
enemies or to resist unfavorable influences; in a word, those best
suited to their conditions, or, to use Mr. Darwin's words,
"conformed to their environment."
Now if any individual has varied so as to possess some peculiarity
which enables it even in slight degree to better escape its enemies
or to resist unfavorable conditions, those of its descendants who
inherit most markedly this peculiar quality or variation will be the
most likely to escape, those without it to perish. If a form varies
unfavorably, becomes for instance more conspicuous to its enemies,
it will almost certainly perish. Thus favorable variations tend to
increase and become more marked from generation to generation.
Now it has always been known that breeders could produce a race of
markedly peculiar form or characteristics by selecting the
individuals possessing this quality in the highest degree and
breeding only from these. The breeder depends upon heredity,
variation, and his selection of the individuals from which to breed.
Similarly in nature new species have arisen through heredity,
variation, and a selection according to the laws of nature of those
varying in conformity with their environment. And this Mr. Darwin
called natural, in contrast with the breeder's artificial,
"selection," arising from the "struggle for existence," and
resulting in what Mr. Spencer has called the "survival of the
fittest."
Let us take a single illustration. Many of the species of beetles on
oceanic islands have very rudimentary wings, or none at all, and yet
their nearest relatives are winged forms on some neighboring
continent. Mr. Darwin would explain the origin of these evidently
distinct wingless species as follows: They are descended from winged
ancestors blown or otherwise transported thither from the
neighboring continent. But beetles are slow and clumsy fliers, and
on these wind-swept islands those which flew most would be blown out
to sea and drowned. Those which flew the least, and these would
include the individuals with more poorly developed wings, would
survive. There would thus be a survival in every generation of a
larger proportion of those having the poorest wings, and destruction
of those whose wings were strong, or whose habits most active. We
have here a natural selection which must in time produce a species
with rudimentary or aborted wings, just as surely as a human
breeder, by artificial selection can produce such an animal as a pug
or a poodle. These, like sin, are a human device; nature should not
be held responsible for them.
But you may urge that the variation which would take place in a
single generation would be, as a rule, too slight to be of any
practical value to the animal, and could not be fostered by natural
selection until greatly enhanced by some other means. Let us think a
moment. If ten ordinary men run in a foot-race, the two foremost may
lead by several feet. But if the number of runners be continually
increased the finish will be ever closer until finally but an atom
more wind or muscle or pluck would make all the difference between
winning and losing the prize.
Similarly the million or more young of any species of insect in a
given area may be said to run a race of which the prize is life, and
the losing of which means literally death. The competition is
inconceivably severe. How indefinitely slight will be the difference
between the poorest of the 2,000 or 20,000 survivors and the best
of the more than 900,000 which perish. The very slightest favorable
variation may make all the difference between life and sure death.
And yet these indefinitely slight variations continued and
aggregated through ages would foot up an immense total divergence.
The chalk cliffs of England have been built up of microscopic
shells.
I have tried to give you very briefly a sketch of the essential
points of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution. But you should all read
that marvel of patience, industry, clear insight, close reasoning,
and grand honesty, the "Origin of Species." I have no time to give
the arguments in its favor or to attempt to meet the objections
which may arise in your minds. I ask you to believe only this much;
that the theory is accepted with practical unanimity by scientific
men because it, and it alone, furnishes an explanation for the facts
which they discover in their daily work. And this is the strongest
proof of the truth of any accepted theory.
Inasmuch as it is accepted by all scientists and largely by the
public, it is certainly worth your while to know whether it has any
bearing on the great moral and religious questions which you are
considering. And in these lectures I shall take for granted, what
some scientists still doubt, that man also is a product of
evolution. For the weight of evidence in favor of this view is
constantly increasing, and seems already to strongly preponderate.
Also I wish in these lectures to grant all that the most ardent
evolutionist can possibly claim. Not that I would lower man's
position, but I have a continually increasing respect for the
so-called "lower animals."
Now if the theory of evolution be true, and really only on this
condition, life has had a history; and human history began ages
before man's actual appearance on the globe, just as American
history began to be fashioned by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans
before they set foot even in England. We study history mainly to
deduce its laws; and that knowing them we may from the past forecast
the future, prepare for its emergencies, and avoid or wisely meet,
its dangers. And we rely on these laws of history because they are
the embodiment of ages of human experience.
