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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche. 11 est filmi A partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les disgrammes suivants illustrent le mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 I II C' (lv,'CjOiA<^\SCX^^u^iT^ FACTS AND FANCIES IN MODERN SCIENCE: STUDIES OF THE RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO PREVALENT SPECULATIONS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. BEIATG THE LECTURES ON THE SAMUEL A. CROZER FOUNDA TtON IN CONNECTION IVITH THE CROZER THEOLOG- ICAL SEMINARY, FOR 1881. BV J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S. Etc M PHILADELPHIA : AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY i4ao CHESTNUT STREET. ^JF- Entered according to Act of Congreai, In the year x88a, by the AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, In the Office of the librarian of Congreu, at WashingtMi. BL 39 jSZX WnrooTT A Thomboh, atemUgpen and Elaetntypent l^Mada. PREFACE. THE object before the mind of the author in preparing these Lectures was to pre- sent a distinct and rational view of the present relation of scientific thought to the religious beliefs of men, and especially to the Christian revelation. The attempt to make science, or specula- tions based on science, supersede religion is one of the prevalent fancies of our tim^ and pervades much of the popular literature of the day. That such attempts can succeed the author does not believe. They have hitherto given birth only to such abortions as Positiv- ism, Nihilism, and Pessimism. Thtfe is, however, a necessary relation and parallelism of all truths, physical and spiritual ; and it is useful to clear away the apparent antagonisms which proceed from partial and imperfect views, and to point out the hamfony !• 6 PREFACE. which exists between the natural and the spir- itual — ^between what man can learn from the physical creation, and what has been revealed to him by the Spirit of God. To do this with as much fairness as possible, and with due regard to the present state of knowledge and to the most important difficulties that are like- ly to be met with by honest inquirers, is the purpose of the following pages. It is proper to add that, in order to give com- pleteness to the discussion, it has been neces- sary to introduce, in some of the lectures, topics previously treated of by the author, in a similar manner, in publications bearing his name. J. W. D; April, i88a. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. GENERAL RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND AGNOSTIC SPECULATION g LECTURE II. THE SCIENCE OF LIFE AND MONISTIC EVOLUTION. 47 LECTURE IIL EA'OLUTION AS TESTED BY THE RECORDS OF THE ROCKS ,<^ LECTURE IV. THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN 137 LECTURE V. NATURE AS A MANIFESTATION OF MIND 175 LECTURE VI. SCIENCE AND REVELATION 317 r I. GENERAL RELATIONS OP Science and Agnostic Speculation. LECTURE I. GENERAL RELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND AGNOSTIC SPECULATION. THE infidelity and the contempt for sa- cred and spiritual things which pervade SO much of our modern literature are largely attributable to the prevalence of that form of philosophy which may be designated as Agnos- tic Evolution, and this in its turn is popularly regarded as a result of the pursuit of physical and natural science. The last conclusion is obviously only in part, if at all, correct, since it is well known that atheistic philosophical specu- lations were pursued, quite as boldly and ably as now, long before the rise of modem science. Still, it must be admitted that scientific discov- eries and principles have been largely employ- ed in our tune to give form and consistency to ideas otherwise very dim and shadowy, and tlius to rehabilitate for our benefit the philo- sophical dreams of antiquity in a more substan- tial shape. In this respect the natural sciences 11 13 FACTS AND FANCIES — or, rather, the facts and laws with which they are conversant — merely share the fate of other things. Nothing, -however indifferent in itself, can come into human hands without acquiring thereby an ethical, social, political, or even re- ligious, significance. An ounce of lead or a dynamite cartridge may be in itself a thing altogether destitute of any higher significance than that depending on physical properties; but let it pass into the power of man, and at once infinite possibilities of good and of evil cluster round it according to the use to which it may be applied. This depends on essential powers and attributes of man himself, of which he can no more be deprived than matter can be den!i Jed of its inherent properties ; an,d if the evils arising from misuse of these powers trouble us, we may at least console ourselves with the reflection that the possibility of such evils shows man to be a free agent, and not an automaton. All this is eminently applicable to science in its relation to agnostic speculations. The material of the physical and natural sciences consists of facts ascertained by the evidence of our senses, and for which we depend on the truthfulness of those senses and the stability ■MM IN MODERN SCIENCE. 1%. of external nature. Science proceeds, by com- parison of these facts and by inductive rea- soning, to arrange them under certain general expressions or laws. So far all is merely phys- ical, and need have i>o connection with our origin or destiny or relation to higher powers. But we ourselves are a part of the nature which we study ; and we cannot study it with- out more or less thinking our own thoughts into it. Thus we naturally begin to inquire as to origins and first causes, and as to the source of the energy and order which we per- ceive ; and to these questions the human mind demands some answer, either actual or specu- lativ(3. But here we enter into the domain of religiv-^us thought, or that which relates to a power or powers beyond and above nature. Whatever forms our thoughts on such subjects may take, these depend, not directly on the facts of science, but on the reaction of our minds on these facts. They are truly anthropomorphic, it has been well said that it is as idle to inquire as to the origin of such religious ideas as to inquire as to the origin of hunger and thirst Given the man, they must necessarily exist Now, whatever form these philosophical or religious ideas may take — whether that of Ag- H FACTS AND FANCIES nosticism or Pantheism or Theism — science, properly so called, has no right to be either praised or blamed. Its material may be used, but the structure is the work of the artificer himself. It is well, however, to carry with us the truth that this border-land between science and re- ligion is one which men cannot be prevented from entering ; but what they may find therein depends very much on themselves. Under wise guidance it may prove to us an Eden, the very gate of heaven, and we may acquire in it larger and more harmonious views of both the seen and the unseen, of science and of religion. But, on the other hand, it may be found to be a bat- tle-field or a bedlam, a place of confused cries and incoherent ravings, and strewn with the wrecks of human hopes and aspirations. There can be no question that the more un- pleasant aspect of the matter is somewhat prev- alent in our time, and that we should, if possible, understand the causes of the conflict and tl e confusion that prevail, and the way out of them. To do this it will be necessary first to notice some of the incidental or extraneous causes of difficulty and strife, and then to in- quire more in detail as to the actual bearing IN MODERN SCIENCE. n of the scientific knowledge of nature on Ag- nosticism. One fruitful cause of difficulty in the rela- tions of science and religion is to be found in the narrowness and incapacity of well-meaning Christians who unnecessarily bring the doc- trines of natural and revealed religion into conflict, by misunderstanding the one or the other, or by attaching obsolete scientific ideas to Holy Scripture, and identifying them with it in points where it is quite non-committal. Much mischief is also done by a prevalent habit of speaking of all, or nearly all, the votaries of science as if they were irreligious. A second cause is to be found in the extrav- agant speculations indulged in by the adherents of certain philosophical systems. Such specu- lations often far overpass the limits of actual scientific knowledge, and are yet paraded be- fore the ignorant as if they were legitimate re- sults of science, and so become irretrievably confounded with it in the popular mind. A third influence, more closely connected with science itself, arises from the rapidity of the progress of discovery and of the practical applications of scientific facts and principles. This has unsettled the minds of men, and has |6 FACTS AND FANCIES given them the idea that nothing is beyond their reach. There is thus a vague notion that science has overcome so many difficulties, and explained so many mysteries, that it may ulti- mately satisfy all the wants of man and leave no scope for religious belief. Those who know the limitations of our knowledge of material things may not share this delusion; but there is reason to fear that many, even of scientific men, are carried away by it, and it widely af- fects the minds of general readers. Again, science has in the course of its grow^th become divided into a great number of sm^^^ specialties, each pursued ardently by its own votaries. This is beneficial in one respect ; for much more can be gained by men digging down- Ward, each on his own vein of valuable ore, than by all merely scraping the surface. But the specialist, as he descends fathom after fath- om into his mine, however rich and rare the gems and metals he may discover, becomes more and more removed from the ordinary ways of men, and more and more regardless of the products of other veins as valuable as his own. The specialist, however profound he may become in the knowledge of his own lim- ited subject, is on that very account less fitted m MODERN SCIENCE. 17 to guide his fellow-men in the pursuit of gen- eral truth. When he ventures to die bounda- ries between his own and other domains of truth, or when he conceives the idea that his own little mine is the sole deposit of all that requires to be known, he sometimes makes grave mistakes; and these pass current for a time as the dicta of high scientific authority. Lasdy. the lowest influence of all is that which sometimes regulates what may be termed the commercial side of science. Here the demand is very apt to control the supply. New facts and legitimate conclusions cannot be produced with sufficient rapidity to satisfy the popular craving, or they are not sufficiendy exciting to compete with other attractions. Science has then to enter the domain of imagination, and the last new generalization — showy and spe- cious, but perhaps baseless as the plot of the last new novel — brings grist to the mill of the " scientist " and his publisher. Only one permanent and final remedy is pos- sible for these evils, and that is a higher moral tone and more thorough scientific education on the part of the general public. Until this can be secured, true science is sure to be surrounded with a mental haze of vague hypotheses clothed |6 FACTS AND FANCIES in ill-defined langriage. and which is mistaken by the multitude for science ivi?lf. Yet true science should not be held responsible for this, except in so far as its material is used to constitute the substance of the pseudo-gnosis which surrounds it. Science is in this relation the honest house- holder whose goods may be taken by thieves and applied to bad uses, or the careful amasser of wealth which may be dissipated by spend- thrifts. It may be said that if these statements are true, the ordinary reader is helpless. How can he separate the true from the false ? Must he resign himself to the condition of one who either believes on mere authority or refuses to believe anything ? or must he adopt the attitude of the Pyrrhonist who thinks that anything may be either true or false ? But it is true, neverthe- less, that common sense may suffice to deliver us from much of the pseudo-science of our time, and to enable us to understand how lit- tle reason there is for the conflicts promoted by mere speculation between science and other departments of legitimate thought and inquiry. In illustrating this, we may in the present lecture consider that form of sceptical philos- ophy which in our time is the most prevalent, m MODERN SCIENCE. 19 and which has the mDst specious air cf de- pendence on science. This is the system of Agnosticism combined with evolution of which Mr. Herbert Spencer is the nost conspicuous advocate in the English-speaking world. This philosophy deals with two subjects — tiie cause or origin of the universe and of things therein, and the method of the progress of all from the beginning until now. Spencer sees nothing in the first of these but mere force or energy, nothing in the second but a spontaneous evo- lution. All beyond these is not only unknown, but unknowable. The theological and philo- sophical shortcomings of this doctrine have been laid bare by a multitude of critics, and I do not propose to consider it in these relations so much as in relation to science, which has much to say with respect to both force and evolution. An agnostic is literally one who does not know; and, were the word used in its true and litisral sense, Agnosticism would of neces- sity be opposed to science, since science is knowledge and quite incompatible with the want of it. But the modern agnostic does not pretend to be ignorant of the facts and principles of science. What he professes not to know is the existence of any power above ao FACTS AND FANCIES and beyond material nahire. He goes a little farther, however, than mere abs^ace of know- ledge. He holds that of God nothing can be known ; or he may put it a little more strongly, in the phrase of his peculiar philosophy, by say- ing that the existence of a God or of creation by divine power is " unthinkable." It is in this that he differs from the old-fashioned and now extinct atheist, who bluntly denied the exist- ence of a God. The modern agnostic assumes an attitude of greater humility and disclaims the actual denial of God. Yet he fJ.*actically goes farther, in asserting the impossibility of knowing the existence of a Divine Being ; and in taking this farther step Agnosticism does more to degrade the human reason and to cut it off from all communion with anything beyond mere matter and force, than does any other form of philosophy, ancient or modern. Yet in this Agnosticism there is in one point an approximation to truth. If there is a God, he cannot be known directly and fully, and his plans and procedure must always be more or less incomprehensible. The writer of the book of Job puts this as plainly as any modern agnostic in the passage beginning " Canst thou by searching find out God ?" — ^literally, " Canst iM m MODhfiN C^IENCE. 21 thou sound the depths of God?" — and a still higher authority informs us that " no mm hath seen God" — that is, known him as we know material things. In short, absolutely and essen- tially God is incomprehensible ; but this is no new discovery, and the mistake of the agnostic lies in failing to perceive that the same diffi- culty stands in the way of our perfectiy know- ing anything whatever. We say that we know things when we mean that we know them in their properties, relations, or effects. In this sense the knowledge of God is perfecdy pos- sible. It is impossible only in that other sense of the word "know" — if it can have such a sense — in which we are required to know things in their absolute essence and thorough- ly. Thus the term "agnostic" contains an in- itial fallacy in itself; and this philosophy, like many others, rests, in the first instance, on a mere jugglery of words. The real question is, "Is there a God who manifests himself to us mediately and practically ?" and this is a ques- tion which we cannot afford to set aside by a mere play on the meanings of the verb "to know." If, however, any man takes this position and professes to be incapable of knowing whether 32 FACTS AND FANCIES or not there is any power above and behind material things, it will be necessary to begin with the very elements of knowledge, and to inquire if there is anything whatever that he really knows and believes. Let us ask him if he can subscribe to the simple creed expressed in the words " I am, I feel, I think." Should he deny these proposi- tions, then there is no basis left on which to argue. Should he admit this much of belief, he has abandoned somewhat of his agnostic position ; for it would be easy to show that in even uttering the pronoun "I" he has com- mitted himself to the belief in the unknowable. What is the ego which he admits? Is it the material organism or any one of its organs or parts ? or is it something distinct, of which the organism is merely the garment, or outward manifestation? or is the organism itself any- thing more than a bundle of appearances par- tially known and scarcely understood by that which calls itself " I" ? Who knows ? And if our own personality is thus inscrutable, if we can conceive of it neither as identical with the whole or any part of the organism nor as ex- isting independently of the organism, we should begin our Agnosticism here, and decline to utter IN MODERN SCIENCE. n the pronoun " I " as implying what we cannot know. Still, as a matter of faith, we must hold fast to the proposition "I exist" as the only standpoint for science, philosophy, or common life. If we are asked for evidence of this faith, we can appeal only to our consciousness of effects which imply the existence of the ego, which we thus have to admit or suppose before we can begin to prove even its existence. This fact of the mystery of our own exist- ence is full of material for thought. It is in itself startiing — even appalling. We feel that it is a solemn, a dreadful, thing to exist, and to exist in that limitless space and that eternal time which we can no more understand than we can our own constitution, though our belief in their existence is inevitable. Nor can we diveet our- selves of anxious thoughts as to the source, tendencies, and end of our own being. Here, in short, we already reach the threshold of that dread unknown future and its possibilities, the realization of which by hope, fear, and imagina- tion constitutes, perhaps, our first introduction to the unseen world as distinguished from the present world of sense. The. agnostic may smile if he pleases at religion as a puerile fancy, but he knows, like other men, that the r 14 FACTS AND FANCIES mere consciousness of existence necessarily links itself with a future — nay, unending — exist- ence, and that any being with this conscious- ness of futurity must have at least a religion of hope and fear. In this we find an intelli- gible reason for the universality of religious ideas in relation to a future life. Even where this leads to beliefs that may be called super- stitious, it is more reasonable than Agnosticism ; for it is surely natural that a being inscrutable by himself should be led to believe in the ex- istence of other things equally inscrutable, but apparendy related to himself. But the thinking " I " dwells in the midst of what we term external objects. In a certain sense it treats the parts of its own bodily or- ganism as if they were things external to it, speaking of " my hand," " my head," as if they were its property. But there are things prac- tically infinite beyond the organism itself. We call them objects or things, but they are only appearances ; and we know only their relations to ourselves and to each other. Their essence, if xhzj have any, is inscrutable. We say that the appearances indicate matter and energy, but what these are essentially we know not We reduce matter to atoms, but it is impossible IN MODERN SCIENCE. 25 for us to have any conception of an atom or of the supposed ether, whether itself in some sense atomic or not, including such atoms. Our attempts to form rational conceptions of atoms resolve themselves into complex conjec- tures as to vortices of ethers and the like, of which no one pretends to have any distinct mental picture ; yet on this basis of the incom- prehensible rests all our physical science, the first truths in which are really matters of pure faith in the existence of that which we cannot understand. Yet all men would scoff at the agnostic who on this account should express unbelief in physical science. Let us observe here, further, that since the mysterious and inscrutable "I" is surrounded with an equally mysterious and inscrutable universe, and since the ego and the external world are linked together by indissoluble rela- tions, we are introduced to certain alternatives as to origins. Either the universe or "nature" is a mere phantom conjured up by the ego, or the ego is a product of the universe, or both are the result of some equally mysterious pow- er beyond us and the material world. Neither of these suppositions is absurd or unthinkable ; and, whichever of them we adopt, we are again 8 ' ! 26 FACTS AND FANCIES introduced to what may be termed a religion as well as a philosophy. On one view, man be- comes a god to himself ; on another, nature be- comes his god ; on the third, a Supreme Being, the Creator of both, All three religions exist in the world in a vast variety of forms, and it is questionable if any human being does not more or less give credence to one or the other. Scientific men, even when they think proper to call themselves idealists, must reject the first of the above alternatives, since they cannot doubt the objective existence of external na- ture, and they know that its existence dates from a time anterior to our possible existence as human beings. They may hold to either of the others ; and, practically, the minds of stu- dents of science are divided between the idea of a spontaneous evolution of all things from self-existent matter and force, and that of the creation of all by a self-existent, omnipotent, and all-wise Creator. From certain points of view, it may be of no consequence whether a scien- tific man holds one or other of these views. Self-existent force or power, capable of spon- taneous inception of change, and of orderly and infallible development according to laws of its own imposition or enactment, which is IN MODERN SCIENCE. n demanded on the one hypothesis, scarcely differs from the conception of an intelligent Creator demanded on the other, while it is, to say the least, equally incomprehensible. It is, besides, objectionable to science, on the ground that it requires us to assume properties in matter and energy quite at variance with the results of experience. The remarkable alter- native presented by Tyndall in his Belfast Ad- dress well expresses this : " Either let us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let us radically change our notions of matter." The expres- sion "creative acts" here is a loose and not very accurate one for the operation of creative power. The radical change in " our notions of matter" involves an entire reversal of all that science knows of its essential properties. This being understood, the sentence is a fair expres- sion oi the dilemma in which the agnostic and the materialist find themselves. Between the two hypotheses above stated there is, howe' er, one material and vital dif- ference, depending on the nature of man him- self. The universe does not consist merely of insensate matter and force and automatic vital- ity ; there happens to be in it the rational and 28 FACTS AND FANCIES consciously responsible being man. To attrib- ute to him an origin from mere matter and force is not merely to attach to them a fictitious power and significance : it is also to reject the rational probability that the original cause must be at least equal to the effects produced, and to deprive ourselves of all communion and sympa- thy with nature. Further, wherever the " pres- ence and potency" of human reason resides, there seems no reason to prevent our search- ing for and finding it in the only way in which we can know anything, in its properties *and effects. The dogma of Agnosticism, it is true, refuses to permit this search after God, but it does so with as little reason as any of those self-constituted authorities that demand belief without questioning. Nay, it has the offensive peculiarity that in the very terms in which it issues its prohibition it contradicts itself. The same oracle which asserts that " the power which the universe manifests to us is wholly inscrutable " affirms also that " we must inevita- bly commit ourselves to the hypothesis of a first cause." Thus we are told that a power which is "manifest" is also "inscrutable," and that we must "commit ourselves" to a belief in a " first cause " which on the hypothesis can- feilb IN MODERN SCIENCE. 