ILF 
 
 B 3 
 
 370 
 
 CIS 
 AND THEORIES 
 
 SIR BERTRAM WiNDLE 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
FACTS & THEORIES 
 
 BEING A CONSIDERATION OF SOME 
 
 BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS 
 
 OF TO-DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE 
 
 M.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., K.S.G. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CORK 
 
 LONDON 
 CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY 
 
 69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, S.E. 
 1912 
 
THE REV. P. A. ROCHE, 
 
 ADM. SS. PETER AND PAUL, CORK, 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS 
 
 SHOWN BY HIM TO THE WRITER 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A CONSIDERABLE amount of the matter which 
 makes up this little volume has already appeared 
 in the pages of the Catholic World ; and to its editor, 
 the Rev. J. J. Burke, C.S.P., I must return my 
 thanks for his kind permission to reproduce it here. 
 To this I have added about an equal amount of 
 fresh matter if, indeed, that can be called fresh 
 which has in part already appeared in other 
 pamphlets and books of mine. 
 
 These pages are intended to present a popular 
 account of certain fundamental biological problems 
 and conceptions as they stand at the moment, and 
 an appreciation of their bearing upon the beliefs 
 of Catholics indeed, I think I might say of all 
 persons holding the main doctrines of Christianity, 
 for it is against these main doctrines that the 
 attack is being made to-day. The old form of 
 polemic is, if not dead, at least on its death-bed, and 
 no longer affects intelligent and thinking people. 
 It is, therefore, quite possible, and in my opinion 
 most advisable, for those interested in Christianity, 
 however they may differ on other points, at least 
 to unite in defence of the fundamental doctrines on 
 
 5 
 
6 Facts and Theories 
 
 which all persons to whom the term " Christian *' 
 can, in any legitimate manner, be applied, are 
 agreed. 
 
 It may perhaps be thought by some that I have 
 omitted a number of points which I might have 
 included in this book such, for example, as that of 
 the question of poly- or mono-phyletic evolution. 
 To this I can only reply that it seemed to me to 
 be better to confine myself to a few of the greater 
 problems, and this lest I should obscure the main 
 trend of my argument. 
 
 The thesis discussed in this book is made plain 
 enough, I hope, in its pages. What I have been 
 concerned to show is that scientific opinion is by 
 no means unanimous on most of the points 
 perhaps not on any of the points discussed in 
 this book ; and that, until it is unanimous or some- 
 thing like it, non-scientific persons need not trouble 
 their minds, except through intellectual curiosity, 
 about such questions. Further, that where there 
 is unanimity, or even an approach to it, the views 
 of scientific men in no way come into contest with 
 the faith of Catholics. 
 
 Of course it may be urged that such is not the 
 picture displayed by many of the manuals which 
 issue from the press. I agree ; and I have dealt 
 at some length with that point in the course of 
 the discussion which follows. Still, I will here 
 say that the writers of at least some of these 
 
Preface 7 
 
 manuals, though believed by the ignorant public 
 to be great lights of science and quoted by them 
 as such, would not be recognized as scientific 
 persons at all by those qualified to express an 
 opinion on the point, but would be placed amongst 
 those enterprising journalists whose function in 
 life is to startle the mind of the public. No 
 one denies the influence which their writings 
 exercise on the ignorant ; it is just that influence 
 which we have to combat. But, without naming 
 names, I can at this moment recall some half- 
 dozen persons whom I have seen alluded to in 
 newspapers, and I think, in the writings of one or 
 another of the group, as luminaries of science, none 
 of whom, I also think, has ever contributed one 
 single fact or original line to the treasure-house of 
 science. 
 
 In conclusion, I should like to thank my friends, 
 Dr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S., 
 and Fr. M. Maher, S.J., D.Litt. (Lond.), for their 
 kindness in reading the MS. of this book and for 
 the valuable suggestions which they have made. 
 
 BERTRAM C. A WINDLE. 
 
 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CORK. 
 iith Sept. 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 1. ON "BIAS" . . .11 
 
 2. ON "DOGMA" AND "DOGMATISM" . . 28 
 
 3. ON "NATURE" AND SCIENCE/' AND ON 
 
 "FACTS," "LAWS," AND "HYPOTHESES" . 41 
 
 4. ON LIFE AND THE EXPLANATIONS OFFERED 
 
 THEREON 54 
 
 5. ON THE ORIGINATION OF LIFE I BIOGENESIS 
 
 AND ABIOGENESIS . 7 2 
 
 6. ON THE VARIABILITY OF LIVING THINGS, AND 
 
 ON "DARWINISM" 88 
 
 7. WHAT DARWIN HIMSELF HELD ... 98 
 
 8. THE ORIGIN OF MAN . . . . Il8 
 
 9. "DARWINISM" AND CERTAIN SUPERSTRUC- 
 
 TURES MORALITY AND MORALS . . 135 
 
 10. SOME OTHER " ISMS " . -144 
 
 INDEX . . . . . l6l 
 
FACTS AND THEORIES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ON "BIAS" 
 
 WHEN anyone professing Christianity, and still 
 more when any Catholic, sits down to criticize 
 prevalent scientific ideas, he well knows the battery 
 which will be unmasked upon him and the kind of 
 missiles which it will discharge, even though he 
 may never mention the name of religion in his 
 criticisms. Every gun which is fired will roar out 
 the word " bias," and the gunners will entertain no 
 doubt that they have pierced his protective armour 
 and disabled his ship when they make use of that 
 explosive. And there is no doubt that the force 
 of such arguments as the critic whose position we 
 are considering may bring forward is very consider- 
 ably weakened in the minds of quite a large number 
 of persons by this counter-statement that his views 
 are "biased." Nor is the reason for this very far 
 to seek. Everybody knows of the old lady and 
 the "blessed word Mesopotamia " ; but everybody 
 
 ii 
 
12 Facts and Theories 
 
 does not know, or at least does not reflect upon, 
 what Bacon called " Idols of the Market-Place," i.e. 
 the habit of using terms the meaning of which we 
 do not clearly understand or have not distinctly 
 agreed upon. The mere verbal explanation, especi- 
 ally when it is in a dead language, amply satisfies 
 hosts of people the kind of people who would be 
 greatly edified and perfectly contented if it was 
 explained to them that it was its poluphloisboiosity 
 which accounted for the noise made by the sea. 
 I do not think that Bacon ever described the " Idol 
 of the Customary Epithet," but he might have 
 done, and might also have lingered in considera- 
 tion over the fact that it exercises almost magic 
 influence over the minds of many people. " The 
 Church is biased ! Catholics are biased ! Does 
 not everybody know it ? Let us pass on and waste 
 no time over such pestilent persons ! " 
 
 Such, then, is the initial difficulty which the 
 Catholic writer meets, and that it is a real one can 
 easily be shown by a few quotations. I saw not 
 long ago, in a careful and very admirable sketch of 
 the history of the Darwinian controversy, 1 a state- 
 ment that Mivart's criticism " was regarded as 
 negligible, since he evidently held a brief for a 
 party standing outside the scientific world." In 
 other words, he was "biased," and therefore you 
 need not waste any time over him or his views. 
 
 1 Introduction to S. Butler's Unconscious Memory, Fifield (1910), p. x. 
 
On "Bias" 13 
 
 Perhaps, however, it may not be amiss to consider 
 this case for a moment. I am not at all sure that 
 Mivart's views were regarded as negligible at the 
 time ; in fact, I think it might be shown that his 
 criticism had more influence upon Darwin's mind 
 than perhaps many suspect. But let that pass. 
 The point which I want to make is this : if it was 
 disregarded for the reason given, such neglect, in 
 the light of present-day controversies, is about as 
 disgraceful a confession as could possibly be made 
 with respect to a scientific man and his theories. 
 For what are the facts of the case ? What Mivart 
 contended for is thus summed up by the writer 
 of his obituary notice for the Royal Society : l he 
 "steadfastly opposed the subsidiary doctrines of 
 Darwinism, and the theory of 4 Natural Selection ' in 
 particular ; and further, remaining an Evolutionist, 
 for the rest of his life [he] defended with reiterated 
 emphasis the argument that evolution proceeds 
 from some internal force directed towards definite 
 ends, and that it is due to processes which are 
 definite and distinct, and not to gradual changes." 
 In a word, as will be seen by anyone who takes 
 the trouble to read the pages of this book, he stead- 
 fastly put forward views which are being proclaimed 
 to-day by many writers : views which still are the 
 
 1 Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased, 1900-1901. It may be 
 added that the tone of the notice and the initials of its writer prove 
 conclusively that he was not a person with any "bias" in favour 
 of the Catholic religion. 
 
14 Facts and Theories 
 
 subject of most active controversy and experiment. 
 If they were disregarded in Mivart's day because 
 the person who put them forward was a Catholic, 
 the fact is scarcely to the credit of the disregarders. 
 
 I turn to another and a living example in the 
 case of the well-known man of science, Fr.Wasmann, 
 S.J., who is, I may explain to those unfamiliar with 
 the paths of science, one of the greatest living 
 authorities, it might even safely be said the greatest 
 living authority, on the subject of ants and termites 
 and their inquilines or commensals. Yet when 
 this distinguished man ventures to criticize certain 
 ideas fashionable at the moment, and even to 
 criticize them in the light of the researches which 
 have made his reputation, he is at once told that, 
 as a Catholic, and, still more, as a Jesuit, he must 
 necessarily be a biased person. One scientific wag 
 has even emitted the brilliant theory that the 
 letters " S.J." after the Father's name proclaim his 
 dual personality, and that Wasmann the Scientist 
 is at times eclipsed by Wasmann the Jesuit. 
 
