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PHFLIP CARTERET «Iili,D.C.L -tk "1 HAU BV .H65 ^:, JEMBOSE & SONS, 23, OLD BAILEY ; ! ■ ; ■ it.- PRICE Si:^PfiN€^. ^- . ■ Nc I* -i-' •' ■ ■ " ■ , . ; '','*■■'■■■■•... ■••••, ■ < • ^ ' V, • ' ..; v.. r'T^ /;,«,,-, . ■ / ,- . -; V' ■fv.\f', •■■■' ■ -- V ' ;' •■ « L ■>"■' ' ' "I Xi^' ^ ■■■■■ '*'''i A^■■'•• ^all^ousie CoUfjie Cibrarw .7 JOHN JAMES STEWART COLLECTION ' •/,',■ ' ■ u ■t ;•, *t y ^'l ' DKIFTING AWAY: A FEW REMABKS ON PROFESSOR DRUMMOND'S SEARCH FOB "NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD." i. >< -'< ,' . r" f, ;. ,1 .,- "'.*.*.. ••■V BY THE Hon. PHILIP CARTERET HILL, D.C.L BEMROSE & SONS, 2a, OLD BAILEV; AND DERBY. I (^3%t ^iiAly jy£>i ^*- DEIFTING AWAY. In the month of February, a.d. 1666-7, Samuel Pepys made the following entry in his diary : — " 10th (Lord's Day), — To church, where Mr. Mills made an unnecessary sermon upon original sin, neither understood by himself nor the people." Though Mr. Pepys' dictum, so glibly enunciated, may be disputed in this instance, it is admirably suited to express the character of Professor Drum- mend's work on "Natural Law in the Spiritual World"; and were the worthy Secretary to the Admiralty living now, he might make a similar entry after reading that volume. It resembles Mr. Mills' sermon very closely in all its features : it is unnecessary, and it may safely be affirmed of it, that it can be understood neither by himself nor by his readers. It would be idle to ignore the great popularity of 'iv^^ a book which has already run through twelve editions, or the fact that many Christians have read it, either with approval or with but a faint suspicion of its unsoundness. So much the worse if the real tendency of the work is to undermine or obscure the truth. The most melancholy feature of the case is that a deadly blow is struck by one who appears to be in all sincerity a lover of the truth, however mistaken he may be, and is, in my judgment. It is not to be wondered at that Mr. Drummond should have fallen into error and mental confusion, when we read his preface, and learn from himself what his object is, and how he was .jd into his present views. On week days, he tells us, he lectm*ed to a class of students on the Natural Sciences, and on Sundays to an audience chiefly of working men, on subjects of a moral and religious character. After some time, he says, " New channels for out- ward expression opened, and some of the old closed up; and I found the truth running out to my audience on the Sundays by the week day outlets. In other words, the subject matter. Religion, had taken on the method of expression of Science, and I discovered myself enunciating Spiritual law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics." I / Surely, the poor working men to whom religion was presented in this guise must have been more mystified than even Pepys admits that he was over the discourse of Mr. Mills. This path diverges at its outset from the teachings and the method of Scripture, and the further it is pursued the wider must bo the divergence. St. Paul, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says : — " Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God." And again : — '• Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, com- paring spiritual things with spiritual." But Professor Drummond says, •' Science will be complete when all known phenomena can be arranged in one vast circle in which a few well known laws shall form the radii — these radii at once separating and uniting : separating into particular groups, yet uniting all to a common centre. To show that the radii for some of the most characteristic phenomena of the Spiritual world are already drawn within that circle by science, is the main object of the papers which follow. There will be found an attempt to restate a few of the more elementary facts of the Spiritual hfe in terms of Biology." Here is an unmistakable conflict of authorities. Professor Drummond leaves 6 us in no doubt as to his meaning on this point. He does not propose merely to use the Natural world as an illustration. " Nature," he says, in another place, *' is not a mere image or emblem of the Spiritual." He goes far beyond this : — "If the Natural Laws," he tells us, ♦• were run tlirough the Spiritual world, men might sec the great lines of religious truth as clearly and simply as the broad lines of science." St. Paul tells us that he speaks not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But Professor Drummond assures us here that he has discovered a more excellent way. He has found himself *' enunciating Spiritual law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics." But he does not stop here. He appears to have brought himself to the conviction that Science has purified Religion ! " Herbert Spencer," he tells us, *' points out further, with how much truth need not now be discussed, that the purification of Beligion has always come from Science. It is very apparent, at all events, that an immense debt must soon be contracted. The shiftings of the furnishings will be a work of time. But it must be accomplished." In other words, we need not discuss how far this puri- II fying process has gene in the past, but it must take place, and that in the near future. Is it not enough to make angels weep to see a Christian man, lured on by the subtle casuistries of an advanced sceptic, enunciate doctrines which, if they prove anything, prove that the teachings of God's Holy Spirit nt^ed cleansing and supplementing by the shifting theories of geology, biology, zoology, and I know not what other branches of human science ? — that the Holy Spirit, in fact, has failed to make His utterances sufficiently intelligible or pure without the scientific aid of Darwin and Her- bert Spencer and their followers ? It cannot escape the notice of any reader of Pro- fessor Drummond's book that the authorities he quotes are nearly all well-known sceptics and ag- nostics. Indeed, the influence of this school will be found at the root of all the fallacies and con- tradictions with which his work abounds. He has allowed himself to become so imbued with the spirit of their teaching, that he is in a constant state of mental conflict with the immutable laws of truth revealed to us in the Scriptures, whose Supreme authority he acknowledges while apparently uncon- sciously undermining them. It is not without significance, that Mr. Drummond never refers to a 8 greater than Darwin, whose whole teaching was a refutation of the Darwinian system. The illustrious Agassiz, beyond all controversy one of the greatest men of science of this century, was from the beginning a pronounced and earnest opponent of Darwin's theory. He opposed the doctrine of evolution as not only destitute of any scientific basis, but as subversive of the best established facts in zoology ; while his apprehensions of its atheistical tendency also entered largely into the grounds of his opposi- tion. One of his most remarkable productions, containing