Whatever be our system of philosophy we all practically rely on past
experience and observation. Fire burns and water drowns. This we
know, and this knowledge governs our daily lives, whatever be our
theories, or even our ignorance, of the laws of heat and
respiration. Now human history is the embodiment of the experience
of the race; and we study it in the full confidence that, if we can
deduce its laws, we can rely on racial experience certainly as
safely as on that of the individual. Furthermore, if we can discover
certain great movements or currents of human action or progress
moving steadily on through past centuries, we have full confidence
that these movements will continue in the future. The study of
history should make us seers.
But the line of human progress is like a mountain road, veering and
twisting, and often appearing to turn back upon itself, and having
many by-roads, which lead us astray. If we know but a few miles of
it we cannot tell whether it leads north or south or due west. But
if from any mountain-top we can gain a clear bird's-eye view of its
whole course, we easily distinguish the main road, its turns become
quite insignificant, we see that it leads as directly as any
engineering skill could locate it through the mountains to the
fertile plains and rich harvests beyond.
Now our knowledge of the history of man covers so brief a period
that we can scarcely more than hazard a guess as to the trend of
human progress. Many of the most promising social movements are like
by-roads which, at first less steep and difficult, end sooner or
later against impassable obstacles. And even if there be a main line
of march, advance seems to alternate with retreat, progress with
retrogression. To illustrate further, the great waves rush onward
only to fall back again, and we can hardly tell whether the tide is
flowing or ebbing.
Yet already certain tendencies appear fairly clear. Governments tend
to become democratic, if we define democracy as "any form of
government in which the will of the people finds sovereign
expression." The tendency of society seems to be toward furnishing
all its members equality of opportunity to make the most of their
natural endowments. But if we are convinced that these statements
express even vaguely the tendency of human development in all its
past history, we are confident that these tendencies will continue
in the future for a period somewhat proportional to their time of
growth in the past. If we are wise, we try to make our own lives and
actions, and those of our fellows, conform to and advance them.
Otherwise our lives will be thrown away.
But if the theory of evolution be true, human history is only the
last page of the one history of all life. If we are to gain any
adequate, true, extensive view of human progress, we must read more
than this. We must take into account the history of man when he was
not yet man. And if we believe in the future continuance of
tendencies of a few centuries' growth, we shall rest assured of the
permanence of tendencies which have grown and strengthened through
the ages.
Our confidence in the results of historical study is therefore
proportioned to the extent and thoroughness of the experience which
they record, and to the time during which these laws can be proven
to have held good. If I can make it even fairly probable that these
laws, on obedience to which human progress and success seem to
depend, are merely quoted from a grander code applicable to all life
in all times, your confidence in them will be even greater. I trust
I can prove to you that the animal kingdom has not drifted aimlessly
at the mercy of every wind and tide and current of circumstance. I
hope to show that along one line it has from the beginning through
the ages held a steady course straight onward, and that deviation
from this course has always led to failure or degeneration. From so
vast a history we may hope to deduce some of the great laws of true
success in life. Furthermore, if along this central line, at the
head of which man stands, there always has been progress, we cannot
doubt that future progress will be as certain, and perhaps far more
rapid. In all the struggle of life we shall have the sure hope of
success and victory; if not for ourselves still for those who shall
come after us. "We are saved by hope." And we may be confident that
this hope will never make us ashamed.
Finally, even from our present knowledge of the past progress of
life we shall hope to catch hints at least that man's only path to
his destined goal is the straight and narrow road pointed out in the
Bible. If in this we are even fairly successful we shall find a
relation and bond between the Bible and Science worthy of all
consideration. And this is the only agreement which can ever satisfy
us.
If I wished to bring before you a view of the development of man, I
should best choose individuals or families from various periods of
human history from the earliest times down to the present. I should
try to tell you how they looked and lived. But if anyone should
attempt to condense into three lectures such a history of even one
line of the human race, you would probably think him insane. Even if
he succeeded in giving a fairly clear view of the different stages,
the successive stages would be so remote from one another, such vast
changes would necessarily remain unnoticed or unexplained that you
would hardly believe that they could have any genetic relation or
belong to one developmental series.