29 not be known to exist. This may be philosophy of a certain sort, but it certainly should not claim kinship with science. Perhaps it may be well here to place in com- parison with each other the doctrine of the agnostic philosophy as expounded by Herbert Spencer, and that of Paul of Tarsus — an older, but certainly a not less acute, thinker — and we may refer to their utterances respecting the origin of the universe. Spencer says : " The verbally intelligent sup- positions 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 agen- cy." On these it may be remarked that the second is scarcely even "verbally intelligent;" it seems to be a contradiction in terms. The third admits of an important modification, which was manifest to Spinosa if not to Spencer — namely, that the Creator may — nay, must — be not merely " external," but within the universe as well. If there is a God, he must be in the universe as a pervading power, and in every part of it, and must not be shut out from his own work. This mistaken conception of God as building himself out of his own universe and acting on it by external force is both irrational »• 30 FACTS AND FANCIES and unscientific, being, for example, quite at variance with the analogy of force and life. Rightly understood, therefore, Spencer's alter- natives resolve themselves into two — either the universe is self-existent, or it is the work of a self-existent Creator pervading all things with his power. Of these, Spencer prefers the first. Paul, on the other hand, referring to the mental condition of the civilized heathens of his time, affirms that rationally they could believe only in the hypothesis of creation. He says of God : " His invisible things, even his eternal power and divinity, can be perceived (by the reason), being understood by the things that are made." Let us look at these rival proposi- tions. Is the universe self-existent, or does it show evidence of creative power and divinity ? The doctrine that the universe is self-existent may be understood in different ways. It may mean either an endless succession of such changes as we now see in progress, or an eternity of successive cycles proceeding through the course of geological ages and ever return- ing into themselves. The first is directly con- trary to known facts in the geological history of the earth, and cannot be maintained by any one. The second would imply that the known IN MODERN SCIENCE. 31 geological history is merely a part of one great cycle of an endless series, and of which an in- finite number have already passed away. It is evident that this infinite succession of cycles is quite as incomprehensible as any other infinite succession of things or events. But, waiving this objection, we have the alternative either that all the successive cycles are exactly alike — which could not be, in accordance with evolu- tion, nor with the analogy of other natural cycles— or there must have been a progression in the successive cycles. But this last supposi- tion would involve an uncaused beginning some- where, and this of such a character as to deter- mine all the successive cycles and their progress ; which would again be contrary to the hypo- thesis of self-existence. It is useless, however, to follow such questions farther, since it is evi- dent that this nypothesis accounts for nothing and would involve us in absolute confusion. Let us turn now to Paul's statement. This has the merit, in the first place, of expressing a known fact — namely, that men do infer power and divinity from nature. But is this a mere supersti».ion, or have they reason for it? If the universe be considered as a vast machine exceeding all our powers of calculation in its 32 FACTS AND FANCIES magnitude and complexity, it seems in the last degree absurd to deny that it presents evidence of "power." Dr. Carpenter, in a recent lecture, illustrates the position of the agnostic in this respect by supposing him to examine the ma- chinery of a great mill, and, having found that this is all set in motion by a huge iron shaft proceeding from a brick wall, to suppose that this shaft is self-acting, and that there is no cause of motion beyond. But when we con- sider the variety and the intricacy of nature, the unity and the harmony of its parts, and the adaptation of these to a'.i incalculable number of uses, we find something more than power. There is a fitting together of things in a man- ner not only above our imitation, but above our comprehension. To refer this to mere chance or to innate tendencies or potencies of things we feel to be but an empty form of words; consequently, we are forced to admit super- human contrivance in nature, or what Paul terms "divinity." Further, since the history of the universe goes back farther than we can calculate, and as we can know nothing beyond the First Cause, we infer that the Power and Divinity which we have ascertained in nature must be "eternal." Again, since the creative IN MODERN SCIENCE. 13 aul ory can rond and ture itive power tnust at some point in past time have spontaneously begun to act, we regard it as a "living" power, which is the term elsewhere used by Paul in expressing the idea of "per- sonality" as held by theologians. Lastly, if everything that we know thus testifies to an eternal power and divinity, to maintain that we can know nothing of this First Cause must be simply nonsense, unless we are content to fall back on absolute nihilism, and hold that we know nothing whatever, either relatively or absolutely ; but in this case not on j is science dethroned, but reason herself is driven from her seat, and there is nothing left for us to dis- cuss. Paul's idea is thus perfectly clear and consistent, and it is not difficult to see that common sense must accept this doctrine of an Eternal Living Power and Divinity in prefer- ence to the hypothesis of Spencer. So far we have considered the general bear- ing of agnostic and theistic theories on our relations to nature ; but if we are to test these theories, fully by scientific considerations, we must look a little more into details. The exist- ences experimentally or inductively known to science may be grouped under three heads — matter, energy, and law; and each of these r 34 FACTS AND FANCIES j has an independent testimony to give with ref- erence to its origin and its connection with a higher creative power. Matter, it is true, occupies a somewhat equiv- ocal place in the agnostic philosophy. Accord- ing to Spencer, it is " built up or extracted from experiences of force," and it is only by force that it " demonstrates itself to us as existing.'' This is true; but that which "demonstrates itself to us as existing " must exist, in whatever way the demonstration is made, and Spencer does not, in consequence of the lack of direct evidence, extend his Agnosticism to matter, though he mis^ht quite consistently do so. In any case, science postulates the existence of matter. Further, science is obliged to conceive of matter as composed of atoms, and of atoms of different kinds ; for atoms differ in weight and in chemical properties, and these differ- ences are to us ultimate, for they cannot be changed. Thus science and practical life are tied down to certain predetermined properties of matter. We may, it is true, in future be able to reduce the number of kinds of matter, by finding that some bodies believed to be sim- ple are really compound; but this does not affect the question in hand. As to the origin IN MODERN SCIENCE. 35 of the diverse properties of atoms, only two suppositions seem possible : either in some past period they agreed to differ and to divide them- selves into different kinds suitable in quantity and properties to make up the universe, or else mattQ.r in its various kinds has been skil- fully manufactured by a creative power. But there is a scientific way in which matter may be resolved into force. An iron knife passed through a powerful magnetic current is felt to be resisted, as if passing through a solid substance, and this resistance is produced mere- ly by magnetic attraction. Why may it not be so with resistance in general ? To give effect to such a supposition, and to reconcile it with the facts of chemistry and of physics, it is ne- cessary to suppose that the atoms of matter are merely minute vortices or whirlwinds set up in an ethereal medium, which in itself, and when at rest, does not possess any of the properties of matter. That such an ethereal medium exists we have reason to believe from the propagation of light and heat through space, though we know little, except negatively, of its properties. Admitting, however, its existence, the seidng up in it of the various kinds of vortices constitut- ing the atoms of different kinds of matter is 3fi FACTS AND FANCIES just as much in need of a creative power to initiate it as the creation of matter out of noth- ing would be. Besides this, we now have to account for the existence of the ether itself; and here we have the disadvantage that this substance possesses none of the properties of ordinary matter except mere extension ; that, in so far as we know, it is continuous, and not molecular; and that, while of the most incon- ceivable tenuity, it transmits vibrations in a man- ner similar to that of a body of the extremest solidity. It would seem, also, to be indefinite in extent and beyond the control of the ordinary natural forces. In short, ether is as incompre- hensible as Deity ; and if we suppose it to have 'nstituted spontaneously the different kinds of matter, we have really constituted it a god, which is what, in a loose way, some ancient mytholo- gies actually did. We may, however, truly say that this modern scientific conception of the practically infinite and all-pervading ether, the primary seat of force, brings us nearer than ever before to some realization of the Spirit- ual Creator. But to ether both science and Agnosticism must superadd energy — the entirely immaterial something which moves ether itself. The rather IN MODERN SCIENCE. 37 crude scientific notion that certain forces are " modes of motion " perhaps blinds us some- what to the mystery of energy. Even if we knew no other form of force than heat, which moves masses of mat t or atoms, it would be in many respects an inscrutable thing. But as traversing the subtle ether in such forms as radiant heat, light, chemical force, and electricity, energy becomes still more mysterious. Perhaps it is even more so in what seems to be one of its primitive forms — that of gravitation, where it connects distant bodies apparently without any intervening medium. Facts of this kind appear to bring us still nearer to the concep- tion of an all-pervading immaterial creative power. But perhaps what may be termed the deter- minations of force exhibit this still more clearly, as a very familiar instance may show. Our sun — one of a countless number of similar suns — is to us the great centre of light and heat, sustaining all processes, whether merely physical or vital, on our planet. It was a grand conception of certain old religions to make the sun the emblem of God, though sun-worship was a substitution of the creature for the Cre- ator, and would have been dispelled by modern FACTS AND FANCIES discovery. But our sun is not merely one of countless suns, some of them of greater magnitude, but it is only a temporary de- pository of a limited quantity of energy, ever dissipating itself into space, calculable as to its amount and duration, and known to depend for its existence on gravitative force. We may imagine the beginning of such a luminary in the collision of great masses of matter rushing together under the influence of gravitation, and causing by their impact a conflagration capable of enduring for millions of years. Yet our im- agining such a rude process for the kindling of the sun will go a very little way in account- ing for all the mechanism of the solar system and things therein. Further, it raises new questions as to the original condition of mat- ter. If it was originally in one mass, whence came the incalculable power by which it was rent into innumerable suns and systems? If it was once universally diffused in boundless space, when and how was the force of gravity turned on, and what determined its action in such a way as to construct the existing uni- verse? This is only one of the simplest and baldest possible views of the intricate deter- minations of force displayed in the universe, IN MODERN SCIENCE. S9 yet it may suffice to indicate the necessity of a living and determining First Cause. The fact that all the manifestations of force are regulated by law by no means favors the agnostic view. The laws of nature are merely mental generalizations of our own, and, so far as they go, show a remarkable harmony be- tween our mental nature and that manifested in the universe. They are not themselves pow- ers capable of producing effects, but merely express what we can ascertain of uniformity of action in nature. The law of gravitation, for example, gives no clew to the origin of that force, but merely expresses its constant mode of action, in whatever way that may have been determined at first. Nor are natural laws de- crees of necessity. They might have been otherwise — nay, many of them may be other- wise in parts of the universe inaccessible to us, or they may change in process of time ; for the period over which our knowledge extends may be to the plans of the Creator like the lifetime of some minute insect which might imagine human arrangements of no great permanence to be of eternal duration. Unless the laws of nature were constant, in so far as our experience extends, we could have 40 FACTS AND FANCIES no certain basis either for science or for practi- cal life. All would be capricious and uncertain, and we could calculate on nothing. Law thus adapts the universe to be the residence of ra- tional beings, and nothing else could. Viewed in this way, we see that natural laws must be, in their relation to a Creator, voluntary limitations of his power in certain directions for the bene- fit of his creatures. To secure this end, nature must be a perfect machine, all the parts of which are adjusted for permanent and harmonious action. It may perhaps rather be compared to a vast series of machines, each running in- dependently like the trains on a railway, but all connected and regulated by an invisible guid- ance which determines the time and the dis- tance of each, and the manner in which the less urgent and less intportant shall give place to others. Even this does not express the whole truth ; for the harmony of nature must be con- nected with constant change and progress to- ward higher perfection. Does this conception of natural law give us any warrant for the idea that the universe is a product of chance? Is it not the highest realization of all that we cp.n conceive of the plans of superhuman intelli- gence? IN MODERN SCIENCE. 41 The stLpid notion — still lingering in certain quarters — that when anything has been referred to a natural law or to a secondary cause under law, God may be dispensed with in relation to that thing, is merely a survival of the supersti- tion that divine action must be of the nature of a capricious interference. The true theistic conception of law is that already stated, of a voluntary limitation of divine power in the in- terest of a material cosmos and its intelligent inhabitants. Nor is the permanence of law dependent on necessity or on mere mechanical routine, but on the unchanging will of the Leg- islator ; while the countless varieties and vicis- situdes of nature depend, not on caprice or on accidental interference, but on the interactions and adjustments of laws of different grades, and so numerous and varied in their scope and ap- plication and in the combinations of wljich they are capable that it is often impossible for finite minds to calculate their results. If, now, in conclusion, we are asked to sum up the hypotheses as to the origin of natural laws and of the properties and determinations of matter and force, we may do this under the following heads : I. Absolute creation by the will of a Supreme 4» 42 FACTS AND FANCIES Intelligence, self-existent and omnipotent. This may be the ultimate fact lying behind all mate- rials, forces, and laws known to science. 2. Mediate creation, or the making of new complex products with material already created and under laws previously existing. This is applicable not so much to the primary origin of things as to their subsequent determinations and modifications. 3. Both of the above may be included under the expression "creation by law," implying the institution from the first of fixed laws or modes of action not to be subsequently deviated from. 4. Theistic evolution, or the gradual devel- opment of the divine plans by the apparently spontaneous interaction of things made. This is universally admitted to occur in the minor modifications of created things, thougji of course it can have no place as a mode of explaining actual origins, and it must be limited within the laws of nature established by the Creator. Practically, it might be dijfiftcult to make any sharp distinctions between such evolution and mediate creation. 5. Agnostic and monistic evolution, which hold the spontaneous origination and differen- tiation of things out of primitive matter and IN MODERN SCIENCE. 43 force, self-existent or fortuitous. The monistic form of this hypothesis assumes one primary substance or existence potentially embracing all subsequent developments. These theories are, of course, not all antag- onistic to one another. They resolve them- selves into two groups, a theistic and an athe- istic. The former includes the first four ; the latter, the fifth. Any one who believes in God may suppose a primary creation of matter and energy, a subsequent moulding and fashioning of them mediately and under natural law, and also a gradual evolution of many new things by the interaction of things previously made This complex idea of the origin of things seemS; indeed, to be the rational outcome of Theism. It is also the idea which underlies the old record in the book of Genesis, where we have first an absolute creation, and then a series of " mak- ings " and " placings," and of things " bringing ►rth " other things, in the course of the crea- tive periods. On the other hand, Agnosticism postulates primary force or forces self-existent and includ- ing potentially all that is subsequently evolved from them. The only way in which it approxi- mates to theism is in its extreme monistic form, 44 FACTS AND FANCIES where the one force or power supposed to un- derlie all existence is a sort of God shorn of personality, will, and reason. * The actual relations of these opposing theo- ries to science cannot be better explained than by a reference to the words of a leading mon- ist, whose views we shall have to notice in the next lecture. " If," says Haeckel, " anybody feels the necessity of representing the origin of mat- ter as the work of a supernatural creative force independent of matter itself, I would remind him that the idea of an immaterial force creat- ing matter in the first instance is an article of faith which has nothing to do with science. Where faith begins, science ends." Precisely so, if only we invert the last sen- tence and say, " Where science ends, faith be- gins." It is only by faith that we know of any force, or even of the atoms of matter them- selves, and in like manner it is " by faith we know that the creative ages have been consti- tuted by the word of God."* The only differ- ence is that the monist has faith in the potency of nothing to produce something, or of some- thing material to exist for ever and to acquire at some point of time the power spontaneously * Epistle to Hebrews, xi. 3. Nil 2N MODERN SCIENCE. 45 to enter on the process of development ; while the theist has faith in a primary intelligent Will as the Author of all things. The latter has this to confirm his faith — that it accords with what we know of the inertia of matter, of the con- stancy of forces, and of the permanence of natural law, and is in harmony with the powers of the one free energy we know — that of the human will. ItL II. THE SCIENCE OP Life and Monistic Evolution. LECTURE II. THE SCIENCE OF LIFE AND MONISTIC EVOLUTION. IN the last lecture we have noticed the gen- eral relations of agnostic speculations with natural science, and have exposed their failure to account for natural facts and laws. We may now inquire into their mode of dealing with the phenomena of life, with regard to the supposed spontaneous evolution of which, and its development up to man himself, so many confident geheralizations have been put forth by the agnostic and nionistic philosophy. In the earlier history of modern natural sci- ence, the tendency was to take nature as we find it, without speculation as to the origin of living things, which men were content to regard as direct products of creative power. But at a very early period — and especially after the revelations of geology had disclosed a suc- cession of ascending dynasties of life — such speculations, which, independently of science, had commended themselves to the poetical and 49 50 FACTS AND FANCIES philosophical minds of antiquity, were revived. In France more particularly, the theories of Buf- fon, Lamarck, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire opened up these exciting themes, and they might even then have attained to the importance they have since acquired but for the great and judicial intellect of Cuvier, which perceived their futil- ity and guided the researches of naturalists into other and more profitable fields. The next stimulus to such hypotheses was given by the progress of physiology, and especially by researches into the embryonic development of animals and plants. Here it was seen that there are homologies and likenesses of plan linking organisms with each other, and that in the course of their development the more com- plex creatures pass through stages correspond- ing to the adult condition of lower forms. The questions raised by the geographical distribu- tion of animals, as ascertained by the numerous expeditions and scientific travellers of modern times, tended in the same direction. The way was thus prepared for the broad generalizations of Darwin, who, seizing on the idea of artificial selection as practised by breeders of animals and plants, and imagining that something sim- ilar takes place in the natural struggle for IN MODERN SCIENCE. 51 existence, saw in this a plausible solution for the question of the progress and the variety of organized beings. The original Darwinian theory was soon found to be altogether insufficient to account for the observed facts, because of the tendency of the bare struggle for existence to produce deg- radation rather than elevation ; because of the testimony of geology to the fact that introduction of new species takes place in times of expan- sion rather than of struggle ; because of the manifest tendency of the breeds produced by artificial selection to become infertile and die out in proportion to their deviation from the original types ; and because of the difficulty of preventing such breeds from reverting to the original forms, which seem in all cases to be perfectly equilibrated in their own parts and adapted to external nature, so that varieties tend," as if by gravitative law, to fall back into the original moulds. A great variety of other considerations — as those of sexual selec- tion, reproductive ^acceleration and retardation, periods of more and less rapid evolution, innate tendency to vary at particular times and in par- ticular circumstances — have been imported into the original doctrine. Thus the original Dar- 52 FACTS AND FANCIES winism is a thing of the past, even in the mind of its great author, though it has proved the fruitful parent of a manifold progeny of allied ideas which continue to bear its name. In this respect Darwinism is itself amenable to the law of evolution, and has been continually changing its form under the influence of the con- troversial struggles which have risen around it. Darwinism was not necessarily atheistic or agnostic. Its author was content to assume a few living beings or independent forms to begin with, and did not propose to obtain them by any spontaneous action of dead matter, nor to ac- count for the primary origin of life, still less of all material things. In this he was sufficiently humble and honest; but the logical weakness of his position was at once apparent. If crea- tion was needed to give a few initial types, it might have produced others also. The followers of Darwin, therefore, more especially in Ger- many, at once pushed the doctrine back into Agnosticism and Monism, giving to it a greater logical consistency, bu^ bringing it into violent conflict with theism and with common sense. Darwin himself early perceived that his doc- trine, if true, must apply to man — in so far, at least, as his bodily frame is concerned. Man is IN MODERN SCIENCE. 