most profound views of creation, is his essay on ** Classification," the whole drift of which is in distinct antagonism to the Darwinian theory. Agassiz taught that every zone had its own fauna and flora suited to its climate and soil, created on the spot and adapted to it. He pushed this theory, no doubt, too far, but even within the most restricted limits, it is utterly subversive of the Darwinian doctrine. And even in the field of embryology, which, at first sight, appears to give countenance to the evolu- tion theory, Agassiz, with deeper views, saw only evidence of the unity of plan in the works of the Creator shadowed forth in the progress of the em- 9 bryonic organism from its earliest stages to its full development. And yet Professor Drummond, in a chapter of forty-six pages on Classification, takes no notice of Agassiz' remarkable essay on the same subject. Principal Dawson is one of the first paleon- tologists and geologists of the day, and he has written largely on the evolution doctrine. In his " Story of Earth and Man," he sums up the ar- gument against the theory of evolution, especially as applied to man, in the following eloquent words '♦ Finally, the evolutionist picture wants some of the fairest lineaments of humanity, and cheats us with the semblance of man without the reality. Shave and paint your ape as you may, clothe him and set him up upon his feet, still he fails greatly of the human form divine ; and so it is with him morally and spiritually as well. We have seen that ho wants the instinct of immortality, the love of God, the mental and spiritual power of exercising dominion over the earth. The very agency by which he is evolved is of itself subversive of all these higher properties ; the struggle for existence is essentially selfish, and therefore degrading. Even in the lower animals, it is a false assumption that its tendency is to clcvo,te ; for animals when driven 10 to the utmost ver},'e oi' the struggle for life become degraded. The dog which spends its life in snarling contention with its fellow curs for insufficient food will not be a noble specimen of its race. God docs not so treat His creatures. There is far more truth to nature in the doctrine which represents Him as listening to the young ravens when they cry for food. But, as applied to man, the theory of the struggle for existence and siu'vival of the fittest, though the most popular phase of evolutionism at present, is nothing less than the basest and most horrible of superstitions. It makes man not merely carnal, but devilish. It takes his lowest appetites and propensities, and makes them his God and Creator. His higher sentiments and aspirations, his self-denying philanthropy, his enthusiasm for the good and true, all the struggles and sufferings of heroes and martyrs, not to speak of that self-sacrifice which is the foundation of Christianity, are, in the view of the evolutionist, mere loss and waste, failure in the struggle of life. What does he give us in exchange ? An endless pedigree of bestial ancestors, without one gleam of high and holy tradition to enliven the procession ; and for the future, the j/ospect tliat the poor mass of protoplasm, which constitutes the sum of our being, and which is the 11 sole gain of an indefinite struggle . the past, must soon be resolved again into inferior animals or dead matter. That men of thought and culture should advocate such a philosophy, argues either a strange mental hallucination, or that the higher spiritual nature has been wholly quenched within them. It is one of the saddest of many sad spectacles which our age presents." And yet Professor Drummond, who, as we shall presently see, holds and advocates the doctrine of eyolution, never alludes to Principal Dawson, or appears to recognize the existence of his works, more than he does those of Agassiz. The language of Humboldt is equally clear. In speaking of a writer who taught the doctrines of evolution, he says : " What displeases me in him is the scientific levity which causes him to sec no difficulty in the organic springing from tlie inorganic, nay, man himself, from the Chaldfi^an mud." Indeed, the whole of his great work, " Cosmos," may be said to be in its aim and scope irreconcilably opposed to the views and tendency of the evolution theory. One might be led to infer from Uv. Drummond's chapter on Biogenesis that he is a firm believer in the formula, ovine virum e.v rim, as opposed to spontaneous generation, which, without hesitation, 12 be repudiates. Whether he changed his views as lie proceeded, or whether he only held them in the sense in whicli Darwin held them — that is, that there was a distinct act of creation of one or more primordial germs from whicli by evolution all successive organisms have sprung — it is very difficult to decide ; probably the latter ; if so, there is another passage in Principal Dawson's book which describes with wonderful precision Professor Drummond's attitude : "It may be said that evolution may be held as a scientific doctrine in connection with a modified belief in creation. The work of actual creation mav have been limited to a few elementary types, and evolution may have done the rest. Evolutionists may still be theists. We have already seen that the doctrine, as carried out to its logical consequences, excludes creation and theism. It may, however, be shown that even in its more modified form, and when held by men who maintain that they are not atheists, it is practically atheistic, because excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving all things into the action of unintelligent forces. It is necessary to observe this, because it is the half-way-evolutionism, which pro- fesses to have a Creator somewhere behind it, that is most]) • -^lar; though it is, if possible, more unphilo- w ii\ sopliical than that which professes to set out with absohite and determined nonentity, or from self- existing star-dust containing all the possibilities of the nniverae." To -what startling results tliis half-way evolution- ism may lead, we have only to look at the conclu- sions arrived at by Darwin himself. In his " Descent of Man," he teaches that man's moral nature has been evolved by slow degrees from the social instincts common to many animals. " Lower animals," he says, " especially the dog, manifest love, reverence, fidelity and obedience ; and it is from these elements tliat the religious sentiment in man has been slowly evolved by a process of natural selection." These are the views of Darwin ; but, it may be fairly asked, are they the views of Professor Drummond ? To which it may well be replied, that without evolution he is nothing : he would have no locum stmuli : nearly all his arguments are derived from its existence and assumed operations as incon- trovertible facts. Thus, as to its existence, he speaks •' of the greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the evolution hypothesis." And again he says, " The strength of the doctrine of evolution, at least in its broader outlines, is now such, that its 14 * verdict on any biological qucBtion is a consideration of moment. And if any further defence is needed for the idea of a third kingdom (the Spiritual Kingdom or the Kingdom of Heaven), it may be found in the singular harmony of the whole conception with thin (freat modem truth.'