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DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.
BY
FREDERICK MILLAR.
ISSUED FOR THE
London
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St.
1
Price One Penny.
��DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT.
Previous to the year 1859 the state of scientific opinionupon the process of development of the organic world,
was one of chaos; men of science were groping in thedark. Everyone who rejected the special creation hypo
thesis found himself in the curious predicament of being,
unable to propose anything in the shape of a theory
which would be acceptable to reasoning minds. Tothe question asked of the Rationalist by the believer in
special creation, “ What have you to propose that can.
be accepted by any cautious reasoner ?” no satisfactory
answer could be given. Professor Huxley says that in
1857 he had no answer ready, and he does not think
any one else had.
*
Darwin came, and there was light. -- From his quiet
Kentish home he launched upon an astonished world
“ The Origin of Species.” The book was a beacon fire,
dispelling the darkness and guiding the benighted.
Throughout the world it shone, illumining the minds of
men with rays of scientific thought.
- During the thirty years which have elapsed since the
publication of “ The Origin of Species”—since the phi
losophy of Evolution presented itself as claimant to,
and seated itself upon, “ the throne of the world of
thought ”—a most remarkable and far-reaching change
has taken place in the religious views of the thinking
section of Christendom. Indeed, history affords no
parallel to the great revolution in religious thought which
has been effected by Darwinism. But yesterday the
creation story in Genesis was accepted even by educated
�2
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
men as unquestionably true; to-day it is regarded as an ex
ploded legend. But yesterday a belief in the government
of the world by a special providence received an all but
universal consent; to-day it is rejected by every thought
ful man as a worthless dogma. But yesterday the timehonoured argument from design in nature satisfied the
majority of thinking people; to-day, in the light of the
law of natural selection, it completely fails to do so.
But yesterday God was conceived to be a terrestrial
potentate who governed the world in accordance with
his own caprice, who moved
“....... in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,”
and who listened to and answered prayer; to-day God
is the inscrutable power by which “ planets gravitate
and stars shine,” who moves in fixed and immutable
natural laws, and who heeds neither the cry of the
oppressed and the down-trodden, the starving widow
and her orphans, nor the death agony of the countless
millions of creatures who perish annually in the in
exorable struggle for existence which is going on in the
animal world.
It is quite true that many persons, indeed the majority,
calling themselves religious continue to believe in the
superstition and the dogma which Darwinism has ex
ploded. By far the larger proportion of those who make
up the various sects and denominations in Christendom
are of the unthinking class. Born of Christian parents
in a country where Christianity is the popular religion,
they are Christian for just the same reason that they
would have been Mohammedan had they been born in
Turkey, Brahman if in Hindustan, Confucian if in
China. Their so-called belief in the Christian faith is
due solely to geographical antecedents, and not to any
well-reasoned conviction. They never think, study, or
inquire for themselves, but remain content in their own
ignorance, and satisfied with their own credulity. Those
of their co-religionists who do think for themselves inev
itably become heterodox upon most, if not upon all, of
the points of Christianity. And nothing has had such a
vast and stimulating effect upon the minds of the
thoughtful members of Christian sects, nothing has so
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
3
largely contributed t© the swelling of the ranks of hete
rodoxy, as the theory discovered and popularised by
Darwin, and which bears his name.
Anterior to Darwin the belief that species were realities,
that the various forms of animal and plant life had
always been as distinct and separate as they are now,
and that all originated by special creation, was held
firmly on every hand. Man was regarded as a creature
apart by himself; and the human family was believed
to be a separate family. Christians believed that, at
a period not more remote than six thousand years,
Jehovah, the tribal deity of the Jews, had devoted a
week to creating all things. He said, “ Let us make
man ;” and he made man “ of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.” To disbelieve the account of
creation given by Moses was at once a crime and a
blasphemy, punishable by imprisonment, at one time
death, in this world, and eternal damnation in the next.
But what a change has taken place ! The whole scien
tific and literary world, which held a belief in special
creation in common with the religious world, even the
whole educated public, now accepts, says Dr. Wallace,
“ as a matter of common knowledge, the origin of species
from other allied species by the ordinary process of
natural birth. The idea of special creation or any alto
gether exceptional mode of production is absolutely
extinct.”*
Man and all the higher forms of life upon our globe
are simply the modified descendants of lower forms.
The belief that man was created in the image of God,
that he was aboriginally placed at the top of the organic
scale, and that God gave to him dominion over the
whole animal world, can no longer be held by anyone
who desires to be considered educated. The relation
of man to what is vulgarly termed the brute creation has
been so conclusively established as to completely dispose
of every argument advanced in favour of his divine
origin. “ The mode of origin,” says Professor Huxley,
“and the early stages of development of man are
* “ Darwinism,” p. 9.
�4
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
identical with those of the animals immediately below
him in the scale.” The essential features of agreement
between the structure of man’s body, the close corres
pondence of his blood, muscles, nerves, the struc
ture of his heart, its veins and arteries, his lungs
and his whole respiratory and circulatory systems, with
those of other mammals; the fact that his senses are
identical with theirs, and that his organs of sense are the
same in number and occupy the same relative position ;
*
the possession of rudiments of organs which are fully
developed in other mammals ; the fact of certain diseases
being common to man and other mammals, and that
medical treatment produces precisely the same effect
upon us as upon them, thus showing that our whole
nervous system is the same as theirs :f these, and a
thousand and one equally striking facts given by Darwin,
point to but one conclusion—that man, together with
the animals which are most nearly allied to him, have
descended from a common ancestor.
Seeing that Darwinism deliberately cancelled the theo
logical dogma of creation founded upon the story in
Genesis, it would have been strange indeed had not
those who were paid to defend it, and the creed of which
it is the foundation, assailed it in a manner consistent
with the traditions of their cloth. The historic foes of
truth did just that which one would expect of them
in the circumstances. Powerless to deal with Darwin
in true Christian fashion—to throw him into a dungeon
as their predecessors did Galileo, or to burn him at the
stake as in the case of Giordano Bruno—powerless to con
fiscate and burn his book, the representatives of mental
darkness had to content themselves with making every
pulpit in Christendom ring with yells of pious derision.
For discovering the law of natural selection, for proving
the animal origin of man, Darwin was denounced as a
fool and a blasphemer, in just the same way as was
Galileo for teaching that the world was round, and that
it moved, in opposition to the sanctified ignorance of
the Church of Christ, which proclaimed that the world
* Wallace’s “ Darwinism,” pp. 445, 446.
+ “ Descent of Man,” p. 7.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
5
was flat and stationary. As Huxley says, the priests
and parsons eked out lack of reason by superfluity of
railing. The case of the curate who was overheard
roundly abusing Darwin and all his works, and who was
gsked if he had read “ The Origin of Species,” or had
taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with the
theory he abused, replied, with clasped hands and the
whites of his eyes turned in the direction of the empty
part of his head, “ No; and I pray to God that I never
shall,” is a good sample of Darwin’s clerical opponents.
But the yelling and the railing have long ceased.
Confronted by unmistakeable evidence that Darwinism
was being accepted by all educated people—by all who
had brains to think and judgment to decide for them
selves—its impotent priestly detractors thought it best
to see if it were not possible for them to go with the
tide, and to patch up their exploded creed in such a
manner as to enable them to maintain their dominion
over the heads and the pockets of the masses of the
people. They have now taken refuge in one of two
courses, says Huxley : they either deny that Genesis
was meant to teach scientific truth, and thus save the
veracity of the record at the expense of its authority; or
they expend their energies in devising the crude in
genuities of the reconciler, and torture texts in the vain
hope of making them confess the creed of science. But
when the peine forte et dure is over, the antique sincerity
of the venerable sufferer always re-asserts itself. Genesis
is honest to the core, and professes to be no more than
it is—a repository of venerable traditions of unknown
origin, claiming no scientific authority, and possessing
*
none.
There is no getting away from the fact that Darwinism
has completely exploded the Christian creed. Upon the
story in Genesis of man’s creation and fall rests the
whole superstructure of the popular religious faith of
Europe. The veracity of that story has been impeached,
and all history and scientific analogy point to its falsity,
.and stamp it as a mere interesting legend, having no
* Vide Huxley’s chapter, “ On the Reception of ‘ The Origin of
Species,”’ in “ Darwin’s Life and Letters.”
�6
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
further value than to illustrate the manner in which
men in the childhood of the human race explained the
mystery of existence. Take away the story in Genesis,
and the Christian creed becomes at once a huge and ludic
rous imposture. This fact,'however, is far from being
generally realised, even by Darwinians themselves. The
writer recently met with a typical illustration of this;
An enthusiastic disciple of Darwin was still a member
of the sect of Wesleyans, and a regular attendant at.
a Wesleyan chapel. On the manifest incongruity of
Wesleyanism and Darwinism being pointed out to him
—when it was explained to him that, the story of the
creation and the fall of man being false, therefore the
sacrifice of Jesus as an atonement for a sin which was
never committed became a farce, he exclaimed : “ Good
heavens! what a fool I have been not to realise this
before.” And the following week there was a pew to
let in the Wesleyan chapel at which he had been an
attendant and a worshipper.
It is only by grasping the full significance of Darwin
ism that its bearing upon Christianity can be understood.
There are thousands to-day attending so-called places of“
worship and calling themselves orthodox Christians who,
if they would only put this and that together, so to
speak, and compare their scientific convictions with their
theological preconceptions, would find themselves in
the same position as the gentleman referred to above;
Take the case of Darwin himself.
He tells us that during the years 1836 to 1839 he
*
was led to think much about religion. When on board
the Beagle he was quite orthodox. But he gradually
came to see that the Old Testament was no more to be
trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The
question continually arose in his mind, and would not
be banished: Is it credible that, if God were now to
make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it
to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, etc., as
Christianity is connected with the Old Testament?
This appeared to him incredible. By further reflection
upon the matter he saw that the clearest evidence would
* “ Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” vol. i., pp. 304-317.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. ■
7
be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles
by which Christianity is supported, and that the more
men knew of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible
miracles became. He saw that the men who wrote the
Bible were ignorant and credulous to a degree ; that the
gospels upon which the Christian Church placed so
much reliance could not be proved to have been written
simultaneously with the events; and that they differed
in many important details—far too important, it seemed
to him, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye
witnesses. And by such reflections as these, he adds,
“ I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a
Divine revelation.”
It may be well to point out here that the oft-repeated
statement, that Darwin was an Atheist, is untrue. There
is not the smallest ground upon which to justify such a
statement being made. Darwin was never an Atheist,
in the sense of denying the existence of a God. His
attitude towards the question of God was identical with
that of all the leading men in science and philosophy of
the present century : it was Agnostic. “ The mystery
of the beginning of all things is insoluble to us,” said
he; “ and I, for one, must be content to remain an
Agnostic.” He had no sympathy with the intellectually
unsustainable theory of Atheism, and said : “ An Agnostic
would be the most correct description of my state of
mind.” Again : “ The whole subject of the existence
of God is beyond the scope of man’s intellect; but man
can do his duty.”
Darwinism is not Atheistic, as it is often alleged to
be. It is not even antagonistic to Theism, except in so
far as it exposes the absurdity of the theological aspect
of that theory. Moreover, it may be urged that Dar
winism, although essentially Agnostic in regard to the
nature and attributes of God, is distinctly Theistic in
character, inasmuch as Darwinians, with few and for
the most part unimportant exceptions, hold that the
process of evolution is the way in which God (the in
scrutable power which the universe manifests to us) has
made things come to pass, and has brought forth man
as the highest and noblest specimen of its handiwork.
The effect which Darwinism has had upon the central
�8
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
and vital point of Christianity—the immortality of man’s
soul—is enormous. Theology and metaphysics, both
regarding man as a special creation, as a being with a
distinct nature and attributes, had done something more
than merely affirm the immortality of the soul: they
had insisted upon it as the greatest of facts. That God
had revealed a future life for man was no more doubted
than was the veracity of the multiplication-table.
But in this belief Darwinism does not share. Regard
ing man in his real character, as a highly-developed
animal, whose moral and intellectual attributes are
simply the result of evolution, Darwinism holds out not
even the shadow of a hope that there is anything in
the shape of a conscious existence beyond the grave.
Indeed, the trend of scientific thought upon the question
is distinctly in the direction of declaring the doctrine of
a future life to be at once inconceivable and insup
portable.
There are, it is true, many believers in Darwinism '
who refuse to accept what is called the Materialistic view
of man’s destiny—that the life of the soul ends with the
life of the body. Assuming a purpose in the world—
and the assumption is one not necessarily incongruous
with the doctrine of Evolution—they refuse to believe
that the work which has been done in evolving man
“has been done for nothing;” they refuse, as Professor
Fiske puts it, “ to regard the Creator’s work as like that
of a child who builds houses of blocks, just for the
pleasure of knocking them downand, although they
admit that, for aught Science can tell us, it may be so,
yet they “ see no good reason for believing any such
thing.”*
It must not be understood that Darwinism sanctions
a denial of the immortality of the soul. It only renders
it impossible to dogmatise upon either one or the other
side of the question. As for a revelation, that may be
dismissed as no longer worthy of serious argument, or
of the attention of serious minds. But “ as for a future
life,” says Darwin, “everyman must judge for himself
between conflicting vague probabilities,” No one can
* “ Man’s Destiny,” p. 114.
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
9
reasonably object to a man believing in the immortality
of the soul (that is to say, believing that he believes in
the immortality of the soul; for belief properly so-called
in such a thing is absolutely impossible) so long as he
does not insist upon his “belief” being regarded as
anything more than a mere act of faith. The attitude
of the intellectual mind upon the question must ever
remain one of agnosticism.
If Darwinism has robbed man of his hope in a future
life, it has more than compensated him in that it has
given to him a higher hope and a deeper interest in the
present life. It has effectually disposed of the theo
logical dogma of man’s fall—a dogma which was a
wretched libel on humanity; and it has convinced
man that he is a risen and not a fallen creature, a re
generate and not a degenerate being. It has made him
feel that human progress is not a miserable sham, but a
grand reality; and it has shown to him a nobler view of
human existence, and given to him the promise of a
higher destiny in the future.