But the history which I must attempt to condense for you is measured
by ages, and the successive terms of the series will be indefinitely
more remote from each other than the life and thoughts of Lincoln or
Washington from those of our most primitive Aryan ancestor or of the
rudest savage of the Stone Age. The series must appear exceedingly
disconnected. Systems of organs will apparently spring suddenly into
existence, and we shall have no time to trace their origin or
earlier development. Even if we had an abundance of time many gaps
would still remain; for the forms, which according to our theory
must have occupied their place, have long since disappeared and
left no trace nor sign. We have generally no conception at all of
the amount of extermination and degeneration which have taken place
in past ages.
I grant frankly that I do not believe that the forms which I have
selected represent exactly the ancestors of man. They have all been
more or less modified. I claim only that in the balance and relative
development of their organic systems--muscular, digestive, nervous,
etc.--they give us a very fair idea of what our ancestor at each
stage must have been. But it is on this balance and relative
development of the different systems, that is, whether an animal is
more reproductive, digestive, or nervous, that my argument will in
the main be based.
But if the older ancestors have so generally disappeared, and their
surviving relatives have been so greatly modified, how can we make
even a shrewd guess at the ancestry of higher forms? The genealogy
of the animal kingdom has been really the study of centuries,
although the earlier zoölogists did not know that this was to be the
result of their labors. The first work of the naturalist was
necessarily to classify the plants and animals which he found, and
catalogue and tabulate them so that they might be easily recognized,
and that later discovered forms might readily find a place in the
system. Hypotheses and theories were looked upon with suspicion.
"Even Linnæus," says Romanes, "was express in his limitations of
true scientific work in natural history to the collecting and
arranging of species of plants and animals." The question, "What is
it?" came first; then, "How did it come to be what it is?" We are
just awakening to the question, "Why this progressive system of
forms, and what does it all mean?"
Let us experiment a little in forming our own classification of a
few vertebrates. We see a bat flying through the air. We mistake it
for a bird. But a glance at it shows that it is a mammal. It is
covered with hair. It has fore and hind legs. Its wings are
membranes stretched between the fingers and along the sides of the
body. It has teeth. It suckles its young. In all these respects it
differs from birds. It differs from mammals only in its wings. But
we remember that flying squirrels have a membrane stretching along
the sides of the body and serving as a parachute, though not as
wings. We naturally consider the wings as a sort of after-thought
superinduced on the mammalian structure. We do not hesitate to call
it a mammal.
The whale makes us more trouble; it certainly looks remarkably like
a fish. But the fin of its tail is horizontal, not vertical. Its
front flippers differ altogether from the corresponding fins of
fish; their bones are the same as those occurring in the forelegs of
mammals, only shorter and more crowded together. Later we find that
it has lungs, and a heart with four chambers instead of only two, as
in fish. The vertebræ of its backbone are not biconcave, but flat in
front and behind. And, finally, we discover that it suckles its
young. It, too, is in all its deep-seated characteristics a mammal.
It is fish-like only in characteristics which it might easily have
acquired in adaptation to its aquatic life. And there are other
aquatic mammals, like the seals, in which these characteristics are
much less marked. Their adaptation has evidently not gone so far.
Now the first attempts resulted in artificial classifications, much
like our grouping of bats with birds and whales with fish. All
animals, like coral animals and starfishes, whose similar parts were
arranged in lines radiating from a centre, were united as radiates,
however much they might differ in internal structure and grade of
organization. But this radiate structure proved again to be largely
a matter of adaptation.
Practically all animals having a heavy calcareous shell were grouped
with the snails and oysters as mollusks. But the barnacle did not
fit well with other mollusks. Its shell was entirely different. It
had several pairs of legs; and no mollusk has legs. The barnacle is
evidently a sessile crab or better crustacean. Its molluscan
characteristics were only skin-deep, evidently an adaptation to a
mode of life like that of mollusks. The old artificial systems were
based too much on merely external characteristics, the results of
adaptation. When the internal anatomy had been thoroughly studied
their groups had to be rearranged.