* It is to be noted that he not merely speaks of evolution as '• the greatest of modern scientific doctrines," but as •' this great modern truth," thus distinctly assuming it as an established and incontrovertible law. In speaking of the ultimate results of the theory, he uses language attributing to it the most remark- able inherent powers. "It is, perhaps, impossible," he says, "with such faculties as we now possess, to imagine an evolution with a future as great as its past. So stupendous is the development from the atom to t)ie man, that no point can be fixed in the futnre as distant from what man is now, as he is from the atom.' While in another chapter he approaches perilously near the borders of profanity, wiion he states that " the goal of evolution is Jesus Christ ' ! And when we come to details, we find that Professor Drummond does not shrink from adopting some of the most extreme views of the most extreme evolutionists. He applies the evolution theory to 15 plants with as little hesitation as to animals, ascrib- ing to them the moral power to choose their course in life — to know the better and to follow the worse. *' Parasites," he tells ns, ''are the paupers of nature. They are forms of life which will not take the trouble to find their own food, but borrow or steal it from the more industrious. So deep rooted is this tendency in nature, that plants may become parasitic — it is an acquired habit — as woU as animals. . . . . There are certain plants — the dodder, for instance — which begin life with the heat intentions, strike true roots into the soil, and really appear as if they meant to be independent for life. But, after supporting themselves for a brief period, they fix curious sucking discs into the stem and branches of adjacent plants. And after a little experinfentinn, the epiphyte finally ceases to do anything for its own support, thenceforth drawing all its supplies ready- made from the sap of its host." *• In the Mistletoe," he says again, "the parasitic habit has reached a stage in some respects lower still. It has persisted in its downward course for so many generations, that the young forms even have acquired the hahit, and usually begin life at once as parasites." Here are distinct lines of conduct ascribed to 10 M plants, and for the results of the choice which they may make they are held responsible. But Mr. Drummond does not stop here : he appears to charge them with " immorality." ♦* Is parasitism," he says, *' after all, not a somewhat clever ruse ? Is it not an ingenious way of securing the benefits of life while evading its responsibilities ? And although this mode of livelihood is selfish, and possibly un- dignified, can it be said that it is immoral ? The naturalist's reply to this is brief. Parasitism, he will say, is one of the gravest crimes in natiu*e. It is a breach of the law of evolution. . . . But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for perfec- tion in any shape or form. It wants two things — food and shelter — how it gets them is of no moment. Each member lives exclusively on its own account, an isolated, indolent, selfish and backsliding life." Had Professor Drummond been speaking of a sentient, accountable being, he could scarcely have spoken in more severe language, or painted its actions in blacker colours. But when he comes to the animal creation, he attributes to them, in language much more explicit, both the power of discriminating good from evil, and moral responsibility for their conduct. Thus, in speaking of the peculiarity of the Hermit crab, which i 17 >r takes up its abode in the cast-off shell of some other animal, he says : •♦ How best to protect themselves, has been the problem to which the whole crab family have addressed themselves ; and in comiderinij the wutter, the ancestors of the Hermit crab hit on the happy device of re-ntilizing the habitations of the molluscs which lay around them in plenty, well built and ready for immediate occupation." This language, which attributes to a little creature of low type, ♦' consideration " of its circumstances, and '• liitting on a happy device," is sufficiently extravagant ; but Mr. Drummond, whether consciously or uncon- sciously, goes to the startling length of ascribing •moral sentiments to it also. ** Whether its laziness costs it any monil (jmilni.s, or whether its cleverness becomes to it a source of congratulation," he says " we do not know." But surely we do know. It is a monstrous perversion of language to speak of moral (pialms in connection with the lowest forms of animal life, and one against which all our instincts rise in unconquerable hostility. To man alone was a command given with a penalty for disobedience attached — " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Man alone of all the myriad forms of animal life stands erect, with his " countenance lifted to the stars," that he may look 18 up to his Creator aud appeal to Him for guidance in his path through life. But Darwin teaches that even the moral and religior:s faculties have been evolved, like the physical frame and its organs, from a primordial germ in the long course of ages, and apparently Professor Drummond has embraced the Darwinian theory in all its repulsiveness, perhaps unconsciously, for he sets out, like his own •' Dodder," with the " best intentions," in his chapter on Biogenesis ; but his later pages, with their elaborate arguments based on evolution, are utterly incapable of reconciliation with his previous statements. For it cannot be concealed that Darwin's theory, even in what Sir, John Dawson calls halfway-evolution, dethrones God from His empire, and ascribes the present condition of the world, animal and vegetable, including man himself, to the inherent power of development contained in a mass of protoplasm, aided towards continually higher developments by the " consideration " and ** happy devices " of the lowest forms of animal life. We must, therefore, choose between Evolution and Revelation. In following these lines of thought, Professor Drummond has adopted the language used by the older school of sceptics, under which a subtle form !f 19 of error is concealed. It is an ancient fallacy to speak of Nature as the representative of certain unchanging and inexorable laws by which the universe is governed, as distinct from the ever active personal control of an Almighty Creator. This idea also dethrones the God of Revelation as effectually as the theory of Evolution, being almost, indeed, in the nature of a corollary from it. It is probable, indeed, that Mr. Drummond would shrink from the avowal of so erroneous a view ; but let us see to what amazing lengths the use of the language of sceptics has led him. He is