This essay ought not to close without reference being
made to the new conception of morality introduced by
Darwinism. Morality is so closely identified with re
ligion, if indeed it may not be regarded as inseparable
from religion (using the term “ religion ” in its widest
sense), that it would be strange if the totally-changed
conception of man’s place in nature should not have
produced along with it a corresponding change in man’s
conception of conduct.
The theological conception of morality, a conception
■which was general before the Darwinian era, was that all
human conduct must be regulated in accordance with
the will of a supposed Deity as declared in the Bible.
All mankind were inherently depraved in consequence
of Adam, the first man, disobeying Jehovah’s command.
And the conduct of every man and woman must be
directed, not towards pleasing themselves, not towards
their own happiness, but towards pleasing and gratifying
the Deity who would reward good conduct by everlasting
felicity, and punish bad conduct by eternal misery. A
man was not exhorted to lead a righteous life because
it was to his earthly interest to do so, but because
�IO
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
righteousness was pleasing in the eyes of the Deity.The same crude ideas of morality and conduct still'
obtain among certain unprogressive religious sects.That portion of the Christian community which believesin moral and religious progress on the lines of Rational
ism has long since abandoned such, as being at once'
childish and incongruous with the established facts of
science and history.
That Christianity exercises an enormous influence in
the interests of morality cannot be denied. There are
hundreds of thousands of men and women living in our
midst to-day the outward morality of whose lives isentirely due to the fact of their minds being under the
influence of Christian dogma. The bribe of an eternal
Paradise on the one hand, and the threat of everlasting
damnation on the other, restrain these men and women
from following their own evil inclinations and adopting
the vices of society. And there can be no doubt that,in the absence of such restraint, the criminality in this
and other civilised lands would be considerably greater
than it is at present. But, while admitting all this, it
remains to be said that the position taken up on the
general question of morality and religion by certain
writers of eminence, who protest that the cancelling of
theological dogmas, and the substitution of a Rationalist
philosophy in the place of a supernatural faith, are
certain to undermine and overthrow morality, is one
w’hich is both absurd and untenable. Morality does
not depend on the acceptance of theological dogmas, or
on a belief in a particular phase of religious faith, but
on the very laws and conditions of life; and while the
observance of these laws and conditions continues it
matters little, if anything, what the religious or theo
logical bias of mankind may be. The laws which govern
the moral life are as eternal and immutable as those
which govern physical being; and in just the same way
as a breach of physical law results in pain or in death,
so also a breach of moral law results in unhappiness and
evil.
Darwinism has placed the whole question of human
conduct upon a firm and comprehensive basis. It has
revealed man in his real character as a social animal,
�DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
11
explained how his progenitors became social, and has
shed a flood of light upon the origin and development
of man’s moral sense or conscience.
*
Moral science
has enabled us to determine with exactness and preci
sion how and why certain conduct is good and certain
other conduct bad. (Good conduct consists in a
course of action which results in the well-being and
happiness of the individual and of the race; bad
conduct consists in a course of action which results
in evil and pain.) It has defined morality as being a
condition which makes social life possible, and it has
enabled us to deduce from the laws of social life and
the conditions of social existence what kinds of action
necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds
to produce unhappiness.f Happiness, considered as
the ultimate aim of human life, has been made more
possible of realisation by the new conception of morality
which Darwinism has introduced. And while the theo
logical dogma of man’s inherent depravity, and his
inability to do good without the help of a Deity who
cursed the human race, has been finally disposed of,
science has clearly demonstrated man’s capacity for
virtue and for moral progress, and has made it possible
to accept as a logical certainty that not only the moral
but also the physical and mental perfectibility of man
will eventually be attained.
There are, of course, those, preferring to dwell in the
realms of illusion and unreality rather than give credence
to the teachings of science, to whom the immeasurable
effect which Darwinism has had upon religious thought
will ever appear as a matter for deep lamentation. But
to thinking men and women, to those who are prepared
to fearlessly embrace the truth and to conform to the
realities of human life, it must always be a subject
for great rejoicing. The theological libel, of man’s hope
less degeneracy, has been exposed and exploded; and
the clarion voice of Science has proclaimed that man
has risen—risen from barbarism to civilisation, from
*
“Descent of Man,” pp. 97-127.
+ Vide Herbert Spencer’s letter to J. S. Mill in Bain’s “ Mental
and Moral Science,” pp. 721, 722.
�12
DARWINISM AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT,
ignorance to enlightenment, from depravity to culture.
And while the past history of man has been revealed to
us, and the present life has been rid of the doubts and
the fears which for ages had overshadowed it, we have
been afforded a glimpse of the hopeful future that
lies before our race. Just as we believe that the
present generation excels in moral dignity and intel
lectual grandeur the generations that preceded it, so
must we believe that, assuming the human race con
tinues and the conditions of life remain the same, future
generations shall excel all that precede them. As
Emerson has said, we are but at the cockcrowing of
civilisation. The day of Humanity has hardly dawned.
In the great light of its glorious noontide, when the
brute inheritance will be finally thrown off, and when
manhood and womanhood shall be developed in all
their fullness and in all their beauty, then will the
religion of human love and human duty, to which the
intellectual movement of the present century has given
birth, find a living utterance in every heart and in everv
mind.
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Darwinism and religious thought
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Millar, Frederick [1865-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. 'The blasphemy depot'. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Advertisement for the Propagandist Press Committee and the Liberty of Bequests Committee inside back cover. inside back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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[1891]
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N487
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Evolution
Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Darwinism and religious thought), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Darwinism
Evolution-Religious Aspects-Christianity
NSS
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PROFESSOR HAECKEL
AND HIS PHILOSOPHY1
By
the
Rev. JOHN GERARD, S.J.
We are constantly assured that it is the first prin
ciple of science to take nothing on faith or authority,
and that we are bound to believe only what we can
prove by our own reason. It is evident, however,
that a large number of those who boast of being
above all things scientific, and who style themselves
“ rationalists,” as going by reason more than others,
rely in fact not on it but on the authority of men
whose word they are content to take for what they do
not and cannot ascertain for themselves ; so that their
professed scientific creed is found to resolve itself
into blind acceptance of the teaching of a master.
It is of course undeniable that submission to
authority is right and proper, as a means of attaining
to the truth, and is even truly scientific—as in
many instances it is actually necessary—but only in
cases in which we have reasonably convinced our
selves that such authority is good and capable of teach
ing what for ourselves we cannot learn. Accordingly,
when we are told to submit to the teaching of a
master, the first question must be as to his qualifica
tions, and unless we find good reason to believe that
he may be trusted, we should act irrationally in
taking him as our guide, philosopher, and friend.
Amongst those to whom this office is now widely
1 Reprinted from The Month for October,
iqio.
�2
Professor Haeckel
assigned, none is so much in evidence as Professor
Ernst Haeckel, of Jena. No doubt, in his own
country his authority is largely on the wane, and
amongst real men of science it has never been
seriously regarded. But, as it is cynically said, bad
German philosophies come to England after they
are dead, and amongst the mass of our public it is
generally supposed that in his Riddle of the Universe,
is to be found the last word of Science concerning
all things divine and human, so that armed with this
the man in the street is competent to confute all the
philosophers and theologians who have so long
striven to keep mankind in the dark. This,
“ Haeckel’s Great Work,” is scattered broadcast at
the price of a few pence, so as to be within the
reach of all, and we are exultingly informed, as
though it were a conclusive testimony to its value,
that it is selling by hundreds of thousands ; which at
least certainly shows how wide is its influence. It is
therefore necessary strictly to examine how far this
famous work merits the character which it is sought
to ascribe to it, and how far its author deserves to
be taken as a genuine representative of science in
the conclusions which his readers are bidden to
accept. To such an inquiry, however rigorously
conducted, Professor Haeckel cannot properly
object; for no one is more outspoken than he in
his criticism of all with whom he does not agree.
His mode of arguing with opponents we should be
sorry to emulate, but it will be needful clearly to
exhibit what his method is.
Professor Otto Hamann thus introduces our whole
subject :—1
Why, it will be asked, do you, at this time of day, undertake
to combat this ‘ Champion of Darwinism ’ ? Has not the man
1 E. Haeckel mid seine Kampfwcise, p. 2.
�and his Philosophy
3
been long ago found guilty of untruths ever afresh charged
against him, of which his own works are evidence ? True, I
reply, so it is ; but the great public cannot conceive and com
prehend that all which is proffered by Haeckel as fact and
truth is fancy, or at best hypothesis. Moreover, he is the
leader of an entire school, and his words have greater influ
ence than those of any other professor, however great a
favourite.”
Amongst the articles of human belief there are none
against which Professor Haeckel declares war more
fiercely, or which he assails with greater obloquy,
than God, and Christianity, and the Immortality of
our souls, against which he exerts his controversial
methods to the full. God Himself, he defines as
“ a gaseous vertebrate/’ in which it is hard to find
either point, or humour, or even sense. As to
Christianity, it will be sufficient to give a specimen,
though we must be allowed to omit the most
outrageous of all, an offensive and utterly baseless
slander concerning the paternity of Christ. It will be
enough to consider what he tells us concerning the
four Gospels :—1
“As to the four canonical gospels [he writes],'we now know
that they were selected from a host of contradictory and forged
manuscripts of the first three centuries, by the 318 bishops who
assembled at the Council of Nicaea in 327. The entire list of
gospels numbered forty ; the canonical list contains four. As
the contending and mutually abusive bishops could not agree
about the choice, they determined to leave the selection to
a miracle. They put all the books (according to the Synodicon
of Pappus'), together underneath the altar, and prayed that
the apocryphal books, of human origin, might remain there,
and the genuine inspired books might be miraculously placed
on the table of the Lord. And this, says tradition, really
occurred.”
But, as is acknowledged by Haeckel’s devoted
disciple, Mr. Joseph McCabe,2 there is not a word
of truth in the above account of the matter. Tradi
tion says nothing of the kind. The story of the
Synodicon “ is not to be taken seriously,” and “ is
1 Riddle, p. no.
2 Haeckel's Critics Answered, p. 83.
�4
Professor Haeckel
not worthy of consideration ; ” “ the Canon of the
Gospels was substantially settled long before the
Council of Nicaea.” Moreover, Pappus was not
the author of the Synodicon, but only the editor.
Nevertheless, in the opinion of this apologist, the
authority of Professor Haeckel is nowise impaired
by the exhibition he thus makes of himself. For,
it is argued, he never pretends to be a theologian
or ecclesiastical historian, and 11 here was on the face
of it a department of thought where no one will
suspect him to have spent much of his valuable
time.” Accordingly (it is said), to found a serious
charge on this count is simply “ ludicrous.”
But is it not quite plain that if Haeckel knew
nothing on the subject, he should have said nothing,
and should not have adopted the positive and
supercilious tone which we heard above, and from
which readers must inevitably suppose that he had
taken at least ordinary pains to learn the truth. A
very slight expenditure of his valuable time, and
the use of an elementary text-book, would have
saved him from volunteering such a display of
ignorance.
In confirmation of what he writes upon the above
subject, as also upon the still more objectionable
matter to which reference has been made, Professor
Haeckel cites “ Saladin,” the pseudonym of a scur
rilous English free-thinker, to whom nobody who
has any knowledge of such things would attach the
least importance ; and as Mr. McCabe again con
fesses, u Haeckel had been wholly misinformed as
to his standing in this country, and thus had been
betrayed into a reliance on what he understood to
be his expert knowledge.” But then, we are told,
Professor Haeckel ‘‘has acknowledged his defects,
and has inserted in the cheap German edition of his
�and his Philosophy
5
work a notification that the authority he followed
was unsound,” which is seemingly thought to clear
him from blame. Something more should, however,
be mentioned. While in later English editions
which circulate where something is probably known
concerning “ Saladin,” the passages dealing with
his Scripture history are suppressed, and re-written
by Mr. McCabe himself ; in those destined for
German readers, “ Saladin ” is still presented as a
good authority, and one of his most disreputable
productions specially indicated as an authority, is
described by Haeckel as “ an admirable work, the
study of which cannot be too strongly recommended
to every honest and truth-seeking theologian.” In
all this it is not easy to discover that delicate regard
for truth which should characterize the genuine man
of science.
But after all, it will probably be said, these are
matters comparatively trivial and beside the actual
question. It is to his pre-eminent position in the
domain of science that the authority of Professor
Haeckel is due, and it is because of its supremely
scientific character that his famous Riddle, as we
are assured,1 “ is unanswered, because it is un
answerable.”
Now, unquestionably, Professor Haeckel is in his
own department a scientific authority of the first
order, and his researches into the life history of
calcareous sponges, radiolaria, medusae, and other
lower forms of life, combined with his accomplished
draughtsmanship, give him every right to speak as
a master on such subjects ; while even as to other
branches of zoology it would be improper to deny
him a respectful hearing. But, unfortunately, it is
with no such matters that his famous book generally
1 Translator’s Preface (cheap edition).
�6
.
Professor Haeckel
deals. Of the Riddle, less than one-sixth part treats
of what by any stretch of language can be described
as science at all, and still less of that branch of
science which Haeckel can claim as his own.
“ Science,” as the term is now understood, is con
fined to that which we can observe or with
which we can make experiments; whereas the
Riddle deals with what is eternal, illimitable,
and infinite, about which, therefore, we may specu
late or philosophize, but cannot learn anything
by “ scientific ” methods. But, as is evident,
the most accomplished zoologist is not necessarily
on that account a trustworthy guide as a philoso
pher ; as to the philosophical doctrines, therefore,
which form the great bulk of Professor Haeckel’s
book, we must estimate their value quite in
dependently of his scientific reputation, and we shall speedily find itestimony on the philosophical
side which manifestly is due to no theological pre
possessions against him. Thus Professor Paulsen,
of Berlin, whom none will accuse of being a clerical
partisan, concludes a careful examination of the
Riddle in these terms :—
“ I have read this book with burning shame ; shame for the
condition of our people in general and philosophic culture,
that such a work should be possible, that it should be produced,
printed, bought, read, and admired amongst a people that has
had a Kant, a Goethe, and a Schopenhauer—this is truly
lamentable.