 The retort is obvious. The wag being a 
 German is doubtless a Ph.D. Might it not be 
 said that this proclaims his dual capacity, and that 
 Wag the Philosopher is at times eclipsed by Wag 
 the Darwinian ? The suggestion, doubtless, is 
 puerile : is it more so than the other ? Yet one 
 more instance. A writer, explaining to his public 
 how great had been his efforts to collect all the 
 
On "Bias" 15 
 
 possible literature concerning his subject (and the 
 result is worthy of all praise), says, inter alia, that 
 he has " perused the original pourings-forth of 
 criticism and vilification even" ("even" what a 
 delightful touch ! ) " to the reading of some matter 
 by certain Roman Catholic priests with a con- 
 siderable amateur interest in natural history and a 
 strong professional interest in anti-Darwinism." 1 
 Why does he not add, as he might have done, 
 that he had also waded through the works of 
 certain pontiffs of Materialism with a " consider- 
 able amateur interest in Philosophy and a strong 
 professional interest in Darwinism " ? The answer 
 is plain : the Catholic is " biased," but the Material- 
 ist is not. Could there be a better response ? 
 
 In his delightful little book on Blake, Mr. 
 Chesterton gives a reason rhetorical, no doubt, to 
 some extent, but with a large germ of truth in it 
 for this attitude. Discussing the question of the 
 specialist and the expert, he says : 2 "The trouble 
 with the expert is never that he is not a man ; it is 
 always that wherever he is not an expert he is too 
 much of an ordinary man. Wherever he is not 
 exceptionally learned, he is quite casually ignorant. 
 This is the great fallacy in the case of what is 
 called the impartiality of men of science. If 
 scientific men had no ideas beyond their scientific 
 
 1 Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, p. 30. 
 a P. 56. 
 
1 6 Facts and Theories 
 
 work it might be all very well that is to say, all 
 very well for everybody except them. But the 
 truth is that beyond their scientific ideas, they have, 
 not the absence of ideas, but the presence of the 
 most vulgar and sentimental ideas that happen to 
 be common to their social clique. If a biologist 
 had no views on art or morals, it might be all very 
 well. The truth is that a biologist has all the 
 wrong ideas of art and morals that happen to 
 be going about in the smart set in his time." 
 Amongst the ideas which are going about are 
 those that all Catholics are "biased," that they 
 care nothing about truth, but are only desirous of 
 bolstering up their own tottering cause at all 
 hazards and at all sacrifices ; and biologists as well 
 as other excellent people are sometimes at least in- 
 fected by the ideas in the midst of which they live. 
 But this does not prove that the ideas are true. 
 
 Humanly speaking, even a biologist may be 
 wrong. At any rate it is undoubtedly true that 
 some biologists live in such an atmosphere of what 
 is called " Darwinism " that they seem to imagine it 
 to be impossible that anyone can doubt the views 
 which they hold unless he is biased ; nor do 
 they ever seem to suspect that there may be such 
 a thing as scientific bias as well as the religious 
 bias to which they object. In fact, they wholly 
 forget the ancient fable of the pot and the kettle. 
 In all fairness it must be admitted that it is not 
 
On "Bias" 17 
 
 only the Catholic who comes in for the kind of 
 argument to which I have been alluding: others 
 are beaten with the same rod if they venture to run 
 counter to the opinions of the hierophant of the 
 moment. I have elsewhere (see note, p. 18) alluded 
 to the case of Virchow and Haeckel, but it is so 
 apposite that I must again make use of it. Virchow, 
 I must be allowed to premise, was unquestionably 
 one of the greatest men of science of the nine- 
 teenth century : nobody will deny that. He made 
 a revolution in medicine by the publication of his 
 Cellular Pathology \ his Archiv has for many 
 years held a foremost place in the literature of 
 science; his compeers showered on him every 
 honour which they had to confer, and, amongst 
 other things, made him President of the German 
 Anthropological Society. I mention this for 
 reasons which will shortly appear. As to Haeckel 
 well, this is not a book on Haeckel. If it were, 
 it would not be hard to show that whilst the world 
 of science respects many of his discoveries, it does 
 not look with a very favourable eye on certain 
 methods of his which have been exposed in 
 various works, nor upon his divagations into the 
 paths of what he and his disciples imagine to be 
 philosophy. J 
 
 1 Those who desire to pursue this matter further may consult the 
 following, amongst other works: A. R. Wallace, F.R.S., O.M., 
 The World of Life, in which the author says that, whilst having 
 sympathy with Haeckel's dislike of theological dogma, he has " none 
 
 2 
 
1 8 Facts and Theories 
 
 Virchow was not a Catholic : as far as I am 
 aware, he was not even a Christian. He was, how- 
 ever, a man of very independent mind, and he won 
 a fame which will endure and which has never been 
 tarnished by the accusations which have been made 
 against his opponent. The attack of which I 
 speak was made, after Virehow's death, in the 
 Festschrift published by the University of Cam- 
 bridge at the Darwin Centenary. 1 
 
 Virchow, as already indicated, had an indepen- 
 dent mind, and was not prepared to utter the 
 shibboleth of the day unless at the dictates of his 
 own reason. And because he was not prepared 
 jurare in verba Haeckelii, he becomes the target 
 
 with his unfounded dogmatism of combined negation and omni- 
 science, and more especially when this assumption of superior 
 knowledge seems to be put forward to conceal his real ignorance of 
 the nature of life itself"; Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., Life and 
 Matter: "He (i.e. Haeckel) writes in so forcible and positive and 
 determined a fashion from the vantage-ground of scientific know- 
 ledge, that he exerts an undue influence on the uncultured amongst 
 his readers, and causes them to fancy that only benighted fools or 
 credulous dupes can really disagree with the historical criticisms, 
 the speculative opinions, and philosophical, or perhaps unphilo- 
 sophical, conjectures thus powerfully set forth" (p. 135). For an 
 account of Haeckel's falsifications of figures, see Brass and Gemelli, 
 LtOrigine delFUomo e le Falsificazioni di E. Haeckel ; also Wasmann, 
 Modern Biology and the Problem of Evolution (inter alia, pp. 511 
 seq. ). See also Gerard, The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer ; 
 and D wight, Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist. 
 
 1 Darwin and Modern Science, art., "Charles Darwin as an 
 Anthropologist." The remarks which follow are taken from the 
 present writer's little pamphlet on Thomas Dwight, published by 
 the Catholic Truth Society (id.). 
 
On "zas" 19 
 
 for the remarks of that luminary. It was not 
 dangerous for Haeckel to enter the lists against 
 Virchow when he did, for Virchow was no longer 
 alive. The courageous Haeckel entered the lion's 
 den " knowing the lion was not there, but dead." 
 What is remarkable is that such statements as 
 those I am now about to quote should have been 
 allowed to appear where they did appear. 
 
 Virchow, according to his critic, lacked " a broad 
 equipment in comparative anatomy and ontogeny," 
 in other words, he did not subscribe to Haeckel's 
 views on those subjects, nor admit the correctness 
 of his diagrams and the infallibility of his ideas as 
 to the pedigree of man. " In earlier years, and 
 especially during his splendid period of activity at 
 Wiirzburg (1848-1856), he had been a consistent, 
 free-thinker, and had in a number of able articles 
 (collected in his Gesammelte Abhandlungen) upheld 
 the unity of human nature, the inseparability of 
 body and spirit. In later years at Berlin, where 
 he was more occupied with political work and 
 sociology (especially after 1866), he abandoned the 
 positive monistic position for one of agnosticism 
 and scepticism, and made concessions to the 
 dualistic dogma of a spiritual world apart from the 
 material frame." On this passage it may be 
 observed how Haeckel calmly assumes that his 
 monistic theories are the one true faith, and that a 
 departure from such views is a plunge into " agnos- 
 
2O Facts and Theories 
 
 ticism and scepticism? the latter word being a 
 peculiarly choice example of his adoring attitude 
 towards his own theories. 
 
 But let us proceed with our subject. In 1877 
 Haeckel tells us that he came into sharp conflict 
 with Virchow. Haeckel had given an address in 
 which he sought to prove that man, including his 
 mental qualities, had been derived from those of 
 his extinct primate ancestor. Virchow replied to 
 this by an address on " The Freedom of Science in 
 the Modern State." In this "he spoke of the 
 theory of evolution as an unproved hypothesis, and 
 declared that it ought not to be taught in the 
 schools, because it was dangerous to the State. 
 ' We must not,' he said, ' teach that man has 
 descended from the ape or any other animal.'" 
 Let it be observed that at this very time Virchow 
 was President of the German Anthropological 
 Society, that is, that he held the highest position 
 in connection with the study of man which his 
 scientific compeers had it in their power to confer 
 on him. " Numbers of journals and treatises 
 repeated his dogmatic statement : 'It is quite 
 certain that man has descended neither from the 
 ape nor from any other animal.' In this he per- 
 sisted till his death in 1902." Now, what is the 
 conclusion of the whole of this matter ? Obviously 
 that Virchow was wrong and Haeckel was right. 
 And why ? Because Haeckel says so a con- 
 
On "Bias" . 21 
 
 elusion very unlikely to be accepted as convincing 
 by any person who is in any way familiar with 
 the work and merits and estimation amongst their 
 scientific brethren of the two persons, But the 
 point to which I particularly wish to call attention 
 is that the attempt to belittle the opinion of 
 Virchow on these matters is made not on scientific 
 grounds, but on the excuse that his mind had 
 become tainted by the "dualistic dogma of a 
 spiritual world apart from the material frame" in 
 other words, that long thought had led him to the 
 conclusion that there was more in heaven and earth 
 than finds a place in the Haeckelian philosophy. 
 
