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 > « 
 
 
i 
 
 EVOLUTION 
 
 AS RELATED TO 
 
 REVELATIOxN AND SCIENCE 
 
 i 
 
PRINTED P.Y 
 
 SrOTTlSiVOODE AM) CO., NEW'-STREliT SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 i 1 i 
 

 1^ 
 
 MODERN IDEAS 
 
 OF 
 
 EVOLUTION 
 
 AS RELATKD TO 
 
 REVELATION AND SCIENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR J. WILLIAM DAWSON. C.M.G. LLD. 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.^<g to the 
 perfect form.' The oyster begins life as a free- 
 moving creature, without shell, and with those curious 
 movable threads called cilia, by means of which so 
 many humble animalculai move in the water. In 
 this .state it shows little evidence of its future de- 
 velopment. When it first assumes a shell, this has 
 already two valves placed on the right and left sides of 
 the animal, but quite different from those of the adult. 
 They are nearly circular, smooth, and marked with 
 regular concentric lines of growth. This is their 
 condition when about a tenth of an inch in diameter. 
 At this stage they resemble the valves of a cockle or 
 a vcnus shell much more than those of an oyster. 
 Another curious point here is that, while the oyster 
 
 ' Jackson, ' Development of the Oyster,' Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. 
 IIi<^t. iSSS. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 
 
 85 
 
 has only one muscle wherewith to close its shell, and 
 many other bivalves have two, the young oyster begins 
 with one, then .is it grows a little larger develops two, 
 and later drops one and returns to a single one. The 
 rationale of this is that in the young animal the only 
 muscle needed is the anterior or front one. A little 
 later, as the .shell becomes wider, a second, the 
 posterior, is needed. Later .still the form and hinge 
 are such that one is sufficient, and the anterior — the 
 one first developed — becomes abortive, while the 
 posterior remains. Other changes might be noticed, 
 but let us think of the significance of these. The o.^'g 
 of the oyster is absolutely undistinguishable from 
 that of any other invertebrate animal. Still it must 
 have within it .structures or predetermined powers 
 which denote the animal that is to result from it. 
 The next stage, that of the early embrj'o, presents a 
 form which we could perhaps decide from its structures 
 to be molluscan ; but we could not tell previous to 
 experience whether, for instance, it would be a uni- 
 valve or a bivalve. The next stages determine it to 
 be a bivalve, but rather one of those with rounded 
 and smooth shells and two muscles than those like 
 the oyster. Merc it is to be observed that this dis- 
 tinction of one or two muscles is used to divide 
 the whole of the bivalves into two great groups, .so 
 that in this early stage our oyster might be either a 
 monomyai'ian or a dimyixriau. In this stage it becomes 
 fixed, and begins to spread out its valves into the 
 
 :i! 
 
M 
 
 i 
 
 1,' I 
 
 86 
 
 MOni:Ri\ IDEAS OF liVOLUriON 
 
 plaited and unc(iually valvcd condition of the 
 adult. 
 
 Hence we mic]^ht make such statements as that 
 the oyster was oriijinally a niononiyavian \\'\'(\\ anterior 
 adchictor ; but no such molkisc is known in an adult 
 state ; then it was a dimyaruxn with smooth equivahe 
 shell, and of this form are man}' adult bivalves, both 
 ancient and modern. This is the history of the in- 
 dividuals ; but have we any evidence that it is the 
 history of oysters in cjcoloj^ical time ? W'c know 
 fossil oysters of the ordinary style, though small, as 
 far back as the Carboniferous age, but we know no 
 earlier bivalves having precisely the properties of the 
 early stage. So, though the young si)at of these 
 primitiv'C oysters may have been like that of the 
 modern ones, we cannot believe that it came from 
 the eggs of an)- species known earlier. Still this is 
 j)ossiblc. Some bivalve of the pre-Carboniferous 
 or Car"boniferous age, a Ptcrviea for example, may 
 have produced eggs which, when hatched, attached 
 them.selves, and, unlike their parents, produced 
 irregular one-sided shells like the oyster, and their 
 progeny may have continued to do the same. If so,, 
 they .showed a miraculous persistency in this course 
 of degradation ; and not only .so, but in pretty earl}' 
 times, the Jurassic age for example, they had plaited 
 themselves up to an extreme degree of plication and 
 irregularity not surpassed in any subsequent time. 
 Since the Carboniferous, v.hen two so-called species 
 
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 
 
 87 
 
 of oysters appear, one in Europe and one in America, 
 so far as we know, these molluscs have not ceased to 
 exist, and at least 200 species are reckoned as known 
 in the fossil state. With respect, then, to these oysters, 
 there may be such suppositions as the following^ 
 none of which, however, we can prove. 
 
 All these si)ecies may have proceeded from one 
 origin, by descent with modification, or the same 
 causes which led to their origination in the Car- 
 boniferous may have operated again and again. In 
 like manner the closely allied genera Exogyra and 
 Gryphea, which existed in the Mesozoic age, may 
 have originated from o>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 
 
 <luccd, it can develop vital forces and organisation, 
 including such phenomena as reproduction, sensation, 
 volition, &c. To belie\e cither of these doctrines in 
 the present state of science is simply an act of faith, 
 not of that kind which is based on testimony or 
 evidence, however slight, but of that unreasoning 
 kind which we usually stigmatise as mere credulity 
 and superstition. 
 
 In conclusion, it is a relief to turn from these 
 obscure and uncertain questions to the calm, clear, 
 and decisive statements of revelation already referred 
 to in the first chapter, which, while they give no 
 scientific details and do not in any way hamper the 
 I)rogress of scientific inquiry and discussion, indicate 
 the ultimate conclusions at which this must finally 
 arrive. These we may now further consider in the 
 next chapter, in connection with the origin aiid 
 development of .species in geological time. 
 
 : 
 
 kil 
 
 \^ 
 
r 
 
 90 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ArPARlTIOX OF SPECIKS IN GEOLOGICAL TIME 
 
 %\ 
 
 ,% . 
 
 The doctrine of orj^anic evolution, whether on the 
 principle of stru^jc^le for existence and natural selec- 
 tion, or on the converse principles of physiological 
 selection and of progressive adaptation to external 
 conditions, is essentially biological rather than geo- 
 logical, and has been much more favoured by biolo- 
 gists than by those whose studies lead them more 
 specially to consider the succession of animals and 
 plants revealed by the rocks of the earth. These 
 have for the most part been content to observe the 
 * apparition,' or first appearance of species, without 
 inquiry as to their origin or the ultimate causes of 
 their introduction. Evolutionists, however, require a 
 great lapse of time for their processes, and thus 
 come into the di.scussions of geology. Their de- 
 mands in this matter have been put in so terse and 
 clear a manner by a recent advocate that I shall 
 quote liis words as a text or motto for this chapter : 
 ' If art can in a few years effect so great changes in 
 
 I 1 
 

 AP PAR IT ION OF SPECIES 
 
 VI 
 
 varietal forms, how mucli more must Nature be able 
 to effect in the unlimited time at her disposal ? ' ' 
 
 In this short sentence we have an epitome of the 
 methods of this interesting^ philosophy. The writer 
 first assumes what has to be proved, namel)-, the 
 identity of species and varietal forms. Havini;- thus 
 stolen a march uj)on us, he next makes the ([uite 
 unfounded assertion that unlimited time is avaihible 
 for varietal chan<;es. Geologists, no doubt, make 
 lar^^e demands on time ; but these arc not unlimited. 
 Then we have the human thought and action implied 
 in the word ' art ' placed in comparison with an 
 imajrinativc personification of Nature, which means 
 nothinfj unless it is understood to be equal to a 
 personal Creator, who, on the hypothesis, might 
 possibly be dispensed with. 
 
 l^ut if the geologist is not convinced by this 
 argument he is asked to consider that in geological 
 time animals and plants have proceeded from more 
 simple to more complex states, and from more 
 generalised forms to those that are more si)ecialised, 
 and that this is in accordance with the analogy of 
 the development from the embryo. He is even 
 accused of stupidity if he fails to be convinced by 
 this analogy, or if he objects that there can be no 
 true analogy between a germ developing from or in 
 a parent, and under special conditions, and an 
 adult animal or series of adult animals supposed 
 
 ' Le Conte, Evolution ^ ^\:c., 18S9. 
 
 '!' 
 
 It 
 
 
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IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
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92 
 
 MOD ERA IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 to undergo a similar development under entirely 
 different conditions. It is scarcely too much to say 
 that these preposterous demands are usually made, 
 and tacitly assumed to be granted, in most dis- 
 cussions as to the development of living beings in 
 geological time. 
 
 But even if we were to grant these postulates, it 
 would be extremely difficult to fit the actual geo- 
 logical succession into the mould thus arbitrarily 
 prepared for it ; and this we may perhaps be able to 
 illustrate by a few general statements and examples, 
 though its full elucidation would require an extended 
 treatise.' We shall, however, be able to see how far 
 this argument falls short of the force of ' demon- 
 stration ' which has been claimed for it, and shall find 
 some grounds for the doubt with which it has been 
 viewed by many able palaeontologists. The com- 
 plexity of the problems involved has indeed induced 
 many of those most familiar with the succession of 
 life to hold that, while we do not fully know its laws, 
 those that we do comprehend induce the belief that 
 they imply something very different from a continuous 
 and spontaneous evolution. The general truths that 
 we know on this great and complicated subject may 
 be shortly summed up as follows : — 
 
 I. Life originated very long ago. If in the Lau- 
 rentian, or even in the early Cambrian, we can be sure 
 
 ' See Story of the Earth and Chain of Life, by the Author. 
 

 I 
 
 APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 9J 
 
 that it is millions of years since the first plant or 
 animal came into existence. 
 
 2. The first forms were of low g-rades, though of 
 high and perfect types within those grades, 
 
 3. Many types of animals and plants, perhaps 
 most of the leading groups, have continued without 
 any very manifest change or improvement — have 
 been, in short, fixed or stationary types. 
 
 4. Elevation and improvement have taken place 
 by the introduction, apparently in many places 
 simultaneously, of new types, accompanied with, or 
 preceded by, the extinction or degradation of lower 
 forms. 
 
 5. Many new forms appear to be introduced at 
 one time and apparently suddenly, so that such 
 groups as the ferns and club-mosses and mares' tails 
 among plants, and at a later date the more perfect 
 fruit-bearing trees, the coral animals, the lam.p-shells, 
 the crinoids, the amphibians, the reptiles, the higher 
 mammals enter on the scene abruptly and in large 
 numbers. Thus the impression left on our minds by 
 this grand procession of living beings in geological 
 time is not that of a mere continuous flow, but that 
 of a co-operation of physical agencies toward a par- 
 ticular preparation of our planet, and then the intro- 
 duction at once and in great force of suitable in- 
 habitants to the abode prepared for them. 
 
 This indicates not a mere spontaneous evolution, 
 but a progressive plan carried on by a great variety 
 
94 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 !i i 
 
 of causes, some of which we can conjecture, but the 
 greater part of which are still hidden from us, and 
 are only partially and inaccurately presented to us 
 
 Tabular View of Geological Periods and of 
 
 Life-Epochs, 
 
 Oeological Period 
 
 o 
 
 / W- Tertiary 
 
 Kainozoic, 
 Neozoic 
 
 J Tertiary . 
 
 
 Cretaceous 
 
 o 
 
 Jurassic . 
 
 Triassic . 
 
 
 1 Permian . 
 
 
 Carboniferou. 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 ►4 
 
 < Erian or De 
 von: an 
 
 < 
 
 Silurian . 
 
 
 ^ Cambrian 
 
 L> 
 
 Huronian 
 
 Eozojf 
 
 Laurentian , 
 
 Animal Life 
 
 Age of A/an and Jl/o- 
 dern J\/amma/s 
 
 Age of Extinct Mam- 
 mals. (I'^arliest 
 Placental Mam- 
 mals. ) 
 
 Age of Reptiles and 
 Birds 
 
 (Earliest ^Mnrsupial 
 Mammals.) 
 
 Vegetable Life 
 
 jVge of An<^iosperms 
 and Palms. 
 
 (Earliest Modern 
 Trees. ) Age of 
 Cvcads and Pines. 
 
 
 5> 
 
 (Earliest True Rep- 
 tiles. ) 
 
 and Fishes 
 
 Age of Molluscs, Co- 
 rals, and Crusta- 
 ceans 
 
 Age oi Ao-ogens and 
 Gymnosperms, 
 
 \ 
 
 (Earliest Land 
 Plants.) Age of 
 
 Alg<e. 
 
 j> 
 
 Age of Protozoa. | Indications of Plants ', 
 (First Animal Re- not determinable, j 
 mains.) ! j 
 
 by any .scheme of evolution yet proposed. If in the 
 table above we were to represent diagrammatically 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 95 
 
 . I 
 
 the development of animals and plants, this would 
 appear not as a smooth and continuous stream, but 
 as a series of great waves, each rising abruptly, and 
 then descending and flowing on at a lower level along 
 with the remains of those preceding it. This will be 
 explained more in detail in the following pages, in 
 which it may be necessary to mention briefly some of 
 the leading facts ascertained by geology. 
 
 Geological investigation has disclosed a great 
 series of stratified rocks composing the crust of the 
 earth, and formed at successive times, chiefly by the 
 agency of water. These can be arranged in chrono- 
 logical order ; and, so arranged, they constitute the 
 physical monuments of the earth's history. We must 
 here take for granted, on the testimony of geology, 
 that the accumulation of this series of deposits has 
 extended over a vast lapse of time, and that the suc- 
 cessive formations contain remains of animals and 
 plants, from which we can learn much as to the order 
 of introduction of life on the earth. Without entering 
 into geological details, it may be sufficient to present 
 in the condensed table on the opposite page this 
 grand series of formations, with the general history of 
 life as ascertained from them. 
 
 In the oldest rocks known to geologists — those of 
 the Eozolc time — some indications of the presence of 
 life are found. Great beds of limestone are contained 
 in these formations, vast quantities of carbon in the 
 form of graphite, and thick beds of iron-ore. All 
 
 ! 
 
96 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OE EVOLUTION 
 
 < 
 
 these arc supposed, from their mode of occurrence in 
 later deposits, to be results, direct or indirect, of the 
 agency of life ; and if they afforded no traces of 
 organic forms, still their chemical character would 
 convey a presumption of their organic origin. But 
 additional evidence has been obtained in the presence 
 of certain remarkable laminated forms penetrated b}' 
 microscopic tubes and canals, and which are supposed 
 to be the remains of the calcareous skeletons of 
 humbly-organised animals akin to the simplest of 
 those now livifig in the sea. Such animals — little 
 more than masses of living animal jelly — now abound 
 in the waters, and protect themselves by secreting 
 calcareous skeletons, often complex and beautiful and 
 penetrated by pores, through which the soft animal 
 within can .send forth minute thread-like extensions 
 of its body, which serve instead of limbs. The 
 Laurentian fossil known as Eozoon Canadefise may 
 have been the skeleton of .such an animal ; and if so, 
 it is the oldest living thing that we know. But if 
 really the skeleton or covering of such an animal, 
 Eozoon is larger than any of its successors, and quite 
 as complex, as any of them. There is nothing to 
 show that it could have originated from dead matter 
 by any spontaneous action, any more than its modern 
 representatives could do so. There is no evidence 
 of its progress by evolution into any higher form, and 
 the group of animals to which it belongs has con- 
 tinued to inhabit the ocean throughout geological 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 97 
 
 time without any perceptible advance in rank or com- 
 plexity of structure. If, then, we admit the animal 
 nature of this earliest fossil, we can derive from it 
 no evidence of spontaneous evolution ; and if we 
 deny its animal nature, we are confronted with a 
 still graver difficulty in the next succeeding forma- 
 tions. 
 
 Between the rocks which contain Eozoon and the 
 next in which we find any abundant remains of life 
 there is a gap in geological history cither destitute of 
 evidence of hfe or showing nothing materially in 
 advance of Eozoon. In the Cambrian age, however, 
 we obtain a vast and varied accession of living things, 
 which appear at once, as if by a sudden and simul- 
 taneous production of many kinds of animals. Here 
 we find evidence that the sea swarmed with living 
 creatures near akin to those which still inhabit it, and 
 nearly as varied. Referring merely to leading groups, 
 we have many species of the soft shellfishes, or crus- 
 taceans, and the worms, the ordinary shellfishes, the 
 sea-stars, and the sponges.^ In short, had we been 
 able to drop our dredge into the Cambrian or Silurian 
 ocean, we should have brought up representatives of 
 all the leading types of invertebrate life that exist in 
 the modern seas — different, it is true, in details of 
 .structure from those now existing, but constructed on 
 
 t 
 
 ' From the lowest Cambrian beds in which definite and abundant 
 forms of life are first met with we have all the leading types of maiine 
 invertebrate life, represented by at least 165 species and 67 genera, 
 according to Walcott. 
 
 m 
 
 } 1''.' 
 
 g 
 
 - i 
 
 44 
 
m 
 
 98 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 I J, 
 
 ill 'ji 
 
 A) 
 
 the same principles, and filling th^ same places in 
 nature. 
 
 If we inquire as to the history of this swarming 
 marine life of the early Pala:iozoic, we find that its 
 several species, after enduring for a longer or a 
 shorter time, one by one became extinct, and were 
 replaced by others belonging to the same groups. 
 Thus there is in each great group a succession of 
 new forms, distinct as species, but not perceptibly 
 elevated in the scale of being. In many cases, in- 
 deed, the reverse seems to be the case ; for it is not 
 unusual to find the successive dynasties of life in any 
 one family manifesting degradation rather than ele- 
 vation. New, and sometimes higher, forms, it is true, 
 appear in the progress of time, but it is impossible, 
 except by violent suppositions, to connect them 
 genetically with any predecessors. The succession 
 throughout the Palaeozoic presents the appearance 
 rather of the unchanged persistence of each group 
 under a succession of specific forms, and the intro- 
 duction from time to time of new groups, as if to 
 replace others which were in process of decay and 
 disappearance. 
 
 In the latter half of the Palaeozoic we find a 
 number of higher forms breaking upon us with the 
 same apparent suddenness as in the case of the early 
 Cambrian animals. Fishes appear, and soon abound 
 in a great variety of species, representing types of no 
 mean rank, but, singularly enough, belonging, in 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 99 
 
 n 
 
 many cases, to groups now very rare ; while the 
 commoner tribes of modern fish do not appear. On 
 the land batrachian reptiles now abound, some of them 
 very high in the sub-class to which they belong. 
 Scorpions, spiders, insects, and millipedes appear, as 
 well as land-snails ; and this not in one locality only, 
 but over the whole northern hemisphere. At the 
 same time the Ic-nd was clothed with an exuberant 
 vegetation — not of the lowest types nor of the highest, 
 but of intermediate forms, such as those of the pines, 
 the club-mosses, and the ferns, all of which attained 
 in those days to magnitudes and numbers of species 
 unsurpassed, and in some cases unequalled, in the 
 modern world. Nor do they show any signs of an 
 unformed or imperfect state. Their seeds and spores, 
 their fruits and spore-cases, are as elaborately con- 
 structed, the tissues and forms of their stems and 
 leaves as delicate and beautiful, as in any modern 
 plants. Nay, more ; the cryptogamous plants of this 
 age show a complexity and perfection of structure 
 not attained to by their modern successors. So with 
 the compound eyes and filmy wings of insects, the 
 teeth, bones, and scales of batrachians and fishes ; all 
 are as perfectly finished, and many quite as complex 
 and elegant, as in the animals of the present day. 
 
 This wonderful Palaeozoic age was, however, but 
 a temporary state of the earth. It passed away, and 
 was replaced by the Mesozoic, emphatically the reign 
 of reptiles, when animals of that type attained to 
 
 fi 
 
 G 2 
 
1 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 lOO 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 colossal magnitude, to variety of function and struc- 
 ture, to diversity of habitat in sea and on land, alto- 
 gether unexampled in their degraded descendants of 
 modern times. Sea-lizards of gigantic size swarmed 
 everywhere in the waters. On land huge quadrupeds 
 like Atlantosaurus and Iguanodon and Megalosaurus 
 greatly exceeded the elephants of later times, and 
 possessed frames and structures now altogether with- 
 drawn from the reptiles, and possessed only by 
 mammals and birds. Some of themi walked erect on 
 their hind feet, others had true horns like the modern 
 oxen or snout horns like the rhinoceros.' Winged 
 reptiles — some of them of small size, others with 
 wings twenty feet in expanse — flitted in the air 
 Strangely enough, with these reptilian lords appeared 
 a few small and lowly mammals, forerunners of the 
 coming age. Birds also make their appearance, and 
 at the close of the period forests of broad-leaved trees, 
 altogether different from those of the Palaeozoic age, 
 and resembling the species of our modern woods, 
 appear for the first time over great portions of the 
 northern hemisphere. 
 
 The Kainozoic, or Tertiary, is the age of mammals 
 and of man. In it the great reptilian tyrants of the 
 Mesozoic disappear, and are replaced on land and sea 
 by mammals or beasts of the same orders with those 
 now living, though differing as to genera and species. 
 So greatly indeed did mammalian life abound in this 
 
 ' CeratopsidiC oi Marsh, Am. Jl. Sci, 1889. 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 lOI 
 
 period that in the middle part of the Tertiary most of 
 the leading groups were represented by more nume- 
 rous species than at present, while many types then 
 existing have now no representatives. At the close 
 of this great and wonderful procession of living beings 
 comes man himself — the last and crowning triumph 
 of creation, the head, thus far, of life on the earth. 
 
 If we imagine this great chain of life, extending 
 over periods of enormous duration in comparison with 
 the short span of human history, presenting to the 
 naturalist hosts of strange forms which he could 
 scarcely have imagined in his dreams, we may under- 
 stand how exciting have been these discoveries 
 crowded within the lives of two generations of geo- 
 logists. Further, when we consider that the general 
 course of this great development of life, beginning 
 with Protozoa and ending with man, is from below 
 upward — from the more simple to the more complex 
 — and that there is of necessity in this grand growth 
 of life through the ages a likeness or parallelism to 
 the growth of the individual animal from its more 
 simple to its more complex state, we can understand 
 how naturalists should fancy that here they have 
 been introduced to the workshop of Nature, and that 
 they can discover how one creature may have been 
 developed from another by spontaneous evolution. 
 
 We need not be astonished that many naturalists 
 are quite carried away by this analogy, and appear 
 unable to perceive that it is meiely a general resem- 
 
 H] 
 
 i • 
 
I02 
 
 MODER^r IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 blancc between processes altogether different in their 
 nature, and therefore in their causes. The greater 
 part, however, of the more experienced paLxontolo- 
 gists, or students of fossils, have long ago seen that 
 in the larger field of the earth's history there is very 
 much that cannot be found in the narrower field of 
 the development of the individual animal ; and they 
 have endeavoured to reduce the succession of life to 
 such general expressions as shall render it n.ore com- 
 prehensible, and may at length enable us to arrive at 
 explanations of its complex phenomena. Of these 
 general expressions or conclusions I may state a few 
 here, as apposite to our present subject, and as show- 
 ing how little of real support the facts of the earth's 
 history give to the pseudo-gnosis of agnostic and 
 monistic evolution. 
 
 I. The chain of life in geological time presents a 
 wonderful testimony to the realit}'- of a beginning. 
 Just as we know that any individual animal must 
 have had its birth, its infancy, and its maturity, and 
 will reach an end of life, so we trace species and 
 groups of species to their beginning, watch their cul- 
 mination, and perhaps follow them to their extinction. 
 It is true that there is a sense in which geology shows 
 ' no sign of a beginning, no prospect of an end ' ; but 
 this is manifestly because it has reached only a little 
 way back toward the beginning of the earth as a 
 whole, and can see in its present state no indication 
 of the time or manner of the end. But its revelation 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 lO" 
 
 of the fact that nearly all the animals and plants of 
 the present day had a very recent beginnin^^ in geo- 
 logical time, and its disclosure of the disappearance 
 of one form of life after another as we go back in 
 time, till we reach the comparatively few forms of 
 life of the Lower Cambrian, and finally have to rest 
 over the solitary grando of Eozoon, oblige it to saj' 
 that no living thing known to it is self-existent and 
 eternal. 
 
 2. The geological record informs us that the 
 general laws of nature have continued unchanged 
 from the earliest periods to which it relates until the 
 present day. This is the true ' uniformitarianism ' 
 of geology, which holds to the dominion of existing 
 causes from the first. But it does not refuse to admit 
 variations in the intensity of these causes from time 
 to time, and cycles of activity and repose, like those 
 that we see on a small scale in the seasons, the occur- 
 rence of storms, or the paroxysms of volcanoes. 
 When we find the eyes of the old trilobites to have 
 lenses and tubes similar to those in the eyes of modern 
 crustaceans, we have evidence of the persistence of 
 the laws of light. When we see the structures of 
 Palaeozoic leaves identical with those of our modern 
 forests, we know that the arrangements of the soil, 
 the atmosphere, the sunshine, and the rain were the 
 same at that ancient time as at present. Yet, with 
 all this, we also find evidence that long-continued 
 periods of physical quiescence were followed by great 
 
 It 
 
 m 
 
 Ll^ - 
 
II 
 
 lli 
 
 104 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 Hiii 
 
 I 
 
 ir 
 
 i i 
 
 m 
 
 crumplings and foldings of the earth's crust, and we 
 know that this also is consistent with the operation 
 of law ; for it often happens that causes long and 
 quietly operating prepare for changes which may be 
 regarded as sudden and cataclysmic. 
 
 3. Throughout the geological history there is pro- 
 gress toward greater complexity and higher grade, 
 along with degradation ahd extinction. Though ex- 
 perience shows that it may be quite possible that 
 new discoveries may enable us to trace some of the 
 higher forms of life farther back than we now find 
 them, yet there can be no question that in the pro- 
 gress of geological time lower types have given place 
 to higher, less specialised to more specialised. Curi- 
 ously enough, no evidence proves this more clearly 
 than that which relates to the degradation of old 
 forms. When, for example, the reptiles of the Meso- 
 zoic age were the lords of v.;cc*l'on, there was appa- 
 rently no place for the larger mammalia which appear 
 at the close of the reptile dynasty. So in the Palaeo- 
 zoic, when trees of the cryptogamous type predomi- 
 nated, there seems to have been no room in nature 
 for the forests of modern type which succeeded them. 
 Thus the earth at every period was fully peopled 
 with living beings — at first with low and generalised 
 structures which attained their maxima at early stages 
 and then declined, and afterward with higher forms 
 which took the places of those that were passing 
 away. These latter, again, though their dominion 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 105 
 
 was taken from them, were continued in lower posi- 
 tions under the new dynasties. Thus none of the 
 lower types of life introduced was finally abandoned, 
 but, after culminating in the highest forms of which 
 it was capable, each was still continued, though with 
 fewer species and a lower place. Examples of this 
 abound in the history of all the leading groups of 
 animals and plants. 
 
 4. There is thus a continued plan and order in 
 the history of life, which cannot be fortuitous, and 
 which is coincident with the gradual perfection of the 
 physical conditions of the earth itself The chance 
 interaction of organisms and their environment, even 
 if we assume the organisms and environment as given 
 to us, could never produce an orderly continuous pro- 
 gress of the utmost complexity in its detail, and ex- 
 tending through an enormous lapse of time. It has 
 been well said that if a pair of dice were to turn up 
 aces a hnndrcd times in succession, any reasonable 
 spectator would conclude that they were loaded dice ; 
 so if countless mi'lions of atoms and thousands of 
 species, each including within itself most complex 
 arrangements of parts, turn up in geological time in 
 perfectly regular order and a continued gradation of 
 progress, something more than chance must be im- 
 plied. It is to be observed hero that every species 
 of animal or plant, of however low grade, consists of 
 many co-ordinated parts in a condition of the nicest 
 equilibrium. Any change occurring which produces 
 
io6 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 unequal or disproportionate development, as the ex- 
 perience of breeders of abnormal varieties of animals 
 and plants abundantly proves, imperils the continued 
 existence of the species. Changes must, therefore, 
 in order to be profitable, affect the parts of the 
 organism simultaneously and symmetrically, and 
 must be correlated with all the agencies in heaven 
 and earth that act upon the complex organism and 
 its several parts. The chances of this may well be 
 compared to the casting of aces a hundred times in 
 succession, and are so infinitely small as to be in- 
 credible under any other supposition than that of 
 intelligent design. 
 
