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F.R.S. &:c. 1 * * AUTHOR OF ■ACADIAN CEOLOOV- ' T,-,, CHAIN OK LIFE ,N GEOLOGICAL TIME 'EGYPT AND SVKIA, THKIK PHYSICAL FEATCKES IN RELATION TO UlliLE HISTORY' ETC. i ,*' — ~., LONDON THE RELICxIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul\s Chuhchyari, ANu 164 Piccadilly 1890 ■^i^^ipnannw" hi ^ 'i. s i) ^- ^■■''' t 1 i \ i 1 • P R E FACE TilK cybjcct of this work is to examine in a popular manner, and to test by scientific facts and principles, the validity of that multiform and brilliant philosophy of the universe which has taken so deep liold of the science and literature of our time. The task is a somewhat ungrracious one, cspeciall>- in ]':n-iand, whose people are naturally proud of discoveries and- i,^eneralisations which, originating among themselves, have taken the world by storm. It is also extrcmel>' difficult, because of the dazzling and attractive nature of the hypothesis of evolution, the dashing and plau- sible character of the arguments by which it is sus- tained, and its all-embracing scope, which enables it to account for everything that has previously been mysterious. Besides this, it is of the nature of this protean philosophy that it should itself be in process of evolution from day to day, and thus to be in so 62789 6 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION nipiil motion that it changes its features momentarily w iiile one endeavours to skctcli it. Why then attcm))t such a task ? The answer is two-fold — general and personal. First, the world of general readers is captivated, dazzled and perplexed b)' the new philosoph\', and greatly needs some clear and intelligible exposition of its nature and tendency, some classification of its variations, and some attemjjt to explain its agreement or discordance wnth science and religion. Secondly, the writer of the following pages has of late years been besieged by so many letters and inquiries respecting this subject, to which he has incidentally referred in popular books on science, that it becomes necessary in self-defence and to save time to prepare an answer which may meet all demands of this kind.. The conclusions which he has reached as the result of much reading and reflection, as well as of a long-continued and somewhat wide and varied study of nature, may not satisfy the present excitement of enthusiastic specialists and lovers of novelty, but they may serve somewhat to mitigate present extremes of feeling and belief, and may accord with the sober second thoughts which sometimes follow sudden revo- lutions. J. W. D. 1890. « 1 V\ CONTENTS I i I HA I- I l:K I. PRESENT ASPECTS OF T]]\] (,)ri.;sTI()\ II. WHAT IS EVOLUTION? III. THE OKI(;iN OF LIFE IV. THE APPARITIOX OF Sl'ECIES IN ( ;K()|,(), ;icAL TI.ME V. MONISTIC EVOLUTION .... VI. AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION ril. THEISTIC EVOLUTION .... VTII. GOD IN NATURE IX. MAX IN NATURE ' • • • • X. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS .... APPENDIX I. — WEISMANN ON HEREDITY APPENDIX II.— DR. M^COSH ON EVOLUTION 9 •2 58 90 I 18 '5' 162 '7T 202 226 o ■^ ** '■39 I ^'^ \l ] MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION CHAPTER I PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTlOxN The great fabric of the Darwinian evolution may be said to have attained to its completion. Its chief corner-stone has been laid with shouting by its jubilant adherents, and it is presented to us as a permanent and finished structure, fitted to with.tn;yi ^11 the attacks of time and chance. We are even asked to regard its architect as the Newton of Natural Science, and to believe in the finality and completeness of the structure which he has raised. In seeming contrast with this, we find that the disciples of the great teacher are already beginning to diverge widely in their beliefs, and to found new schools, some of which are tending toward the old and discarded theory of Lamarck, or to a modification of it known as Neo-Lamarckianism, while others boast that they maintain the pure Darwinian doctrine, though even among these there are diverse shades of .) \ 10 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION belief. Thus, like other hypotheses and philosophical systems which have i)receded it, Darwinism seems to have entered on a process of disinte<^ration, and it is not easy to divine in what form or forms it may be handed down to our successors. While thus liable to different interpretations within itself, the Darwinian evolution has still more varied as])ects when we regard it In relation to the other beliefs and interests of humanity. The h\'pothesis has been applied to all sorts of uses in relation to physical and natural science, as well as to history and sociology, and it has been made a means of revolu- tionising our classifications and our ideas of species and other groups. It is sometimes monistic or posi- tivist, and scarcely distinguishable from the old- fashioned atheism and materialism. Sometimes it assumes the newer form of agnosticism, and poses as neutral and indifferent with regard to those spiritual interests of man which are imporLan't beyond all others. Again, it becomes theistic, and here wc have adherents of the new system ranging from those who are content to reconcile it with a theistic belief, which recognises a God very far off and shorn of His more important attributes, to those \\A\o accept evolution as a new gospel, adding fresh light to that which shines in the teaching of Jesus Christ. At a lower level it is evident that the ideas of struggle for exis- tence and survival of the fittest, introduced by the new philosophy, and its resolution of man himself PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTIOX ir into a mere spontaneous improvement of brute ancestors, have stimulated to an intense deij^ree that popular unrest, so natural to an a^^e discontented with its lot, because it has learned what it mii^ht do and have, without bein<^ able to realise its expecta- tions, and which threatens to overthrow the whole fabric o*; r ocicty as at present constituted. In tiiese circumstances it seems desirable that science, and especially natural and physical science, which may in some dei^ree be held responsible for this movement, should define its own position, and do what it can to remove the difficulties and relieve the fears which have been engendered by the use or mis- use of its facts and principles. Science will in this way best consult its true interests ; since, if it commits itself to a philosophy professing finality, it is pretty certain to suffer in the inevitable reaction. On the other hand, if it will carefully sift that which is true from that which is false or hypothetical, it may ultimately fall heir to anything that may be valuable or permanent in the new philosophy withouc suffering from its mistakes. We must bear in mind in this connection, that systems of philosophy which endeavour to explain t|;verything by one idea, as they have appeared from time to time, though they have sprung into the field like boastful Goliaths, cowing too many good men for a time into silence or retreat, have soon proved vul- nerable to mere pebbles from the armoury of nature. .12 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION i! I Those especially whose studies of philosophy began half a century ago, and who have seen several such systems wax and wane, besides knowing that the same process has been going on ever since the time of Thales of Miletus, have lost confidence in the infal- libility of such all-embracing generalisations, and may be pardoned for at least cautioning their younger col- leagues against sacrificing science to speculation, and against the tendency to become merely scientific spe- cialists without breadth or sympathy for higher things. The example of the great apostle of evolution himself should warn us as to this. Darwin, as he sits in marble on the staircase of the British Museum, represents a noble figure, made in the image of God, and capable of grasping mentally the heaven above as well as the earth beneath. As he appears in his recent biography, we see the same man paralysed by a spiritual atrophy, blinded and shut up in prison and chained to the mill of a materialistic philosophy where, like a captive Samson, he is doomed to grind all that is fair and beautiful in nature into a dry and formless dust. Would that he had lived to pull down the temple of Dagon with his own hands, even if an ephemeral reputation had perished in the ruins, and to avenge himself of the cruel enemies that had put out the eyes of his higher nature ! This depth of unscientific and unspiritual degene- ration, into which the mind may be thrown by the excessive pursuit of evolutionary ideas, is well shown r PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUEST/ON 13 by Darwin himself in a letter written a year before his death. With reference to his doubts as to the exis- tence of God, he asks — ' Can one trust to the convic- tions of a monkey's mind ? ' But if the idea of God may be a phantom of an ape-like brain, can we trust to reason or conscience in any other matter ? May not science and philosophy themselves be similar fantasies, evolved by mere chance and unreason ? In any case, does not this deprive science of the ennobling idea that nature is the development of Divine Mind and so reduce it to mere drudgery, pursued only for its useful applications or for self-interest ? This seems a serious indictment against evolution, at least in its extreme forms, but its validity seems to be proved by a careful scrutiny of the developments that have followed the publication of the Origin of Species, and which, despite the efforts of so-called theistic and Christian evolutionists, may be held to have tended constantly to a lower and lower depth of materialistic agnosticism, and, at the same time, of debasement of natural science into a jumble of false classifications and visionary speculations. Neither science nor theology need, however, slide hopelessly into this gulf, and it may even be possible to stand near to the treacherous margin and to rescue some grains of truth from this * confused movement of the mind of our age,' as it has been called by a recent German writer.' ' Wiegand, Danvinismus, notice in the Aauiemy, Aug. 25, 1877. mmm .14 MODERN IDEAS OE EVOLUTION In endeavouring to secure this desirable result, uc must not take for granted the truth of the assertion so often confidently made, that science is hostile to religion. It is no doubt true that monistic and agnostic evolution, and those forms of Darwinism which follow the author of the system in negation of the living God, are inconsistent with religion as well as with all the higher interests of men. There may, however, be a theistic principle of development ap- parent in all nature, and which represents what we can perceive of the plan and methods of creation, understanding by that word the making of all things by Almighty Power, whether immediately or mediately, through means of things already made, and laws previously established. It may be said in favour of this view that it gives an inexpressible dignity to man and to science. It shows that the human reason must be after the model of the infinite Divine reason, that in scientific inquiry we are studying God's laws and revelation of Himself in nature. V y, more, if we regard Christ as an incarnation of the Creator, we have in Christianity itself a higher revelation of God, which must be in harmony with nature ; and we shall have a right to hold that the scientific investigator is doing Christ's work and God's work, and, on the other hand, that those qualities of humility, faith, sincerity, and love of truth which God requires of His followers are also those most profitable in scientific study, while scientific habits of thought arc of the utmost value in I PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 15 :.hc study of revelation and in the difficulties of the Christian life. It is also to be observed that even the positivist ind agnostic admit, as appears in recent controver- sies, that some religion or substitute for it is necessary o the highest perfection of man. For example, Harrison, in a recent paper,' believes as a positivist in what he calls the religion of humanity, that is, in set- ting up an ideal standard of human nature, based on historical examples, as something to live up to. His opponent Huxley, from the point of view of an agnostic, thinks this futile — stigmatises man as a failure, and as a ' wilderness of apes ' — and would adore the universe in all its majesty and grandeur. In this they rehabilitate very old forms of religion, for it is evident that the most ancient idolatries con- sisted in lifting up men's hearts to the sun and moon and stars, and in worshipping patriarchs and heroes. Thus we find that there can be no form of infidelity without some substitute for God, and this necessarily less high and perfect than the Creator Himself, while destitute of His fatherly attributes. Further, our agnostic and positivist friends even admit their need of a saviour, since they hold that there must be some elevating influence to raise us from our present evils and failures. Lastlv, when we find the ablest advo- catcs of such philosophy differing hopelessly among themselves, we may well see in this an evidence of the ' Nineteenth Century. ^^■n i6 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION need of a divine revelation. Now, all this is precisely what the Bible has given us in a better way. If we look up with adoring wonder to the material universe, the Bible leads us to see in thi.