 ON SCIENTIFIC BIAS 
 
 It is urged, as we have seen in the preceding 
 section, that there is such a thing as Catholic bias 
 against Darwinism. Without at present discuss- 
 ing this question further, one may pertinently ask 
 whether there is no such thing as bias in favour of 
 Darwinism, or what is called Darwinism, on the 
 part of many modern writers. " Darwinism " is so 
 much in the air that it is quite likely that this bias 
 is not perceived, but it is there. I once lent a 
 friend Zahm's very interesting book Evolution and 
 Dogma. He returned it with many expressions of 
 interest, but added, " You can see he has a strong 
 bias against Darwinism." I asked him whether he 
 had never read any books which had a strong bias 
 
22 Facts and Theories 
 
 in favour of Darwinism, and his reply was, " Do you 
 know, that didn't strike me before." That is just 
 it. What " Darwinism " is will receive some con- 
 sideration in later pages of this little book. Mean- 
 time it may be useful to give one or two examples 
 of what may fairly be called biased opinions, and 
 before doing so let us first consider the dictionary 
 meaning of that word. " BIAS : a one-sided 
 tendency of the mind ; undue propensity towards 
 an object ; a particular leaning or inclination." So 
 says the Century Dictionary, and no one will quarrel 
 with its definition. And now for the examples. 
 
 A number of observers, having arrived at the 
 conclusion that external surroundings are not 
 sufficient to account for the variations which ad- 
 mittedly occur in living things, have postulated an 
 internal tendency towards progress in the organism. 
 The argument in favour of this is mainly on 
 eliminative lines, but here is the reply to it which 
 I find in a respectable manual of science : " Such 
 an assumption of a mystic, essentially teleologic 
 force wholly independent of and dominating all 
 the physico-chemical forces and influences that we 
 do know, and the reactions and behaviour of living 
 matter to these influences which we are beginning 
 to recognize and understand with some clearness 
 and fullness such a surrender of all our hardly 
 won actual scientific knowledge in favour of an 
 unknown, unproved, mystic vital force we are not 
 
On "Bias" 23 
 
 prepared to make." 1 As to the question under- 
 lying this statement, the reader may be referred to 
 the section on Vitalism (Chap. IV.). Meantime, 
 for our present purpose, let us see what it comes to 
 in plain language. " I am not going to believe that 
 there is anything else in living things but chemical 
 and physical phenomena." Well, it may be 
 magnificent, but it can hardly be called science ; at ^ 
 least it is not the science which, as Ruskin puts \ 
 it, does not speak until it knows. 
 
 Or, again, let us turn to Weismann, of whose 
 hypotheses, once so captivating, the scientific world 
 is getting a little tired, and more than a little 
 sceptical. Like some of his congeners, Weismann 
 is the victim of dipartipris, and like all such victims 
 everything must be so adjusted as to fit in with his 
 preconceptions. In the case in question he is quite 
 clear, as is the witness just cited, that there is 
 nothing in life that cannot be explained in terms 
 of chemistry and physics. But he has shown as 
 far as such a thing can be shown and it will be 
 an undying claim to distinction for him that 
 mutilations cannot be inherited, and that it is at 
 least doubtful whether acquired modifications of 
 any kind can be inherited. But, if environment is 
 not to come into play, what then ? Are we to be 
 driven to the frightful alternative of an internal 
 law, and perhaps even, still worse, actually to that 
 
 1 Kellogg, op. cit. supra, p. 278. 
 
24 Facts and Theories 
 
 of a Law-giver ? Never while assertion can stand 
 for argument and invention aid it! And so we 
 have the whole edifice of germinal selection reared 
 to stand between us and such evils, the one weak- 
 ness of the edifice being that it has no foundations, 
 since it is unsusceptible of proof. 
 
 Let us select a few examples,.and in the outraged 
 name of science protest against such statements 
 going out as her sober voice. 
 
 (i) On the question of the possession of selection- 
 value by small variations. 1 " To this question even 
 one who, like myself, has been for many years a 
 convinced adherent of the theory of selection can 
 only reply : We must assume so, but we cannot prove 
 it in any case." 2 And yet we are told that science 
 does not speak until it knows ! 
 
 (ii) In the same candid address (p. 61) he tells 
 us that we " must assume selection." " We must 
 accept it because the phenomena of evolution and 
 adaptation must have a natural basis, and because 
 it is the only possible explanation of them," i.e. 
 the only one possible to Weismann, since others 
 who also have been students of biology have found 
 other explanations. 
 
 Because an explanation explains it is not 
 necessarily a correct explanation. But let that 
 pass. The important thing to note in the above 
 
 1 See Chap. X. 
 
 a Darwin and Modern Science, p. 25. 
 
On "Bias" 25 
 
 quotation is that we are to believe something, not 
 because it can be proved, but because Professor 
 Weismann is unable to see any other way in which 
 things can be explained. 
 
 (iii) Or rather, because he is unwilling to accept 
 that way, for he is well aware of its existence. In 
 the course of a long-ago controversy with Herbert 
 Spencer, Weismann gave his reason for believing 
 in natural selection. " We must assume," he wrote 
 and one may note his fatal fondness for the word 
 "assume" since it has appeared in all three 
 quotations " we must assume natural selection to 
 be the principle of the explanation of the meta- 
 morphoses, because all other apparent principles 
 of explanation fail us, and it is inconceivable that 
 there should be another capable of explaining the 
 adaptation of organisms without assuming the help 
 of a principle of design" And, in order that there 
 may be no mistake about the matter, he puts the 
 words into italics as he put other words in the first 
 quotation. Put into a nutshell, what he says is : 
 " I will not believe in a Creator, and, as I must find 
 another explanation, I pin my faith to Natural 
 Selection," which, by the way, explains nothing ; J 
 "and here is another hypothesis and a splendid 
 and unprovable theory or two which you must 
 accept, since a belief in God is the only other 
 alternative." Well, again, this may be magnificent, 
 1 Seep. 112. 
 
26 Facts and Theories 
 
 but it is not science : at least it is not the science 
 which does not speak until it knows. 
 
 In one of his works Fr. Wasmann l deplores the 
 fact that "in many scientific circles there is an 
 absolute theophobia, a dread of the Creator " ; and he 
 continues, " I can only regret this, because I believe 
 that it is due chiefly to a defective knowledge of 
 Christian philosophy and theology." Plenty of 
 examples of this theophobia might be cited : I will 
 quote only one, because it is really humorous in its 
 way. Alluding to the theories of Mendel, 2 in 
 which the writer quoted is a firm believer, he says 
 that " with the experimental proof that variation 
 consists largely in the unpacking and repacking of 
 an original complexity, it is not so certain as we 
 might like to think that the order of these events is 
 not predetermined." " As we might like to think " 
 I have ventured to italicize these words myself, 
 for they illustrate just what has been said. If the 
 events were predetermined, someone must have 
 predetermined them. Science, amongst other 
 things, is supposed to be coldly indifferent to 
 everything but absolute truth. Then why on earth 
 should we "like to think that the order of these 
 events is not predetermined " ? Surely looking at 
 the thing from the standpoint of pure science we 
 
 1 The Problem of Evolution, p. 47. 
 
 2 Darwin and Modern Science, p. 101. See a further reference 
 to this quotation on p. 156. 
 
On "Bias" 27 
 
 should not " like to think " anything but the truth 
 when we can arrive at it. 
 
 Enough has now been said to show that bias 
 is not wholly a characteristic of Catholic or anti- 
 materialistic writers ; it only remains to be added 
 that there are biases and biases, and that some 
 biases may be quite proper biases, even though 
 they offend against the dearest convictions of some 
 people. For instance, most of us have a bias 
 against murder which must have appeared quite 
 unreasonable to the simple Thug when first he 
 became acquainted with it. No doubt, if he had 
 been in the habit of writing books, he too would 
 have denounced his opponents as being " biased " 
 and not having their knowledge "built on any 
 broad basis of comparative anatomy and ontogeny." 
 The world at large is not with the Thug in this 
 matter, and some day it may not be with the 
 people who now call us biased because we believe 
 in a Creator of the universe. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 ON "DOGMA" AND "DOGMATISM" 
 
 OF all the grievances against the Catholic Church, 
 the most burning in the eyes of many writers 
 is that she is dogmatic. What is a dogma? 
 " DOGMA : a principle or doctrine proposed or 
 received on authority, as opposed to one based 
 on experience or demonstration ; specifically, an 
 authoritative religious doctrine " again the Century 
 Dictionary. 
 
 Now, dogmatism when practised by the Church 
 of God which, if it is what it claims to be and 
 what we believe it to be, certainly has the right to 
 be dogmatic is just the thing which excites the 
 righteous wrath of the kind of writers of whom I 
 have been speaking. "Enslaving the minds of 
 men " " blinding the intellect " " interfering with 
 scientific progress," one knows the whole litany, 
 "bobs (I think the ringers call them), bobs and 
 bobs-royal, and triple-bob-majors and grandsires 
 to the extent of their compass and the full ring of 
 their metal," as Cardinal Newman remarked con- 
 
 28 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 29 
 
 cerning another anti-Catholic litany, now become 
 somewhat musty. 
 