 5. The progress of life in geological time has not 
 been uniform and uninterrupted. Just as the growth 
 of trees is promoted or arrested by the vicissitudes of 
 summer and winter, so in the course of the geological 
 history there have been periods of pause and accelera- 
 tion in the work of advancement. This is in accord- 
 ance with the general analogy of the operations of 
 nature, and is in no way at variance with the doctrine 
 of uniformity already referred to. Nor has it an\-- 
 thing in common with the unfounded idea, at one 
 time entertained, of successive periods of entire de- 
 struction and restoration of life. Prolific periods of 
 this kind appear in the marine invertebrates of the 
 early Cambrian, the plants and fishes of the Devonian, 
 the batrachians of the Carboniferous, the reptiles of 
 the Trias, the broad-leaved trees of the Cretaceous^ 
 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 lo; 
 
 and the mammals of the early Tertiary. A remark- 
 able contrast is afforded b}' the later Tertiary and 
 modern time, in which, with the exception of man 
 himself, and perhaps a very few other species, no new 
 forms of life have been introduced, while many old 
 forms have perished. This is somewhat unfortunate, 
 since in such a period of stagnation as that in which 
 we live we can scarcely hope to witness cither the 
 creation or the evolution of a new species. ICvolu- 
 tionists themselves — those, at least, who are willing 
 to allow their theory to be at all modified b)' facts — 
 now perceive this ; and hence we have the doctrine, 
 advanced by Mivart, Le Conte, and others, of * critical 
 periods,' or periods of rapid evolution alternating with 
 others of greater quiescence. It is further to be ob- 
 served here that in a limited way and with reference 
 to certain forms of life we can .see a rea.son for these 
 intermittent creations. The greater part of the 
 marine fossils known to us are from rocks now raised 
 up in our continents, and they lived at periods when 
 the continents were submerged. Now, in geological 
 time these periods of submergence alternated with 
 others of elevation ; and it is manifest that each 
 period of continental submergence gave scope for 
 the introduction of numbers of new marine species, 
 v/hile each continental elevation, on the other hand, 
 gave opportunity for the increase of land life. Fur- 
 ther, periods when a warm climate prevailed in the 
 Arctic regions — periods when plants such as now live 
 
 J 
 
•^pa 
 
 1 08 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 ii 
 
 in temperate regions could enjoy six months of con- 
 tinuous sunshine — were eminently favourable to the 
 development of such plants, and were utilised for 
 the introduction of new floras, which subsequently 
 spread to the southward. Thus we see physical 
 changes occurring in an orderly succession and made 
 subservient to the progress of life, and we also see 
 that, not the adverse conditions of struggle for exist- 
 ence, but the favouring conditions of scope for ex- 
 pansion, were, as might rationally be expected, the 
 accompaniments and secondary causes of new inbursts 
 of life. 
 
 6. There is no direct evidence that in the course 
 of geological time one species has been gradually or 
 suddenly changed into another. Of the latter we 
 could scarcely expect to find any evidence in fossils ; 
 but of the former, if it had occurred, we might expect 
 to find indications in the history of some of the 
 numerous species which have been traced through 
 successive geological formations. Species which thus 
 continue for a great length of time usually present 
 numerous varietal forms, which have sometimes been 
 described as new species ; but when carefully scru- 
 tinised they are found to be merely local and tem- 
 porary, and to pass into each other. On the other 
 hand, we constantly find species replaced by others 
 entirely new, and this without any transition. The 
 two classes of facts arc essentially different, though 
 often confounded by evolutionists ; and though it is 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 109 
 
 possible to point out in the newer geological forma- 
 tions some genera and species allied to others which 
 have preceded them, and to suppose that the later 
 forms proceeded from the earlier, still, as the con- 
 necting links cannot be found, this is mere supposition, 
 not scientific certainty. Further, it proceeds on the 
 principle of arbitrary choice of certa'n forms out of 
 many, without any evidence of genetic connection. 
 
 The worthlessness of such derivation is ^vcll shown 
 in a case which has often been paraded as an illustra- 
 tion of evolution — the supposed genealogy of the 
 horse. In America a series of horse-like animals has 
 been selected, beginning with the EoJiippus of the 
 Eocene — an animal the size of a fox, and with four 
 toes in front and three behind— -and these ha\e been 
 marshalled as the ancestors of the fossil horses of 
 America; for there are no native horses in America 
 in the modern period, the result of the long scries 
 of improvements having apparently been extinction. 
 Yet all this is purely arbitrary, and dependent 
 merely on a succession of genera more and more 
 closely resembling the modern horse being procur- 
 able from successive Tertiary deposits often widely 
 separated in time and place. In Europe, on the 
 other hand, the ancestry of the horse has been traced 
 back to PahvotJicrhun — an entirely different form — 
 by just as likely indications, the truth being that as 
 the group to which the horse belongs culminated in 
 the early Tertiary times, the animal has too many 
 
 'SIJ 
 
no 
 
 MODERN IDEAS 0/' EVOLUTION 
 
 if! i r 
 
 imaginary ancestors. Both genealogies can scarcely 
 be true, and there is no actual proof of either. The 
 existing American horses, which are of European 
 parentage, are, according to the theory, descendants 
 of P(xUcotJieriuin^ not of EoJiippiis ; but if we had not 
 known this on historical evidence, there would have 
 been nothing to prevent us from tracing them to the 
 latter animal. This simple consideration alone is 
 sufficient to show that such genealogies are not of 
 the nature of scientific evidence. 
 
 This genealogy of the horse has been made so 
 much of, that perhaps it may be useful to look a 
 little more minutely into its merits as a * demonstra- 
 tion ' of evolution, and to consider what we really 
 know of the origin and history of this useful quadru- 
 ped, so peculiar in some points of structure, and so 
 eminently the friend and companion of man. It was 
 immediately preceded in the Tertiary period (Miocene 
 and Pliocene) by a horse-like animal, the Hipparion^ 
 which, amo, g other things, differed from its modern 
 representative in having its splint bones represented 
 by two side toes, a conformation supposed to adapt it 
 to locomotion on soft and swampy ground. The 
 Hipparion was preceded in the earlier European Ter- 
 tiary (Eocene) by the Pa'ceotJieriuni^ and in America 
 by Eoliippus and Oro/a'ppus, in which the side toes 
 were still further developed so as to touch the ground, 
 giving the foot a tridactyl character. These relations 
 have induced the belief that these forms may be an 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 I II 
 
 actual genetic series, the species of PahcotJierhim or 
 EoJiippus passing through a succession of changes 
 into the modern horse. Perhaps this case affords as 
 fair an example as we can obtain of the bearing of a 
 derivative h)'pothesis. The three genera in question 
 are closely allied. They succeed each other regularly 
 in geological time. The horse shows in his splint 
 bones rudiments of organs, which, serving little ap- 
 parent purpose in him, were more fully developed and 
 of manifest use in his predecessors. Modern horses 
 have occasionally shown a tendency to develop the 
 side toes, as if returning to the primitive type. 
 Taking this as a fair example of derivation, and 
 admitting, for the sake of argument, its probability, 
 let us consider shortly some of the questions that 
 may be raised with regard to it. These are princi- 
 pally two : — 
 
 1. What limits, if any, must necessarily be set to 
 such an hypothesis, and what relations does it bear to 
 the origin of life at first, and to the succession of 
 animals in geological time ? 
 
 2. What causes may be supposed to have led to 
 such derivation ? 
 
 Under the first head we have to inquire as to the 
 limits set to derivation by the structure of organic 
 beings themselves, and by the physical conditions 
 and changes which may affect them. It will be 
 convenient to consider these together. 
 
 Supposing that Palceotherium, Hipparion, and 
 
I 
 
 
 112 
 
 MODER.Y IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 Equiis, or IloJiippus and its successors in America are 
 links in a chain extending from the Eocene Tertiary 
 to the present time, can we suppose that by tracing 
 the same ser»cs further back it might include any 
 placental niamma^ ? We must answer, Decidedly 
 not, for if the whole time from the Eocene to the pre- 
 sent has been required to produce the comparatively 
 small change from PahcotheriuDi to horse, the same 
 rate in other cases would carry us back to the 
 Mesozoic period, long before we have any evidence 
 of the existence of ' placental mammals.' In other 
 words, the Tertiary and Modern periods will give us 
 time enough only to effect changes of mammals within 
 the order Ungulata, and perhaps in only one section of 
 that order. The other orders must therefore consti- 
 tute .separate series, and these series must have been 
 advancing abreast of each other. Had each series a 
 separate origin, or is there any mammalian stock in 
 the Mesozoic from which, at the beginning of the 
 Tertiary, these several lines of types may have 
 diverged ? Here our information fails. We know 
 only small marsupial and insectivorous mammals in 
 the Mesozoic. On our hypothesis it is possible that 
 these may have been the progenitors of the more 
 varied and advanced marsupials and insectivora of 
 the Tertiary and Modern periods, but scarcely of the 
 placental mammals of the Eocene. There may have 
 been placental mammals, unknown to us, in the 
 Mesozoic, which may constitute the required stock. 
 
ii 
 
 i 
 
 APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 113 
 
 The reptiles of the Mesozoic utterly fail to give us 
 the necessary links. If they were changing into any- 
 thing, it was into birds, not into mammals. 
 
 Again, the time in which the horse and its sup- 
 posed progenitors have lived is one of continuous, 
 unbroken succession of species. More especially in 
 the later Tertiary there seems the best evidence of 
 gradual extinction and introduction of species, with- 
 out any very widespread and wholesale destruction, 
 and this notwithstanding the intervention of that 
 period of cold and of submergence of land in the 
 northern hemisphere which has given rise to all the 
 much-agitated glacial theories of our time. Can we 
 affirm that such piecemeal work has continued 
 throughout geological time? At this point opens 
 the battle between the catastrophists and uniformi- 
 tarians in geology, a battle which I am not about to 
 fight over again here. I have elsewhere stated reasons 
 for the belief that neither view can be maintained 
 without the other, and that geological time has con- 
 sisted of alternations of long periods of physical re- 
 pose and slow subsidence, in which our more important 
 fossiliferous formations have been deposited, with 
 others of physical disturbance and elevation, with 
 extinction of species. Dana has well shown how 
 completely this view is established by the series of 
 geological formations as seen on the broad area of 
 the American continent. Now the question arises, 
 How would the law of derivation operate in these two 
 
 H 
 
 III 
 
114 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 different states of our planet ? Let us suppose a state 
 of things in which far more forms were being destroyed 
 than were reproduced, another in which introduction 
 of species was more rapid than extinction. In the 
 hitter case we may suppose an exuberance of new 
 species to have been produced. In the former there 
 would be a great clearance of these, and perhaps only 
 a few types lefv to begin new series. Do we now 
 live in one of the periods of diminution or of increase? 
 Perhaps in the former, since there seems to have been, 
 in the case of the mammalia of the Post-Pliocene, an 
 enormous amount of extinction of the grandest forms 
 of life, apparently without their replacement by new 
 forms. If so, how far can we judge from our own 
 time of those which preceded it .'* They may have 
 been far more fertile in new forms, or perhaps farther 
 in excess in the work of extinction. The question is 
 further complicated with that which asks if these 
 differences arise from merely physical agencies acting 
 on organic beings from without, or if there is in the 
 organic world itself some grand law of cycles inde- 
 pendent of external influences. The answers to such 
 questions are being slowly and laboriously worked 
 out by geologists and naturalists, and all the more 
 slowly that so many inevitable errors occur as to the 
 specific or varietal value of fossils and the relative 
 importance of geological facts, while the great gaps 
 in the monumental historj- are onl)- little by little 
 being filled up. 
 
 I 
 
 1' 
 
 t 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 II' 
 
 The application of these questions to the animals 
 referred to will serve farther to show their significance 
 as to limitations of derivation. Pictet catalogues 
 eleven species of Eocene PdlceotJieria. Without 
 inquiry as to the origin of these, let us confine our- 
 selves to their progress. Under the hypothesis of 
 derivation, each of these had capacities for improve- 
 ment, probably all leading to that line of change 
 ending in the production of the horse. If so, then 
 each of our PaheotJicria^ passing through intermediate 
 changes, may be the predecessor of some of the equine 
 animals of the Post-Pliocene and Modern periods. 
 But if, as seems probable, the time intcr\-ening be- 
 tween the Eocene and the Modern was unfavourable 
 to the multiplication of such species, then several may 
 have perished utterly in the process, and all might 
 have perished. Supposing, on the contrarj^ the time 
 to have been favourable to the increase of such 
 creatures, we might have had hundreds of species of 
 equine animals instead of the small number extant at 
 present. Again, what possibilities of change remain 
 in the horse ? Can he be supposed capable of going 
 on still farther in the direction of his progress from 
 PalcsotJieriuin or EoJiippiis, or has he attained a point 
 at which further change is impossible t Will he then, 
 in process of time, wheel round in his orbit, and re- 
 turn to the point from which he set out ? Or will he 
 continue unchanged until he becomes extinct? Or 
 can he at a certain point diverge into a new series of 
 
 H 2 
 
 ■i 
 
ii6 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 l\ 
 
 m 
 
 changes ? Wc do not know any equine animal before 
 the Eocene. Is it not possible that they may have 
 originated in some way different from that slow 
 change by which they are supposed to have been 
 transmuted into horses, and that in their first origin 
 they were more plastic than after many changes had 
 happened to them ? May it not be that the origin of 
 forms or types is after all something different from 
 derivative changes, and that new forms are at first plas- 
 tic, afterwards comparatively fixed — at first fertile in 
 derivative species, and afterward comparatively barren? 
 Certainly, unless something of this kind is the case, we 
 fail to find in the modern world a sufficient number 
 of representatives of the Palceotheria, Anoploikeria^ 
 Lophiodons, CoiyphodoHy elephants, and mastodons 
 of the Tertiary. On the other hand, it is scarcely 
 possible to find a sufficient starting point in the 
 Eocene for the multitude of cetaceans, carnivores, 
 ruminants, and quadrumana of the modern time. 
 
 The conclusion of this special discussion of the 
 case of the horse must, I think, be the same as that 
 arising from our general summary of palaeontological 
 facts, namely, that on the one hand we may not 
 be justified in affirming that every race of fossil 
 animals or plants which we may name as a species is 
 really a distinct product of creation, and that on the 
 other hand the introduction and extinction of species, 
 and even of races and varieties, depends on the inter- 
 action of causes too numerous and complicated to be 
 
APPARITION OF SPECIES 
 
 117 
 
 covered by any existing hypotheses of evolution. Wc 
 may also conclude that the settlement in very early 
 times of so many great principles of construction, and 
 the majestic march of life along determinate paths 
 throughout the vast lapse of geological ages, and 
 along with so many great physical changes, cannot 
 be fortuitous, but must represent a great creative 
 plan conceived in the beginning, and carried out with 
 unchanging consistency. 
 
 \n 
 
 ' 
 
 m 
 
■■n 
 
 ii8 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MONISTIC EVOLUTION^ 
 
 We have already seen that modern evolution in some 
 of its phases is not inconsistent with theism, or e\ en 
 with Christian belief. It is indeed regarded by some of 
 its advocates as a reverent recognition of the mode of 
 development of the plans of Eternal Wisdom, and as 
 capable of throwing light on these plans in the 
 domain of the spiritual as well as in that of the 
 natural. But many of its most ardent advocates, 
 whether scientific or popular, go far beyond the 
 bounds of theism, and enter on atheistic or agnostic 
 speculations, which they regard as the logical and 
 legitimate outcome of the hypothesis of evolution. 
 Perhaps the most eminent advocate of this extreme 
 school is Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, whose views have 
 been presented to the world in his works on The 
 History of Creati07i and The Evolution of Man, as 
 well as in many addresses and papers. They may be 
 
 ' This chapter has already been published in part in the Princeton 
 Review for 1880, p. 444. 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 119 
 
 taken as the best presentation of monistic, that is, 
 atheistic and materialistic, evolution. 
 
 Haeckel is an eminent comparative anatomist and 
 physiologist, who has earned a wide and deserved 
 reputation by his able and laborious studies of the 
 calcareous sponges, the radiolarians, and other low 
 forms of life. In his work on Tlie Evolution of Ma7i^ 
 he applies this knowledge to the solution of the 
 problem of the origin of humanity, and sets himself 
 not only to illustrate but to ' prove ' the descent of 
 our species from the simplest animal types, and even 
 to overwhelm with scorn every other explanation of 
 the appearance of man, except that of spontaneous 
 evolution. The book is full of important facts well 
 stated. The great reputation of the author has given 
 it a wide currency, and it has been translated and 
 reprinted both in England and America, and there 
 can be little doubt that it has exercised an important 
 influence, more especially upon young men of the 
 educated classes, while it has furnished the armoury 
 of many lesser combatants on the same side. It 
 merits, therefore, a careful examination, both as to its 
 data and the manner of treatment of the subject. To 
 understand the latter, it will be necessary in the first 
 place to glance at Haeckel's personal position with 
 reference to the study of Nature. 
 
 He is not merely an evolutionist, but what he terms 
 a ' monist,' and the monistic philosophy, as defined 
 by him, includes certain negations and certain positive 
 
■m 
 
 1 20 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 principles of a most comprehensive and important 
 character. It implies the denial of all spiritual or 
 immaterial existence. Man is to the monist 
 merely a physiological machine, and nature is only a 
 greater self-existing and spontaneously-moving aggre- 
 gate of forces. Monism can thus altogether dispense 
 with a Creative Will, as originating nature, and adopts 
 the other alternative of self-existence or causclcssness 
 for the universe and all its phenomena. Again, the 
 monistic doctrine necessarily implies that man, the 
 animal, the plant, and the mineral are only successive 
 stages of the evolution of the same primordial matter, 
 constituting thus a connected c^-'ain of being, all the 
 parts of which sprang spontaneously from each other. 
 Lastly, as the admixture of primitive matter and 
 force would itself be a sort of dualism, Haeckel 
 regards these as ultimately one, and apparently 
 resolves the origin of the universe into the operation 
 of a self-existing energy having in itself the potency 
 of all things. After all, this may be said to be an 
 approximation to the idea of a Creator, but not a 
 living and willing Creator. Monism is thus not 
 identical with pantheism, but is rather a sort of 
 atheistic monotheism, if such a thing is imaginable, 
 and vindicates the assertion attributed to a late 
 lamented physical philosopher, that he had found no 
 atheistic philosophy which hr.d not a God somewhere. 
 Haeckel's own statement of this aspect of his 
 philosophy is somewhat interesting. He says : — 
 
MONIS TIC E VOL U TION 
 
 121 
 
 The opponents of the doctrine of cvokition are very 
 fond of branding the monistic philosophy grounded upon it 
 as * materiahsm,' by comparing philosophical materialism 
 with the whclly different and censurable moral materialism. 
 Strictly, however, our own ' monism ' might as accurately or 
 as inaccurately l)e called spiritualism as materialism. The 
 real materialistic philosophy asserts that the phenomena of 
 vital motion, like all other phenomena of motion, are effects 
 or products of matter. The other opposite extreme, spiritual- 
 istic philosophy, asserts on the contrary that matter is the 
 product of motive force, and that all material forms are 
 produced by free forces entirely independent of the matter 
 itself. Thus, according to the materialistic conception of 
 the universe, matter precedes motion or active force ; ac- 
 cording to the spiritualistic conception of the universe, on 
 the contrary, active force or motion precedes matter. Both 
 views are dualistic, and we hold them both to be equally 
 false. A contrast to both is presented in the monistic 
 philosophy, which can as little believe in force without 
 matter as in matter without force. 
 
 It is evident that if Hacckel limits himself and his 
 opponents to matter and force as the sole possible 
 explanations of the universe, he may truly say that 
 matter is inconceivable without force, and force in- 
 conceivable without matter. But the question arises, 
 What is the monistic power beyond these, the ' Power 
 behind Nature ' ? and as to the true nature of this the 
 Jena philosopher gives us only vague generalities, 
 though it is quite plain that he cannot admit a 
 spiritual Creator. Further, as to the absence of any 
 spiritual element from the nature of man, he does not 
 leave us in doubt as to what he means ; for, imme- 
 
 «i 
 
 i 
 
122 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 wA 
 
 diately after the above paragraph, he informs us that 
 * the " spirit " and " mind " of man arc but forces which 
 are inseparably connected with the material substance 
 of our bodies.' Just as the motive power of our flesh 
 is involved in the muscular form-element, so is the 
 thinking force of our spirit involved in the form- 
 clement of the brain.' In a note appended to the 
 passage he says that monism * conceives nature as 
 one whole, and nowhere recognises any but mechani- 
 cal causes.' These assumptions as to man and nature 
 pervade the whole book, and of course greatly simplify 
 the task of the writer, as he does not require to account 
 for the primary origin of nature, or for anything in 
 man except his physical frame, and even this he can 
 regard as a thing altogether mechanical. 
 
 It is plain that we might here enter our dissent 
 from Ilaeckel's method, for he requires us to assume 
 many things which he cannot prove, before we can 
 proceed a single step in the evolution of man. What 
 evidence is there, for example, of the possibility of 
 the development of the rational and moral nature of 
 man from the intelligence and instinct of the lower 
 animals, or of the necessary dependence of the 
 phenomena of mind on the structure of brain-cells ? 
 The evidence, as far as it goes, seems to tend the 
 other way. What proof is there of the spontaneous 
 evolution of living forms from inorganic matter? 
 Experiment so far negatives the possibility of this. 
 Even if we give Haeckel, to begin with, a single living 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 123 
 
 r 
 
 cell or granule of protoplasm, we know that this pro- 
 toplasm must have been produced by the agency of 
 a living vegetable cell previously existing, and we 
 have no proof that it can be produced in any other 
 way. Again, what particle of evidence have we that 
 the atoms or the energy of an incandescent fire-mist 
 have in them anything of the power or potency of 
 life? We must grant the monist all these postulates 
 as pure matters of faith before he can begin his 
 demonstration ; and as none of them are axiomatic 
 truths, it is evident that so far he is simply a believer 
 in the dogmas of a philosophic creed, and weak as 
 other men whom he aficcts to despise. 
 
 We may here place over against his authority 
 that of another eminent physiologist of more philo- 
 sophic mind, the late Dr. Carpenter, who has said : — 
 
 As a physiologist I must fully recognise the fact that 
 the physical force exerted by the body of man is not gene- 
 rated de novo by his will, but is derived directly from the 
 oxidation of the constituents of his food. But holding it as 
 equally certain, because the fact is capable of verification 
 by evcr\one as often as he chooses to make the experiment, 
 that in the performance of every volitional movement physi- 
 cal force is put in action, directed, and controlled by the 
 individual personality or ego^ I deem it as absurd and illo- 
 gical to affirm that there is no place for a God in nature, 
 originating, directing, and controlling its forces by His will, 
 as it would be to assert that there is no place in man's body 
 for his conscious mind. 
 
 Taking Haeckel on his own ground, as above 
 
 ""Tt 
 i ■ 
 
 

 ill! 
 
 124 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 li 
 
 III 
 
 I trl 
 
 ,?5 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 defined, we may next inquire as to the method which 
 he employs in working out his argument. This may 
 be referred to three leading modes of treatment, 
 which, as they are somewhat diverse from those 
 ordinarily familiar to logicians, and are extensively 
 used by evolutionists, deserve some illustration, more 
 especially as Haeckel is a master in their use. 
 
 An eminent French professor of the art of sleight- 
 of-hand has defined the leading principle of jugglers 
 to be that of * appearing and disappearing things ' ; 
 and this is the best definition that occurs to me of 
 one method of reasoning largely used by Haeckel, and 
 of which we need to be on our guard when we find 
 him employing, as he does in almost every page, such 
 phrases as * it cannot be doubted/ ' we may there- 
 fore assume,' * we may readily suppose,' ' this after- 
 wards assumes or becomes,' * we may confidently 
 assert,' ' this developed directly,' and the like, which 
 in his usage are equivalent to the presto of the con- 
 juror, and which, while we are looking at one structure 
 or animal, enable him to persuade us that it has been 
 suddenly transformed into something else. 
 
 In tracing the genealogy of man he constantly 
 employs this kind of sleight-of-hand in the most adroit 
 manner. He is perhaps describing to us the embyro 
 of a fish or an amphibian, and as we become interested 
 in the curious details, it is suddenly by some clever 
 phrase transformed into a reptile or a bird ; and yet 
 without rubbing our eyes and reflecting on the 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 125 
 
 differences and difficulties which he neglects to state, 
 we can scarcely doubt that it is the same animal 
 after all. 
 
 The little lancclet, or AvipJiioxus, of the European 
 seas, a creature which was at one time thought to be 
 a sea-snail, but is really more akin to fishes, forms 
 his link of connection between our ' fish ancestors ' 
 and the invertebrate animals. So important is it in 
 this respect that our author waxes eloquent in ex- 
 horting us to regard it ' with special veneration,' as 
 representing our * earliest Silurian vertebrate ances- 
 tors,' as being of ' our own flesh and blood,' and as 
 better worthy of being an object of ' devoutest 
 reverence ' than the ' worthless rabble of so-called 
 " saints." ' In describing this animal he takes pains 
 to inform us that it is more different from an ordinary 
 fish than a fish is from a man. Yet as he illustrates 
 its curious and unique structure, before we are aware 
 the lancelet is gone, and a fish is in its place, and this 
 fish with the potency to become a man in due time. 
 Thus a creature intermediate in some respects be- 
 tween fishes and molluscs, or between fishes and 
 worms, but so far apart from either that it seems but 
 to mark the width of the gap between them, becomes 
 an easy stepping-stone from one to the other. 
 
 In like manner the ascidians, or sea-squirts, mol- 
 luscs of low grade, or, as Haeckel prefers to regard 
 them, allied to worms, are most remote in almost 
 every respect from the vertebrates. But in the young 
 
 14 
 

 
 I 
 
 ;i 
 
 II 
 
 
 Bi 
 
 126 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 state of some of these creatures, and in the adult 
 condition of one animal referred to this group 
 (^Appcndiculavi(i), they have a sort of swimming tail, 
 which is stiffened by a rod of cartilage to enable it to 
 perform its function, and which for a time gives them 
 a certain resemblance to the lancelct or to embryo 
 fishes ; and this usually temporary contrivance, 
 curious as an imitative adaptation, but of no other 
 significance, becomes, by the art of ' appearing and 
 disappearing,' a rudimentary backbone, and enables 
 us at once to recognise in the young ascidian an 
 embryo man. 
 
 A second method characteristic of the book, and 
 furnishing indeed the main basis of its argument, is 
 that of considering analogous processes as identical, 
 without regard to the difference of the conditions 
 under which they may be carried on. The great 
 leading use of this argument is in inducing us to 
 regard the development of the individual animal as 
 the precise equivalent of the series of changes by 
 which the species was developed in the course of 
 geological time. These two kinds of development 
 are distinguished by appropriate names. Ontogenesis 
 is the embryonic development of the individual 
 animal, and is of course a short process, depending 
 on the production of a germ by a parent animal or 
 parent pair, and the further growth of this germ in 
 connection more or less with the parent or with pro- 
 vision made by it. This is, of course, a fact open to 
 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 127 
 
 observation and study, though some of its processes 
 are mysterious and yet involved in doubt and uncer- 
 tainty. PJiylogcnesis is the supposed development of 
 a species in the course of geological time, and by the 
 intervention of long series of species, each in its time 
 distinct, and composed of individuals each going 
 regularly through a genetic circle of its own. 
 
 The latter is a process not open to observation 
 within the time at our command ; purely h)'pothe- 
 tical, therefore, and of which the possibility remains 
 to be proved, while the causes on which it must 
 depend are necessarily altogether different from those 
 at work in ontogenesis ; and the conditions of a long 
 series of different kinds of animals, each perfect in its 
 kind, are equally dissimilar from those of an animal 
 passing through the regular stages from infancy to 
 maturity. The similarity in some important respects 
 of ontogenesis to phylogenesis was inevitable, pro- 
 \ided that animals were to be of different grades of 
 complexity, since the development of the individual 
 must necessarily be from a more simple to a more 
 complex condition. On any hypothesis, the parallel- 
 ism between embryological facts and the history of 
 animals in geological time affords many interesting 
 and important coincidences. Yet it is perfectly 
 obvious that the causes and conditions of these two 
 successions cannot have been the .same. Further, 
 when we consider that the embryo cell which deve- 
 lops into one animal must necessarily be originally 
 
 I 
 
 ft'S 
 
 .4; 
 
 I 
 
I. 
 