« the power and God- head of the Creator, and the Creator as the living God, our Heavenly Father, If vve seek for an ideal humanity to worship, the Bible points us to Jesus Christ, the perfect man, and at the same time the manifestation of God, the Good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep, God manifest in the flesh and bring- ing life and immortality to light. Thus the Bible gives us all that these modern ideas desiderate, and infinitely more. Nor should we think little of the older part of revelation, for it shows the historical development of God's plan, and is eminently valuable for its testimony to the unity of nature and of God. It is in religion what the older formations are in geology. Their conditions and their life may have been replaced by newer conditions and living beings, but they form the stable base of the later formations, which not only rest upon them, but which without them would be incomplete and unintelligible. The lesson of these facts is to hold to the old faith, to fear no discussion, and to stand fast for this world and the future on the grand declaration of Jesus — * God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' It is somewhat reassuring that the controversies I PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 17 •f ^.. respecting evolution centre around the Bible, which is thus shown to be a formidable power in the world, and not a thing of the past, as some would have us suppose. In this connection it is to he observed that the atti- tude of the Bible is often misrepresented, since, though it affirins distinctly che creation of all things by the living God, it docs not commit itself either as to the limits of species or as to any special doctrine with respect to the precise way in which it pleased God to make *^hem. When we look at the details of the narrative of creation, we are struck with the manner in which the Bible includes, in a few simple words, all the leading causes and conditions which science has been able to discover. For example, the production of the first animals is announced in the words: 'God said. Let the waters swarm with swarmers.' • A naturalist here recognises not only the origination of animal life in the waters, but also three powers or agencies concerned in its introduction, or rather, perhaps, one power and two conditions of its exercise. First, there are the Divine power and volition contained in the words, * God said.' Secondly, there is a medium or environment previously prepared and essential to the production of the result — 'the waters.' Thirdly, there is the element of vital continuity in the term * swarmers ' — that reproductive element which hands down the organism with all its * This is, perhaps, the best word to express the meaning of the term sheretzim — rapidly multiplying or dividing creatures. B i8 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION powers from generation to generation, from age to age. If we ask modern science what are the agencies and conditions implied in the introduction on the earth of the multitudinous forms of humble marine life which we find in the oldest rocks, its answer is in no essential respect different. It says that these creatures, endowed with powers of reproduction and possibly of variation, increased and multiplied and filled the waters with varied forms of life ; in other words, they were sJieretziju^ or s warmers. It further says that their oceanic environment supplied the ex- ternal conditions of their introduction and continu- ance, and all the varieties of station suited to their various form ? — * the waters brought them forth.* Lastly, since biology cannot show any secondary cause adequate to produce out of dead matter even the humblest of these swarmers, it must here either confess its ignorance, and say that it knows nothing of such * abiogenesis,' ' or must fall back on the old formula, * God said.' Let it be further observed that creation or making, as thus stated in the Bible, is not of the nature of what some are pleased to call an arbitrary intervention and miraculous interference with the course of nature. It leaves quite open the inquiry how much of the vital > It is sometimes urged against the idea of creation that it implies abiogenesis or production without previous life. But there must have been abiogenesis at some time, and probably more than once, else no living thing could have existed. ] PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 19 phenomena which we perceive may be due to the absolute creative fiat, to the prepared environment, or the reproductive pow':;r. The creative work is itself a part of Divine law, and this in a three-fold aspect : First, the law of the Divine will or purpose ; second, the laws impressed on the medium or environment ; third, the laws of the organism itself, and of its con- tinuous multiplication, cither with or without modifi- cations. While the Bible does not commit itself to any hypotheses of evolution, it does not exclude these up to a certain point. It even intimates in the varying formulae, ' created,' ' made,' * formed,' caused to ' bring forth,' that different kinds of living beings may have been introduced in different ways, only one of which is entitled to be designated by the higher term ' create.' The scientific evolutionist may, for instance, ask whether different species, when introduced, may not under the influence of environment change in process of time, or by sudden transitions, into new forms not distinguishable by us from original products of crea- tion. Such questions may never admit of any certain or final solution, but they resemble in their nature those of the chemist, when he asks how many of the kinds of matter are compounds produced by the union of simple substances, and how many are elementary, and can be no further decomposed. If the chemist has to recognise, say, seventy substances as elementary, these are to him manufactured articles, products of B 2 20 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION creation. If he should be able to reduce them to a much smaller number, even ultimately to only one kind of matt::r, he would not by such discovery be enabled to dispense with a Creator, but would only have penetrated a little more deeply into His methods of procedure. The biological question is, no doubt, much more intricate and difficult than the chemical, but is of the same general character. On the prin- ciples of Biblical theism, it may be stated in this way: God has created all living beings according to their kinds or species, but with capacities for variation and change under the laws which He has enacted for them. Can we ascertain any of the methods of such creation or making, and can we know how many of the forms which we have been in the habit of naming as distinct species coincide with His creative species, and how many are really results of their variations under the laws of reproduction and heredity, and the influence of their surroundings ? I may add that this introductory chapter is neces- sarily a very general summary of the questions to which it relates, and that its positions will be much strengthened by our detailed consideration of those marvellous structures and functions of animals and plants which modern science has revealed to us, and their wonderful history in geological time. These are facts so stupendous in their intricacy and vastness that they make the relation of God to the origination and history of any humble animal or plant as grand PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 21 and inscrutable as His relation to the construction of the starry universe itself. It is plainly shown by recent controversies, as, for example, those which have appeared in the Nine- teenth Century for 1889, that the agnostic evolution and the acceptance of the results of German criticism in disintegrating the earlier books of the Bible, are at the moment combining their forces in the attack on Evangelical Christianity. They present a very formidable front, but if met in a spirit at once fair and firm, and with an intelligent knowledge of nature and revelation, the evil which they may do will be only temporary, and may lead in the future to a more robust and enlightened faith. !l 23 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION CHAPTER II WHAT IS EVOLUTION ? 11 It is quite nececsary to ask this question, since under the name Evolution so many things are vaguely included that, without care, we may involve ourselves in mental confusion. 1. Evolution sometimes professes to explain the origins of things ; but of this it knows absolutely no- thing. Evolution can take piace only where there is something to be evolved, and something out of which it can be evolved, with adequate causes for the evolu- tion. This is admitted in terms by Darwin and his followers, but constantly overlooked in their reasoning, in which evolution is spoken of as if it were, or could be, an efficient cause. The title Origin of Species was itself a misnomer as used by Darwin. The book treated not of the origin of species, but of the trans- mutations of species already in existence. 2. The term Evolution as popularly used may thus include processes either modal or causal. The former implies development under adequate causes, and this is rational evolution. The latter assumes WHA T TS E VOL UTION f 33 to be itself a cause, which is in the nature of things impossible. The causes of development must always be distinguished from the evolution itself It has been the fashion to use the expression ' factors of evolution ' to cover the causes ; but it would be more honest to admit at once that there must be efficient and adequate causes for every development. 3. The term Evolution is used to express in- differently all changes of the nature of development, however different in kind from each other. Spencer's definition that evolution is the * transformation of the homogeneous through successive differentiations into the heterogeneous' would cover creation as well as development, in the sense in which he understands it, and it docs not cover those developments in which the complex becomes more simple, as in what is termed retrograde development in plants and animals. But this definition covers, as used by Spencer and Darwin, even with reference to organisms alone, three distinct things : (i) Direct development of structures previously prepared and subjected to the action of adequate causes, as heat, moisture, air, &c. Of this kind is the development of seeds and eggs into perfect plants and animals. This is the only kind which can be termed spontaneous, and this term can be applied only in a very limited sense, because it implies a previous laying up, potentially or structurally, in the germ, of all that is to be developed from it. (2) In- direct development, or that which takes place under 24 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION i 11 the power and guidance of an external will. Such is the production of varieties of animals and plants by selection and other means, and such would be creation if carried out by a Supreme Being using His own materials and lav/s. This, be it observed, is the only sense in which there can be such a thing as natural selection. Nature is either a purely imaginary being, a mere figure of speech, or another name for a creative will. (3) The supposed development of new kinds or species of animals and plants from others by descent, with modification — a process as yet unknown except hypothetically and inferentially, and which is what the doctrine of evolution is contrived to establish, in so far as specific types are concerned, though it is well known in the case of mere varieties. (4) The supposed evolution of living organisms from dead matter, also a process unknown to science — a creative fact, which must have occurred at some time, but of the nature and secondary causes of which we know nothing. We may be certain, however, that if it was in any sense of the nature of a development, this must have been different from anything known to us as occurring at present. All these entirely distinct kinds of chaiige are mixed up by evolutionists in treating of organic evo- lution ; and they freely extend the same term to things so different as the physical changes by which the earth assumed its present form, the improvement of arts and social institutions, the growth of nations by WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 25 human agency, and even the supposed development of the mind of man himself from the powers of lower animals. In these circumstances, if we are to under- stand anything of this confused and multiform philo- sophy, we must perpetually question its advocates and exponents as to the kind of development of which they are speaking, and as to the causes to which such alleged development may be attributed. We must also be especially cautious in scrutinising any analogies presented tc us, as, for example, that between the development of an embryo into a perfect animal, and the succession of animals in geological time. In such a case we must inquire not only if the alleged developments are really similar, but if they take place in similar conditions and under the influ- ence of similar causes — in other words, whether the analogy is real or only apparent. So dangerous is this use of the term evolution, that it may become necessary to abandon the word altogether in purely scientific discussions, and to in- sist on the terms causation and development, as cover- ing the two distinct ideas now mixed up under evo- lution. It is at least necessary in discussions on this subject to be constantly on our guard as to the kind of evolution in question, whether modal evolution of a direct or indirect, literal or figurative character, or the mere figment of a causal evolution. With reference to the Darwinian system proper, this kind of definition is not difficult. Darwin's ■BHHHBaWWIMMin 26 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION natural turn of mind and his scientific training were not of such a character as to lead him to seek for ulti- mate causes. He was content with a modal evolution. He took matter and force and their existing laws as he found them. He presupposed also life and orga- nisation with all their powers, and even seemed to postulate certain species of animals and plants as necessary raw material wherewith to begin his pro- cess of evolution. How all this vast and complex machinery came into being he did not concern him- self, and was content to leave it as something beyond his ken. Thus, as it appears in the Origin of Species^ evolution is merely a modification of specific forms, and Darwin was content to explain thi- by an imagi- nary struggle for existence, and a supposed natural or spontaneous selection exercised in an indefinite way by external forces and conditions. Thus it really did not touch the question of how the first species originated, but only that of their subsequent modifi- cation ' by means of natural selection,' or ' preservation of favoured races in the struggle of life.' Darwin thus did not concern himself much with causal evolution, or the origin of things properly so- called. Indeed, when questioned on these points, he appears to the last to have been in uncertainty and to have desired not to commit himself To men whose minds are not under the influence of positive theism, or of a belief in Divine revelation, and who attain to large acquaintance with nature, it either resolves it- WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 27 self into a cosmos which manifests the power and divinity of a creative will, or it becomes disintegrated into a chaos of confused and conflicting forces battling with one another. Darwin's view was of the latter kind, and hence to him the life of organised beings was a struggle for existence, or, at least, this appeared to him far more potent than the opportunity and desire to improve and advance, on which the