 On this point of dogmatism one or two observa- 
 tions must be made : 
 
 (i) In limine, as indicated above, we come up 
 against the whole question of the Church to 
 dogmatize. If she is what she professes herself to 
 be and has always claimed to be namely, the living 
 oracle of God she clearly has every right to be 
 dogmatic in religious matters and to set forth 
 authoritative religious doctrines. If she is not 
 what she claims to be, but merely a marvellous 
 edifice reared by human beings, then she has no 
 such right, and her dogmata are worthy of as much 
 respect and no more than those of the Ulema or 
 the Assembly of Latter-Day Saints. It is no part 
 of the scope of this book to debate the claims of 
 the Church ; those who wish to pursue that line 
 of argument will find no lack of literature awaiting 
 their investigation. For present purposes I assume 
 it to be true, as I myself believe it to be true, that 
 the Church is all that she claims to be and that she has 
 the rights which belong to her if that claim be true. 
 
 (ii) But, in the next place, no one ever claimed 
 for the Church the right to dogmatize as to 
 physical facts, and it is with such facts that science 
 is supposed to concern itself. No one can conceive 
 a quarrel between the Church and an anatomist as 
 to The Varieties of the Omo-Hyoid amongst the 
 
30 Facts and Theories 
 
 Mammalia, or between the Church and a chemist as 
 to The Nature and Properties of Ortho-Foito-Suko - 
 Phanto-Dikaio-Talaiporic Acid. Such absorbing 
 lines of investigation leave the Fathers of the 
 Church quite cold. And so it is with facts 
 generally. There can be no conflict over such 
 things as these. As a subsequent section will 
 show, scientific men are in the habit quite 
 legitimately of putting forward hypotheses to 
 account for what they have discussed, and this with 
 a view of giving continuity and explanation to 
 their facts. These hypotheses, being philosophical 
 or quasi-philosophical in their nature, may cut 
 across dogmata of the Church ; but then they are 
 hypotheses and not facts. For the present I must 
 leave this point where it is. 
 
 (iii) Again we turn to the fable of the pot and the 
 kettle, and ask whether the accusation of dogmatism 
 may not be made against at least certain men of 
 science or persons who so consider themselves. 
 Further we may ask, quite legitimately, on what 
 grounds they set themselves up as the authority 
 capable of proposing a principle or doctrine. At 
 any rate the Catholic Church is an organization 
 of respectable antiquity and experience, and the 
 repository of a good deal of learning, much of 
 which is quite unknown to most of those outside 
 her walls. She has been, and is, the trusted adviser 
 of all sorts and conditions of men, from the learned 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 31 
 
 to the ignorant. She has her credentials. What 
 are those of the scientific dogmatizers ? 
 
 Before considering this it may be well to touch 
 upon three questions. 
 
 (a) What has Science to say to Dogma at all? 
 We have just admitted that religion has no concern 
 with scientific facts as such ; what concern can 
 science have with dogma, if dogma be an opinion 
 not based on experience or demonstration ? " In 
 science," says Ruskin, " you must not talk before 
 you know." The restriction is rather too stringent, 
 for science would make but poor progress without 
 the aid of working hypotheses, as we shall shortly 
 see. But at any rate science deals with ascertained 
 facts as her true business, and if she emits hypo- 
 theses she has no right to put them forward as 
 dogmata. You may or may not agree with a 
 hypothesis : nothing happens either way. But 
 you must either believe a dogma or abandon your 
 belief in the authority which lays down that dogma. 
 
 (b) Are Dogmata put forward in the name of 
 Science ? No person whose reading leads him in 
 the direction of the study of current scientific litera- 
 ture can return other than an affirmative answer to 
 this inquiry; yet, lest this may be thought to be a 
 prejudiced statement, let me support it by two 
 quotations, both of them from non-Catholic authors. 
 
 In the last quarter of the last century when 
 materialism was fighting what was thought to be a 
 
32 Facts and Theories 
 
 final conflict, and was flushed with full certainty of 
 victory, two very prominent men of science, now both 
 dead, rose up to do battle on the opposite side. 1 
 They were, of course, attacked from many sides 
 that was to be expected ; but what they evidently 
 most objected to was being denounced as dog- 
 matizers, and in the preface to their third edition 
 they claim that it is not they " who are the dog- 
 matists, but rather that school of scientific men 
 who assert the incompatibility of science with 
 Christianity." That is a dogma, perhaps the 
 leading dogma of a certain school of writers at the 
 present day ; and we style it a dogma, because, as 
 we shall hope to show, it is "propounded" by 
 "authority" and by what kind of authority we 
 shall also see and is not " based on experience or 
 demonstration." 
 
 But to my second quotation. I shall have 
 occasion at various points to quote from the Gifford 
 Lectures of Professor Driesch delivered before the 
 University of Aberdeen in the years 1907 and 1908,2 
 and may, for the sake of those readers who are 
 not conversant with scientific literature, once and 
 for all say that their author stands in the first rank 
 of scientific workers. 
 
 In his first course of lectures Professor Driesch 
 
 1 Professors Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait, The Unseen Uni- 
 verse. My quotations are from the seventh edition, published in 1878. 
 
 2 The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, A. & C. Black. 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 33 
 
 devotes some space to a consideration of the 
 principles of Darwinism, and points out that " Dar- 
 winism and the opinion of Charles Darwin about 
 the descent of organisms are two different things." 
 " Darwin," he continues, " the very type of a man 
 devoted to science alone and not to personal 
 interests, Darwin was anything but dogmatic, 
 and yet Darwinism is dogmatism in one of its 
 purest forms." After developing this statement a 
 little, he proceeds to state that " Darwin's polemics 
 never left the path of true scientific discussions, 
 that he never in all his life abused anyone who 
 found reason to combat his hypotheses, and that 
 he never turned a logical problem into a question 
 of morality." And he concludes, " How different is 
 this from what many of Darwin's followers have 
 made out of his doctrines, especially in Germany ; 
 how far is ' Darwinism ' removed from Darwin's 
 own teaching and character ! " 
 
 One may ask of scientific men of middle age, 
 with all respect, whether there was no such thing as 
 dogmatism when Weismannism was at its zenith. 
 And, further, one may point to the observations 
 of Weismann himself, as quoted a few pages back 
 (pp. 23 seq.) t and ask what they are but dogmata 
 propounded on the authority of Weismann alone. 
 
 Then, if scientific dogmata are propounded, we 
 have every right to ask : 
 
 (c) WhoJare the propounders^ and what authority 
 
 3 
 
34 Facts and Theories 
 
 have they for propounding ? This brings us to the 
 question of works on science, a question which will 
 bear a little consideration. Anyone who has de- 
 voted a good deal of time to scientific study will 
 agree with me that there are various classes of such 
 books. I will take three groups of these works, 
 and endeavour to explain what I mean by examples 
 taken from each category. 
 
 In the first place, then, there are books written 
 by men of science for men of science to read. These 
 form the basis of all knowledge, but to most 
 persons they fall into the category of biblia abiblia^ 
 being even less readable than Kelly's Directory. 
 Let any ordinary person take down from the 
 shelves a volume of the Proceedings of the Zoo- 
 logical Society a collection of learned discourses 
 over which I have spent many hours of my life, 
 and to which I may confess that I have contributed 
 a good many pages wholly unintelligible to the 
 ordinary reader. He will be delighted with the 
 splendid illustrations with which the Society so 
 lavishly decorates its volumes ; but when he begins 
 to try and read the papers, he will soon find himself 
 sorely puzzled. And why ? Because he is trying 
 to read a work written by specialists for specialists. 
 It is the same with all such writings. Huxley 
 once boasted that he plucked the heart out of the 
 works of Suarez in a summer afternoon spent in 
 the library of a Scotch University. He plucked 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 35 
 
 just about as much real information out of them as 
 Suarez would have plucked in the same period of 
 time out of Huxley's paper " On the Dentition of the 
 Wild Canidae " in the Proceedings of the Zoological 
 Society and that is practically nothing. Every 
 science speaks in its own language, and those who 
 do not know that language are beating the air 
 when they try to read the literature if indeed it 
 can be called literature which it enshrines. 
 
 But there is one thing which may be said of all 
 such writings, and that is, that, taking them in the 
 mass, they are models of humility and modesty. 
 " I have found such and such a thing" that is a 
 statement of positive fact and need not be expressed 
 otherwise than positively. But, when it comes to 
 a matter of opinion, it is " It seems to me," or " The 
 facts suggest such and such an explanation," or 
 " It may well be argued," or some such phrase. 
 Caution, scientific caution, is the rule in works of 
 this kind ; but again remember they are the works 
 which are never read by the general reader, and for 
 the very sufficient and excellent reason that he could 
 not understand three consecutive lines in them. 
 