J
Moieover, as to “science ” itself, strictly so called,
that upon which Haeckel chiefly insists, and wherein
he discovers evidence for the principles which he
regards as of supreme moment, is not within his own
piovince of Zoology, but in that of Physics, where he
can make no claim to be more of an expert than in
Philosophy itself. It is here, nevertheless, that he
finds the famous “ Law of Substance,” which as he
�and his Philosophy
J
declares/ “ has become the pole-star that guides our
monistic Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth
to a solution of the world-problem.”
But here the physicists, in their turn, are not at
all inclined to assent to his doctrine.
Professor
Chwolson, of the University of St. Petersburg, thus
writes :—2
“ We had set ourselves the task to inquire how Haeckel
behaves towards the Twelfth Commandment [‘Thou shalt
never write of aught about which thou knowest nothing ’] ;
whether in regard of scientific questions which lie outside his
special branch, he exhibits that thoroughness and deep serious
ness which have made him one of the great leaders in his own
line ; or whether, slighting this Commandment, he writes of
matters concerning which he has no glimmer of an idea. To
settle this question we carefully studied all that the Riddle con
tains concerning Physics. Material there was in plenty, for
questions of Physics play a large part in the book, and one of
these is for the author the sure Lodestar guiding his philosophy
through the mighty labyrinth of the world problems. The result
of our examination is startling, not to say astounding. Every
thing— yes, everything — touching physical questions which
Haeckel says, expounds, or affirms, is wrong ; is grounded on mis
understanding, or exhibits an almost incredible ignorance of the
most elementary points. Even of the law which he declares to
be the ‘ Lodestar ’ of his philosophy he has not the most elemen
tary school-boy knowledge ; and, on the strength of such entire
ignorance, he is prepared to demonstrate and declare that the
very foundation of modern Physics must be renounced as
unsound.”
Our own distinguished physicist, Sir Oliver Lodge,
is no more favourable to the views of Professor
Haeckel, and has devoted a special treatise 3 to their
refutation.
Referring to Professor Huxley’s essay on the
philosophy of Hume, he writes,
“ he [Huxley] speaks concerning ‘ substance ’—that substance
which constitutes the foundation of Haeckel’s philosophy—
almost as if he were purposely refuting that rather fly-blown
production.”
1 Riddle, p. 2.
2 Hegel, Haeckel, Kossuth und das zwolfte Gebot (German trans
lation).
3 Life and Matter.
�8
Professor Haeckel
Dealing with Haeckel’s cardinal contention, that
organic life is but a form of material energy, and
mentioning Mr. McCabe’s interpretation of this
doctrine—while he is careful to observe that he does
not wish to hold Haeckel responsible for the utter
ances of his disciple, since “ he must surely know
better,” Sir Oliver thus proceeds as to the master’s
own teaching :—
“ If it were true, that vital energy turns into, or was anyhow
convertible into, inorganic energy ; if it were true, that a dead
body had more inorganic energy than a live one ; if it were true,
that these ‘ inorganic energies ’ always, or ever, ‘ reappear on
the dissolution of life,’ then undoubtedly cadit quaestio ; life
would immediately be proved to be a form of energy, and
would enter into the scheme of physics. But, inasmuch as all
this is untrue—the direct contrary of the truth—I maintain that
life is not a form of energy, that it is not included in our physical
categories, that its explanation is still to seek.”
Even more to the point is the following. After
severely criticizing various particulars of Professor
Haeckel’s work, Sir Oliver goes on :—
“ It is just these superficial, and hypothetical, and as they seem
to me rather rash, excursions into side issues, which have
attracted the attention of the average man, and have succeeded
in misleading the ignorant.”
In regard of the point which Haeckel evidently
regards as of supreme importance, that is to say
his assumption that the study of inorganic nature
makes it impossible to believe in a designing or
directing Creator, Sir Oliver Lodge is no less ex
plicit :—
“The serious mistake [he writes] which people are apt to
make concerning this law of energy, is to imagine that it denies
the possibility of guidance, control, or directing agency, whereas
really it has nothing to say on these topics ; it relates to amount
alone. Philosophers have been far too apt to jump to the con
clusion that because energy is constant, therefore no guidance
is possible. Physicists however know better.”
Finally he again quotes Professor Huxley, who
declared :—
“ That which I very strongly object to is the habit, which a
great many non-philosophical materialists unfortunately fall into,
�and his Philosophy
9
of forgetting very obvious considerations. They talk as if the
proof that the ‘ substance of matter ’ was the 1 substance ’ of
all things, cleared up all the mysteries of existence. In point of
fact, it leaves them exactly where they were.”
To come now, at last, to that department ot
science in which Professor Haeckel is recognized
as an authority of the first class, it must be inquired
whether this constitutes him such a guide as it is safe
to follow where he would lead us in the work we are
discussing.
As to this, it must first be observed that in the
Riddle itself, as has already been intimated, we shall
find very little about zoology, and still less about those
departments of it which he has made his special
study. But in his other publications he has spoken
much concerning it, and of these there is much to
be said. To begin with, being here on his own
ground, Haeckel allows himself freely to indulge in
a style of controversy, which even in his own land
is unusual, and has greatly exercised the minds of
his foreign admirers. Any one who presumes to
contradict him is summarily dismissed as a simple
ton, an ignoramus, or a slanderous liar, and not only
his scientific attainments, but his private character
becomes the object of gross invective. Louis Agassiz,
for example, was widely respected alike for his
personal qualities and for his scientific eminence.
He had however the audacity to differ with Haeckel
on the subject of Darwinism, and was accordingly
thus described by his antagonist:—1
“Louis Agassiz was the most ingenious and most active
swindler who ever worked in the field of Natural History.”
Having likewise a difference of opinion with a
yet more renowned man of science, his own former
teacher, Professor Virchow, he engaged with him in
‘ Revue Scientifique de France et de VEtranger, 1876 (transl.).
�tO
Professor Haeckel
a dispute, “ exhibiting,” observes M. de Quatrefages,
"no greater courtesy than is apt to characterize such
controversies beyond the Rhine.”
It would not be difficult to make an anthology of
the flowers of speech which Professor Haeckel thus
scatters when on the warpath ; as when he says that
a work of Hamann’s is “ from beginning to end one
big lie ; ” that one of Wigand’s is an exhibition of
u incredible and truly stupendous folly; ” while as to
Adolf Bastian, the ethnologist, whose critique of
Darwinism is set down as replete with “ bombastic
fustian,” “ shallow twaddle,” and “ boundless
absurdity,” it is moreover pointed out, as an in
teresting and instructive circumstance, that those
are most angry and scornful regarding the doctrine
of our ape origin who are manifestly most closely
connected with their simian ancestors.
But this, after all, has no direct or essential
connection with the subject of our inquiry. A man,
however rude and foul-mouthed, may yet be a
competent scientific instructor, and though there is
nothing to be learnt from him in regard of
manners, Professor Haeckel may be a trustworthy
guide in zoology. Has he a right to such a
character ? That is the question.
Of all the doctrines which he seeks to propagate,
none, it is clear, is dearer to him than the descent
of man from lower animals and his essential
similarity to them.
The “ Law of Substance ”
itself seems to be valued chiefly as preparing the
way for this supreme conclusion, which in all his
works he loses no opportunity of preaching.
At the bottom of his scale of life, to furnish the
all-important lowest rung of his ladder, Haeckel
places the Monera, structureless particles of proto
plasm, in which, as he supposes, life assumes its
�and his Philosophy
it
simplest form. That such creatures have any real
existence in nature, other biologists are by no means
agreed. He, however, is quite positive on the sub
ject, and no doubt something of the kind is needed
for the first stage of development as he conceives it.
On this fundamental question Professor Delage,
of the Paris Sorbonne, speaks thus :—1
“ To judge of Haeckel’s theory aright, we must distinguish in
it two elements altogether different : on the one hand an
attempt to explain the phenomena of biology on mechanical
principles, an attempt the value and originality of which may
be questionable, but which is quite legitimate ; on the other
hand a wretched farrago of metaphysics unworthy of a
naturalist at the present day.”
As to the genesis of man, which is more properly
within the province of zoology, Haeckel has adopted
various means of convincing his readers of what he
styles the demonstrable fact that our race has been
evolved by purely natural forces from lower animals,
and ultimately from the most primitive forms of
life. To this end he has constructed a purely
imaginary human pedigree, concerning which an
authority so unlikely to be influenced by theo
logical prejudice as Du Bois-Reymond declared that
it is worth about as much as are Homer’s genealogies
of heroes whom he derives from Hercules or
Jupiter.
Another demonstration of this descent is exhibited
as being furnished by the supposed recapitulation of
race-history in embryonic development. According
to this theory, the embryo of every creature high in
the scale of life passes in the course of its develop
ment from the original “ ovum ” through all the
various stages through which its progenitors arrived
at the term they have now attained ; so that the
future man, for instance, is for a period indis1 La structure du protoplasma ct les the'ories sur I'heredity
p. 464.
�j2
Professor Haeckel
tinguishable from a fish, a reptile, or a puppy.
That such resemblance is absolutely exact in every
respect, was a point which at the very outset of his
career Professor Haeckel sought to make manifest
in the following manner. In his Natural History oj
Creation (German original), published in 1868, were
given 1 three woodcuts purporting to represent the
ova of a man, a monkey, and a dog, and2 three
other woodcuts as the embryos of a dog, a fowl, and
a tortoise ; and it was pointed out in the text that
in neither instance was any difference to be dis
covered between the three. But presently it was
found, and could not be denied, that in each case
the same identical woodcut was thrice repeated, the
title alone being changed, so that the resemblance
was not very wonderful.
So audacious a device did not long escape notice.
Being first detected by Professor Riitimeyer of Basle,
it was denounced by him as an outrage against
scientific honesty. Other distinguished biologists
were of the same opinion, as His and Hamann, who
declared that by such a proceeding Haeckel had
forfeited the right to be ranked amongst serious
men of science.
The facts being indeed too notorious for denial,
Haeckel attempted no defence except the extra
ordinary plea, that inasmuch as the various ova and
embryos are exactly similar, it is lawful so to depict
them. “ Were you to compare the rudimentary
embryos themselves,” said he to his adversaries,
“ you would be unable to detect any difference.” It
is obvious, however, that even were the fact as he
assumes, this would afford no justification for the
deception he practised. It is likewise clear that
competent embryologists utterly deny his assump-
�and his Philosophy
13
tion, as, for instance, Professor Lieberkuhn of Mar
burg, who declared that if Haeckel could find no
difference between the embryos, he himself would
have no difficulty.
At a later period (1891) Professor Haeckel pleaded
guilty to the trick he had practised with the wood
cuts, styling it an “unpardonable piece of folly,”
which seems a scarcely adequate description. Nor
does he appear to have subsequently amended his
practice to any great extent. On the contrary, it is
declared by such authorities as His, Semper, Hensen,
Bischoff, Hamann, and others, that of the plates
which illustrate his works some are pure “ fabrica
tions,” and others are arbitrarily “doctored” to
serve his purpose. In particular, Dr. Arnold Brass
declares that in recent years (1905 and onwards)
Haeckel has grossly falsified the figures he has pub
lished, as by giving fewer vertebrae to the embryo of
a monkey and more to that of a man. Against this
charge, which involves much intricacy of detail, it
still remains for Haeckel to vindicate himself.1
He has, however, raised a plea in his defence
which must not be passed in silence. Acknow
ledging that a certain proportion of his plates have
been manipulated so as not to give an exact repre
sentation of the actual objects, he declares that
these are not meant for faithful pictures, but are
merely diagrammatic (schematische Figureri), drawing
attention to those points which are really important,
and of which we learn not by observation, but by
scientific inference. He further asserts that if he is
guilty in this respect, so likewise are hundreds of the
most renowned men of science who do the same.
To this it is replied that such a plea is quite
1 A full account of all this matter is given by Father Erich
Wasmann, S.J., in the Stimmen aus Maiia-Lacich, February,
March, April, 1909.
�i4
Professor Haeckel
inadmissible : that no one has a right to present
such diagrams as actual pictures unless he make it
clearly understood what they are ; that his fellow
men of science are not in the habit of doing anything
of the kind ; and that he begs the question by
treating inference from the theory which he has to
prove as though it were an established truth.
More than this. The main point of the indictment
is not merely that Professor Haeckel has foisted his
“ schematic figures ” upon the world, but that he
has actually manipulated what purport to be copies
of plates published by other writers, and that he
has by such gerrymandering procured the evidence
which Nature has omitted to furnish for the com
pletion of the unbroken chain of man’s descent
from the brutes, which he declares to be guaranteed
by science. That the objects thus depicted by him
are correct representations of any actually known
originals cannot be pretended, for, as he himself
acknowledges, links of the chain are missing, and
these have to be supplied by “comparative syn
thesis,” that is to say, by hypothesis, and scientific, or
unscientific, use of the imagination. The charge against
him has been most definitely formulated ; in support
of it illustrations are published to show with what
originals he has made free, and how he has misused
them. Were the allegations untrue, they would be
easily disproved ; but this he has not attempted.1
Evidence on this matter given by Professor Franz
Keibel, of Freiburg, is the more remarkable, inas
much as it is furnished by one who clearly is far
from hostile to Professor Haeckel and has scant
sympathy with his antagonists.2
1 See article by Fr. E. Wasmann in the Afiolozetisclie Rund
schau, translated in the New Ireland Review, May, 1909.
2 From the Deutsche Mcdizinalische Wochenschrift, quoted
in the Keplerbund's brochure Ini Interesse der Wissenscliaft.
�and his Philosophy
i5
Keibel examines in detail the question whether
Haeckel’s plates have been so manipulated as to
make them serve his purpose, and also whether,
as he declares, the figures found in most scientific
text-books and manuals have been similarly prepared.