53 in this an animal, and closely related to other animals. To have claimed for him a distinct origin would have altogether discredited the theory, though it might be admitted that, man having appeared, his free volition and his moral and social instincts would at once profoundly modify the course of the evolution. On the other hand, the gulf which separates the reason and the conscience of man from instinct and the animal intelligence of lower creatures op- posed an almost impassable barrier to the union of man with lower animals ; and the attempt to bridge this gulf threatened to bring the theory into a deadly struggle with the moral, social, and religious instincts of mankind. In face of this difficulty, Darwin and most of his followers adopted the more daring course of maintaining the evolution of the whole man from lower forms, and thereby entered into a warfare, which still rages, with psychology, ethics, phi- lology, and theology. It is easy for shallow evolutionists unaware of the tendencies of their doctrine, or for lat- itudinarian churchmen careless as to the main- tenance of truth if only outward forms are pre- served and comprehension secured, to overlook or make light of these antagonisms, but science 6* 54 FACTS AND FANCIES and common sense alike demand a severe ad- herence to truth. Ji: becomes, therefore, very important to ascercain to what extent we are justified in adopting the agnostic evolution in its relation to life and man on scientific grounds. Perhaps this may best be done by reviewing the argument of Haeckel in his work on the evolu- tion of man — one of the ablest, and at the same time most thorough, expositions of monistic ev- olution as applied to lower animals and to men. Ernst 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 The Evolution of Man 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. He is not merely an evolutionist, but what he terms a "monist," and the monisH'^ philosophy, as de- fined by him, includes certain negations and certain positive principles of a most compre- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 55 hensive and important character. It implies the denial of all spiritual or immaterial exist- ence. Man is to the monist merely a physio- logical machine, and nature is only a greater self-existing and spontan'^ously-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 causelessness for the universe and all its phenomena. Again, the monistic doctrine necessarily implies that man, the animal, the plant, and the mineral aie only successive stages of the evolution of the same primordial matter, constituting thus a connected chain of being, all the parts of which sprang spontaneously from each other. Lastly, as the admixture of prim- itive 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 approxima- tion 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 la- 56 FACTS AND FaNQIES merited physical philosopher — that he had found no atheistic philosophy which had not a God somewhere. Haeckel's own statement of this aspect of his philosophy is somewhat interesting. He says : " Thf* opponents of the doctrine of evo- lution are very fond of branding the monistic philosophy grounded upon it as * materialism ' by com^diYmg philosophical materialism with the wholly different and censurable moral material- ism. Strictly, however, our ' monism ' might as accurately or as inaccurately be called spiritual- ism as materialism. The real materialistic phi- losophy asserts that the phenomena of vital motion, like all other phenomena of motion, are effects or products of matter. The other opposite extreme, spiritualistic philosophy, asserts, on the contrary, that matter is the product of motive force, and that all material forms are produced by free forces entirely inde- pendent of the matter itself. Thus, according to the materialistic conception of the universe, matter precedes motion or active force ; accord- ing to the spiritualistic conception of the uni- verse, on the contrary, active force or motion precedes matter. Both views are dualistic, and we hold them both to be equally false. A con- IN MODERN SCIENCE. S7 trast to both is presented in the monistic philos- ophy, which can as little believe in force without matter as in matter without force." It is evident that if Haeckel 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 with- out force and force inconceivable without mat- ter. But the question arises. What is the monistic power beyond these — the " power be- hind nature" ? and as to the true nature of this the Jena philosopher gives us only vague gen- eralities, 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 immediately after the above paragraph he informs us that " the * spirit ' and the * mind ' of man are 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-element of the brain." In a note appended to the passage, he says that monism " conceives nature as one whole, and nowhere recognizes any but 58 FACTS AND FANCIES mechanical 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 Haeckel's method, for he requires us, before we can proceed a smgle step in the evolution of man, to assume many things which he cannot prove. What evidence is there, for example, of the possibility of the development of the rational and moral nature of man from the intelligence and the instinct of the lower animals, or of the necessary dependence of the phenomena of mind on the structure of brain-cells? The evidence, so far as it goes, seems to tend the other way. What proof is there of the spontaneous evolu- tion of livmg forms from inorganic matter? Experiment so far negatives the possibility of this. Even if we give Haeckel, to begin with, a single living cell or granule of pro- toplasm, we know that this protoplasm must have been produced by the agency of a liv- ing vegetable cell previously existing ; and we IN MODERN SCIENCE. 59 have no proof that it can be produced in any other way. Again, what particle of evi- dence have we that the atoms or the energy of an incandescent fire-mist have in them any- thing of the power or potency of Hfe ? 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 philo- sophic creed, and in this respect weak as other men whom he affects to despise. We may here place over against his authority that of another eminent physiologist, of more philosophic mind. Dr. Carpenter, who has re- cently said : "As a physiologist I must fully rec- ognize the fact that the physical force exerted by the body of man is not generated de novo by his will, but is derived directly from the oxida- tion of the constituents of his food. But, hold- ing it as equally certain — because the fact is capable of verification by every one as often as he chooses to make tht experiment — that in the performance of every volitional movement physical force is put in action, directed, and controlled by the individual personality or egOy I deem it as absurd and illogical to affirm that 6o FACTS AND FANCIES there is no place for a God in nature, originat- ing, 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 grcand, as above 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 di- verse from those ordinarily familiar to logicians and are extensively used by evolutionists, de- serve 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 dis- appearing things ;" and this is the best defini- tion that occurs to me of one method of rea- soning 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 therefore assume," "we may readily sup- pose," "this afterward assumes or becomes," "we may confidently assert," "this developed directly," and the like, which in his usage are equivalent to the '^Presto /" of the conjurer, and IN MODERN SCIENCE. 61 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 constant- ly employs this kind of sleight-of-hand in the most adroit manner. He is perhaps describing to us the embryo of a fish or an amphibian, and, as we become interested in the curious details, it is suddenly by some clever phrase trans- formed into a reptile or a bird ; and yet, with- out rubbing our eyes and reflecting on the dif- ferences and difficulties which he neglects to state, we can scarcely doubt that it is the same animal, after all The little lancelet, or Amphioxus (see Fig. i), 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 connec- tion between our '* fish-ancestors " and the in- vertebrate animals. So important it: it in this respect that our author waxes eloquent in ex- horting us to regard it " witii special venera- tion " as representing our " eariiest Silurian vertebrate ancestors," 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 de- (W 62 FACTS AND FANCIES. scribing this animal he takes pains to inform us that it is more different from an ordinary fish than £. 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 interme- diate in some respects between fishes and mol- liisks, 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 — mollusks of low grade, or, as Haeckel prefers to regard them, allied to worms — are most re- mote in almost every respect from the verte- brates. But in the young state of some of these creatures, and in the adult condition of one animal referred to this group {Appendic- ularia), they have a sort of swimming tail, which is stiffened by a rod of cartilage to en- able it to perform its function, and which for a time gives them a certain resemblance to the lancelet or to embryo fishes ; and this usually temporary contrivance — curious as an imitative adaptation, but of no other significance — be- comes, by the art of " appearing and disappear- Fig. I. The Lancelet {Amphioxus), the supposed earli- est type of vertebrate animal, and, according to Haeckel, the ancestor of man. The figure is a sec- tion enlarged to twice the natural size. a, mouth; by anus; c, gill- opening; • d, gill; e, stomach; /, liver ; g, intestine; h, gill-cavity; i, notochord, or rudimentary back-bone; ^> /. m, n, 0, arteries and veins. «}' 63 ;. 64 FACTS AND FANCIES ing," a rudimentary backbone, and enables us at once to recognize in the young ascidian an embryo man. A second method characteristic of the book, and furnishing, indeed, the main basis of its ar- gument, is that of considering analogous pro- cesses as identical, without regard to the differ- ence of the conditions under which they may be carried on» The great leading use of this argu- ment is in inducing us to regard the develop- ment of the individual animal as the precise equivalent of the series of changes by which the species was developed in the course of ge- ological time. These two kinds of develop- ment 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 fur- ther growth of this germ in connection more or less with the parent or with provision made by it. This s, of course, a fact open to observa- tion and study, though some of its processes are mysterious and yet involved in doubt and uncertainty. Phylogenesis is the supposed de- velopment of a species in the course of geo- logical time and by the intervention of long IN MODERN SCIENCE. 65 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 observa- tion within the time at our command — purely hypothetical, therefore, and of which the possi- bility remains to be proved ; while the causes on which it must depend are necessarily alto- gether different from those at work in onto- genesis, 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 sortie important respects, of ontogenesis to phylo- genesis was inevitable, provided 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 parallelism 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 the conditions of these two successions cannot have been the same. Further, when we con- sider that the embryo- il. which develops into 6» 11' 66 FACTS AND FANCIES 9 one animal must necessarily be originally dis- tinct in its properties from that which develops into another kind of animal, even though no obvious difference appears to us, we have no ground for supposing that the early stages of all animals are alike ; and when we rigorously compare the development of any animal what- ever with the successive appearance of animals of the same or similar groups in geological time, we find many things which do not cor- respond — not merely in the want of links which we might expect to find, but in the more significant appearance, prematurely or inoppor- tunely, 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 difficulties 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 their mode of operation are unknown. The chief of the terms so employed are " heredity " and " adaptation." " Heredity " is usually un- IN MODKRN SCIENCF.. 67 derstood as expressing the power of permanent transmission of characters from parents to off- spring, and in this aspect it expresses the con- stancy of specific forms ; but, as used by Haeckel, it means the transmission by a parent of any exceptional characters which the individ- ual may have accidentally assumed. "Adapta- tion " has usually been supposed to mean the fitting of animals for their place in nature, however that came about ; as used by Haeckel, 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 philosophy the nile is made the excep- tion 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 conclu- sions of the book are reached almost solely by the application of the above-mentioned peculiar modes of reasoning to the vast store of facts at command of the author, and that the reader who would test these conclusions by the ordi- nary m 3thods of judgment must be constantly 68 F4CTS AND FANCIES on his guard. Still, it is not necessary to believe that Haeckel is an intentional deceiver. Such fallacies are those which are especially fitted to mislead enthusiastic specialists, to be identified by them with proved results of science, and to be held in an intolerant and dogmatic spirit. ;■:,.,'.■'■-/,. ■•■..,„■ ^^^ ■;.■■ '• ■ Having thus noticed Haeckel's assumptions and his methods, we may next shortly consider the manner in which he proceeds to work out the phylogeny of man. Here he pursues a purely physiological method, only occasionally and slightly referring to geological facts. He takes as a first principle the law long ago form- ulated by Hunter, Omne vivum ex ovo — a law which modern research has amply confirmed, showing that every animal, however complex, can be traced back to an ^%gy which in its sim- plest state is no more than a single cell, though this cell requires to be fertilized by the addition of the contents of another dissimilar cell, pro- duced either in another organ of the same in- dividual or in a distinct individial. This pro- cess of fertilization 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 recognized, analogy would lead \ . IN MODERN SCIENCE. 69 US to believe that In some form it is necessary in all. Haeckel's monistic view, however, re- quires that in the lowest forms it should be ab- sent and should have originated spontaneously, though how does not seem to be very clear, as the explanation given of it by him 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 tra- cing of the special development or ontogenesis of man, and to the illustration of the tact 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 potent'ally the various prop- erties of the animals which spring from them. As we trace them onward in their development, we see these differences manifesting themselves. At first all pass, according to Haeckel, through a stage which he calls the " gastrula," in which the whole body is represented by a sort of sac, the cavity of which is the stomach and the walls of which consist of two layers of cells. It should 70 FACTS AND FANCIES be stated, however, that many eminent natural- ists dissent from this view, and maintain that even in the earliest stages material differences can be observed. In this they are probably right, as even Haeckel has to admit some degree of divergence from this all-embracing " gastrsea " theory. Admitting, however, that such early similarity exists within certain limits, we find that, as the embryo advances, it speedily begins to indicate whether it is to be a coral-animal, a snail, a worm, or a fish. Consequently, the physiologist who wishes to trace the resem- blances 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 succes- sive 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 scarce- ly any difference. All this has long been known, and has been regarded as a wonderful evidence of the ho- mology or unity of plan which pervades nature, and as constituting man the archetype of the IN MODERN SCIENCE. 71 animal kingdom — the highest realization 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 distin- guishing characters of humanity as in the high- er rational and moral nature. But Haeckel, like other evolutionists of the monistic and agnostic schools, goes far beyond this. The ontogeny, on the evidence of anal- ogy, as already explained, is nothing less than a miniature representation of the phylogeny. Man must in the long ages of geological time have arisen from a monad, just as the individ- ual 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 fertilization, pa- rental influence, and surroundings. There is no perceptible relation of cause and effect, any more than between the rotation of a carriage- wheel and that of the earth on its axis. The analogy might prompt to inquiries as to com- mon laws and similarities of operation, but it proves nothing ^s to causation. 72 FACTS AND FANCIES In default of such proof, Haeckel favors us with another analogy, derived from the science of language. All the Indo-European lan- guages are believed to be descended from a common ancestral tongue, and this is anal- ogous to the descent of all animals from one primitive species. But unfortunately the lan- guages in question are the expressions of the voice and the thought of one and the same species. The individuals using them are known historically to have descended by ordinary gen- eration from a common source, and the con- necting-links of the various dialects are un- broken. The analog}!^ fails altogether in the case of species succeeding each other in geo- logical 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. Elaborate attempts have been made to show that variations, as existing in the more variable of our domes- ticated species, lead in che direction of such IN MODERN SCIENCE. 75 changes ; but the results have been unsatisfac- tory, 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 demon- stration. Secondly. There might be in the exist- ing system of nature such a close connection or continuous chain of species as might at least strengthen the argument from analogy ; and undoubtedly there are many groups of closely allied species, or of races confounded with true specific types, which it might not be unreason- able to suppose of common origin. These are, however, scattered widely apart ; and the con- trary fact of extensive gaps in the series is so frequent, that Haeckel 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 theory ; 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 successive geological periods we could trace the actual phylogeny of even a few groups 7 74 FACTS AND FANCIES of living creatures, we might have the demon- stration desired. But here again the gaps are so frequent and so 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 begin- ning of his second volume. In this he attempts to give a continuous 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 Laurentian 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 necessity of manufac- turing facts does not speak well for the testi- mony of geology to the supposed phylogeny 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 and camels referred to by some palaeontologists, 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 animal kingdom. This the writer has elsewhere en- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 7S deavored to show ; but he may refer here to the labors of Barrande, perhaps unrivalled in extent and accuracy, which show that in the leading forms of life in the older geological formations the succession is not such as to correspond with any of the received theo- ries of derivation.* Even evolutionists, when sufficiently candid, admit their case not proven by geological evidence. Gaudry, one of the best authorities • on the Tertiary mammalia, admits the impossibility of suggesting any possible derivation for some of the leading groups, and Saporta, Mivart, and Le Conte fall back on periods of rapid or paroxysmal evolution scarcely differing from the idea of creation by law, or mediate creation, as it has been termed. Thus the utmost value which can be attached to Haeckel's argument from analogy w.ould be that it suggests a possibility that the processes which we see 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 * Those who wish to understand the real bearings of palaeontology on evolution should study Brrra-de's Memoirs on the Silurian Trilo- bites, Cephahpods, and Brachiopods. 1^ FACTS AND FANCIES wider field of geological time have been con- cerned in the production of the multitudinous forms of animal life. That Haeckel's philos- ophy goes but a very little way toward any understanding of such relations, and that our present information, even within the more lim- ited scope of biological science, is too meagre to permit of safe generalization, will appear from the consideration of a few facts taken here and there from the multitude employed by him to illustrate the monistic theory. When we are told that a moner or an embryo- cell is the early stage of all animals alike, we naturally ask, Is it meant that all these cells are 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 ^^^ of the hu- man being, like the ^'gg 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 IN MODERN SCIENCE. 77 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 embryo of a man. All these, according to the hypothesis, 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 would destroy the argument of the evolution- ist. In this case he would be hopelessly shut up to the conclusion that "hens were before ^§"gs ;" 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 immediate- ly to be resorted to, and they are shown to be, in 7» f I.! 78 FACTS ^ND FANCIES fact, quite dissimilar. There is, indeed, the best ground to suppose that the one-celled animals and the embryo-cells referred to, have little in common except their general form. We know that the most minute cell must include a suf- ficient number of molecules of protoplasm to admit of great varieties of possible arrange- ment, and that these may be connected with most varied possibilities as to the action of forces. Further, the embryo-cell which is pro- duced by a particular kind of animal, and whose development results in the reproduction 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 the sperm-cells where there are two sexes. Therefore it is in the highest degree probable that the eggs of a worm and those of man, though possibly alike to our coarse methods of investigation, are as dissimilar as the animals that result from them. If so, the " ^^g may be before the hen ;" but it is as difficult to imagine the spontaneous pro- duction of the ^^^ which is potentially the hen as of the hen itself. Thus the similarity of the eggs and early embryos of animals of different grades is apparent only; and this fact, which IN MODERN SCIENCE. 79 embodies a great, and perhaps insoluble, mys- tery, invalidates the whole of Haeckel's reason- ing 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 spe- cialized cells different in structure and appear- ance and capable of performing different func- tions, whereas in the lower forms of life such cells may remain simple or may merely produce several similar cells little or not at all differ- entiated. This objection, whenever it occurs, Haeckel endeavors to turn by the assertion that a complex animal is merely an aggregate of independent cells, each of which is a sort of individual. He thus tries to break up the in- tegrity of the complex 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 organize themselves into a community and assume different avocations. Single cells, he says, at first were alike, and each performed the same simple offices of all the others. " At a later period isolated cells gathered into com- 8o FACTS AMD FANCIES munities ; groups of simple cells which had arisen from the continued division of a single cell remained together, and now began grad- ually 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 pro- duced by some animal which already shows all the tissues which its embryo is destined to re- produce. Thus it establishes no probability of the evolution of complex tissues from sim- ple 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 tis- sues evolved from the homogeneous ^^^ ; but evolved from it, as we naturally suppose, be- cause of the fact that the ^gg represents po- tentially all these tissues as existing previously in the parent organism. But if we are content to waive these objec- tions or to accept the solutions given of them by the ** appearance-and-disappearance " argu- ment, we still find that the phylogeny, unlike the ontogenesis, is full of wide gaps only to be passed /^r saltum or to be accounted for by the disappearance of a vast number of connecting- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 8i 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 ex- plained. In the phylogeny of man, for exam- ple, what a vast hiatus yawns between the as- cidian and the lancelet, and another between the lancelet and the lamprey ! It is true that the missing links may have consisted of animals little likely to be preserved as fossils ; but why, if they ever existed, do not some of them re- main 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 speech- less men ? A further question which should receive con- sideration 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 peo- ple 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 intro- 82 FACTS AND FANCIES. . duced 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 complex machines, but many kinds of such ma- chines^on different plans, but 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 per- ceive that to such a philosophy the homely ar- gument which Paley derived from the 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 could come into existence without design somewhere"* — that is, by mere 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, aniong others, by the discussion of the introduction of the five fingers * Beckett, Origin of the Laws of Nature. mti Fig. 2. Impression of five fingers and five toes of an Amphibian of the Lower Carboniferous Age, from the lowest Carboniferous beds in Nova Scotia— an evidence oi the fact that the number five was already selected for the hands and feet of, the enrliest known land vertebrates, and that the decimal system of notniu,.., with all that it involves to man, was determined in the Palaeozoic Age. The upper figure natural size, the lower reduced. 83 84 FACTS AND FANCIES and toes of man, which appear to descend to us unchanged from the amphibians or batrachians of the Carboniferous period. In this ancient age of the earth's geological history, feet with five toes appear in numerous species of rep- tilians of various grades (Fig. 2). They are preceded by no other vertebrates than fishes, and these have numerous fin-rays instead of toes. There are no properly transitional forms either fossil or recent. ♦How were the five-fin- ., gered limbs acquired in this abr ;pt way ? Why were they five rather than any other number ? Why, when once introduced, have they cr 'tinued . unchanged up to the "present day? Haeckel's answer is a curious example of his method: v " The great significance of the five digits de- pends on the fact that this number has been transmitted from the Amphibia to all higher vertebrates. It would be impossible to dis- cover any reason why in the lowest Amphibia, aj 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 trom a com- mon five-fingered parent-form is the efficient cause of this phenomenon ; heredity can alone account for it. In many Amphibia certainly, as IN MODERN SCIENCE. 85 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 completely lost. The causes which affected the development of the five-fingered foot of the higher vertebrates in this amphibian form from the many-fingered foot (or properly fin), must certainly be found in the adaptation 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 exclusively to propel the body through the water, they had now also to afford support 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 re- duced to five. These five remaining rays were, however, developed more vigorously. 