 The second group comprises the serious works 
 on biological philosophy or on biology philosophically 
 considered ; works in which it is endeavoured to 
 link fact with fact and bring them into harmony ; 
 to elicit the laws of life, development, variation, and 
 the like. Such were the works of Darwin ; at 
 
36 Facts and Theories 
 
 least most of them. Such are such books as 
 Professor Morgan's Evolution and Adaptation, to 
 mention the first which rises in my mind. These 
 books, whose authors are genuine men of science, 
 as a general rule exhibit the same laudable caution 
 and the same restraint which I have alluded to as 
 marking for the most part those of the first group. 
 Most of them are intended for readers with some 
 knowledge of science indeed often a very consider- 
 able knowledge is presupposed and, except in rare 
 cases, none of them influence the general public 
 except indirectly and a long time after their 
 publication, and then only through the medium of 
 what are commonly called " works of vulgariza- 
 tion." And the reason is quite obvious : it is 
 because they appeal to an audience different from 
 the ordinary public. 
 
 Thirdly, and finally, we come to books of vulgariza- 
 tion^ as to which I have in the first place to say 
 that, if properly done and done by the fitting man, 
 such pieces of work are worthy of high praise. 
 For the unreadable facts of the first class and the 
 hard sayings of the second are here translated into 
 language understanded of the people, and matters 
 of which they would otherwise have remained 
 ignorant are brought within their ken. But in the 
 case of these books, almost everything depends 
 upon the person who carries out the work of 
 vulgarization. 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 37 
 
 And here I am going to lay down a principle, 
 which I think would be agreed to by most persons 
 who have spent any considerable time in working 
 at science. It is this : that no person who has 
 not devoted a certain number of years to really 
 hard original research in some line of biology, is 
 fit to estimate the value of many of the theories 
 which are daily put forward. And further, that 
 manuals written by those who have not gone 
 through such a discipline and received some 
 measure of acknowledgement from their scientific 
 compeers, are very often not worth the paper which 
 they are written on. Tried by this test, a large 
 percentage of the manuals and articles which 
 appear in such large numbers may be ruled out 
 of court at least such of them as are compiled by 
 writers who are not, so it would appear, fully 
 conversant with recent scientific opinion, for the 
 use of those even less well-informed than them- 
 selves. It is this back- wash of the last half of the 
 nineteenth century and its effect upon the un- 
 instructed reading population, and not the opinions 
 of the really great exponents of, and workers at, 
 science, that those engaged in combating anti- 
 religious argument have to meet. It is impossible 
 to pursue these points much further; but a most 
 interesting catena of misleading statements might 
 be made from some of the manuals of the day. 
 An equally interesting and much more convincing 
 
38 Facts and Theories 
 
 catena might also be made of the admissions the 
 honest admissions the doubts, the hesitations of 
 genuine men of science in putting forward their 
 theories for the consideration of their compeers. 
 
 I may perhaps be permitted to take two examples 
 from the works of vulgarization of which I am 
 speaking, in order to contrast their methods of 
 dealing with the theories which they are concerned 
 in expounding. 
 
 In one of them the author, a man of genuine 
 reputation, in dealing with certain facts and 
 seeking for their explanation, says, " It looks as 
 if man," etc. But he hastens to add, " Until we 
 have facts whereon to build, however, it would 
 be as unpardonable to lay down the law on 
 these matters as it is permissible to fill up the 
 blank by guesswork." That is a truly scien- 
 tific attitude and one which might well be com- 
 mended for adoption to the manual-makers in 
 general. 
 
 With these we may contrast some statements 
 taken from another book, as a sample of the kind 
 of assertion which is made, without, as I submit, 
 due weight being given to the real trend of 
 contemporary scientific opinion. 
 
 " Concerning the action of natural selection and 
 sexual selection no one now doubts." x Well, that 
 
 1 On these statements see pp. 107 seq. and 113 seq. of this work 
 respectively. As these and the preceding passages are samples only, 
 it is not necessary to give references. 
 
On "Dogma" and "Dogmatism" 39 
 
 simply is not so. I shall give abundant evidence 
 in subsequent pages that it is not true. Observe 
 the statement is not that the factors named are 
 what they claim to be, but that no one doubts 
 that fact. As a matter of mere, common, ordinary, 
 everyday truth, there are quite competent persons 
 who do rightly or wrongly doubt the reality of 
 these factors. But how is the general reader who 
 takes up the book from which I have been quoting 
 to know that ? Or, again, how is he to be able to 
 estimate the truth of the following further state- 
 ment : " The fact of organic evolution is at least as 
 certain a part of knowledge as the law of universal 
 gravitation"? As a matter of fact again, that 
 statement is not accurate. I shall shortly (p. 103) 
 be dealing with Morgan's estimate of Fleischmann's 
 writings, and it will there be seen that the former 
 writer admits that, " however probable the theory 
 may appear {i.e. of organic evolution], the evidence 
 is indirect and exact proof is still wanting." Just 
 so : " exact proof is still wanting." Yet our writer 
 assures us that this theory of which " exact proof 
 is wanting" is at least as certain and definite 
 a possession of science as is the law of universal 
 gravitation. Again, how is the ordinary reader 
 to know where he is ? For one person who reads, 
 or would trouble to read, Professor Morgan's erudite 
 work, hundreds will read the smaller manuals 
 written in easy language and with every appear- 
 
40 Facts and Theories 
 
 ance of comprehensive knowledge. And even if 
 the ordinary person does read both, how is he to 
 decide which of his two authors is right ? At the 
 best he will probably ask, like "jesting Pilate," 
 " What is Truth ? " and will not " stay for a reply." 
 As far as Catholics are concerned and these 
 pages are written primarily for them, though indeed 
 their author hopes that they may be of interest 
 to many other men of good-will it may be pointed 
 out that it is not necessary to believe in every 
 hypothesis of science. Still less is it necessary to 
 believe that all the things put forward as facts or 
 unassailable dogmata of science in manuals and 
 magazine articles, are really true or even really held 
 by any respectable number of scientific men. Like 
 the " Fat Boy," the writers of such publications 
 desire above all things to make people's flesh creep, 
 and their statements need not necessarily be taken 
 as gospel truth. 1 
 
 1 Fr. Gerard's admirable Essays in Unnatural History (published 
 by the Catholic Truth Society), may be consulted as an exposition 
 of and a corrective to the kind of manual here alluded to. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ON "NATURE" AND "SCIENCE," AND 
 ON "FACTS," "LAWS," AND "HYPOTHESES" 
 
 MYRIADS of misleading articles, as we have just 
 been reading, pour forth from the press, professing 
 to teach the public all that is to be known about 
 the world and how it comes to be as it now appears 
 to us. Anyone who reads this kind of literature 
 will find it full of such magistral statements as 
 these : " Nature tells us," and " Science teaches us," 
 as if " Nature " and " Science " were real personages 
 uttering solemn and infallible allocutions instead 
 of being mere abstractions, as of course they are. 
 It is often a useful practice to put high-sounding 
 phrases into ordinary popular language and see 
 how they then appeal to one's mind. What the 
 above phrases really mean is that " ' Scientific men/ 
 or ' Some scientific men,' or again and too 
 frequently ' I ' think that things are as I am now 
 about to state them to be." That puts the matter 
 on a different basis, for, instead of being infallible, 
 the statement in question may be merely the 
 
 41 
 
42 Facts and Theories 
 
 guess, and perhaps the very unscientific guess, of 
 a quite imperfectly instructed person. Everybody 
 knows about Spenlow and Jorkins and the use 
 which the former made of the latter : well, 
 " Nature " and " Science " are the Jorkinses behind 
 which the Spenlows who write the manuals 
 modestly hide their personalities. 
 
 Are there, then, no facts ? Plenty of them, but 
 a good many of the things put forward as such are 
 doubtful facts, and some of them are not facts at 
 all, but merely surmises. This statement must now 
 be more fully developed. 
 
 In the first place, there are obvious, incontro- 
 vertible facts, which, unless the whole of mankind 
 is mad and blind, can never be anything else than 
 facts, such as the observation that man has a bony 
 vertebral column and that the jelly-fish has not. 
 With facts of this kind, with facts of any kind 
 (of course scientific facts are understood, for it is 
 science and not history with which we are dealing 
 here), with scientific facts religion has nothing what- 
 ever to do, except to make such use of them as 
 she sees fit in her philosophical discussions. Then, 
 besides these positive, isolated facts, there are deduc- 
 tions drawn from the observation of facts which 
 are called laws of Nature, and respecting these 
 several things have to be said. In the first place, 
 we must be careful to try and understand what 
 is meant by a "law of Nature," and I will set 
 
On "Nature" and "Science" 43 
 
 down here what I have said elsewhere on this 
 subject. 1 
 
 " The word ' law ' has two distinct meanings 
 not unfrequently confounded. Sometimes the 
 term stands for a decree or command, expressed 
 by a sentence in the imperative mood. The Ten 
 Commandments and Acts of Parliament are ' laws ' 
 in this sense. At other times the term denotes 
 some observed uniform mode of action or behaviour 
 in phenomena which is signified by a general 
 proposition in the indicative mood. The laws of 
 chemistry and astronomy are examples. Now, 
 it cannot be too clearly kept in mind that the 
 ' laws of Nature ' are of this latter class. The term 
 simply expresses our appreciation or conception of 
 an orderly or supposed orderly sequence of events 
 in the natural world. Viewed strictly from the 
 standpoint of science, as Huxley was careful to 
 point out, there are no such things as laws in the 
 ordinary sense of precepts or decrees, in the 
 processes of Nature. What we do know is that 
 there are certain observed sequences of events, and 
 that these do actually present to us a picture of a 
 uniform nature. But this is a different thing from 
 assuming, as many without any evidence are prone 
 to do, that these sequences are the result of some 
 inexorable compulsion or some intrinsic and 
 absolute necessity emerging out of the nature of 
 
 1 What is Life ? pp. 126 seq. 
 
44 Facts and Theories 
 
 the universe, and that in no other way could things 
 take place than that in which, as a matter of fact, 
 we are accustomed to find that they do take place. 
 "At the same time, for those who accept the 
 theistic position the rationale of the whole matter 
 is this. The observed course of Nature is due to 
 the action of divine power, which, having certain 
 ends in view, attains them in the most suitable 
 way. So long, therefore, as the ends in view 
 remain the same, the means adopted for their 
 attainment will not vary ; and a slight or infinit- 
 esimal variation in the ends will bring about a 
 precisely corresponding variation in the means. 
 But the ends to be secured by the course of Nature 
 are always the same ; or if they vary, do so by 
 an infinitesimal gradation. The sensible world 
 consequently presents, so far as the general ex- 
 perience of mankind goes, the appearance of strict 
 regulation. Futhermore it is to be remembered 
 that our conception of these uniformities or laws 
 of Nature are based on our present experience, 
 and that the extension of that experience may 
 require us to introduce modifications into our 
 expression of the facts as they appear to us or 
 in other words, may lead to a change in the 
 formulation of the law. In fine, there is nothing 
 sacrosanct about the laws of Nature which forbids 
 criticism or denies the possibility of error in our 
 comprehension of them." 
 