great French naturalist, Lamarck, based his theory of evolution. It is evident that such a view of nature has the appearance, at first sight, of being wholly subjective and illusory. It does not touch the question of origins. It assigns no adequate causes for either the movement or the uniform direction of the supposed development. It seems to enthrone chance or accident or necessity as Lord and Creator, and to reduce the universe to a mere drift, in which we are embarked as in a ship without captain, crew, rudder, or compass, and without any guiding chart or star. Let us inquire, however, how Darwin justified a position apparently so unscientific. He took his initial stand on the idea that, as he expresses it, * a careful study of domesticated animals and plants would offer the best chance of making out this obscure problem ' of the introduction of new species. Hence he was led to study the variation of animals and plants under domestication, and to infer similar effects as taking place in nature by a spontaneous power of * natural selection ' exercised by the environment. It 28 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION Thus, by a striking inversion of ordinary probabilities, inanimate nature was made to rule, determine, and elevate that which lives and wills. Singular though it may appear, this apparent paradox is one of the great charms of the doctrine to the general mind, which is excited by the strange and marvellous, especially when this is supposed to be countenanced by science. This leading idea Darwin supported by several collateral considerations, such as the ascertained suc- cession of animal and vegetable life in geological time, the analogy with this of the stages of the embryo in its development in the higher animals, the supposed power of sexual selection and the influence of gv^o- graphical distribution. All these influences, including natural selection, were supposed to operate in a very slow and gradual manner, so much so that the obser- vation of the apparent permanence of species within the human period should not be regarded as an ob- jection. The Darwinian system thus embraced a modal evolution or development of living beings, with certain alleged causes keeping up the movement and giving it direction ; and all this with or without a superin- tending will and creative power behind it. Presented in an attractive and popular manner, and with a great mass of facts supposed to sustain it, and concurring with the popular evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer, it was at once accepted by a great number of scientific and literary men, and applied in varied WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 29 ways to the solution of many questions more or less analogous to that of the origin of species, while, as was natural, it has been pushed in a vast number of wild and extreme directions by popular writers not con- versant with science in a practical manner. It has, however, been seriously canvassed by the more cautious and conservative men of science, and has been found to fit in so badly with what is actually known of nature, that it has gradually been obliged to modify its claims ; and ultimately its adherents have become divided into distinct schools, differing materi- ally from each other and from the original Darwinism, though all agree in claiming Darwin as a master and in upholding his merit as a great discoverer. These various schools are divided: (i) As to the primary causes of the development ; (2) As to the secondary causes ; (3) As to the mode or modes. With reference to the first, there are some evolu- tionists who are agnostic like Spencer, monistic like Haeckel, or merely negatively materialistic, like a large n umber of the younger naturalists. On the other hand, there are advocates of evolution who profess to see in it the manifestation of Divine creative power, and with whom evolution is merely the manner in which the will of God manifests itself With reference to the secondary causes supposed to be at work, observation and experiment have shown that, if development of new species has taken place, other causes than those alleged by Darwin 30 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION must have been operative, although many able Dar- winians, like Weismann and Wallace, profess to regard natural selection as the sole operative cause. The influence of an innate tendency to vary has been claimed by some, as if in the original creation of living beings they had been so wound up as to go first in one direction and then in another, without any external cause, or when acted upon by varying causes. The influence of favourable conditions and room for expansion has been alleged by others, in accordance with the old view of Lamarck. The tendency of some lower animals, under unfavour- able conditions, to become reproductive before they have attained to full maturity, while more favourable circumstances elevate the standing to which the animal attains before producing young, is also a con- sideration which, under the name of reproductive acceleration or retardation, has attracted some atten- tion. Various causes of abrupt or sudden change have also been invoked, as, for instance, those obscure agencies which determine the appearance of monstro- sities or varietal forms among domesticated animals. The question of efficient cause has thus become very complicated, and the only points on which all are united are the possibility of varieties or races in some way overleaping the bounds of specific fixity and becoming new species, and the further doctrine that changes acquired in any way may become per- manent as an inheritance in such new species. This Ml WHAT 16 EVOLUTION ? 31 last tenet of heredity has, however, of late been greatly shaken by the investigations of Weismann, which have thrown doubt on the possibility of inheritance of some characters acquired by the individual. We shall see that if these new views are established, the whole aspect of the question of specific modification will be greatly changed. Since, however, no case establish- ing any one of the alleged factors of new species is actually known to have occurred, these doctrines of modification and heredity, as applied to the origin of species, are, as yet, articles of faith and not of scientific certainty, and the whole question of causation in evo- lution may be said to be in an uncertain and transi- tion state. In these circumstances the questions as to possible modes of development may seem to lose much of their importance ; but the disciples of Darwin inform us that, independently of known and ascertained causes, the probability of development which arises from embryonic analogy and the affinities of animals and plants among themselves, is so great that the doctrine must nevertheless be credited or at least treated with respect. Farther, the modes of develop- ment are, as we have already seen, the only points on which certain evidence can be obtained. It is neces- sary, therefore, to consider these. Here we must admit, in the first place, that though we can study modes of variation of species, no case has actually occurred under the observation — <— MlHWIImmi I LMUMI ' I I 32 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION of naturalists of the development of a new species. We must also admit that such is the fixity of specific forms at present, and the nice equilibrium of all their parts, that the changes eftected under domestication and by artificial selection seriously unsettle their stability, and cause the varieties and races produced to exist under a condition of tension and unstable balance, which renders them infertile and otherwise unlikely to survive if left to themselves. They have, farther, in favourable circumstances a strong tendency to revert to the original types. Again, we must admit that on the supposition of slow and piecemeal altera- tion in a complex organism, we meet with endless difficulties in relation to the origin of each change, its fitting in with the other parts of the organism and its maintenance while still too imperfect to be of use. These difficulties are specially formidable when the whole depends on favouring accidents in the absence of a guiding will like that of the human breeder. We also find that in the past history of life in geological time, there are several great difficulties in the way of the idea of slow and gradual modification. One arises from the fact that we can trace most of the leading types so far back that they seem to con- stitute parallel rather than diverging lines, and show no certain evidence of branching. The continuance of the Lingulae and other Brachiopods, and of the silicious sponges and the Foraminifera, from the Cambrian to the modern, and more lately the history WHAT IS J: VOLUTION? 33 of the oysters, which have continued from the Carbo- niferous age to the present, and that of the scorpions, which have continued from the Silurian, in both cases with scarcely any more differences than their succes- sors present at the present day, may be taken as examples. With this must be connected the further fact that nearly all the early types of life seem very long ago to have reached stages so definite and fixed that they became apparently incapable of further development, constituting what have recently been called * terminal forms.' ' A further difficulty arises from our failure to find satisfactory examples of the almost infinite alleged connecting links which must have occurred in a gradual development. This, it may be said, proceeds from the imperfection of the record ; but when we find abundance of examples of the young and old of many fossil species, and can trace them through their ordinary embryonic development, why should we not find examples of the links which bound the species together ? An additional difficulty is caused by the fact that in most types we find a great number of kinds in their earlier geological history, and that they dwindle rather than increase as they go onward. This fact, established in so many cases as to constitute an actual law of palaeontology, is altogether independent of the alleged imperfection of the record. Objections of this kind appear to be fatal to the ' C\Q\\a.n(\., Journal of Anafoiiiy and Physiology. C y Hi li i 34 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION Darwinian idea of slow modifications, proceeding throughout geological time, and to throw us back on a doctrine of sudden appearance of new forms, occur- ring at certain portions of geological time rather than at others, and in the earlier history of animal and vegetable types rather than in their later history, and in early geological times, rather than in those more recent This doctrine, however, of critical or spasmodic evolution is essentially differ' nt from Darwinism, and approaches to that which has been called mediate creation, or creation under natural law. With respect to the origin of man himself, which is, no doubt, the most important point to us, these difficulties are enormous. We can trace man only a little way back in geological history, not farther than the Pleistocene period, and the earliest men are still men in all essential points, and separated from other animals, recent and fossil, by a gap as wide as that which exists now. Farther, if from the Pleistocene to the modern period man has continued essentially the same, this, on the principle of gradual develop- ment, would remove his first appearance not only far beyond the existence of any remains of man or his works, but beyond the time when any animals nearly approaching to him are known to have existed. This is independent altogether of the farther difficulties which attend the spontaneous origination of the mental and moral nature of our species. It would WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 35 seem, then, that man must have been introduced, not by a process of gradual development, but in some abrupt and sudden way. Even Wallace, who has all along adhered to the doctrine of natural selection in its integrity, while he agrees with Darwin that man must be a descendant of apes as to his bodily frame,' maintains that his higher mental and moral faculties must have had another origin. These considerations have led many of the more logical and thoughtful of the followers of Darwin to the position of supposing, not a gradual, but an inter- mittent and sudden development, and this, in the main, in the earliest periods of the history of living beings. In a very able essay by Dr. Alpheus Hyatt, in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, this view is very fully stated in its applica- tion to animals. On the one hand, Hyatt holds that the biological facts and the geological evidence as it has been stated by Marcou, Le Conte, Barrande, Davidson, and by the author of this work, precludes the idea of slow and uniform change proceeding throughout geological time, and he holds justly that the idea of what he calls * a concentrated and accele- rated process of evolution,' in early geological times, brings the doctrine of development nearer to the posi- tion of those great naturalists like Cuvier, Louis Agassiz, and Gegenbauer, who have denied any genetic connection between the leading animal types. He ' Danvinisiii, p. 461. z 2 !