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 8 86 FACTS AND FANCIES to be related to or caused by the improvement of the Hmbs. It will be observed that in the above extract, under the formula ** the causes which affected the development of the five-fingered foot . . . 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 conjurer. Further, the transmission of the five toes is attributed to heredity or un- changed 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 five toes, or to the amphibians which faithfully trans- mitted their five toes, but not their other characteristics. It is perhaps scarcely profitable to follow further the criticism of this extraordinary book. It may be necessary, however, to re- peat that it contains clear, and in the main accurate, sketches of the embryology of a numbei of animals, only slightly colored by the tendency to minimize differences. It may also be necessary to say that in criticising IN MODERN SCIENCE. 87 Haeckel we take him on his own ground — that of a monist — and have no special feference 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 no doubt that many of them are quite as assailable as the position of Haeckel in point of argument. It may also be observed that Haeckel's argument is almost exclusively biological and confined to the animal kingdom, and to the special line of descent attributed to irian. The monistic hypothesis becomes, as already stated, still less tenable when tested by the facts of palae- ontology. Hence most of the palaeontologists who favor evolution appear to shrink from the extreme position of Haeckel. Gaudry, one of the ablest of this school, in ^his recent work oil the development of the Mammalia, candidly admits the multitude of facts for which derivation will not account, and per- ceives in the grand succession of animals in time the evidence of a wise and far-reaching creative plan, concluding with the words : " We 88 FACTS AND FANCIES may still leave out of the question the pro- cesses by which the Author of the world has produced the changes of which palasontology presents the picture." In like manner, the Count de Saporta in his World of Plants closes his summary of the periods of vegeta- tion with the words : " But if we ascend from one phenomenon to another, beyond the sphere of contingent and changeable appearance, we find ourselves arrested by a Being unchange- able and supreme, the first expression ^nd absolute cause of all existence, in whom diver- sity unites with unity, an eternal problem, in- soluble 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 that con- ception to which we apply instinctively the name of God." Thus these evolutionists, like many others in this country and in England, find a modus vivendi between evolution and theism. They have committed themselves to an interpreta- tion 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 IN MODERN SCIENCE. 89 of facts. But in doing so they are not pre- pared to accept the purely mechanical creed of the monist, or to separate themselves from those ideas of morality, of religion, and of sonship 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. One curious point in this connection, to which little attention has been given by evolutionists, is that to which Herbert Spencer has given the name of " direct equilibration," though he is suf- ficiently wise not to invite too much attention to it. This is the balance of parts and forces within the organism itself. The organism is a complex machine ; and if its parts have been put together by chance and are drifting onward in the path of evolution, there must of neces- sity be a continual struggle going on between 8» I I 90 FACTS AND FANCIES the different organs and functions, each tending to swallow up the others and each struggling for its own existence. This resolution of the body of each animal into a house divided against itself is at first sight so revolting to common sense and right feeling that few like to contemplate it. Roux and other recent writers, however, especially in Germany, have brought it into prominence, and it is no doubt a necessary consequence of the evolutionary idea, though altogether at variance with the theory of intelligent design, which supposes the animal machine put together with care and for a purpose, and properly adjusted in all its parts. On the hypothesis of evolution, the animal thus ceases to be, in the proper sense of the term, even a machine, and be- comes a mere mass of conflicting parts depend- ing for any constancy they may have on a chance balancing of hostile forces, without any compelling power to bring them together at first, or any means to bind them to joint action in the system. The more such a doctrine is considered, the more difficult does it seem to believe in the possibility of its truth. Evolu- tion has already reduced the cosmos into chaos, the harmony of the universe into discord ; but IN MODERN SCIENCE. 91 a :iL m lis to It it seems past belief to introduce this into the microcosm itself, and to see nothing in its ex- quisite adjustments except the momentary equi- librium of a well-balanced fight. Geological history also adds to the absurdity of such a view by showing the marvellous permanence of many fbrms of life which have continued to perpetuate themselves through almost immeas- urable ages without material changes, thus proving unanswerably the perfect adjustment of their parts. Viewed rightly, this direct equilibration of the parts of the animal seems to throw the greatest possible doubt on the capacity of any form of evolution to produce new species. It is cer- tain, from the facts collected by Mr. Darwin himself in his work on animals under domes- tication, that when m.an disturbs the balance of any organism by changing in any way the re- lations of its parts, he introduces elements of instability and weakness, which, despite the ef- forts of nature to correct the evils resulting, speedily lead to degeneracy, infertility, and ex- tinction. Mr. T. Warren O'Neil of Philadel- phia has recently argued this point with much ability,* and has shown, on the testimony of * Refutation of Darwinism, Philadelphia, 1880. ■ i 92 FACTS AND FANCIES Darwin's facts, that unless " natural selection" is a much more skilful breeder than man, and possesses some secrets not yet discovered by us, the effects of this iipaginary power would lead, not to the production of new species, but merely to the extinction of those already ex- isting. In short, all the evidence goes to show that — so beautifully balanced are the parts of the organism — any excess or deficiency in any of them, when artificially or accidentally intro- duced, brings in elements not only of instabil- ity, but of decay and destruction. This subject is deserving of a more full treatment than it can receive here, but enough has been said to show that in this evolutionists have unwittingly furnished us with a new confirmation of the theory of intelligent design. In some places there are in Haeckel's book touches of a grim humor which are not without interest, as showing the subjective side of the monistic theory and illustrating the attitude of its professors to things held sacred by other men. For example, the following is the intro- duction to the chapter headed " From the Prim- itive Worm to the Skulled Animal," and which has for its motto the lines of Goethe be- ginning : IN MODERN SCIENCE. 93 " Not like the gods am I ! full well I know ; But like the worms which in the dust must go," .• , " Both in prose and poetry man Is very often compared to a worm ; ' a miserable worm,' • a poor worm,' are common and almost compas- sionate phrases. If we cannot detect any deep phylogenetic • reference in this zoological met- aphor, 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 were well read in Scripture, he might have quoted here the melancholy con- fession 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 illustrated by the following extract, which refers to a more advanced step of the evolu- tion — that from the ape to man — and which shows the honest pride of the worthy pro- fessor in his humble parentage : " Just as most people prefer to trace their pedigree from a IMAGE EVALUATrON TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^^— 1.0 !rfi^ llM I.I 1.25 «* 140 1i las M 2.0 U IIIIII.6 V] ^ /a '^/. /j w M Photographic Sciences Corporation r^^ V s^ V \\ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY 14580 (716) 872-4503 V o\ y,^^^ '':'•': \V ••"' iit^- , i 94 FACTS AND FANCIES 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 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 discussion. It is more to my individual taste to be the more highly- developed descendant of an ape, who in the struggle for existence had developed pro- gressively from lower mammals as they from still lower vertebrates, than the degraded de- scendant of an Adam, Godlike 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 phyloge- netically as lower or ventral vertebra;." f * It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish objection unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question, f Rather, vertebral arches." IN MODERN SCIENCE. 95 There is no accounting for tastes, yet we may be pardoned for retaining some prefer- ence for the first link of the old Jewish gene- alogical table : " Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of "God." As to the " de- basement" 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 fel- low-feeling in this with the writer of Genesis. The origin of sexes is one of the acknow- ledged 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 vertebral 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 practicable. 96 FACTS AND FANCIES Further, if only an individual man originated in the first instance, and if he were not pro- vided 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 nine- teenth century have banished from their calcu- lations. 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 " help meet 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 my bones, and flesh of my flesh." But monists probably attach little value to such ideas. It may be proper to add here that in his ref- erences to Adam, Haeckel betrays a weakness not unusual with his school, in putting a false i IN MODERN SCIENCE. 97 gloss on the old record of Genesis. The state- ment that man was formed from the dust of the ground implifes no more than the produc- tion of his body from the common materials employed in the construction of other animals ; this also in contradistinction from the higher na- ture derived from the inbreathing or inspiration 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 individual. If this was not done, and if after the lesson of superiority taught by the in- spection of lower animals, and the lesson of language taught by naming them, the first man in his " deep sleep " is conscious of the removal of a portion of his own flesh, and then on awak- ing has the woman " brought " to him, all this is to teach a lesson not to be otherwise learned. 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 exam- ples of the more jocose vein of the Jena phys- iologist ; but they constitute also a serious rev- elation of the influence of his philosophy on his own mind and heart, in lowering both to a cold, 9 ■ %^' 98 FACTS AND FANCIES mechanical, and unsympathetic view of man and nature. This is especially serious when we re- member how earnestly in a recent address he advocated the teaching of the methods and re- sults 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 re- main unproved it is both unwise and criminal to propagate them among the mass of men as conclusions which have been demonstrated by science. In conclusion, we may notice shortly a few of the consequences of the monistic evolution as held by Haeckel and others. Doctrines are perhaps not to be judged by the consequences — at least, by the immediate consequences — of their acceptance. Yet if their logical conse- quences are such as to introduce confusion into our higher ideas and sentiments, we have rea- son to hesitate as to their adoption — if on no other ground, because we ourselves are a part IN MODERN SCIENCE, 99 of nature and should be in harmony with any true explanation of it We may afifirm in this connection that agnos- tic evolution reduces all our science to mere evanescent anthropomorphic fancies; so that, like a parasite, it first supports itself on the strength and* substance of science, and then strangles it to death. Physical science is a product of our thinking as to external things. If, therefore, the thinking brain and the ex- ternal nature which it studies are both of them the fortuitous products of blind tendencies in a process of continuous flux and vicissitude, our science can embody no elements of eternal truth nor any conceptions as to the plans of a higher creative reason. In that case it is ab- solutely worthless, and a pure waste of time and energy, except in so far as it may yield any temporary material advantages. Further, the agnostic evolution thus leaves us as orphans in the midst of a cold and insen- sate nature. We are no longer dwellers in our Father's house, beautiful and fitted for us^ but are thrown into the midst of a hideous conflict of dead forces, in which we must finally perish and be annihilated. In a struggle so hopeless it is a mere mockery to tell us that in miUioris 100 FACTS AND FANCIES of years something better may come out of it, for we know that this will be of no avail to us, and we feel that it is impossible. Thus the agnostic philosophy, if it be once accepted as true, seriously raises the question whether life is worth living. But if worth living, then it mUst be for the immediate and selfish gratification of our de- sires and passions ; and since we are deprived of God and conscience, and right and wrong, and future reward or punishment, and all men are alike in this position, there can be nothing left for us but to rend and fight with our fellows for such share of good as may fall to us in the deadly struggle, that we may reach such happi- ness as may be possible for us in such an existence, err» we drift into nonenity. Here, again, we are told that the struggle will some time lead to the survival of the fittest, and that the fittest may inaugurate a new and better reign of peace. But the world has already lasted countless ages without arriving at this result. It cannot concern me individually, any more than what happens to-day concerns the extinct ichthyosaur or the megatherium. All that is left for me is to "eat and drink, for to-morrow I die." IN MODERN SCIENCE. lOI * ■ • i If ^ny one thinks that this is an exaggerated picture of the effects of agnostic evolution as applied to man, I may refer him to the study of Herbert Spencer's recent work The Data of EthicSy which has contributed very much to open the eyes of thoughtful men to the depth of spiritual, moral, and even social and political, ruin into which we shall drift under the guid- ance of this philosophy. In this work the data of ethics are reduced to the one consideration of what is "pleasurable" to ourselves and others, and it is admitted that our ideas of conscience, duty, and even of social obliga- tion, are merely fictions of temporary use un- til the time shall come when what is pleasurable to ourselves shall coincide with what is pleas- urable to others ; and this is to come, not out of the love of God and the influence of his Spirit, but out of the blind struggle of oppos- ing interests. It has been well said that this system of morals — if it can be dignified with such a name — is inferior, logically and prac- tically, not only to the "supernatural ethics" which it boastfully professes to replace, but to the ethics of Aristotle and Cicero, and that " it will not supersede revelation, nor is it likely to displace the old data of ethics, whether Greek, 9» 103 FACTS AND FANCIES. Roman, or English." Independently of its an- tagonism to theism and Christianity, it is fore- doomed by the common sense and the right feeling of even imperfect human nature. III. EVOLUTION AS TSSTKD BY The Records of the Rocks. LECTURE III. EVOLUTION AS TESTED BY THE RECORDS OF THE ROCKS. HAVING discussed those vague analogies and fanciful pedigrees by which it has been attempted to drag the science of Biology into the service of Agnostic Evolution, we may now turn to another science — that of the earth — and inquire how far it justifies us in affirming the spontaneous evolution of plants and ani- mals in the progress of geological time. This subject is one which would require a lengthy treatise for its full development, and it cannot be pursued in the most satisfactory way without much previous knowledge of geological facts and principles, and of the classification of ani- mals and plants. On the present occasion it must therefore be treated in the most general possible manner, and with reference merely to the results which have been reached. There is the more excuse for this mode of treatment that, in works already published and widely 106 I06 FACTS AND FANCIES circulated * I have endeavored to present its details in a popular form to general readers. . 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 chronological order; and, so arranged, they constitute the physical monu- ments 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 successive formations contain remains of animals and plants from which we can learn much as to the succession of life on the earth. Without entering into geological details, it may be sufficient to present in tabular form (see p. 107) the grand series of formations, with the general history of life as ascertained from them. In the oldest rocks known to geologists — those of the Eozoic 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 graph- ite, and thick beds of iron-ore. All these are * Story of the Earthy Origin of the Worlds Chain of Life in Geokg- teal Time. IN MODERN SCIENCE. 107 Tabular View of Geological Periods and of Life-Epochs. o ^ \ »4 Gbological Pbriods. I Post-Tertiary f Recent. or Modtm, \ Post-Glacial. Tertiary Pleistocene, or Glacial. Pliocene. Miocene. Eocene. Cretactout. yuraxtic . Triattie /Upper, Lower, or Neocomian. r Oolite. •ILiaa. \ j£^i, or Muschelkalk. (Lower. Pgymian {Middle, or Magneaian Limestone. Lower. (Upper Coai-FormatiOB. Goal-Formation. Carbouiferous Limestone. Lower Coal-Formation. Erian or DtvamaH ("Upper. •{ Middle. . (.Lower. Age of Man and Modern Mammal*. Age of Extinct Mammals. (Earliest Placental Mammals.) AgtotReptilet and Birds, (Eariiest Marsupial Mammals.) saurian . • {i^^JlorSauro-Cambrian fUpper. Camirian. .-{Mjddle. (.Lower. . Uuroman. .{^^J; Lamrentiem f Upper, or Norian. .^Middle, ^Lower, or Bojian. Animal LiFB. (Earliest True Reptiles.) Age of Amphibians ana Fishes. Age of MoTlushs, Corals, and Crustaceans. Age of ProtoKoa, (First Animal Remains.) Vbgbtablb LiPB. Age of Angio^rms and Pat'ms. (Earliest Modem Trees.) Age of Cjvaaswad Pines. Age of Acrogens and Gymnosferms, (Earliest Land Plantt.) Age of Alga. Indications of Plants not determinable, io8 FACTS AND FANCIES, » ■ ■ known, 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 ob- tained in the presence of certain remarkable laminated forms penetrated by microscopic tubes and canals, and which are supposed to b6 the remains of the calcareous skeletons of humbly-organized animals akin to the simplest of those now living in the sea. Such animals — ^little more than masses of living animal jelly — now abound in the waters, and protect them- selves 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 Canadense (see Fig. 3) may have been the skeleton of such a lowly- organized 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 Fig. 3. it le m te d 1. Small specimen of Eozoon Canadense, weathered out from the con* taining rock, and showing its laminated structure. 2. Casts of irregular or acervaline chambers of upper part (magnified). 3. Surface of a cast of a fiat chamber, showing its constituent cham- berlets (magnified). 4. Section of casts of flat chambers (magnified). From the Lauren- tian of Canada. to aoQ no FACTS AND FANCIES matter by any spontaneous action, any more than its modern representatives could do so. There is no evidence of its progress by evolu- tion into any higher form, and the group of an- imals to which it belongs has continued to in- habit the oceari throughout geological time with- out any perceptible advance ia rank or com- plexity of structure. If, then, we admit the an- imal nature of this earliest fossil, we can derive from it no evidence of monistic evolution ; and ** if we deny its animal nature, we are confronted with a still graver difficulty in the next succeed- ing formations. Between the rocks whicu contain Eozoon and the next in which we find any abundant re- mains of life, there is a gap in geological history, either destitute of evidence of 4ife or showing nothing materially in advance of Eozoon, In the Cambrian Age, however, we obtain a vast and varied accession of life. Here we find evi- dence that the sea swarmed with living crea- tures near akin to those which still inhabit it, and nearly as varied. Referring merely to leading groups, we have here the soft shell- fishes and the worms, the ordinary shellfishes, the sea-stars, and the corals, with the sponges. In short, had we been able to drop our dredge IN MODERN SCIENCE. IE I into the Cambrian or Lower 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 the same principles and fill- ing the same places in nature. If we inquire as to the history of this swarm- ing marine life of the early Palaeozoic, 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, indeed, the re- verse seems to be the case; for it is not un- usual to find the successive dynasties of life in any one family manifesting degradation rather than elevation. New, and sometimes higher, forms, it is true, appear in the progress of time, but it is impossible, except by violent supposi- tions, to connect them genetically with any pre^ decessors. The succession throughout the Pa- laeozoic presents the appearance rather of the unchanged persistence of each group under a succession of specific forms, and the introduc- 212 FACTS AND FANCIES. tion from time to time of new groups, as if to replace others which were in process of decay and disappearance. Ill the later 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, rep- resenting types of no mean rank, but, singular- ly enough, belonging, in many cases, to groups now very rare ; while the commoner tribes of modern fish do not appear. On the land, ba- trachian* reptiles now abound, some of them very high in the sub-class to which they be- long. Scorpions, spiders, insects, and milli- pedes appear, as well as land-snails, and this not in one locality only, but over the whole northern hemisphere. At the same time, the land appears clothed with an exuberant vege- tation — 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 unsur- passed, and in some cases unequalled, in the modern world. Nor do they show any signs of an unformed or imperfect state. Their Fro, 4. Restoration (by G, F. Matthew) of a TrilobJte {Pttmdoxides) from the Lower Cambrian, as an evidence of the existence of crustacean ani- mals of high type and great complexity in this early age. If such animals were evolved from Protozoa by slow and gradual changes, the time required would be greater than that which iaterveneil fae^een the Gunbrian period and the present time. 10' 113 114 FACTS AND FANCIES seeds and spores, their fruits and spore-cases, are as elaborately constructed, the tissues and forms of their stems and leaves as delicate and beautiful, as in any modern plants. 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 (Figure 4). This wonderful Palaeozoic Age was, however, but a temporary state of the earth. It passed away, and was replaced by the Mesozoic, em- phatically the reign of reptiles, when animals of that type attained to colossal magnitude, to variety of function and structure, to diversity of habitat in sea and on land, altogether unex- ampled in their degraded descendants of mod- ern times. Sea-lizards of gigantic size swarm- ed everywhere in the waters. On land, huge quadrupeds, like Atlantosaurus and Iguanodon and Megalosaurus, greatly exceeded the ele- phants of later times ; while 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 IN MODERN SCIENCE. "5 make their appearance, and at the close of the period forests of broad-leaved trees alto- gether different from those of the Palaeozoic Age, and resembling those of our modern woods, appear for the first time over great portions of the northern hemisphere. The Cainozoic, or Tertiary, is the age of mammals and of man. In it the great rep- tilian tyrants of the Mesozoic disappear, and are replaced on land and sea by mammals or beasts of the same orders with those now liv- ing, though differing as to genera and species (see Fig. 5). So greatly, indeed, did mamma- lian life abound in this period that in the mid- dle part of the Tertiary most of the leading groups were represented by more numerous species than at present; while many groups then existing have now no representatives. At the close of this great and wonderful pro- cession of living beings comes man himself — the last and crowning triumph of creation ; the head, thus far, of life on the earth. I have merely glanced at the leading events of this wonderful history, because its details may be found in so many manuals and popular works on geology. But if we imagine this great chain of life extending over periods of ii6 FACTS AND FANCIES. 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 understand how exciting have been these discoveries crowded within the lives of two generations of geologists. 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 an- imal 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 de- veloped from another by spontaneous evolu- tion. Many naturalists like Darwin and HaeckeS, as well as philosophers like Herbert Spencer, are quite carried away by this analogy, and ap- pear unable to perceive that it is merely a gen- eral resemblance between processes altogether different in tiieir nature, and therefore in their a g B I ?r 5 e »> £. 