On "Nature" and "Science" 45 
 
 After this general consideration of the subject 
 it may be well to take a case or two. We may 
 begin with the law of gravitation, which the last 
 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us we 
 may consider "as the broadest and most funda- 
 mental one which Nature makes known to us." 
 Here we have to do with an observed sequence 
 of results which can be verified at any time by 
 experiment, and which may, therefore, be regarded 
 as definitely proved. At the same time, no one 
 knows what the " force " of gravitation is : that is 
 to say, no one knows what it is that produces the 
 attraction between bodies which the law formulates. 
 There are theories more or less fitting in with 
 the facts, theories with which we have nothing 
 to do here; but no one of these, I believe, is 
 accepted by all or perhaps even by a majority 
 of physicists. 
 
 Let us next consider the so-called law of the 
 conservation of energy. Here is a law or general- 
 ization which was admittedly, though partially, 
 and usefully true even in its imperfect condition, 
 which was in that imperfect condition up to recently 
 to our certain knowledge, and which may still be 
 in an imperfect condition (though still useful and 
 applicable), as some think, at the present day. 
 Sir Oliver Lodge says of this law : * 
 
 c< The term ' energy ' itself, as used in a definite 
 
 1 Life and Matter^ p. 21. 
 
46 Facts and Theories 
 
 sense by the physicist, rather involves a modern 
 idea, and is itself a generalization. Things as 
 distinct from each other as light, heat, sound, 
 rotation, vibration, elastic strain, gravitative separa- 
 tion, electric currents, and chemical affinity, have 
 all to be generalized under the same heading 
 (of the conservation of energy) in order to make 
 the law true. Until ' heat ' was included in the 
 list of energies, the statement could not be made ; 
 and a short time ago it was sometimes discussed 
 whether ' life ' should or should not be included 
 in the category of energy. I should give the 
 answer decidedly No, but some might be inclined 
 to say Yes ; and this is sufficient as an example 
 to show that the categories of energy are not 
 necessarily exhausted ; that new forms may be 
 discovered; and that if new forms exist, until 
 they are discovered, the law of conservation of 
 energy, as now stated, may in some cases be 
 strictly untrue, though partially and usefully true ; 
 just as it would be untrue, though partially and 
 usefully true, in the theory of machines, if heat 
 were unknown or ignored." 
 
 Now, it may be noted with regard to these and 
 other "laws" that they are susceptible of proof 
 completely or up to a point by experiment, but 
 we shall find other things claimed as such which 
 have not as yet been proved by experiment. 
 
 For example, as we have seen, it has been stated 
 
On "Nature" and "Science" 47 
 
 and most incorrectly stated that the truth of 
 evolution is at least as definitely settled as the 
 truth of gravitation, i.c. that there is a "law of 
 evolution." It is inaccurate to state the case in 
 these terms, for at present there is no direct evidence 
 for the truth of the evolutionary theory, all the 
 evidence there is being indirect. As will be shown, 
 most scientific men accept this theory, but every 
 scientific man would admit it with the limitation 
 which I have just laid down. If claimed as a 
 law of Nature, it would have to be claimed with 
 many more reservations than would apply to the 
 law of gravitation. Vet a law of transformation 
 might be quite true and quite tenable without a 
 full explanation of how the law effects its operations, 
 just as we believe in gravitation though we do 
 not know how that force acts. 
 
 We must now return to the question of facts. 
 How far can we credit what are put forward as 
 objective scientific facts? As to many of these 
 it is safe to say that we need have no sort of 
 doubt, but as to quite a number of others we must 
 always believe, if we do believe, with the reser- 
 vation that the fact may prove to be no fact but 
 the result of incorrect observation. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of the so-called 
 Bathybius Haeckelii, discovered by Huxley and 
 supposed to be a diffused protoplasmic mass, 
 living and representing the lowest form of life, 
 
48 Facts and Theories 
 
 which, though described as living and provided 
 with the name appropriate to it if it had been 
 living, turned out to be nothing more than a 
 chemical compound and was, at once and with 
 complete honesty, abandoned by its parent 
 Huxley though not for some time, if ever, by 
 its imaginative god-parent Haeekel. 1 
 
 But a so-called fact may have a much, longer 
 life than this and yet turn out not to be a fact 
 at all. Take, for example, the case of the so-called 
 chemical " elements," as to which, except perhaps 
 in the minds of certain philosophers, there was 
 scarcely any sort of doubt expressed even at so 
 recent a date as that at which I was taught 
 chemistry. The old alchemists and the scholastic 
 philosophers believed that there was a common 
 matter which assumed different forms and was 
 then known under the name of gold, iron, lead, and 
 the like ; and they argued from this that, if one 
 could only find the proper way to do it, it would 
 be quite possible to transmute one of the more 
 common and less valuable metals, such as lead, 
 into gold. Robert Boyle, in his Skiptical Chymist, 
 propounded the theory that these things were all 
 ab initio and fundamentally distinct, and that an 
 " element " was a thing which could not be broken 
 up or resolved into anything more simple, or, of 
 
 1 For a full account of this matter see Huxley's Life and Letters, 
 vol. i. pp. 295 seq. , and vol. ii. pp. 5 seq. 
 
On "Nature" and "Science" 49 
 
 course, transmuted into any other kind of 
 element. 
 
 It seems now that this was all wrong and that 
 the alchemists were right in their fundamental 
 conceptions, for we know, or we think we know, 
 that one metal is being slowly transmuted into 
 another metal as time goes by ; and that the prob- 
 ability is that there is a materia prima, protyle, 
 or primitive underlying stuff or matter, 1 whatever 
 its nature may be, capable of assuming the form 
 of specifically diverse substances. No doubt our 
 knowledge on all these points is very inchoate, but 
 this statement does not affect the truth of what I 
 have said namely, that what was for centuries 
 believed to be a fact has, so we now think, turned 
 out to be a phantasm. 
 
 This " fact " ought to have been called an " hypo- 
 thesis," and an excellent working hypothesis it 
 actually was. 
 
 This brings me to the subject of hypotheses. 
 Scientific workers accumulate by patient observa- 
 tion huge cairns of facts, indisputable facts, such, 
 for example, as the characters of the common 
 primrose facts which anybody with very slight 
 
 1 Materia prima is a very subtle metaphysical conception it 
 cannot exist as such but always under some specific form ; it, there- 
 fore, differs from the modern conception of ' ' protyle " [ether 
 or whatever it may be] which is materia with a form. The modern 
 view approximates to the alchemist's conception rather than to the 
 metaphysician's notion. 
 
 4 
 
50 Facts and Theories 
 
 knowledge and with very modest powers of 
 observation can go out and verify for themselves. 
 They accumulate other facts which can only be 
 verified by skilled workers and by careful ex- 
 periment. Still, the skilled workers are there, and 
 the careful experiments are made ; and, as Huxley 
 once said in his incisive way, "There is one thing 
 about us men of science, and that is, no one who 
 has the greatest prejudice against science can 
 venture to say that we ever conceal each other's 
 mistakes." And after all this testing and criticiz- 
 ing, it seems that the observation was correct 
 and the statement is accepted as a fact, an ob- 
 jective fact, and as such the non-scientific person 
 may certainly also accept it. 
 