■' wf- 36 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION quotes Cope and Packard in support of his v'xcw on this point. The latter wc shall have occasion to refer to in the sequel in connection with cave animals. Cope has. in a series of brilliant essays,' endeavoured to illustrate what he terms * cau.ses of the origin of the fittest.' Of this kind are growth-force modified by retardation or acceleration of development produced by unfavourable or favouring conditions, the effects of u.se and disuse on modifying structures, the law of correlation of parts and the effects of animal intelli- gence. These are all causes ignored by the genuine Darwinian. Nevertheless theyexi.st in nature, though rather as causes of mere adaptive variation than of specific difference. Another modification of orthodox Darwinism is that of Romanes, who may almost be regarded as Darwin's most prominent successor. He has intro- duced the idea of physiological .selection, that is, of the occurrence accidentally or from unknown causes of reproductive changes which render certain indi- viduals of a species infertile with others. The effect or this would be an isolation amounting to the erection of two forms not reproductive with each other ; or, in other words, of two species not gradually differentiated, but distinct from the first. This is really an inversion of Darwin's theory, in which the initial stage of Romanes is necessarily the culmination of the develop- ment. It differs also essentially in elim.inating the ' ' Origin of the Fittest,' American Naturalist, IV//AT /S EVOLUTION) 37 idea of use and adaptation to change implied in the theory of natural selection. Romanes even goes so far as to stigmatise the adherence to natural selection pure and simple as * Wallaceism,' in contradistinction to Darwinism, while he admits that Wallace has a good right to adhere t this view, as having in some sense antedated Darwin in assertin'j the dominant influence of natural sclec- lion. It is fair to say, with regard *^o Romanes, that while advocating the importance of ' Physiological Selection,' he claims that Darwin admitted, or would have admitted, this factor, since he believed that in the absence of infertility to prevent intercrossing, natural selection would fail to produce new species. It is worthy of remark hero that both Romanes and Wallace seem to be aware that this admission might be fatal to the doctrine of natural selection, unless they can show some other cause capable of producing infertility. In the meantime, Weismann in Germany has, in the name of what has been called pure Darwinism, introduced into the discussion facts and considerations as destructive to the usual doctrine as Puritanism would be to High Churchism. Me contends that all evidence is against the perpetuation by heredity of characters acquired by the individual. Only characters born with him can be perpetuated. For example, a man born with six fingers on his hand may have six- fingered children, but a man who acquires in his life- !ii ;* 1 38 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION time manual dexterity, or who loses a finger by accident, will not transmit either peculiarity. Weis- mann has undoubtedly made out a strong case in favour of this contention, which would at once over- throw the Lamarckian theory of evolution, and would remove one of the subsidiary props of Darwinism, throwing it back entirely on the natural selection of fortuitous congenital variations. Purified in this way, and reduced to chance variation, perpetuated by ac- cidental action of favouring circumstances, Darwinism would, according to some of its adherents, evaporate without leaving any residuum. Nor has it escaped notice that the theory of Weismann implies profound and far-reaching considerations respecting the indepen- dence of the germinal matter of animals of individual peculiarities, and its constancy to the ideal plan of the species, which would help us to account for the wonderful permanence of types in geological time, while it would oppose change, except when this arises from causes directly affecting the reproductive func- tion. Another important point involved in Weismann's results is the probability that, while asexual reproduc- tion, as, for instance, that of budding, tends to per- petuate individual peculiarities, whether of advance or retrogression, ordinary reproduction tends to eliminate all variations, whether produced by habit and use or by obscure causes affecting the individual in its life- time. Thus there is a strong barrier set up, especially m WHAT IS EVOLUTION .^ 39 in the higher organisms, against cither degradation or elevation. Advantage has been taken of this by some specu- lators to suggest that new species may have originated by parthenogenesis, that is to say, by what theologians would call miraculous conception, and this idea has by some of them been connected even with the nativity of our Lord on the earth. But such speculations are very far removed from even the borders of science. These speculations may, however, raise the question whether man is to be succeeded by any improved species. If it had pleased God at anytime to produce several individuals of a new race as superior to ordi- nary humanity as was Jesus of Nazareth, and to isolate and protect from admixture this new departure, the world might have entered on a new stage as superior to the present as man himself is to the pre- daceous beasts which the nations of the earth delight to use as their emblems. This idea presented itself to the Prophet Daniel when he saw the successive conquering empires of the world represented by a series of ferocious beasts, and saw these replaced by one 'like unto the Son of Man,' a truly human per- sonage, descending from heaven to reign on earth. The same figure is in the mind of Christ when He calls Himself distinctively the ' Son of Man,' not as merely human or in comparison with God, but as contrasted with the lower powers of earth, and as re- presenting the heaven-descended man of Daniel. - rr- ff 40 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION Jesus, however, assures us that not a new species of Jioino, but man himself, in a redeemed, sanctified, and spiritual state, is to be the heir of the coming ages. A curious point, little thought of by most evolu- tionists, but deserving consideration here, is that to which Herbert Spencer has given the name * direct equilibration,' or the balance of parts and forces with- in the organism itself The body of an animal, for example, is a very complex machine, and if its parts have been put together by chance, and are drifting onwards on the path of evolution, there must neces- sarily be a continual struggle going on between the different organs and functions of the body, each tend- ing to swallow up the other, and each struggling for its own existence. This resolution of the body of any animal into a house divided against itself, is at first sight so revolting to common sense, and so hideous to right feeling, that few like to contemplate it ; but it has been brought into prominence by Roux and other recent writers, especially in Germany, and it is no doubt a necessary outcome of the evolutionary idea. For why should not the struggle of species against species extend to the individuals and the parts of the individual ? On this view, the mechanism of an animal ceases even to be a machine, and becomes a mere mass of conflicting parts thrown together at random, and depending for its continued existence on a chance balance of external forces. It is well for us that we have not in human machinery to deal with such un- m WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 41 stable and dangerous combinations, else no one's life would be for a moment safe. Fortunately, geological history so completely negatives this idea, by showing the extreme perma- nence of many forms of life which have continued to propagate themselves through almost immeasurable ages and great changes of environment, without material variation, and the apparent fixity of these in their final forms, that we are relieved from the dread which this nightmare of German brains tends to create. Viewed rightly, the direct equilibration of the parts of animals and plants is so perfect and so stable, and such great evils arise from the slightest disturb- ance of it by the selective agency of man, that it be- comes one of the strongest arguments against the production of new species by variation. This has been well shown by Mr. T. Warren O'Neill, of Phila- delphia,' who adduces a great number of facts, detailed by Darwin himself, to show that when the stability of an organism is artificially altered by man in his attempt to establish new breeds, infertility and death of these varieties or breeds results ; and if this hap- pens under the fortuitous selection supposed to occur in nature, any considerable variation would result either in speedy return to the original type or in speedy extinction. In other words, so beautifully balanced is the organism, that an excess or deficiency ' Refutation of Darwin. Philadelphia, 1880. f! I mm 42 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION in any of its parts, when artificially or accidentally introduced, soon proves fatal to its existence as a species ; so that, unless nature is a vastly more skilful breeder and fancier than man, the production of new- species by natural selection is an impossibility. Two remarkable books by two of the ablest ex- ponents of the Darwinian theory of evolution have recently appeared, which may be taken as specimens of the evolutionary method, and may be commended to those who desire to know this theory as defended and extended by its friends.' One of these works is by Alfred Wallace, who may be truly said to have anti- cipated Darwin in the theory of natural selection — the other by Dr. Romanes, Darwin's successor. Both claim to be orthodox Darwinians, though each accuses the other of some heresy. Wallace's book may, how- ever, be accepted as the best English exposition of Darwinism in general, that of Romanes as the ablest attempt to explain on this theory the evolution of the higher faculties of man. Neither professes to explain the origin of life, but both profess, life and species of animals being given, to explain their development as high as man himself, though they differ materially as to this highest stage of evolution, and also as to the omnipotence of natural selection. The judicious reader will, however, observe that both take for granted what should be proved ; in other words, reason con- ' Da)7iiinis!ii, by Wallace ; Mental Evohiiion in Man, by Romanes. ■"^ WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 43 stantly in a narrow circle, and constantly use such formulae as * wc may well suppose,' instead of argu- ment. Wc may take as an example from Wallace the history of the evolution of the water-ouzel or dipper. It may serve as an example of the questions which are raised by the Darwinian evolution, and which, if they have no other advantage, tend to promote the minute observation of nature, of which Wallace's book shows many interesting examples. It serves, at the same time, to illustrr.ce that peculiar style of reasoning in a circle which is characteristic of this school of thought. I have chosen this special illustration from Wallace because it is one in which the idea of adapta- tion to fill a vacant space — an idea as much Lamarckian as Darwinian — is introduced. U An excellent example of how a limited group of species has been able to maintain itself by adaptation to one of these ' vacant places ' in nature is afforded by the curious little birds called dippers or water-ouzels, forming the genus Cinclus of the family Cinclida of naturalists. These birds are something like small thrushes, with very short wings and tail and very dense plumage. They frequent, exclusively, mountain torrents in the northern hemisphere, and obtain their food entirely in the water, consisting, as it does, of water-beetles, caddis-worms, and other insect larvoe, as well as numerous small fresh-water shells. These birds, although not far removed in structure from thrushes and wrens, have the extraordinary power of flying under water ; for such, according to the best observers, is their process of diving in search of their prey, their dense and somewhat fibrous i ir I HI : 44 MODERN IDEAS OE EVOLUTION plumage retaining so much air that the water is prevented from touching their bodies, or even from wetting their feathers to any great extent. Their powerful feet and long curved claws enable them to hold on to stones at the bottom, and thus to retain their position while picking up insects, shells, «S:c. As they frequent chiefly the most rapid and boisterous torrents, among rocks, waterfalls, and huge boulders, the water is never frozen over, and they are thus able to live during the severest winters. Only a very few species of dipper are known, all those of the old world being so closely allied to our British bird that some ornithologists consider them to be merely local races of one species ; while in North America and the Northern Andes there are two other species. Here, then, we have a bird, which, in its whole structure, shows a close affinity to the smaller typical perching birds, but which has departed from all its allies in its habits and mode of life, and has secured for itself a place in nature where it has few competitors and few enemies. We may well suppose that, at some remote period, a bird which was perhaps the common and more generalised ancestor of most of our thrushes, warblers, wrens, &c. had spread widely over the great northern continent, and had given rise to numerous varieties adapted to special conditions of life. Among these some took to feeding on the borders of clear streams, picking out such larvce and molluscs as they could reach in shallow water. When food became scarce they would attempt to pick them out of deeper and deeper water, and while doing this in cold weather many would become frozen and starved. Jiut any which possessed denser and more heavy plumage than usual, which was able to keep out the water, would survive ; and thus a race would be formed which would depend more and more on this kind of food. Then, following up the frozen streams into the mountains, they would be able to live there during winter ; It, WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 45 and as such places afforded them much protection from enemies and ami)le shelter for their nests and young, further adaptations would occur, till iho wonderful power of diving and flying under water was acquired by a true land-bird.' Here it will be scon that a bird, distinctly marked off by important structures and habits from others, is supposed to have originated from a different species at some remote period, by efforts to obtain food in what, to it, mu.'iL have been an unnatural way ; and the sole proof of this is tiici'-^cxpression, ' we may well sup- pose.' Why may wc not as well suppose that all the perching birds were at first like water-ouzels, which would accord with the early appearance of aquatic birds, and that they gained their diverse forms by availing themselves of the better circumstances and more varied food to be found in the woods and fields, so that our water-ouzel may be a survival of a primi- tive type ? Neither theory can be proved, and the one is as likely as the other, perhaps the latter, of the two, the more likely, and neither actually explains any- thing. It is to be observed, also, as already hinted, that the kind of evolution in this, as in some other cases supposed by Wallace, is rather Lamarck ian than Darwinian. It is interesting to note that, though wedded to that strange mode of reasoning of which the extract above given furnishes an example, Wallace frankly and fully admits three of the great breaks in the con- ' DafZiiinisiii, pp Ii6, 117. • .if mama ifi r / /• V X \ 46 MODERN IDEAS OE EVOLUTION tinuity of evolution. First, he admits that we cannot account for the introduction of Hfc at first, because we know no way in which mere chemical combination can produce living protoplasm. Here, he says, ' we have indications of a new power at work which we may call Vitality.' Secondly, he sees no cause in the continuous evolution for the introduction of animal sensation and consciousness. No attempt at expla- nation by any modification of protoplasm can here * afford any mental satisfaction, or help us in any way to a solution of the mystery.' He sees a similar break of continuity in the introduction of the higher faculties of man. ' These faculties could not have been developed by means of the same laws which have determined the progressive development of the organic world in general and also of man's physical organism.' These he refers to an unseen universe — to a world of spirit to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate. If we refer these three great steps to a spiritual Creator, and eliminate, on the other side, the known development of varietal forms, the field for the Darwinian evolution becomes greatly narrowed. Romanes, the author of the other work, will listen to no such compromises ; but, on the other hand, is willing to admit a union of the Darwinian and Lamarckian doctrines, besides sexual selection and other factors, which are admitted also by Spencer. His latest work is devoted to the bridging over the I FN AT /S EVOLUTION? 