As the result of a minute examination of the evidence,
he finds that illustrations have undoubtedly been
borrowed from works by other authors—as by
himself, Selenka, Spree, Koelliker, Hertwig, and
His. Of Haeckel’s reproductions, some, says Keibel,
are pure inventions of his own, and must be de
scribed as “ fancy pictures ” ; others are materially
modified, nor only in cases where there are genea
logical gaps to be filled ; some are poor copies of
their originals ; others are “ violently diagramma
tized ” (sehr stark schematisierf). Moreover, nothing
of the kind is to be found in respectable text-books
and manuals, and such performances must be stigma
tized as thoroughly unscientific.
Yet, when all is said, Dr. Keibel will not tax
Haeckel with dishonesty or deceit, being sure that
he acted from no bad motive, being moved only
by fanaticism as the apostle of a new creed. But
to most men it will seem to be comparatively
unimportant by what precise motive Professor
Haeckel was actuated in practising such deceptions.
The fact remains that they are deceptions, and that
no sensible person can trust him. No less damaging
is the judgement of another high authority, Professor
Kohlbrugge, who pronounces Haeckel’s pedigree
of man to be the production of a fanatic.
Still less disputable are the manifest self-con
tradictions of which Professor Haeckel is guilty
in regard of matters vitally affecting his whole
teaching. In his works designed for popular use,
such as the Riddle and Mciischenfrroblein (ed. 1908),
�16 Professor Haeckel and his Philosophy
he roundly declares that the descent of men from
monkeys is “an historically established fact." But in
his Progonotaxis Hominis (1908), which is addressed
to the learned, we are informed that “ all conclu
sions which the most exact scientific researches
enable us to form on the race-history of any
organism, are and remain hypothetical.” What shall
the plain man think of such discordant voices from
the same lips ?
We will conclude with another example which to
scientific men will appear no less discreditable than
any given above. On occasion of the bicentenary
of the birth of Linnaeus, May 24, 1907, Haeckel
published a tribute to that great naturalist, in which,
under the guise of honour to his memory, he was
claimed, by a mere verbal fallacy, as a witness for
the doctrine of man’s simian origin, a doctrine
which, had he ever heard of it, Linnaeus would
have utterly repudiated.
So scandalous a mis
representation naturally aroused amongst those
acquainted with the truth of the matter an indig
nation to which expression was given by Dr. Julius
Wiesner, a distinguished Austrian botanist, who thus
delivered himself :—
“ Whosoever rightly considers Haeckel’s production, will fail
to. discover in it a tribute to the memory of the great Linnaeus.
Linnaeus, the most scientific of inquirers, who was ever solici
tous to serve the truth, who was at the greatest pains to correct
any mistake he could discover, who ever treated his opponents
with the utmost courtesy,—is honoured by Haeckel, who in his
most recent writings exhibits himself as a fanatical misleader of
the people, one who with delusive assurance enunciates what
have long been recognized for errors and mistakes as if they
were verities, and who treats his opponents with unexampled
insolence.”
And this is the man who is put forward as one of
the greatest and best instructors the world has ever
known !
PRINTED ANU PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TROTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
U,
�
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Professor Haeckel and his philosophy
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Gerard, John [1840-1912]
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Place of publication: London
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Darwinism
Ernst Haeckel
Man-Origin
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i Z'^'4H 113-1
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
W Atheistic ^UHorm.
VIII.
IS
DARWINISM
ATHEISTIC?
BY
CHARLES COCKBILL CATTELL.
Author of “A Search
for the
First Man,'’
etc
LONDON:
EREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET E.C.
1 8 8 4.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
COMPANY,
�THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
Under this title is "being issued a fortnightly publi
cation, each number of which consists of a lecture
delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any
question may be selected, provided that it has formed the
subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an
Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform
is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war
against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god,
political, social, and theological.
Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at
one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her
own views.
i 1.—“ What is the use of Prayer ? ” By‘Annie Besant.
2. —Mind considered as a Bodily Function. By Alice
Bradlaugh.
3. —“ The Gospel of Evolution.” By Edward Aveling,
D.Sc.
4. —“ England’s Balance-Sheet.” By Charles Bradlaugh,
5. —“ The Story of the Soudan.” By Annie Besant.
6. —“ Nature and the Gods.” By Arthur B. Moss.
These Six, in Wrapper, Sixpence.
7. —“ Some Objections
laugh.
to
Socialism.” By Charles Brad
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC?
In the concluding words of the “Descent of Man ” “w? are
?rntfiere-pC°nCemed
hopes or fears> only with the
truth as far a8 0llr reason permits mt0 discover it”(p
lor? th!
is not Atheism. aijy
eludes the otfS^7
A?r0I10W’ Net whether one el
eiuo.es tne othei is a question which the
unanswered. The Theist looks on the ea^th Ad r •
things as a series of fixed and unchangeable fim™?
the?cXtioSnUnThe n„8'- “
"v ™ the fcst daX »*
eir creation lhe universe, according to his view conlrl
can make to the question’pr°Pfi answer he
aSd vegetXl^Ct^tC^
“They exist bv an
? ClvAlsed, uatl°ns are familial-:
the unlimited ‘existencein
‘and
existences animate and inanimate. I hl
�116
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
and. men only. Others again bring in a bill of divorce
ment for the severance of the universe from the creator,
and introduce the law of nature to take the place of an
active God. Hence in most popular works we meet with
the first cause and secondary causes. By general agree
ment scientific men attribute all the present operations of
nature to second causes, and express their conclusions,
based on observation and experience in terms now popular
—the laws of nature. Even George Combe, a man of
undoubted piety, penned the following sentence:
“ Science has banished the belief in the exercise-by the
Deity in our day of special acts of supernatural power as
a means of influencing human affairs.” Baden Powell
went still further (Inductive Philosophy, p. 67): “There
is not, there never has been, any ‘ creation ’ in the original
and popular sense of the term,” which is now adopted as
“a mere term of convenience.” To this the appearance
of man is no exception, and in no way violates the essential
unity and continuity of natural causes. Again, “by equally
regular laws in one case as in the other, must have been
evolved all forms of inorganic and equally of . organic
existence.” Any single instance of birth or origin as an
exception to physical laws “is an incongruity so prepos
terous that no inductive mind can for a moment entertain
it. All is sub j ect to pre-arranged laws, and the disruption
of one single link in nature’s chain of order would be the
destruction of the whole.” All this was written before
Darwin broached his theory, and I well remember the
reply given more than thirty years ago. “ Why then cry
unto God ? There is no God in nature, only an exhibition
of his legislative power as evinced in his pre-arranged
laws! ” This appears to me an answer. Under this head
may fittingly be placed Darwin’s predecessors, E. G. St.
Hilaire, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, and Goethe, all of
whom attribute changes and modifications to a process of
nature. A brief summary of their views may be read in
Dr. Aveling’s “Darwinian Theory.”
Strange as it may appear, Professor Mivart quotes
Aquinas and Augustine as writing that “ in the first insti
tution of nature we do not look for miracles, but for the
laws of nature,” and he himself says “that throughoiit
the whole process of physical evolution—the first mani
festation of life included—supernatural action is not to be
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC ?
117
looked for.” Mr. Mungo Ponton holds that no organism
•can be said to be created. “It is neither necessary nor
reasonable to suppose the Creator himself to act directly
in the organisation of any organism.” How such lan
guage must shock the pious writer who exclaimed: “ The
hand that made me is divine.”
The genial poet duly shuddered at Baden Powell, who
after all only repeated the words of the Saints of the
JRoman Church:
“ Take thine idol hence,
Cold Physicist!
Great Absentee ! and left His Agent Law
To work out all results.
Nature, whose very name
Implies her wants, while struggling into birth,
Demands a Living and a Present God.”
I fully enter into the spirit of these words, and in my
first work of importance (1864) I urged that such a con■ception negatives all science. There can be no scientific
fact established and reliable, if it is true that there is a
•God
“ Whose power o’er moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides,”
It appears manifest that there can be nothing certain in
nature if God ever interferes. No prediction of the ap
pearance of a comet or any description of the motion of a
planet is possible, if we allow the possibility of any un
known person interfering with the calculations on which
the predictions are based. This is not a matter of opinion
or belief—it is a self-evident truth. We understand that
two added to two equal four, but the Theistic theory
admits the possibility that they may, under divine control,
be either more or less. If any say no, they admit the
Atheistic position. A God who never interferes is no God
at all.
Those who put Law in place of God explain nothing
Law can no more create, modify, or sustain nature than
God can. It is, in fact, only removing the Divine operator
one step back without any advantage. Such persons think
they thus obviate certain objections to terrible calamities
�118.
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
and sufferings by saying instead of “God did it,” “ the
Law did it.” It matters not whether it be the landlord or
his agent, if we are evicted without compensation, and
starve on the highway.
Mr. M. Ponton (“ Beginning: How and When ? ” p. 357)
may be quoted as a very good illustration of this view. He
contends that God acts in the living organisms only
“mediately, through the instrumentality of the organiser.
We might as well suppose every instinctive action of an
organised being to be a direct act of the creator, as that
every unconscious action contributing to the development,
growth, maintenance, or reproduction of the organism is a
direct act of Divine interference.” Certainly, that is so—
but why not? H the development, growth, and repro
duction goes on without direct interference, there must be
some reason for it, and here it is—“the imperfections and
occasional monstrosities occurring in individual organisms
forbid our supposing these to be the immediate products of
unerring creative wisdom and power.” The blundering is
shifted on to the “organiser”—but whence the organiser
who or which acts so monstrously ?
The parentage is clearly set forth by Mr. Ponton (p.
356) himself, who, in describing all existing organisms,
says : “ But the first in each series must have been, in thestrict sense of the term, a creation—a being brought into
existence by the mere will of the creator.” Now taking
these two statements as an explanation of the mode of
origin of living organisms, I contend that the same login
that forbids us to accept monster from “unerring wisdom ”
equally forbids us attributing the origin of an agent
capable of producing them to the same unerring cause.
A good designer of a good organism is accepted—while
all is plain and fair sailing; but immediately Mr. Ponton
stumbles over an imperfect or monstrous one, he sends theunerring cause flying back into the unknown mist, to
assist at the formation of things in their primeval inno
cence and purity. This is exploded theology over again,
as taught in our dame schools.
A similar idea is developed in religion. The brutal God
of the lews is transformed into a humane God by the
Christians—a God of love.
But if we assume one source of power, it follows that all
efficient causes of good and evil are traceable to that one?
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC?
119
source, so that there is no advantage in a liberal and loving
philosophy clothing the modern God with only a humane
and beneficent character. Many devout persons have
written books to reconcile us to Theism by picturing the
design in nature to produce the beautiful and beneficent.
If we accept their theory, we are confronted by fact, at
tested before our eyes and recorded in the rocks up to the
earliest time—that animals have been created and sent on
the earth for the purpose of devouring each other. There
is no design or purpose plainer than this.
The world is one vast slaughter-house—one half the
animal kingdom lives in and on other animals. So long
as the lion roams the forest and the tigers seek their prey,
so long the doctrine of benevolent design in nature will
have a living palpable refutation. A power outside nature
that can prevent pain is one of the grossest impositions
the ingenuity of man has ever attempted to prove the
existence of, or by implication to infer, as evidenced by
God “in his works which are fair.”
The only answer that can be made is that it is a good
thing to be devoured! I have heard naturalists describe
the beautiful adaptations by which one creature can and
does kill another I All this takes place by the intention
of a personal God who directs it, or his under unerring and
beneficent laws of nature, according to whichever view is
held.
There was a time, not so distant, when the whole of
nature was believed to be under .the personal direction of
God. Thunder, lightning, storms, eclipses of the sun and
moon, and the motions of the heavenly bodies, all came
under this description. Travellers assure us that savages
usually look upon nature with similar eyes.
All attempts to remove a capricious will of God from
the operations of nature have been denounced as Atheistic.
All discoverers and announcers of new truth have been
denounced as Atheists through all time. A Frenchman
filled a whole dictionary with their names. All science is
necessarily Atheistic in the original sense of the word—
Atheist means ivithout God. Of course it is used in other
senses by some—for instance the denial of God, against
God, an active opposition to Theism, &c. The broad dis
tinction I wish to make is: by Theism we understand a
�120
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
system based upon the Supernatural ; by Atheism, a system
based upon the Natural.
As regards the subject of the present enquiry, the only
great difficulty all along has been the popular conception
of the earth’s recent appearance and its transitory nature.
Called into existence only yesterday and liable to vanish
in smoke to-morrow, it afforded no scope for the evolution
of living things during myriads of ages, millions of years.
So long as minds were occupied with the fall of man
behind them and penal fires before them, and all nature in
a state of possible instantaneous combustion, nothing cer
tain could be expected, no science was possible.
In the presence of a first cause and a last cause and
secondary causes, only confusion could arise. When it
became known that in science a first and last cause was
equally unknown, that changes in nature being intermin
able, so likewise are causes and effects—the names by
which they are known, what we rightly call human know
ledge became possible. The first society started in Eng
land for the collection and diffusion of this sort of know
ledge was the Royal Society for the special study of
Natural, in contradistinction to Supernatural, knowledge.
As regards man, the study has been greatly facili
tated by the discovery of his high antiquity, but aid to
the interpretation of nature in general comes from the
chemist.
To explain anything in the terms of science as a process
of nature required the evidence afforded by quantitative
chemistry. This assures us that, though all nature is con
stantly changing, nothing is lost—hence the indestructi
bility of matter is an established fact. What bearing has
this on our subject? To my mind it is clear that the in
destructible is a never-ending and never-beginning attri
bute.' This being accepted as a logical inference from an
indisputable fact, a beginning and a beginner are both
dispensed with. All are agreed that there is a selfexistent, eternal something—a necessity of human thought;
this appears to me to be the indestructible nature we
know—by whatever name we call it.