 I 
 
 It 1 !i 
 
 it 
 
 
 128 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 distinct in its properties from that which develops 
 into another kind of animal, even though no obvious 
 diffeicnce appears to us, we have no ground for sup- 
 posing that the early stages of all animals are alike ; 
 and when we rigorously compare the development of 
 any animal whatever with the successive appearance 
 of animals of the same or similar groups in geological 
 time, we find many things which do 1 )t correspond, 
 not merely in the want of links which we mig^t 
 expect to find, but in the more significant appearance, 
 prematurely or inopportunely, of forms which we 
 would not anticipate. Yet the main argument of 
 Haeckel's book is the quiet assumption that anything 
 found to occur in ontogenetic development must also 
 have occurred in phylogenesis, while manifest diffi- 
 culties are got rid of by assuming atavisms and 
 abnormalities. 
 
 A third characteristic of the method of the book 
 is the use of certain terms in peculiar senses, and as 
 implying certain causes which are taken for granted, 
 though their efficacy and mode of operation are 
 unknown. The chief of the terms so employed are 
 * heredity ' and ' adaptation.' Heredity is usually 
 understood as expressing the power of permanent 
 transmission of characters from parents to offspring, 
 and in this aspect it expresses the constancy of 
 specific forms. But as used by Haeckel it means the 
 transmission by a parent of any exceptional cha- 
 racters which the individual may have accidentally 
 
 
im 
 
 MONISTIC E VOL UTION 
 
 129 
 
 
 assumed. Adaptation has usually been supposed to 
 mean the fitting of animals for their place in nature, 
 however that came about. As used by Ilaeckcl, it 
 imports the power of the individual animal to adapt 
 itself to changed conditions, and to transmit these 
 changes to its offspring. Thus in this philo.sophy 
 the rule is made the exception, and the exception the 
 rule, by a skilful use of familiar terms in new senses ; 
 and heredity and adaptation are constantly paraded 
 as if they were two potent divinities employed in 
 constantly changing and improving the face of nature. 
 
 It is scarcely too much to say that the conclusions 
 of the book are reached almost solely by the applica- 
 tion of the above-mentioned peculiar modes of rea- 
 soning to the vast store of facts at command of the 
 author, and that the reader who would test these 
 conclusions by the ordinary methods of judgment 
 must be constantly on his guard. Still, it is not 
 necessary to believe that Haeckel is an intentional 
 deceiver. Such fallacies are those which are espe- 
 cially fitted to mislead enthusiastic specialists, to be 
 identified by them with proved results of .science, and 
 to be heki in an intolerant and dogmatic .spirit. 
 
 Having thus noticed Haeckel's as.sumptions and 
 his methods, we may next shortly consider the 
 manner in which he proceeds to work out the phylo- 
 geny of man. Here he pursues a purely physio- 
 logical method, only occasionally and slightly refer- 
 ring to geological facts. He takes as a first principle 
 
 I 
 
!' 
 
 
 m. li^. 
 
 130 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 the law loRf^ ago formulated by Harvey, Omne vivuin 
 ex ovo — a law which modern research has amply 
 confirmed, showing that every animal, however com- 
 plex, can be traced back to an o^'g^, which in its 
 simplest state is no more than a single cell, though 
 this cell requires to be fertilised by the addition of 
 the contents of another dissimilar cell, produced 
 either in another organ of the same individual or in a 
 distinct individual. This process of fertilisation 
 Haeckel seems to regard as unnecessary in the lowest 
 forms of life ; but though there are some simple 
 animals in which it has not been recognised, analogy 
 would lead us to believe that in some form it is 
 necessary in all. Haeckel's monistic view, however, 
 requires that in the lowest forms it should be absent, 
 and should have originated spontaneously, though 
 how does not seem to be very clear, as the explana- 
 tion given of it amounts to little more than the 
 statement that it must have occurred. Still, as a 
 * dualistic ' process it is very significant with reference 
 to the monistic theory. 
 
 Much space is, of course, devoted to the tracing 
 of the special development or ontogenesis of man, 
 and to the illustration of the fact that in the earlier 
 stages of this development the human embryo is 
 scarcely distinguishable from that of lower animals. 
 We may, indeed, affirm that all animals start from 
 cells which, in so far as we can see, are similar to 
 each other, yet which must include potentially the 
 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 I3X 
 
 ). 
 
 various properties of the animals which spring from 
 them. As we trace them onward in their develop- 
 ment, we see these differences manifesting themselves. 
 v\t first all pass, according to Ilaeckcl, through a 
 stage which he calls \\\q gastmla^ in \\. \ the whole 
 body is represented by a sort of sac, the cavity of 
 which is the stomach, and the walls consist of two 
 layers of cells. It should be stated, however, that 
 many eminent naturalists dissent from this view, and 
 maintain that even in the earliest stages material 
 differences can be observed. In this they are pro- 
 bably right, as even Maeckel has to admit some 
 degree of divergence from this all-embracing 
 * gastmea ' theory. Admitting, however, that .such 
 early similarity exists within certain limits, we find 
 as the embryo advances that it speedily begins to 
 indicate whether it is to be a coral animal, a snail, a 
 worm, or a fish. Con.sequently the physiologist who 
 wishes to trace the resemblances leading to mammals 
 and to man has to lop off, one by one, the several 
 branches which lead in other directions, and to follow 
 that which conducts by the most direct course to the 
 type which he has in view. In this way Haeckel can 
 show that the embryo Homo sapiens is in successive 
 stages so like to the young of the fish, the reptile, 
 the bird, and the ordinary quadruped that he can 
 produce for comparison figures in which the cursory 
 observer can detect scarcely any difference. 
 
 All this has long been known, and has been re- 
 
 I 2 
 

 I i I 
 
 132 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 garded as a wonderful evidence of the homology or 
 unity of plan which pervades nature, and as consti- 
 tuting man the archetype of the animal kingdom — 
 the highest realisation of a plan previously sketched 
 by the Creator in many ruder and humbler forms. 
 It also teaches that it is not so much in the mere 
 bodily organism that we are to look for the distinguish- 
 ing characters of humanity as in the higher rational 
 and moral nature. 
 
 But Haeckel, like other evolutionists of the monis- 
 tic and agnostic schools, goes far beyond this. The 
 ontogeny, on the evidence of analogy, as already ex- 
 plained, is nothing less than a miniature representa- 
 tion of the phylogeny. Man must in the long ages 
 of geological time have arisen from a monad, just as 
 the individual man has in his life-history arisen from 
 an embryo-cell, and the several stages through which 
 the individual passes must be parallel to those in the 
 history of the race. True, the supposed monad must 
 have been wanting in all the conditions of origin, 
 sexual fertilisation, parental influence, and surround- 
 ings. There is no perceptible relation of cause and 
 effect, any more than between the rotation of a car- 
 riage-v/heel and that of the earth on its axis. The 
 analogy might prompt to inquiries as to common 
 laws and similarities of operation, but it proves 
 nothing as to causation. 
 
 In default of such proof, Haeckel favours us 
 with another analogy derived from the science of 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 ^2,3 
 
 e 
 n 
 
 as 
 of 
 
 language. All the Indo-European languages are 
 believed to be descended from a common ancestral 
 tongue, and this is analogous to the descent of all 
 animals from one primitive species. But unfortunately 
 the languages in question are the expressions of the 
 voice and thought of one and the same species. The 
 individuals using them are known historically to have 
 descended b}- ordinary generation from a common 
 source, and the connecting links of the various dia- 
 lects are unbroken. The analogy fails altogether in 
 the case of species succeeding each other in geological 
 time, unless the very thing to be proved is taken 
 for granted in the outset. 
 
 The actual proof that a basis exists in nature for 
 the doctrine of evolution founded on these analogies 
 might be threefold. First, there might be changes 
 of the nature of phylogenesis going on under our own 
 observation ; and even a very few of these would be 
 sufficient to give some show of probability. Elabo- 
 rate attempts have been made to show that variations 
 as existing in the more variable and the domesticated 
 species lead in the direction of such changes ; but the 
 results have been unsatisfactory, and our author 
 scarcely condescends to notice this line of proof 
 He evidently regards the time over which human 
 history has extended as too short to admit of this 
 kind of demonstration. Secondly, there might be in 
 the existing .system of nature such a close connection 
 or continuous chain of species as might at least 
 
li 
 
 I n 1 
 
 i 
 
 134 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 strengthen the argument from analogy ; and un- 
 doubtedly there are many groups, of closely allied 
 species, or of races confounded with true specific 
 types, which it might not be unreasonable to suppose 
 of common origin. These are, however, scattered 
 widely apart, and the contrary fact of extensive gaps 
 in the series is so frequent that liaeckel is constantly 
 under the necessity of supposing that multitudes of 
 species and even of larger groups have perished, just 
 where it is most important to his conclusion that they 
 should have remained. This is of course unfortunate 
 for the then y, but *then, as Haeckel often remarks, 
 ' we must suppose ' that the missing links once existed. 
 But thirdly, these gaps which now unhappily exist 
 may be filled up by fossil animals ; and if in the suc- 
 cessive geological periods we could trace the actual 
 phylogeny of even a few groups of living creatures, 
 we might have the demonstration desired. But here 
 again the gaps are so frequent and serious that 
 Haeckel scarcely attempts to use this argument further 
 than by giving a short and somewhat imperfect sum- 
 mary of the geological succession in the beginning of 
 his second volume. In this he attempts to give 
 a series of the ancestors of man as developed in 
 geological time ; but of twenty-one groups which he 
 arranges in order from the beginning of the Lauren- 
 tian to the Modern period, at least ten are not known 
 at all as fossils, and others do not belong, so far as 
 known, to the ages to which he assigns them. This 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 '35 
 
 necessity of manufacturing facts does not speak well 
 for the testimony of geology to the supposed phy- 
 logeny of man. In point of fact, it cannot be disguised 
 that, though it is possible to pick out some series of 
 animal forms, like the horses already referred to, 
 which simulate a genetic order, the general testimony 
 of palaeontology is on the whole adverse to the 
 ordinary theories of evolution, whether applied to the 
 vegetable or to the anim.al kingdom.^ 
 
 Thus the utmost value which can be attached to 
 Haeckel's argument from analogy would be that it 
 suggests a possibility that the processes which we sec 
 carried on in the evolution of the individual may, in 
 the laws which regulate them, be connected in some 
 way more or less close with those creative processes 
 which on the wider field of sreoloe^ical time have been 
 concerned in the production of the multitudinous 
 forms of animal life. That Haeckel's philosophy goes 
 but a very little way toward any understanding of 
 such relations, and that our present information, even 
 within the more limited scope of biological science, is 
 too meagre to permit of safe generalisation, will 
 appear from the consideration of a few facts taken 
 here and there from the multitude employed in these 
 volumes to illustrate the monistic theory. 
 
 When we are told that a monad or an embryo- 
 
 I 
 
 ' Those who wish lo understand the real bearings of palivontology 
 on evolution should study Barraudc's Memoirs on the Silurian Trilo- 
 biteSy CephalopOiisy and Braehiopods. 
 
it 
 \f « 
 
 136 
 
 MODE R A' IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 cell is the early stage of all animals alike, we natu- 
 rally ask, Is it meant that all these cells arc really 
 similar, or is it only that they appear similar to us, 
 and may actually be as profoundly unlike as the 
 animals which they are destined to produce ? To 
 make this question more plain, let us take the case as 
 formally stated : ' From the weighty fact that the egg 
 of the human being, like the egg of all other animals, 
 is a simple cell, it may be quite certainly inferred 
 that a one-celled parent form once existed, from 
 which all the many-celled animals, man included, 
 developed.' 
 
 Now let us suppose that we have under our 
 microscope a one-celled animalcule quite as simple in 
 structure as our supposed ancestor. Along with this 
 we may have on the same slide another cell which is 
 the embryo of a worm, and a third which is the em- 
 bryo of a man. All these, according to the hypothe- 
 sis, are similar in appearance, so that we can by no 
 means guess which is destined to continue always an 
 animalcule, or which will become a worm or may 
 develop into a poet or a philosopher. Is it meant that 
 the things are actually alike, or only apparently so ? 
 If they are really alike, then their destinies must 
 depend on external circumstances. Put either of 
 them into a pond, and it will remain a monad. Put 
 either of them into the ovary of a complex animal 
 and it will develop into the likeness of that animal. 
 But such similarity is altogether improbable, and it 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 137 
 
 would destroy the argument of the evolutionist. In 
 this case, he would be hopelessly shut up to the con- 
 clusion that ' hens were before eggs ; ' and Haeckel 
 elsewhere informs us that the exactly opposite view 
 is necessarily that of the monistic evolutionist. Thus, 
 though it may often be convenient to speak of these 
 three kinds of cells as if they were perfectly similar, 
 the method of ' disappearance ' has immediately to 
 be resorted to, and they arc shown to be in fact quite 
 dissimil'ir. There is indeed the best ground to suppose 
 that the one-celled animals and embryo-cells referred 
 to have little in common except their general form. 
 We know that the most minute cell must include 
 a sufficient number of molecules of protoplasm to ad- 
 mit of great varieties of possible arrangement, and 
 that these may be connected with most varied possi- 
 bilities as to the action of forces. Further, the em- 
 bryo-cell which is produced by a particular kind of 
 animal, and whose development results in the repro- 
 duction of a similar animal, must contain potentially 
 the parts and structures which are evolved from it ; 
 and fact shows that this may be affirmed of both the 
 embryo and sperm-cells, where there are two sexes. 
 Therefore it is in the highest degree probable that 
 the eggs of a snail and of a man, though possibly 
 alike to our coarse methods of investigation, are as 
 dissimilar as the animals that result from them. If 
 so, the ' egg may be before the hen ' ; but it is as 
 difficult to imagine the spontaneous production of 
 
 • -i ■ 
 
138 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 Hi W\. 
 
 
 
 I'i. ; I 
 
 the egg, which is potentially the hen, as of the hen 
 itself. Thus the .similarity of the eggs and early em- 
 bryos of animals of different grades is apparent only ; 
 and this fact, which embodies a great and perhaps in- 
 soluble mystery, invalidates the whole of Haeckel's 
 reasoning on the alleged resemblances of different 
 kinds of animals in their early stages. 
 
 A second difficulty arises from the fact that the 
 simple embryo-cell of any of the higher animals 
 rapidly produces various kinds of specialised cells, 
 different in structure and appearance and capable of 
 performing different functions, whereas in the lower 
 forms of life such cells may remain simple, or may 
 merely produce several similar cells little or not at all 
 differentiated. This objection, whenever it occurs, 
 Hacckel endeavours to turn by the assertion that a 
 complex animal is merely an aggregate of inde- 
 pendent cells, each of which is a sort of individual. 
 He thus tries to break up the integrity of the com- 
 plex organism and to reduce it to a mere swarm of 
 monads. He compares the cells of an organism to 
 the * individuals of a savage community,' who, at first 
 separate and all alike in their habits and occupations) 
 at length organise themselves into a community and 
 assume different avocations. Single cells, he says, at 
 first were alike, and each performed the same simple 
 offices as the others : ' At a later period isolated 
 cells gathered into communities, groups of simple 
 cells, which had arisen from the continued division of 
 
MOiXIS TIC E I 'OL UTION 
 
 139 
 
 a single cell, remained together, and now began 
 gradually to perform different offices of life.' 
 
 But this is a mere vague analogy. It does not 
 represent anything actually occurring in nature, 
 except in the case of an embryo produced by some 
 animal which already shows all the tissues which its 
 embryo is destined to reproduce. Thus it establishes 
 no probability of the evolution of complex tissues 
 from simple cells, and leaves altogether unexplained 
 that wonderful process by which the embryo-cell not 
 only divides into many cells, but becomes developed 
 into all the variety of dissimilar tissues evolved from 
 the homogeneous Q%^, but evolved from it, as wc 
 naturally suppose, because of the fact that the egg 
 represents potentially all these tissues as existing 
 previously in the parent organism. 
 
 But if we are content to waive these objections^ 
 or to accept the solutions given of them by the 
 ' appearance and disappearance ' argument, we still 
 find that the phylogeny, unlike the ontogenesis, is full 
 of wide gaps, only to be passed per salUivi, or to be 
 accounted for by the disappearance of a vast number 
 of connecting links. ^Of course it is easy to suppose 
 that these intermediate forms have been lost through 
 time and accident ; but why this has happened to 
 some rather than to others cannot be explained. In 
 the phylogeny of man, for example, what a vast hiatus 
 yawns between the ascidian and the lancelet, and 
 another between the lancelet and the lamprey ! It is 
 
 y-'i- 
 
I40 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 ■ ° 
 
 true that the missing h'nks may have consisted of 
 animals little likely to be preserved as fossils ; but 
 why, if they ever existed, do not some of them 
 remain in the modern seas? Again, when we have 
 so many species of apes and so many races of men, 
 why can we find no trace, recent or fossil, of that 
 * missing link ' which we are told must have existed, 
 the * ape-like men,' known to Haeckel as the ' Alali,' 
 or speechless men ? 
 
 A further question which should receive considera- 
 tion from the monist school is that very serious one : 
 Why, if all is ' mechanical ' in the development and 
 actions of living beings, should there be any progress 
 whatever ? Ordinary people fail to understand why 
 a world of mere dead matter should not go on to all 
 eternity obeying physical and chemical laws without 
 developing life ; or why, if some low form of life were 
 introduced capable of reproducing simple one-celled 
 organisms, it should not go on doing so. 
 
 Further, even if some chance deviations should 
 occur, we fail to perceive why these should go on in a 
 definite manner, producing not only the most com- 
 plex machines, but many kinds of such machines on 
 different plans, each perfect in its way. Haeckel 
 is never weary of telling us that to monists organisms 
 are mere machines. Even his own mental work is 
 merely the grinding of a cerebral machine. But he 
 seems not to perceive that to such a philosophy the 
 homely argument which Paley derived from the 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 141 
 
 structure of a watch would be fatal. * The question 
 is whether machines (which monists consider all 
 animals to be, including themselves) infinitely more 
 complicated than watches coulci c >me into existence 
 without design somewhere ;' ' that is, b; acre chance. 
 Common-sense is not likely to admit that this is 
 possible. 
 
 The difficulties above referred to relate to the 
 introduction of life and of new species on the monistic 
 view. Others might be referred to in connection 
 with the production of new organs. An illustration 
 is afforded, among others, by the discussion of the 
 introduction of the five fingers and toes of man, which 
 appear to descend to us unchanged from the amphi- 
 bians or batrachians of the Carboniferous period. In 
 this ancient age of the earth's geological histoi feet 
 with five toes appear in numerous species of reptilians 
 of various grades. They are preceded by no other 
 vertebrates than fishes, and these have numerous fin- 
 rays instead of toes. There are no properly transi- 
 tional forms, either fossil or recent, the nearest 
 pectoral fins to fore limbs being those of certain 
 Devonian and Carboniferous fishes; but they fail to 
 show the origin of fingers. How were the five-fingered 
 limbs acquired in this abrupt way ? Why were they 
 five rather than any other number ? Why, when once 
 introduced, have they continued unchanged up to the 
 
 Beckett, Origin of the Laws of Nature. 
 
■ I 
 
 14: 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 ^\i 
 
 present chiy? Ilacckcr.s answer is a curious example 
 of his method — 
 
 The great significance of the five digits depends on the 
 fact that this number has been transmitted from the am- 
 ])hibia to all higher vertebrates. It would be impossible to 
 discover any reason why in the lowest amphibia, as well as 
 in reptiles and in higher vertebrates up to man, there should 
 always originally be five digits on each of the anterior and 
 posterior limbs, if we denied that heredity from a common 
 five-fingered parent form is the efficient cause of this pheno- 
 menon ; heredity can alone account for it. In many am- 
 phibia certainly, as well as in many higher vertebrates, we 
 find less than five digits. But in all these cases it can be 
 shown that separate digits have retrograded, and have 
 finally been comi)leteiy lost. The causes which affected 
 the development of the five-fingered foot of the higher ver- 
 tebrates in this amphibian form from the many-fingered 
 foot (or properly fin) must certainly i)e found in the adapta- 
 tion to the totally altered functions which the limbs had to 
 discharge during the transition from an exclusively aquatic 
 life to one which was partially terrestrial. While the many- 
 fingered fins of the fish had previously served almost exclu- 
 sively to proj)el the body through the water, they had now 
 also to afford sup[)ort to the animal when creeping on the 
 land. This effected a modification both of the skeleton and 
 of the muscles of the limbs. The number of fin-rays was 
 gradually lessened, and was finally reduced to five. These 
 five remaining rays were, however, developed more vigo- 
 rously. The soft cartilaginous rays became hard bones ; the 
 rest of the skeleton also became considerably more firm ; 
 the movements of the body became not only more vigorous 
 but also more varied — 
 
 and the paragraph proceeds to state other ameliora- 
 tions of muscular and nervous system supposed to be 
 
MOMS TIC E VOL UTIOS 
 
 M3 
 
 related to or caused by the improvement of the 
 limbs. 
 
 It will be observed that in the above extract, 
 under the formula ' the causes . . . must certainly be 
 found,' all that other men would regard as demanding 
 proof is quietly assumed, and the animal grows before 
 our eyes from a fish to a reptile as under the wand of 
 a conjuror. Further, the transmission of the five toes 
 is attributed to heredity or unchanged reproduction ; 
 but this, of course, gives no explanation of the original 
 formation of the structure, nor of the causes which 
 prevented heredity from applying to the fishes which 
 became amphibians, and acquired fiv'e toes, or to the 
 amphibians which faithfully transmitted their five toes, 
 but not their other characteristics. 
 
 It is perhaps scarcely necessary to follow further 
 the criticism of this extraordinary book. It may be 
 necessary, however, to repeat that it contains clear, 
 and in the main accurate, sketches of the embryology 
 of a number of animals, only slightly coloured by the 
 tendency to minimise differences. It may also be 
 necessary to say that in criticising Ilacckel we take 
 him on his own ground — that of a monist — and have 
 no special reference to those many phases which the 
 philosophy of evolution assumes in the minds of 
 other naturalists, many of whom accept it only par- 
 tially or as a form of mediate creation more or less 
 reconcilable with theism. To these more moderate 
 views no reference has been made, though there can be 
 
144 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 ;; 1 
 
 W- t 
 
 no doubt that many of them arc quite as assailable as 
 the position of ITacckcl in point of argument. It 
 may also be observed that Haeckcl's argument is 
 almost exclusively biological, and confined to the 
 animal kingdom, and to the special line of descent 
 attributed to man. The monistic hypothesis be- 
 comes, as already stated, still less tenable when 
 tested by the facts of palaeontology. Hence, most 
 of the palaeontologists who fa^/our evolution appear 
 to shrink from the extreme position of Haeckel. 
 Gaudry, one of the ablest of this .school, in his 
 work on the development of the mammalia, 
 candidly admits the multitude of facts for which 
 derivation will not account, and perceives in the grand 
 succession of animals in time the evidence of a wise 
 and far-reaching creative plan, concluding with the 
 words : ' We may still leave out of the question the 
 processes by which the Author of the world has pro- 
 duced the changes of which pakneontology presents the 
 picture.' In like manner the Count de Saporta, in his 
 World of Plants y closes his summary of the periods of 
 vegetation with the words : — 
 
 But if we ascend from one phenomenon to another, 
 beyond the sphere of contingent and changeable appear- 
 ance, we find ourselves arrested by a being unchangeable 
 and supreme, the first expression and absolute cause of all 
 existence, in whom diversity unites with unity, an eternal 
 problem insoluble to science, but ever present to the human 
 consciousness. Here we reach the true source of the idea 
 of religion, and there presents itself distinctly to the mind 
 
MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 145 
 
 ;r. 
 
 that conception to which we apply instinctively the name of 
 God. 
 
 Thus these evolutionists, like n>any others in 
 America and in England, find a modus vivem' jc- 
 twecn evolution and theism. They have committed 
 themselves to an interpretation of Nature which may 
 prove fanciful and evanescent, and which certainly 
 up to this time remains an hypothesis, ingenious and 
 captivating, but not fortified by the evidence of facts. 
 But in doing so they are not prepared to accept the 
 purely mechanical creed of the monist or to separate 
 themselves from those ideas of morality, of relicfion, 
 and of son.ship to God which have hitherto been the 
 brightest gems in the crown of man as the lord of 
 this lower world. Whether they can maintain this 
 position against the monists, and whether they will 
 be able in the end to retain any practical form of 
 religion along with the doctrine of the derivation of 
 man from the lower animals, remains to be seen 
 Possibly before these questions come to a final issue 
 the philosophy of evolution may itself have been 
 * modified ' or have given place to some new phase of 
 thought. 
 
 In some places thire are in Haeckel's book 
 touches of a grim humour which are not without 
 interest, as showing the subjective side of the monis- 
 tic theory, and illustrating the attitude of its professors 
 to things held sacred by other men. For example, 
 the following is the introduction to the chapter headed 
 
 K 
 
 I 
 
if- *. 
 
 146 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 * From the Primitive Worm to the Skulled Animal/ 
 and which has for its motto the lines of Goethe 
 beginning — 
 
 Not like the gods am I ! full well I know ; 
 But like the worms which in the dust irust go. 
 
 Both in prose and poetry man is very often compared 
 to a worm ; ' a miserable worm,' * a poor worm,' are com- 
 mon and also compassionate phrases. If we cannot detect 
 any deep phylogenetic reference in this zoological metaphor, 
 we might at least safely assert that it contains an unconscious 
 comparison with a low condition of animal development, 
 which is interesting in its bearing on the pedigree of the 
 human race. 
 
 If Haeckel's reading of Scripture had been suffi- 
 ciently thorough, he might have quoted here the 
 melancholy confession of the man of Uz : ' I have 
 said to the worm, Thou art my mother and my 
 sister.' But though Job, like the German professor, 
 could humbly say to the worm, 'Thou art my mother,* 
 he could still hold fast his integrity, and believe in 
 the fatherhood of God. 
 
 The moral bearing of monism is further illus- 
 trated by the following extract, which refers to a 
 more advanced step of the evolution — that from the 
 ape to man, and which shows the honest pride of the 
 worthy professor in his humble parentage : — 
 
 Just as most people prefer to trace their pedigree from 
 a decayed baron, or if possible from a celebrated prince, 
 rather than from an unknown humble peasant, so they 
 prefer seeing the progenitor of the human race in an Adam 
 
 / 
 
 
T 
 
 MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 147 
 
 illus- 
 to a 
 |)m the 
 of the 
 
 ee from 
 prince, 
 so they 
 n Adam 
 
 degraded by the fall rather than in an ape capable of higher 
 development and progress. It is a matter of taste, and such 
 genealogical preferences do not therefore admit of discus- 
 sion. It is more to my individual taste to be the more 
 highly develc[jed descendant of an ape, who in the struggle 
 for existence had developed progressively from lower mam- 
 mals as they from still lower vertebrates, than the degraded 
 descendant of an Adam, God-like but debased by the fall, 
 who was formed from a clod of earth, and of an Eve created 
 from a rib of Adam. As regards the celebrated ' rib,' I 
 must here expressly add, as a supplement to the history of 
 the development of the skeleton, that the number of ribs is 
 the same in man and in woman.' In the latter as well as 
 in the former the ribs originate from the skin-fibrous layer, 
 and are to be regarded phylogenetically as lower or ventral 
 vertebrse.'^ 
 
 There is no accounting for tastes, yet we niay be 
 pardoned for retaining some preference for the first 
 link of the old Jewish genealogical table — 'which was 
 the son of Adam, which was the son of God.' As to 
 the 'debasement' of the fall, it is to be feared that the 
 aboriginal ape would object to bearing the blame of 
 existing human iniquities as having arisen from any 
 improvement in his nature and habits ; and it is 
 scarcely fair to speak of Adam as ' formed from a clod 
 of earth,' which is not precisely in accordance with the 
 record. As to the ' rib,' which seems so offensive to 
 Haeckel, one would have thought that he would, as 
 an evolutionist, have had some fellow-feeling in this 
 
 ' It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish conception, 
 unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question. 
 ■^ Rather, ' vertebral arches.' 
 