2 5 5- »* JT §• I 3- '» " M a S 3 SS- 5 '* S' 3 & a org S, O n Mt 2 J* « §.° II ^ fi» ^ I- 117 Il8 yACTS AND FANCIES causes. The greater part, however, of the more experienced palaeontologists, 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 endeavored to reduce the succession of life to such general expressions as shall ren- der it more comprehensible and may at length enable us to arrive at explanations of il3 com- plex phenomena. Of these general expressions or conclusions I may state a few here, as appo- site to our present subject, and as showing how little of real support the facts of the earth's history give to the pseudo-gnosis of monistic evolution. I. The chain of life in geological time pre- sents a wonderful testimony to the reality of a beginning. Just as we know that any indi- vidual animal must have had its birth, its infancy, its maturity, and will reach an end of life, so we trace species and groups of species to their beginning, watch their culmi- nation, and perhaps follow them to their, ex- tinction. 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 IN MODERN SCIENCE 119 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 of the fact that nearly all the ani- mals and plants of the present day had a very recent beginning in geological 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 grandeur of Eozoon^ oblige it to say that nothing known to it is self-existent and eternal. 2. The geological record \ forms us that the general laws of nature have continued un- changed 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 occurrence of storms, or the paroxysms of volcanoes. When we find that the eyes of the old trilobites have had lenses and tubes ^ 1 20 FACTS AND FANCIES similar to those in the eyes of modern crusta- ceans, 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 arrange- ments of the soil, the atmosphere, and the rain were the same at thai ancient time as at present. Yet, with all this, we also find evidence that long-continued periods of physi- cal quiescence were followed by great crum- plings 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 sud- den and cataclysmic. 3. Throughout the geological history there is progress toward greater complexity and higher grade, along with degradation and ex- tinction. Though experience 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 progress of geological time lower types have given place to higher; less specialized to more specialized. Curiously enough, no evidence IN MODERN SCIENCE. 121 proves this more clearly than that which re- lates to the degradation of old forms. When, for example, the reptiles of the Mesozoic Age were the lords of creation, there was appar- ently no place for the larger Mammalia which appear at the close of the reptile dynasty. So in the Palaeozoic, when trees of the cryp- togamous type predominated, 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 gen- eralized structures which attained their maxima at early stages and then declined, and after- ward with higher forms which took the places of those that were passing away. These latter, again, though their dominion was taken from them, were continued in lower positions 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 Hfe which cannot be fortuitous. 11 122 FACTS AND FANCIES. The chance interaction of organisms and their environment, even if we assume the organisms and environment as given o us, could never produce an orderly continuous progress of the utmost complexity in its detail, and extending through an enormous lapse of time. It has been well said that if a pair of dice were to turn up aces a hundred times in succession, any reasonable spectator would conclude that they were loaded dice ; so if countless millions of atoms and thousands of species, each in- cluding within itself most complex arrange- ment of parts, turn up in geological time in perfectly regular order and a continued grada- tion of progress, something more than chance must be implied. It is to be observed here that every species of animal or plant, of how- ever low grade, consists of many co-ordinated parts in a condition of the nicest equilibrium. Any change occurring which produces 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. The chances of this may well Fio. 6. Group of Plants (restored) from the Devonian period, illustrating the complexity and beauty of the earliest known land vegetation, though many of the leading forms of modern plants are unknown in this very ancient period. sn 124 FACTS AND FANCIES be compared to the casting of aces a hundred times in succession, and are so infinitely small as to be incredible under any other supposition than that of intelligent design. 5. The progress of life in geological time. Just as the growth of trees is promoted or arrested by the vicissitudes of summer and winter, so in the course of the geological his- tory there have been periods of pause and ac- celeration in the work of advancement. This is in accordance 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 anything in common with the unfounded idea, at one time enter- tained, of successive periods of entire destruc- tion and restoration of life. Prolific periods of this kind appear in the marine invertebrates of the early Cambrian, the plants (Figure 6) and fishes of the Devonian, the batrachians of the Carboniferous, the reptiles of the Trias, the broad-leaved trees of the Cretaceous, and the mammals of the early Tertiary. A remarkable contrast is afforded by 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 intro- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 125 duced, 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 either the creation or the evolution of a new species. Evolutionists themselves — those, at least, who are willing to allow their theory to be at all modified by 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 alter- nating with others of greater quiescence. It is further to be observed here that in a limited way and with reference to certain forms of life we can see a reason for these intermittent . creatipns. 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 submer- gence alternated with others of elevation ; and it is manifest that each period of continental submergence gave scop'e for the introduction of numbers of new marine species, while each continental elevation, on the other hand, gave opportunity for the increase of land-life, fur- ther, periods when a warm climate prevailed- ii« 126 FACTS AND FANCIES in the arctic regions — periods when plants such as now live in temperate regions could ^ enjoy six months of continuous sunshine — ' I were eminently favorable to the development of such plants, and were utilized for the intro- duction of new floras, which subsequently spread to the southward. Thus we see phys- ical changes occurring in an orderly succes- sion and made subservient to the progress 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 indica- tions in the history of some of the numerous species which have been traced through succes- sive geological formations. Species which thus continue for a great length of time usually pre- sent numerous varietal forms which have some- times been described as new species ; but when carefully scrutinized they are found to be mere- ly local and temporary, 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 IN MODERN SCIENCE. 12/ of facts are essentially -different ; and though it is possible to point out in the newer geological formations some genera and species allied to others which have preceded them, and to sup- pose that the later forms proceeded from the earlier, still, when the connecting-links cannot be found, this is mere supposition, not scientific certainty. Further, it proceeds on the principle of arbitrary choice of certain forms out of many without any evidence of genetic connection. The worthlessness of such derivation is well shown in a ». ise which has often been paraded as an illustration of evolution — ♦■he supposed genealogy of the horse. In America a series of horse-like animals has been selected, begin- ning with the Orohippus of the Eocene, and these have been marshalled as the ancestors of the fossil horses of America ; for there are no native horses in America in the modern period. Yet this is purely arbitrary, and dependent mere- ly on a succession of genera more and more closely resembling the modern horse being pro- curable 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 PalcBotheriuin — an en- tirely different form — by just as likely indica- 128 FACTS AND FANCIES tions. 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, descend- ants of PalcBotherium, not of Orohippus ; 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. It is further to be observed that some of the ablest palaeontologists, and those who have en- joyed the largest opportunities of observation and comparison, attach no value whatever to theories of evolution as accounting for the origin of species. One of these is Joachim Barrande, the palaeontologist of Bohemia, and the first authority in Europe on the fossils of the older formations. Barrande, like some other eminent palaeontologists, has the misfor- tune to be an unbeliever in the modern gospel of evolution, but he has certainly labored to overcome his doubts with greater assiduity than even many of the apostles of the new doctrine ; and if he is not convinced, the stubbornness of the facts he has had to deal with must bear the I'!!!! IN MODERN SCIENCE. 129 blame. In connection with his great and class- ical work on the Silurian fossils of Bohemia, it has been necessary for him to study the similar remains of every other country ; and he has used this immense mass of material in prepar- ing statistics of the population of the Palaeozoic world more perfect than any other naturalist has been able to produce. In successive me- moirs he has applied these statistical results to the elucidation of the history of the oldest group of crustaceans — the trilobites — and the highest group of the mollusks — the cephalopods. In his latest memoir of this kind he takes up the brachiopods, or lamp-shells, a group of bivalve shellfishes very ancient and very abundantly represented in all the older formations of every part of the world, and which thus affords the most ample material for tracing its evolution, with the least possible difficulty in the nature of "imperfection of the record." Barrande, in the publication before us, dis- cusses the brachiopods with reference, first, to the variations observed within the limits of the species, eliminating in this way mere synonyms and varieties mistaken for species. He also arrives at various important conclusions with reference to the origin of species and varietal I30 FACTS AND FANCIES forms, which apply to the cephalopods and trilobites as well as to the brachiopods, and some of which, as the writer has elsewhere shown, apply very generally to fossil animals and plants. One of these is that different con- temporaneous species, living under the same conditions, exhibit very different degrees of vitality and variability. Another is the sud- den appearance at certain horizons of a great number of species, each manifesting its com- plete specific characters. With very rare ex- ceptions, also, varietal forms are contempo- raneous with the normal form of their specific type, and occur in the same localities. Only in a very few cases do they survive it. This and the previous results, as well as the fact that parallel changes go on in groups having no direct reaction on each other, prove that vari- ation is not a progressive influence, and that specific distinctions are not dependent on it, but on the " sovereign action of one and the same creative cause," as Barrande expresses ' it. These conclusions, it may be observed, are not arrived at by that " slap-dash " method of mere assertion so often followed on the other side of tliese questions, but by the most severe and painstaking induction, and with careful IN MODERN SCIENCE. I3I elaboration of a few apparent exceptions and doubtful cases. His second heading relates to the distribu- tion in time of the genera and species of brachiopods. This he illustrates with a series of elabprate tables, accompanied by explana- tion. He then proceeds to consider the animal population of each formation, in so far as brachiopods, cephalopods, and trilobites are concerhed, with reference to the following questions: (j) How many species are con- tinued from the previous formation unchanged? (2) How many may be regarded as modifica- tions of previous species ? (3) How many are migrants from other regions where they have been known to exist previously ? (4) How many are absolutely new species? These questions are applied to each of fourteen suc- cessive formations included in the Silurian of Bohemia. The total number of species of brachiopods in these formations is six hundred and forty, giving an average of 45.71 to each, and the results of accurate study of each species in its characters, its varieties, its geo- graphical and geological range, are expressed in the following short statement, which should somewhat astonish those gentiemen who are 132 FACTS AND FANCIES SO fond of asserting that derivation is " demon- strated " by geological facts : 1. Species continued unchanged 28 per cent. 2. Species migrated from abroad 7 '• 3. Species continued with modiiication o " 4. New species without known ancestors.... 65 " 100 per cant. He shows that the same or very similar pro- portions hold with respect to the cephalopods and trilobites, and, in fact, that the proportion of species in the successive Silurian faunae which can be attributed to descent with mod- ification is absolutely nil. He may well remark that in the face of such facts the origin of species is not explained by what he terms les Hans poitiques de r imagination. The third part of Barrande's memoir, relat- ing to the comparison of the Silurian brachio- pods of Bohemia with those of other countries, though of great scientific interest, and import- ant in extending the conclusions of his previous chapters, does not so nearly concern our pres- ent subject. I have thought it well to direct attention to these memoirs of Barrande, because they form a specimen of conscientious work with the view of ascertaining if there is any basis in r IN MODERN SCIENCE. 1 33 nature for the doctrine of spontaneous evolu- tion of species, and, I am sorry to say, a striking contrast to the mixture of fact and fancy on this subject which too often passes current for science in England, America, and Germany. Barrande's studies are also well deserving th^^^ attention of our younger men of science, as they have before them, more espe- cially in the widely-spread Palaeozoic formations of America, an admirable field for similar work. In an appendix to his first chapter Barrande mentions that the three men who in their respective countries are the highest authorities on Palaeozoic brachiopods. Hall, Davidson, and De Konirick, agree with him in the main in his conclusions, and he refers to an able memoir by D'Archiac in the same sense, on the cre- taceous brachiopods. It should be especially satisfactory to those naturalists who, like the writer, had failed to ses in the palaeontological record any good evidence for the production of species by those simple and ready methods in vogue with most evolutionists, to note the extension of actual facts with respect to the geological dates and precise conditions of the introduc- tion of new forms, and to find that these are 12 134 FACTS AND FANCIES more and more tending to prove the existence of highly complex creative laws in connection with the great plan of the Creator as carried out in geological time. These new facts should also warn the ordinary reader of the danger of receiving without due caution those general and often boastful assertions respecting these great and intricate questions made by persons not acquainted with their actual difificu^'y, or by enthusiastic speculators disposed to overlook everything not in accordance with their pre- conceived ideas. It may be asked, Is there, then, no place in the geological record even for theistic evolu- tion? This it would be rash to affirm. We can only say that up to this time there is no proof of it. If nature has followed this meth- od, she seems carefully to have concealed the process. If such changes have occurred as to evolve from a species, say of mollusk or coral, belonging to one geological period some form found in another period, and recognized as a distinct species, we have to suppose that the capacity for such change was in some way im- planted in the species on its creation, and ready to be developed under favorable conditions or in the lapse of time. For example, we may IN MODERN SCIENCE. 135 suppose that a plant originating in the long arc- tic summers of a warm period might, on migrat- ing southward into the alternations of day and night, undergo material changes. A marine animal long confined to a limited sea-basin might, on being permitted to expand over a wide submerged continent, be greatly modified in its structure and habits. Up to a certain point we know that such changes have oc- curred, and Barrande himself has largely illus- trated them. As an example which I have my- self studied, I may refer to the common shells known on our coasts as sand-clams (My a trun- cata and Mya arenaria). The former species, in the cold waters of the Glacial Age, assumed a short form which it still retains in the arctic regions, and occasionally in the colder waters of the more temperate regions, though there a more elongated form prevails. Evidently the two forms are interchangeable according to the temperature of the water. Still, if we could imagine a permanent refrigeration over all the area pccupied by the animal, the short form only might survive, and might be supposed to be a distinct species. This did not occur, how- ever, even in the Glacial Age, and is not likely to occur. Further, the allied, though quite dis- mM^ 136 FACTS AND FANCIES. tinct, Species Mya arenaria has lived with the other through all the long duration of the Post- Pliocene and modern periods, and, though hav- ing its own range of varietal forms, has pre- served its distinctness. Cases of this kind are obviously of the nature of varietal, not specific, change. In conclusion, the whole of the facts and laws above detailed point to a predetermined plan and to an intelligent Creator, of whose laws and modes of procedure we may learn much by patient and careful study. This surely gives a great additional interest to that marvellous story of the earth which in these last days has been revealed to us by the study of the rocks. We may also infer that not ^ne method only but many have been employed in replenishing the earth at first with living beings, and in add- ing to these from time to time. To what ex- tent we may be able to understand these, time and future discoveries will show. In the mean time, we can only suggest such general theories as those referred to in the first of these lec- tures, but can affirm that Agnostic Evolution is altogether abortive in its attempts to solve t^e problem of the chain of life in geological time. i IV. The Origin and Antiquity of Man. li* . LECTURE IV. I THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN. MAN, when regarded merely as an organ- ism, is closely related to the lower an- imals. His body is constructed on the same general plan with theirs. More especially, he is near akin to the other members of the class Mammalia. But we must not forget that even as an animal man is somewhat widely separated from his humbler relations (see Fig. 7). It is easy to say that every bone, every muscle, every convolution of his brain, has its counterpart in the corresponding parts of an orang or a go- rilla. But, admitting this, it is also true that every one of these parts is different, and that the aggregate of all the differences mounts up to an enormous sum-total, more especially in relation to habits and to capacities for ac- tion. Those remarkable homologies or like- nesses of plan which obtain in the animal king- dom are very wonderful, and the study of them greatly enlarges our conceptions of the unity 1X0 V 7 140 FACTS AND FANCIES. m of nature ; but we must never forget that such general agreements in plan cover the most pro- found differences in detail and in adaptation to use, and that, while they indicate a common type, this may rather point to a unity of design than to a mere accidental unity of descent. There is a method, well known to natural science, for measuring and indicating the di- vergence of man from his, nearest allies. This is the application of those principles of classifi- cation which, though of essential importance in science, are by some modern students of nature strangely overlooked or misunderstood. Per- haps in nothing has the progress of ideas of evolution made a more injurious impress on the advance of knowledge than in the manner in which it has caused many eminent and able naturalists to diverge from all logical propriety in their ideas of classification. Still, in so far as man is concerned, there are some facts of this kind which are indisputable. He certainly constitutes a distinct species, including many races, which all, however, have common specific characters. On the other hand, no one pre- tends that he is conspecific with any lower an- imal. All naturalists would now deride the stories, at one time current, that gorillas and ' J Fig. 7. Man and his "poor relation," the gorilla. (Afi,r Huxl^ \ Th. head of the gorilla, with immense jaws and smallSlin^sf^^s hl^e ?o™s stfllt^^^^ T ""'"• '"^ '"^^ "^'^^^^'^ °^ -"^y intermediate torms, stiU unknown, to connect the two species. »4» 142 FACTS AND FANCIES chimpanzees are degraded races of men. On the other hand^ even Haeckel admits that, there is a wide gap, unfilled by any recent or any fos- sil creature, between man and the highest apes. Again, no generic relationship can be claimed as between man and the lower animals. He presents such structural differences as entitle him to rank by himself in the genus Homo, Still further, the ablest naturalists, before the rise of Darwinism, held that man was entitled to be placed in a separate family or order from the apes. Modern evolutionists prefer to fall back on the old arrangement of Linnaeus, and to place man and apes together in the group of Primates, which, however, Linnaeus would not have regarded as precisely of the same value with an order as now held. In this those of them who have sufficient ability to compre- hend the facts of the case are undoubtedly warped in judgment by the tendency of their philosophy to magnify resemblances and to minimize differences ; while the herd of feebler men have their ideas of classification thorough- ly confused by the doctrine which they have received as a creed dictated by authority, and to which they adhere under the influence of fear. In point of fact, the differences between IN MODERN SCIENCE. 