In illustration of this, I have often quoted a beautiful
passage from Herschell (Nat. Phil.), who, after referring
to the fact that one of the great powers, gravitation, the
�16 DARWINISM ATHEISTIC?
121
main bond and support of the universe, has undergone
no change from a high antiquity, says: “So that, for
aught we know to the contrary, the same identical atom
may be concealed for thousands of centuries in a limestone
rock; may at length be quarried, set free in the lime-kiln,
mix with the air, be absorbed from it by plants, and, in
succession, become a part of the frames of myriads of liv
ing beings, till some occurrence of events consigns it once
more to a long repose, which, however, in no way unfits it
for again assuming its former activity.”
There are some who admit the indestructibility of
matter and its illimitable existence in space and time, who
nevertheless allow there may be something underlying ox*
behind the nature we know. I see no advantage in mul
tiplying assumptions, nor do I see where logically we can
stop if we do. If I assume a self-existent, eternal universe,
and there stop, no one else can do more than repeat the
same proposition containing the same idea. I do not pro
fess to account for it—no one can account for it. Why
anything exists without limit in space and time no man
can tell.
In support of this view, let me quote a passage from the
voluminous writings of Herbert Spencer: “Those who
cannot conceive a self-existent universe .... take for
granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator.”
The mystery they see surrounding them on every side they
transfer to an alleged source, “ and then suppose they have
solved the mystery. But they delude themselves............
Whoever agrees that the Atheistic hypothesis is untenable
because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence,
must perforce admit that the Theistic hypothesis is unten
able if it contains the same impossible idea. ... So that,
in fact, impossible as it is to think of the actual universe as
■self-existing, we do but multiply impossibilities of thought
by every attempt we make to explain its existence.” (“First
Principles,” p. 35.)
Some who do not admit that nature is all in all, reject
the notion I have described as a person creating and sus
taining all existing things—on the ground that it is an
thropomorphic. Be it so, the long name does not alter the
fact. I hold that Paley was right and has never been
answered, when he said that a designer and contrivei’
of nature must be a person. A Man- God is the only rational
�122
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
ancl intelligible conception the human intellect can
form, and they who reject it are manifestly without God—
Atheist.
Those who place Law where Grod used to be are in
advance of Theism, my only difference with them being as
to the meaning they attach to the word Law. I also
believe in the laws of nature, but only thereby express the
invariable order manifested—the way nature acts. They
use Law not to denote the fact that water seeks its own
level, but as though they meant the law either pushed or
pulled the water down the river. In all their writings
they speak of nature, her laws, and the lawgiver. I only
know nature and mode or method. When I say nature
works thus, I add nothing to the fact; they speak of law
as something impressed on matter, something having a
separate existence.
Where I speak of living matter, they speak of matter
endowed with life, endowed with intelligence, &c. This leads
up to the particular question under discussion—does Dar
winism come under the latter view ? A few phrases are
frequently quoted to prove that it does. Darwin writes
that 11 probably all the organic beings which have ever
lived on this earth have descended from some one primor
dial form, into which life was first breathed by the
Creator.” In another place he writes : “The Creator ori
ginally breathed life into a few forms, perhapsfour or five.”
Here we have the word Creator, and the work ascribed to
him, or it, is breathing life into one or perhaps five organ
isms. Darwin’s mind was apparently unsettled with
regard to theology all his life. If he had devoted as many
years to that as he did to the observation of plants and
animals, he would doubtless have uttered a more certain
sound. But his use of popular modes of expression, theo
logical phrases, must be judged by his later utterances.
Theists quote his words about breathing as though he was
in accord with Moses. Surely his tracing man’s origin to
the quadruped and aquatic animals is slightly at variancewith the words of Genesis ! Again it is urged that the
use of the word Creator implies creation, but he has placed
that view beyond all dispute.
The belief in God he traces to natural causes in
“Descent of Man,” p. 93, and points out numerous races
of men of past and present time, who have no idea of God
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC ?
123-
and no word to express such, an idea. With regard to the
existence of a creator and ruler of the universe, he says : •
“.This has been answered in the affirmative by some of thehighest intellects,” but he does not answer it himself.1 Ho
mentions a savage who with “justifiable pride, stoutly
maintained there was no devil in his land.”
. With regard to organisms being the work of a creator,
his later utterances in “Descent of Man,” p. 61, are very
clear. He states that in writing “ Origin of Species” he
had two objects in view, “firstly, to show that species had
not been specially created.” The concluding paragraph
runs: “I have at least, I hope, done good service in airb'ng
to overthroio the dogma of separate creations.” On the
same page, I think, he gives ample explanation of his use
of current theological phrases. “I was not, however, able
to annul the influence of my former belief then almost
universal, that each species had been purposely created.”
Hetraces the objections to his theory to the “arrogance
of our forefathers which made them declare that they were
descended from demi-gods,” and says that before long it
will be thought wonderful that naturalists should have
believed in separate creations. The concluding words of
the volume attest his freedom from dogmatism and his con
siderateness for the. feelings of others. His words are :
The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely,
that man is descended from some lowly organised form,
will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many,”
In another place, he says, p. 613 : “I am aware that theconclusion, arrived at in this work will be denounced by
some as highly irreligious.” Whatever maybe said about
it, Darwin says (p. 606): “The grounds upon which this
conclusion rests will never be shaken.” Viewed in the
hght of our. knowledge of the whole organic world : “ The
great principle of evolution stands up clear and firm,”
because it is founded on “facts which cannot be disputed.”'
Darwin s anticipation of the judgment passed upon his
views has been more than realised. The great objection
to his view is commonly expressed in the words—what it
leads to.. There can be no doubt that it leads to the
assumption of natural instead of supernatural causes.* I
�124
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
well remember the same objection was made to Combe’s
theory that the brain was the organ of mind—it would
lead to materialism. Astronomy was objectionable because
it was no longer possible to keep up the dignity of the
earth and its inhabitants as occupying the central position
in the universe, having all the heavenly host surrounding
them as lights and ornaments. It was a manifest degra
dation to reduce the comparative size of the earth to a
pin’s nob surrounded by specks two or three miles in
diameter. A remarkable illustration of this occurred
recently. A gentleman of education and position opened
my “First Man” at the page where I place the last glacial
period at 100,000 years ago. He said: “I can read no
more, not a line.” “Why?” “Because I see what it leads
to—the giving up of all I have been taught to believe as
the infallible word of God.” There can be no manner of
doubt but that is the honest way tt> look at it. Either a
man must have his mind open to new knowledge and new
truth, or remain in ignorance and error. Those who do
not wish to relinquish their notion of the supernatural
producing, sustaining, and guiding the natural had better
leave Darwin alone.
Hugh Miller held that animals preceded each other, man
being last, but not ‘that one was produced by the modifi
cations of others. The present Duke of Argyll admits
that changes in the forms of animal life have taken place
frequently, but not in the course of nature. Professor
Owen argued that as all vertebrate animals had rudi
mentary bones found in the human skeleton they were
types of man—the earliest created perhaps millions of
years ago, being planned to undergo certain modifications
resulting in the appearance of man long before such a
creature as man was known. All these whimsical assump
tions are overthrown by Darwin’s theory, which accounts
for the modification by natural processes. He justly lays
claim to his theory as the only natural solution of the
appearance of rudimentary organs. It is not at all
to be wondered at that such a theory should be called
Atheistic, and Darwin the Apostle of the Infidels—and
that a bishop described him as burning in hell a few days
after he was buried. The opposition of ministers of re
ligion of all denominations might reasonably be expected,
since, as they say, he banishes the creator as an intruder
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC?
125.
in nature, and takes away the foundation on which the
Christian religion is built. The difference between the
clergy and Darwin is a gulf that can never be bridged
over—they find man made in the image of God, whatever
that may mean, while Darwin finds him made exactly in
the image of the ape of the old world, now supposed to be
extinct. The first Adam of Moses is an essential to the
second Adam of Christianity—symbols of death and life
in the human race. Besides ministers of religion, the
Atheistical tendency of Darwinism has been pointed out
by Agassiz and Brewster; the latter stating distinctly that
his hypothesis has a tendency “to expel the Almighty
from the universe.” Reviews, magazines, and many
newspapers put it that Darwinism is practically Atheism;
in which description I think they accurately represent the
fact.
Professor Dawson, who is recognised by all the re
ligious reviewers as a trustworthy exponent of their views,
refers to this subject in his “Story of the Earth,” p. 321,
1880. In discussing whether man is the product of an in
telligent will or an evolution from lower organisms, he
says: “ It is true that many evolutionists, either unwilling
to offend, or not perceiving the consequences of their own
hypothesis, endeavor to steer a middle course, and to main
tain that the creator has proceeded by way of evolution.
But the bare hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English
authority, leaves noplace for this compromise, and shows that
that theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, ex
cludes the knowledge of a creator and the possibility of his
works.” Again, on page 348, speakingof absolute Atheists
who follow Darwin: “They are more logical than those
who seek to reconcile evolution with design .... The
evolutionist is in absolute antagonism to the idea of crea
tion, even when held with all due allowance for the varia
tion of all created things within certain limits.” It is evi
dent, therefore, from this orthodox authority, that Darwin
ism, is in the estimation of popular Theists, undoubtedly
Atheistic. This might be explained away on the ground
of bigotry, prejudice, or misrepresentation, if the facts ad
duced by Darwin could be quoted in support of the accusa
tion. But the inexorable logic of facts points in the direc
tion of Professor Dawson’s inference, and, however objec
tionable the conclusion may be to him, it rests on a basis
�126
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
'which, can never be moved, on grounds that will never be
■shaken.
Still, Asa Gray and George St. Clair think it reconcilable
with theology, the latter devoting a large volume to prove
his case. Being an acquaintance, and a fellow townsman
now, I read Mr. St. Clair three times, but with unsatis
factory result. It is a book which evinces great ability,
and is full of information, but as regards the particular
point in question, all that bears upon it is assumption and
.assertion. All theology consists of assumptions and
assertions. Every book upon it we open may be described
as stating : There must have been a commencement, and
that could not be without a causing or creating, and that
■could not be without a First Cause or Creator.
Simple as this appears, it contains a contradiction, and
refutes itself. To account for any existence by assuming
a cause before it, implies non-existence, and the .trans
formation of one into the other. If we assume a self
existing, eternal anything, we at once dispose of “there
must have been a commencement.” The evidence of design
-can only be applied to forms (even if there were any evi
dence that any existing animal Or plant had been at any
time designed), therefore the matter of which forms are
built up, and which in its nature is unchangeable, cannot
be referred to any cause limited to time. If the assumption,
as applied to forms of life, gave us any explanation, it
might be tolerated ; but, as it does not, it is worthless. To
justify the assumption of a commencement, it is necessary
that we should have some evidence of destruction.
We are triumphantly referred to the destruction going
-on in animal and plant life, but the facts connected with it
form the foundation of a belief in the order of perpetual
change, without which neither could exist at all on this
earth. If any live, some must die.
The air we breathe has been breathed before, the part
icles of our bodies are but the elements of the dead past, as
are the luscious fruit we eat and the odorous flowers we
smell—even the blood that is the life itself is derived from
the same source. Our finely-built towns, our marble halls,
the very paths in which we walk, all are made of the rocks
which are but the ashes that survive—the tombs of myriads
-of living things. Composition, decomposition, and recom
position is the order of nature. Times innumerable have
�IS DARWINISM ATHEISTIC ?
127
•all natural forms passed through the process of corruption,
decay, and death—
“ Ever changing, ever new.”
The “ Bard of Avon” has been quoted, saying that
“ The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,”
and it is true he does; but the lines which follow should be
read in conjunction :—
“Bear with my weakness : my old brain is troubled.”
Astronomy has been brought into the controversy, and the
possibility of Pope’s words being realised has not wanted
believers, when he wrote :—
‘ ‘ Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.”
Some slight weight was given to this by the brilliant,
Frenchman, who accounted for the earth by a comet, which,
having mistaken its way, knocked a piece off the sun.
It is a consolation, however, to be told by Christian
astronomers that we do not find within itself the elements
of destruction in our planetary system, that all is in motion
and change everywhere. After millions of years all the
planets will return to their original places only to go
round again, the great bell of their judgment day will never
be sounded. Playfair says : “In the planetary motions,
where geometry has carried the eye so far into "the future
and the past, we discover no symptom either of a commence
ment or termination of the present order . . .
and as re
gards the latter “we may safely conclude that this great
catastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws
now existing; and that it is not indicated by anything
which we perceive.”
If the “undevout astronomer is mad,” the devout one
surely is not. Name-calling in serious discussions of this
kind is, in my judgment, not only offensive, but inex
cusable. It is not uncommon to find in expensive works
the main proposition of the Theist described as being so
simple and familiar that any one who doubts it may be
laughed at as a fool or be pitied as insane. To me such
language betrays want of thought, ignorance, or vulgarity
�128
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
of speech. In every case, on whichever side, the writer
who steadfastly avoids the use of such expressions is a
praiseworthy contributor to a refinement in the inter
change of thought so desirable in a civilised community.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, at 63, Fleet
Street, London, E.C.—1881.
�
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Is Darwinism Atheistic?
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
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Collation: [115]-128 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
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Darwinism
Atheism
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EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL
CREATION.
Taking a retrospective view of the dark and unenlightened
past, when the mighty forces of nature were almost entirely
hidden from the human gaze ; contemplating the sad spec
tacle of our forefathers being sunken in gross superstition,
ere the light of to-day had arisen above the horizon of
mental ignorance, and contrasting the then limitation of
knowledge with the extensive educational acquirements now
existing, what a pleasing contrast the intellectual advance
ment presents to the modern observer! Recognising the
glories of nature, and finding ourselves possessed of an
amazing amount of information respecting the laws of
nature and the phenomena with which these laws are con
nected—such information being for ages unknown to the
great masses of the people—we are prompted to inquire
what has produced this marvellous transformation, and to
what agency we are indebted for this grand and stupendous
revolution of the nineteenth century. Whatever may be
the reply of the theologian, whose intellect is too often
clouded with dreamy imaginations, the answer of the patient
and unfettered student of nature will be that it is to science
we owe the magic power which has substituted for the
dense darkness of the past the brilliant light of the present.