 K 2 
 
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 ft 
 
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 U i 
 
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 148 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 with the writer of Genesis. The origin of sexes is 
 one of the acknowledged difficulties of the hypothesis, 
 and, using his method, we might surely ' assume,' or 
 even ' confidently assert,' the possibility that, in some 
 early stage of the development, the unfinished verte- 
 bral arches of -the * skin-fibrous layer ' might have 
 produced a new individual by a process of budding 
 or gemmation. Quite as remarkable suppositions are 
 contained in some parts of his own volumes, without 
 any special divine power for rendering them practi- 
 cable. Further, if only an individual man originated 
 in the first instance, and if he were not provided with 
 a suitable spouse, he might have intermarried with 
 the unimproved anthropoids, and the results of the 
 evolution would have been lost. Such considerations 
 should have weighed with Haeckel in inducing him 
 to speak more respectfully of Adam's rib, especially 
 in view of the fact that in dealing with the hard 
 question of human origin the author of Genesis had 
 not the benefit of the researches of Baer and Haeckel. 
 He had no doubt the advantage of a firm faith in the 
 reality of that Creative Will which the monistic 
 prophets of the nineteenth century have banished 
 from their calculations. Were Haeckel not a monist, 
 he might also be reminded of that grand doctrine of 
 the lordship and superiority of man based on the 
 fact that there was no ' helpmeet for him ' ; and the 
 foundation of the most sacred bond of human society 
 on the saying of the first man : ' This is now bone of 
 
 

 MONISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 149 
 
 my bones, and flesh of my flesh.' But monists prob- 
 ably attach little value to such ideas. 
 
 It may be proper to add here that, in his refer- 
 ences to Adam, Haeckel betrays a weakness, not 
 unusual with his school, in putting a false gloss on 
 the old record of Genesis. The statement that man 
 was formed from the dust of the ground implies no 
 more than the production of his body from the com- 
 mon materials employed in the construction of other 
 animals ; this also in contradistinction from the 
 higher nature derived from the inbreathing or in- 
 spiration of God. The precise nature of the method 
 by which man was made or created is not stated by 
 the author of Genesis. Further, it would have been 
 as easy for divine power to create a pair as an indi- 
 vidual. If this was not done, and if after the lesson 
 of superiority taught by the inspection of lower 
 animals, and the lesson of language taught by nam- 
 ing them, the first man in his ' deep sleep ' is con- 
 scious of the removal of a portion of his own flesh, and 
 then on awaking has the woman ' brought ' to him — 
 all this is to teach a lesson not to be otherwise learnt. 
 The Mosaic record is thus perfectly consistent with 
 itself and with its own doctrine of creation by 
 Almighty Power. 
 
 I have quoted the above passages as examples of 
 the more jocose vein of the Jena physiologist ; but 
 they constitute also a serious revelation of the in- 
 fluence of his philosophy on his own mind and heart 
 
B^^ 
 
 .( i\ 
 
 f 
 
 
 p r 
 
 151 ■ t 
 
 150 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 in lowering both to a cold, mechanical, and unsym- 
 pathetic view of man and nature. This is especially 
 serious when we remember how earnestly, in an 
 address before the Association of German Natural- 
 ists, he advocated the teaching of the methods and 
 results of this book as those which, in the present 
 state of knowledge, should supersede the Bible in our 
 schools. We may well say, with his great opponent 
 on that occasion, that if such doctrines should be 
 proved to be true, the teaching of them might become 
 a necessity, but one that would bring us face to face 
 with the darkest and most dangerous moral problem 
 that has ever beset humanity ; and that .so long as 
 they remain unproved it is unwise as well as criminal 
 to propagate them among the mass of men as con- 
 clusions-demonstrated by science. 
 
151 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 BETWEEi. J position of the materialistic or ener- 
 gistic monist and that of the theist there are several 
 stage? of so-called agnosticism. The agnostic de- 
 clines to be called an infidel or an atheist, yet in some 
 respects he occupies a position more advanced than 
 either, though expressed in a less offensive way. In 
 the Christian or New Testament sense an infidel is 
 merely one who has no faith in Jesus Christ as his 
 Saviour. He may believe in a God or in many gods. 
 An atheist may take the farther step of denying the 
 existence of any god, but may still be open to argue 
 on the subject. An agnostic may occupy a variety 
 of positions between that of admitting the possibility 
 or probability of a First Cause without committing 
 himself to the doctrine of a personal or living God, 
 and that of maintaining that it is impossible to have 
 any knowledge of God, and thereby going beyond 
 even the standpoint of the atheist. All varieties of 
 the agnostic creed, or want of creed, necessarily agree 
 in holding to the spontaneous evolution of the uni- 
 
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 152 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 verse, so that practically agnosticism in some form 
 and evolution are usually found together. 
 
 A recent explanation of Professor Huxley ' 
 places agnosticism in the most favourable light in 
 which it is possible to regard its teneis. He 
 says : — 
 
 Positively the principle may be expressed : In matters of 
 the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you 
 without regard to any other consideration. And nega- 
 tively : In matters of the intellect do not pretend that 
 conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or 
 demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, 
 which if a man keep whole and undefiled he shall not be 
 ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the 
 future may have in store for him. 
 
 To this creed or ' faith,' in so far as intellectual 
 conclusions are concerned, anyone might subscribe, 
 but with two reservations, one of them applicable to 
 each of its clauses. The expression * follow your 
 reason ' must be taken with the qualification that 
 there are many cases in which to follow our indi- 
 vidual reason against the testimony of those who may 
 be better informed would be madness ; and the ex- 
 pression * demonstrated ' must be taken with the 
 qualification that there are in most things different 
 degrees of probable proof, and that in the majority 
 of cases we can only adopt the most probable alter- 
 native, without insisting on absolute demonstration. 
 
 ' Nineteenth Century, February, 1 889. 
 
A GNOSriC K ^OL UTION 
 
 153 
 
 . 
 
 It is farther to be observed that this agnostic 
 creed is often held with the mental reservation that 
 nothing must be admitted on any other evidence than 
 that of the senses, and that consequently there arc 
 no data for the ascertaining of anything spiritual. 
 This is sometimes put in the offensive form of the 
 statement that science disproves or cannot prove the 
 existence of God, or the spiritual nature and immor- 
 tality of man. If by this physical science alone is 
 meant, the statement is as foolish as if I were to 
 say that I cannot prove the existence of God 
 by a sum in addition, or the immortality of man 
 by any proposition in the first book of Euclid. 
 Physical science in one aspect of it has nothing 
 to do with such questions. It can, however, 
 supply facts and principles important in answering 
 them. 
 
 It is unfortunately this reservation, not explicitly 
 expressed in Professor Huxley's creed, which con- 
 stitutes the practically important part of the whole 
 matter, and it really amounts to the addition of a 
 third article, to the effect that reason, as informed 
 by natural facts, cannot obtain any demonstration of 
 the existence of God, or of the spiritual nature of 
 man as related to God. 
 
 It is my purpose in the following pages to show 
 that physical and natural science per, ^ctly agree with 
 what Christians accept as Divine reve.'ation in esta- 
 blishing the existence and some of the attributes of 
 
 I 
 
154 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 f ..! 
 
 \f if ' 
 
 God as the living, wise, and almighty Creator, and 
 the loving Father of man. 
 
 Herbert Spencer informs us that the * verbally 
 intelligent ' suppositions respecting the origin of the 
 universe are three: (i) It is self-existent. (2) It is 
 self created. (3) It is created by an external agency. 
 Of the first and second of these suppositions it can 
 scarcely be affirmed that they are even ' verbally 
 intelligent ' or conceivable as possible alternatives. 
 That vv'^hich is self-existent cannot properly be said 
 to have an origin, and an eternal succession of 
 material things is wholly unthinkable. That anything 
 can be self-created seems to be a contradiction in 
 terms. The third supposition is therefore alone tena- 
 ble, but it is imperfectly expressed, since the cause 
 or agency which produced the universe need not 
 necessarily be * external,' but may be operative within 
 all its parts as well as without. 
 
 If, then, we understand Spencer's third alternative 
 to mean that the 'hypothesis of a First Cause,' to 
 which he elsewhere truly says *we must commit our- 
 selves,' implies that the universe was created by a 
 power all pervading, and while not limited by the 
 universe still in it as well as without, it comes into 
 exact harmony with the first verse of Genesis, * In 
 the beginning God created the heavens and the 
 earth.' The writer of that sentence knew that the 
 universe cannot be eternal or self-existent. He 
 knew that it cannot have produced itself. To him. 
 
 { 
 
 ; 
 
AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 '55 
 
 as to Spencer, the only rational alternative was that it 
 had been created ; and the name he gives to the Creator, 
 implying plurality or even infinity in unity, shows 
 that he regarded this Divine Being as infinite in 
 power and wisdom, and to him, therefore, known 
 only in part. It is satisfactory to find that the evo- 
 lutionist philosopher is shut up by his own method 
 to the same conclusion with which we have so long 
 been familiar in the first verse of the Bible, though 
 he may decline to express it in the same terms, or to 
 admit the farther teaching of the book. 
 
 But from this point the two authorities diverge. 
 The Bible goes on to giv^e us much information 
 respecting God and His relations to man. Spencer 
 stops our way with the dictum that to human reason 
 the First Cause must be * wholly inscrutable.' He 
 thus places us in the dilemma of being obliged to 
 * commit ourselves ' to the existence of a First Cause, 
 which must in some way include the potentialit}'" of 
 all things, but which wt cannot even prove to exist. 
 
 In this difficulty we may appeal from the agnostic 
 philosophy, not to revelation, but to natural science. 
 To science the universe presents phenomena ; but it is 
 not content to register phenomena. It holds that 
 'behind every phenomenon there must be a cause,' 
 and it is of the very essence of science to investigate 
 these causes. But how can causes oe known ? Only 
 by their effects. We study the phenomena, and from 
 them we learn the nature and laws of their cause or 
 
n 
 
 W'W'^ft 
 
 ; ! 
 
 156 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 causes. If, then, there is a First Cause behind all 
 material things and energies, it is impossible that vvc 
 can be wholly ignorant of the properties of that 
 cause. We may be sure, not only that it exists, but 
 that it includes in it potentially all the phenomena 
 which flow from it. Thus if we know that there is a 
 cause behind all phenomena, we cannot be agnostics 
 in reference to that cause. We must be theists, un- 
 less we prefer to call ourselves monists or pantheists. 
 Yet it is not necessary that we should know 
 everything about the First Cause. Nay, it is impossible 
 that we should do so unless we first attain to perfect 
 knowledge of all that it has produced, and this we 
 know to be impossible. Here, again, revelation is at 
 one with science. We cannot * by searching find 
 out God ' ; we can know only ' parts of His ways' ; 
 He is ' unsearchable.' * No man hath seen God at 
 any time.' It is not in that way that we can know 
 Him, but only in so far as He may have revealed 
 Himself to us. Yet we have held out to us the grand 
 and inviting prospect that a time may come when 
 we shall know even as we are known. 
 
 The question remains. How much can we know 
 of God from nature? In scientific investigations as 
 to causes, our knowledge of these depends on the 
 extent of our knowledge of their effects. In the case^ 
 for example, of light and electricity, we have accumu- 
 lated great stores of observed and experimental facts : 
 these enable us to arrive at the laws of the energies 
 
m 
 
 AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 157 
 
 which h'c behind the facts, and to this extent wc can 
 know them ; but wc cannot know anything as to their 
 essence, and can only conjecture or calculate their 
 probable effects in circumstances different from those 
 of our observations or experiments. We rise to a 
 higher domain of causation when wc investigate the 
 effects of the free will of intelligent beings like men. 
 Human will is no doubt a true and most efficient 
 cause, and it has no doubt ethical laws which regu- 
 late its action ; but the difficulties here are greater, 
 and there is perhaps no higher effort of thought than 
 that which relates to the penetration of the plans 
 and counsels of our fellow men, and the principles 
 which actuate them. We rise to a higher plane in 
 the study of God, and need not wonder that here we 
 can know only in part, a inere ' whisper of His ways,' 
 compared with the thunder of His power, as we have 
 it put in that wonderful effort to penetrate the plans 
 of God by the consideration of His dealings with men 
 and things, presented to us by some ancient sage in 
 the Book of Job. 
 
 Questions of this kind are not new, though the 
 agnostic philosophy may be a recent phase of human 
 thought ; and it may be interesting to note the way 
 in which the matter is presented to us by a man 
 to whom, as the ' Apostle of the Gentiles,' we owe 
 very much of our modern enlightenment. In that 
 remarkable discussion of the relative degrees of 
 responsibility of the Jew and the heathen, in the early 
 
:f^ 
 
 ? ,. 
 
 J. 
 
 ]fi 
 
 1 
 
 Hi 
 
 ! 
 
 iH 
 
 4- 
 
 ■ i 
 
 
 1 
 
 r 
 
 158 
 
 MODERN ID/: AS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul affirms 
 with respect to the latter that ' the invisible things of 
 God, even His eternal power and divinity, can be per- 
 ceived by them, being understood by the things that 
 are made.' It will be observed here that the Apostle 
 refers only to iittributes or properties of God as 
 knowable by us. Of His essence we can know 
 nothing, any more than we can of the essence of 
 material things. He also admits that these attributes 
 are invisible, not objects of sensuous perception, but 
 only of mental study. He affirms, however, that to 
 a certain extent they can be known ; and the amount 
 of the knowledge he expresses by the two terms 
 power and divinity, the one referring to the energy 
 manifested in nature, the other to the superhuman 
 skill and contrivance which it presents to our investi- 
 gation. This is all that the material universe can 
 directly teach us of God ; but from this, as he proceeds 
 to explain, we can inferentially learn more. 
 
 This doctrine of Paul has the advantage that it 
 can appeal to an actual fact in human history, namely, 
 that men have inferred power and energy as behind 
 Nature, and that they have usually perceived in its 
 combinations of means to ends intelligence as well. 
 If we regard the universe as a mere machine exceed- 
 ing ail our powers of calculation in its magnitude 
 and gigantic forces, it seems to the last degree absurd 
 to deny that it presents a manifestation of power. 
 As the late Dr. Carpenter has well said, an agnostic 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 159 
 
 is in this respect in the position of a man who, after 
 examining the machinery of a great mill, and findings 
 that the whole is moved by a shaft proceeding from 
 a brick wall, should infer that the shaft is a sufficient 
 cause for what he sees, and that there is no moving 
 power behind it. In like manner, when we consider 
 the variety and intricacy of the parts of the universe, 
 and the manner in which they are co-ordinated to 
 produce certain effects — and this in a way not only 
 beyond our control but beyond our comprehension — 
 we cannot refer this to mere chance, but must admit 
 contrivance and, if so, superhuman skill, and so 
 divinity. This is Paul's contention ; and it is so 
 obvious that even agnostics are sometimes inad- 
 vertently found to admit it, and arc obliged, in spite 
 of themselves, to speak of selection, adaptation, com- 
 bination, and contrivance in nature. Nature, in 
 short, forces them to speak of divinity in her own 
 language, and not in that of their philosophy. 
 
 Farther, since the existence of the universe goes 
 back in time beyond our powers of calculation, we 
 affirm that the power and divinity which it manifests 
 are, as Paul says, ' eternal ' ; and since this ultimate 
 power can have nothing to determine its action but 
 its own will, we conclude that we are in presence not 
 of brute force, but of what we usually call a personal, 
 but what Paul and the other Bible writers prefer to 
 call a * living ' God. Thus Paul's short statement 
 contains no verbal inaccuracies or inconsistencies, but 
 
 * 
 
 *' 
 
 ;f«i>l 
 
IM 
 
 [fir: 
 
 44 -n-^ 
 
 i6o 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 leads us at once to what must necessarily be the 
 kernel of the whole matter, while implying that the 
 God so well known in some of His attributes cannot 
 be fully comprehended by us. 
 
 A remarkable and curious development of modern 
 agnosticism, referred to in a previous chapter, is its 
 attempt to devise some substitute for the religious 
 beliefs of humanity, which it so inexorably tries to 
 overthrow and trample on Two alternatives are 
 open to it in this direction. One is to make man, as 
 the head of creation in this world, his own god. This 
 has been called the religion of humanity. The other 
 is to turn our attention to the universe as a whole, 
 and to make it our object of adoration and source of 
 elevating and ennobling ideas and aspirations. It is 
 worthy of note that these have been the resources of 
 mankind in similar circumstances from the earliest 
 times, for apart from revelation the worship of men 
 has constantly been given either to deified kings and 
 heroes or to natural objects, especially to the starry 
 heavens and the sun. Thus, not knowing the true 
 God, ancient idolatry and modern agnosticism meet 
 and worship in the same fane. 
 
 It is quite likely that the hero- and star-worship 
 of primitive humanity was devised by great and good 
 men of the olden time, relatively as able as our modern 
 agnostics. Their aim may have been to elevate their 
 contemporaries and to prepare for a coming age. It 
 was the grossness and sensuality of the mob that 
 
 t 
 
A GAVS TIC E VOL UTIOX 
 
 i6i 
 
 rship 
 good 
 )dern 
 their 
 It 
 that 
 
 •caused their well-meant efforts to degenerate into 
 stupid superstitions. A similar fate may befall the 
 new religions of our agnostics. But these newer 
 religions have a higher connection. Professor Huxley 
 willingly admits that Jesus Christ is the ' noblest 
 ideal of humanity which mankind has yet worshipped.' 
 If so, why not merge the religion of humanity in the 
 religion of Chri.st, not in its more debased and de- 
 generate forms, but on the high conception of the 
 New Testament? Spencer believes that we must 
 admit a First Cause, while Huxley, who speaks con- 
 temptuously of the religion of humanity, would make 
 the grandeur of the material universe his highest 
 object of adoration. The further admission that this 
 First Cause may be the Almighty Father of mankind 
 would elevate the religion of the universe into theism. 
 Thus it may happen that with larger and more liberal 
 views, even agnosticism may in the future return to 
 the paths of Christian theism, rather than degenerate 
 into a barbarous paganism. The many able men 
 who now profess themselves agnostics have a great 
 and serious responsibility in this matter, for, while 
 many feebler minds may be found to be nearer to 
 the kingdom of heaven than they, others may be en- 
 ticed into paths where, destitute of Divine guidance, 
 they may be led to darkness and destruction. 
 
l62 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 fi 
 J' 
 
 vl 
 
 
 in 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THEISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 This, in its highest sense, can be nothing less than 
 the development of the divine plan in the construc- 
 tion of the universe ; and as it implies the action of 
 an infinite power behind nature, under the guidance 
 of an omniscient mind, it supplies a full and satis- 
 factory ultimate explanation of phenomena, leaving 
 only for consideration the methods of the develop- 
 ment as carried on in time and by such secondary 
 causes as may have been arranged by God, 
 
 But such theistic evolution is held in many differ- 
 ent ways and in many grades of connection with 
 the Darwinian and other theories. I may select here 
 as one of its latest and ablest exponents Professor 
 Joseph Le Conte, of California, a geologist of some 
 repute and a clear thinker, who aims to combine the 
 various divergent schools of evolution, whether Dar- 
 winian or Lamarckian, and to reconcile the whole 
 with theistic beliefs.' His proofs of evolution as a 
 law of continuous development of objects and living 
 
 ' Evolution and its Relation to Reli'^ious Ihoti^ht, 1809. 
 
 / 
 
 
than 
 struc- 
 ion of 
 dance 
 
 satis- 
 caving 
 velop- 
 »ndary 
 
 dii 
 
 ffer- 
 
 with 
 t here 
 Dfessor 
 
 some 
 me the 
 r Dar- 
 
 whole 
 n as a 
 
 Hvincc 
 
 THEISTIC EVOLUTION 
 
 163 
 
 beings from one another are not unlike those we have 
 already criticised, and are not so much based on his 
 own science as on the supposed analogies between 
 the development of the individual and the species in 
 biology. We need not deal with these, but may 
 rather notice what is special and peculiar in his view 
 of the matter. 
 
 His definition of evolution is somewhat different 
 from that of Spencer and the ordinary Darwinians. 
 Evolution, he says, is (i) continuous progressive 
 change ; (2) this is according to certain laws ; (3) it 
 is by means of resident forces, that is, forces natural 
 to or inherent in the object and its environment. 
 These are, however, forces emanating primarily from 
 a divine power. 
 
 Under his first head he unfortunately appears to 
 involve himself in the confusion of the ordinary 
 evolutionists. He states that there are in regard to 
 organic beings three kinds of progressive development. 
 The first is thcit of the individual from a simple uni- 
 cellular germ. The second is that implied in the 
 similar gradation from the simplest to the most com- 
 plex adult animals and plants. The third is that in 
 geological time from the earliest to the modern living 
 beings. It seems here to be taken for granted that 
 all three are similar instances of progressive change 
 of one being into another. Admitting this, of course 
 we at once, as we have already seen, concede all that 
 the evolutionist should fairly be required to prove. 
 
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 164 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 In this Le Conte follows the usual methods of Spencer 
 and Darwin. 
 
 Under his second head he notices three laws 
 which he believes to be common to the above kinds 
 of development : (i) The law of differentiation is the 
 same with Spencer's law of progress from the homo- 
 geneous to the heterogeneous, and is, though in dif- 
 ferent ways and degrees, characteristic of development 
 in general. (2) The second law is really a partial ex- 
 ception to the first, and is called the law of progress 
 of the whole, the meaning being that, while on the 
 whole there is progress, a vast number of the lines of 
 development do not rise, but remain stationary or 
 retrograde. This law, be it observed, is one of those 
 which emphasise the difference between the natural 
 development of the embryo and those things with 
 which it is supposed to be analogous ; since, except 
 in rare cases of retrograde development, it does not 
 occur in that of the individual, but it is so frequent 
 in the geological development, as to seem the rule 
 rather than the exception. (3) The third law is 
 applicable only to the third of the great kinds of de- 
 v ^"'pment, and marks one of its distinctive characters. 
 ic i. that of rapid culmination and subsequent deca- 
 dence of the great types of life. A diagram which 
 the author gives to show this is a curious illustration 
 to the eye of the fallacy of the doctrine of gradual 
 and continuous evolution as applied to geological 
 time. It represents, so to speak, successive waves in 
 
TH EI STIC EVOLUTION 
 
 165 
 
 ipenccr 
 
 e laws 
 I kinds 
 n is the 
 : homo- 
 in dif- 
 opment 
 •tial ex- 
 3rogress 
 on the 
 lines of 
 nary or 
 of those 
 natural 
 igs with 
 :, except 
 ioes not 
 "requent 
 the rule 
 J law is 
 is of de- 
 \aracters. 
 nt deca- 
 ni which 
 ustration 
 gradual 
 geological 
 waves in 
 
 the development which, as already explained, arc 
 very manifest in the geological history, and most in- 
 structive, as showing the complex and intermittent 
 progress of organic beings in geological time.* 
 
 With reference to the third general statement, that 
 the forces causing evolution are resident, the meaning 
 seems to be that they are in some sense natural to or 
 inherent in the being which is in process of modifi- 
 cation, or in the objects which environ and act upon 
 it In one sense — that is, if we include divine action — 
 this is merely asserting the operation of the properties 
 of things, without in any way accounting for them. 
 In another sense, it may be regarded by the monistic 
 and agnostic Darwinian as a surrender of the whole 
 position to their idea of spontaneous and uncaused 
 development. This Le Conte does not intend to do. 
 
 In all this we have, though with some important 
 variations, a restatement of the ordinary principles 
 of evolution, and without any adequate analysis of the 
 constituent parts of the diverse supposed kinds of the 
 process. It is scarcely to be wondered at that with 
 these premises Le Conte arrives at the conclusion that 
 evolution is a legitimate induction from the facts of 
 biology, and that it is ' absolutely certain.' We are 
 informed, however, that this absolutely certain evolu- 
 tion is not that of any of the now conflicting schools 
 of thought, but evolution ' as a law of derivation of 
 
 ' Such a view is, of course, very different from the theory of gradual 
 and slow evolution held by Darv\inians. 
 
 . 
 
 ^11 
 
 II 
 
 Mf 
 
 i: 
 i. 
 
 
T 
 
 1 66 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 Mi 
 
 \ W 
 
 t 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 forms from previous forms, as a law of continuity, as 
 a universal law of becoming. In this sense it is not 
 only certain, but axiomatic. It is only necessary to 
 conceive it clearly, to see that it is a necessary truth.' 
 In so far as there is any validity in this statement of 
 the case, it approaches as nearly as theism can to 
 Spencer's hypothesis that all things are self-created. 
 It practically amounts to saying that since, so far as 
 we know, eggs have been produced from birds, and 
 birds from eggs, from time immemorial, it is an 
 axiomatic truth that all things have been thus con- 
 tinuously produced one from another. It is thus 
 evident that Le Contc goes so far, notwithstanding 
 his previous caution, as to place himself at the mercy 
 of the agnostics, who may say that the continuous 
 evolution of things from one another by * resident 
 force ' requires no intervention of a creative power. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this Le Conte is a firm 
 believer in God. In his concluding chapters there 
 are some valuable thoughts on the relation of God 
 to nature, and he derives the higher nature of man 
 not from below, but from above. He sees clearly that 
 the forces of nature are ultimately only manifesta- 
 tions of the omnipresent divine energy. He also 
 perceives, what so few seem to comprehend, that this 
 divine energy operates on different planes of being, 
 and limits itself, so to speak, by the prescribed condi- 
 tions of each, v/hile it can ascend as by a series of steps 
 from its lowest manifestations in dead matter and 
 
THE I STIC EVOLUTION 
 
 167 
 
 Jty, as 
 is not 
 ;ary to 
 truth.' 
 lent of 
 can to 
 ireated. 
 ) far as 
 ds, and 
 : is an 
 is con- 
 is thus 
 Landing 
 I mercy 
 itinuous 
 'csident 
 )wer. 
 a firm 
 rs there 
 of God 
 of man 
 irly that 
 mifesta- 
 ^e also 
 hat this 
 f being, 
 d condi- 
 of steps 
 ter and 
 
 in the humbler forms of life up to man himself, in 
 whom the image and likeness of God is still limited 
 by his earthly relations and material frame. This 
 great idea of God manifest in nature, but more or less 
 completely in its different grades of being, is the true 
 basis of the doctrine of theistic development. This 
 being understood, the methods by which these different 
 planes of being have been raised one above another 
 and perfected, whether by the complex action of a 
 vast number of co-ordinated secondary causes or by 
 simpler acts of spiritual power, become fair subjects 
 of investigation, whether by science or philosophy, 
 though it is quite likely that they never can be com- 
 pletely understood by finite beings. Man himself 
 occupies merely one plane or grade in the great sys- 
 tem, and there may be far higher and more intelligent 
 grades above him. He can hope to know something 
 of the planes that are below him, but not, except by 
 revelation or mere speculation, of those above ; and 
 his comprehension even of those below as compared 
 with that of the Creator Himself must be crude and 
 imperfect. 
 
 It further follows that if we regard nature as a 
 manifestation of God, we must not expect to reduce 
 its many lines of progress and advancement to one 
 simple cause or mode. The methods of action of 
 divine power are to our view infinite in variety ; and 
 though we can ascertain their laws and the secondary 
 ■causes employed, we can know these only in part, 
 
 \) 
 
 liji 
 
 A 
 
 m. 
 
 M. 
 
i68 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 % 
 
 iM 
 
 and wc know enough to be assured that in the 
 origin and development of even the humbler 
 forms of life they may be vastly more multiform and 
 complex than those employed in the most complicated 
 combinations of machinery or of process in the works 
 of man. Newton felt himself to be like a child play- 
 ing with the sands on the shore of a boundless ocean ;. 
 and in the presence of any organised being we are but 
 as infants gazing on the mysterious movements of 
 some intricate machine, and whose thoughts as to its 
 origin, operation, and uses may be of the crudest 
 character. Yet one great advantage we have as 
 theists is that we can hold by the hand of a Father 
 who knows all the secrets of the mighty fabric which 
 perplexes us, and can explain to us, little by little, so 
 much of it as it may be useful to us to know. Thus, 
 however much we may be mistaken in our first im- 
 pressions, we may hope to arrive at some measure of 
 truth, and can find relief from the difficulties of our 
 own imperfections and of the pressure of our environ- 
 ment, in faith in the loving and all-wise Father of our 
 spirits. 
 