47 third of the gaps above mentioned, as in a previous work he had dealt with the second. He does not affirm that he has fully succeeded, but that, by con- sidering the case of savages and of prehistoric man, we * are brought far on the way towards bridg.ng the psychological distance which separates the gori' . from the gentleman.' It is one thing, however, to be on the way to a chasm, and another to be assured that there is a good bridge over it. If we succeed in cross- ing with him from instinct to animal intelligence, from this to rational thought, from this to ethical judg- ments and to the belief in God and immortality, and along with all this to speech, we have the following to reward us in regard to one step of our progress : * I believe that this most interesting creature (speech- less man) lived for an inconceivably long time before his faculty of articulate sign-making had developed sufficiently far to begin to starve out the more primi- tive and more natural systems ; and I believe that even after this starving-out process did begin, another inconceivable lapse of time must have been required to have eventually transformed Homo alaliis into Homo sapietisJ A process which thus requires two eternities in which to pass through two of its stages may well stagger the credulity of ordinary specimens of Homo sapiens, and may surely be dismissed as itself * inconceivable.' While, however, the conclusions of Romanes are thus somewhat unsatisfactory, his book contains much "48 MODERX IDEAS OF EVOLUTION r I that is valuable, more especially with reference to the perfectly legitimate questions relating to the develop- ment of civilisation, and of new ideas and inventions in human history. Man is not confined, like the lower animals, within the range of unvarying instinct. He is gifted with inventive and progressive powers, and in the study of the progress of these there is scope for much psychological inquiry and discussion, though it is evident that human progress is not of the nature of a slow and gradual evolution, but rather by sudden leaps under the influence of superior genius and mental power, and it is all within the specific limits of man, and in no respect tends to the production of a new species. This general view of evolution will enable us to have some definite idea of the doctrine as presented by Darwin and his followers ; but perhaps it may be well before proceeding farther to consider what bear- ing it may have on theology, or more properly whether it accords with or contradicts the idea of divine crea- tion as maintained in Revelation. As to this, little apprehension need be entertained on the part of Christianity, and it may safely leave such questions as those above discussed to exhaust themselves, except in so far as they may affect the interest of individual unstable souls. This last is, however, an important matter, and it may be well to scrutinise it more closely. The modern hypotheses of evolution present them- WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 49 an selves to the Christian under two aspects — thetheistic and the atheistic or agnostic, for the two last arc practically the same. The theistic evolutionist holds that God creates, but that created things may have powers of spontaneous evolution, under laws whereby they may pass into new and higher forms. The atheist and the agnostic eliminate the idea of a Creator, and reduce everythii 7 to the action of atoms and forces .supposed to be practically and inherently omnipotent. They thus make of these atoms and forces a supreme god, attributing to them the same powers assigned by the theist to the Creator. It is obvious, however, that many adherents of evolution have no clear perception of the distinction between these phases, or find it convenient to overlook its existence, since we often find them hovering in '' ^ught between the one and the other, or occupying one or the other position indifferently, as the exigen- cies of debate may require. It is also to be observed that either of these phases of evolution may admit of modifications. One of the most important of these arises from the distinction between the idea of slow and uniform development maintained by Darwin and others, and that of sudden or intermittent evolution advocated by such evolu- tionists as Mivart and Le Conte. Viewing the matter in this light, it is evident that neither the theological idea of creation nor the evo- lutionist notion, in either of its phases, can have any D I 4-. i I ■'1 i ; ■ ' s-^ MODERN IDEAS OE EVOrMTION close dependence on biological and geological science, which studies the nature and succession of organic forms without ascertaining their origin ; cither hypo- thesis, may, however, appeal to scientific facts as more or less according with the consequences which might be expected to follow from the origins supposed. It is further evident that, should evolutionists be driven by natural facts to admit the sudden apparition of organic forms rather than their gradual develop- ment, there may be no apparent difference, as to matter of fact, between such sudden apparition and creation, so that science may become absolutely silent on the question. Palaeontology has indeed recently tended to bring the matter into this position, as Barrande and others have well shown. I have myself elsewhere adduced the advent of the Cambrian trilobites, of the Silurian ccphalopods, of the Devonian fishes, of the Carboni- ferous batrachians, land snails and myriapods, of the marsupial mammals of the Mesozoic and the placental mammals of the Eocene, and of the Palaeozoic and modern floras, as illustrations of the sudden swarm- ing 'n of forms of life over the world, in a manner in- d' flows and ebbs of the creative action, incon- ..L with Darwinian uniformity, and perhaps un- dvourablc to any form of evolution ordinarily held.' ' In England, Davidson, Jeffreys, Williamson, Carrulhers, and other eminent naturalists have strongly insisted on the tendency of palseontological facts to prove permanence of type and intermittent IVHAT IS EVOLUTION? 5' and Icy of lillent This neutral attitude of science has been stronj^dy insisted on by Dr. Wigand ' in his elaborate work DarivinisiiiKS, in which he holds that this doctrino docs not represent a definite and consistent scientific effort and result, but merely an * indefinite and con- fused movement of the mind of the age,' and th.'.t i^cience may ultimately prove its most dangerous foe. In like manner the veteran German physiologist Virchow, in an able address before the Assembly of German Naturalists at Munich,''^ taking the spon- taneous generation of organisms and the descent of man from ape-like ancestors as test questions, argues in the most conclusive manner that neither can be held as a result of scientific investigation, but that both must be regarded as problems as yet unsolved. But in the face of such opinions as these, we are struck with the fact that eminent men of science in England and America inform us that science demands our belief in the theory of evolution, and this in its atheistic as well as its theistic phase. When, how- ever, we ask reasons for this demand, we find that those who make it arc themselves obliged to admit the absence of a scientific basis for the doctrine For example, I may refer to the able md elaborate address delivered a few years ago before the American Association by its President, Professor Marsh. He introduction of new forms, as distinguished from descent with gradual modification. 1 Dr. Albert Wigand, Darwinisinus, 1875-7. 2 On the ' Liberty of Science,' 1S77. D 2 i h } I I !^ i'i ! 1 j:, 52 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION says : ' I need offer no argument for evolution, since to doubt evolution is to doubt science, and science is only another name for truth.' In the s:qucl of the address he limits himself to the evolution of the \q.x- tebrate animals, admitting that he knows nothing of the absolute orimn of the first of them, and basing- his conclusions mainly on the succession, in distant times, and often in distant places, of forms allied to each other, a. .a advancing in the scale of complexity. Such succession obviously falls far short of scientific proof of evolution ; and other than this no evidence is offered for the strong assertion above quoted. In the conclusion of the address he asserts that life may be a form of some other force, presumably physical force ; but admits in the same breath that we are ignorant of its origin ; and finally he makes an appeal, not to facts, but to faith : ' Possibly the great mystery of life may thus be solved ; but whether it be or not, a true faith in science knows no limit to its search for truth.' Plainly, if this is all that can be said as to scientific results concerning the origin of life, if this origin is still an unsolved problem, a ' great mystery,' it is a somewhat strong demand on our faith to ask us to believe even that science will in the future suc- ceed in effecting the solution of this problem, and we should not have been told that to doubt evolution is to doubt science. This style of treating the subject is indeed much to be deprecated in the interest of science itself. WHAT IS EVOLUTION.' 53 \ 3 :o is ;e Another eminent apostle of evolution, Professor Tyndall, tells us, in a recent public address, that 'it is now very generally admitted that the man of to-day is the child and product of incalculable antecedent time. His physical and intellectual textures have been woven for him through phases of history and forms of existence which lead the mind back to an abysmal past.' But, however gcnerall)' this may be 'admitted,' it is nevertheless true that the oldest known men are as truly human in their structures as those now living, and that no link between them and lower animals is known. In a previous address he had gone further back still, and affirmed that in mate- rial atoms reside the ' promise and potency of life ' ; yet in his capacity of physicist he has by rigid ex- periments in his laboratory done as much as any man living to convince us that science knows no possibility of producing the phenomena of life from dead matter. Perhaps no example could more vividly portray the contrast between exact science and evolutionist speculations than the careful experiments on germs suspended in the atmosphere made by Tyndall in the laboratory of the Royal Institution — experiments so complete so convincing, and so eminently practical in their bearing on the conditions of health and dis- ease—as compared with the quaint and crude ima- ginings of the same mind when, in the presence of popular audiences, it speculates on evolution. 1 9 I i i i 54 MODE 7^. V IDEAS OF EVOLUTION But we should not too strongly denounce these speculative tendencies of scientific minds. They may point the way to new truths, and in any case they have an intense subjective interest. Nothing can be more interesting in a psychological point of view than to watch the manner in which some of the strongest and most subtle minds of our time exhaust their energies in the attempt to solve impenetrable mysteries, to force or pick the lock of natural secrets to which science has furnished no key. The objec- tionable feature of the case is the representation that such efforts have any real scientific basis. Whence, then, arise these strange inconsistencies and contradictions which infest modern science like parasites ? The expression I have already quoted is the only solution. They represent ' a confused move- ment of the mind of the age '- -of an age strong in material discoveries, but weak in self-control and higher consciousness. The mind of our time is un- settled and restless. It has a vague impression that science has given it the power to solve all mysteries. It is intoxicated with its physical successes, and has no proper measure of its own powers. It craves a constant succession of exciting and sensational gene- ralisations. Yet all this frenzy is no more the legitimate outcome of science than the many fantastic tricks which men play in the name of religion are the proper results of revelation or theology. The true remedy for these evils is twofold. Fir.st, WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 55 2 to keep speculation in its proper place as distinct from science ; and secondly, to teach the known facts and principles of science widely, so that the general mind may bring its common-sense to bear on any hypothesis which may be suggested. Speculations as to origins may have some utility if they are held merely as provisional or suggestive hypotheses. They become mischievous when they are introduced into text-books and popular discourses, and are thus palmed off on the ignorant and unsuspecting for what they are not. The man who, in a popular address or in a text- book, introduces the ' descent of species ' as a proved result of science, to be used in framing classifications and in constructing theories, is leaving the firm ground of nature and taking up a position which ex- poses him to the suspicion of being a dupe or a charlatan.' He is uttering counterfeits of nature's currency. It should not be left to theologians to expose him , for it is as much the interest of the honest worker in science to do this as it is that of the banker or merchant to expose the impostor who has forged another's signature. In the true interests of ' I am glad to observe that Huxley, in the preface to the Manual of the Anatomy of the Invcrtcb rated Animals (1878), has taken this ground. He says : ' I have abstained from discussing questions of fctiology, not because I underestimate their importance, or am in- sensible to the interest of the great problem of evolution, but because, in my mind, the growing tendency to mix up cvtiological speculations with morphological generalisations will, if unchecked, throw biology into confusion.' l! i ;■■ if mSBRIR^SI I: I 11 I! : 5^' MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION science we arc called on to follow the weighty advice of Virchow : ' Whoever speaks or writes for the public ought, in my opinion, doubly to examine just now how much of that which he says is objective truth. He ought to try as much as possible to have all in- ductive extensions which he makes, all conclusions arrived at by the laws of analogy, however probable they may seem, printed in small type under the general text, and to put into the latter only that which is objective truth.' To practise such teaching may require much self-denial, akin to that which the preacher must exercise who makes up his mind to forego his own thoughts, and, like Paul, to know no- thing among men but God's truth in its simplicity. The mischief which may be done to scierxe by an opposite course is precisely similar to that which is done to religion by sensational preaching founded on distortions of scriptural truth, or on fragments of texts taken out of their connection and used as mottoes for streams of imaginative declamation. To render such evils impossible, we must have a more general and truthful teaching of science. It is a great mistake here to suppose that a little knowledge is dangerous ; every grain of pure truth is precious, and will bear precious fruit. The danger lies in mis- using the little knowledge for purposes which it can- not serve ; and this is most likely to take place when facts are not known at all, or imperfectly compre- hended, or so taught as to cause a part of the truth Z3SS^' ^^\ piMj,,..,.