 But all these cairns of fact would be, though 
 no doubt more or less interesting in themselves, 
 exceedingly meaningless if there were no method 
 of linking them together. And the real interest 
 of scientific men lies in this direction, explaining 
 their relationships, drawing deductions, forming 
 hypotheses. All these operations of the mind 
 for that is what they are : operations of the mind 
 as opposed to the observations by which the facts 
 are brought to light all these operations of the 
 mind are not only perfectly legitimate but ab- 
 solutely essential if science is to make the slightest 
 progress. All the words in the English language 
 are to be found in dictionaries, but they do not 
 
On " Nature " and " Science " 51 
 
 become literature until the operations of the mind 
 have woven them into consecutive passages. The 
 facts are mere bricks ; the hypothesis, if a true 
 hypothesis, builds an edifice out of them. Further, 
 a hypothesis or a theory, for we may regard the 
 words as convertible, may be exceedingly useful and 
 exceedingly fruitful and yet be inaccurate. It 
 may be only a partial statement of truth, as was 
 remarked respecting the law of the conservation 
 of energy, and yet be a most valuable statement. 
 It may even be an inaccurate statement, as we 
 now think the eighteenth-century idea of the 
 immutability of the chemical elements to have 
 been, and yet at the same time, as what is called 
 " a working hypothesis," may have been valuable 
 beyond words to the progress of science. 1 
 
 The lesson which we have to learn is that a 
 11 fact " and a " hypothesis " are not the same thing. 
 A hypothesis may break down altogether at the 
 very outset thousands do. It may persist for a 
 long time as a " working hypothesis" and be very 
 useful as such, and yet in the end prove to have 
 been incorrect or partially incorrect which is not 
 an uncommon fate. It may go on for years, for 
 anything we can tell, to the end of time, as nothing 
 more than a "working hypothesis" and be very 
 
 1 Of course it should be added that the theory now in question 
 does contain the half-truth that the so-called elements are far less 
 susceptible of mutation than the compounds which they form. 
 
52 Facts and Theories 
 
 useful as such. Some genius may arise, some 
 fortunate experiment may be made which converts 
 the hypothesis into well-established theory or even 
 a recognized fact the fate of a very small minority 
 of hypotheses. What we have always to keep 
 before our minds is that, until this last-mentioned 
 event occurs, if it ever does occur, we are dealing 
 with a hypothesis, the idea of some man's mind, and 
 not with an objective fact. We are dealing with a 
 thing which may quite as likely even be wrong as 
 right and not with a thing like an objective fact, 
 which no one but an idiot would doubt. 
 
 This is the kind of distinction which is never 
 made by the misleading manuals of which I spoke 
 at the beginning of this section. They mix up 
 facts and hypotheses into one confused dish, put- 
 ting, for example, the existence of the peacock's 
 markings and their attempt to explain how they 
 came to be, on the same plane of certainty and 
 reality, and present the same to their readers 
 without in any way distinguishing between the 
 two. Yet, as I have tried to show, the distinction 
 between them is very definite and very real. 
 
 It is especially definite and real as far as 
 Theology goes. Theology, as has been pointed 
 out already, has nothing to do with observed 
 objective facts ; they are out of her sphere of 
 operations. On the other hand, a hypothesis, 
 especially when it is of a philosophical character 
 
On " Nature " 0rf " 5V^ " 53 
 
 and based on biological facts, may seriously cut 
 across the track of a theological dogma. When 
 this occurs, a Catholic may pursue his way with 
 complete calmness, for he will reflect that hundreds 
 and hundreds of hypotheses have been propounded 
 and "scrapped," and that it is quite clear that 
 unless everything which, for reasons quite other 
 than any alluded to in these pages, he holds to 
 be true is untrue, either the hypothesis is false and 
 will in time be shown to be false, or it is partially 
 true, and in so far as it is true can be shown not to 
 be in conflict with theological teachings. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ON LIFE AND THE EXPLANATIONS OFFERED 
 THEREON 
 
 MANY are the definitions which have been offered 
 of the thing known as " Life," yet no one of them 
 seems completely to cover perhaps no definition 
 can cover the vast field of activities embraced 
 under that name. We know that we are alive 
 ourselves. We recognize, or think we recognize, 
 certain very definite lines of distinction between 
 the things which we call living and the things 
 which we call not-living. Let us approach the 
 question from the standpoint of that "rule-of- 
 thumb" knowledge. We say that a man or a 
 horse is alive : we say that the sea is not alive. 
 Both have their motions, both their internal currents. 
 Is there any real difference between them ? that 
 is, is the difference between them one of degree or 
 of kind ? Here we arrive at the heart of the con- 
 troversy with which this chapter is concerned, a 
 vast controversy over which much ink has been 
 
 54 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 55 
 
 shed and concerning which it would be more than 
 rash to say that the last word has been uttered. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at the two opposing 
 views. The materialistic school holds that there 
 is no difference but one of degree between living 
 and not-living things, or, in other words, that a 
 chemico-physical explanation is capable of covering 
 the whole realm of nature. Le Dan tec states that 
 "between life and death the difference is of the 
 same order as that which exists between a phenol 
 and a sulphate, or between an electrified body and 
 a neutral body. In other words, all phenomena 
 which we study objectively in living beings can be 
 analysed by the methods of physics and chemistry." 1 
 This remark may be taken to sum up the creed 
 of the anti-vitalistic school, and it may be supple- 
 mented by Huxley's well-known dictum that " the 
 whole world, living and not-living, is the result of 
 the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, 
 of the forces possessed by the molecules of which 
 the primitive nebulosity of the universe consisted." 2 
 
 Now, with regard to this idea of life I may here 
 set down a comment which I have made elsewhere, 
 since it lays down the results which must follow 
 from the acceptance of any theory of this kind. 3 
 " We can now clearly see the meaning of this 
 
 1 The Nature and Origin of Life, p. 5. 
 
 2 Belfast Address, 1874. 
 8 Whatis Life? ?. 8. 
 
56 Facts and Theories 
 
 explanation of life. It teaches that all the pheno- 
 mena exhibited by living bodies, including the 
 poetry of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, the pro- 
 found reasonings of Aristotle or Sir Isaac Newton, 
 the generous instincts of a Fry or a Howard, these 
 and all minor manifestations of life are explicable, 
 and may, therefore, some day be explained in terms 
 of chemical equations and physical experiments. 
 It seems a hard saying, and one thing is clear, 
 namely, that if it is true, there is an end to biology 
 as a science, an end also to psychology, an end to 
 all branches of science dealing with living things, 
 since all these must resolve themselves into branches 
 of the two only sciences of chemistry and physics." 
 Not only this, but there must also be an end of all 
 morality and of any idea of charity between human 
 beings or of altruism or consideration for another's 
 interests. " How could I feel ' morally ' towards 
 other individuals, if I knew that they were machines 
 and nothing more? machines, which some day I 
 myself might be able to construct like a steam- 
 engine ! To a convinced theoretical materialist, to 
 whom his neighbour is a real mechanical system, 
 morality is an absurdity. This is equally true, 
 whether materialism is held as a doctrine about 
 nature from a point of view which is idealistic and 
 phenomenological at bottom, or professed in the 
 crudest uncritical metaphysical manner. In either 
 case the mechanical theory of life is incompatible 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 57 
 
 with morality." 1 This gloomy outlook, which would 
 cause one to look upon the complete destruction of 
 the entire universe as by far the happiest solution of 
 matters, goes far to disprove the materialistic hypo- 
 thesis ; indeed, Driesch, in continuation of the re- 
 marks just quoted, adds as his opinion, "There 
 might be vitalism without morality ; but the cate- 
 gorical existence of morality implies vitalism as an 
 axiom, even if it were not yet established by other 
 proofs" 
 
 The other view of life, commonly called " vital- 
 istic," does not exclude chemical and physical 
 explanations. Quite the contrary : it admits, as all 
 must do, that in living things hosts of processes 
 take place which can be explained on chemico- 
 physical lines and can to some extent at least be 
 reproduced in the laboratory. But, according to 
 this view, there is something else in living things, a 
 something over which does not exist in non-living 
 things, and it is just this "something over" which 
 makes the difference a difference of kind and not 
 merely of degree between living and non-living 
 things. I am not now going to enter into a dispute 
 as to the nature of this " something over " ; still less 
 am I going to quarrel as to the name which we 
 are to use for it. " Vital force " or " principle " was 
 the old term. Others nowadays prefer the terms 
 
 1 Driesch, Science and Philosophy of the Organism, ii. 358. 
 Italics as in original. 
 
58 Facts and Theories 
 
 "biotic energy" (a translation into Greek) or 
 " bathmic force" or "entelechy." It matters little 
 what we call it so long as we agree that it is there, 
 and it is more important to recognize that it is there 
 than to be able to say exactly what it is. But is 
 it there? When Huxley wrote the address from 
 which quotation has just been made, at the com- 
 mencement of the last quarter of the last century, the 
 materialistic explanation was in its hey-day. Men 
 of science then really did dream that they might, 
 like Wagner in Faust, produce a Homunculus in a 
 retort, and were certain that they had seen the 
 dawn of the day in which life would be produced in 
 the laboratory from non-living matter. But a great 
 change has come over things in the thirty-odd years 
 which have passed since Huxley made the state- 
 ment just quoted. The current of scientific opinion , 
 especially in Germany and in the United States, 
 sets in just the opposite direction, and it is clear 
 that the same thing is happening in England. 
 