Reptiles and amphibia were at first united in one class because of
their resemblance in external form. Our common salamanders look so
much like lizards that they generally pass by this name. But the
young salamander, like all amphibia, breathes by gills, its skeleton
differs greatly from, and is far weaker than, that of the lizard,
and there are important differences in the circulatory and other
systems. Moreover, practically all amphibia differ from all reptiles
in these respects. Evidently the fact that the alligator and many
snakes and turtles (of which neither the young nor the embryos ever
breathe by gills) live almost entirely in the water, is no better
reason for classifying these with amphibia than to call a whale a
fish, and not a mammal, because of its form and aquatic life.
When the comparative anatomy of fish, amphibia, and reptiles had
been carefully studied it was evident that the amphibia stood far
nearer the fish in general structure, while the higher reptiles
closely approached birds. Then it was noticed that our common fish
formed a fairly well-defined group, but that the ganoids, including
the sturgeons, gar-pikes, and some others, had at least traces of
amphibian characteristics. Such generalized forms, with the
characteristics of the class less sharply marked, were usually by
common consent placed at the bottom of the class. And this suited
well their general structure, while in particular characteristics
they were often more highly organized than higher groups of the same
class.
The palæontologist found that the oldest fossil forms belonged to
these generalized groups, and that more highly specialized
forms--that is, those in which the special class distinctions were
more sharply and universally marked--were of later geological
origin. Thus the oldest fish were most like our present ganoids and
sharks, though differing much from both. Our common teleost fish,
like perch and cod, appeared much later. The oldest bird, the
archæopteryx, had a long tail like that of a lizard, and teeth; and
thus stood in many respects almost midway between birds and
reptiles. And most of the earliest forms were "comprehensive,"
uniting the characteristics of two or more later groups. Thus as the
classification became more natural, based on a careful comparison of
the whole anatomy of the animals, its order was found to coincide in
general with that of geological succession.
Then the zoölogist began to ask and investigate how the animal grew
in the egg and attained its definite form. And this study of
embryology brought to light many new and interesting facts. Agassiz
especially emphasized and maintained the universality of the fact
that there was a remarkable parallelism between embryos of later
forms and adults of old or fossil groups. The embryos of higher
forms, he said, pass through and beyond certain stages of structure,
which are permanent in lower and older members of the same group.
You remember that the fin on the tail of a fish is as a rule
bilobed. Now the backbone of a perch or cod ends at a point in the
end of the tail opposite the angle between the two lobes, without
extending out into either of them. In the shark it extends almost to
the end of the upper lobe. Now we have seen that sharks and ganoids
are older than cod. In the embryo of the cod or perch the backbone
has, at an early stage, the same position as in the shark or ganoid;
only at a later stage does it attain its definite position.
So Agassiz says the young lepidosteus (a ganoid fish), long after it
is hatched, exhibits in the form of its tail characters thus far
known only among the fossil fishes of the Devonian period. The
embryology of turtles throws light upon the fossil chelonians. It is
already known that the embryonic changes of frogs and toads coincide
with what is known of their succession in past ages. The
characteristics of extinct genera of mammals exhibit everywhere
indications that their living representatives in early life resemble
them more than they do their own parents. A minute comparison of a
young elephant with any mastodon will show this most fully, not only
in the peculiarities of their teeth, but even in the proportion of
their limbs, their toes, etc. It may therefore be considered as
a general fact that the phases of development of all living
animals correspond to the order of succession of their extinct
representatives in past geological times. The above statements are
quoted almost word for word from Professor Agassiz's "Essay on
Classification." The larvæ of barnacles and other more degraded
parasitic crustacea are almost exactly like those of Crustacea in
general. The embryos of birds have a long tail containing almost or
quite as many vertebræ as that of archæopteryx. But most of these
never reach their full development but are absorbed into the pelvis,
or into the "ploughshare" bone supporting the tail feathers. Thus
older forms may be said to have retained throughout life a condition
only embryonic in their higher relatives. And the natural
classification gave the order not only of geological succession but
also of stages of embryonic development. Thus the system of
classification improved continually, although more and more
intermediate forms, like archæopteryx, were discovered, and certain
aberrant groups could find no permanent resting-place.
But why should the generalized comprehensive forms stand at the
bottom rather than the top of the systematic arrangement of their
classes? Why should the system of classification coincide with the
order of geologic occurrence, and this with the series of embryonic
stages? Above all, why should the embryos of bird and perch form
their tails by such a roundabout method? Why should the embryo of
the bird have the tail of a lizard? No one could give any
satisfactory explanation, although the facts were undoubted.