speaking of the results of neglected powers or opportunities. " Nature," he says, '* has her revenge upon neglect as well as upon extravagance. There are certain burrowing animals — the mole, for instance — which have taken to spending their lives beneath the surface of the ground. And yature has taken her revewje upon them in a thoroughly natural way — she has closed up their eyes. If they mean to live in darkness, she argues, eyes are obviously a superfluous function. By neglecting them, these animals made it clear that they do not want them. And as one of Nature's fixed principles is that nothing shall exist in vain, the eyes are presently taken away or reduced to a rudimentary state." Now, the very contrary of all 20 this is true. God in His wisdom created the mole to fill the place appointed by Him in the universe, and with exquisite wisdom, He adapted its organization to the circumstances in which He placed it ; its powerful limbs, its elongated head, and above all its eyes — for it has eyes, as we shall presently see — protected from too great exposure by their minute size, are perfectly fitted for the scene of its existence. So far from establishing the extravagant theory laid down by Professor Drummond of a rebellion by this poor little animal against the laws of its Greater and of an inexorable Nemesis overtaking it, the mole and its organization furnish one of the most remarkable evidences of the universal presence of design, and of the boundless skill which is manifested in the myriad forms of animal life, and their miraculous adaptation to the theatre of their existence. And again in the same chapter, page 114: "The Crustacea of the Mammoth Cave (of Kentucky) have chosen to abide in darkness. There- fore they have become fitted for it. By refusing to see, they have waived the right to see. Ami Natuir has (jHinhj hunwurciJ them" Through both of these passages there runs the monstrous assumption that the moles and the Crustacea of the Mammoth Cave, having the gift of li* ! i/i 21 eyes, deliberately chose a scene of life in which they could not make use of them, and thereby justly incurred the penalty attached to a wilful transgression of law. But if we would see the utter confusion of thought involved in these extracts, let us substitute the word "God" for "Nature" in the passages which I have italicised — •' (hul has taken His revenge upon them in a thoroughly natural way " — '* God has grimly humoured them." This is not only perilously near the verge of pro- fanity : it has gone over the edge of the precipice. And surely Mr. Drummond would not object to read God for Nature in these passages, unless, indeed, he has unreservedly adopted the theory of the older infidels, of which I have been speaking, of an unknown entity or code of laws called Nature, distinct from God, which controls the universe. He will, however, hardly adopt that horn of the dilemma. It may bo here remarked that Professor Drum- mond has, for the purposes of his argument, assumed, as an established fact in zoology, blindness in moles. This, however, so far from being recog- nized as a fact by all naturalists, is distinctly denied. Thus Maunder, in his " Scientific and Literary Treasury," revised edition, 1870, under the title "Mole," says : " Its eyes are so minute and so con- 22 cealed by its fur, as to have given rise to a belief that it is formed without these important organs." Being anxious to ascertain the facts in connection with the assumed bhndness of the mole, I consulted a professional taxidermist who has set up many specimens of this animal. He assured me that it undoubtedly possesses eyes, though minute ; and that in one instance he had examined the eye under a microscope, and that it was not rudiment- ary merely, but a perfect organ of vision. Nor is the case of the mole the only instance in which Profesbor Driimmond, in his anxiety to support liis position, has carelessly assumed as an established fact that which is contrary to all experience. In his chapter on Eternal Life, he has reached a stage in his argument when it appeared to him necessary to show that the most complex organisms are the longest lived. " Now," lie says, at page 208, " it will speedily appear that a distinct relation exists, and must exist, between complexity and longevity. Death being brought about by the failure of an organism to adjust itself to some change in the environment, it follows that those organisms which are able to adjust themselves most readily and successfully will live the longest. They will continue time after time to effect the appropriate I ) I 23 adjustment, and their power of doing so will be exactly proportionate to tl.eir complexity-that is the amount of environment they ca. control with' hou- correspondences. There are. for example, in the envuonment of eveiy aninml certain things winch are d.rectly or indirectly dangerous to lif; If. seqmpment of correspondences is not complete enough to enable it to avoid these dangers in all P2.blec,rc„mstances, it must sooner or later snc cumb. The organism, then, with the most perfect s to correspondences, that is, the Inghest and most complex organism, has an obvious advantage over ess complex forms. It can adjust itself more per- fectly a„d frequently. m.t this is just the biologLl way of say„,g that it can live the longest. And -nee the relation between con,plexity and longevity may e expressed thus-the most complete organisml aie the longest lived." He then adduces the case of a Medusa tossed ashore by a wave, and finding itself so " out of corrc- spondence with its now surroundings that its life must pay the forfeit.- And, -Again. i„ the case of a bu.d, m vu-tue of its more complex organization, there ,s command over a much larger area of en- v.roument. It can take precautions, such as the Medusa could not ; it has increased facilities for rr- ;24 !IU t ..' securing food ; its adjustments all round are more complex ; and therefore it ought to be able to main- tain its life for a longer period. It becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the scale of life, we also rise in the scale of longevity." Unfortunately for Professor Drummond's argu- ment, the evidence does not support his theory. Longevity is by no means the necessary result of complexity of organization. The elephant, far below man in the scale of organization, it is well known, lives for a hundred years. The common domestic goose and the raven, both lower in their organization than the elephant, are longer lived than man ; and there is now in Ceylon a tortoise, of great size, which was full grown, and said to have been very old, at the capitulation of Colombo, in 1796, and which then belonged to the last of the Dutch Governors. Professor Drummond adduces instances from animal life only, but his formula, " The most complex organisms are the longest lived," includes every kingdom of nature whether animal or vege- table ; and t)»e testimony of the latter contradicts him as flatly as that of the animal kingdom. There are numberless oaks