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C' (lv,'CjOiA<^\SCX^^u^iT^

FACTS AND FANCIES

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.

J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S. Etc

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.

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

GENERAL RELATIONS

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

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-

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

m MODhfiN C^IENCE.

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

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.

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

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.

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

' !

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.

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

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.

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

»•

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.

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

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.

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

FACTS AND FANCIES

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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»

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.

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,

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.

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

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

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.

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-

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.

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

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.

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-

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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-

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.

«}'

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.

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'

FACTS AND FANCIES

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..

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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»

I.!

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.

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-

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.

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-

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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»

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.

:iL

m
lis
to

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.

■

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.

" 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

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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.

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.

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

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

■

%^'

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,

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

* ■ •

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.

»4

Gbological Pbriods.

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.

le
m

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

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.

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

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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.

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

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.

IV.

The Origin and Antiquity of Man.

li*

LECTURE IV.

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

140

FACTS AND FANCIES.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

. -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

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i ^ S

5' S

^ "> s

I. B I

3-2

Sop

ft 3 ffq CL

ft p ^ _,

O ft ^' "r1

ft rt

i/i

«• ST*

ft
ft a

lil'i'i

r-ii

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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-

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

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

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 (.

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.

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

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; <?, /, rays.of
large and complex star-shaped flakes. The law of arrangement of the
molecules is that of attraction in the lines of three axes at angles of
sixty degrees, and the varieties are produced by differences in temper-
ature and rate of supply of material.

■Pst.~

1 84

FACTS AND FANCIES

the millions belonging to densely-peopled and
progressive nations. It is plain that " Nature "
in such a connection represents either a poet-
ical fiction, a superstitious fancy, or an intelli-
gent Creative Mind. It is further evident that
such Creative Mind must be In harmony with
that of man, though vasdy greater In its scope
and grasp In time and space.

Even the numerical relations observed in
nature teach the same lesson. The leaves of
plants are not arranged at random, but in a
series of curiously-related spirals, differing In
different plants, but always the same In the
same species and regulated by definite laws.
Similar definiteness regulates the ramification of
plants, which depends primarily on the arrange-
ment of the leaves. The angle of ramification
of the veins of the leaf Is settled for each
species of plant ; so are the numbers of parts
in the flower and the angular arrangement of ^
these parts. It is the same in the animal king-
dom, such numbers as 5, 6, 8, 10 being selected
to determine the parts In particular animals and
portions of animals. Once settled, these num-
bers are wonderfully permanent In geological
time. The first known land reptiles appear In
the Carboniferous period, and they have nor-

IN MODERN SCIENCE.

185

ion
ach
arts
t of'
ng-
:ted
and
liiim-
gical
ir in
nor-

mally five toes; these appear in the earliest
known species in the lowest beds of the Car-
boniferous. Their predecessors, the fishes, had
numerous fin-rays ; but when limbs for locomo-
tion on land were contrived, the number five was
adopted as the typical one. It still persists in
the five toes and fingers of man himself. From
these, as is well known, our decimal notation is
derived. It did not originate in any special fit-
ness of the number ten, but in the fact that men
began to reckon by counting their ten fingers.
Thus the decimal system of arithmetic, with all
that follows from it, was settled millions of years
ago, in the Carboniferous period, either by cer-
tain low-browed and unintelligent batrachians
or by their Maker.

2. Nature presents to us very remarkable
revelations of dissimilar and widely-separated
matters and forces. I have referred to the nu-
merical arrangement of the leaves of plants;
but the leaf itself, in its structure and func-
tions, is one of the most remarkable things in
nature. Composed of layers of loosely-placed
living cells with air-spaces between them ; en-
closed above and below with a transparent
epidermis, the spaces between the cells com-
municating with the atmosphere without by

16 •

1 86

FACTS AND FANCIES.

means of microscopic pores guarded by cun-
ningly-contrived valves opening or closing
according to the hygrometric state of the air ;
connected with the stem of the plant by a
system of tubes strengthened with spiral fibres
within, — the structure of the leaf is, mechan-
ically considered, of extreme beauty and com-
plexity. But its living functions are still more
wonderful. Receiving the water from the soil
with such materials as it brings thence in solu-
tion, and absorbing carbonic dioxide and am-
monia from the air, the living protoplasm of
tjie leaf-cells has the power of chemically chang-
ing all these substances, and of producing from
them those complicated and otherwise inimita-
ble organic compounds of which the tissues of
the plant are built up. The force by which
this is done is that of the solar heat and light,
both admitted freely into the interior of the
leaf through the transparent epidermis, and
therein imprisoned, so as to constitute a pow-
erful storehouse of evaporation and chemical
energy. In this way all the materials available
for the maintenance of life, whether vegetable
or animal, are produced, and no other structure
than the living vegetable cell, as it exists in
the leaf, has the power to effect these miracles

» t

Fig. 13.

oopoooooooc

Section of the leaf of a Cycad, being one of the most ancient styles
of leaf of which the structure is known, a, upper epidermis; d, upper
layer of cells, with grains of chlorophyll ; c, lower layer of cells, with
chlorophyll ; </, lower epidermis ; e, stomata, or breathing-pores, with
contractile cells for opening and closing.

187

■■-['X.