 Le Conte sums up this view of the matter in a 
 .short chapter, which clearly sets forth the compati- 
 bility of the spiritual world and revelation ; not with 
 any of the usual theories of evolution, but with 
 natural law, on the supposition of the divine energy 
 operating on different planes of being ; and this rela- 
 tion of the natural and spiritual holds equally good 
 
THEIS riC E VOL UTION 
 
 169 
 
 whether we suppose God to have proceeded in His 
 great work by the method of direct development, or> 
 as is more likely, by many methods, more or less 
 diverse : — 
 
 If man be indeed something more than a higher species 
 of animal ; if man's spirit be indeed a spark of Divine 
 energy individuated to the point of self-consciousness and 
 recognition of his relation to (iod; if spirit-embryo develop- 
 ing in the womb of Nature through all geological time came 
 to birth and independent spirit-life in man, and thus man 
 alone is a child of God as well as a product of Nature — if all 
 this be true, then it is evident that this wholly tieiv relation 
 requires also a wholly different mode of Divine operation. 
 If God operates on Nature only by regular processes, which 
 we call natural laws^ then He must operate on spirit in a 
 different and a more direct way, and this we call revelation. 
 If to the student of nature it is inconceivable that He 
 should operate on nature except by natural laws (for this is 
 the name we give to His chosen mode of operation there), 
 then to the student of theology it is equally inconceivable, il 
 our view of man be true, that He should not operate on 
 spirit in some more direct and higher way, i.e. by reve- 
 lation. 
 
 But some will ask, Is not this a palpable violation of 
 law ? I think not. All Divine operations are, must be, ac- 
 cording to reason, i.e. according to law. The operation of 
 the divine on the human spirit, i.e. revelation, must there- 
 fore be according to law, but a higher law than that which 
 governs Nature, and, therefore, from the point of view 0, 
 Nature, supernatural. There is nothing wholly unique in 
 this. Life is a higher form of force than the physical and 
 chemical. Life phenomena are therefore superphysicaU 
 and if we confined the term nature to dead nature, they 
 would be supernatural. So the free, self-determined acts ot 
 
 ; 
 
 I \ 
 
 it 
 
 ' i: ■ 
 
 "if 1 
 
 '■■»E 
 
^w 
 
 m 
 
 
 170 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 il 
 
 spirit on spirit, even of the spirit of man on the spirit of 
 man, much more the Spirit of (lod on the spirit of man, 
 may be according to law, and yet from the natural point of 
 view be supernatural. It is true that in the complex phe- 
 nomena, material and spiritual inextricably woven together, 
 which go to make up human life Science must ever strive 
 to reduce as much as possible to material laws, for this is 
 her domain, and she is bound to extend it ; but, if our 
 view of man be true, there will always remain a large 
 residuum of phenomena — a whole world of phenomena — 
 which will never yield, because clearly beyond her domain. 
 Standing on the lower material plane, these phenomena are 
 wholly supermaterial, and therefore incomprehensible from 
 the material point of view. We nmst rise and stand on the 
 higher plane before these also are reduced to law, but a 
 higher law than that operating on the lower plane. If, 
 therefore. Science insists on banishing the supernatural 
 from the realm of nature, theology may rearionably insist 
 on its necessity, in this sense, in the realm of morals and 
 religion. 
 
 '^V9* 
 
171 
 
 ipirit of 
 }{ man, 
 )oint of 
 ex phe- 
 Dgether, 
 2r strive 
 ■ this is 
 , if our 
 a large 
 mena — 
 domain, 
 lena are 
 )le from 
 i on the 
 \ but a 
 ne. If, 
 irnatural 
 ly insist 
 rals and 
 
 CHAPTER Vill 
 
 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 In discussing the attitude of agnostic evolution, we 
 have seen that its position is rendered untenable by 
 the fact that it has no better evidence of matter and 
 energy in which it believes than of God in whom it 
 declines to believe. Spencer admits that our con- 
 ception of matter is * built up or extracted from our 
 experiences of force,' and that it is only by energy 
 that matter ' demonstrates itself as existing.' This 
 second-hand demonstration is, however, perfectly 
 satisfactory to all men, and they never, when of 
 sound mind, refuse to act on their belief. But science 
 must, in considering well its own principles, go much 
 farther than this general creed as to matter. It must 
 believe in different kinds of matter, atoms of different 
 weights, an all-pervading ether, and multitudes of 
 other entities of which it has no better evidence than 
 their observed effects. Science therefore may apply 
 the same reasoning to the human will, to the un.seen 
 spiritual world, and to God Himself, if only it can dis- 
 cover effects resulting from their action. It may be 
 
 
 
J • 
 
 17: 
 
 MODERX IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 p'li 
 
 4; 
 
 Hi 
 
 Y : t 
 
 ill 
 
 % ..:i 
 
 *• 
 
 In Ml 
 
 profitable to consider here this positive evidence in 
 some of its departments. 
 
 The agnostic may say that he is content to regard 
 all nature as a product of law, and that this, being 
 inexorable and unchangeable, excludes the idea of a 
 personal will. A Httle reflection will show that this 
 position is altogether untenable. The laws of nature 
 are in reaHty not powers or forces at all, but merely 
 the ways in which energy has been found to act. 
 They are mental generalisations of our own ; and the 
 fact that we are able to form these and to understand 
 nature ^y their means goes to show the harmony 
 between our mental nature and that of their Author, 
 and so to tell us .something of Him. They do not 
 reveal to us the ultimate nat ur? of energy, but merely 
 t'- mode of its action in wha ?r way it may have 
 been determined at first. 
 
 Nor are such laws necessary. We can imagine 
 them to have been different. They may be different 
 in parts of the universe inaccessible to us. They may 
 even change in process of time. Nor is law at all 
 the reverse of rational will. On the contrary, a world 
 without law or regulated by caprice would be intoler- 
 able to rational beings. 
 
 Viewed in this way, the theistic conception of law 
 is that it is a voluntary limitation of the power of the 
 Creator in the interest of His creatures. To secure 
 this end, nature must be a perfect machine, all the 
 parts of which are adjusted for permanent and har- 
 
 iS.'f 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 nz 
 
 
 inonious action. Nay, rather, it may be compared to 
 a series of machines, each runninfj independently, Hke 
 the trains of a railway, but all rej^fulated and connected 
 by an invisible guidance, which determines the times 
 and distance of each, and ordains which shall wait 
 and give place to others. Even this simile, how- 
 ever, gives us the faintest possible conception of the 
 countless interactions and interdependencies of natural 
 laws. Thus the conception of natural law rightly 
 understood becomes the highest evidence of power 
 and divinity, and the highest realisation of the plans 
 of superhuman intelligence. 
 
 The notion that when anything has been referred 
 to natural law the action of God may be dispensed 
 with in relation to that thing, is merely the survival 
 of a superstition tb r God must be capricious and 
 changeable. On the one hand, while by natural law 
 God limits His freedom of action in the interest of 
 the Cosmos and of its intelligent inhabitants, and 
 while He permits us as rational beings to understand 
 and utilise in our limited way portions of His plans, 
 the interactions and adjustments of laws of different 
 grades are so varied and complex in their scope and 
 application, and in ^he combinations of which they 
 are capable, that it .: often impo.ssible for finite minds 
 to calculate their results, while it is entirely beyond 
 human power to interfere with their majestic action. 
 Hence the will, the power, and the divinity of the 
 Creator and His absolute mastery over His creatures 
 

 is 
 
 m 
 
 174 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 • \ f 
 
 r 
 
 must ever remain unimpaired by natural law. Further, 
 fjince we can know so little of law, and have so little 
 power to control the resistless energy embodied in 
 nature, it follows that scope for dependence on God, 
 for miracle and prayer, and for what we in our 
 ignorance call the supernatural, which, though not 
 understood by us, may still be most natural, in the 
 sense of being part of the Divine plan, is practically 
 infinite. 
 
 The objection to theism based on natural law may 
 indeed be very well met by Dr. Carpenter's figure of 
 the moving power of the mill referred to in a previous 
 chapter. The man who is content to know that a 
 great shaft passing through a brick wall moves all the 
 machinery, might, if it could be shown that this shaft 
 turns constantly and has always so turned, have sorrie 
 ground for the belief that its motion is spontaneous 
 and uncaused. He might at least assume the position 
 of the agnostic, and say that he was entirely ignorant 
 of any moving power beyond the brick wall. But if 
 it were pointed out to him that the motion of the 
 shaft obeyed certain laws — that it stopped at a certain 
 hour every evening, and renewed work at a certain hour 
 every morning ; that it ceased moving at dinner hour 
 andon Sundays — his agnosticism respecting any power 
 or ag-^ncy beyond the brick wall would become in- 
 finitely more unreasonable ; and this would not be 
 mitigated by the regularity of the several changes 
 or by the possibility of formulating their laws. 
 
 I 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 ITS 
 
 Nor can he escape by the magisterial denunciation 
 of theistic ideas as ' anthropomorphic ' fancies. All 
 science must in this sense be anthropomorphic, for it 
 consists of what nature appears to us to be, when 
 viewed through the medium of our senses, and of 
 what we think of nature as so presented to us. The 
 only difference is this, that if agnostic evolution is 
 true, science itself only represents a certain stage of 
 the development, and can have no actual or perma- 
 nent truth ; while, if the theistic view is correct, then 
 the fact that man himself belongs to the unity of 
 nature, and is in harmony with its other parts, gives 
 us some guarantee for the absolute truth of scientific 
 facts and principles. 
 
 The idea that nature is a manifestation of mind 
 is so ancient and general that it may almost be 
 considered as an intuition, born spontaneously of our 
 own consciousness of will. It proceeds in any case 
 naturally from the analogy between the operations of 
 nature and those which originate in our own will 
 and contrivance. When men begin to think more 
 accurately, this idea acquires a deeper foundation in 
 the conclusion that nature, in all its varied mani- 
 festations, is one vast machine or congeries of 
 machines, '.oo great and complex for us to • ^mprc- 
 hcnd, and implying a p 'imary energy infinitely beyond 
 that of man ; and thus the unity of nature points to 
 one Creative Mind. 
 
 Even to the savage peoples, in whose minds the 
 
 i\ 
 
 \ ,1 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
-4TT 
 
 5' ^ 
 
 176 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 idea of unity has not germinated, or from whose 
 traditions it has been lost, a spiritual essence appears 
 to underlie all natural phenomena, though they may 
 regard this as consisting of a separate spirit or 
 Manitou for every material thing. In all the more 
 cultivated races the ideas of natural religion have 
 taken more definite forms in their theology and 
 philosophy. Dugald Stewart has well expressed the 
 more scientific form of this idea in two short state- 
 ments : — 
 
 * I. Every effect implies a cause. 
 
 2. Every combination of means to an end implies 
 intelligence.' 
 
 Unless, then, we are prepared to refer the universe 
 and all its laws and arrangements to mere chance or 
 to absolute necessity, either of which views would be 
 not only irrational, but would involve actual mental 
 confusion, we have no escape from the doctrine of 
 design and the Pauline conclusion that power and 
 divinity are manifested in nature. 
 
 It may be profitable to illustrate this great truth 
 under a few definite propositions, and with reference 
 as we proceed to the bearing of these on the various 
 current hypotheses of evolution, but more especially 
 on the evidence of what may be termed ' Mind in 
 Nature ' as an evidence of the power and divinity of 
 its Author. 
 
 I. It may be maintained that Nature is an exhi- 
 bition of regulated and determined power. The first 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 177 
 
 vhose 
 )pears 
 /■ may 
 rit or 
 more 
 I have 
 y and 
 sed the 
 t state- 
 
 impHes 
 
 universe 
 hance or 
 vould be 
 \ mental 
 )ctrine of 
 Dvver and 
 
 •cat truth 
 reference 
 le various 
 especially 
 Mind in 
 divinity of 
 
 s an exhi- 
 The first 
 
 impression of Nature presented to a mind uninitiated 
 in its mysteries is that it is a mere conflict of 
 opposing forces ; but so soon as we study any 
 natural phcnoncma in detail we sec that this is an 
 error, and that everything is balanced in the nicest 
 way by the most subtle interactions of matter and 
 force. We find also that, while forces arc mutually 
 convertible and atoms susceptible of vast varieties of 
 arrangement, all this is determined by fixed law, and 
 carried out with invariable regularity and constancy. 
 
 The vapour of water, for example, diffused in the 
 atmosphere is condensed by extreme cold and falls 
 to the ground in snowflakes. In these, particles of 
 water, previously kept asunder by heat, are united by 
 cohesive force, and the heat has gone on other 
 missions. But these particles do not merely unite ; 
 they geomctrise. Like well-drilled soldiers, arranging 
 themselves in ranks, they form themselves, according 
 to regular axes of attraction, in lines diverging at an 
 angle of sixty degrees ; and thus the snowflakes are 
 hexagonal plates and six-rayed stars, the latter often 
 growing into very complex shapes, but all based on 
 the law of attraction under the same angles. The 
 frost on the window-panes observes the same law, 
 and so does every crystallisation of water, where it 
 has scope to arrange itself in accordance with its own 
 geometry. But this law of crystallisation gives to 
 snow and ice their mechanical properties, and is con- 
 nected with a multitude of adjustments of water in a 
 
 M 
 
 III: 
 
1 
 
 I 
 
 178 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 solid state to its place in nature. The same law, 
 varied in a vast number of ways in every distinct 
 substance, builds up crystals of all kinds of minerals 
 and crystalline rocks, and is connected with countless 
 adaptations of different kinds of matter to mechanical 
 and chemical uses in the arts. It is easy to see that 
 all this must have been otherwise, but for the institu- 
 tion of many and complex laws. 
 
 A lump of coal at first suggests little to excite 
 interest or imagination ; but the student of its com- 
 position and microscopic structure finds that it is an 
 accumulation of vegetable matter representing the 
 action of the solar liglit on the leaves of trees of the 
 Paheozoic age. It thus calls up images of these 
 perished forests, and of the causes concerned in their 
 production and growth, and in the accumulation and 
 preservation of their buried remains. It further 
 suggests the many waj's in which this solar energy, 
 so long sealed up, can be recalled to activity in heat, 
 gas light, steam, and electric light, and how remark- 
 ably these things have been related to the wealth and 
 the civilisation of modern nations. I may quote here 
 a graphic passage from a popular paper by Huxley, 
 which admirably draws the picture of provision for 
 man, but unfortunately leaves out the Provider : — 
 
 Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have had 
 ahvays before her eyes the adage, 'Keep a thing long enough, 
 and you will find a use for it.' She has kept her Ijeds of 
 coal for millions of years without being able to find a use 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 179 
 
 ic law, 
 
 distinct 
 
 linerals 
 
 Duntless 
 
 :hanical 
 
 ^cc that 
 
 I institu- 
 
 ;o excite 
 its com- 
 t it is an 
 nting the 
 jcs of the 
 of these 
 id in their 
 ation and 
 It further 
 ar energy, 
 y in heat, 
 w remark- 
 A'calth and 
 quote here 
 )y Huxley, 
 ro vision for 
 ^'ider : — 
 
 have had 
 long enough, 
 her beds of 
 :o fii^d a use 
 
 f(jr them \ she has sent them beneath the sea, and the sea- 
 beasts could make nothing of them ; she has raised them 
 up into dry land and laid the black veins bare, and still for 
 ages and ages there was no living thing on the face of the 
 earth that could see any sort of value in them ; and it was 
 only the other day, so to speak, that she turned a new 
 creature out of her workshop, who by degrees acquired 
 sufficient wits to make a fire, and then to discover that the 
 l)lack rock would burn. 
 
 I suppose that nineteen hundred years ago, when 
 J ulius Caesar was good enough to deal with Britain as we 
 have dealt with New Zealand, the primeval Briton, blue 
 with cold and woad, may have known that the strange black 
 stone which he found here and there in his wanderings 
 would burn, and so help to warm his body and cook his 
 food. Saxon, Dane, and Norman swarmed into the land. 
 The English people grew into a powerful nation, and Nature 
 still waited for a return for the capital she had invested in 
 ancient club-mosses. The eighteenth century arrived, and 
 with it James Watt. The brain of that man was the spore 
 out of which was developed the steam engine and all the 
 prodigious trees and branches of modern industry which 
 have grown out of this. But coal is as much an essential 
 of this growth and development as carbonic acid is of a 
 club-moss. Wanting the coal, we could not have smelted 
 the iron needed to make our engines, nor have worked our 
 engines when we got them. But take away the engines, and 
 the great towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire vanish like a 
 dream. Manufactures give place to agriculture and pasture, 
 and not ten men could live where now ten thousand are 
 amply supported. 
 
 Thus all this abundant wealth of money and of vivid 
 life is Nature's investment in club-mosses and the like so 
 long ago. But what becomes of the coal which is burnt in 
 yielding the interest ? Heat comes out of it, light comes 
 
 M 2 
 
 \\ 
 
 If 
 
s--=^ 
 
 li 
 
 180 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 i 
 
 If \i'i 
 
 Mi i 
 
 out of it, and if we could gather together all that goes up 
 the chimney and all that remains in the grate of a thoroughly 
 burnt coal fire, we should find ourselves in possession of a 
 quantity of carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and mineral 
 matters exactly equal in weight to the coal. But these 
 are the very matters with which Nature supplied the club- 
 mosses which made coal. She is paid back principal and 
 interest at the same time ; and she straightway invests the 
 carbonic acid, the water, and the ammonia in new forms of 
 life, feeding with them the plants that now live. Thrifty 
 Nature, surely ! no prodigal, but the most notable of house- 
 keepers. ' 
 
 All this is true and well told ; but who is Nature, 
 this goddess, who, since the far-distant Carboniferous 
 age, has been planning for man ? Is this not another 
 name for that Almighty Maker who foresaw and 
 arranged all things for His people ' before the founda- 
 tion of the world ' ? If Huxley did not assure us 
 that he is an agnostic, we might suspect him from 
 this passage to be a devout theist, and even an 
 orthodox Calvinist. 
 
 It is plain that ' Nature ' in such a connection re- 
 presents either a poetical fiction, a superstitious 
 fancy, or an intelligent creative mind. It is further 
 evident that such creative mind must be in harmony 
 with that of man, though vastly greater in its scope 
 and grasp in time and space. This conclusion might 
 be strengthened by many other examples of the 
 mute prophecies of past geological periods. 
 
 Even the numerical relations observed in nature 
 
 * Contemporary Review^ 187 1. 
 
1! 
 
 goes up 
 Droughly 
 ion of a 
 mineral 
 ut these 
 he club- 
 ipal and 
 vests the 
 forms of 
 Thrifty 
 of house- 
 Nature, 
 )niferous 
 another 
 saw and 
 i founda- 
 ssure us 
 im fronn 
 even an 
 
 ction re- 
 rstitious 
 s further 
 -larmony 
 ts scope 
 3n might 
 s of the 
 
 n nature 
 
 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 i8i 
 
 teach the same lesson. The leaves of plants are not 
 arranged at random, but in a series of curiously-related 
 spirals, differing in different plants, but always the 
 same in the same species, and regulated by diffcrciU 
 laws. Similar definitcness regulates the ramification 
 of plants, which depends primarily on the arrange- 
 ment of the leaves. The angle of ramification of the 
 veins of the leaf is settled for each species of plant ; 
 so are the numbers of parts in the flower and the 
 angular arrangement of these parts. 
 
 It is the same in the animal kingdom, such 
 numbers as five, six, eight, ten being selected to 
 determine the parts in particular animals and portions 
 of animals. Once settled, these numbers arc won- 
 derfully permanent in geological time. The first 
 known land reptiles appearing in the Carboniferous 
 period have five toes : these appear in the earliest 
 known species in the lowest, as alrcad)- stated, 
 beds of the Carboniferous. Their predecessors, the 
 fishes, had numerous fin-rays ; but when limbs for 
 locomotion on land were contrived the number five 
 was adopted as the typical one. It still exists in the 
 five toes and fingers of man himself. l^Vom these, as 
 is well known, our decimal notation is derived. It 
 did not originate in any special fitness of the number 
 ten, but in the fact that men began to reckon b}' 
 counting their ten fingers. Thus the decimal system 
 of arithmetic, with all that follows it, wa>^ settled 
 millions of years ago, in the Carboniferous period^ 
 
 ", 
 
 I 
 
 It 
 
 . ! 
 
 i-\ 
 
 t ! 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 t 1 
 
 H 
 
 11 ? 
 
 m 
 
 III', ! 
 J 
 
 ili 
 
 
 i ll! 
 
 182 
 
 MOD/': AW IDF. AS OF F VOLUTION 
 
 cither by certain lovv-browcd and unintelligent batra- 
 chians or by their Maker. 
 
 2. Nature presents to us very remarkable co- 
 operations of dissimilar and widely separated matters 
 and forces. I have referred to the numerical arrange- 
 ments of the leaves of plants ; but the leaf itself, in 
 its structure and functions, is one of the most remark- 
 able things in nature. Composed of layers of loosely- 
 placed living cells, with air-spaces between them ; 
 enclosed above and below with a transparent epi- 
 dermis, the spaces between the cells communicating 
 with the atmosphere without, by means of micro- 
 scopic pores, guarded by cunningly contrived valves, 
 opening or closing according to the hygrometric state 
 of the air ; connected with the stem of the plant by a 
 system of tubes strengthened with spiral fibres or 
 thickening of their walls within— the structure of the 
 leaf is, mechanically considered, of extreme beauty 
 and complex^t)^ 
 
 But its living functions are still more wonderful. 
 Receiving the water from the soil with such materials 
 as it brings thence in solution, and absorbing carbonic 
 dioxide and ammonia from the air, the living proto- 
 plasm of the leaf-cells has the power of chemically 
 changing all these substances, and of producing from 
 them those complicated and otherwise inimitable 
 organic compounds, of which the tissues of the plant 
 are built up, and which they also prepare for other 
 purposes in the plant. The force by which this is 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 183 
 
 done is that of the solar heat and light, both admitted 
 freely into the interior of the leaf through the trans- 
 parent epidermis, and therein imprisoned, so as to 
 constitute a powerful storehouse of evaporative and 
 chemical energy. In this way all the materials avail- 
 able for the maintenance of life, whether vegetable or 
 animal, are produced, and no other structure than the 
 living vegetable cell, as it exists in the leaf, has the 
 power to effect these miracles of transmutation. 
 
 Here, let it be observed, we have the vegetable 
 cell placed in relation with the system of the plant, 
 with the soil, with the atmosphere and its waters, with 
 the distant sun itself, and the properties of its emitted 
 energies. Let it further be observed that, on the one 
 hand, the chemistry involved in this is of a character 
 altogether different from that which applies to inor- 
 ganic matter, and, on the other, the products derived 
 from a very few elements embrace all that vast variety 
 of compounds which we observe in plants and animals, 
 and which constitute the material of one of the most 
 complex of sciences, that of organic chemistry. 
 Finally, these complicated structures were produced, 
 and all their relations set up at a very early geological 
 period. In so far as we can judge from their remains 
 and the results effected, the leaves of the Palaeozoic 
 period were functionally as perfect as their modern 
 successors. 
 
 Of course, the agnostic evolutionist may, if he 
 pleases, attribute all this to fortuitous interactions of 
 
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 MODE AW IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 the sun, the atmosphere, and the earth, and may 
 provide for what these fail to explain by the assump- 
 tion of potentialities equivalent to the things pro- 
 duced. But the probability of such an hypothesis 
 becomes iti finitely small when we consider the variet}' 
 and the diversity of things and forces which must 
 have conspired to produce the results observed, and 
 to maintain them so constantly, and yet with so much 
 difference in circumstances and details. It is a relief 
 to turn from such bewildering and gratuitous sup- 
 positions to the theory which supposes a designing 
 creative mind. 
 
 From the boundless variety of illustrations which 
 the animal kingdom presents I may select one — the 
 contrivances by means of which marine animals are 
 enabled to balance themselves in the waters. In that 
 wonderful hymn of creation. Psalm civ., at whose 
 compass and truth and grandeur the great Humboldt 
 expressed his astonishment, we find in one of the 
 verses mention of the great and wide sea wherein are 
 ' moving things innumerable, small and great animals. 
 There go the ships : there is that leviathan Thou hast 
 Miadc to play therein.' I .i^gimttm^im^^maAi'mmMtmm 
 
 the ' ships ' are not those of man, but God's floating 
 things whose home is on the sea. In any case, these 
 floaters are marvellous examples of cunning contri- 
 vance. The pearly nautilus is an eminent example.' 
 
 ' The uses of the chambers of the iiiiutilus shell have been doubted 
 by some recent observers, but the character of the structures v/ould 
 seem to admit of no other interpretation. 
 
d may 
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 lothcsis 
 varict)' 
 :h must 
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 lUS sup- 
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 animals, 
 lou hast 
 
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 jii doubted 
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 GOD IN NAT URIC 
 
 185 
 
 Its coiled shell is divided b)- partitions into air- 
 chambers so proportioned that the buoyancy of the 
 air is sufficient to counterpoise in sea-water the weight 
 of the animal. There are cil.so contrivances by which 
 the density of the contained air and of the body of 
 the animal can be so modified as .sh'ghtly to disturb 
 this equilibrium and to enable the creature to rise or 
 sink in the water'. It would be tedious to describe, 
 without adequate illustrations, all the machinery con- 
 nected with the.se adjustment.s. It is sufficient for 
 our purpo.se to know that they arc provided in such 
 a manner that the animal is practically exempted 
 from the operation of the force of gravity. In the 
 modern seas these provisions arc enjoyed by only a 
 few species of the genera Nautilus and Spirula, but 
 in past geological ages far more complex forms 
 existed. Further, this contrivance is very old. We 
 find in the (^^/-//!^?avv?//V^j" and their allies of the earliest 
 formations these arrangements in their full perfection, 
 and in some forms even more complex than in later 
 types. 
 
 The peculiar contrivances observed in the nautilu.s 
 d its allies are posses.sed by no other molluscs ; but 
 there is another group of somewhat lower grade, that 
 of the lantJiimv, or violet snails, in which flotation 
 is provided for in a different way. In these animals 
 the shell is perfectly simple, though light, and the 
 floating apparatus consists in a series of horny air- 
 vesicles attached to what is termed the ' foot ' of the 
 
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 animal, and which arc increased in number to suit Its 
 increasing weight as it grows in size. There are 
 some reasons to bcHevc that this entirely different 
 contrivance is as old in geological time as the cham- 
 bered shell of the nautiloid animals. It was, indeed, 
 in all probability, more common and adapted to larger 
 animals in the Silurian period than at present. 
 
 Another curious instance not, so far as yet known, 
 existing at all in the modern world, is that of the re- 
 markable stalked star-fish described by Professor Hall 
 under the name CamcrocrinuSy and whose remains are 
 found in the Silurian rocks. The crinoids, or feather- 
 stars, are well-known inhabitants of the seas both in 
 ancient and modern times, but previous to Professor 
 Hall's discovery they were known only as animals 
 attached by flexible stems to the sea-bottom or 
 creeping slowly by means of their radiating arms. 
 It was not suspected that any of them had committed 
 themselves to the mercy of the currents suspended 
 from floats. It appears, however, that this was actually 
 realised in the Silurian period, when certain animals 
 of this group developed a hollow calcareous balloon- 
 shaped vesicle, from which they could hang suspended 
 in the water and float freely. So far as known, this 
 remarkable contrivance was temporary, and probably 
 adapted to some peculiarities of the habits and food 
 of these animals, occurring only in the geological 
 period in which they existed. 
 
 Examples of this sort of adjustment are found in 
 
 K. 
 