-.^,; WHAT IS EVOLUTION.' 57 to be taken for the whole. Let the structures of animals and plants in some of their more prominent forms be well known, along with their history in geo- logical time, and the attempt to explain their origin by any crude and simple hypotheses like "^'"^se now current will become unreal as a dream. xiiese general statements must, however, be tested in the subsequent chapters by an appeal to facts in connec- tion with the more important questions raised by modern evolution. ''■% ' 'Ct'MLUJJUa^BHB^BB ^ ''1 If! I ii 5^^ MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF LIFE It has been remarked as a somewhat significant circumstance that the title of that remarkable work The Origin of Species by Natural Selection, which has so deeply impressed the mind of our age, contains in itself the elements of the refutation of its own leading principle. Of the origin of species the book tells us nothing. It merely discusses certain possible modesof descent with modification ' whereby new species may be de- rived from those previously existing. Of species it tells us nothing, except that if its contentions be maintained there can be no permanent kinds of animals or plants, or true species, in the old sense of the term, but only an indefinite shading of forms into one another, and a perpetual flux, by which what may be called a species at one period will be something different at another. Natural selectio?i again, if there is such a thing, can take place only after species already exist with numerous individuals to be selected from ; and unless it is merely another name for 'I* ,1 )''h [ i: ' THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 59 chance, it implies also an intelligent selecting power or agency. Farther, though put forward by Darwin as an efficient cause, it is now admitted by many of the ablest of his followers ' to be merely a mode, and only one of several modes by which species may be modified. This error in statement proceeds from a funda- mental confusion in the mind of the author, who, though of transcendent gifts as an observer, was very defective as a reasoncr. He does not clearly dis- criminate between the origin, beginning, or develop- ment of living beings and the nature of the forms under which they present themselves in our more or less arbitrary systems of classification. This con- fusion pervades the whole work, and is accompanied by a like confusion between causation and develop- ment — ideas which are variously combined under the complex notion of evolution — so that such factors as struggle for existence and natural selection may be viewed sometimes as true, efficient powers and some- times as mere modes or processes. The initial question before us in this matter is : How did that which possesses organisation and life originate from that which is destitute of these properties ? If we can answer this question, that of modification may follow in due course. If we cannot solve the problem of the origin of the life, the oth'jr question as to .specific forms becomes of secondar^' ' Spencer, Romanes, Packard, Cope, &c. 6o MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION significance. To those who are impressed with the necessity of an almighty creative will as the primary cause of all things, the formula * God created ' may be a sufficient answer ; and it is perfectly true that we cannot expect the methods of science to go back to origins. It deals rather with laws and modes, and must necessarily always start from certain axioms, postulates, or powers of unknown origin. Still we must bear in mind that revelation itself invites us to think of such questions. It does not merely say that God created all things. It informs us that God said, ' Let the land bring forth plants, let the waters swarm with living things,' and it speaks of the bodily frame of man as made of the dust, that is, of the common material of the earth, and of an inspiration of the Almighty, an inbreathing of the breath of life to give him understanding. These tatements invite us from the side of reve- lation as well as of science to consider the antecedents and materials of life. ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' Here we have a funda- mental statement which demands no proof, because we can substitute nothing else for it. If we say, ' There was no beginning, the Universe is eternal,' we have a proposition unthinkable by us, because we cannot imagine an eternal succession, and such a suc- cession, if conceivable, would preclude all develop- ment. If we say, ' In the beginning the heavens and the earth were self-created,' we have a proposition » w THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 6l which is a contradiction in terms. It remains as the only possible alternative that all things were created by the Almighty Intelligent Will whom we call God. But having settled so much, we have presented to us a group of primary factors for the subsequent de- velopment. There are here, first, duration and ex- tension — time and space, as we usually call them. We say we believe in time and space, because we know that we exist in them, but abstractly they are as inconceivable to us as the Being who exists from everlasting to everlasting, to whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Our definite ideas of these mysterious entities are based on things that extend and move. Time we may know by the succession of our own thoughts or the changes of external objects, space by the extension of the visible universe. Matter and motion are therefore our measures of extension and duration, and apart from these we may hold with Kant that time and .space have no objective existence. But matter and motion must have had a beginning, and before that beginning time and space existed only in the Infinite mind, while to us the bodies that consti- tute the visible heavens are for times and for seasons, for days and for years ; yet without time and space what remains to us except an immovable mathe- matical point ? In regard to time and space, there- fore, we may be agnostics if we please, for thev -^re ^:i 62 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION I unknowable, but in connection with matter and motion wc know them intimately, and cannot dis- sociate them from our thoughts. Practically, to us time and space begin with that beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. We must next assume as factors in the develop- ment of the Divine plan a triad of things and powers existing in space and time — matter, ether, energy. What is matter? An aggregate of atoms, invisible and impalpable, yet believed in, and known to have different properties, dividing them into very dissimilar kiiids or species, which, though related to each other with great regularity by definite gradations and numerical connections, cannot (so far as we know) be changed. They are species which seem to have no descent, and are not capable of modification. They are held together by equally inscrutable forces of affinity and cohesion, constituting what we call bodies, which, however solid, are permeable indefinitely by ethereal undulations. Ether, again, is, so to speak, an immaterial matter, existing everywhere, yet incapable of perception — an inconceivable, all-pervading something, ministering to every sensation and action, yet itself imperceptible and inert. Next we have energy, manifesting itself by motion of different kinds, whether in ether or ordinary matter, and actuating all things, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, yet under intelligible laws, which limit the freedom of energy and enable us to \'. • THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 63 distinguish its different kinds or modes of manifesta- tion. All these things — space, time, matter, ether, energy — are to us inscrutable in their origin, and incapable of annihilation, yet in our power to deal with, according to certain laws which we have ascer- tained, and, no doubt, capable of endless changes and interactions as yet beyond our ken. Those that we do know constitute the subject matter of the vast and complicated sciences of physics and chemistry. All this must have been present in the world, and as perfectly and regularly arranged as it is now, be- fore there could be life. We may even say that all this must have been fully perfected, so as to admit of no farther improvement or change, before the origin of life. This is overlooked by those who unthink- ingly tell us that we must believe in the evolution of the physical world, whether we believe in that of life or not. The development, in so far as the physical world is concerned, consisted in the arrangement and determination of matter and energy in such a manner as to fit the world for being the abode of life. A vaporous world, a mere cloud or nebula of fire mist, a liquid incandescent world, a world with a hardened crust and a vaporous atmosphere, a world with a universal ocean covering its surface, a world with land and water, mountain and valley — all these may have existed (probably did exist) for untold ages before the origin of life. \Vc know that in the earlier wr 64 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION of these stajres the earth would be altogether unsuit- able for any forms of life known to us ; but we do not know precisely at what ])oint of the later stages it would be in precisely the best state for the begin- nings of life. Let it be observed here, however, that the naaterials of the physical work! are to us manu- factured or created products, and that the progress of the development is the result of the properties and laws impressed upon them at first, correlated and regulated to a definite end. We shall find that there is an analogy with this in the origin and development of life. But though all this material of the physical world is necessary to life, it manifests in itself no indication of that mysterious power ; for it we require something more — namely, the substance protoplasm, which, so far as we know, does not exist in dead nature, and which thus far has baffled all attempts to construct it artificially from its elements. In addition to this we require some form of that complex machinery which we call an organism, though this also, in our present experience, cannot be formed without life. Yet protoplasm and an organism must be present before life can manifest itself Here we have another triad whose relations are enshrouded in mystery. Just as we know nothing of matter, ether, and energy, independently of each other, so we know nothing of protoplasm, organism, and life, except as existing together. We cannot imagine one ol P THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 65 of them to orij^n'natc without the other ; nor can we imagine either of them to exist in nature in isolation from the others. All three are be)'oncl our power to produce, and we have never witnessed their produc- tion spontaneously or by artificial means. Our in- quiries so far have only brought us into the presence of two inscrutable and miraculous natural trinities. I say miraculous in the true sen.se of the term, be- cause beyond our power and comprehension. Protoplasm has been called the * physical basis of life ' ; but this is merely a form of words to conceal ignorance. The substance is no doubt physical in the sense of being material and existing in nature, but it is not physical in the sense of being procurable or persistent under ordinary physical powers or con- ditions; and it is no more the basis of life and organi- sation than they are its basis. An o.'gg is mainly composed of protoplasm — pure in the white, mixed with some other things in the yolk. It is also an example of dead or non-living protoplasm, though produced in the body of a living animal. But if fer- tilised it has in it a living and organised germ, also protoplasmic ; and this germ can grow and assimilate the remainder of the protoplasm, and produce out of it all the parts of an animal even so complex as a bird. The animal so produced may have all the parts of a highly complex organic machine, made up of a number of special tissues, all of which were potentially, though not actually, present in the germ. H f " ii \ ii nil' 66 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION i i!:: The protoplasm itself is a highly complex sub- stance, consisting of carbon or charcoal, combined with three gases (oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen) and with minute quantities of sulphur and phos- phorus, in molecules so complex that more than eight hundred atoms are supposed to be necessary to constitute one of them. But protoplasm alone imme- diately decays and disappears, being resolved into ordinary inorganic compounds. Only as part of a living organism can it be in any sense a basis or sup- porter of life. Life itself thus remains as an energy, or combination of energies, differing from all others in that while they actuate ordinary matter, it will only actuate organised and protoplasmic matter. But it may be said, ' This is after all a familiar thing. We see an Q.