Mr. Darwin's theory was the one impulse needed to crystallize these
disconnected facts into one comprehensible whole. The connecting
link was everywhere common descent, difference was due to the
continual variation and divergence of their ancestors. The
classification, which all were seeking, was really the ancestral
tree of the animal kingdom. Forms more generalized should be placed
lower down on the ancestral tree, and must have had an earlier
geological occurrence because they represented more nearly the
ancestors of the higher. But this explains also the facts of
embryonic development.
According to Mr. Darwin's theory all the species of higher animals
have developed from unicellular ancestors. It had long been known
that all higher forms start in life as single cells, egg and
spermatozoon. And these, fused in the process of fertilization, form
still a single cell. And when this single cell proceeds through
successive embryonic stages to develop into an adult individual it
naturally, through force of hereditary habit, so to speak, treads
the same path which its ancestors followed from the unicellular
condition to their present point of development. Thus higher forms
should be expected to show traces of their early ancestry in their
embryonic life. Older and lower adult forms should represent
persistent embryonic stages of higher. It could not well be
otherwise.
But the path which the embryo has to follow from the egg to the
adult form is continually lengthening as life advances ever higher.
From egg to sponge is, comparatively speaking, but a step; it is a
long march from the egg to the earthworm; and the vertebrate embryo
makes a vast journey. But embryonic life is and must remain short.
Hence in higher forms the ancestral stages will often be slurred
over and very incompletely represented. And the embryo may, and
often does, shorten the path by "short-cuts" impossible to its
original ancestor. Still it will in general hold true, and may be
recognized as a law of vast importance, that any individual during
his embryonic life repeats very briefly the different stages through
which his ancestors have passed in their development since the
beginning of life. Or, briefly stated, ontogenesis, or the embryonic
development of the individual, is a brief recapitulation of
phylogenesis, or the ancestral development of the phylum or group.
The illustration and proof of this law is the work of the
embryologist. We have time to draw only one or two illustrations
from the embryonic development of birds. We have already seen that
the embryonic bird has the long tail of his reptilian ancestor. In
early embryonic life it has gill-slits leading from the pharynx to
the outside of the neck like those through which the water passes in
the respiration of fish. The Eustachian tube and the canal of the
external ear of man, separated only by the "drum," are nothing but
such an old persistent gill-slit. No gills ever develop in these,
but the great arteries run to them, and indeed to all parts of the
embryo, on almost precisely the same general plan as in the adult
fish. Only later is the definite avian circulation gradually
acquired.
This law is even more strikingly illustrated in the embryonic
development of the vertebral column and skull, if we had time to
trace their development. And the development of the excretory system
points to an ancestor far more primitive than even the fish. Our
embryonic development is one of the very strongest evidences of our
lowly origin.
Thus we have three sources of information for the study of animal
genealogy. First, the comparative anatomy of all the different
groups of animals; second, their comparative embryology; and third,
their palæontological history. Each source has its difficulties or
defects. But taken all together they give us a genealogical tree
which is in the main points correct, though here and there very
defective and doubtful in detail. The points in which we are left
most in doubt in regard to each ancestor are its modes of life and
locomotion, and body form. But these may temporarily vary
considerably without affecting to any great extent the general plan
of structure and the line of development of the most important
deep-seated organs.
I have chosen a line composed of forms taken from the comparative
anatomical series. All such present existing forms have probably
been modified during the lapse of ages. But I shall try to tell you
when they have diverged noticeably from the structure of the
primitive ancestor of the corresponding stage. It is much safer for
us to study concrete, actual forms than imaginary ones, however real
may have been the former existence of the latter. And, after all,
their lateral divergence is of small account compared with the great
upward and onward march of life, to the right and left of which they
have remained stationary or retrograded somewhat, like the tribes
which remained on the other side of Jordan and never entered the
Promised Land.
To recapitulate: Our question is the Whence and the Whither of man.