143 man and any other animal are so wide that they warrant a distinction, not merely specific and generic, but of a family and an ordinal cha- racter. Perhaps the best way to appreciate this will be to suppose that man has become extinct, and that in some future geological period his fossil remains are studied by some new race of intelligent beings, and compared with those of the lower animals his contemporaries. Let us suppose that they have disinterred a human skull or the bones of a human foot. From the foot they would learn that man is not an arbo- real animal, but intended to walk erect on the ground. They could infer from this certain structures and uses of the vertebral column and of the anterior limbs different from those found in apes, and which would certainly induce them to conclude that they had obtained re- mains indicating a new order of mammals. If they had found the foot alone, they might doubt whether the possessor of this strange and high- ly-specialized organ had been carnivorous or herbivorous, more nearly allied to the bears or to the monkeys. Should they now find the skull, these doubts would be solved, and they would know that the new animal was some- 144 FACTS AND FANCIES what nearer to the apes than to the bears, but still at a very remote distance from them, and this indicated by peculiarities of brain-case, jaws, and teeth, proving divergences in function still wider than those apparent in the structures. They would also plainly perceive that to link man with his nearest mammalian' allies would require the discovery of several missing links. When we consider the psychological endow- ments of man, his divergence from lower animals becomes immensely greater. In his external senses and in the perceptions derived through them it is true he resembles the brutes. There is also much in common with them in his appetites and emotions, and in some of the lower manifestations of intelligence. But he adds to this a higher reason, which causes his actions to be differently determined from theirs ; and this higher reason, or spiritual nature, leads him to abstract ideas, to consciousness, to notions of right and of wrong, to ideas of higher spiritual beings and of futurity alto- gether unknown to lower animals. This divine reason, in connection with special vocal con- trivances, also bestows on him the gift of speech. Nor can speech be reduced to a mere imitation of natural sounds ; for, grant- IN MODERN SCIENCE. MS ing that these sounds may be the raw material of speech, yet man is enabled to apply this to the expression of ideas in a manner altogether peculiar to himself. Scientific precision obliges us to i ecognize these differences, and to admit that they place man on an entirely different plane from tfte lower animals. Perhaps the expression "a different plane " is scarcely correct, for man can exist on many different planes — a fact which has produced some confusion in the minds of naturalists not versed in psychological questions, though, when rightly considered, it marks very strongly the distinction between the man and the viere animal. The lower animals are tied up by Invariable instincts to certain lines of action which keep all the individuals of any species on nearly the same level, except where some little disturb- ance may be caused by man in his processes of domestication. But with man it is quite different. He is emancipated from the bond of instinct, and left free to follow the guidance of his own will, determined by his own reason. It follows that the habits and the actions of a man depend on what he knows and believes, and on the deductions of his reason from these 13 146 FACTS AND FANCIES premises. Without knowledge, culture, and training, man is more helpless than any brute. With the noblest and highest capacities, he may devise and follow habits of life more base than those of any mere animal. Thus there is an almost immeasurable difference between the Godlike height to which man can attain by the right use of his powers and the depth to which ignorance and depravity may degrade him. It follows that the degradation of the lower races of men is as strong a proof of the difference between man and the lower animals as is the elevation of the higher races. Both are characteristic of a being emancipated from the control of instinct, knowing good and evil, free to choose, and differing in these respects from every other creature on earth. Such is man as we find him ; and we may well ask by what process animal instinct could ever spontaneously develop human freedom and human reason. But we might have evidence of such a pro- cess, however strange and improbable it might at first sight appear. We might be able to trace man back in history or by prehistoric remains to greater and greater approximation to the lower animals, and might thus bridge ■f* IN MODERI^ SCIENCE. H7 over the great chasm now existing between man and beast. It may be instructive, there- fore, to glance at what geology discloses as to the origin of man and his first appearance on the earth. In the older geological formations no remains of man or of "his works have been found. Nor do we expect to find them, for none of the animals more nearly related to man then ex- isted, and the condition of the earth was proba- bly not suited to them. Nor do we find human remains even in the earlier Tertiary. Here also we do not expect them, for the Mammalia of those times were all specifically distinct from those of the modern world. It is only in the Pliocene period that we begin to find modern species of mammals. Here, therefore, we may look for human remains ; but we do not find them as yet, and it is only at the close of the Pliocene, or even after the succeeding Glacial period, that we find undoubted traces of man. Let us glance at the significance of this. Mammalian life probably culminated or at- tained to its maximum in the Miocene and the early Pliocene periods. Then there were more numerous, larger, and better-developed quadru- peds on our continents than we now find. For r^ 148 FACTS AND FANCIES example, the elephants, the noblest of the mammals, are at present represented by' two species confined to India and parts of Africa.* In the Middle Tertiary there were, in addition to the ordinary elephants, two other genera. Mastodon and Dinotherium, and there were many species which were distributed over the whole northern hemisphere. The sub- Hima- layan deposits of India alone have, I believe, afforded seven species, some of them of grander dimensions than either of those now existing. We have no trustworthy evidence as yet that man lived at this period. If he had, he either would have required the protection of a special Eden, or would have needed su- perhuman strength and sagacity. But the grand mammalian life of the Middle Tertiary was destined to die out. At the close of the Pliocene came an age of refrigeration, when arctic cold crept down over our conti- nents far to the south, and when most of the animals suited to ten.perate climates were either frozen out or driven southward. During, '^r closing, this period was also a great sub- mergence of the continents, which must have * The Ceylon elephant is by some believed to be distinct, but is probably a variety of the Indian species. I^ MODERN SCIENCE. 149 )se iti- tere been equally destructive to mammalian life, and •which extended over both Eurasia and America till the summits of some of the high- est hills were under water. Attempts have been made to show that man existed before or during the Glacial Age, but this is very unlikely, and, as I have elsewhere argued, the evidence adduced to prove so great antiquity of man, whether in America or Europe, has altogether broken down.* At the close of the Glacial period the conti- nents re-emerged and became more extensive than at present. Survivors of the Pliocene species, as well as other species not previously known, spread themselves over this new land. It would appear that it was in this " Post- Glacial " period that man made his appear- ance, and that he was then contemporary with many large animals now extinct, and was the possessor of wider continental areas than his descendants now enjoy. To this age belong those human bones and implements found in the older cave and gravel deposits of Europe, and which are referred to those palaeolithic or palaeocosmic ages which preceded the dawn of history in Europe and the arrival therein of * Fossil Men (London, 1880), Appendix. 18* iir" 150 FACTS AND FANCIES, the present European races. The occupation of Europe, and probably of Western Asia, by these oldest tribes of men was closed by a subsidence or submergence at the end of that "second continental period," as it has been called by Lyell,* in which they lived. When the land was restored to its present condition, they were replaced by the ancestors of the present European races. It may be well here to tabulate that later por- tion of the earth's geological history in which man appeared, more especially as it is some- times arranged in a manner not suited to con- vey a correct impression of the actual succes- sion. It will be seen by the general table given in the last lecture that the latest of the Tertiary ages is that known as the Pleistocene or Post- Pliocene, and this, with the succeeding modern period, may be best arranged as follows : I. Pleistocene, including — ' {a) Early Pleistocene, or First Continental Period. Land very extensive, moderate climate. [b) Later Pleistocene, or Glacial (including Dawkins' " Mid- Pleistocene "). In this there was a great prevalence of cold and glacial conditions, and a great submergence of the northern land. II. Modern, or Period of Man and Modem Mammals, includ- ing— [a) Post- Glacial, or Second Continental Period, in which thfc * The first continental period was that of the earlier f liocepe. IN MODERN SCIENCE. 151 land was again very extensive, and palseocosmic man was con- temporary with some great mammals — as the mammoth, now extinct — and the area of land in the northern hemisphere was greater than at present. (This represents the Late Pleistocene of Dawkins.) It was terminated by a great and very general sub- sidence, accompanied by the disappearance of palseocosmic man and some large Mammalia, and which may be identical with tlie historical deluge,* {b) Recent, when the continents attained their present levels, existing races of men colonized Europe, and living species of mammals. This includes both the Prehistoric and the Historic Period. Mid- Dld and •n land. includ- The palaeocosmic men of the above table are the oldest certainly known to us, and it has been truly said of them that they are so closely re- lated to modern races that, on any hypothesis of gradual evolution, we must look for the transition from apes to men not merely in the Eocene Tertiary, but even in the Mesozoic — that is, in formations vastly older than any containing' any remains so far as known either of man or of apes. That these most ancient men were in truth most truly human, and that they presented no transition to lower animals, will appear from the following notices, which I condense from a work of my own in which these subjects are more fully treated : * * The precise date in years assignable to this event geology cannot determine ; but I have elsewhere shown that the actual antiquity of the palseocosmic or antediluvian man has been greatly exaggerated. 152 FACTS AND FANCIES The beautiful work of Lartet and Christy has vividly portrayed to us the antiquities of the limestone plateau of the Dordogne — the ancient Aquitania — remains which recall to us a population of Horites, or cave-dwellers, of a time anterior to the dawn of history in France, living much like the modern hunter-tribes of America, and, as already stated, possibly con- temporary — in their early history, at least — with the mammoth and its extinct companions of the later Post- Pliocene forests. We have al- ready noticed the arts and implements of these people, but what manner of people were they in themselves ? The answer is given to us by the skeletons found in the cave of Cro-ma- gnon. This cavern is a shelter or hollow under an overhanging ledge of limestone, and exca- vated originally by the action of the weather on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west and the little river Vezere ; and, having originally been about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a cosey shelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleas- ant outlook from its front. All rude races have much sagacity in making selections of this sort. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to accommodate several families, and IN MODERN SCIENCE. 153 when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs in front, and may have been further completed by stones, poles, or bark placed across the open- ing. It seems, however, in the first instance to have been used only at intervals, and to have been left vacant fcu^ cohsic ' le portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only by hunting- or war-parties. But subsequently it was per- manently occupied, and this for so long a time that in some places ashes and carbonaceous matter a foot and a half deep, with bones, im- plements, etc., were accumulated. By this time the height of the cavern had been much dimin- ished, and, instead of clearing it out for future use, it was made a place of burial, in which four or five individuals were interred. Of these, two were men, one of great age, the other probably in the prime of life. A third was a woman of about thirty or forty years of age. The other remains were too fragmentary to give very certain results. These bones, with others to be mentioned n connection with them, unquestionably belong to the oldest human inhabitants known in West- ern Europe. They have been most carefully ex- amined by several competent anatomists and archaeologists, and the results have been pub- 154 FACTS AND FANCIES lished with excellent figures in the Reliquice AquitafiiccB. They are, therefore, of the ut- most interest for our present purpose, and I shall try s to divest the descriptions of ana- tomical details as to give a clear notion of their character. The ' Old M^n of Cro-magnon * was of great stature, being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones show that he was of the strongest and most athletic muscu- lar development — a Samson in strength ; and the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which is characteristic of athletic men habit- uated to rough walking, climbing, and running, for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enormous strength of the thigh-bone and the flattened condition of the leg in this and other old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, though much less than in this old man, in American skeletons. His skull presents all the charac- ters of advanced age, though the teeth had been worn down to the sockets without being lost ; which, again, is the character of some, though not of all, aged Indian skulls. The skull proper, or brain-case, is very long — more so than in ordinary modern skulls — and this length is accompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size than in IN MODERN SCIENCE, 155 average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well developed. In this respect this most ancient skull fails utterly to vindicate the expectations of those who would regard prehistoric men as approaching to the apes. It is at the opposite extreme. The face, how- ever, presented very peculiar characters. It was extremely broad, with projecting cheek- bones and heavy jaw, in this resembling the coarse types of the American face, and the eye-orbits were square and elongated laterally. The nose was large and prominent, and the jaws projected somewhat forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some resem- blance to the harsher type of American physi- ognomy, with overhanging brows, small and transverse eyes, high cheek-bones, and coarse mouth. He had not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for his thigh-bone showed a depression which must have resulted from a severe wound — perhaps from the horn of some wild animal or the spear of an enemy. The woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form modified by her sex, and must in form and visage have been a ver- itable squaw, who, if her hair and complexion were suitable, would have passed at once for an ,l^>>i** 156 FACTS AND FANCIES American Indian woman, of unusual size and development. Her head bears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has penetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a frac- ture as to indicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from the con- dition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was re- ceived in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been driven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, . either with other members of her family or with others who had perished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night-attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her little ones from destruction. With the peo- ple of Cro-magnon, as with the American In- dians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be neglected without incur- ring the greatest disgrace and the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers. IN MODERN SCIENCE. 157 and y to died tded the frac- and con- ; may is or IS rc- tribe, -tired, of her uried, • r with mish. during ot in rhaps elding e peo- an In- ably a incur- geance r The skulls of these people have been com- pared to those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians ; but on the authority of M. Qua- trefages it is stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of small men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the most ancient, European race ? One answer is given by the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the South of France, found under circum- stances equally suggestive of great antiquity (Figure 8). Dr. Riviere, in a memoir on this skeleton illustrated by two beautiful photo- graphs, shows that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are precisely similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect identity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar in character. The ornaments of Cro-magnon were per- fr ated shells from the Atlantic and pieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated Ner- itinae from the Mediterranean and canine-teeth of the deer. In both cases there was evidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of iron ; and, as if to complete 14 . -rn. i5§ FACTS AND FANCIES. the similarity, the Mentone man had an old healed-up fracture of the radius of the left arm, the effect of a violent blow or of a fall. Skulls found at Clichy and Crenelle in 1868 and 1869 are described by Professor Broca and Mr. Fleu- rens as of the same general type, and the re- mains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in England, seem also to have be- longed to the same race. The celebrated En- gis skull, believed to have belonged to a con- temporary of the mammoth, is also precisely of the same type, though less massive than that of Cro-magnon ; and, lastly, even the somewhat degraded Neanderthal skull, found in a cave near Dusseldorf, though, like that of Clichy, in- ferior in frontal development, is referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as can be judged from the portion that re- mains. Let it be observed, then, that these skulls are probably the oldest known in the world, and they are all referable to one race of men ; and let us ask what they tell as to the posi- tion and character of palaeolithic man. The tes- timony is here fortunately wellnigh unanimous. Huxley, who well compares some of the pecu- liar features of these ancient skulls and skele- Fir.. 8. old rm, ulls 869 leu- re- i of be- En- con- lyof lat of swhat cave ly, ii^- to the in so at re- skulls world, men; posi- fhe tes- limous. pecu- skele- Portion of the skeleton of the fossil man of Mentone. Thi!> akeleton was discovered by Dr. Riviere under about twenty feet of accumulated d6bris. It belongs to the palaeocosmic age, and illustrates the high type, physically, of the man of that period. The skeleton, like others of that age, indicates a man of great stature and muscular vigor, and with brain above the average size. [After Riviire.) , 159 i6o FACTS AND FANCIES tons to those of i\ustralians and other rude tribes, and of the ancient Danes of Borroby — a people not improbably allied to the Estho- nians and Fins — remarks that the manner in which the individual heads of the most homoge- neous rude races differ from each other " in the same characters, though perhaps not to the same extent with the Engis and Neanderthal skulls, seems to prohibit any cautious reasoner from affirming the latter to have necessarily been of distinct races." My own experience in Amer- ican skulls, and the still larger experience of Dr. Wilson, fully confirm the wisdom of this caution. . . . He adds : "Finally, the comparatively large cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, over- laid though it may be by pithecoid, bony walls, and the completely human proportions of the ac- companying limb-bones, together with the very fair development of the Engis skull, clearly in- dicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence man has been derived need no longer be sought by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of progressive develop- ment in the newest Tertiaries, but that they may be looked for in an epoch more distant from that of the Elephas primigenius than that is from us." If he had possessed the Cro-magnon n 3 3 cr «» g. •-I n P m g '^ p S 2 ^^1 ft in o i ■ - (T in n • v> n n a § & 3 K- B B P ?N •a o ft D C P vi* ^ o- O '^ tn < ? a i ^ S 5' S ^ ^ "> s I. B I 3-2 Sop ft 3 ffq CL ft p ^ _, O ft ^' "r1 ft rt ft ft ft O^ K ft i/i «• ST* ^ 5 a ft ft a 3" lil'i'i Wl r-ii '.«'. 11 NO sex l62 FACTS AND FANCIES and Mentone skulls at the time when this was written, he might well have said immeasurably distant from the time of the Elephas primige- nius. Professor Broca, who seems by no means disinclined to favor a simian origin for men, has the following general conclusions, which refer to the Cro-magnon skulls : "The great vol- ume of the brain, the development of the fron- tal region, the fine elliptical profile of the an- terior portion of the skull, and the orthogna- thous form of the upper facial region, are incon- testably evidence of superiority which are met with usually only in the civilized races. On the other hand, the great breadth of face, the alve- olar prognathism, the enormous development of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscular inser- tions, especially of the masticatory muscles, give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal race. »> He adds that this apparent antithesis, seen also In ^he limbs as well as in the skull, accords with the evidence furnished by the associated weapons and implements of a rude hunter- life, and at the same time of no mean degree of tciste and skill in carving and other arts (see Fig. 9). He might have added that IN MODERN SCIENCE. 163 this is precisely the antithesis seen in the American tribes, among whom art and taste of various kinds, and much that is high and spiritual even in thought, coexisted with bar- barous modes of life and intense ferocity and cruelty. The god and the devil were com- bined in these races, but there was nothing of the mere brute. Riviere remarks, with expressions of sur- prise, the same contradictory points in the Mentone skeleton. Its grand development of brain-case and high facial angle — even higher, apparently, than in most of these ancient skulls — combined with other charac- ters which indicate a low type and barbarous modes of life. Another point which strikes us in reading the descriptions, and which deserves the atten- tion of those who have access to the skeletons, is the indication which they seem to present of an extreme longevity. The massive pro- portions of the body, the great development of the muscular processes, the extreme wear- ing of the teeth among a people who pre- dominantly lived on flesh and not on grain, the obliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with indications of slow ossification of 164 FACTS AND FANCIES the ends of the long bones, point in this direc- tion, and seem to indicate a slow maturity and great length of life in this most primitive race. The picture would be incomplete did we not add that in France and Belgium, in the immediately succeeding or reindeer age, these gigantic and magnificent men seem to have been superseded by a feebler race of smaller stature and with shorter heads ; so that we have, even in these oldest days, the same con- trasts so plainly perceptible in the races of the North of Europe and the North of America in historical times (Figure 10). It is -further significant that there are some indications to show that the larger and nobler race was that which inhabited Eu-ope at the time of its greatest elevation above the sea and greatest horizontal extent, and when its fauna included many large quadrupeds now extinct. This race of giants was thus in the possession of a greater continental area than that now existing, and had to contend with gigantic brute rivals for the possession of the world. It is also not improbable that this early race became extinct in Europe in con- sequence of the physical changes which oc- curred in connection with the subsidence which ome )bler the sea its now the than with f the this con- h oc- which Section of the cave of Frontal, in Belgium. {Afier Dupont.) a, limestone ; b, deposit of mud of the mammoth age, on which rests a bed of gravel, c, and above this there was, in modern times, a mass of fallen d6bris, d, up to the dotted line. Oi removing this, a hearth was found at e, on which were numerous bones of motlern animals, the remains of funeral feasts. The cave was closed with i flat stone, and within were skeletons, stone implements, ornaments, and pottery of the "neolithic" age. Under these was undisturbed earth of the palae- olithic, or mammoth age. The facts show the succession, in Belgium, of palseocosmic or antediluvian men and of neocosmic men allied to the Basques or to the Laps, and all this previous to the advent of the modem races. i6S 1 66 FACTS AND FANCIES. reduced the land to Its present limits, and that the dwarfish race which succeeded came in as the appropriate accompaniment of a diminished land-surface and a less genial climate in the early modern period. Both of these races are properly palaeolithic, and are supposed to antedate the period of polished stone ; but this may, to a great extent, be a prejudice of collectors, who have arrived at a foregone conclusion as to the distinctness of these periods (Figure ii). Judging from the great cranial capacity of the older race and the small number of their skeletons found, it would be fair to suppose that they represent rude out- lying tribes belonging to races which elsewhere had attained to greater culture. ' Lastly, both of these old European races were Turanian, Mongolian, or American in their head-forms and features, as well as In their habhs. Implements, and arts. To illustrate this, In so far as the older of the two races Is concerned, I have carefully compared collec- tions of American Indian skulls with casts and figures representing the form and di- mensions of some of the oldest European crania above referred to. Some of the American skulls may fairly be compared '..r : -» %' Fig. h. Flint arrowheads found together in a modem Indian deposit in Canada, and showing the coincidence in time of rude and finished flint weapons, or that among all savages using chipped flint, the palaeo- lithic and neolithic ages are contemporaneous. i68 FACTS AND FANCIES. in their characters with the Mentone skull, and others with those of Cro-magnon, En- gis, and Neanderthal ; and so like are some of the Huron, Iroquois, and other northern American skulls to these ancient European relics and others of their type, that it would be difficult to affirm that they might not have belonged to near relatives. On the other hand, the smaller and shorter heads of the race of the reindeer age in Europe may be compared with the Laps, and with some of the more delicately formed Algonquin and Chippe- wayan skulls in America. If, therefore, the reader desires to realize the probable aspect of the men of Cro-magnon, of Mentone, or of Engis, I may refer him to modern American heads. So permanent is this great Turanian race, out of which all the other races now extant seem to have been developed, in the milder and more hospitable regions of the Old World, while in northern Asia and in America it has retained to this day its primitive characters. The reader, reflecting on what he has learned from history, may be disposed here to ask, Must we suppose Adam to have been one of these Turanian men, like old men of IN MODERN SCIENCE. 