in England to-day whose age makes that of the oldest man living appear but as that of a child ; while the giant Wellingtonias of Cali- fornia have witnessed the rise and fall of many \ W' « ijii ':il 25 \ « mighty empires. The rings on sections of some of these wonderful trees have been counted by patient observers, showing clearly that they have been grow- ing upwards of three thousand years — are, indeed, coeval with Abraham — and yet there is a great gulf between the simple organization of a coniferous tree and the complex system of man, whose days are as a shadow in comparison with its marvellous life. Nothing is more surprising in the whole of Pro- fessor Drummond's book than the hold which the Darwinian theory of evolution has taken of a mind at once acute and reverent. It is, however, in the judgment of some of the most profound students of science, utterly inconsistent with the teachings of Scripture. There are not three more illustrious names in the ranks of modern science than those of Agassiz, Humboldt, and Dawson ; all of whom, as we have seen, are irreconcilably opposed to the evo- lution doctrines; yet their names are never men- tioned by Professor Drummond, while Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Kay Lankester, and, above all, Herbert Spencer — all of them pronounced ug- nostics — have evidently been studied carefully, and are frequently quoted. It is the baneful effect of studies in this direction which has led Mr. Drum- mond into such lamentable errors. Writers of this 26 i school appear to possess for him an irresistible fasci- nation, which blinds him to the dangerous nature of their teachings. Thus, in his preface, he speaks of the " splendid achievements " of Herbert Spencer. To ordinary men, Mr. Spencer's chief achievement appears to be a ceaseless effort to unsettle men's faith and to overturn the authority of Scripture as an all-sufficient revelation from God, true beyond all challenge or controversy. Indeed, Mr. Spencer himself says that his doctrine of an inscrutable, un- intelligent, unknown force, as the cause of all things, is a much more religious doctrine than that of a personal, intelligent, and voluntary Being of infinite power and goodness. And yet Mr. Drummond can use the following language in reference to that un- disguised teacher of infidelity, whom Tyndall and all the agnostic school call their " great philosopher " : " Mr. Herbert Spencer's masterly elucidation of the chief phenomena of life has placed philosophy and science under many obligations, and in the para- graphs which follow we shall have to incur a further debt on behalf of religion." Now, Mr. Spencer has very distinctly stated in the Nineteenth Centtiri/, in reply to some of his critics, the goal towards which his labours are tending. In speaking of his theory of the phenomena of nature, he says • *' There is a J 27 I tacit confession of impotence in the presence of the mystery of things — a confession which brings science into sympathy with religion, and that in their joint recognition of the unknowable cause for all the effects constituting the knowable world, religion and science would reach a truth common to the two. I do not see," he continues, " that anything said by my critics has shaken this position. I held at the outset, and continue to hold, that this inscrutable existence which science in the last resort is compelled to recognise as unreached by its deepest analysis of matter, motion, thought, and feeling, stands towards our general conception of things in substantially the same relation as does the creature power asserted by theology ; and that when theology, which has already dropped many of the anthropomorpkic traits ascribed by it, eventually drops the last of them, the foundation-beliefs of the two must become identical. So far as I know, no endeavour has been made to show that this is not the case." Now, what Mr. Spencer terms the anthropomorphic traits of theology, are of its very essence, and constitute the bases of all revealed religion. In the beginning, God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. It is not said that God, in the singular — a mere abstract entity or force ; 28 nor even in the dual ; but in the plural — Elohim — embracing, therefore, three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, made man, " after our likeness." While round Christ — God in human form — cluster all the hopes of behevers for eternal life beyond the grave, without which hope we are of all men most miserable. What Mr. Spencer, therefore, means, clearly is, that when theology gives up revealed religion, there will be nothing to separate between it and agnos- ticism ; whicli is undoubtedly true. And it is at the feet of this Doctor of the Law that Professor Drummond sits and tells us of the mighty debt which religion owes to his splendid achieve- ments ! Indeed, Mr. Drummond has at length apparently brought himself to look on this infidel writer as the exponent of truths in the spiritual world hitherto concealed from men — as the author of a new revelation. Thus, he tells us in the chapter on Eternal Life that "one of the most startling achieve- ments of recent science is a definition of Eternal Life. To the religious mind this is a contribution of immense moment. For eighteen hundred years only one definition of Life Eternal was before the world. Xow there are firo." There can be no doubt of whom he speaks as the authors of these m ^ 29 two definitions ; for the chapter opens with the following quotations — " This is Life Eternal — that they might know Thee, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. — Jesus Christ." And, "Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency witli which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge. — Herbert Spencer." That is to say, Herbert Spencer has supplemented the incomplete work of Jesus Christ eighteen hun- dred years ago by a new definition of equal authority and wider impcrfc ! There is here, it seems to me, something worse than bad taste; much plainer language might be applied to it without any breach of charity. Perhaps, however, we should not be astonished at the lengths to which the adoption of the evolution theory, even in a modified form, has led Mr. Drummond: it is essentially and utterly antagonistic to the retention of a belief in the completeness and sufficiency of the old paths. *' In the beginning," whether we take that ex- pression as referring to a period six thousand years ago, or to a time in the infinite distance of the past, { 30 God saw everything that He liad made, and, behold, it was very good. Not so, say the Evohitionists — this is all a mistake. So far from being very good or perfect, there was nothing in the beginning beyond a mass, more or less extensive, of protoplasm — one or more primor- dial germs, out of whicli were to be evolved in process of time all the manifold forms of life, including man himself, which now people the earth, the force of natural selpction and the survival of the fittest. It