^g, or a spore, or a seed made up of a little protoplasm and a few other substances, and it proceeds of itself to grow and shape itself into a complex organism, passing spontaneously through many processes and changes to that end.' This is true ; but do we ever find such a germ occurring in any other way than as a product of a previous living organism ? We can no more obtain the smallest or simplest Q^g or spore or the simplest animal or plant directly from dead Nature than we can make a world out of nothing. The previous statements give us some idea of the reason of this. In such a process all would be implied that constitutes the material of the whole of the physical sciences and an unknown 5 i~ THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 67 quantity beyond, which \vc can only express as the undiscovered residue of the infinite power and divinity that lie beyond nature. Whether science will ever go so far as to enable us to create living things, or when dead to restore them to life, we cannot tell. That these thir.gs are possible, we know, and we may be certain that at some period or periods in the history of the earth living beings originated. We may also be certain that when they originated all the previous arrangements of inorganic nature had been completed and combined to that end ; but what were the details of this we have not at present the means of knowing. If, then, we find in the little dot of protoplasm that constitutes the q^^ of an insect the power to develop itself into the parts and structures of the perfect insect, and if one should find that the insect so de- veloped has the further power to modify itself into varietal forms, v*'e may have a vast and interesting field of biological study, but we may still remain ignorant of the origin of the mysterious potencies in the i::^^, and of the creative processes, extending through untold ages, and of inscrutable complexity and stupendous magnitude, which were necessary to render possible the existence of the egg or the insect. Such is the problem pr ,3ented to us by the origin of life ; and it is not too much to say that our modern hypotheses of development, however captivating to the love of simplicity which actuates the general ? M r E 2 If i ! 1 1 < III 68 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION mind, and however useful as helping to fix the laws and limits of the variation of living beings, have not brought us perceptibly nearer to the solution of the great question, still less to the possibility of solving it without the power and divinity that lie behind it. It is of some value, however, to understand the nature of a question of this kind, even if we cannot answer it, and we may perhaps best attain to this kind of information by considering some plain and simple cases. Parry, in his Arctic voyages, describes and figures a remarkable phenomenon witnessed in Greenland and in other polar and alpine regions, and also to a modified extent in more temperate climates — that of the growth of the red snow-plant {Protococncs nivalis)} Large tracts of melting snow on the Greenland coast are sometimes seen to be coloured with this humble plant, giving to the previously pure snow a bright blood-red tint, and often penetrating to some depth into its mass. Parry informs us that on taking a bucketful of this snov.' on board his ship, and allowing it to melt, the water was seen to contain a delicate gelatinous matter full of minute grains, which, under the microscope, resolved themselves into globular cells with a thin transparent outer wall containing a colourless liquid sap, within which was ' Sometimes referred to genus Palmella or to Chlamydococcus, and included by Bennett in his family Protococcacea, THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 69 I a central protoplasmic mass of a deep red colour, and often divided into still more minute globes, be- lieved to be reproductive germs. Each of these bodies, only one-twelve-thousandth of an inch in diameter, is a perfect plant, capable of performing all the functions of vegetable life and of multiplying in an astonishing manner at a temperature scarcely above the freezing point, and supplied with nourish- ment and energy by the snow-water and by the solar light and heat. It uses, in short, the power of the solar light and heat to enable it to decompose the small amount of carbonic dioxide and ammonia contained in the melting snow, and to construct from their materials and from water the protoplasm and mucilage and colouring matter necessary to form its own substance. Thus it grows in magnitude, and when mature produces many microscopical germs, which, being discharged from the parent sac, spread themselves on the snow, till from a single germ acres or miles of this may be filled with these tiny organ- isms. Here is a low form of plant life existing under what appear to us as unfavourable conditions ; but observe how much it implies. We must have in the fir.st place a pre-existing germ of marvellous potencies, and containing a great number of the complex mole- cules of protoplasm, and this endowed with life. Next we find this germ possessing chemical powers of a most extraordinary character. The most essential of \%: m 70 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION y ii these, that of decomposing carbon dioxide at a low temperature and with only the help of solar radiation, is thus far impossible to the chemist, and so is also the union of the nascent carbon with other substances to form the mucilage and protoplasm of the sap and the red colouring matter which adorns it. Here is a miracle in the true sense — a mighty work transcending our power and comprehension, and performed by means of an organism the most feeble and apparently inefficient. If we ask what is the use of this plant, the answer must be — the same with that of the grass of the field. To the few minute animals which can live on melting snow it may serve as food, and washed down into the streams and the sea it helps to sustain the swarming hosts of minute animals of the waters which must have their food provided by the bountiful hand of Nature, liut Nature in this sense is only another name for God, whose power and divinity are mani- fested in every cell of the red snow-plant. Something, however, may be learnt from the reproduction of this plant. It belongs to a humble group of organisms which must have existed since the dawn of life on our planet, and have continued to propagate themselves throughout the geological ages. Their germs abound in all natural waters and in the air, and are ready to develop themselves whenever the proper conditions can be found. Each set of conditions has also its own special kinds of protophytes fitted THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 71 for these various conditions, so that there arc many genera and species differing in habitat and properties. Even in Greenland, we are informed by Bcrggren and Dickie, three other species of protophytes are found growing in company with Protococcus nivalis^ on the ice or the mud and stones upon it. Every- where these plants form a basis for other and higher kinds of life. When the great eruption of Krakatao had destroyed every living thing, and covered the wAole island with barren cinders, the spores of these minute plants, borne to it by the winds and nourished by the rains, developed a coating of vegetation of this kind, on which other and higher plants whose spores and seeds had also been wind- or water-borne imme- diately developed themselves, presenting an epitome of the first vegetation which clothed our once life- less continents when the creative fiat, ' Let the earth bring forth plants,' first went forth, but giving no evidence as to the origin of any species of plant de novo. But what of the evolution of the red snow-plant and its congeners? Though there are plants even more simple than the adult red snow-plant, I am not aware that we know any other organism more simple than the microscopic germs or spores of these plants from which they could be derived, and we may as well consider ourselves here face to face with the problem, how can a living cell be produced from inorganic matter, say, from snow-water and the 9 \ "l! MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION i carbonic dioxide and ammonia of the atmosphere, with the aid of solar energy? This problem has been practically solved perhaps many times and under different conditions by creative power, but no evolutionist has yet explained it, and the careful experiments of Pasteur and Tyndall have given only negative results. These plants arc, however, capable of certain variations. The Protococais may differ somewhat in colour, or in proportion of parts in different circum- stances, and it is not impossible that some of the forms which have been described as distinct species arc really merely varieties of this kind. This might of course enable a botanist to speak of different species of Protococcus as having originated by descent with modification ; but if the different forms could be shown to be merely the result of changed conditions, and to be capable of returning in suitable circum- stances to the normal properties of the plant, they could not be regarded as true species. He might, however, farther argue that imder circumstances of isolation, and where external influences permitted only one form to exist, this might become fixed and continuously reproductive as a distinct species ; but in that case the burden of proof would rest with him, and such proof has not yet been obtained. Until it has, the independent origin of such forms remains quite as possible. If a one-celled alga could be pro- duced dc novo on the surface of Greenland snow, why \\ v^ THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 73 might not another be hidcpendently developed on moist earth or in the water, and why is it necessary to affirm without proof that they have varied from one original ? It is equally impossible to show that these plants have at any time ascended to higher grades. They remain as they were, humble one-celled plants, and may have so continued since the dav.n of life on our planet. Even on Krakatao no one .supposes that the algoid plants which first took pos.se.ssion changed into higher forms. They only formed a basis on wl'^ch the .spores and seeds of other plants could germinate. Evidently they bring us no nearer to the origin of life, which, as far as they are concerned, is something as primitive and original as that of an atom of oxygen or hydrogen or the force of chemical affinity. Examples of the same kind might be drawn from any of the lower forms of life. None of them give us any mode of transition from the non-living and un- organised to the living and organised, nor do they show any evidence of transition from one grade of organised existence to another. Something may perhaps be learnt as to the origin of life by a consideration of the probable beginning of some of the organs of animals or plants. I remember when a little boy being suddenly .struck on looking at myself in a mirror by the question. How is it that I can see ; is not sight a very wonderful thing } I could not answer the question ): Ji i I'l - M'^f^ I 74 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION mi' \\ ij "\ I 1 III then, and though I have since learnt much as to the laws of light and the physiology of vision, I have not yet fath(>med the mysteries of the action of light on nerve-cells and of the transmission of visual impressions to the mind. The eye is indeed one of those wonderful instances of correlation of distinct and distant things which strike us so much in nature. It embodies a vast variety of optical and vital struc- tures and powers, and through the medium of ethereal undulations connects the sentient being with the most distant luminous bodies in the universe. The eye even in its simplest form is a self-acting and registering instantaneous photographic camera, and having its plates so prepared as to represent colours as well as forms, and it must to this end possess at least a clear refractive medium, photo- graphic pigment-cells, and a nervous apparatus capable of receiving the impressions produced and conveying them to the sensorium. There must have been a time when eyes did not exist. There may have been a time after animals existed when none of them possessed eyes. We have been informed by a leading agnostic evolutionist that we may imagine the eye to have originated spontaneously in some low and simple form, and then ' by the operation of infinite adjustments ' (through infinite time and with- out any adjustor) to have reached ' the perfection of the eye of the eagle.' Yet this is so little satisfactory that we can well understand the saying of Darwin n THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 75 that the thought of the origin of the eye * gave him a cold shiver.' The first appearance of eyes dates very far back in geological time. In the lowest Cambrian rocks, where, for the first time, we find a varied marine fauna, there are crustaceans of the family of trilo- bites with eyes, while there are others in which eyes are not present, or have not been detected. This is parallel with the fact shown in the results of the dredgings of the Challenger, that in the deep sea at present there are some crustaceans furnished with very large eyes, to suit the dim light of the ocean depths, while others living in similar depths arc destitute of eyes. Here we have two remarkable facts. First, that in the oldest seas, as well as now, some crustaceans possessed eyes, while others appar- ently living in similar conditions were not so endowed. Secondly, that, so far as known, the eyes of the oldest crustaceans were as complete as those of their modern relatives and on the same plan. With reference to the last statement it is necessary to mention that the eyes of the compound or facetted type which we have in modern crustaceans and insects, and which are of remarkably complex structure, are the oldest known to us. l^urmeistcr long ago showed that the eyes of the ancient trilobites must have possessed all the apparatus found in those of their modern successors, and I have myself seen under the microscope eyes of trilobites of the genus Pliacops in which the remains I fl M \ \ \ 1^ '76 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION of the separate tubes for the several ocelli of the com- pound eye were plainly discernible. Let it be observed also that the simple or single eye which cuhninates in the vertebrate animals probably existed as far back as the compound eye, since we have no reason to suppose that the gastropod and cephalopod molluscs which abounded in the Cambrian age were blind, and their eyes must have been of a type distinct in plan from those of the trilobitcs. The difference between these two kinds of eyes is not in general principle, but in details of plan. In the one a number of small and comparatively simple eyes are grouped together, radiating from a centre, so as to command a wide range of vision without indistinct- ness in any part. In the other there is but one organ of larger size, and with greater complexity in its apparatus for adjustment to distance and direction. Both these types of eye existed in the Cambrian period with all their essential parts, though perhaps the first mentioned had precedence to some small extent in time. In that early period they were sub- stantially perfected, in so far at least as vision in water is concerned ; and if this perfection arose by * infinite adjustments,' these must have been made in those pre-Cambrian ages in which we have no evi- dence of the existence of any creatures requiring to have eyes. Farther, the two types of eyes above re" ferred to must have come in independently. The one could not have originated from the other. It is also THE ORIGIN OF UFE 77 to be observed that though the vertebr.ite C}'e is on the same general plan with that of the hit^hcr molluscs, it differs in some very important details. These vertebrate eyes appeared with the fishes in the Silurian, and I have shown from the structure of an unusually well-preserved eye of a Lower Carboniferous fish (yPahconiscus) that in the Palaeozoic some of the most minute and delicate arrangements of the eye of the fish already existed.' Thus the origin of such organs as the eye becomes as inexplicable on the principle of spontaneous evolution as that of the animal itself But while we cannot explain how eyes may be acquired, we know something as to the cau.ses of their being lost, \\-hich may perhaps throw light on their origin. A remarkable illustration of this, and also of transmutation as distinguished from origin, and of the equivocal value of the term species as used by evolutionists, is furnished by the cave animals of the great caverns of Kentucky and Virginia, recently .so ably described by Packard.'