The marvels of astronomy, the revelations of geology, the
splendours of botany, the varieties of zoology, the wonders
of anatomy, the useful discoveries of physiology, and the
rapid strides which have been made in the development of
the mental sciences, all combine to unravel the once myste
rious operations of mind and matter. While each of the
modern sciences has corrected long-cherished errors and
�2
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
opened new paths of investigation, one or two of them have
especially tended to unfold to our view the nature, affinity,
and development of man, and the wonderful universe to
which he belongs. For instance, without the science of
geology we should, in all probability, forever have remained
in ignorance of the various changes which had taken place
on the earth previous to the appearance of man, and the
different forms of animal and vegetable life that were then
distributed over its surface. We now examine the various
strata of the earth, and there discover the fossil remains of
animals and plants which existed in the ages that rolled by
when no historian lived to pen the mighty transactions of
nature and hand them down to future generations. The
science of electricity, too, still only in its infancy, pro
mises to confer an amount of benefit upon mankind too
vast to be conceived. We hear the thunder roar, and behold
the vivid flash of lightning darting before our eyes like an
arrow from the bow of the archer ; but while we regard this
phenomenon we have learned not to look upon it with dread
as the vengeance of an angry God, but as a natural result
of the operation of known forces. It was for Dr. Watts to
sing:—
“ There all his stores of lightning lie
Till vengeance darts them down.”
But it remained for a Franklin and a Priestley to inform
us that tempests were not to be beheld as indicating the
wrath of an offended God, but as the effect of an unequal
diffusion of the electric fluid. Thus science has been, and
is, our benefactor, our enlightener, our improver, and our
redeemer. Without its aid we should still have been in a
state of mental darkness and physical degradation. Deprived
of its discoveries, we should still have been bound down
with the ties of superstition, ignorance, and fanaticism. As
Pope observes :—
“ Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.”
Perhaps there is no domain of human thought where the
advantages of scientific investigation are more clear and
pronounced than in connection with what is termed “ Evo
lution ”—a word which, within the last few years, has
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
3
become very popular as representing a theory of man and
the universe opposed to the old orthodox notion of special
creation and supernatural government. There are, of course,
some professedly religious people who avow their belief in
Evolution, and who maintain that it is what they call God’s
mode of working; and there are those who even go so far
as to say that the power and wisdom of God are seen more
thoroughly displayed in the process of Evolution than in
the method, so long believed in, of special and supernatural
creation. But the number of these is comparatively small,
and, consequently, the great mass of those who accept the
word in its legitimate signification may be looked upon as
of a sceptical turn of mind.
It will not be difficult to
demonstrate that the popular theological idea of creation
finds no support in the theory of Evolution, which, if not a
demonstrated thesis, has, at least, in its favour the “ science
of probabilities ”—an advantage that cannot fairly be claimed
for the Biblical account of the origin of phenomena.
The term “evolution” may be defined as an unfolding,
opening out, or unwinding; a disclosure of something which
was not previously known, but which existed before in a
more condensed or hidden form. There is no new exist
ence called into being, but a making conspicuous to our
eyes that which was previously concealed. “ Evolution
teaches that the universe and man did not always exist in
their present form ; neither are they the product of a sudden
creative act, but rather the result of innumerable changes
from the lower to the higher, each step in advance being an
evolution from a pre-existing condition.” On the other
hand, the special creation doctrine teaches that, during a
limited period, God created the universe and man, and
that the various phenomena are not the result simply of
natural law, but the outcome of supernatural design.
According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, the whole theory of
Evolution is based upon three principles—namely, that
matter is indestructible, motion continuous, and force per
sistent. Two contending processes will be seen everywhere
in operation in the physical universe, the one antagonistic
to the other, each one for a time triumphing over its oppo
site.
These are termed “evolution” and “dissolution.”
Spencer remarks that “ Evolution, under its simplest aspect,
is the integration of matter and the dissipation of motion,
�4
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
while dissolution is the absorption of motion and the con
comitant disintegration of matter.” Thus it will be seen
that Herbert Spencer regards evolution as the concentration
or transition of matter from a diffused to a more condensed
and perceptible form. This change he traces in the systems
of the stars ; in the geological history of the earth; in the
growth and development of plants and animals; in the
history of language and the fine arts, and in the condition
of civilised states. Briefly, the theory is that the matter of
which the universe is composed has progressed from a
vague, incoherent, and, perhaps, all but homogeneous nebula
of tremendous extent, to complete systems of suns, worlds,
comets, sea, and land, and countless varieties of living
things, each composed of many very different parts, and of
complex organisations.
Coming to the organic bodies, there may be included
under the term “evolution” many different laws, some of
which we may not even know as yet, and a great number
of processes, acting sometimes in unison and often in an
tagonism, the one to the other. This, however, in no way
weakens the theory of evolution, which, beyond doubt, is
the process by which things have been brought to their
present condition. It will tend, perhaps, to elucidate this
truth the more readily and clearly if a brief exposition of
the theory be given under the chief divisions of this exten
sive subject.
The Formation of Worlds.—According to Evolution, the
present cosmos began its development at an immeasurably
remote date, and any attempt to comprehend the periods
that have rolled by since would paralyse our highest intel
lectual powers. When the matter which is now seen shaped
into suns and stars of vast magnitude, and of incompresible number, was diffused over the whole of the space in
which those bodies are now seen moving—of extreme
variety, and, perhaps, of nearly homogeneous character—
the human mind is unable to comprehend. This matter,
by virtue of the very laws now seen in operation in the
physical universe, would in time shape itself into bodies
with which the heavens are strewed, shining with a glory
that awes while it charms. What is called in these days
the nebular cosmogony may be said to have arisen with Sir
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
5
William Herschel, who discovered with his telescope what
seemed to be worlds and systems in course of formation—
that is, they were in various states which appeared to mark
different degrees of condensation.
M. Laplace, without any knowledge of Herschel’s specu
lations, arrived at a similar idea upon a totally different
ground—namely, the uniformity of the heavenly bodies.
He showed that, if matter existed in such a different state
as the nebular theory assumed, and if nuclei existed in it,
they would become centres of aggregation in which a rotary
motion would increase as the agglomeration proceeded.
Further, Laplace urged that at certain intervals the centri
fugal force acting in the rotating mass would overcome
the force of agglomeration, and the result would be a series
of rings existing apart from the mass to which they originally
adhered, each of which would retain the motion which it
possessed at the moment of separation. These rings would
again break up into spherical bodies, and hence come what
are termed primary bodies and their satellites. This La
place showed to be at least possible, and the results, in the
case of our solar system, are just what would have been
expected from the operations of this Jaw. For example,
everyone knows that the rapidity of the motions in the
planets is in the ratio of their nearness to the sun.
Many facts seem to support this theory, such as the
existence of the hundred and more small bodies, called
asteroids, observed between Mars and Jupiter, which doubt
less indicate a zone of agglomeration at several points, and
the rings of Saturn give an example of zones still preserved
intact. This theory has been held by some of the most
eminent astronomers, and is most ably advocated by the
late Professor Nicol in his “Architecture of the Heavens.”
Some experiments have also been tried—as, for example,
that of Plateau on a rotating globe of oil—which showed
the operation of the law by which the suns, planets, and
their moons were formed. Such is the evolution of worlds,
and it is unnecessary to point out how diametrically it is
opposed to the special creation described in Genesis, where
the heavens and the earth are called suddenly into being by
the fiat of God, and the sun stated to be created four days
afterwards. Which theory should, in these days of thought,
commend itself to a rational mind ?
�6
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
The Beginning of Life upon the Earth.—Evolution has
been subjected to many severe attacks at this point. Those
who contend for special creation have maintained, with a
dogmatism which but ill accords with the knowledge they
possess upon the subject, that nothing but the hypothesis
of the supernatural origin of things is sufficient to account
for the first appearance of life upon the earth, that evolution
completely breaks down here, and that all the experiments
which have been conducted with a view to lend it support
have turned out positive failures. Such is the allegation of
orthodox opponents. Let us see what grounds they have
for these reckless and dogmatic statements. The two views
of the origin of living beings have been called respectively
Biogenesis and Abiogenesis, the first meaning that life can
spring only from prior life, and the latter that life may
sometimes have its origin in dead matter. Dr. Charlton
Bastian, whose experiments will be hereafter referred to,
substitutes for Abiogenesis another word, Archebiosis.
Now, it is well known and admitted on all hands that
there was a time when no life existed on the earth. Not
the most minute animal, or the most insignificant plant,
found a place on the surface of what was probably at that
time a globe heated up to a temperature at which no living
thing could exist. The life, therefore, that did afterwards
appear could not have sprung from germs of prior living
bodies. True, the whimsical theory was put forward by an
eminent scientific man, some years ago, that the first germs
that found their way to the earth were probably thrown off
with meteoric matter from some other planet. But on the
face of it this is absurd, because such matter would be of
too high a temperature to admit of the existence upon it of
living bodies of any kind ; and, besides, were it otherwise,
it would explain nothing. It would only transfer the diffi
culty from this world to some other. For life must have
had a beginning somewhere, and the question is as to that
beginning somewhere. The supernaturalist seeks to get
out of the difficulty rather by cutting the Gordian knot than
by untying it, and falls back upon a special creation, thereby
avoiding any further trouble about the matter. But the
evolutionist thinks that he can see his way clearly in what
must necessarily be to some extent a labyrinth, because no
one lived at that time to observe and record what was taking
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
7
place. One thing is plain, which is, that living things were
made or came into existence—whatever the mode may have
been, or the power by which it occurred—out of non-living
matter. Even the believers in special creation will not
deny this. The only question is, therefore, whether the
process occurred in accordance with natural law, and whether
the forces by which it was brought about were those which
exist, or, at all events, which did exist, in material nature.
For it does not follow that, if such phenomena do not occur
to-day, they could never have taken place in the past. The
conditions of the earth were different then from what they are
now, and forces may have been in operation that are now
quiescent. Professor Huxley, who thinks that no instance
has occurred in modern times of the evolution of a living
organism from dead matter, and that the experiments which
have been conducted on the subject are inconclusive—who,
in fact, ranks himself on the side of the advocates of Bio
genesis—yet says that, if we could go back millions of years
to the dawn of life, we should, no doubt, behold living
bodies springing from non-living matter.
But, of course, it will be argued that, if it happened then,
it might take place now; and although, as I have said, this
is not conclusive, yet to some it has much weight. What
Nature has done once, it is insisted, she can do again.
Quite so ; but, then, all the conditions must be the same.
Dr. Bastian himself asks the question : “If such synthetic
processes took place then, why should they not take place
now? Why should the inherent molecular properties of
various kinds of matter have undergone so much altera
tion ?” (“ Beginnings of Life ”). And the question is likely
to be repeated, with, to say the least of it, some show of
reason.
It must never be forgotten, as Tyndall has very ably
pointed out, that the matter of which the organic body is
built up “ is that of inorganic nature. There is no substance
in the animal tissues that is not primarily derived from the
rocks, the water, and the air.” And the forces operating in
the one are those which we see working in the other, vitality
only excepted, which is probably but another manifestation
of the one great force of the universe. Indeed, Professor
Huxley does not make an exception even in the case of
vitality, which, he maintains, has no more actual existence
�8
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
than the imaginary aqueosity of water. Mr. Herbert
Spencer thinks that life, under all its forms, has arisen by
an unbroken evolution, and through natural causes alone;
and this view accords with the highest reason and philo
sophy.
Nor have the experiments performed with a view to solve
the problem been so conclusive as would appear to some.
At all events, the question is an open one as to whether the
origin of living things in non-living matter has not been
experimentally demonstrated. The old doctrine of “ spon
taneous generation ” can, in its new form and under its
recent name of Abiogenesis, or Archebiosis, claim the sup
port of men of great eminence in the scientific world at the
present time. Pouchet, a very illustrious Frenchman, per
formed a large number of experiments, and in all or most of
them he succeeded, according to his own opinion, in pro
ducing living things. The objection that there were germs
in the air, or water, or the materials that he employed, he met
by manufacturing artificial water out of oxygen and hydrogen,
and submitting the whole of the material employed to a
temperature above boiling-water point, which would certainly
destroy any living germ, either of an animal or vegetable
character. Then, in England a series of experiments have
been performed by Dr. Bastian, one of the leading scientists
of our time; and the results have been given to the world
in some voluminous and masterly books. “ These volumes,”
says an opponent—Dr. Elam—“ are full of the records of
arduous, thoughtful, and conscientious work, and must ever
retain a conspicuous place in the literature of biological
science.” Dr. Bastian maintains that he has succeeded, in
innumerable instances, in producing living organisms from
non-living matter. Hence the doctrine of Evolution, which
is in accordance with true philosophy, finds its support in
that physical science where we should expect to meet with
it, and to which it really belongs.
The Origin of Man.—It has already been stated that
the remains of man are met with only in the most
recent geological deposits. On this point there will be
no dispute. No doubt human beings have been in
existence for a much longer period than is generally sup
posed ; the short term of six thousand years, which our
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
9
fathers considered to cover man’s entire history, pales into
insignificance before the vast periods which we know to
have rolled their course since human life began. But that
fact in no way affects the question before us. Man was
certainly the last animal that appeared, as he was the
highest. If it be asked, Why highest as well as last ? the
answer is, Because, by the process of evolution, the highest
must come last. This is the law that we have seen operating
all through the physical universe, so far as that universe
has disclosed to us its mighty secrets, hidden for ages, but
now revealed to scientific observation and experiment.
Man came, as other organic bodies came, by no special
creation, but by the great forces of nature, which move
always in the same direction, and work to the same end.
As far as the physical powers are concerned, it will not be
difficult to conceive the same laws operating in his pro
duction as originated the various other forms of organic
beings. His body is built up of the same materials, upon
precisely the same plan : during life he is subject to the
same growth and decay, the same building up and pulling
down of tissues; and it is but reasonable to suppose that
the same forces originated his beginning, as we know they
will some day terminate his existence.