seems difficult to believe that men of learning and intellect should seriously ask us to believe that the eye, for instance, is not the result of infinite wisdom planning an organ exquisitely adapted to the wants of the creature, and then by a direct act of power causing it to :=!pring into existence, but arose from small and feeble beginnings, gropings in the dark, which in the long course of ages, produced more and higher results, pupils, lenses, retina, optic nerves, and all the marvellous powers of sight. Yet this is no exaggerated statement of evolution doc- trine. In living bodies, Mr. Darwin says, variations will cause slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let 31 this process, he says, go on for millions of years, and we shall at last have a perfect eye. If this principle be true as to tiie formation uf the eye, it must be true of every other organ and attribute of animal life. Wliy do we not, then, see some of these remarkable changes in the process of evolution ? Immense periods of time, we are told, are demanded by the theory of evolution for the accomplishment of these ends ; but surely in some species there must be a process of development going on at the present time, and we should be able to see at least some of the incipient stages. But no man has ever seen the faintest outlines of such a transformation. Neither horse nor man, for instance, has evolved any, the most minute, change in appearance since the days when the noble eques- trian statue of Marcus Aurelius came from the hand of the Koman artist eighteen hundred years ago. Nor is the appearance only unchanged : the minute description of a good horse given by Virgil in tho third book of his Georgics might have been written by a veterinary surgeon of ta-day as a guide to an intending purchaser ; Continuo pecoris g"ener<»isi puUiLs in urvis Altiu8 ingreditur, et niollia crura repoiiit, Primus et ire viani. et ttuvio.s teutare ininaees Aiidet, et ignoto se.se committere potiti, 92 Kec vanos horret stropitus. Illi ardua cervix, Argutumque caput, brevis alvus, obesiujuo terga ; Luxuriatt^ue toris animo.sitm p3ctus. Honesti SpadiccH, glauciquc ; color deterriinus albis Et gilvo. Which is thus translated by Drydeii ; Of able body, sound of limb and wind, Upright he walks, on pantenis firm and straight ; His motions easy ; prancing iu his gait ; The first to lead the way, to tempt the flood. To pass the bridge unknown, nor foar the trembling wood ; Dauntless at emjjty noisps ; lofty necked ; Sharp-headed, barrel-bellied, broadlj' backed ; Brawny his chest and deep ; his colour gray ; For beauty dai>pled ; or the brightest bay : Faint white and dun will scarce the rearing pay. And fifteen centuries before Virgil's day, the description of a war horse in the book of Job gives evidence of the identity of nature of the equine race in that remote period with that of the present day ; while, singularly enough, Virgil's description of a charger in the same book of the Georgics bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the more ancient author of the book of Job. And if even the three thousand years which have elapsed since the first of these descriptions was written is too brief a period to allow for the evolution of any new features or specific differences, however faintly indicated, yet in the case of the horse, remains are found as far back as the upper Miocene m period, presenting its present peculiarities and exhibiting no appreciable differences from the species now existing. Surely this period, whatever length may be assigned to it, is long enough to satisfy the demands of the most exacting evolutionist If the theory of natural selection be well foimded, we may ask again, why is it confined in its operations to some portions only of the animal world ? Why has it not aided many annuals whose condition would be greatly improved by its effects ? Sheep and deer are the prey of the wolf and the leopard. Nothing could be more useful to both of these timid and helpless races than tlie possession of a coat of mail such as that of the crocodile or the tortoise, or of powerful jaws armed with formidable teeth like the carnivora ; and yet to this day they have remained as defenceless as they were ages ago against the ferocity of their assailants. Had they even become pachydermatous, we might suppose that they were making some advances, however slow, towards a more desirable state of existence — growing more nearly into a ** perfect correspondence with their environment." Yet, alas ! they are being harried and devoured by their enemies at every convenient opportunity, even at the present hour ; and are occupied only in developing :h iil M yi silken fleeces and j^'lossy coats of fin*, which no more serve to strike terror into the liearts of wolves and tigers, than do tlie grimly painted faces on the shields of the Chinese warriors to protect them from French arms of precision. This seems to be a fatal neglect on the part of the sheep and deer ; why have they not at least evolved electric organs, like those possessed by some species of fish, and so stunned their assailants '? That the doctrine of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life may be accepted as a universal law, must be admitted to be not unlikely, at least in the human family, if we may judge by the recent tragedy of the MvinoneiU'. If the morbid sympathy which has been expressed for the survivors by some persons should become general, no woman or child should ever venture to go to sea ; or, if they do, they should certainly, in case of a wreck occurring, not accept the treacherous refuge of a seat in a boat. It would be far less hazardous, however indefensible mor- ally, to leap into the ocean and venture all on the ten- der mercy of the sharks, than to trust to human savages acting upon the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, that is, of the strongest. In all the cases of which I have read hitherto, the starving survivors of a wreck who resorted to cannibalism had at least , 1 1*1! \ ;)5 the manliness to draw lots before sacrificing one of their fellow-sufferers. The wretched survivors of the Miffnont'ttf^ however, spared themselves this troublesome ceremony, wliich might have been somewhat inconvenient in its results, and found a much simpler solution of the question by dispatching a poor, helpless boy. It is no exaggeration to say that this hideous tragedy is in strict accordance with the theory to which Darwin says we owe the various races of men and animals in their present state of development, and which theory Professor Drummond appears to have embraced with all the rest of the evolution doctrines. In his chapter on environment, Mr. Drummond accepts the startling theory that " a change in the surroundings of any animal can so react upon it as to cause it to change. By the attempt, con- scious or unconscious, to adjust itself to the new c auditions, a true physiological change is gradually wrought within the organism." This theory he sup- ports by adducing several cases