169, all, Ln- me ern ean )uld lave ither the y be f the ippe- ;, the spect le, or odern great other loped, ns of nd in mitive le has here been len of Cro-magnon ? In answer, I would say that there is no good reason to regard the first man as having resembled a Greek Apollo or an Adonis. He was probably of sterner and more muscular mould. But the gigantic palaeo- lithic men of the European caves are more probably representatives of that fearful and powerful race who filled the antediluvian world widi violence, and who reappear in postdiluvian times as the Anakim and traditional giants, who constitute a feature in the early history of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious in the rev,elations as to the most ancient cave-men than that they confirm the old belief that there were 'giants in those days.' And now let us pause for a moment to picture these so-called palaeolithic men. What could the old man of Cro-magnon have told us had we been able to sit by his hearth and listen understandingly to his speech? — which, if we may judge from the form of his palate- bones, must have resembled more that of the Americans or Mongolians than of any modern European people. He had, no doubt, travelled far, for to his stalwart limbs a long journey through forests and -^^'er plains and mountains 16 Ill II _i;o FACTS AND FANCIES would be a mere pastime. He may have bestridden the wild horse, which seems to have abounded at the time in France, and he may have launched his canoe on the waters of the Atlantic. His experience and memory might extend back a century or more, and his traditional lore might go back to the times of the first mother of our race. Did he live in that wide Post- Pliocene continent which ex- tended westward through Ireland ? Did he know and had he visited the nations that lived in the valley of the great Gihon, that ran down the Mediterranean Valley, or on that nameless river which flowed through the Dover Straits ? Had he visited or seen from afar the great island Atlantis, whose inhabitants could almost see in the sunset sky the islands of the blest ? Or did he live at a later time, after the Post- Pliocene subsidence, and when the land had assumed its present form? In that case he could have told us of the great deluge, of the huge animals of the antediluvian world — known to him only by tradition — and of the diminished strength and longevity of men in his compar- atively modern days. We can but conjecture all this. But, mute though they may be as to the details of their lives, the man of Cro- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 171 to nd srs 3ry his of i in ex- he ived [own eless aits? yreat most lest? Post- had se he )f the nown lushed mpar- ecture \ as to Cro- magnon and his contemporaries are eloquent of one great truth, in which they coincide with the Americans and with the primitive men of ' all the early ages. They tell us that primitive man had the same high cerebral organization which he possesses now, and, we may infer,, the same high intellectual and moral nature, fitting him for communion with God and head- ship over the lower world. They indicate, also, like the Mound-builders, who preceded the North American Indian, that man's earlier state was the best — that he had been a high and noble creature before he became a savage. It is not conceivable that their high develop- ment of brain and mind could have sponta- neously engrafted itself on a mere brutal and savage life. These gifts must be remnants of a noble organization degraded by mgral evil. They thus justify the tradition of a Golden and Edenic Age, and mutely protest against the philosophy of progressive develop- ment as applied to man, while they bear wit- ness to the identity in all important characters of the oldest prehistoric men with that variety of our species which is at the present day at once the most widely extended and the most primitive in its manners and usages. 1/2 FACTS AND FANCIES Thus it would appear that these earliest known men are not specifically distinct from ourselves, but are a distinct race, most nearly allied to that great Turanian stock which is at the present day, and has apparently from the earliest historic times been, the most widely spread of all. Though rude and uncultured, they were not either physically or mentally inferior to the average men of to-day, and were indeed in several respects men of high type, whose great cranial capacity might lead us to suppose that their ancestors had recently been in a higher state of civilization than them- selves. It is, however, possible that this cha- racteristic was rather connected with great energy and physical development than with high mental activity. To the hypothesis of evolution, as applied to man, these facts evidently oppose great difficulties. They show that such modern degraded races as the Fuegians or the Tas- manians cannot present to us the types of our earlier ancestors, since the latter were men of a different and higher style. Nor do these oldest known men present any approx- imation in physical characters to the lower animals. Further, we may infer from their IN MODERN SCIENCE, 173 works, and from what we know of their beliefs and habits, that' they were not creatures of instinct, but of thought Hke ourselves, and that materialistic doctrines of automatism and brain-force without mind would be quite as absurd in their application to them as to their modern representatives. It is not too much to say that, in presence of these facts, the spontaneous origin of man from inferior animals cannot be held as a scientific conclusion. It may be an article of faith in authority, or a superstition or an hypothesis, but is in no respect a result of scientific investigation into the fossil remains of man. But if man is not such a product of spontaneous evolution, he must have been created by a Being having a higher reason and a greater power than his own ; and the ancestry of the agnostic, and the rational powers which he exercises, constitute the best refutation of his own doctrine. 16 • ■V.,., ■I*.' NATURE •A Manifestation of Mind. i i (. LECTURE V. NATURE AS A MANIFESTATION OF MIND. THE subjects already discussed should have prepared us to regard nature as not a merely fortuitous congeries of matter and forces, but as embodying plan, design, and contrivance ; and we may now inquire as to the character of these, considered as possible manifestations of mind in nature. The idea that nature is a manifestation of mind, is ancient, and probably un:' /ersal. It proceeds naturally from the analogy between the oper- ations of nature and those which originate in our own will and contrivance. When men begin to think more accurately, this idea ac- quires a deeper foundation in the conclusion that nature, in all its varied manifestations, is one vast machine too great and complex for us to comprehend, and irr plying a primary energy infinitely beyond that of man ; and thus the unity of nature points to one Crea- tive Mind. in 178 FACTS AND FANCIES Even to savage peoples, in whose minds the idea of unity has .lot germinated, or from whose traditions it has been lost, a spiritual essence appears to underlie all natural phe- nomena, though they may regard this as con- sisting of a separate spirit or manitou for * every material thing. In all the more culti- vated races the ideas of natural religion have takeL> more definite forms in their theology and philosophy. Dugald Stewart has well ex- pressed the more scientific form of this idea in two shoit statements: " I . Every effect implies a cause. " 2. Every combination of means to an end implies intelligence." The theistic aspect of the doctrine had, as we have seen in a previous lecture, been already admirably expressed by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. Writing of what every heathen must know of mind in nature, he says : " The invisible things of him since the cieation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his eternal power and divinity." The two things which, according to him, every intelligent man must perceive in nature are, first, power above and beyond that of man, IN MODERN SCIENCE. 179 are and, secondly, superhuman intelligence. Even Agnostic Evolution cannot wholly divest itself of the idea of mind in nature. Its advocates continually use terms implying contiivance a lid plan when speaking of nature ; and Spencer appears explicitly to admit that we cannot divest ourselves of the notion of a First Cause. Even those writers who seek to shelter themselves under such vague and unmeaning statements as that human intel- ligence must be potentially present in atoms or in the solar energy, are merely attributing superhuman power and divinity to atoms and forces. Nor can they escape by the magisterial de- nunciation of such ideas as "anthropomorphic" fancies. All science must in this sense be an-, thropomorphic, 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 permanent truth ; while, if the theistic view is correct, then the fact that man himself belongs to the unity of nature and is in har- i8o FACTS AND FANCIES mony with its other parts gives us some guaran- tee for the absolute truth of scientific facts and > principles. We may now consider more in detail some of the aspects under which mind presents itself in nature. I. It may be maintained that nature is an exhibition of regulated and determined power. 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 phenomena in detail, we see 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 are 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 vapor of water, for example, disused in the atmosphere, is condensed by extreme cold and falls to the ground in snowflakes. In these, particles of water previously kept asun- der by heat are united by cohesive force ; and the heat has gone on other missions. But these particles do not merely unite: they IN MODERN SCIENCE. i8i geometrize. Like well-drilled soldiers arrang- ing 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 angles of sixty degrees (see Fig. 12). The frost on the window-panes observes the same law, and so does every crystallization of water where it has scope to arrange itself in accordance with its own geometry. But this law of crystallization gives to snow and ice their mechanical properties, and is connected with a multitude of adjust- ments of water in the 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 and crystalline rocks, and is connected with countless adapta- tions of different kinds of matter to mechanical and chemical uses in the arts. It is easv to see that all this might have been otherwise — nay, that it must have been otherwise — but for the institution of many and complex laws. A lump of coal at first suggests little to ex- cite interest or imagfination ; but the student of 16 l82 FACTS AND FANCIES. its composition and microscopic structure finds that it is an accumulation of vegetable matter representing the action of the solar light on the leaves of trees of the Palaeozoic 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 preserva- tion of their buried remains. It further sug- gests the many ways in which this solar energy, so long sealed up, can be recalled to activity in heat, gaslight, steam, and electric light, and how remarkably these things have been related to the wealth and the civilization of modern na- tions. An able writer of the agnostic school, in a popular lecture on coal, has his imagination so stimulated by these thoughts that he apostro- phizes "Nature" as the cunning contriver who stored up this buried sunlight by her strange and mysterious alchemy, kept it quietly to her- self through all the long geological periods when reptiles and brute mammals were lords of creation, and through those centuries of bar- barism when savage men roamed over the pro- ductive coal-districts in ignorance of their treas- ures, and then revealed her long-hidden stores of wealth and comfort to the admiring study of science and civilization, and for the benefit of Ftg. 12. ^ C Snowflakes copied from nature under the microscope, and serving to illustrate the geometrical arrangement of molecules of water in crystallizing, a, ^, simple stars; ^, ar', hexagonal plates; 198 FACTS AND FANCIES no complexity, prove, on examination, to be in- tricate 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 man- ufactured material. Albumen, or white of ^^^ — which is otherwise named " protoplasm " — is a very complicated substance both chemically and in its molecular arrangements, and when endowed with life it presents properties alto- gether inscrutable. It is easy to say that the protoplasm of an ^^^ or of some humble an- imalcule 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 the future animal, however com- plex ; but how we may never know, and cer- tainly 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 act- ual structures only under powers of two thou- sand diameters, or more ; yet these animals can be seen to have an outer skin and an inner IN MODERN SCIENCE. 199 mass, to have pulsating sacs and reproductive organs, and threadlike flagella wherewith to swim. Their eggs are, of course, much small- er than themselves — so much so that some of them are probably invisible under the highest powers yet employed. Each of them however, is potentially an animal, with all its parts rep- resented structurally in some way. Nor need we wonder at this. It has been calculated that a speck scarcely visible under the most po\/er- ful microscope may contain two million four hundred thousand molecules of protoplasm.* If each of these molecules were a brick, there would be enough of them to build a terrace of twenty-five good dwelling-houses. But this is supposing them to be all alike ; whereas we know that the molecules of albumen are capa- ble of being of very various kinds. Each of these molecules really contains eight hundred and eighty- two ultimate 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 phos- phorus. Now, we know that these atoms may be differently "arranged in different molecules, * I am indebted for these figures to my friend Dr. S. P. Robins of Montreal. 200 FACTS AND FANCIES producing considerable difference of proper- ties. Let us try, then, to calculate of how many differences of arrangement the atoms of one molecule of protoplasm are susceptible, and then to calculate of how many changes these different assemblages are capable in a microscopic dot composed of two million four hundred thousand of them. It is scarcely neces- sary to say that such a calculation, in the multi- tudes of possibilities involved, transcends human powers of imagination ; yet it answers questions of mechanical and chemical grouping merely, without any reference to the additional mystery of life. Let it be observed that this vastly com- plex material is assumed as if there were noth- ing remarkable in it, by many of those theorists who plausibly explain to us the spontaneous origin of living things. But nature, in arrang- ing all the parts of a complicated animal before- hand in an apparently structureless microsco- pic ovum, has all these vast numbers to deal with in working out the exact result ; and this not in one case merely, but in multitudes of cases in- volving the most varied combinations. We can scarcely suppose the atoms themselves to have the power of thus unerringly marshalling them- selves to work out the sti*uctures of organisms IN MODERN SCIENCE. 201 infinitely varied, yet all alike after their kinds. If not, then " Nature " must be a goddess gifted with superhuman powers of calculation and mar- vellous deftness in arranging invisible atoms. 4. The beauty of form, proportion, and color- ing that abounds in nature affords evidence of mind. Herculean efforts have been made by modern 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 be- tween our perceptions and certain external things. But. in no part of their argument have they more signally failed in accounting for i:ie 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 indis- soluble connection which has been established between the senses and the aesthetic senti- ments of man and certain things in the exter- nal world. But there is more in beauty than this merely anthropological relation. Certain forms, for example, adopted in the skeletons of the lower animals are necessarily beautiful 202 FACTS AND FANCIES. because of their geometrical proportions. Cer- tain styles of coloring are necessarily beautiful because of harmonies and contrasts which depend on the essential properties of the waves of light. Beauty is thus in a great measure independent of the taste of the spec- tator. It is also independent of mere utility, since, even if we admit that all these combina- tions of forms, motions, and colors which we call beautiful are also useful, it is easy to perceive that, the end could often be attained without the beauty. . It is a curious fact that some of the .simplest animals — as, for example, sponges and Foramin- ifera — are furnished with the most beautiful skeletons. Nothing can exceed the beauty of form and proportions in the shells of some Foraminifera and Polycistina, or in the skele- tons of some silicious sponges (see Fig. 19), while it is obvious .that these humble creatures, without brains and external senses, can neither contrive nor appreciate the beauty with which they are clothed. Further, some of these structures are very old geologically. The sponge whose skeleton is known as " Venus's flower-basket" produces a structure of inter- woven silicious threads exquisite in its beauty Fig. 19. Magnified portion of a silicions sponge, showing the principle of construction of the hexactinellid sponges, with six-rayed spicules joined together and strengthened with diagonal braces. ^AfUr Zittel ) aoj \\ 204 FACTS AND FANCIES. and perfect in its mechanical arrangements for strength (Figure 20). Even in the old Cambiian rocks there are remains of sponges which seem already to have practically solved the geometrical problems involved in the pro- duction of these wonderful skeletons ; and with a Chinese-like persistency, having attained to perfection, they have adhered to it throughout geological time. Nor is there anything of mere inorganic crystallization in this. The sil- ica of which the skeletons are made is colloidal, not crystalline, and the forms themselves have no relations to the crystalline axes of silici. Such illustrations might b€ multiplied to any extent, and apply to all the beauties of form, structure, and coloring which abound around OS and far excel our artificial imitations of them. 5. The instinctii of the lower animals imply a Higher Intelligence. Instinct, in the theistic view of nature, can be nothing less than a divine inspiration placing the animal in relation with other things and processes, often of the most complex character, and which it could by no means have devised for itself. Further, instinct is in its very essence a thing unimprov- able. Like the laws of nature, it pperates Fig. aa Euplectella, or " Venus's flower basket," a silicious sponge, showing its general form. (Reduced, from Am. Naturalist, vol. iv.) 18 ■05 206 FACTS AND FANCIES invariably; and xi diminish^id or changed, it would prove useless i'cr 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 successors : it is inherited by each genera- tion in all its perfection, and from the first goes directly to its end as if it were a merely physical cause. The favorite explanation of instinct from the side of Agnostic Evolution is that it orig- inated in the struggle for existence of some previous generation, and 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 evident; but the ques- tion is. How did it begin ? and to say simply that it did begin at some former period is to tell us nothing. From a scientific point of view, the invariable operation of any natural law afifords no evidence of any gradual or sudden origination of it at any point of past time ; and when such law is connected with a complicated organism and various other laws and processes of the external world, the sup- position of its slowly arising from nothing IN MODERN SCIENCE. 207 to through many generations of animals becomes too intricate to be credible. Instinct must have originated in a perfect condition, and with the organism and its environment already estab- lished. I may borrow here an apposite illus- tration from recent papers on the unity of nature by the Duke of Argyll, which deserve careful study by any one who values common- sense views of this subject. The example which I select is that of the action of a young merganser in its effort to elude pursuit : " On a secluded lake in one of the Hebrides, I observed a dun-diver, or female of the red- breasted merganser {Mergus 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 capture them. The distance they went under v»rater, and the unexpected places in which they emerged, baffled all our efforts for a consider- able time. At last one of the brood made for the shore, with the object of hiding among the grass and heather which fringed the margin of the lake. We pursued it as closely as we could ; but when the little bird gained the 208 FACTS AND FANCIES shore^ our boat was still about twenty yards off. Long drought had left a broad margin of small flat stones and mud between the water and the usual bank. I saw the little bird run up about a couple of yards from the water, and then suddenly disappear. Knowing what was likely to be enacted, I kept my eye fixed on the spot; and v/hen the boat was run upon the beach, I proceeded to find and pick up the chick. But, on reaching the place of disappearance, no sign of the young mer- ganser 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 rioe like an apparition from the stones and, dashing past the stranded boat, regain the lake, where, having now recovered its wind, it instantly dived and disappeared. The tac- tical skill of the whole of this manoeuvre, and the success with which it was executed, were greeted with loud cheers from the whole party ; and our admiration was not diminished when we remembered that, some two weeks before that time, the little performer had been coiled IN MODERN SCIENCE. 209 up inside the shell of an »-^^g, 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 any idea of training and experience is absolute- ly excluded, because it " assumes the pre-exist- ence of the very powers for which it professes to account." He then turns to the idea that animals are merely automata or "machines." Here it is to be observed that the essential idea 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 contriver and constructor. If we think proper to call the young merganser a machine, we must admit both of these characters, more especially as the bird is in every way a more marvellous machine than any of human con- struction. He concludes his notice of this case with the following suggestive words : " This is a method of escape which cannot be resorted to successfully except by birds whose coloring is adapted to the purpose by a close assimilation with the coloring of surrounding objects. The old bird would not have been concealed on the same ground, and would never itself resort to the same method of es- 18 • 210 FACTS AND FANCIES cape. The young, therefore, cannot have bee'n instructed in it by the method of example. But the small size of the chick, together with its ob- scure and curiously-mottled coloring, are spe- cially adapted to this mode of concealment. The young of all birds which breed upon the ground are provided with a garment in su' h perfect harmony with surrounding effeots of light as to render this manoeuvre easy. It depends, however, wholly for its success upon absolute stillness. The slightest motion at once attracts the eye of any enemy which is search- ing for the young. And this absolute stillness must be preserved amidst all the emotions of fear and terror which the close approach of the object of alarm must, and obviously does, in- spire. Whence comes this splendid, even if- it be unconscious, faith in the sufficiency of a defence which it must require such nerve and strength of will to practise? No movement, not even the slightest, though the enemy should seem about to trample on it, — such is the ter- rible requirement of nature, and by the child of nature implicitly obeyed. Here, again, be- yond all question, we have an instinct as much born with the creature as the harmonious tint- ing of its plumage, the external furnishing be- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 211 ing inseparably united with the internal fiir- nishintr of mind which enables the little crea- ture in very truth to 'walk by faith, and not by sight.' Is this automatism ? Is this machi- nery ? Yes, undoubtedly, in the sense explained before-^-that the instinct has been given to the bird in precisely the same sense in which its structure has been given to it ; so that anterior to all experience, and without the aid of in- struction or of example, it is inspired to act in this manner oh the appropriate occasion aris- ing." Lastly, the reason of man himself is an actual illustration of mind in nature. -Here we raise a question which should perhaps have been con- sidered earlier : Is man himself actually a part of what we call nature ? We are so accustomed to the distinction between tilings natural and things artificial that we are liable to overlook this essential question. Is nature the universe outside of us, . containing the things that we study and which constitute our environment? Are we elevated on a pedestal, so to speak, above nature? or, on the other hand, does na- ture include man himself? In that haze or fog of ideas which environs modern evolutionism, it is not wonderful that this question escapes 212 FACTS AND FANCIES notice, and that the most contradictory utter- ances are given forth. Tyndall — by no means the most foggy of the agnostics — may afford an instance. He remarks respecting the phil- osophers of antiquity : * " The experiences which formed the weft and woof of their theories were drawn, not from the study of nature, but from that whici lay much closer to them — the ob- servation of man. . . . Their theories accord- ingly took an anthropomorphic form." Here we see that in the view of the writer man is distinct from and outside of nature, and so much out of harmony with it that the observation of him leads to fdlse conclusions, stigmatized, ac- cordingly, as "anthropomorphic." In this case man must be supernatural, and preternatural as well. But it is Tyndall's precise object to show us that there is nothing supernatural either in man or elsewhere. The contradiction is an in- structive example of the delusions which some- times pass for science. If, with Tyndall, we are to place man outside of nature, then the human mind at once be- comes i"o us a supernatural intelligence. But truth forbids such a conclusion. The reason of man, however beyond the intelligence of * Belfast Address. IN MODERN SCIENCE. 