Mr. Darwin made a bold stroke when he gave the world
his “Descent of Man.” In 1859 he had published the first
edition of his work on “ The Origin of Species,” which fell
like a thunderbolt into the religious camp. The commo
tion it caused was tremendous, and the effect can to-day
hardly be imagined; so tolerant have we grown of late, and
such a change has passed over the scene within the past
quarter of a century. The most violent opposition raged
against the new views ; ridicule, denunciation, and abuse
were hurled at the head of the man who had propounded
so preposterous a theory as that all organic things had
sprung from a few simple living forms very low down in
the scale of being. Then came a larger work, entitled
“ Animals and Plants under Domestication,” brimful of
facts of a most startling character, supporting the theory
advanced in the previous book, and challenging refutation
on all hands. In the face of these facts, the public mind
cooled down a little, opposition became milder, some adver
saries were converted, and others manifested indifference.
�IO
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
The major part of those who still adhered to the super
natural and special creations held that, even if the theory of
Evolution turned out to be true, it would not apply to man,
who was a being possessed of an immortal soul, and, there
fore, belonged to a different order of creatures from any
other animals, and that Mr. Darwin never intended to
include human beings in the organic structures thus origi
nated.
In this state the controversy remained until 1872, when
Mr. Darwin took the bull by the horns, and at one stroke
swept away the last stronghold of special creation by showing
that humanity was no exception to the great law of evolu
tion ; for man, like other animals, had originated in natural
selection. The facts given in the book on “The Descent
of Man ” are both powerful and pertinent. This, however,
is not the place to dwell upon natural selection, and it is
only referred to so far as it supports evolution. The diffi
culties that have been placed in the way of the application
of this principle to man have not had much reference to
his bodily organs, but mainly to his mental and moral
powers, his social faculties, and the emotional side of his
nature. True, a controversy raged for a short time between
Huxley and Owen as to whether there was a special
structure in the human brain not to be found in the next
animals lower in the scale of being ; but this contention
has long since died out, and to-day no anatomist of any
note will be found contending for the existence of any such
organ. That the human brain differs considerably from the
brain of any lower animal no one who is at all acquainted
with the subject will deny; but this is difference in degree,
and not arising from the presence of any special structure
in the one which is absent in the other. Man, therefore,
must look for his origin just where he seeks for that of the
inferior creatures.
The science of embryology, which is now much more
carefully studied, and, consequently, much better known
than at any period in the past, lends very powerful support
to evolution, though, perhaps, little to natural selection.
“ The primordial germs,” says Huxley, “ of a man, a dog, a
bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and a polyp are in no essential
structural respects distinguishable” (“Lay Sermons”). Each
organism, in fact, commences its individual career at the
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
11
same point—that is, in a single cell. These cells are of the
same chemical composition, approximately of the same size,
and appear to be in all respects identical. Yet the one
developes into a fish, another into a reptile, a third into a
bird, a fourth into a dog, and a fifth into a man. The pro
cess is the same in all up to a certain point. First, the cell
divides into two, then into four, eight, sixteen, and so on,
until a particular condition is reached, called by Haeckel
morula, when a totally different set of changes occur. In
the case of the higher animals the development of the
embryo exhibits, up to a very late period, a remarkable
resemblance to that of man.
The Diversity of Living Things.—A mere glance at the
geological records will show at once that the order in which
animals and plants have appeared on the earth is that which
accords with evolution. The lowest came first, the highest
last, and a regular gradation between the two extremes. In
the early rocks in which life appears we meet with polyps,
coral, sea-worms, etc., and no trace of land animals or plants.
Then, passing upwards, we come upon fishes, then reptiles,
afterwards birds, subsequently mammals, and, last of all,
man. These are undisputed facts, as the most elementary
works on geology, whether written by a professing Christian
or an unbeliever, will clearly show.
The only objection, perhaps, of any weight that can be
urged against the changes which evolution asserts to have
taken place, is the fact that we do not see them occur.
But this, in the first place, is hardly correct, since we see
the tadpole—which is a fish breathing through gills, and
living in the water—pass up into a reptile, the frog, which
is a land animal breathing through lungs, and inhaling its
oxygen from the atmosphere. Secondly, the fact that we
do not see a change actually occur, which took millions of
years to become effected, can surely amount to little.
An ephemeral insect, whose life only lasts for a day, might
object, if able to reason, that an a corn could not grow into
an oak tree, because it had not seen it occur. But the
evidence would be there still in the numerous gradations
that might be seen between the acorn and the sturdy old
tree that had weathered the storms of a century. And in
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EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
this case we see all the gradations between a monad and a
man in the rocks which furnish us with the history of the
past, although, as our lives are so short, we are not able to
see the whole change effected. Plants were not all suddenly
called into existence at one particular period, and then
animals at another and later time. This we know, because
the remains of plants and animals are found side by side
throughout all the rocks. If there be an exception, it is an
unfortunate one for the Christian supernaturalist, since it
shows that animals were first; for certain it is that animal
remains are met with in the oldest rocks.
The objection to evolution, that no transformation of one
species into another has been seen within recorded history,
is entirely groundless, and betrays utter carelessness
on the part of the objectors. The truth is, such trans
formations have taken place, as mentioned above in reference
to the tadpole. Professor Huxley and other scientists have
proved this to be the case. It should, however, be remem
bered that in most instances these great changes are the
work of time. As Dr. David Page observes : “ It is true
that, to whatever process we ascribe the introduction of new
species, its operation is so slow and gradual that centuries
may pass away before its results become discernible. But,
no matter how slow, time is without limit; and, if we can
trace a process of variation at work, it is sure to widen in
the long run into what are regarded as specific distinctions.
It is no invalidation of this argument that science cannot
point to the introduction of any new species within the
historic era; for till within a century or so science took no
notice of either the introduction or extinction of species, nor
was it sufficiently acquainted with the flora and fauna of
the globe to determine the amount of variation that was
taking place among their respective families. Indeed, in
fluenced by the belief that the life of the globe was the
result of one creative act, men were unwilling to look at the
long past which the infant science of palaeontology was be
ginning to reveal, and never deigned to doubt that the
future would be otherwise than the present. Even still
there are certain minds who ignore all that geology has
taught concerning the extinction of old races and the intro
duction of newer ones, and who, shutting their eyes to the
continuity of nature, cannot perceive that the same course
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
IS
of extinction and creation must ever be in progress ” (“ Man :
Where, Whence, and Whither ?”).
Let us now apply a test to the creative theory with a similar
demand, and what will be the result ? An utter failure on the
part of the creationists to substantiate their dogmatic preten
sions. Suppose we exclaimed, “ Show us a single creative act
of bne species within recorded history.” It would be impos
sible for them to do so, for there is not a shadow of evidence
drawn from human experience in favour of what theologians
call creation. “ We perceive a certain order and certain
method in nature ; we see that under new conditions certain
variations do take place in vegetable and animal structures,
and by an irresistible law of our intellect we associate the
variations with the conditions in the way of cause and
effect. Of such a method we can form some notion, and
bring if within the realm of reason ; of any other plan, how
ever it may be received, we can form no rational conception.”
“ The whole analogy of natural operations,” says Professor
Huxley, “ furnishes so complete and crushing an argument
against the intervention of any but what are called secondary
causes in the production of all the phenomena of the universe
that, in view of the intimate relations between man and the
rest of the living world, and between the forces exerted by
the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubt
ing that all are co-ordinated terms of nature’s great progres
sion, from the formless to the formed, from the inorganic to
the organic, from blind force to conscious intellect and will.”
The most that can be said of the creative theory is that it
is a question of belief; but of knowledge never.
Dr. Page observes : “We may believe in a direct act of
creation; but we cannot make it a subject of research.
Faith may accept, but reason cannot grasp it. On the
other hand, a process of derivation by descent is a thing we
can trace as of a kind with other processes; and, though
unable to explain, we can follow it as an indication, at least,
of the method which Nature has adopted in conformity with
her ordinary and normal course of procedure. We can
admit possibilities, but must reason from probabilities, and
the probable can only be judged of from what is already
known. Than this there is clearly no other course for
philosophy.
Everywhere in nature it sees nothing but
processes, means, and results, causes and effects, and it
�14
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
cannot conceive, even if it wished, of anything being brought
about unless through the instrumentality of means and pro
cesses.”
To me it has always been a difficulty to understand how
an infinite being could possibly have been the creator of all
things. For this reason : if he is infinite, he is everywhere ;
if everywhere, he is in the universe ; if in the universe now,
he was always there. If he were always in the universe,
there never was a time when the universe was not; there
fore, it could never have been created.
If it be said that this being was not always in the universe,
then there must have been a period when he occupied less
space than he did subsequently. But “ lesser ” and “ greater ”
cannot be applied to that which is eternally infinite. Further,
before we can recognise the soundness of the position taken
by the advocates of special creation, we have to think of a
time when there was no time—of a place where there was
no place. Is this possible ? If it were, it would be interest
ing to learn where an infinite God was at that particular
period, and how, in “no time,” he could perform his creative
act. Besides, if a being really exists who created all things,
the obvious question at once is, “ Where was this being
before anything else existed ?” “ Was there a time when
God over all was God over nothing ? Can we believe that
a God over nothing began to be out of nothing, and to
create all things when there was nothing ?” Moreover, if
the universe was created, from what did it emanate ? From
nothing? But “ from nothing, nothing can come.” Was
it created from something that already was ? If so, it was
no creation at all, but only a continuation of that which was
in existence. Further, “ creation needs action ; to act is to
use force; to use force implies the existence of something
upon which that force can be used. But if that ‘ something ’
were there before creation, the act of creating was simply
the re-forming of pre-existing materials.” Here three ques
tions may be put to the opponents of evolution who affirm
the idea of special creation :—(i) Is it logical to affirm the
existence of that of which nothing is known, either of itself
or by analogy ? Now, it cannot be alleged that anything is
known of the supposed supernatural power of creation. On
the other hand, sufficient is known of the facts of evolution
to prevent the careful student of Nature from attempting to
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
15
rob her of that force and life-giving principle which un
doubtedly belongs to her. (2) Is it logical to ascribe events
to causes the existence of which is unknown, and more
particularly when such events can be reasonably explained
upon natural principles with the aid of “ the science of
probabilities ” ? Dr. Page forcibly remarks : “ Man has his
natural history relations—of that there can be no gainsaying
—and we merely seek to apply to the determination of these
the same methods of research which by common consent
are applied to the determination of the relations of other
creatures............. Scientific research must abide by scientific
methods; scientific convictions must rest on scientific in
vestigations.” To assert that life is associated with some
thing that is immaterial and immortal, and that this force
could only have been brought into existence by a special
act of “the one great creator,” is to prostrate reason and ex
perience before the assumptions of an over-satisfied theology.
To once more use the words of Dr. Page : “ Science knows
nothing of life save through its manifestations. With the
growth of physical organisation it comes ; with the decay of
organisation it disappears. While life endures, mind is its
accompaniment; when life ceases, mental activity comes to
a close. Thus far we can trace; beyond this science is
utterly helpless. No observation from the external world ;
no analogy, however plausible ; no analysis, however minute,
can solve the problem of an immaterial and immortal exist
ence.” (3) Is it logical to urge the theory of special creation
when science proclaims the stability of natural law, and its
sufficiency for the production of all phenomena ? Professor
Tyndall, in his lecture on “ Sound,” remarks that, if there is
one thing that science has demonstrated more clearly than
another, it is the stability of the operations of the laws of
nature. We feel assured from experience that this is so,
and we act upon such assurance in our daily life. The
same errtinent scientist, in his Belfast address, says : “ Now,
as science demands the radical extirpation of caprice, and
the absolute reliance upon law in nature, there grew with
the growth of scientific notions a desire and determination
to sweep from the field of theory this mob of gods and
demons, and to place natural phenomena on a basis more
congruent with themselves.”
Again: “ Is there not a
temptation to close to some extent with Lucretius when he
�i6
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
affirms that ‘ Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously
of herself without the meddling of the gods,’ or with Bruno
when he declares that Matter is not ‘that mere empty
capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but
the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit
of her own womb....... By an intellectual necessity I cross
the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in
that matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers,
and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its creator,
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and
potency of all terrestrial life.”
Psychical Powers.—This is the great stronghold of the
opponents of evolution. They maintain that, whatever may
have taken place with regard to physical powers and bodily
organs, it is clear that the higher intellectual faculties of
man could not so have originated ; that those, at least, must
be the result of a special creation, and must have been
called into existence by some supernatural power when human
beings first appeared upon the stage of life. Such persons
further urge that, even if it could be shown beyond doubt
that the marvellously constructed body of man, with its
beautifully adjusted parts of bone and muscle, nerve and
brain, skin and mucous membrane, had its origin in evolu
tion, yet no light whatever would be thrown upon the
source of the wondrous powers of judgment and memory,
understanding and will, perception and conception. This
argument, no doubt, to some at first appears specious; but
the question is, Is it sound ? The assumption seems to be
that we meet with these powers now for the first time, and
that, therefore, it is here that a special creation must be
called in to account for their origin, their character being
so different from anything that has previously crossed our
path in this investigation. But assuredly this is not correct.
Some of these powers are certainly to be met with in the
lower animals—a few of them low down in the scale—and
for the rest the difference will be one of degree more than
of quality.
It will not surely be maintained that perception is pecu
liar to man; it must exist wherever there are organs of
sense, and these extend in some form or other to the
lowest phase of animal life. Volition is also met with in all
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
17
the higher animals; and memory may be observed in the
dog, horse, elephant, cat, camel, and numerous other
mammals, with whose habits every-day life makes us familiar.
Even judgment in the form of comparison is often displayed
by the domestic animals, the dog in particular. Dr. H.