of organic change in birds, alleged by those who performed the experi- ments, to have been brought about by a change in their diet. Thus, a sea-gull is said to have been kept in captivity, so that it could obtain no food except grain. The effect was to modify the stomach of the 36 bird, normally adapted to a lisli diet, until in time it came to resemble in structure the gizzard of an ordi- nary grain feeder such as the pigeon. And so also, as the result of another experiment by a diflferent authority, pigeons fed for a lengthened period on a meat diet had the gizzard transformed into a car- nivorous stomach. It need hardly be said that these experiments require further confirmation. The alleged results are contrary to the universal expe- rience of mankind. So far from being as a general rule organically transformed and adapted to such a radical change in their food as in these experiments, it is well-known that animals subjected to such treatment pine away and die. It is a fact well- known to medical men that if a patient suffering from diabetes could confine himself strictly to a diet of animal food, the fatal course of his disease would be arrested. Why, then, is no one ever thus cured ? Simply because the stomach revolts against such treatment, and so far from adapting itself to the new condition, absolutely rebels against it, and the patient simply cannot continue the regimen. Although the recurrence of the disease, and its inevitable termination in death, are the alternatives, he is literallv compelled bv the inexorable laws of his own organism to accept them. He finds himself «* ■^ 37 { I powerless to force his nature to adopt a course subversive of its design and contrary to its consti- tution. If, however, animals can be so readily converted from grain eaters to carnivora, or vice versa, where are any new races thus developed to be found ? No one has ever seen a race of carnivorous pigeons ; and the isolated cases adduced by Professor Drum- mond are wholly insufficient as a basis for so far- reaching and revolutionary a theory. But Mr. Drummond does not stop even at such monstrous doctrines. Nothing seems to stagger him if it comes clothed with the authority of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Thus, in the chapter on death, in a foot note on page 172, he is urging that it is not only a rigl ^. but a duty to exercise the spiritual faculties, a dutj demanded not by religion merely, but by science. " Upon biological principles," he says, "man owes his full development to himself, to nature, and to his fellow men. Thus," he continues, *« Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, the performance of every function IS, in a sense, a moral obligation." And again, " All the animal functions, in common with all the higher functions, have, as thus understood, their imper- ativeness." This language in the moutli of Mr. Spencer or of Professor Drunmiond, who quotes it 38 with approval, if understood literally, and carried into practice, would turn every city in the world into a scene of unbridled licentiousness eclipsing even the corruptions of Pompeii. Nor is this the only instance in which Mr. Drummond uses language of the most extraordinary nature, betraying an utter confusion of thought and a wide departure from the sobriety of a Christian man's expressions. In the chapter on Conformity to Type, he is speaking, page 295, of the processes of the New Birth. " In what terms," he says, *' does the New Testament describe them? The answer is sufficiently striking. It uses everywhere the lan- guage of biology. It is impossible that the New Testament writers should have been familiar with these biological facts. It is impossible that their views of this (jreat truth should have been as clear as /Science van make thein now. But they had no alternative. There was no other way of expressing this truth. It was a biological question. So they struck out unhesitatingly into the new field of words, and with an originality which commands both reverence and surprise, stated their truth with such litfht or darkness as they had." That is to say, the writers of the New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, could not have had as V i T i 39 clear views of the great truth of the New Birth as Science can give now ! They state their truth with sucli hght or dar/mess as they had ! And this is the language of a professed Christian teacher speaking of Inspiration ! In the chapter on Conformity to Type, Mr. Druni- mond — let us hope, unconsciously— adopts one of the most flagrant fallacies of the atheistical writers. " What," he says, "corresponds to the protoplasm in the spiritual sphere ? " And then, in replying to his own question, he continues : " We should be forsaking the lines of nature were we to imagine for a moment that the new creature was to be formed out of nothing. Ex nihilo ?i /A//— nothing can be made out of nothing. Matter is imcrcatahle and in- destructible ; nature and man can only form and transform." We have here again to choose between Professor Drummond and the Scriptures. "Matter is nn- vrentidih;' says the Professor : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," say the Scriptures; and St. Paul, writing under tlie inspiration of the Holy Spirit, enunciates in still more explicit language the same all-important truth— '♦ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so tliat i 40 '' things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." There is, indeed, no doctrine of the atheistical school which so completely dethrones God from His empire as this of the eternal existence of matter. But Professor Drummond goes beyond even this ; he not only denies, in common with the writers of the school referred to, that matter was created : ho denies that God could create it. " Matter," he says, " is uncreatable." Translated into plain English, this boldly affirms that God is not Almighty ! We cannot wonder that a writer who has been lured into such a maze of error by the teaching of false guides like Herbert Spencer, should sometimes be inconsistent with himself, and contradict in one place what he affirms in another. And the most cursory reader of his book will find him contradicting himself continually. In his preface he says : ** Is there not reason to believe that many of the laws of the Spiritual world hitherto regarded as occupying an entirely separate province, are simply the laws of the Natural world ? " And again : " Now this was not simply a scientific colouring given to Religion, the mere freshening of the theological air with natural facts and illustrations : it was an entire re -casting of truth. And when I came seriously to t (• «r ,1 'r 41 I .