^ These creatures are acknowledged to be merely varietal forms, which by virtue of living for many generations, or it would appear sometimes in a few generations, in the darkness of caverns, have lost the power of vision, and even dispen.se with eyes, while they have been modified in other respects, as, for example, in the better development of their organs ' Acadian Geology, Supplement, p. loi. * *Cave Fauna,' Memoirs National Acaiiemy of Sciences (U.S.A.), vol, iv. I WJ J.^ 78 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION of touch. No one doubts that they arc merely "arictics of species living outside the caves, and that, if gradually accustomed to sunlight, they might regain tlie powers they have lost. They are there- fore in no respect truly distinct species, and some of them even pass by imperceptible gradations into the ordinary types fr(nn which they arose ; yet for con- venience of reference distinct specific and even generic names have been given them, and in this way a long list of names of cave fishes, crustaceans, insects, &c. can be made out. These curious creatures cannot therefore be taken as evidence of the origin of new species. They are no more distinct species of cray-fish, insects, &c. than a blind man is a distinct species of the genus Homo. They are clearly merely varietal forms. They cannot be con- sidered to be p lucts of natural selection, but of disuse of certain organs and special demands on others. They have, in short, varied, as Packard explains to us, on the Lamarckian, not on the Dar- winian principle. They show the effects of change of conditions of life, and they show great powers of adaptation to new circumstances, acting along with isolation, and the tendency to transmit acquired characters to offspring. Packard even shows reason to believe that they are reproductive with individuals of the ordinary forms of those species which may stray or be carried by floods into these caverns. At the same time many of their peculiarities, as, for THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 79 instance, the want of colouring matters, are mere physical consequences of the absence of the chemical action of light, and may be induced in the lifetime of an individual, just as a plant may be blanched. Though there is scope for animal life in these caverns, nothing has originated to take advantage of it. Only certain cor mon animals of the daylight, better adapted than others for such conditions, have colonised these recesses, and have undergone certain changes in consequence, which no one can reasonably pretend to be more than varietal. The changes are no more specific than those which certain Arctic animals experience on the approach of winter, and which disappear on the return of spring. To understand this, let us suppose that at some point in geological time the light of the sun had been gradually extinguished without the entire loss of heat, so that a period of darkness supervened. Under such circumstances many species, both animal and vege- table, might perish. Others, like the cave animals, might survive, and adapt themselves to their new circumstances, becoming colourless, losing their now useless eyes, or portions of them, and improving in delicacy of touch. For generations the whole earth might thus be tenanted by animals ' ke those of the caves. But let us suppose that light was again gradually restored, and that these blind animals recovered the powers and properties they had lost, so that the survivors would present the same appearance i n ' ) «o MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION I ! as before the period of darkness ; would we have any right to recognise this as the origin of new species ? Would it not rather be a convincing proof of the permanence of specific types ? Similar evidence to this has been adduced by Darwin himself in the case of pigeons, which after generations of enforced varietal divergence show the capacity to resume even the colouring of the v/ild original ; and the writer has shown that changes of this kind have passed upon certain marine animals in the Glacial period, and that when this had passed away they resumed their normal characters.* The discussion of the cave animals throws light on the nature of the blind species found in the abysmal depths of the ocean, and also on the strange modifications which befall some common crustaceans when obliged to live in saline waters. It is instruc- tive to note that all these are of the nature of deterio- ration caused by unfavourable conditions of life. The .same truths apply to the origin of organs in plants. It has been broadly stated by evolutionists that the beauty of flowers is due to the selective action of insects in search of honey. Darwin has said : * Hence we may conclude that if insects had not been developed on the earth our plants would not have been decked with beautiful flowers, but would have produced only such poor flowers as we see on our f r, oak, nut, and ash trees, on grasses, ' Canadian Record of Science, January, 18S9, THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 8i docks, and nettles, which are all fertilised through the afjcncy of the wind.' As Gray has well observed, this at best cannot give us an origin for either Howers or honey-seeking insects. Both must have originated in some different way. All that it can pretend to account for is a certain amount of subsequent change. It fails even to account for this, since the gay flowers are correlated with a vast number of other properties of the plants in question, with which the insects could have nothing to do, and without which they might as well have continued to be fertilised by the wind. Why, indeed, should not the wind be the cause of wind-fertilisation as well as the insects the cause of gay flowers } And, further, why may not the honey, which in some mysterious way is associated with the gay flowers, be the cause of the suctorial proboscis of the insects, since it surely existed before there were honey-feeding insects, though to a wind-fertilised plant the honey must have been a loss and injury, until it could attract insects by the gay flowers, on the hypothesis, as yet non-existent ? Such hypo- theses of natuia" selection, in short, amount to nothing more than a confusion of correlated natural agencies with causation. Still another curious question arises with reference to the use of cross-fertilisation. There can be no question that the use of this in r.tture is not merel}- to increase the fertility of the individual plants, but so to intermix individual varieties as to keep the ti '• If I I i k t $2 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION species true to its characters. The gardener finds this when he endeavours to select and perpetuate particular varieties. He not only finds that these hecomc less fertile by breeding in and in, so as to tend toward extinction, but that if exposed to the action of the pollen of the normal form, or of another \ariety, they rapidly return to the type of the species. Thus the processes of wind-fertilisation and insect- fertilisation, which evolution relies on in the interest of descent with modification, are precisely those which the Author of Nature has established to prevent such modification. It would appear that the study of .separate organs, whether in i)lants or animals, as little helps us to any origin, other than that of Divine power, as the study of the organisms as a whole. It may be said that the result of our inquiry has been eminently unsatisfactory, as failing to show clearly any other origin of .species than that ultimate one of the Divine Creative Will. This may be ad- mitted, though what has been said may be held to indicate the path for farther investigation as to the methods of the Creator's action. That evolution is equally powerless in the matter may be shown by the following extract from Darwin : — Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at a very early age the embryos closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with n jdification embraces all the members of the same great class or kingdom. I THE ORIGIX OF LIFE 83 believe that animals arc descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an ecjual or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. Dut analogy may be a deceitful guide. Here similarity of plan and early embryonic .similarity arc taken as evidence of common ancestry. But this is entirely i^ratuitous, for the first may repre- sent a planning mind followini^ the same ideas in different works ; the second may depend merely on the fact that all ordinary organic development is from the more simple to the more complex. But even if this be granted, the great apostle of evolution still demands four or five primitive species for animals, and about the same for plants. Whence these arc to be obtained he cannot tell. Analogy, he says, would lead to one common prototype, but admits that analogy may deceive. It is certain to do so when it proceeds on such data as those he has given ; and even if followed as reliable we have still to ask : Whence, and of what nature, is this prototype, holding within itself the promise and potency of all living things, which are to be unrolled from its almost boundless capacities? The questions we have just been considering have led us to think of those ancient animals whose re- mains arc preserved in the rocky strata of the earth, and among which, if anywhere, we should find evi- dence of the origin of life. I have elsewhere shown F 2 II 84 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION \ \ that the gcoloi^ical record docs not justify us iiT accepting any of the received theories of descent with modification. The subject is too large for discussion here, but a single illustration from a ver}- familiar animal may show the results to which it leads when we follow the actual guidance of facts, without inter- calating, as is the wont of evolutionists, a constant succession of suppositions. The oyster belongs to the great and ubiquitous class of the bivalve molluscs, and we know representa- tives of the genus all the way from the Carboniferous to the Modern time, while we know very well the change^ of the individual animal from the Q.^sters or may have originated independently. The different .so-called species of oysters, which are all very variable, and many of which are scarcely distinguishable, may have had, or some of them may ha\e had, independent origins, or they may be all descendants of the same primeval stock, modifying it.self from time to time to suit changed conditions. Thus the oyster is equally to us a miracle, whether it has continued to propagate itself without varying beyond the characters of an oyster through all these vast ages, in which case it is a miracle of heredity ; or if from causes to us un- known it has been from time to time developed from animals of some other kind or kinds, in which case it is a miracle of transmutation ; or if it has been pro- duced repeatedly without any mediate agency, in which ca.se it is a miracle of creation. It is evident il il 88 MODERN IDEAS OE EVOLUTION that, while vvc may imagine any of these possibilities, we cannot establish one more than another, though it is easy, as has been done in the case of the horse and other animals, to forge a chain of derivation by putting together arbitrarily such links as we may select' In closing this part of our discussion, it is well to observe that we should not be misled in a subject of this kind by vague and general assertions. It is easy to affirm that the lowest animals and the lowest plants arc but protoplasm, which is only another name for the chemical compound albumen, and that if we can conceive this to originate from the inorganic union of its elements, we shall have a low form of life from which we can deduce all the higher forms of vital action. In making such affirmation we must take for granted several things, none of which we can yet prove: — (i) That vital force is merely a modifi- cation of some of the forces acting on unorganised matter. (.1) That such force can be spontaneously origi- nated from other forces without the previous existence of organisation. (3) That, being originated, it has the power to form albumen and other organic com- pounds. Or, if we prefer another alternative, we may take the following : — (i) That albuminous matter can be produced by the union of its chemical elements without life or organisation, (2) That, being so pro- ' See Story of the Earth* and Chain of Life in Geoloi^iial Times^ by the Author. ^ THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 80 > 0^^:^if> ^