Bischoff, in his “Essay on the Difference between Man
and Brutes,” says : “ It is impossible to deny the animals,
qualitatively and quantitatively, as many mental faculties as
we find in man. They possess consciousness. They feel,
think, and judge; they possess a will which determines their
actions and motions. Animals possess attachment; they
are grateful, obedient, good-natured; and, again, false
treacherous, disobedient, revengeful, jealous, etc. Their
actions frequently evince deliberation and memory. It is
in vain to derive such actions from so-called instinct, which
unconsciously compels them so to act.” Max Muller also,
in his “ Science of Language,” admits that brutes have five
senses like ourselves ; that they have sensations of pain and
pleasure; that they have memory; that they are able to
compare and distinguish ; have a will of their own, show
signs of shame and pride, and are guided by intellect as
well as by instinct.
With such facts as these before us, what reason have we
for supposing that these psychical powers are not as likely to
have been evolved as the bodily organs ? There is no break
whatever to be seen in the chain at the point of their appear
ance in man. If the mental powers of the lower animals
have come by evolution, there is not a shadow of reason for
supposing that those of man arose in any other way, for
they are all of the same quality, differing only in degree.
No doubt, as Mr. Darwin says, “the difference between the
mind of man and that of the highest ape is immense.” And
yet, as he also remarks, “great as it is, it is certainly one of
degree, and not of kind.” The highest powers of which
man can boast—memory, judgment, love, attention, curiosity,
imitation, emotion—may all be met with in an incipient
form in lower animals. Let any man analyse his mental
faculties one by one—-not look at them in a state of com
bination, for that will be calculated to mislead—and then
say which of them is peculiar to man as man, and not to be
found in a smaller degree much lower in the scale of being.
Even the capacity for improvement—in other words, for pro
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
gress—is not peculiar to man, as Mr. Darwin has shown by
innumerable examples of great force and beauty.
The emotions have often been spoken of as being pecu
liar to man, but evidently with no regard to accuracy.
Terror exists in all the highest of the lower animals as surely
as it does in man, and shows itself in the same way. It
causes the heart to palpitate, a tremor to pass along the
muscles, and even the hair to undergo that change which is
called “ standing on end,” in the horse, the dog, and other
animals, as in the human species. “ Courage and timidity,”
observes Darwin, “are extremely variable qualities in the
individuals of the same species, as is plainly seen in our
dogs. Some dogs and horses are ill-tempered and easily
turn sulky; others are good-tempered; and these qualities
are certainly inherited. Everyone knows how liable animals
are to furious rage, and how plainly they show it.” The
love of the dog for his master is proverbial; indeed, this
noble animal has been known to lick the hand of the vivisector while undergoing at his hands the severest torture.
And revenge is often manifested by the lowest animals—not
simply the sudden impulse which revenges itself at the
moment for pain inflicted or wrongs done, but long,
brooding feeling, which may smoulder for months, waiting
for the opportunity for manifesting itself, and, when that
comes, bursting out into a flame violent and hateful. There
are thousands of cases on record in which this has happened,
especially in the case of monkeys which have been kept
tame. And, perhaps, the personal experience of most
persons can furnish an example of the truth of this allegation.
The social instincts are plainly seen in many of the lower
animals; not, of course, in that perfect form in which they
are met with in man ; but the difference here again is one of
degree only. Many animals experience pleasure in the
company of their fellows, and are unhappy at a separation
being effected. They will show sympathy one for another,
and even perform services for each other’s benefit. Some
animals lie together in large numbers, and never separate
except for a very short time, and then only for a purpose
which they clearly understand. This is the case with sheep,
rats, American monkeys, and also with rooks, jackdaws, and
starlings. Darwin observes : “ Everyone must have noticed
-how miserable horses, dogs, sheep, etc., are when separated
�EVOLUTION and special creation.
J9
from their companions, and what affection the two former
kind will show on their re-union. It is curious to speculate
upon the feelings of a dog who will rest peacefully for hours
in a room with his master or any of the family without the
least notice being taken of him, but who, if left for a short
time by himself, barks and howls dismally.” Here we find
the origin of the social faculty in man. It is very easy to
imagine the course of development which this must have
taken in order to have culminated in the highest form
as we see it in the human species. The psychical powers
appear first in an incipient form, and then gradually develop
through a long course of ages, until they attain their height
in humanity.
Other influences, such as the power of
language, further the development, these powers themselves
being the result of the process of evolution. The question
how far language is confined to man is one of great interest
to the student of evolution. In replying to the inquiry,
“ What is the difference between the brute and man ?” Max
Muller says : “ Man speaks, and no brute has ever uttered
a word. Language is our Rubicon, and no brute has ever
crossed it.” Referring to this statement, Dr. Page remarks :
“Are not these powers of abstraction and language a matter of
degree rather than of kind ? Do not the actions of many of
the lower animals sufficiently indicate that they reason from
the particular to the general ? And have they not the power
of communicating their thoughts to one another by vocal
sounds which cannot be otherwise regarded than as lan
guage? No one who has sufficiently studied the conduct
of our domestic animals but must be convinced of this
power of generalisation ; no one who has listened attentively
to the various calls of mammals and birds can doubt they
have the power of expressing their mental emotions in
language. Their powers of abstraction may be limited, and
the range of their language restricted; but what shall we
say of the mental capacity of the now extinct Tasmanian,
which could not carry him beyond individual conceptions,
or of the monosyllabic click-cluck of the Bushman, as
compared with the intellectual grasp and the inflectional
languages of modern Europe ? If it shall be said that these
are matters merely of degree, then are the mental processes
and languages of the lower animals, as compared with
those of man, also matters of degree—things that manifest
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EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
themselves in the same way and by the same organs, but
differing in power according to the perfection of the organs
through which they are manifested.”
The Doctor's view of this matter receives a striking corro
boration from the following excerpt from the introduction
to Agassiz’s “ Contributions to the Natural History of the
United States ” : “ The intelligibility of the voice of animals
to one another, and all their actions connected with such
calls, are also a strong argument of their perceptive power,
and of their ability to act spontaneously and with logical
sequence in accordance with these perceptions. There is a
vast field open for investigation in the relations between
the voice and the actions of animals, and a still more in
teresting subject of inquiry in the relationship between the
cycle of intonations which different species of animals of
the same family are capable of uttering, and which, so far as
I have yet been able to trace them, stand to one another in
the same relations as the different, so-called, families of
languages.”
The moral powers of man have been evolved in a manner
similar to that in which the other forces belonging to the
human race were evolved. All that we see in the evolution
of human conduct is the result of the great and potent law
of evolution. “ It is said,” writes M. J. Savage in his sug
gestive book, “ The Morals of Evolution,” “ that there can
be no permanent and eternal law of morality unless we
believe in a God and a future life. But I believe that this
moral law stands by virtue of its own right, and would
stand just the same without any regard to the question
of immortality or the discussion between Theism and
Atheism. If there be no God at all, am I not living ? Are
there not laws according to which my body is constructed—
laws of health, laws of life, laws that I must keep in order
to live and in order to be well ? If there be no God at all,
are you not existing ? Have I right to steal your property,
to injure you, to render you unhappy, because, forsooth, I
choose to doubt whether there is a God, or because you
choose to doubt whether there is a God ? Are not
the laws of society existing in themselves, and by their
own nature ? Suppose all the world should suddenly lose
its regard for truth and become false through and through,
so that no man could depend upon his brother, would
�EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
21
not society become disintegrated, disorganised? Would
not all commercial and social life suddenly become im
possible? Would not humanity become a chaos and a
wreck, and that without any sort of regard to the question
as to whether men believed in a God or did not believe in
one ? These laws are essential in the nature of things ; and
they stand, and you live by keeping them, and die by
breaking them, whether there is a God or not.
These are
the accurate and ennobling views of existence born of
minds which evolution has raised from the ignorant depths
of the past to the intellectual heights of the present.
On all sides the candid and impartial observer may be
hold undoubted evidence in favour of the doctrine of evolu
tion. We see it in the various changes of the solar system.
There are (i) fire mists; (2) globes of gas; (3) condensed
oceans; (4) crust formation; (5) mountains and rivers, and
(6) its present phenomena. What is this but evolution ?
Is it not a manifestation of changes from the lower to the
higher, from the simple to the complex, and from the
chaotic to the consolidated ? The same principle is illus
trated, as before indicated, by the science of embryology,
with its clearly-marked stages of development—the fish,
reptile, bird, quadruped, and, finally, the human form. The
relationship of the species gives its proof in favour of the
evolution theory. The different types of to-day had their
one starting point, the variations now seen having been pro
duced by altered conditions. Moreover, we find that in
the process of evolution some organs in animals become
useless, while others change their use, thus proving that the
animal kingdom possess structural affinities, and that the
subsequent differentiation depends upon the opportunity
afforded for evolution.
Then, again, man’s ability, to
divert animal instincts and intelligence from their original
sphere, as shown in the training of certain of the lower
animals; of improving the eye as an optical instrument;
of rendering less antagonistic the natures and instincts we
discover in different species constantly at war with each
other, all point to one process—that of evolution.
There is the old sentimental objection to this theory, that
it is humiliating to think that we have evolved from forms
lower down in the scale of animal life. But, as Dr. Page
points out, there is nothing in this view necessarily degrading
�22
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
11 If, in virtue of some yet unexplained process, man has
derived his descent from any of the lower orders, he is
clearly not of them—his higher structural adaptations and
improvable reason defining at once the specialty of his place,
and the responsibility of his functions. It can be no
degradation to have descended from some antecedent form
of life, any more than it can be an exaltation to have been
fashioned directly from the dust of the earth. There can
be nothing degrading or disgusting in the connection which
nature has obviously established between all that lives, and
those who employ such phrases must have but a poor and
by no means very reverent conception of the scheme of
creation. The truth is, there is nothing degrading in nature
save that which, forgetful of its own functions, debases and
degrades itself. The jibing and jeering at the idea of an
‘ape-ancestry,’ so often resorted to by the ignorant, has in
reality no significance to the mind of the philosophic
naturalist. There is evidently one structural plan running
throughout the whole of vitality, after which its myriad
members have been ascensively developed, just as there is
one great material plan pervading the planetary system;
and science merely seeks to unfold that plan, and to deter
mine the principles upon which it is constructed. If there
be no generic connection between man and the order that
stands next beneath him, there is at all events a marvellous
similarity in structural organisation, and this similarity is
surely suggestive of something more intimate than mere
coincidence.” Evolution, therefore, although unable to
supply the solution to every problem presented to the
student of nature, is, so far as can be discovered at the
present day, the truest theory of man and the universe, and
is sufficient for all practical purposes. Further, it satisfies
the intellect as no other theory does, and is assuredly more
reasonable than that of special creation.
One question of great importance will probably suggest
itself to those who have given the theory of evolution much
consideration. It is this : What is to be the position of
things, and especially of man, in the future ? Will there be
evolved higher beings after him, as he is higher than those
who preceded him ? He stands now as the lord of crea
tion ; but so stood many mighty reptiles of the past in their
day and generation. Could they have reasoned, would they
�'7" '
EVOLUTION1 AND SPECIAL CREATION.
23
not have concluded that they were the final end of creation,
and that all that had gone before was simply to prepare for
their entrance into the world? In that they would have
erred ; and it may be asked, Shall we not equally err if we
hastily decide that no higher being than man can ever come
on earth—that he is, and will ever remain, the highest of
organic existences ? Now, the cases are not quite analogous,
as a little reflection will show. The earlier animals were
entirely the creatures of evolution j man is largely the director
of the process. He can, by his intellect, control the law
itself, just as he bends gravitation to his will, though, in a
sense, he is as much subject to its power as the earth on which
he treads. Before man arose, the animals and plants then
existing were moulded by the great power operating upon
them from within and without; hence the form they took
and the functions they performed. When they had to con
tend with an unfortunate environment they became modi
fied ; or, failing that, they disappeared. Now man, by his
mental resource, can supply natural deficiencies, and thus not
defeat evolution, but direct its current into a new channel.
He can bring his food from a distance, and thus avoid
scarcity in the country where he dwells ; he can successfully
contend against climate, disease, and a thousand other
destructive agencies which might otherwise sweep him away.
It is, therefore, no longer a contest between physical powers,
but between physical and mental. No higher physical
development is likely to occur, because it would not meet
the case, since, however perfect it might be, it could not
hold its own in the struggle for existence against man with
his intellect. The development in the future must be one
of mind, not of body. We do not, consequently, look for
ward to the time when organised beings, higher and more
perfect physically than man, shall take his place on the
earth; but we do believe that a period will arrive when the
intellectual powers shall be refined, expanded, and exalted
beyond anything of which at present we can form a con
ception. The future of man is a topic of all-absorbing
interest, and it needs no prophetic insight to enable us to
form some dim and vague idea of what it will be. Mind
will grapple with the great forces of nature, making them
subservient to man’s comfort and convenience. Virtue
shall array herself more resolutely than ever against vice,
�24
EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION.
and rid the world of its malignant power. Brother shall
cease slaying brother at the command of kingly despots, and
thus the world shall be crowned with the laurels of peace.
Priestcraft shall lose its power over humanity, and mental
liberty shall have a new birth. The barriers of social caste
shall be broken down, and the brotherhood of man thereby
consolidated. Woman shall no longer be a slave, but
free in her own right. Capital and labour shall cease
to be antagonistic, and shall be harmoniously employed
to enrich the comforts and to augment the happiness of the
race. Education shall supplant ignorance, and justice take
the place of oppression. Then the era shall have arrived
of which the philosopher has written and the poet has sung.
Freedom shall be the watchword of man, reason shall reign
supreme, and happiness prevail throughout the earth.
“ When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze
The whole dark pile of human miseries,
Then shall the reign of mind commence on earth ;
And, starting forth as from a second birth,
Man, in the sunrise of the world’s new spring,
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.”
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Evolution and special creation
Creator
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Watts, Charles [1836-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Lacking a title page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot.
Publisher
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[Watts & Co.]
Date
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[1893]
Identifier
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RA1574
N667
Subject
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Evolution
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Evolution and special creation), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Charles Darwin
Creationism
Darwinism
Evolution
NSS