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 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 187 
 
 suit its 
 2rc are 
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 :)wn, this 
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 nd food 
 eological 
 
 found in 
 
 is 
 
 other types of animal life. In the beautiful Portu- 
 guese man-of-war {PhysaHa) and its allies, flotation 
 is provided for by membranous or cartilaginous sacs 
 or vesicles filled with air, and which are the common 
 support of numerous individuals which hang down 
 from them. In some allied creatures the buoyancy 
 required is secured by little sacs filled with oil secreted 
 by the animals themselves, and in ancient zoophytes, 
 known as graptolites, flotation seems to have been 
 effected in some species by air-vesicles supporting a 
 community of animals. 
 
 In each of these cases we have a skilful adaptation 
 of means to ends. The float is so constructed as to 
 avail itself of the properties of gases and liquids, and 
 the apparatus is framed on the most scientific prin- 
 ciples and in the most artistic manner. That this 
 apparatus is not mechanically put together, and that 
 in each case the instincts and the habits of the animal 
 have been correlated with it, can scarcely be held by 
 the most obtuse intellect to invalidate the evidence of 
 intelligent design. 
 
 3. Structures apparently the most simple and 
 often heedlessly spoken of as if they involved no 
 complexity prove, on examination, to be intricate 
 and complex almost beyond conception. In nothing, 
 perhaps, is this better seen than in that much-abused 
 * protoplasm ' which has been made to do duty for 
 God in the origination of life, but which is itself a 
 most laboriously manufactured material. Albumen, 
 
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 1 88 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 or white of egg— which is otherwise named proto- 
 plasm — is a very comphcated substance chemically^ 
 and in its molecular arrangements, and when endow^ed 
 with life, it presents properties altogether inscrutable. 
 It is easy to say that the protoplasm of an egg or of 
 some humble animalcule or microscopic embryo is 
 little more than a mass of structureless jelly, yet 
 in the case of the embryo a microscopic dot of this 
 apparently structureless jelly must contain all the 
 parts of, say, a bird or a mammal ; but how wc may 
 never know, and certainly cannot yet comprehend. 
 
 There are minute animalcules belonging to the 
 group of flagellate infusoria, some of which, under 
 ordinary microscopic powers, appear merely as moving 
 specks, and show their actual structures only under 
 the highest powers ; yet these animals can be seen to 
 have an outer skin and an inner mass, to have pul- 
 sating sacs and reproductive organs, and threadlike 
 flagella wherewith to swim. Their eggs are, of course, 
 much smaller than themselves, so much so that some 
 of them are probably invisible under the highest 
 powers employed. Each of them is potentially an 
 animal, with all its parts represented structurally in 
 the same way. 
 
 Nor need we wonder at this. It has been calcu- 
 lated that a speck scarcely visible under the most 
 powerful microscope may contain two million four 
 hundred thousand molecules of protoplasm. If each 
 of these molecules were a brick, there would be enough 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 189 
 
 of them to build a terrace of twenty-five good dwell- 
 ing houses. But this is supposing them to be all 
 alike ; whereas we know that the molecules of albu- 
 men are capable of being of various kinds. Each of 
 these molecules really contains eight hundred and 
 eighty-two atoms, namely four hundred of carbon, 
 three hundred and ten of hydrogen, one hundred and 
 twenty of oxygen, fifty of nitrogen, and two of sulphur 
 and phosphorus. 
 
 Now, we know that these atoms may be differently 
 arranged in different molecules, producing consider- 
 able difference of properties. Let us try to calculate 
 of how many differences of arrangement the atoms 
 of one molecule of protoplasm arc susceptible, and 
 then to calculate of how many changes these differ- 
 ent assemblages are capable in a microscopic dot 
 composed of two million four hundred thousand of 
 them. It is scarcely necessary to say that such a 
 calculation, in the multitudes of possibilities involved, 
 transcends human powers of imagination ; yet it 
 raises questions of mechanical and chemical grouping 
 merely, without any reference to the additional 
 mystery of life. 
 
 Let it be observed further that this vastly complex 
 material is assumed as if there were nothing remark- 
 able in it by many of the theorists who plausibly 
 explain to us the spontaneous origin of living things. 
 But Nature, in arranging all the parts of a compli- 
 cated animal beforehand in a apparently structure- 
 
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 190 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 less microscopic oviuu, has all these vast numbers ta 
 deal with in working out the exact result, and this 
 not in one case merely, but in multitudes of cases 
 involving the most varied combinations. We can 
 scarcely suppose the atoms themselves to have the 
 power of thus unerringly marshalling themselves to 
 work out the structures of organisms infinitely varied, 
 yet all alike after their kinds. If not, then * Nature^ 
 must be a goddess gifted with superhuman powers of 
 calculation and marvellous deftness in arranging in- 
 visible atoms. 
 
 4. The beauty of form, proportion, and colouring 
 that abounds in nature affords evidence of mind. 
 Herculean efforts have been made by modern 
 agnostic evolutionists to eliminate altogether the 
 idea of beauty from nature by theories of sexual 
 selection and the like, and to persuade us that beauty 
 is merely utility in disguise, and even then only an 
 accidental coincidence between our perceptions and 
 certain external things. But in no part of their 
 argument have they more signally failed in account- 
 ing for the observed facts, and in no part have they 
 more seriously outraged the common-sense and 
 natural taste of men. In point of fact, we have here 
 one of those great correlations belonging to the unity 
 of nature — that indissoluble connection which has 
 been established between the senses and the aesthetic 
 sentiments of man and certain things in the external 
 world. But there is more in beauty than this merely 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 191 
 
 anthropological relation. Certain forms, for example, 
 adopted in the skeletons of the lower animals are 
 necessarily beautiful because of their geometrical 
 proportions. Certain styles of colouring are neces- 
 sarily beautiful because of harmonics and contrasts 
 which depend on the essential properties of the waves 
 of light. Beauty is thus, in a great measure, inde- 
 pendent of the taste of the spectator. It is also inde- 
 pendent of mere utility, since, even if we admit that 
 all these combinations of forms, motions, and colours 
 which we call beautiful are also useful, it is easy to 
 [jcrceivc that the end could often be attained 
 without beauty. 
 
 It is a curious fact that some of the simplest 
 animals— as, for example, sponges and foraminifera — 
 are furnished with most beautiful skeletons. Nothing 
 can exceed the beauty of form and proportion in the 
 shells of some foraminifera and polycistina, or in 
 the skeletons of some silicious sponges, while it is 
 obvious that these humble creatures, without brains 
 and external senses, can neither contrive nor appre- 
 ciate the beauty with which they are clothed. 
 
 Here I may pause to remark that no feature of 
 the current evolution seems more objectionable than 
 that which refers beauty to low forms of utility, and 
 to selection exercised by animals which can have no 
 intelligent knowledge even of that which attracts 
 them. To an insect a bright spot of any kind would 
 have been as effectual a mark of a honey-bearing 
 
 %■ 
 

 
 
 j : 
 
 I : 
 
 i i 
 
 192 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 flower as the most delicate and elaborate pencilling 
 f)f colour. To attribute the marvellous beauty of an 
 Argus pheasant or of a bird of Paradise to the taste of 
 the hen bird can scarcely be characterised as any- 
 thing short of a base superstition ; while it is abso- 
 lutely irrational as a matter of science, since it is 
 attributing an effect to that which cannot be an 
 efficient cause. 
 
 Most persons have seen the beautiful Euplectella 
 aspergilluni, or ' Venus' flower-basket,' now somewhat 
 common in museums and private collections, but few 
 perhaps have minutely examined its structure. A 
 little observation enables us to see its regular cylin- 
 drical form and graceful cornucopia-like curves, com- 
 bining strength with beauty ; its framework of 
 delicate silicious threads, some regularly placed in 
 vertical bundles, others crossing them, so as to form 
 rectangular meshes, and still others placed diagonally, 
 so as to convert the square meshes into a lace-like 
 pattern. Without this framework are accessory spi- 
 cules placed in spiral frills, and at the top is a singular 
 network of silicious fibres closing the aperture, while 
 there are long silky threads forming roots below. 
 This structure, so marvellous in the mechanical and 
 aesthetic principles embodied in it, is the skeleton of 
 a sponge ; a soft, slimy, almost structureless creature, 
 which we find it difficult to believe in as a veritable 
 animal ; yet it is the law of this creature, developed 
 from a little oval or sac-like germ, destitute of all 
 
/ 
 
 GOD IN NA rURE 
 
 »93 
 
 :)cncilling 
 ity of an 
 \e taste of 
 \ as any- 
 t is abso- 
 since it is 
 lot be an 
 
 Euplectella 
 somewhat 
 ns, but few 
 ucture. A 
 ular cylin- 
 arves, com- 
 nework of 
 ' placed in 
 as to form 
 diagonally, 
 a lace-like 
 ;essory spi- 
 s a singular 
 rture, while 
 ,ots below, 
 lanical and 
 skeleton of 
 ss creature, 
 a veritable 
 developed 
 Itute of all 
 
 trace of the subsequent structures, to produce this 
 wonderful framework. Can anyone who studies such 
 an organism summon faith enough in atoms and 
 forces to believe that their insensate action is the sole 
 cause of its being r But our Euplectella aspergillum 
 is only one of several species, and there are other 
 genera more or less resembling it, most of them in- 
 habiting the depths of the sea. All of these build 
 up silicious skeletons on what is termed the hex- 
 actinellid plan, but with differences of detail perfectly 
 constant in each species, though we cannot trace these 
 differences to anything corresponding in the animals, 
 nor can we assign them to any property of silica, 
 since the material of the spicules is in a colloidal or 
 uncrystalline state, and the forms are quite different 
 from the crystalline forms of silica. 
 
 These hexactinellid sponges have a history. They 
 are widely diffused in our present seas. The chalk 
 formation of Europe abounds with them, and presents 
 forms even more varied and beautiful than those now 
 existing, but which must have lived at a time when 
 large parts of our present continents were in the 
 depths of the ocean. Still further back, in the 
 Silurian age, they seem to have been nearly equally 
 abundant. I have recently studied the microscopic 
 structures of a large collection from the Niagara 
 limestone, consisting of many species, each of which 
 presents arrangements of spicules as beautiful and 
 complex as those of the modern kinds. Still farther 
 
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 194 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 back, in the rocks of the Levis division of the Siluro- 
 Cambrian system in Canada, I have found in a single 
 thin bed of shale, representing a muddy sea-bottom 
 of that age, a dozen species of several genera, all 
 bearing testimony to the perfection of this plan of 
 structure at that early date. Salter and Matthew 
 have found in still older Cambrian rocks species of 
 these sponges having delicate spicules still retaining 
 their arrangement, and showing that this beautiful 
 contrivance for the support of a gelatinous animal 
 existed in all its perfection almost at the dawn of 
 life. Through all these vast periods of geological 
 time the hexactinellids have continued side by side 
 with the lithistid sponges, their allies ; and contem- 
 poraneously with them the rhizopods and radio- 
 larians, still more simple forms, have built up other 
 styles of skeletons equally wonderful and inexplicable, 
 and embodying other mechanical plans and other 
 types of beauty. 
 
 It is scarcely too much to say that no sane mind 
 having presented to it, not as above merely in a few 
 words, but in the actual facts as they might be illus- 
 trated with specimens and figures, all this unity and 
 variety, mechanical contrivance and varied beauty, 
 associated with so little of vitality and complexity in 
 the animals concerned, could doubt for a moment 
 the action of a creative intelligence in the initiation 
 of such phenomena, or could beliere that they have 
 resulted from the fortuitous interaction of atoms. 
 
Siluro- 
 
 L single 
 
 bottom 
 
 era, all 
 
 plan of 
 
 latthew 
 
 ccics of 
 
 ctaining 
 
 Dcautiful 
 
 s animal 
 dawn of 
 
 eological 
 
 e by side 
 contem- 
 
 id radio- 
 up other 
 plicable, 
 nd other 
 
 ane mind 
 y^ m a few 
 it be illus- 
 unity and 
 d beauty, 
 plexity in 
 moment 
 ) initiation 
 
 they have 
 
 toms. 
 
 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 Still, admitting this, we arc not prevented from 
 attributing something to environment and to repro- 
 ductive continuity. The waters ' brought forth ' these 
 animals of old, and it is true we cannot conceive of 
 creatures so constructed as living out of the waters. 
 The sea also furnished to them the material out of 
 which to construct their skeletons, either directly or 
 through the medium of still simpler organisms, All 
 this and much more respecting the surrounding 
 medium science can understand, though it does not 
 thereby learn the origin of these forms or the reason 
 of their complexity and variety. These do not 
 depend on the properties either of the waters or the 
 silica. 
 
 Further, our sponge has the power of increasing 
 and multiplying to replenish the waters. It begets 
 new organisms in its own likeness, and with all its 
 own wonderful powers of unconscious construction 
 Nay, more, we can see that in this continuous repro- 
 duction it has a certain versatility, enabling it to con- 
 form to circumstances, and so to present individual 
 and race characters within the species. May not 
 then, the creative act have been limited to the pro- 
 duction of the first hexactinellid, and may not the 
 others have originated by ordinary generation ? 
 Here we may admit that, for aught that we know, 
 not only varietal forms, but even some of those which, 
 as met with in successive geological formations, we 
 regard as species may have had a common origin in 
 
 N 3 
 
 ■^ t: 
 
w/? 
 
 196 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 i Ml 
 
 •li I 
 
 
 this way ; but wc have no right to affirm this till wc 
 have proved it, and we have no right even then to 
 affirm it of other and distinct lines of being, which 
 have gone on parallel with our hcxactinellids for 
 indefinite times, and which the very fact of the per- 
 sistence of the latter within their own cycle of cha- 
 racters would tend to refer to independent origins, 
 
 Such, in short, would be the bearing, not nf 
 metaphysical arguments, but of the testimony of 
 facts as presented by the structures and history of 
 any group of the lower animals. 
 
 5, The instincts of the lower animals imply a 
 higher intelligence. Instinct, on the theistic view of 
 nature, can be nothing less than a divine inspiration, 
 placing the animal in relations to other things and 
 processes of the most complex character, and which 
 it could not have designed itself Further, instinct is 
 by its very nature a thing unimprovable. Like the 
 laws of nature, it operates invariably, and if diminished 
 or changed it would prove useless for its purpose. It 
 is not like human inventions, slowly perfected under 
 the influence of thought and imagination, and 
 laboriously taught by each generation to its suc- 
 cessors. It is inherited by each generation in all its 
 perfection, and from the first goes directly to its end 
 as if it were a merely physical cause. 
 
 The favourite explanation of instinct from the 
 side of agnostic evolution is that it originated in the 
 struggle for existence of some previous generation, 
 
 I 
 
 ■^ w i is. 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 197 
 
 «ind was then perpetuated as an inheritance. But, 
 like most of the other explanations of this school, this 
 quietly takes for granted what should be proved 
 That instinct is hereditary is true ; but the question 
 is how it began, and to say simply that it did begin 
 at some time is to tell us nothing. Fr n a scientific- 
 point of view the invariable operation of any natural 
 law affords no evidence of any gradual or sudden 
 origin of it at some point of past time ; and when 
 such law is connected with a complex organism and 
 various other laws and processes of the external 
 world, the supposition of its slowly arising from 
 nothing through many generations of animals be- 
 comes absurd in its inefficiency and complexity. 
 Instinct must have originated in a perfect condition, 
 and with the organism and its environment already 
 established. A consideration of any of the almost 
 countless modifications of instinct in the lower 
 animals would show this. I shall borrow a very 
 apposite one from the remarkable work of the Duke 
 of Argyll on the Unity of Nature, which deserves 
 careful study by everyone who values common-sense 
 views on the subject : — 
 
 On a secluded lake in one of the Hebrides I observed 
 a dun-diver, or female of the red-breasted merganser (^Mer- 
 gus serrator\ with her brood of young ducklings. On giving 
 chase in the boat, we soon found that the young, although 
 not above a fortnight old, had such extraordinary powers of 
 swimming and diving that it was almost impossible to cap- 
 ture them. The distance they went under water and the 
 
 
198 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
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 unexpected places from which they emerged, baffled all our 
 efforts for a considerable time. At last one of the brood 
 made for the shore, with the object of hiding among the 
 grass and heacher which fringed the lake. We pursued it 
 as closely as we could ; bui when the little bird gained the 
 shore our boat was still about twenty yards off. I.ong 
 drought hru^ left a broad margin of small flat stones and 
 mud between the water and the usual bank. I saw the little 
 bird run up a couple of yards from the water and then sud 
 denly disappear. Knowing what \vas likely to be enacted, 
 I kept my eye fixed on the spot, and when the boat was run 
 up^n the beach I proceeded to find and pick up the chick. 
 But on reaching the place of disappearance no sign of the 
 young merganser was to be seen. The closest scrutiny, with 
 the certain knowledge that it was there, failed to enable me 
 to detect it. Proceeding cautiously forward, I soon became 
 convinced that I had already overshot the mark, and on 
 turning round it was only to see the bird rise like an appa- 
 rition from the stones, and, dashing past the stranded boat, 
 regain the lake, where, having now recovered its wind, it 
 instantly dived and disappeared. The tP'^Hcal skill of the 
 whole of this manoeuvre and the success with which it was 
 executed were greeted with loud cheers from the party ; and 
 our admiration was not diminished when we remembered 
 that some two weeks before that time the little performer 
 had been coiled up inside the shell of an egg, and that 
 about a month before it was apparently nothing but a mass 
 of albumen and of fatty oils. 
 
 On this the Duke very properly remarks that all 
 idea of training and experience is absolutely ex- 
 cluded, because it * assumes the pre-existence of the 
 very powers for which it professes to account * ! He 
 then turns to the idea that animals are automata, or 
 * machines.' Here it is to be observed that the essen- 
 
GOD IN NATURE 
 
 199 
 
 tial conception of a machine is twofold. First, it is 
 a merely mechanical structure, put together to do 
 certain things ; secondly, it must be related to a 
 combiner and constructor. If we think proper to 
 call the young merganser a machine, we cannot ad- 
 mit the first of these characters without also admitting 
 the second — more especially as the bird is in every 
 way a more complex and marvellous machine than 
 any of human contrivance. He concludes his notice 
 of this attempt at explanation in the following sugges- 
 tive words : — 
 
 Passing now from explanations which explain nothing, 
 is there any light in the theory that animals are ''automata^'? 
 Was my little dipper a diving machine? It seems to me 
 that there is at least a glimmer shining through this idea — a 
 glimmer as of a real light struggling through a thick fog. 
 The fog arises out of the mists of language — the confound- 
 ing and confusion of meanings literal with meanings meta- 
 phorical, the mistaking of partial for complete analogies. 
 * Machine ' is the word by which we designate those com- 
 binations of mechanical force which a"^ contrived and put 
 together by man to do certain things. One essential 
 characteristic of them is that they belong to the world of 
 the not living ; they are destitute of that which we know as 
 life, and of all the attributes by which it is distinguished 
 Machines have no sensibility. When we say of anything 
 that it has been done by a machine, we mean that it has been 
 done by something which is not alive. In this literal signi- 
 fication it is therefore pure nonsense to say that any living 
 being is a machine. It is simply a misapplication of Ian 
 guage, to the extent of calling one thing by the name of 
 another thing, and that other so different as to be its oppo- 
 
 I 
 
 Mi- 
 
200 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 \l\ 
 
 ; 
 
 . :! 
 
 site or contradictory. There can be no reasoning, no clear- 
 ing up of truth, unless we keep definite words for definite 
 ideas. Or if the idea to which a given word has been ap- 
 propriated be a complex idea, and we desire to deal with one 
 element only of the meaning separated from the rest, then 
 indeed we may continue to use the word for this selected 
 portion of its meaning, provided always that we bear in 
 mind what it is that we are doing. This may be, and often 
 is, a necessary operation, for language is not rich enough to 
 furnish separate words for all the complex elements which 
 enter into ideas apparently very simple ; and so of this word 
 machine. There is an element in its meaning which is 
 always very important, which in common language is 
 often predominant, and which we may legitimately choose 
 to make exclusive of every other. This essential element in 
 our idea of a machine is that its powers, whatever they may 
 be, are derived, and not original. There may be great 
 knowledge in the work done by a machine, but the know- 
 ledge is not in it ; there may be great skill, but the skill is 
 not in it ; great foresight, but foresight is not in it ; in short, 
 great exhibition of all the powers of mind, but the mind is 
 not in the machine itself. Whatever it does is done in 
 virtue of its construction, which construction is due to a 
 mmd which has designed it for the exhibition of certain 
 powers and the performance of certain functions. These 
 may be very simple, or they may be very complicated ; but 
 whether simple or complicated the whole play of its opera- 
 tions is limited and measured by the intentions of its con- 
 structor. If he be himself limited, either in opportunity or 
 knowledge or in power, there will be a corresponding limi- 
 tation in the things he invents and makes. Accordingly, in 
 regard to man, he cannot make a machine which has any of 
 the gifts or powers of life. He can construct nothing which 
 has sensibility or consciousness, or any other of even the 
 lowest attributes of living creatures. And this absolute de 
 .stitution of even apparent originality in a machine, this entire 
 
GOD IN A A TURK 
 
 201 
 
 no clear- 
 definite 
 been ap- 
 with one 
 rest, then 
 5 selected 
 I bear in 
 and often 
 enough to 
 -nts which 
 ■ this word 
 T which is 
 .nguage is 
 tely choose 
 element in 
 ;r they may 
 ly be great 
 t the know- 
 t the skill is 
 it ; in short, 
 :he mind is 
 is done in 
 is due to a 
 1 of certain 
 bns. These 
 icated ; but 
 i its opera- 
 of its con- 
 portunity or 
 nding hnii- 
 |cordingly, in 
 h has any of 
 thing which 
 of even the 
 absolute de 
 le, this entire 
 
 absence of any share of consciousness, or of sensibility, or of 
 will, is one part of our very conception of it. But that other 
 part of our conception of a machine which consists in its 
 relation to a contriver and constructor is equally essential, 
 and may, if we choose, be separated from the rest, and may 
 be taken as a representative of the whole. If, then, by any 
 agency in nature, or outside of it, which can contrive and 
 build up structures endowed with the gifts of life ; structures 
 which shall not only digest but which shall also feel and see ; 
 which shall be sensible of enjoyment from things condu- 
 cive to their welfare, and of alarm on account of things 
 which are dangerous to the same — then such structures 
 have the same relation to that agency which machines have 
 to man ; and in this aspect it may be a legitimate figure 
 of speech to call them living machines. What these 
 machines do is different in kind from the things which 
 human machines do, but both are alike in this — that what- 
 ever they do is done in virtue of their construction and of 
 the powers which have been given to them by the mind 
 which made them. 
 
 Lastly, the reason of man himself is an actual 
 illustration of mind and will as an efficient power in 
 nature, and implies a creative mind. We cannot 
 imagine the development of reason from that which has 
 no reason, and must admit that only the ' inspiration 
 of the Almighty' could have given understanding. 
 The inherent absurdity of the evolution of powers 
 and properties from things in which they arc not even 
 potentially contained appears nowhere more clearly 
 than here. The subject is, however, sufficiently im- 
 portant to demand a separate chapter. 
 
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 202 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 CHAPTER IX > 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 Few words are used among us more loosely than 
 
 * nature.' Sometimes it stands for the material uni- 
 verse as a whole. Sometimes it is personified as a 
 sort of goddess, working her own sweet will with 
 material things. Sometimes it expresses the forces 
 which act on matter, and again it stands for material 
 things themselves. It is spoken of as subject to law, 
 but just as often natural law is referred to in terms 
 which imply that nature itself is the lawgiver. It is 
 supposed to be opposed to the equally vague term 
 
 * supernatural ' ; but this term is used not merely to 
 denote things above and beyond nature, if there are 
 such, but certain opinions held respecting natural 
 things. On the other hand, the natural is contrasted 
 with the artificial, though this is always the outcome 
 of natural powers and is certainly not supernatural. 
 Again, it is applied to the inherent properties of beings 
 for which we are unable to account, and which we are 
 content to say constitute their nature. We cannot 
 look into the works of any of the more speculative 
 
 • The substance of this chapter was first published in the Princeton 
 Review, 
 
MAN IN NATURE 
 
 203 
 
 writers of the day without meeting with all these uses 
 of the word, and have to be constantly on our guard, 
 lest by a change of its meaning we shall be led to 
 assent to some proposition altogether unfounded. 
 
 For illustrations of this convenient though dan- 
 gerous ambiguity, I may turn at random to almost 
 any page in Darwin's Origin of Species. In the 
 beginning of Chapter III. he speaks of animals * in a 
 state of nature,' that is, not in a domesticated or arti- 
 ficial condition, so that here nature is opposed to the 
 devices of man. Then he speaks of species as ' arising 
 in nature,' that is, spontaneously produced in the 
 midst of certain external conditions or environment 
 •outside of the organic world. A little farther on he 
 speaks of useful varieties as given to man by 'the 
 hand of Nature,* which here becomes an imaginary 
 person ; and it is worthy of notice that in this place 
 the printer or proof-reader has given the word an 
 initial capital, as if a proper name. In the nex 
 section he speaks of the ' works of nature ' as superior 
 to those of art. Here the word is not only opposed 
 to the artificial, but seems to imply some power above 
 material things and comparable with or excelling the 
 contriving intelligence of man, I do not mean by 
 these examples to imply that Darwin is in this 
 respect more inaccurate than other writers. On the 
 contrary, he is greatly surpassed by many of his con- 
 temporaries in the varied and fantastic uses of this 
 versatile word. An illustration which occurs to me 
 
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 204 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 here, as at once amusinc; and instructive, is an ex- 
 pression used by Romanes, and which appears to him 
 to give a satisfactory explanation of the mystery of 
 elevation in nature. He says, * Nature selects the 
 best individuals out of each generation to live.' Here 
 nature must be an intelligent a^^cnt, or the statement 
 is simply nonsensical. The same alternative applies 
 to much of the use of the favourite term 'natural 
 selection.' In short, those who use such modes of 
 expression would be more consistent if they were at 
 once to come back to the definition of Seneca, that 
 nature is ' a certain divine purpose manifested in the 
 world.' 
 
 The derivation of the word gives us the idea of 
 something produced or becoming, and it is curious 
 that the Greek physis, though etymologically distinct, 
 conveys the same meaning — a coincidence which may 
 perhaps lead us to a safe and serviceable definition. 
 Nature rightly understood is, in short, an orderly 
 system of things in time and space, and this not in- 
 variable, but in a state of constant movement and 
 progress, whereby it is always becoming something 
 different from what it was. Now man is placed in 
 the midst of this orderly, law-regulated yet ever-pro- 
 gressive system, and is himself a part of it; and if 
 we can understand his real relations to its other parts, 
 we shall have made some approximation to a true 
 philosophy. If, with Tyndall, we were to place man 
 outside of nature, then the human mind would at once 
 
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 ^1 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 205 
 
 an ex- 
 3 to him 
 stery of 
 ects the 
 :.' Here 
 :atemcnt 
 ; applies 
 * natural 
 nodes of 
 
 were at 
 eca, that 
 :d in the 
 
 i idea of 
 3 curious 
 r distinct, 
 lich may 
 efinition. 
 orderly 
 not in- 
 lent and 
 mething 
 ilaced in 
 :ver-pro- 
 and if 
 er parts, 
 a true 
 ce man 
 at once 
 
 become to us a supernatural intelligence. But truth for- 
 bids such a conclusion. The reason of man, though far 
 beyond the intelligence of other animals, so harmonises 
 with natural laws, and acts in such uniformity with 
 these, that It is evidently a part of the great unity of 
 nature, and we cannot, without violence, dissociate man 
 from nature. If we could do so, we .should have good 
 ground to distrust all the conclusions of our own 
 reason, in so far as they relate to the material uni- 
 verse. In short, we should cut away the foundations 
 of science, and what remained of religion would be 
 preternatural, in the bad sense of destroying the unity 
 of nature, and with it our confidence in the unity of 
 God. 
 
 It may be well to remark here that this considera- 
 tion limits and defines our use of the much-abused 
 word * supernatural,' which perhaps it would be well 
 for us to follow the example of our Christian Scrip- 
 tures in avoiding altogether as a misleading term. If 
 by supernatural we mean something outside of and 
 above nature and natural law, there is really no such 
 thing in the universe. There is no doubt that which is 
 * spiritual,* as distinguished from that which is natural 
 in the material sense, but the spiritual his its own 
 laws, which are not in conflict with those of the 
 natural. Even God cannot in this sense be said to 
 be supernatural, since His will is in .strict conformity 
 with natural law. Yet this absurd sense of the term 
 supernatural is constantly employed both by the 
 
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 306 
 
 MODERA IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 enemies and friends of religion, to the disgust of 
 all clear thinkers. The only true sense in which any 
 being or thing can be said to be supernatural is that 
 in which vvc use it with reference to the creation of 
 matter or energy or the constitution of natural law. 
 The power which caused these things is above nature, 
 but not outside of nature, for matter, energy, and 
 law must be included in, and in harmony with, the 
 creative will. 
 