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

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ia3

FACTS AND FANCIES.

of transmutation. Here, let it be observed,
we have the vegetable cell placed in relation
with the system of the plant, with the soil, with
the atmosphere and its waters, with the distant
sun itself and the properties of its emitted
energies. Let it further be observed that, on
the one hand, the chemistry involved in this is
of a character altogether different from that
which applies to inorganic matter, and, on the
other, the products derived from a very few
elements embrace all that vast variety of com-
pounds which we observe in plants and animals,
and which constitute the material of one of the
most complex of sciences — that of organic
chemistry. Finally, these complicated struc-
tures were produced and all their relations
set up at a very early geological period. In so
far as we can judge from their remains and the
results effected, the leaves of the Palaeozoic
period were functionally as perfect as their
modern successors (see Figs. 13, 14). Of
course, the agnostic evolutionist may, if he
pleases, attribute all this to fortuitous inter-
actions of the sun, the atmosphere, and the
earth, and may provide for what these fail to
expl" In by the assumption of potentialities
eqiiivalent to the things produced. But the

Fig. 14.

Foliage from the coal-forniation, showing some of the forms of
leaves instrumental in accumulating the carbon of our coal-beds, by
their action on the atmosphere under the influence of sunlight.

189

IQO FACTS AND FANCIES.

probability of such an hypothesis becomes
infinitely small when we consider the variety
and the diversity of things and forces which
must have conspired to produce the results
observed, and to maintain them so constantly,
and yet with so much difference in circum-
stances and details. It is a relief to turn from
such bewildering and gratuitous suppositions
to the theory which supposes a designing
Creative Mind. ^

From the boundless variety of illustrations
which the animal kingdom presents I may
select one — the contrivances by means of
which marine animals are enabled to float or
balance themselves in the waters. The Pearly
Nautilus (see Fig. 1 5) is one of the most famil-
iar, and also one of the most curious. Its
coiled shell is divided by partitions into air-
chambers so proportioned that the buoyancy
of the air is sufficient to counterpoise in sea-
water the weight of the animal. There are
also contrivances by which the density of the
contained air and of the body of the animal can
be so modified as slightly to disturb this equi-
librium, and to enable the creature to rise or
sink in the waters. It would be tedious to
describe, without adequate illustrations, all the

Fig. 15.

Section of the Pearly Nautilus and its shell, showing that the animal
occupies only the outer chamber, the others being filled with air and
acting as a float whose buoyancy can be modified by the action of the
tube, or siphuncle, passing through the chambers.

a»i

192 FACTS AND FANCIES.

machinery connected with these adjustments.
It is sufficient for our purpose to know that
they are provided in such a manner that the
animal is practically exempted from the opera-
tion of the force of gravity. In the modern
seas these provisions are enjoyed by only a
few species of the genera Nautilus and Spirula;
but in former geological ages, more numerous,
as well as larger and more complex, forms
existed. Further, this contrivance is very old.
We find in the Orthoceratites and their allies of
the earliest Silurian formations these arrange-
ments in their full perfection, and in some
forms* even more complex than in later types.
The peculiar contrivances observed in the
nautilus and its allies are possessed by no other
mollusks, but there is another group of some-
what lower grade, that of the lanthitUBt or vio-
let snails, in which flotation is provided for in
another way (see Fig. 16). In these animals
the shell is perfectly simple, though light, and
the floating apparatus consists in a series of
horny air-vesicles attached to what is termed
the "foot" of the animal, and which are in-
creased in number to suit its increasing weight
as it grows in size. There are some reasons

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194

FACTS AND FANCIES.

to believe that this entirely different contrivance
is as old in geological time as the chambered
shell of the nautiloid animals. It was, indeed,
in all probability, more common and adapted to
larger animals in the Silurian period than at
present.

Another curious instance — not, so far as yet
known, existing at all in the modern world — is
that of tlie remarkable stalked star-fish de-
scribed by Professor Hall under the name
Camerocrinus^ and whose remains are found
in the Upper Silurian rocks. The Crinoids,
or feather-stars, are well-known inhabitants of
the seas, in both ancient and modern times ; but
previous to Professor Hall's discovery they
were known only as animals attached by flex-
ible stems to the sea-bottom or creeping slowly
by means of their radiating arms. It was not
suspected that any of them had committed
themselves to the mercy of the currents, sus-
pended from floats. It appears, however, Jiat
this was actually realized in the Upper Silurian
period, wheii certain animals of this group de-
veloped a hollow calcareous vesicle forming a
balloon-shaped float, from which they could
hang suspended in the water and float freely
(see Fig. 17). So far as known, this remark-

Fig. 17.

Camerocrinus, reduced in size (as restored by Hall). This is a
crinoid, or feather-star, of the Upper Silurian period, floating by
means of a hollow balloon-shaped structure divided into chambers
and formed of calcareous plates.

196 FACTS AND FANCIES.

able contrivance was temporary, and probably
adapted to some peculiarities of the habits and
food of these animals occurring only in the
geological period in which they existed.

Examples of this sort of adjustment are found
in other types of animal life. In the beautiful
Portuguese man-of-war (PhyscUia) and its allies
flotation is provided for by membranous or car-
tilaginous sacs or vesicles filled with air, and
which are the common support of numerous
individuals which hang from them (see Fig. 1 8) .
In some allied creatures the buoyancy required
is secured by little vesicles filled with oil se-
creted by the animals themselves.

In each of these cases we have a skilful adap-
tation of means to ends. The float is so con-
structed as to avail itself of the properties of
gases and liquids, and the apparatus is framed
on the most scientific principles and in the most
artistic manner. That this apparatus grows and
is not mechanically put together, and that in
each case the instincts and the habits of the
animal have been correlated with it, can scarce-
ly be held by the most obtuse intellect to in-
validate the evidence of intelligent design.

3. Structures apparently the most simple, and
often heedlessly spoken of as if they involved

Fig. i8.

The Pkysaiia, or « Portuguese man-otwar " of the AtUnHc, being a
colony of animals provided with long tentacles used as fishing-lines,
and hanging from a membranous float with a crest, or «'8aU,'' on the
top, and a pointed end which, being turned from side to side, serves
as a rudder.

^WW>

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.)

■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

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.

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),

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

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

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

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

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

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.