To this question the Bible gives a clear and definite answer. Can
Science also give an answer, and is this in the main in accord with
the answer of Scripture? Science can answer the question only by the
historical method of tracing the history of life in the past and
observing the goal toward which it tends. If the evolution theory be
true, the record of human achievement and progress forms only one
short chapter in the history of the ages. If from the records of
man's little span of life on the globe we can deduce laws of history
on whose truth we can rely, with how much greater confidence and
certainty may we rely on laws which have governed all life since its
earliest appearance?--always provided that such can be found.
Our first effort must therefore be to trace the great line of
development through a few of its most characteristic stages from the
simplest living beings up to man. This will be our work in the three
succeeding lectures. And to these I must ask you to bring a large
store of patience. Anatomical details are at best dry and
uninteresting. But these dry facts of anatomy form the foundation on
which all our arguments and hopes must rest.
But if you will think long and carefully even of anatomical facts,
you will see in and behind them something more and grander than
they. You will catch glimpses of the divinity of Nature. Most of us
travel threescore years and ten stone-blind in a world of marvellous
beauty. Why does the artist see so much more in every fence-corner
and on every hill-side than we, set face to face with the grandest
landscapes? Primarily, I believe, because he is sympathetic, and
looks on Nature as a comrade as near and dear as any human sister
and companion. As Professor Huxley has said, "they get on rarely
together." She speaks to the artist; to us she is dumb, and ought to
be, for we are boorishly careless of her and her teachings.
Nature, to be known, must be loved. And though you have all the
knowledge of a von Humboldt, and do not love her, you will never
understand her or her teachings. You will go through life with her,
and yet parted from her as by an adamantine wall.
I do not suppose that the author of the book of Job had ever studied
geology, or mineralogy, or biology, but read him, and see whether
this old prince of scientific heroes had loved, and understood, and
caught the spirit of Nature. And what a grand, free spirit it was,
and what a giant it made of him. I do not believe that Paul ever had
a special course of anatomy or botany. But if he had not pondered
long and lovingly on the structure of his body, and the germination
of the seed, he never could have written the twelfth and fifteenth
chapters of the first letter to the Corinthians. And time fails to
speak of David and all the writers of the Psalms, and of those
heroic souls misnamed the "Minor" Prophets.
Study the teachings of our Lord. How he must have considered the
lilies of the field, and that such a tiny seed as that of the
mustard could have produced so great an herb, and noticed and
thought on the thorns and the tares and the wheat, and watched the
sparrows, and pondered and wondered how the birds were fed. All his
teaching was drawn from Nature. And all the study in the world could
never have taught him what he knew, if it had not been a loving and
appreciative study.
There is one strange and interesting passage in John's Gospel, xv.
1: "I am the true vine." My father used to tell us that the Greek
word [Greek: alêthinê], rendered true, is usually employed of the
genuine in distinction from the counterfeit, the reality in
distinction from the shadow and image. Is not this perhaps the clew
to our Lord's use of natural imagery? Nature was always the
presentation to his senses of the divine thought and purpose. He
studied the words of the ancient Scripture, he found the same words
and teachings clearly and concretely embodied in the processes of
Nature. The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower was no mere
play of fancy to him; it was the genuine and fundamental truth,
deeper and more real than the existence of the sower, the soil, and
the seed. The spiritual truth was the substance; the tangible soil
and seed really only the shadow. And thus all Nature was to him
divine.
We all of us need to offer the prayer of the blind man, "Lord, that
our eyes may be opened." Let us learn, too, from the old heathen
giant, Antæus, who, after every defeat and fall, rose strengthened
and vivified from contact with his mother Earth. You will experience
in life many a desperate struggle, many a hard fall. There is at
such times nothing in the world so strengthening, healing, and
life-giving as the thoughts and encouragements which Nature pours
into the hearts and minds of her loving disciples. She will set you
on your feet again, infused with new life, filled with an
unconquerable spirit, with unfaltering courage, and an iron will to
fight once more and win. In every battle her inspiring words will
ring in your ears, and she will never fail you. We may not see her
deepest realities, her rarest treasures of thought and wisdom; but
if we will listen lovingly for her voice, we may be assured that she
will speak to us many a word of cheer and encouragement, of warning
and exhortation. For, to paraphrase the language of the nineteenth
Psalm, "She has no speech nor language, her voice is not heard. But
her rule is gone out throughout all the earth, and her words to the
end of the world."