 To return from this digression, if man is a part 
 of nature, then we see how not only his bodily or- 
 ganism conft rms to natural structures and laws, but 
 how his mind is in harmony with the external world, 
 so that he can comprehend it, enter into it, and 
 utilise it for his own purposes. Even his moral and 
 religious ideas must in this case be more or less 
 adapted to his conditions of existence as a part of 
 nature. We have here also a sure guarantee for the 
 correctness of our perceptions and of our conclusions 
 respecting the laws of nature. In like manner, there 
 is here a sense in which man is above nature, because 
 he is placed at the head of it. In another sense he 
 is inferior to the aggregate of nature, because, as 
 Agassiz well puts it, there is in the universe a 'wealth 
 of endowment of the most comprehensive mental 
 manifestations ' which he can never fully compre- 
 hend. 
 
 Still further, if the universe has been created, then 
 just as its laws must be in harmony with the will of 
 
 -i^^an 
 
igust of 
 Kich any 
 il is that 
 nation of 
 ural law. 
 c nature, 
 rgy, and 
 with, the 
 
 is a part 
 )odily or- 
 
 laws, but 
 lal world, 
 it, and 
 noral and 
 e or less 
 a part of 
 
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 cause, as 
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 le will of 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 207 
 
 the Creator, so must our mental constitution ; and 
 man as a reasoning and conscious being must be made 
 in the image of his Maker. If we discard the idea of 
 an intelligent Creator, then mind and all its powers 
 must be potentially in the atoms of matter or in the 
 forces which move them ; but this is a mere form of 
 words, and most unscientific, since it requires us to 
 attribute to matter properties which experiment does 
 not show it to possess. Thus the existence of man 
 is not only a positive proof of mind in nature, but 
 affords the strongest possible evidence of a higher 
 creative mind, from which that of man emanates. 
 Even on the principle of evolution, no lower power 
 could have produced the universe than the mind 
 which has been evolved from it, and the power which 
 did this must have been at least as much greater, and 
 more intelligent, as the universe exceeds human power 
 and human capacities to fathom its mysteries. Thus 
 we return to the Pauline idea that the power and 
 divinity of the Creator are proved by the works 
 which He has made. Legitimate science can say 
 nothing more and nothing less. 
 
 But even Science may be permitted to point to 
 what lies beyond her domain, and to indicate the 
 probability that the God who has in the long geologic 
 ages fitted the earth for man, and endowed it with so 
 many evidences of His own power and wisdom, and 
 who has made us in His own image, has not left us as 
 orphans, but has given us a revelation of His will, and 
 
 II I 
 
I;, i 
 
 208 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 lliiiH 
 
 has provided for us a Saviour from all the sins and 
 evils that afflict humanity. 
 
 Regarding man, then, as a part of nature, we must 
 hold to his entering into the grand unity of the 
 natural system, and must not set up imaginary anta- 
 gonisms between man and nature, as if he were out- 
 side of it. An instance of this appears in Tyndall's 
 celebrated Belfast address, where he says, in explana- 
 tion of the errors of certain of the older philosophers, 
 that 'the experiences which formed the weft and 
 woof of their theories were chosen not from the study 
 of nature, but from that which lay much nearer to 
 them — the observation of Man ' ; a statement this 
 which would make man a supernatural or at least a 
 preternatural being. Again, it does not follow that 
 because man is a part of nature that he must be pre- 
 cisely on a level with its other parts. There are in 
 nature many planes of existence, and man is no doubt 
 on one of its higher planes and possesses distinguish- 
 ing powers and properties of his own. Nature, like a 
 perfect organism, is not all eye or all hand, but in- 
 cludes various organs, and, .so far as we see it in our 
 planet, man is its head, though we can easily conceive 
 that there may be higher beings in other parts of the 
 universe beyond our ken. 
 
 The view which we may take of man's position 
 relatively to the beings which are nearest to him, 
 namely, the lower animals, will depend on our point 
 of sight — whether that of mere anatomy and physio- 
 
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 I sins and 
 
 E, wc must 
 ty of the 
 lary anta- 
 wcrc out- 
 Tyndall's 
 1 cxplana- 
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 weft and 
 the study 
 nearer to 
 mcnt this 
 at least a 
 bllovv that 
 St be prc- 
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 istinguish- 
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 rts of the 
 
 position 
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 our point 
 d physio- 
 
 MA/V IN NATURE 
 
 209 
 
 \ogy, or that of psychology and pncumatology as 
 well. This distinction is the more important, since 
 under the somewhat delusive term * biology ' it has 
 been customary to mix up all these considerations ; 
 while on the other hand those anatomists who regard 
 all the functions of organic beings as mechanical 
 and physical, do not scruple to employ this term 
 biology for their science, though on their hypothesis 
 there can be no such thing as life, and consequently 
 the use of the word by them must be either supersti- 
 tious or hypocritical. 
 
 Anatomically considered, man is an animal of the 
 class Manunalia. In that class, notwithstanding the 
 heroic efforts of some modern detractors from his 
 dignity to place him with the monkeys in the order 
 Primates, he undoubtedly belongs to a distinct order. 
 I have elsewhere argued that if he were an extinct 
 animal, the .study of the bones of his hand or of his 
 head would .suffice to convince any competent pal.-eon- 
 tologist that he represents a distinct order, as far 
 apart from the highest apes as they are from the car- 
 nivora. That he belongs to a distinct famil)- no 
 anatomist denies, and the same unanimity of course 
 obtains as to his generic and .specific distinctnes.s. 
 On the other hand, no zoological systematist now 
 doubts that all the races of men are specifically iden- 
 tical. Thus we have the anatomical position of man 
 firmly fixed in the system of nature, and he must be 
 content to acknowledge his kinship not only with the 
 
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-210 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 
 V s 
 
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 higher animals nearest to him, but with the humblest 
 animalcule. With all he shares a common material, 
 and many common features of structure. 
 
 When we ascend to the somewhat higher plane of 
 phj'siology we find in a general way the same relation- 
 ship to animals. Of the four grand leading functions 
 of the animal — nutrition, reproduction, voluntary 
 motion, and sensation — all are performed by man as 
 by other animals. Here, however, there are some 
 marked divergences connected with special anatomi- 
 cal structures on the one hand and with his higher 
 endowments on the other. With regard to food, for 
 example, man might be supposed to be limited by his 
 masticatory and digestive apparatus to succulent vege- 
 table substances. But by virtue of his inventive 
 faculties he is practically unlimited, being able by 
 artificial processes to adapt the whole range of vege- 
 table and animal food substances to his use. He is very 
 poorly furnished with natural tools to aid in procuring 
 food, as claws, tusk, &c., but by invented implements 
 he can practically surpass all other creatures. The 
 long time of helplessness in infancy, while it is neces- 
 sary for the development of his powers, is a practical 
 disadvantage which leads to many social arrange- 
 ments and contrivances specially characteristic of man. 
 Man's sensory powers, while inferior in range to those 
 of many other animals, are remarkable for balance 
 and completeness, leading to perceptions of differences 
 in colours, sounds, &c. which He at the foundation 
 
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 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 21 I 
 
 ; humblest 
 1 material, 
 
 er plane of 
 le rclation- 
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 voluntary 
 by man as 
 are some 
 il anatomi- 
 his higher 
 to food, for 
 nited by bis 
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 He is very 
 n procuring 
 implements 
 ures. The 
 it is neces- 
 a practical 
 al arrange- 
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 nge to those 
 for balance 
 differences 
 foundation 
 
 of art. The specialisation of the hand again connects 
 itself with contrivances which render an animal natu- 
 rally defenceless the most formidable of all, and an 
 animal naturally gifted with indifferent locomotive 
 powers able to outstrip all others in speed and 
 range of locomotion. Thus the physiological endow- 
 ments of man, while common to him with other 
 animals, and in some respects inferior to theirs, present, 
 in combination with his higher powers, points of 
 difference which lead to the most special and unex- 
 pected results. 
 
 In his psychical relations, using this term in its 
 narrower sense, we may see still greater divergences 
 from the line of the lower animals. These may no 
 <loubt be connected with his greater volume of brain ; 
 but recent researches seem to show that brain has 
 more to do with motor and sensory powers than 
 with those that are intellectual, and thus that a larger 
 brain is only indirectly connected with higher mental 
 manifestations. Even in the lower animals it is clear 
 that the ferocity of the tiger, the constructive instinct 
 of the beaver, and the sagacity of the elephant depend 
 on psychical powers which are beyond the reach of the 
 anatomist's knife ; and this \z still more markedly the 
 case in man. Following in part the ingenious 
 analysis of Mivart, we may regard the psychical 
 powers of man as reflex, instinctive, emotional, and 
 intellectual ; and in each of these aspects we shall 
 find points of resemblance to other animals and of 
 
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 02 
 
212 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
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 divergence from them. In regard to reflex actions,, 
 or those which are merely automatic, inasmuch as 
 they arc intended to provide for certain important 
 functions without thought or voh'tion, their develop- 
 ment is naturally in the inverse ratio of psychical ele- 
 vation, and man is consequently in this respect in no 
 way superior to lower animals. 
 
 The same may be said with reference to instinc- 
 tive powers, which provide often for complex actions 
 in a spontaneous and unreasoning manner. In these 
 also man is rather deficient than otherwise ; and 
 since from their nature they limit their possessors to 
 narrow ranges of activity, and fix them within a 
 definite scope of experience and efficiency, they would 
 be incompatible with those higher and more versatile 
 inventive powers which man possesses. The comb- 
 building instinct of the bee, the nest-weaving instinct 
 of the bird, are fixed and invariable things, obviously 
 incompatible with the varied contrivance of man ; and 
 while instinct is perfect within its narrow range, it 
 cannot rise beyond this into the sphere of unlimited 
 thought and contrivance. Higher than mere instinct 
 are the powers of imagination, memory, and associa- 
 tion, and here man at once steps beyond his animal 
 associates, and develops these in such a variety of 
 ways that even the rudest tribes of men, who often 
 appear to trust more to these endowments than to 
 higher powers, rise into a plane immeasurably above 
 that of the highest and most intelligent brutes, and 
 
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 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 2IS 
 
 :x actions,, 
 ismuch as 
 important 
 r dcvelo')- 
 /■chical clc- 
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 to instinc- 
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 . In these 
 rwise ; and 
 assessors to 
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 , they would 
 Dre versatile 
 The comb- 
 ing instinct 
 s, obviously 
 ' man ; and 
 •w range, it 
 )f unlimited 
 icrc instinct 
 md associa- 
 his animal 
 variety of 
 , who often 
 nts than to 
 irably above 
 brutes, and 
 
 toward which they are unable, except to a very 
 limited degree, to raise those of the more domesticable 
 animals which they endeavour to train into com- 
 panionship with themselves. It is, however, in these 
 domesticated animals that we find the highest degree 
 of approximation to ourselves in emotional develop- 
 ment, and this is perhaps one of the points that fits 
 them for such human association. In approaching 
 the higher psychical endowments, the affinity of man 
 and the brute appears to diminish and at length to 
 cease, and it is left to him alone to rise into the 
 domain of the rational and ethical. 
 
 Those supreme endowments of man we may, 
 following the nomenclature of ancient philo.sophy 
 and of our sacred Scriptures, call ' pncumatical ' or 
 spiritual. They consist of consciousness, reason, and 
 moral volition. That man possesses these powers 
 everyone knows ; that they exist or can be developed 
 in lower animals no one has succeeded in proving; 
 Here at length we have a severance between man and 
 material nature. Yet it does not divorce him from 
 the unity of nature, except on the principles of 
 atheism. For if it separates him from animals it 
 allies him with the Power who made and planned the 
 animals. To the naturalist the fact that .such capaci- 
 ties exist in a being who in his anatomical structure 
 so closely resembles the lower animals, constitutes an 
 evidence of the independent existence of those 
 powers, and of their spiritual character and rela- 
 
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 214 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 tion to a higher power, which, I think, no metaphysi- 
 cal reasoning or materiaHstic scepticism will suffice to- 
 invalidate. It would be presumption, however, from 
 the standpoint of the naturalist to discuss at length 
 the powers of man's spiritual being. I may refer 
 merely to a few points which illustrate at once his 
 connection with other creatures, and his superiority to 
 them as a higher member of nature. 
 
 And first we may notice those axiomatic beliefs 
 which lie at the foundation of human reasoning, and 
 which, while apparently in harmony with nature, do not 
 admit of verification except by an experience Impos- 
 sible to finite beings. Whether these ,\re ultimate 
 truths, or merely results of the constitution bestowed 
 on us, or effects of the direct action of the creative mind 
 on ours, they are to us like the instincts of animals — 
 infallible and unchanging. Yet just as the instincts of 
 animals unfailingly connect them with their surround- 
 ings, our intuitive beliefs fit us for understanding 
 nature and for existing in it as our environment. 
 These beliefs also serve to connect man with his fel- 
 low man ; and in this aspect we may associate with 
 them those universal ideas of right and wrong, of 
 immortality, and of powers above ourselves, which 
 pervade humanity. 
 
 Another phase of this spiritual constitution is^ 
 illustrated by the ways in which mar , starting from 
 powers and contrivances common to him and animals, 
 develops them into new and higher uses and results. 
 
AfAN IN NATURE 
 
 2IS 
 
 ictaphysi- 
 suffice to 
 ever, from 
 at length 
 may refer 
 ; once his 
 Dcriority to 
 
 Ltic beliefs 
 oning, and 
 lurc, clo not 
 ncc Impos- 
 •e ultimate 
 n bestowed 
 -ativemind 
 \ animals — 
 instincts of 
 r surround- 
 lerstanding 
 ivironment. 
 vith his fel- 
 ociate with 
 wrong, of 
 ves, which 
 
 stitution is- 
 irting from 
 nd animals, 
 ind results.. 
 
 This is markedly seen in the gift of speech. Man> 
 like other animals, has certain natural utterances ex- 
 pressive of emotions or feelings. He can also, like 
 some of them, imitate the sounds produced by ani- 
 mate or inanimate objects, and he has better mechani- 
 cal powers of articulation than other animals. But 
 when he develops these gifts into a system of speech, 
 expressing not mere sounds occurring in nature, but, 
 by association and analogy with these, properties and 
 relations of objects, and general and abstract ideas, he 
 rises into the higher sphere of the spiritual. He thus 
 elevates a power of utterance common to him with 
 animals to a higher plane, and, connecting it with his 
 capacity for understanding nature and arriving at 
 general truths, asserts his kinship to the great creative 
 mind, and furnishes a link of connection between the 
 material universe and the spiritual Creator, 
 
 The mode of existence of man in nature is as 
 well illustrated by his arts and inventions as by any- 
 thing else ; and these serve also to enlighten us as to 
 the distinction between the natural and the artificial. 
 Naturalists often represent man as dependent on 
 nature for the first hints of his useful arts. There 
 are in animal nature tailors, weavers, masons, potters, 
 i irpenters, miners, and sailors, independently of man, 
 and many of the tools, implements, and machines which 
 he is said to have invented were perfected in the struc- 
 tures of lower animals long before he came into exist- 
 ence. In all these things man has been an assiduous 
 
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 2l6 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 learner from nature, though in some of them, as for 
 example in the art of aerial navigati'')n, he has striven 
 in vain to imitate the powers possessed by other ani- 
 mals. But it may well be doubted whether man is in 
 this respect so much an imitator as has been supposed, 
 and whether the resemblance of his plans to those 
 previously realised in nature does not depend on that 
 general fitness of things which suggests to rational 
 minds similar means to secure similar ends. But in say- 
 ing this we in effect say that man is not only a part of 
 nature, but that his mind is in harmony with the plans 
 of nature, or, in other words, with the methods of 
 the creative mind. Man is also curiously in harmony 
 with external nature in the combination in his works 
 of the ideas of plan and adaptation, of ornament and 
 use. In architecture, for example, devising certain 
 styles or orders, and these for the mo.st part based on 
 imitations of natural things, he adapts these to his 
 ends, just as in nature types of structure are adapted 
 to a great variety of uses ; and he strives to combine, 
 as in nature, perfect adaptation to use with conformity 
 to type or style. So in his attempts at ornament he 
 copies natural forms, and uses these forms to decorate 
 or conceal parts intended to serve essential purposes 
 in the structure. This is at least the case in the 
 purer styles of construction. It is in the more debased 
 styles that arches, columns, triglyphs, or buttresses 
 are placed where they can serve no useful purpose, 
 and become mere excrescences. But in this case the 
 
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 V 
 
 :m, as for 
 las striven 
 other ani- 
 man is in 
 supposed, 
 i to those 
 nd on that 
 to rational 
 But in say- 
 y a part of 
 h the plans 
 icthods of 
 1 harmony 
 1 his works 
 ament and 
 ng certain 
 •t based on 
 lese to his 
 .re adapted 
 o combine, 
 conformity 
 rnament he 
 to decorate 
 al purposes 
 :ase in the 
 Dre debased 
 buttresses 
 111 purpose, 
 lis case the 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 217 
 
 abnormality resulting breeds in the beholder an un- 
 pleasing mental confusion, and causes him, even when 
 he is unable to trace his feelings to their source, to be 
 dissatisfied with the result. Thus man is in harmony 
 with that arrangement of nature which causes every 
 ornamental part to serve some use, and which unites 
 adaptation with plan. 
 
 The following of nature must also form the basis 
 of those fine arts which are not necessarily connected 
 with any utility ; and in man's pursuit of art of this 
 kind we see one of the most recondite and at first 
 sight inexplicable of his correspondences with the 
 other parts of nature, for there is no other creature 
 that pursues art for its own sake. Modern archaeo- 
 logical discovery has shown that the art of sculpture 
 began with the oldest known races of man, and that 
 they succeeded in producing very accurate imitations 
 of natural objects. But from this primitive starting- 
 point two ways diverge. One leads to the conven- 
 tional and the grotesque, and this course has been 
 followed by many semi-civilised nations. Another 
 leads to accurate imitation of nature, along with new 
 combinations arising from the play of intellect and 
 imagination. Let us look for a moment at t1 e actual 
 result of the development of these diverse styles of art, 
 and at their effect on the culture of humanity as exist- 
 ing in nature. We may imagine a people who have 
 wholly discarded nature in their art, and have devoted 
 themselves to the monstrous and the grotesque. Such a 
 
 h 
 
 if 
 
 i ]| 
 
 Si 
 
*:■ t', 
 
 r ill 
 
 ! II 
 
 
 218 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 people, so far as art is concerned, separates itself 
 widely from nature and from the mind of the Creator, 
 and its taste and possibly its morals sink to the level 
 of the monsters it produces. Again, we may imagine 
 a people in all respects following nature in a literal 
 and servile manner. Such a people would probably 
 attain to but a very moderate amount of culture but 
 having a good foundation, it might ultimately build 
 up higher things. Lastly, we may fancy a people 
 who, like the old Greeks, strove to add to the copying 
 of nature a higher and ideal beauty, by combining in 
 one the best features of many natural objects, or 
 devising new combinations not found in nature itself 
 In the first of these conditions of art we have a falling 
 away from or caricaturing of the beauty of nature. In 
 the second we have merely a pupilage to nature. In 
 the third we find man aiming to be himself a creator,, 
 but basing his creations on what nature has given 
 him. Thus all art worthy of the name is really a 
 development of nature. It is true the eccentricities 
 of art and fashion are so erratic that they may often 
 seem to have no law. Yet they are all under the rule 
 of nature ; and hence even uninstructed common- 
 sense, unless dulled by long familiarity, detects in some 
 degree their incongruity, and though it may be amused 
 for a time, at length becomes wearied with the mental 
 irritation and nervous disquiet which they produce. 
 
 I may be permitted to add that all this applies 
 with still greater force to systems of science and 
 
IV 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 219 
 
 ates itself 
 le Creator, 
 
 the level 
 ly imagine 
 n a literal 
 
 1 probably 
 lulture but 
 ately build 
 r a people 
 he copying 
 Tibining in 
 objects, or 
 ature itself, 
 ve a falling 
 nature. In 
 lature. In 
 f a creator,, 
 
 has given 
 is really a 
 :centricities 
 may often 
 ier the rule 
 common- 
 :cts in some 
 be amused 
 the mental 
 produce, 
 his applies- 
 ;cierxe and 
 
 philosophy. Ultimately these must all be tested by 
 the verities of nature to which man necessarily sub- 
 mits his intellect, and he who builds for aye must 
 build on the solid ground of nature. The np.tural 
 environment presents itself in this connection as an 
 educator of man. From the moment when infancy 
 begins to exercise its senses on the objects around^ 
 this education begins — training the powers of ob- 
 servation and comparison, cultivating the conception 
 of the grand and beautiful, leading to analysis and 
 abstract and general ideas. Left to itself, it is true 
 this natural education extends but a little way, and 
 ordinarily it becomes obscured or crushed by the 
 demands of a hard utility, or by an artificial literar) 
 culture, or by the habitude of monstrosity and unfit- 
 ness in art. Yet when rightly directed it is capable 
 of becoming an instrument of the highest culture,, 
 intellectual, aesthetic, and even moral. I have in 
 writing on evolution in education insisted on the 
 importance of following nature in the education of 
 the young, and of dropping much that is arbitrar}- 
 and artificial. Here I would merely remark thai 
 when we find that the accurate and systematic study 
 of nature trains mo.st effectually sortie of the more 
 practical powers of mind, and leads to the highest 
 development of taste for beauty in art, we see in this 
 relation the unity of man and nature, and the unity 
 of both with something higher than either. 
 
 It may, however, occur to us here that when we 
 
Sfi'S 
 
 220 
 
 MODERN. IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 consider man as an improver and innovator in the 
 world, there is much that suggests a contrariety be- 
 tween him and nature, and that instead of being the 
 pupil of his environment he becomes its tyrant. In 
 this aspect man, and especially civilised man, appears 
 as the enemy of wild nature, so that in those districts 
 which he has most fully subdued many animals and 
 plants have been exterminated, and nearly the whole 
 surface has come under his processes of culture, and 
 has lost the characteristics which belonged to it in its 
 primitive state. Nay, more, we find that by certain 
 kinds of so-called culture man tends to exhaust and 
 impoverish the soil, .so that it ceases to minister to 
 his comfortable support and becomes a desert. Vast 
 regions of the earth are in this impoverished con- 
 dition, and the westward march of exhaustion warns 
 us that the time may come when even in compara- 
 tively new countries like America the land will cease 
 to be able to sustain its inhabitants. Behind chis 
 stands a still farther and portentous possibility. The 
 resources of chemistry are now being taxed to the 
 utmost to discover methods by which the materials of 
 human food may be produced synthetically ; and we 
 may possibly at some future time find that albumen 
 and starch may be manufactured cheaply from their 
 elements by artificial processes. Such a discovery 
 might render man independent of the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms. Agriculture might become an 
 unnecessary and unprofitable art A time might 
 
V 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 221 
 
 tor in the 
 ariety bc- 
 bcing the 
 /rant. In 
 m, appears 
 sc districts 
 limals and 
 the whole 
 ilture, and 
 to it in its 
 by certain 
 :haust and 
 Tiinister to 
 5crt. Vast 
 ished con- 
 tion warns 
 compara- 
 will cease 
 ehind chis 
 ility. The 
 <ed to the 
 laterials of 
 y ; and we 
 ,t albumen 
 from their 
 discovery 
 nimal and 
 Dccome an 
 me might 
 
 come when it would no lonjjer be possible to find 
 a green field, a forest, or a wild animal ; and when 
 the whole earth would be one great factory, in which 
 toiling millions were producing all the materials 
 of food, clothing, and shelter. Such a world may 
 never exist, but its possible existence may be 
 imagined, and its contemplation brings vividly 
 before us the vast powers inherent in man as a 
 subverter of the ordinary course of nature. Yet even 
 this ultimate annulling of wild nature would be 
 brought about, not by anything preternatural in man, 
 but simply by his placing himself in alliance with 
 certain natural powers and agencies, and by their 
 means attaining dominion over the rest. 
 
 Here there rises before us a spectre which science 
 and philosophy appear afraid to face, and which asks 
 the dread question, What is the cause of the apparent 
 abnormality in the relations of man and nature ? In 
 attempting to solve this question we must admit 
 that the position of man even here is not without 
 natural analogies. The stronger preys upon the 
 weaker, the lower form gives place to the higher, and 
 in the progress of geological time old species have 
 died out in favour of newer, and old forms of life have 
 been exterminated by later successors. Man, as the 
 newest and highest of all, has thus the natural right 
 to subdue and rule the world. Yet there can be little 
 doubt that he uses this right unwisely and cruelly, 
 and these terms themselves explain why he does so» 
 
 i 
 
I VI 
 
 1 1 
 
 222 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 because they imply freedom of will. Given a system 
 of nature destitute of any being higher than the 
 instinctive animal, and introduce into it a free rational 
 agent, and you have at once an element of instability. 
 So long as his free thought and purpose continue in 
 unison with the arrangements of his environment, 
 so long all will be harmonious ; but the very hypothesis 
 of freedom implies that he can act otherwise ; and so 
 perfect is the equilibrium of existing things that one 
 wrong or unwise action may unsettle the nice balance, 
 and set in operation trains of causes and effects pro- 
 ducing continued and ever-increasing disturbance. 
 This 'fall of man,' we know as a matter of ob- 
 servation and experience, has actually occurred ; and 
 it can be retrieved only by casting man back again 
 into the circle of merely instinctive action, or by 
 carrying him forward until by growth in wisdom and 
 knowledge he becomes fitted to be the lord of creation. 
 The first method has been proved unsuccessful by the 
 rebound of humanity against all the attempts to curb 
 and suppress its liberty. The second has been the 
 effort of all reformers and philanthropists since the 
 world began ; and its imperfect success affords a strong 
 ground for clinging to the theistic view of nature, for 
 soliciting the intervention of a Power higher than 
 man, and for hoping for a final restitution of all things 
 through the intervention of that Power. Mere 
 materialistic evolution must ever and necessarily fail 
 to account for the higher nature of man, and also for 
 
n a system 
 r than the 
 rec rational 
 instabiHty. 
 continue in 
 ivironment, 
 r hypothesis 
 ise ; and so 
 gs that one 
 lice balance, 
 effects pro- 
 disturbance, 
 .tter of ob- 
 curred ; and 
 
 back again 
 ction, or by 
 wisdom and 
 d of creation. 
 :essful by the 
 mpts to curb 
 las been the 
 sts since the 
 brds a strong 
 )f nature, for 
 
 higher than 
 n of all things 
 ower. Mere 
 ecessarily fail 
 
 and also for 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 223 
 
 K 
 
 his moral aberrations. The.sc only come rationally 
 into the system of nature under the supposition of a 
 Higher Intelligence, from whom man emanates and 
 whose nature he shares. 
 
 But on this thcistic view we are introduced to a 
 kind of unity and of evolution for a future age, which 
 is the great topic of revelation, and is not unknown 
 to science and philosophy, in connection with the law 
 •of progress and development dcducibic from the 
 geological history, in which an ascending .series of 
 lower animals culminates in man himself. Why 
 should there not be a new and higher plane of exist- 
 ence to be attained toby humanity — a new geological 
 period, so to speak, in which present anomalies shall 
 be corrected, and the grand unity of the universe and 
 its harmony with its Maker fully restored ? This is 
 what Paul anticipates when he tells us of a * pneu- 
 matical * or spiritual body to succeed to the present 
 natural or ' psychical ' one, or what Jesus Himself 
 tells us when He says that in the future state we shall 
 be like to the angels. Angels are not known to us as 
 objects of sc' jntific observation, but such an order of 
 beings is quite conceivable, and this not as super- 
 natural, but as part of the order of nature. They are 
 created beings like ourselves, subject to the laws of 
 the universe, yet free and intelligent and liable to 
 error, in bodily constitution freed from many of the 
 limitations imposed on us, mentally having higher 
 range and grasp, and consequently masters of natural 
 
i 
 
 J ■; 
 
 I 
 
 H > ' « 
 
 Ir ■ 
 
 
 I 
 
 li 
 
 -s! h 
 
 224 
 
 MOnr^lRN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 powers not under our control. In short, \vc have 
 here pictured to us an order of beings forming ;i 
 part of nature, yet in their powers as miraculous to 
 us as we might be suppcxsed to be to lower animals, 
 could they think of such thitigs. 
 