► 4 consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it meant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual world." If we turn to page 227, when in the course of his argument he required a denial or modification of this statement, we find him writing, in apparent forgetfulness of it, in the following terms: "He (Jesus Christ) makes no attempt to project the material into the immaterial." Unless language he indeed a medium by which to conceal our thoughts, there is here an irreconcilable contradiction, not only with the statement quoted from the preface, but with the whole drift of Mr. Drummond's book, which he tells us is an attempt to project the lines of Natural Law into the Spiritual world. This is only one instance of the contradictions with which the book abounds : the reader will find them scattered throughout its pages ; and this is simply the inevitable result of the position in which Mr. Drummond finds himself. There are two irreconcilable principles ever striving for the mastery in his mind : he is apparently a Christian man, possessed with a love and fear of God and reverence for His Revelation ; but in fan evil hour he has listened to the voice of Mr. Herbert Spencer and other advocates of evolution, and has become so hopelessly 42 confused by their pseudo-philosophy, that truth and error alternately exhibit themselves throughout his entire book, and he seems to have no settled opinions remaining. It seems almost impossible that the same writer who acknowledges the authority of Scripture as a revelation from God to His creatures of His will, as Professor Drummond, in a general sense, undoubtedly does, could have penned such a sentence as this : " There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature which belongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that is shifting, is one thing sure ; one thing outside ourselves, unbiassed, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear ; one thing that holds on its way to me eternally, incorruptible and undefiled." If this language means anything, it means that the Bible as a revelation from God is not solid enough to rest upon ; that it must be buttressed by something outside, which Mr. Drummond calls a Law of Nature ! I have already noticed the extravagant language in which Professor Drummond attributes conscious moral actions to plants and animals of low type ; but in his chapter on Classification, he proceeds to still greater extremes. Thus, on page 892, in speak- 1, k 43 iug of *♦ Mimicry," he says : " Certain organisms in one kingdom assume, for purposes of their own, the outward form of organisms belonging to another. This curious hypocrisy is practised both by plants and animals, the object being . to secure some personal advantage, usually safety, which would be denied were the organism always to play its part in nature in propria persona. Thus, the Ceroxylus lace- ratus of Borneo has assumed so perfectly the disguise of a moss-covered branch as to evade the attack of insectivorous birds ; and others of the walking-stick insects and leaf-butterflies practise similar deceptions with i/reat ejf'rontery and swcess " / Now, no organisms in one kingdom assume, for purposes of their own, the outward form of organisms belonging to another. They are precisely, in every, the most minute, detail, what God, for purposes of His own, has created them. To attribute to them hypocrisy, effrontery, and the assumption of other forms than the Creator has given them, is to use language in direct conflict with the account of creation which God Himself has given us in the Scriptures, and to assign to some of the lowest of His creatures a power to change His plans " for purposes of their own " ! But even this, monstrous as it is, is but the 44 legitimate and inevitable result of the adoption by Mr. Drummond of the Evolution doctrines. It would, however, be impossible to notice all the inconsistencies into which Professor Drummond has been led by attempting to reconcile things which are irreconcilable. Apparently not satisfied with the old foundations, ho tells us that " Theology must feel to day that the modern world calls for a further proof. Nor will the best Theology resent this demand ; it also demands it. Theology is searching on every hand for another echo of the voice of which Bevelation also is the echo, that out of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should he established. That other echo can only come from Nature. Hitherto its voice has been muffled. But, now that Science has made the world around articulate, it speaks to religion with a twofold purpose. In the first place it offers to corroborate Theology ; in the second, to pnrift/ it." We may, in all soberness, ask, what is the real purport of this passage ? God Himself tells us that His Word, as He gave it to us, without any corrobo- ration from science, is able to make us wise unto salvation ; He tells us that it is *' very pure," need- ing no purifying process from men of science or agnostics. 9 45 It is true that Professor Drummond speaks of a ** derived" theology, but it is quite clear, from numerous other passages, that he has in his mind the theology based on the Scriptures as ordinarily accepted by plain men ; and it is of this he speaks as requiring " further proof." The modern world, under the teaching of modern science, in his judgment, requires some new means of defence, and having gone out into the fields of science in search of it, he announces in tones of triumph that he has found it. He assures us that he has discovered the true helmet of Mambrino, proof against all assaults; but it turns out to be only a barber's basin after all. The doctrines of Darwin and Spencer, even after they have filtered through Professor Dmmmond's mind, can never lead men into the light of truth or into peace. In the judg- ment of some of the most eminent authorities in the world of science, as I have already shown, their tendency is to undermine faith in the revealed account of the Creation, on which hangs all the Christian Plan of Salvation ; they dethrone God from the empire of the universe ; they tamper with the doctrine of the Resurrection ; they loose the bands of morality ; they set up an inscrutable blind force as the origin of all things, and the ruler of the 40 world; and they ask us to accept this system of negation and confusion as a substitute for the God of Eevelation, and the easy, artless, unencumbered plan proclaimed to the human race in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If, indeed, it be true that we sprang from a primordial germ, enveloped in a mass of protoplasm, in some far distant age, and only through a long line of simian and other bestial ancestors, arrived at our present condition by a slow and imper- ceptible process of development, it may well be that Tyndall was right : that our end shall be in accord- ance with our beginning; and that at last our destiny and highest hope shall be, " to melt into the infinite azure of the past." With the wisdom to be derived from the teachers of such doctrines, I have no wish to be made wise. Professor Drummond tells us that new light has dawned upon him, and that he now teaches Spiritual Law in the exact terms of Biology and Physics. I prefer the method of St. Paul, who tells us that he speaks not in the words which man's learning {ao