213 lower animals, so harmpnizes with natural laws that it is evidently a part of the great unity of nature, and we can no more dissociate the mind * of man from nature than from his own animal body. If we could do so, we might have ground to distrust the validity of all our conclusions as to nature, and thus to cut away the foundations of science ; and what remained of philosophy and religion would be preternatural, in the bad sense of destroying the unity of nature and im- perilling our confidence in the unity of the Cre-, ator himself. In connection with this we have cause to con- sider the true meaning and use of two terms often hurled at theists as weapons of attack. The word "anthropomorphic" is a term of reproach for our interpreting nature in har- mony with our own thoughts or our own con- stitution. But if rpan is a part of nature, he must be a competent interpreter of it. If he is not a part of nature, then, whether we make him godlike or a demon, we have, ip him, to deal with something supernatural. It is true that in a certain sense he is above nature, but not in any sense which so dissociates him from it as to prevent him from rationally thinking of it in his own thoughts and speaking of it in his 214 FACTS AND FANCIES own form of words. So true is this that no writers are more anthropomorphic in their * modes of speaking of nature than those who most strongly denounce anthropomorphism. Even the celebrated definition of life by Her- bert Spencer cannot escape this tincture. "Life," he says, "is the continuous adj^istment of internal to external conditions." Now, the essence of this definition lies in the word * ad- justment." But to adjust is to arrange, adapt, or fit — all purely human and intelligent actions. Nothing, therefore, could be more anthropo- morphic than such a statement. As theists we need not complain of this, but surely as agnos- tics V7e should decidedly object to it. The other word whose meaning it is neces- sary to consider is "supernatural," which it might be well, perhaps, to follow the example of the New Testament 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 may be that which is " spiritual," as distinguished from that which is natural in the material sense ; but the spiritual has its own laws, which are not in conflict with those of the natural. Even God cannot in this IN MODERN SCIENCK 215 sense be said to be supernatural, since his will is necessarily in conformity with natural law. Yet this absurd sense of the term " supernat- ural " is constantly forced upon us by so-called advanced thinkers, and employed as an argu- ment against theism. The only true sense in which any being or any thing can be said to be supernatural is that in which we use it with ref- erence to the original creation of matter and force and the institution of natural law. The power which can do these things is above na- ture, but not outside of it ; 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, we can see how it is that he con- forms to natural law, not merely in his bodily organization and capabilities, but in his mind and habits of thought, so that he can compre- hend nature and employ it for his purposes. Even his moral and his religious ideas must in this case be conformed to his conditions of ex- istence as a part of nature. We have herg also the surest guarantee of the correctness 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 2l6 FACTS AND FANCIES. 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 " weahh of endowment of the most comprehensive men- tal manifestations which man can never fully comprehend." Still further, if the universe has been created, then, just as its laws must be in harmony with the will of the Creator, so must our mental con- stitution ; and man, as a reasoning and con- scious 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 signifying nothing, or, if it has any significance, this is contrary to science, since it bestows on matter properties which experiment does not show it to possess. Thus the existence of man is not only a positive proof of the presence of mind in nature, but affords the strongest possible proof of a higher Creative Mind, from which that of man ema- nates. The power which originated and sus- tains the universe must be at least as much greater and more intelligent than man as the universe is greater than man in the power and IN MODERN SCIENCE. 21/ the contrivance which it indicates. Thus we return to the Pauline idea-that the power and the divinity of the Creator are shown by the things he has made. Legitimate science can say nothing more, and can say nothing less. VI. Science and Revelation. ,4 LECTURE VI. SCIENCE AND REVELATION. THUS far we have proceeded solely on scientific grounds, and have seen that Monism and Agnosticism fail to account for nature. We may therefore feel ourselves jus- tified in assuming, as the only promising solu- tion of the enigma of existence, the being of a Divine Creator. But this does not wholly exhaust the relations of science to religion. When Science has led us into the presence of the Creator, she has brought us to the thresh- old of religion, and there she suggests the possibility that the spirit of man may have other relations with God beyond those estab- lished by merely physical law. Science may venture to say: "If all nature expresses the will of the Creator as carried out in his laws, if the instinct of lower animals is an inspira- tion of God, should we not expect that there will be laws of a higher order regulating the free moral nature of man, and that there will 19 • 221 222 FACTS AND FANCIES be possibilities of the reason of man communi- cating with, or receiving aid from, the Supreme Intelligence?" Science undoubtedly suggests this much to our reason, and the suggestion has commended itself to most of the greater and clearer minds that have studied nature, whatever their religious beliefs or their want of them. It may thus be allowable for us, without encroaching on the domain of theology, to inquire to what extent scientiiic principles and scientific habits of thought agree with or di- verge from the religious beliefs of men. I do not propose to enter here into the inquiry as to the accordance of the Bible with the earth's geolpgical history, or that of its representa- tions of nature with the facts as held by science. These subjects I have fully discussed in other works, which are sufficiently access- ible,* I shall merely refer to certain general relations of science to the probability of a divine revelation, and to the character of such revelation. As to what is termed natural religion, enough has already been said. If nature testifies to the * More especially in The Origin of the World (London and New York, 1877), ! Df IN MODERN SCIENCE. 223 being of God, and if the reason and the con- science implanted in man, "accusing and ex- cusing" one another, constitute a law of God within him, regulating in some degree his relations to God and to his fellow-men, we have a sufficient basis for the natural religion which more or less actuates the conduct of every human being. The case is different with revealed religion. Here we have an ap- parent interference on the part of the Creator with his own work, an additional intervention in one department to effect results which else- where are worked out by the ordinary opera- tion of natural law. In revelation, therefore, we may have something quite out of the ordi- nary course of nature. On the other hand, it is possible that even here we may have something more in harmony with natural laws than at first sight appears. It cannot truly be said that a revelation from God to man is improbable from the point of view of science. Physical laws and brute in- stincts are in their nature unvarying, and nei- ther require nor admit of intervention. But the reason and the will of free agents are in this respect different. Though necessarily un- . der law, they can judge and decide between f 234 FACTS AND FANCIES one law and another, and can even evade or counteract one law by employing another, or can resolve to be disobedient. Rational free agents may thus enter into courses not in har- mony with their own interests or their relations to their surroundings. Hence, so soon as it pleased God to introduce in any part of the universe a free rational will gifted with certain powers over lower nature, only two courses were possible : either God must leave such free agent wholly to his own devices, making him a god on a small scale, and so far practically ab- dicating in his favor, or he must place him un- der some law, and this not of the nature of mere physical compulsion — ^which, on the hy- pothesis, would be inadmissible — ^but in the na- ture of requirements addressed to his reason and his conscience. Hence w^j might infer a priori the probability of some sort of communi- cation between God and man. Further, did we find such rational creature beginning, on his introduction into the world, to mar the face of nature, to inflict unnecessary suffering or injury on lower creatures or on members of his own species, to disregard the moral instincts im- planted in him, or to disown the God who had created him, we should still more distincdy per- IN MODERN SCIENCE. 225 ceive the need of revelation. This would in such case be no more at variance with science or with natural law than the e*ducation given by wise parents to their children, or the laws pro- mulgated by a wi^e government for the guidance of its subjects, both of which are, and are in- tended to be, interventions affecting the ordi- nary course of affairs. Of necessity, all this proceeds on the suppo- sition that there is a God. But in certain dis- cussions now prevalent as to the " orgin of re- ligion," it is customary quietly to assume that there is no God to be known, and conse- quently that religion must be a mere gratuitous invention of man. It is not too much to say, however, that any scientific conception of the unity of nature and of man's place in it must forbid our making atheistic assumptions. If man were a mere product of blind, unintelli- gent chance, the idea of a God was not likely ever to have occurred to him, still less to have become the common property of all races of men. In like manner, there is no scientific basis for the assumption that man originated in a low and bestial type, and that his religion developed itself by degrees from the instincts of lower animals, from which man is supposed 226 FACTS AND FANCIES to have originated. Such suppositions are un- scientific (i) because no ancient remains of such low forms of man* are known ; (2) because the lowest types of man now extant can be proved to be degraded descendants of higher types ; (3) because, if man had originated in a low condition, this would not have diminished the probability of a divine revelation being given to promote his elevation. On the other hand, it is a sad reality that man tends to sink from high ideal morality and reason into debasing vices and gross supersti- tions thaf are not natural, but which, on the contrary, place him at variance with natural as well as with moral law. Thus the actual and the possible debasement of man, instead of proving his bestial origin, only increases the need of a divine revelation for his improve- ment. But, supposing the need of a revelation to be admitted, other questions might arise as to its mode. Here the anticipations of science would be guided by the analogy of nature. We should suppose that the revelation would be made through the medium of the beings it was intended to affect It would be a revela- tion impressed on human minds and expressed I h 1 / m MODERN SCIENCE. 22/ in human language. It might be in the form of laws with penalties attached, or in that of persuasions addressed to the reason and the sentiments. It would probably be gradual and progressive — at first simple, and later more complex and complete. It would thus become historical, and would be related to the stages of that progress which it was intended to pro- mote. It would necessarily be incomplete, more especially in its earlier portions, and it would always be under the necessity of more or less rudely representing divine and heavenly things by earthly figures. Being human in its medium, it would have the characteristics and the idio- syncrasies of man to a certain extent, except in so far as it might please God to communicate it directly through a perfect humanity identified with divinity, or through higher and more per- fect intelligences than man. We should further expect that such revela- tion would not conflict with what is good in natural religion or in the natural emotions and sentiments of man ; that it would not contradict natural facts or laws; and that it would take advantage of the familiar knowledge of man- kind in order to illustrate such higher spiritual truths as cannot be expressed in human Ian- 228 FACTS AND FANCIES guage. Such a revelation would of necessity require that we should receive it in faith, but faith resting on evidence derived from things known, and from the analogy of the revelation 'tself with what God reveals in nature. It would be no valid objection to such a revela- tion to say that it is anthropomorphic, since, in the nature of the case, it must come through man and be suited to man ; nor would it be any valid objection that it is figurative, for truth as to spiritual realities must always be expressed in terms of known phenomena of the natural world. It has been objected, though not on behalf of science, that such a revelation, if it related to things discoverable by man, would be useless, while, if it related to things not discoverable, it could not be understood. This is, however, a mere play upon words, and reminds one of the doctrine attributed to the Arabian caliph with reference to the Alexandrian Library : If its books Contain -;7hat is written in the Koran, they are useless ; if anything different, they are injurious ; therefore let them be destroyed. It would indeed be subversive of all education, human as well as divine ; for the essence of this is to take advantage of what the pupil knows, ssity , but lings ation . It ivela- since, rough le any Lith as ressed latural behalf related iseless, able, it ever, a ane of caliph ary: If Koran, hey are yed. It ucation, e of this knows. IN MODERN SCIENCE. 229 and to build on it acquirements which, unaided, he could not have attained. But, though all may agree as to the possi- bility, or even the probability, of a revelation, many may dissent from particular dogmas con- tained in or implied by the particular form of revelation in which Christians believe. It is true that this dissent is based, not so much on science as on alleged opposition to human sen- timents ; but it is more or less supposed to be reinforced by scientific facts and laws. Of doc- trines supposed to be objectionable from these points of view, I may name the reality of mir- acles and of prophecy; the efficacy of prayer and of atonement or sacrifice ; and the perma- nence of the consequences of sin. Admitting that these doctrines are not original discoveries of man, but revealed to him, and that they are not founded on science, it may nevertheless be easily shown that they are in harmony with the analogy of nature in a greater degree than either their friends or their opponents usually suppose. Miracles— or " signs," as they are more prop- erly called in the New Testament — are some- times stated to imply suspension of natural law. If they were such, and were alleged to 2C 230 FACTS -AND FANCIES be produced by any power short of that of the Lawmaker himself, they would be incredible; and if asserted to be by his power, they would be so far incredible as implying changeableness, and therefore imperfection. It may be affirmed, however, of the miracles recorded in Scripture, that they do not require suspension of natu- ral laws, but merely modifications of the opera- tion and peculiar interactions of these. Many of them, indeed, profess to be merely unusual natural effects arranged for special purposes, and depending for their miraculous character on their appositeness in time to certain circum- stances. This is the case, for instance, with the plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the supply of quails to the Israelites. Miracles, whether performed as attestations cf revelation or as works of mercy or of judg- ment, belong to the domain of natural law, but to those operations of it which are beyond hu- man control or foresight. Their nature in this respect we can understand by considering the many operations possible to civilized men which may appear miraculous to a savage, and which, from his point of view, may be amply sufficient as evidence of the superior knowledge and power of him who performs them. That one IN MODERN SCIENCE. 231 It Id man should be able instantaneously to trans- mit his thoughts to another situated a thousand miles away was, until the invention of the elec- tric telegraph, impossible. The actual perform- ance of such an operation would have been as much a miracle as the communication of thought from one planej to another would be now. But if man can thus work miracles, why should not the Almighty do so, when higher moral ends are to be served by apparent interference with the ordinary course of matter and force ? Ad- mitting the existence of God, physical science can have nothing to say against miracles. On the contrary, it can assure us of the probability that if God reveals himself to us at all by nat- ural means, such revelation will probably be miraculous. If the possibility of God communicating with his rational creatures be conceded, then the ob- jections taken to prophecy lose all value. If anything known to God and unknown to man can be revealed, things past and future may be revealed as well as things present. Science abounds in prophecy. All through the geolog- ical history there have been prophetic types, mute witnesses to coming facts. Minute dis- turbances of heavenly bodies, altogether inap- .-.JJ 232 FACTS AND FANCIES preciable by the ordinary observer, enable the astronomer to predict the discovery of new planets. A line in a spectrum, without signifi- cance to the uninitiated, foretells a new element. The merest fragment, sufficient only for micro- scopic examination, enables the palaeontologist to describe to incredulous audit(ors some.organ- ism altogether unknown in its entire structures. What possible reason can there be for exclud- ing such indications of the past and the future from a revelation made by him who knows per- fectly the end from the beginning, and to whom the future results of human actions to the end of time must be as evident as the simplest train of causes and effects is to us ? It is Huxley, I think, who says that if the laws affecting hu- man conduct were fully known to us, it would have been possible to calculate a thousand years ago the exact state of affairs in Britain at this moment. Probably such a calculation might be too complicated for us, even if the data were given ; but it cannot be too complicated for the Divine Mind, and possibly might even be mastered by some intelligences in the universe subject to God, but higher than man. That there should be suffering at all in the IN MODERN SCIENCE. 233 le r In le In universe is, no doubt, a mysterious thing ; but the fact is evident, and certain benefits which flow from it are also evident. Indeed, we fail to see how a world of sentient beings could continue to exist, unless the penalty of suffer- ing were attached to natural law. Further, all such penalties are, in consequence of the per- manence of matter and the conservation of force, necessarily permanent, unless in cases where some reaction sets in under the influence of some other law or force than that which brings the penalty. Even in this case, the effect of any violation of any natural law is eternal and infinite. No sane man doubts this in the case of what may be called sins against nat- ural laws ; but many, with strange inconsistency, doubt and disbelieve it in the higher domain of morals. If we were for a moment to admit the materialist's doctrine that appetites, pas- sions, and sentiments are merely effects of phys- ical changes in nerve-cells, then we should be shut up to the conclusion that the effects of any derangement of these must be perpetual and coextensive with the universe. Why should it be otherwise in things belonging to the domains of reason and conscience ? Further, if natural laws are the expression of the will of the Cre- 20 • 234 • FACTS AND FANCIES ator, and if these unfailingly assert themselves, and must do so, in order to the permanence of the material universe, would not analogy teach that, unless the Supreme Being is wholly bound up in material processes, and is altogether in- different to moral considerations, the same reg- ularity and constancy must prevail in the spirit- ual world ? This question is closely connected with the ideas of sacrifice and atonement. Nothing is more certain in physics than that action and re- action are equal, and that no effect can be pro- duced without an adequate cause. It results from this that every action must involve a cor- responding expenditure of matter and force. Anything else would be pure magic ; which, we know, is nonsense. Thus every intervention on behalf of others must imply a correspond- ing sacrifice. We cannot raise a fallen child or aid the poor or the hungry without a sac- rifice of power or means proportioned to the result. So,»in the moral world, degradation cannot be remedied nor punishment averted without corresponding sacrifice; and this, it may be, on the part of those who are in no degree blameworthy. If men have fallen into moral evil and God proposes to elevate them from IN MODERN SCIENCE. ' 235 • this condition, this must be done by some cor- responding expenditure of force, else we have one of those miracles which would imply a sub- version of law of the most portentous kind. The moral stimulus given by the sacrifice itself is a secondary consideration to this great law of equivalency of cause and effect. . There is, therefore, a perfect conformity to natural anal- ogy in the Christian idea of the substitution of the pure and perfect Man for the sinner, as well as in that of the putting forth of the divine power manifested in him to raise and restore the fallen. The efficacy of prayer is one of the last things that a scientific naturalist should ques- tion, if he is at the same time a theist. Prayer is itself one of the laws of nature, and one of those that show in the finest way how higher laws override and modify those that are lower. The young ravens, we are told, cry to God ; and so they literally do ; and their cry is answered, for the parent-iavens, cruel and voracious, un- der the impulse of a God-given instinct range over land and water and exhaust every energy that they may satisfy that cry. The bleat of the lamb will not only meet with response from the mother-ewe, but will even exercise a physi- 236 FACTS AND FANCIES ological effect in promoting the secretion of milk in her udder. The mother who hears the cry of her child, crushed under some weighty thing which has fallen on it, will never pause to consider that it is the law of gravitation which has caused the accident ; she will defy the law of gravitation, and if necessary will pray any one who is near to help her. Prayer, in short, is a natural power so important that without it the young of most of the higher animals would have little chance of life ; and it triumphs over almost every other natural law which may stand in its way. If, then, irrational animals can over- come the forces of dead nature in answer to prayer ; if man himself, in answer to the cry of distress, can do things in ordinary circumstances almost impossible, — how foolish is it to suppose that this link of connection cannot subsist be- tween God and his rational offspring! One wonders that any man of science should for a moment entertain such an idea, if, indeed, he has any belief whatever in the existence of a God. There is another aspect of prayer insisted on in revelation on which the observation of nature throws some light. In the case of animals, there IN MODERN SCIENCE, 237 must be a certain relation between the one that prays and the one that answers-— a filial relation, perhaps — and in any case there must be a cor- respondence between the language of prayer and the emotions of the creature appealed to. Except in a few cases where human training has modified instinct, the cry of one species of an- imal awakes no response in another of a differ- ent kind. So prayer to God must be in the Spirit of God. It must also be the cry of real need, and with reference to needs which have his sympathy. There is a prayer which never reaches God, or which is even an abomination to him ; and there is prayer prompted by the indwelling Spirit of God, which cannot be ut- tered in human words, yet will surely be an- swered. All this is so perfectly in accordance with natural analogies, that it strikes one acquainted with nature as almost a matter of course. . In tracing these analogies, I do not desire to imply that natural science can itself teach us religion, or that it is to afford the test of what is true in spiritual things. I have merely wished to direct attention to obvious analogies between things' natural and things spiritual, which show 238 FACTS AND FANCIES. that there is no such antagonism between sci- ence and revelation as many suppose, and that, in grand essential laws and principles, it may be true that earth is ** But the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to the other like more than on earth is thought." THE END.