 This idea of angels bridges over the otherwise 
 impassable gulf between humanity and deity, and 
 illustrates a higher plane than that of man in his 
 present state, but attainable in the future. Dim 
 perceptions of this would seem to constitute the 
 substratum of the ideas of the so-called polytheistic 
 religions. Christianity itself is in this aspect not so 
 much a revelation of the supernatural as the highest 
 bond of the great unity of nature. It reveals to us 
 the perfect man who is also one with God, and the 
 mission of this divine man to restore the harmonies 
 of God and humanity, and consequently also of man 
 with his natural environment in this world, and with 
 his spiritual environment in the higher world of the 
 future. If it is true that nature now groans because 
 of man's depravity, and that man himself shares in 
 the evils of this dis-harmony with nature around him, 
 it is clear that if man could be restored to his true 
 place in nature he would be restored to happiness 
 and to harmony with God ; and if, on the other hand, 
 he can be restored to harmony with God, he will then 
 be restored also to harmony with his natural environ- 
 ment, and so to life and happiness and immortality. 
 It is here that the old story of Eden, and the teaching 
 

 ON 
 
 t, \vc ha\c- 
 
 forming a 
 
 raculous to 
 
 cr animals, 
 
 \ otherwise 
 
 deity, and 
 
 man in his 
 
 urc. Dim 
 
 istitutc the 
 
 polytheistic 
 
 pect not so 
 
 the highest 
 
 iveals to us 
 
 jd, and the 
 
 harmonies 
 
 also of man 
 
 J, and with 
 
 orld of the 
 
 .ns because 
 
 shares in 
 
 round him, 
 
 o his true 
 
 happiness 
 
 ther hand, 
 
 lewill then 
 
 al environ- 
 
 amortality, 
 
 le teaching 
 
 MAN IN NATURE 
 
 229 
 
 of Christ, and the prophecy of the New Jerusalem 
 strike the same note which all material nature gi\-ji- 
 forth when we interrogate it respecting its relation j to 
 man. The profound manner in which these trulhs 
 appear in the teaching of Christ has perhaps not been 
 appreciated as it should, because we have not sought 
 in that teaching the philosophy of nature which it 
 contains. When He points to the common weeds of 
 the fields, and asks us to consider the garments more 
 gorgeous than those of kings in which God has clothed 
 them, and when He says of these same wild flowers, 
 .so daintily made by the Supreme Artificer, that to-day 
 they are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven, He 
 gives us not merely a lesson of faith, but a deep 
 insight into that want of unison which, centring in 
 humanity, reaches all the way from the wild flower 
 to the God who made it, and requires for its rectifica- 
 tion nothing less than the breathing of that Divine 
 Spirit which first evoked order and life out of primeval 
 chaos. When He points out to us the growth of these 
 flowers without any labour of their own, He opens up 
 one of the most profound analogies between the 
 growth of the humblest living thing and that of the 
 new spiritual nature which may be planted in man by 
 that same Divine Spirit. 
 
 
 1 
 
s; 
 
 !'l! 
 
 226 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 I K I i 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ■" \ 
 
 m\ 
 
 11 1 
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 We have already seen that, agnostics themselves 
 being judges, man must have a religion, and that if 
 he makes the material universe the highest object of 
 veneration this must be to him his God, while if he 
 is content to take humanity as his highest ideal, he 
 must look for the best possible manifestations of 
 human nature, else his religion can have no elevating 
 power. To the theist the universe is not in itself 
 God, but may testify to God as its Creator ; to the 
 Chiistian the noblest ideal of humanity along with 
 divinity is the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is evident, however, that the current Darwinian 
 and Neo-Lamarckian forms of evolution fall entirely 
 short of what even the agnostic may desiderate as 
 religion. 
 
 If the universe is causeless and a product of for- 
 tuitous variation and selection, and if there is no 
 design or final cause apparent in it, it becomes lite- 
 rally the enthronement of unreason, and can have no 
 claims to the veneration or regard of an intelligent 
 
IN 
 
 GENERA L CONCL US IONS 
 
 227 
 
 themselves 
 , and that if 
 est object of 
 1, while if he 
 lest ideal, he 
 festations of 
 no elevating 
 not in itself 
 ator; to the 
 
 along with 
 
 it Darwinian 
 
 fall entirely 
 
 lesiderate as 
 
 Dduct of for- 
 1 there is no 
 lecomes lite- 
 lean have no 
 intelligent 
 
 being. If man is merely an accidentally improved 
 descendant of apes, his intuitions and decisions as to 
 things unseen must be valueless and unfounded. 
 Hence it is a lamentable fact that the greater part of 
 evolutionist men of science openly discard all religious 
 belief, and teach this unbelief to the multitude who 
 cannot understand the processes by which it is arrived 
 at, but who readily appreciate the immoral results 
 to which it leads in the struggle for existence or the 
 stretching after material advantages. 
 
 It is true that there may be a theistic form of 
 •evolution, but let it be observed that this is essentially 
 distinct from Darwinism or Neo-Lamarckianism. It 
 postulates a Creator, and regards the development of 
 the universe as the devjlopment of His plans by 
 secondary causes of His own institution. It neces- 
 sarily admits design and final cause. It can even set 
 up plausible analogies between the supposed material 
 development and that which is moral and spiritual, 
 many of which are, however, based on misstatements 
 as to natural facts. The weakness of this position 
 consists in the objections to the doctrine of evolution 
 itself as a means of explaining nature, and in the in- 
 congruity between the methods supposed by evolution 
 and the principles of design, finality, and ethical purity 
 inseparable from a true and elevating religion. The 
 theistic evolutionists have also before them thedanirer 
 that in the constant flux of philosophic opinion 
 they will find their system of theology, which at 
 
 ; 
 
 P 2 
 
rm^ 
 
 w\ 
 
 :. 
 
 !i lilllllli! 
 
 Hi 
 ill 
 
 11 
 
 lilri; 
 
 Ml 
 
 
 228 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 [)resent rides so triumphantly on the flood -tide of a 
 popular movement, eventually stranded, as so many 
 older ones have been, on the sandbanks of the 
 ebb. 
 
 It will therefore be the safest as well as the most 
 candid and truthful course, both for the scientific 
 worker and the theologian, to avoid committing him- 
 self to any of the current forms of evolution. The 
 amount of assumption and reasoning in a vicious 
 circle involved in these renders it certain that none 
 of them can long survive. On the other hand, the 
 extensive investigations as to facts, and the varied 
 discussions which ndve arisen out of Darwinism, can- 
 not fail to leave an impress on science and to increase 
 our knowledge, at least as to the modes of creative 
 development. The winnowing process has alread)- 
 begun, and our immediate successors may be able to 
 secure the pure grains of truth after the chaff of un- 
 proved hypotheses has been swept away. 
 
 Looking to this desirable result, there are certain 
 principles that arise out of the previous discussion to 
 which we may firmly hold without fear of being dis- 
 lodged by any assailant. 
 
 I. No system of the universe can dispense with 
 a First Cause, eternal and self-existent ; and the First 
 Cause must necessarily be the living God, whose will 
 is the ultimate force and the origin of natural law. 
 Our knowledge of God cannot be direct, but must be 
 mediate, either through His works as Creator or 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 229 
 
 through such revelation as He may have made of 
 Himself to the human mind. 
 
 2, In studying natural things we must keep before 
 our minds the certainty that the laws which we can 
 ascertain have no validity except as expressions of 
 the power behind nature. Consequently the reference 
 of any effect to a secondary cause or the ascertaining 
 of the law of operation of such cause in no respect dimi- 
 nishes the dependence of the whole on the Divine will. 
 
 3. While we are justified in taking an anthropo- 
 morphic view of the operations of God as being our- 
 selves spiritually in His image, we must bear in mind 
 that in many important respects He must infinitely 
 transcend us and our modes of thought. To Him 
 tiinc and space arc not limitations as to us, and the 
 microscopically small may be relatively as great as 
 that which seems to us almost infinitely large. It is 
 sometimes represented as derogatory to God that He 
 should paint the petals of flowers ; but with Him this 
 is not painting. He deals with things invisible to the 
 human painter, with the individual cells, with the 
 pigment which they contain, with the arrangement of 
 the atoms and molecules that make the pigment. 
 To Him the arrangement of a multitude of atoms to 
 make a microscopic dot of pigment must be neither 
 a greater nor less work than the ordering of a system 
 of worlds. The immensity of the universe can in no 
 respect distract His attention from the humblest 
 atom, because He is present and efficient in all. 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 u ■ 
 
 I? 
 
 ■ 5 
 
 f\ I 
 
 it * " 
 
 ;i 
 
 
 ■V-l ■ -J" 
 
 '^ III I 
 
 i * 'J 
 
 M : 
 
 ki,.. I ; 
 
 I 111! i; 
 
 {''lil'lil I 
 
 ij! |;:.||i|!i 
 
 
 iiiii 
 ii 
 
 !i 
 Hi! 
 
 210 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 4. We have already seen that it results from this 
 that material nature cannot fully reveal God to us. 
 Our present knowledge of nature is, as we too well 
 know, relatively very small. But even if we could 
 know, and have distinctly before our minds every 
 fact and law of the whole universe and all their rela- 
 tions and interactions, we should on the whole have 
 only one set of possibilities out of an infinite number ; 
 and, as we have already seen, the manifestation of 
 God would be in a manner which must be in many 
 respects the converse of His essential properties. A 
 photograph represents to me a friend, but it is not 
 the friend himself; a building represents an archi- 
 tect, but it is not the architect. It would seem as if 
 in many current arguments respecting agnosticism 
 these simple principles were altogether overlooked. 
 
 5. Creation was not an instantaneous process, but 
 extended through periods of vast duration. In every 
 stage we may rest assured that God, like a wise 
 builder, used every previous course as a support for 
 the next ; that He built each succeeding storey of the 
 wonderful edifice on that previously prepared for it ; 
 and that His plan developed itself as His work pro- 
 ceeded. So far, there must have been evolution and 
 development. But the attempt to narrow this plan 
 to any one little principle that we have laboriously 
 worked out must be futile. Such analogies, even if 
 well founded in nature, can only be partial and 
 limited in application, and nothing can be really 
 
 
 Ej„ 
 
 
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 231 
 
 rom this 
 id to us. 
 too well 
 ,ve could 
 ds e very- 
 heir rela- 
 lole have 
 number ; 
 itation of 
 : in many 
 jrties. A 
 it is not 
 an archi- 
 eem as if 
 gnosticism 
 looked, 
 ocess, but 
 In every 
 ce a wise 
 pport for 
 rey of the 
 cd for it \ 
 work pro- 
 ution and 
 this plan 
 iboriously 
 s, even if 
 irtial and 
 be really 
 
 gained by an enthusiastic application of them beyond 
 their legitimate bounds. The present condition of 
 the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection clearly 
 proves this, and the various substitutes for it, or 
 additions to it, now proposed are all equally partial. 
 Instead of regarding any of these theories as final or 
 sufficient, we should scrutinise them as to their 
 validity and extent of application, and we shall find 
 that, in so far as any of them have reality, they cover 
 only a few facts, and still leave a boundless region to 
 be explored, even with reference to the modes of the 
 development, 
 
 6. Even our ideas of design and final cause must 
 be held in subjection to the infmite nature of God. 
 Crude views on these subjects have, perhaps, aided in 
 [)roducing present scepticism as to natural theology. 
 When Hegel says that all nature is final cause, and 
 that it is not necessary to conceive of final cause as 
 it exists in our consciousness, he does not necessarily 
 imply that nature itself is God, but that God's design 
 as manifested in nature is only in a small part intel- 
 ligible to us. We are constantly discovering new 
 uses and adaptations previously unknown ; and in the 
 Divine mind there must be infinite designs and 
 objects as yet quite inaccessible to us. We may learn 
 this by a moment's thought of the development in 
 geological time. An intelligent observer introduced 
 to the earth when tenanted only by aquatic inverte- 
 brates would reason as to this as a finality ; but he 
 
232 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 m 
 
 might by no means be able to divine the plan and 
 design of the Creator to be afterwards reaUsed in the 
 vertebrate animals and in man. Thus both in 
 amount and in time the design and final cause in 
 nature would be very partially conceivable by him. 
 This is what the Bible means when it points to the 
 glory of God Himself as the final cause ; and we can 
 well imagine that this glory may shine with infinitely 
 greater effulgence before the rninds of higher intelli- 
 gences, or before our own minds in the future. 
 
 The same consideration helps us to understand 
 how we may be disposed even to condemn as im- 
 perfect the arrangements of nature. The time was 
 when ferocious wild beasts were the lords of the 
 earth ; but they and their doings arc to be judged by 
 the laws of their own order, not by the higher ideal 
 of our sentiments or of the nature of God, and their 
 uses are to be gauged by the future that was to 
 succeed them as well as by their own time. Man 
 himself has failed so far to realise the highest idea! 
 embodied in his nature and capacities ; but God has 
 farther designs with humanity, to be realised in the 
 * manifestation of the sons of God.' We may thus 
 learn that, while God gives life, there is a struggle, not 
 for existence, but against evil ; and we may have 
 faith that the fit will survive in the highest and best 
 sense of an approving conscience now and in the 
 coming glory hereafter. Thus far our own conscience 
 and natural religion may carry us. 
 
A^ 
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 'ii:i 
 
 plan and 
 iscd in the 
 both in 
 I cause in 
 e by him. 
 iits to the 
 nd we can 
 1 infinitely 
 her intclli- 
 ire, 
 
 indcrstand 
 
 nn as im- 
 
 time was 
 
 •ds of the 
 
 judged by 
 
 ^her ideal 
 
 and their 
 
 at was to 
 
 rne. Man 
 
 lest ideal 
 
 God has 
 
 cd in the 
 
 may thus 
 
 uggle, not 
 
 nay have 
 
 and best 
 
 d in the 
 
 ■onsciencc 
 
 7. It follows that the material universe, while, by 
 the power and divine attributes present in it, our 
 minds may be enlarged and elevated, cannot fully 
 satisfy the demands of our religious life. However we 
 may be instructed and elevated by the marvellous 
 exhibition of divinity in nature ; however God may 
 shine within ourselves by the light of conscience, we 
 must find ourselves surrounded by those inscrutable 
 mysteries with which the great minds of antiquity 
 so manfully strove, and which are so clearly presented 
 to us in the discussions of Job with his friends. 
 Rightly regarded, even these mysteries may, b}' 
 analogy with God's natural procedure, be to some 
 extent solved, as they were by the patriarch of Uz, 
 when, in contemplating the marvellous works of 
 nature, he humbled himself before God and repented 
 in dust and ashes. It is plain that if it has pleased 
 God to reveal Himself directly to man, in addition to 
 the indirect revelation of nature, and to the testimony 
 of our own moral intuitions, this must be a great 
 gain. Hence men have yearned for such revelation, 
 and have believed that it has been given by the Spirit 
 of God in the visions of prophets and the narratives 
 of holy men of old, and in these last times by the 
 divine Son of God Himself. To Jesus Christ all men 
 must turn, trusting to Him for salvation, and looking 
 forward to the ultimate finality in His coming king- 
 dom, in which only can be perfectly manifested the 
 great designs of the Almighty Father. 
 
IB 
 
 ' t ID 
 
 f 1 ■■( 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 WEISMANN ON HEREDITY 
 
 The new views advanced by Weismann have, while these 
 pages were going through the press, been subjects of warm dis- 
 cussion in England, where his essays have been translated and 
 republished ; but the subject has been so beclouded with 
 technicalities and references to obscure facts of reproduction, 
 that it is scarcely intelligible to non-technical readers. An 
 explanation of the actual nature and bearing of these views 
 may therefore be useful. 
 
 The subject may be regarded from the point of view 
 either (i) of the facts of reproduction, or (2) of observed 
 phenomena of inheritance. 
 
 I. With reference to the first of these, nothing is more 
 certain than that in all animals, except a few of the lowest, 
 there are special organs of reproduction, and that in these 
 organs alone resides the power of permanent continuance of 
 the species. The facts of budding and spontaneous division 
 in some animals of low grade may be regarded as of only 
 temporary importance. Farther, the organ of reproduction 
 resolves itself into a single microscopic embryo cell or germ, 
 a minute vesicle containing protoplasmic matter, fertilised 
 by another or sperm-cell, and finally into the speck of proto- 
 
IP 
 
 'W , ) 
 
 236 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 plasm constituting the nucleus of this emi)ryo cell. This 
 minute living speck must contain in it potentially all the 
 parts and organs that are produced from it. Weismann 
 illustrates this in a clear manner by the observed fact of the 
 spontaneous division of this nucleus into a vast number of 
 separate granules, each of which plays a i)art in the formation 
 of some portion of the embryo animal. 
 
 From this simple statement it follows beyond controversy 
 that any cause which effects a change in the structure or 
 properties of the future individual must pre-exist in the 
 germ, and that any effect of external causes on the adult 
 animal can have no effect in this respect unless it has modi- 
 fied the germ or germs of the new generation. 
 
 This conclusion, to which no physiologist can reasonably 
 object, if it does not altogether subvert, as some think, tlie 
 Darwinian and Lamarckian doctrines of evolution, at least 
 weakens their force and diminishes their extent, and besides 
 goes quite behind them into a region of antecedent causes, 
 and shows that they must be of secondary value and im- 
 portance. Weismann also insists very strongly on what he 
 calls the 'immortality' or properly, perpetuity of germinal 
 matter embodying the characters of the species— a very 
 important and valuable idea. 
 
 All this leads us, however, not so much to deny that any 
 causes acting on the adult can modify its progeny, as to 
 inquire what causes, if any, can so profoundly affect the 
 organism as to modify its germinal matter. 
 
 On this question we may first remark that such causes 
 seem often to be psychical rather than material that is, causes 
 affecting the imagination and emotions. This has been 
 known at least since the time of Jacob's experiment with 
 Laban's cattle, and probably long before. It is still a matter 
 of every-day experience both in man and animals, and opens 
 a wide and inviting field of study, leading, perhaps, to more 
 
(V 
 
 APPENDIX / 
 
 •^yr 
 
 cell. This 
 ially all thi- 
 Weismanii 
 fact of the 
 number of 
 e formalioti 
 
 controversy 
 tructure or 
 xist in the 
 1 the adult 
 has modi- 
 
 reasonably 
 \ think, the 
 ion, at least 
 ind besides 
 ^ent causes, 
 
 e and im- 
 on what he 
 
 )f germinal 
 
 es— a very 
 
 [iy that any 
 ;eny, as to 
 affect the 
 
 Lich causes 
 It is, causes 
 has been 
 iment with 
 111 a matter 
 land opens 
 Is, to more 
 
 |)rofound views of the causes »^f variation than any heretofore 
 l)romulgated. 
 
 Again, since the germinal matter itself must be nourished 
 by the common blood of the animal, it is possible that it may 
 be influenced by any change by which this may be effected. 
 Popular speech recognises this by speaking of certain ten- 
 dencies as being in the blood of cer'^iin races of animals. 
 
 2. Into the second field that of study of actual pheno- 
 mena -Weismann has largely entered as a matter of experi- 
 ment and observation, and his conclusion is that, as a rule, 
 characters impressed on the individual by accident or 
 external influences are not perpetuated. Those that are 
 congenital, being those that have originated in the germinal 
 matter of the parent, have alone the power to affect the ger- 
 minal matter of the offs))ring. If, for example, an infant 
 from some cause, probal)ly unknown to us, is born with 
 six fingers instead of five, this peculiarity, whether useful ta 
 it oi % is likely to be [lerpetuated in some individuals at 
 least of the next generation. But if the child loses one of 
 its fingers by accident, its children are no more likely on 
 that account to be born with only four fingers ; or if it is 
 trained to use its fingers deftly in playing on an instrument 
 or workmg at any mechanical art, its children will not on 
 that account have more lissom fingers than others. This last 
 statement, however, should perhaps be taken with the limi- 
 tation that if the use of the fingers is of such a character as- 
 to act strongly on the mental or psychical nature of the adult, 
 or on the general system, it may in that case so affect its 
 germinal matter as to act on the offspring. 'J'his kind of 
 inheritance, as the Duke of Argyll has pointed out, is very 
 apparent in some domestic animals, as in dogs. 
 
 It is curious that these conclusions of Weismann equally 
 affect Darwinism and Lamarckianism. They indeed bring 
 both these doctrines together, as mere modifications of one 
 
nff'-' 
 
 u 
 
 if ■ 
 
 Eli- ' 
 
 w 
 
 m 
 
 fi ; 
 
 III' 
 
 Ijiijjilll 
 
 1, 1 11, 
 
 ] i: 
 
 :]'l^|:^ 
 
 238 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 superficial view, not reaching to the actual origin of varietal 
 difference. If Weismann is right, we can no longer speak 
 of an herbivorous quadruped as making efforts to reach food 
 above its head, and so acquiring a tendency to elongation of 
 neck which may be transmitted to its offspring, so that they 
 may become giraffes. Nor can we be content merely to 
 suppose an accidental elongation in one individual to give it 
 such advantage in the struggle for existence as to cause it 
 alone to survive in times of scarcity, and to propagate its 
 kind. Such suppositions must be altogether gratuitous and 
 trifling, and we must look for deeper causes capable of 
 affecting the germinal matter, if we wish to establish the pos- 
 sibility of such changes. At present, as already hinted, the 
 only causes of this kind certainly known in higher animals 
 are those of a psychical character, and this is perhaps one 
 reason of the liability of the more intelligent and shifty 
 animals to varietal change. The similar capacity of some 
 animals low in the scale may depend merely on the wider 
 scope of vital work in less differentiated organisms, or on the 
 greater liability of the whole organism to be affected by any 
 change. 
 
 Whatever may be the ultimate amount of acceptance of 
 these remarkable and ingenious views of the (ierman physio- 
 logist, they no doubt open a vista which extends far beyond 
 the crude ideas of evolution at present current. 
 
 "'^ 's farther to be observed in this connection that the 
 .oions above referred to relate to variation rather than 
 origin of species, that they do not establish any hard-and- 
 fast line separating congenital from acquired characters, and 
 that they strongly emphasise the objections against mere 
 accident as a cause of variation, and show the necessity, in 
 order to the origin and perpetuation of varieties, not merely 
 of one change, but of many correlated changes. They also 
 show that the changes supposed must take place by anticipa- 
 
.V 
 
 1 of varietal 
 )ngcr speak 
 ) reach food 
 longation of 
 ^o that they 
 t merely to 
 lal to give it 
 
 to cause it 
 iropagate its 
 atuitous and 
 
 capable of 
 jlish the pos- 
 y hinted, the 
 ^her animals 
 perhaps one 
 It and shifty 
 Lcity of some 
 on the wider 
 ms, or on the 
 fected by any 
 
 acceptance of 
 
 man physio- 
 
 is far beyond 
 
 lion that the 
 
 rather than 
 
 ly hard-and- 
 
 |aracters, and 
 
 igainst mere 
 
 necessity, in 
 
 ^, not merely 
 
 They also 
 
 I by anticipa- 
 
 APPENDIX / 
 
 239 
 
 tion in the germinal matter before theii utility or inutility 
 can be proved, and they emphasise the obstacles set up by 
 sexual reproduction against unlimited divergence from the 
 specific type. All these points are being developed in the dis- 
 cussions now in progress, and they must, ere long, pro- 
 foundly modify the views of biologists as to the existing 
 theories of evolution. 
 
 APPENDIX n 
 
 DR, McCOSII ON EVOLUTION 
 
 The venerable ex-president of Princeton has just issued 
 (1890) a second edition of his little work. The Development 
 Hypothesis under a new name : The Re/igious Aspect of 
 Evolution. The work makes no serious attempt to prove 
 the validity of any of those various and often conflicting 
 theories of evolution, the insufficiency of which, regarded 
 in the light of scientific causation, I have endeavoured to 
 show in the preceding pages. It assumes them all as 
 established scientific results, and then proceeds to show 
 that they can be received up to a certain point without 
 destroying our belief in God. Perhaps it would be correct 
 to say that the actual thesis of the work is thai the belief in 
 secondary causes in creation is perfectly consistent with a 
 l)elief in a Divine First Cause. This is very clearly stated, 
 ■and with much interesting illustration ; and as setting forth 
 this great principle the work is of value, and its use in this 
 respect will remain, even if all those imaginary and partial 
 causes of development on which it relies should be swept 
 away as of no scientific validity, and replaced by more 
 
Iliil 
 
 '■t I 
 
 ill * 
 
 240 
 
 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 
 
 rational views of the vastly complicated and still mysterious 
 causes which have no doubt conspired under Creative 
 guidance to bring about the succession of living beings in 
 geological time. In this respect the work is similar in its 
 tendency to Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World ; and in another aspect both may be regarded as 
 examples of the tendency of theology to conform itself to 
 the philosophical and scientific hypotheses which are ever 
 croppin*^ ip and disappearing. For a time such conformity 
 curries all before it, but it incurs the danger that when the 
 false or partial hypotheses have been discarded the higher 
 truths imprudently connected with them may be discarded 
 also. 
 
 I am reminded here, however, to express one lasting 
 obligation which the world owes, not so much to any exist- 
 ing system of evolution, as to the discussion and conflict of 
 those systems. It is that attention has been directed, in a 
 manner never before witnessed, to the power of heredity, of 
 environment, of use and disuse in improving or deteriorating 
 humanity. The bearing of this on the physical, mental, 
 and moral education and advancement of man is of real 
 practical importance, and merits a more full discussion than 
 it has yet received on the part of those who are not evo- 
 lutionists in the ordinary sense of the term, but who believe 
 in development and in causation. 
 
 PRINTBD BV 
 
 SPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STRBBT SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
1 mysterious 
 er Creative 
 ig beings in 
 similar in its 
 he Spiritual 
 
 regarded as 
 brill itself to 
 lich are ever 
 :h conformity 
 lat when the 
 :d the higher 
 
 be discarded 
 
 ,s one lasting 
 1 to any exist- 
 md conflict of 
 directed, in a 
 , of heredity, of 
 ir deteriorating 
 ^sical, mental, 
 man is of real 
 iscussion than 
 are not evo- 
 lut who believe 
 
 IRE 
 
 ^5==; 
 
 > VV"<C> 
 
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 dLbtlb's C0mpanion 
 
 Juvenile Instructor Annual 
 
 FOa 1889. 
 
 Vn \wgn. SJ by 6i. 
 
 CuntniiiM a Story 
 ill twelve I'lmiitcrs 
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 TON, Autlior of 
 " Chiit.ti».'g Olil <)r- 
 Kun,'' Ar., nnd a 
 variety of intere>t- 
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 yoiiiii; folki*. with a 
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 liii'ic ,iMil many 
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 attraetive ('oloiinil 
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 ANNUALS. 
 
 CDur little Bot'a 
 
 Annual for 1889. 
 
 VM paKOH. Si by e,^. 
 Tht Yenrtii Vulu„ie <\t the ilonlhly Muy.uiiir. 
 
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 DOTS." 
 Full of I'retty Tic- 
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 %\it Cottager anir Artisan Annual. 
 
 THE VOLUME FOR 1889. 
 
 It coiitaioH 144 \yaifhn of 
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 Nl ilENT .l\<Kh(iN, 
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 With numerous En- 
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 ILLVHTRATiU) H i:.\DI.\GS FOR 
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 20>< pages. 10} by 74. 
 
 This Illustrati'd 
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 in lial f -) early 
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 ghort anecdotal pn- 
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 and profusely 
 Illustrated, 'Jg.tid. 
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 " Lively, enter- 
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 The illuBtrutiniii 
 arc also very 
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 Vhrinlian. 
 
 I IK ,- 
 
 The Relioious 1'h.\ot Society, Londok. 
 
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