 To give chapter and verse for these statements 
 would occupy greater space than can here be 
 afforded, but one or two quotations will establish 
 what has been said and will stand as examples of 
 others which might be cited. Dr. Haldane, F.R.S., 
 says, " To any physiologist who candidly reviews 
 the progress of the last fifty years it must be 
 perfectly evident that, so far from having advanced 
 towards a physico-chemical explanation of life, we 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 59 
 
 are in appearance very much farther from one than 
 we were fifty years ago." 1 Professor Wilson : 
 " The study of the cell has on the whole seemed to 
 widen rather than to narrow the enormous gap that 
 separates even the lowest forms of life from the 
 inorganic world." 2 Professor B. Moore, F.R.S., 
 speaks of the " mischievous view " that " no form of 
 energy whatever is present in living cells save such 
 as is seen in the case of non-living matter." 3 
 
 But by far the most important contribution to this 
 side of the controversy is the great work of Driesch 
 from which quotation has already been made. The 
 two volumes containing the Gifford Lectures at the 
 University of Aberdeen for the years 1907 and 1908, 
 which their erudite author devoted to the establish- 
 ment of the vitalistic theory, may be taken as offer- 
 ing the most complete argument in favour of that 
 explanation of life, and to them readers in quest of 
 fuller knowledge may with confidence be referred. 4 
 
 We must not, however, pass away from this point 
 without offering some arguments in favour of the 
 vitalistic theory, difficult though it be to make 
 
 1 Nineteenth Century, 1898, ii. 400. 
 
 * The Cell in Development and Inheritance, 2nd edition, 1900, 
 
 P- 434- 
 
 3 Recent Advances in Physiology and Bio-Chemistry, 1906. 
 
 4 The present writer may perhaps be permitted also to call attention 
 to his own book, What is Life ? published by Sands and Co, in 
 1908 as containing an account of the controversy and some of the 
 leading arguments in favour of the vitalistic theory and written for 
 a more popular audience than that contemplated by Driesch's works. 
 
60 Facts and Theories 
 
 those arguments comprehensible to persons who 
 have had no training in biology. Let us take two 
 or three cases for examination. 
 
 (i) As Wilson tells us, the vast amount of know- 
 ledge which has been accumulated respecting the 
 living cell has not tended to simplify our conception 
 of life and to unify living and non-living things, 
 but quite the contrary. The cell is almost always a 
 very tiny object, generally microscopic in size. In 
 general plan it may be said that all cells more or 
 less agree with one another, since as a rule each 
 possesses a wall, a nucleus, and cell-contents ; yet 
 there is an extraordinary diversity in their opera- 
 tions. Still more there is an extraordinary 
 evidence of a teleological character, of means to an 
 end, which cannot be accounted for, so most 
 observers now think, on purely physico-chemical 
 lines. Further, the processes of cell-division, too 
 complicated for description here, which were once 
 thought to be explicable in a mechanical manner, 
 have now been shown to be susceptible of no 
 such explanation. In a word, all that we know 
 about the cell goes to show that in that tiny 
 object there is a "something over" which does 
 not exist in a particle of stone or in any " not- 
 living" object. 
 
 (ii) Experimental Embryology tells the same tale. 
 In this branch of science the eggs of various lower 
 forms of life are set to develop, after fertilization, 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 61 
 
 under various conditions, not those of ordinary 
 existence, devised by the experimenter. For 
 example, " frog-spawn " that is, the fertilised ova 
 of the frog from which the tadpole comes forth on 
 the road to be a frog as a rule develops freely in 
 water and without other pressure than that exer- 
 cised by one egg upon another in a very yielding 
 medium. The experimenter in his search after 
 truth has obliged these eggs to develop under all 
 sorts of strange conditions. For example, instead 
 of permitting them to develop under the spherical 
 form which is their natural contour, he has made 
 them develop between two sheets of glass and 
 consequently assume a figure with plane instead of 
 spherical surfaces. What happened ? As soon as 
 the egg got a chance it reconstructed itself, so 
 to speak, and went on to regular development, 
 pursuing thus and this is the really important 
 point a path towards development never before 
 trodden by any egg. " It almost seems," exclaims 
 a very distinguished observer, " as if every egg was 
 a law unto itself." x A law unto itself ! surely this 
 is a convincing argument. Nothing is more clear 
 in chemistry and physics than that identical results 
 follow upon identical causes. Introduce a disturb- 
 ing element, even a small one, into your experiment, 
 and that experiment will fail. Such is not the 
 case with the developing egg. Of course if the 
 
 1 Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inheritance^ p, xii. 
 
62 Facts and Theories 
 
 disturbance be too great, the egg will be killed and 
 all development come to an end. But even a 
 relatively considerable disturbance will not prevent 
 it from fulfilling its end. Forced on by the " some- 
 thing over," as we believe, it will, if at all possible, 
 attain its end, and in order to do this it will do 
 things which it may safely be said no egg ever did 
 before. 
 
 The most unscientific mind will have no difficulty 
 in seeing that in this respect at least the living 
 thing wholly differs from the machine. A machine 
 will do what it is made to do and nothing else. A 
 bicycle will not wash clothes and a sewing-machine 
 will not function as a steam-navvy, nor can it sew 
 in any way but in that for which it was constructed. 
 Some sewing-machines have two spools of thread, 
 some have or had only one. Take away one of 
 the spools from the two-spool variety, and the 
 labour of the sewer is in vain. The egg arrives at 
 its end after encountering difficulties relatively as 
 great as that of the sewing-machine deprived of 
 one of its spools. 
 
 (iii) Physiological processes in the body, once 
 thought to be easily explicable in terms of a machine, 
 have now been shown not to be susceptible of such 
 an explanation. Take, for example, the case of the 
 secretion by glands for instance, that of the saliva. 
 This fluid is formed in various glands and poured 
 into the mouth through larger or smaller conduits, 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 63 
 
 called ducts. Now it used to be thought that the 
 glands acted more or less as filtering mechanisms 
 and, therefore, in a passive and inert manner. Or 
 it was thought that they might act as membranes 
 possessing constant permeabilities for different 
 dissolved substances in the plasma, or as media in 
 which different substances possess different solu- 
 bilities. These ideas are now known to be in- 
 correct " That the rate of secretion is not merely 
 passively dependent upon blood pressure and blood 
 supply (although under normal conditions it is 
 subject to variations corresponding to changes in 
 these physical factors) is shown by the observation 
 of Ludwig that the secretion pressure in the sub- 
 maxillary salivary gland when the outflow is 
 resisted by fluid in a manometer, may rise much 
 above the arterial pressure ; and also by the 
 observation that after administration of a drug, 
 such as atropin, the blood supply may be increased 
 as much as before administration of the drug on 
 stimulation of the secretory nerve, without, how- 
 ever, calling forth any flow of secretion." x 
 
 There are other examples, though this must 
 serve for the present, which show that things go 
 on in the physiological processes of the body which 
 are not only not explicable by ordinary mechanical 
 explanations but which run more or less contrary 
 to such explanations. Here, again, we find a 
 
 1 Moore, op. cit. 
 
64 Facts and Theories 
 
 radical difference between living and non-living 
 things. A machine must act according to 
 mechanical principles ; it cannot possibly do 
 otherwise. The living organism can and does act 
 in a way not to be explained by mechanics. 
 
 (iv) In the phenomena of Regeneration, however, 
 as Driesch has shown, the materialistic explana- 
 tion of life finds its complete refutation. Without 
 reproducing his very complicated and, as the 
 present writer thinks, irrefutable arguments, a 
 short time may well be devoted to the considera- 
 tion of this part of our subject. When we cut 
 one of our fingers so as to make a deep and 
 gaping wound, there is a good deal of bleeding, 
 perhaps some pain, and subsequently a certain 
 amount of inability to use the member for a 
 longer or shorter period of time ; but by degrees 
 the wound heals up and nothing is left but a scar 
 to remind us of the injury from which we have 
 suffered. In this process we are witnessing re- 
 generation to the extent that it is possible in the 
 human body. If no regeneration were possible, the 
 wound must have remained permanently open ; 
 nay, the blood-vessels must have gone on bleeding, 
 in fact, the function of the part, if not of the whole 
 organism, must have been permanently interfered 
 with. Regeneration takes place, and we are as 
 well as ever we were. Let us remember that even 
 this very minor form of regeneration is not to be 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 65 
 
 found in a machine. Knock a hole in the petrol 
 pipe of a motor-car, and all the bandages and 
 ointments in the pharmacopoeia will not cause it 
 to heal up or regenerate. But this very minor 
 form of regeneration is very much surpassed in 
 some lower forms of life, yet forms which are 
 relatively highly placed, even vertebrates. The 
 salamander, for example, can regenerate its tail 
 if it is cut off nay more, it can regenerate a leg, 
 or even all four legs if they are amputated and 
 can do this time and again. Spallanzani, 1 whose 
 experiments in this direction were amongst the 
 first to be undertaken, six times in the course of 
 three summer months removed all four legs and 
 the tail from the same salamander, yet the tireless 
 beast six times repaired its frame and presented 
 itself as a complete animal, its last reconstruction 
 being completed as rapidly as its first. The same 
 observer found that the animal could even re- 
 generate its jaws. It is obvious that here we are 
 on ground unreached by any machine. But there 
 is a still more wonderful example which seems, 
 when it is carefully considered, to clinch the matter 
 and leave little room for argument in favour of the 
 chemico-physical explanation. There is a creature 
 called Clavellina lepadiformis, which belongs to the 
 order of ascidians. This order is at the top of the 
 invertebrate group, if indeed it be not a lowly 
 
 1 Who, by the way, was a Catholic priest. 
 
 s 
 
66 Facts and Theories 
 
 member of the vertebrates or a link between the 
 two divisions at any rate, zoologists would put it 
 higher than a crab or a fly. The Clavellina is 
 about an inch in length, and its body is divided 
 into three portions ; the uppermost of which forms 
 an extraordinarily large, basket-like gill, provided 
 with an entrance and an exit for the water. To 
 this succeeds a small connecting body portion 
 which contains part of the intestines, and finally 
 there is the so-called intestinal sac with stomach, 
 intestines, heart, reproductive organs, etc. 
 
 Now, if we divide the body of a Clavellina at the 
 level of the connecting portion, so that the gill- 
 basket and the intestinal sac are separated from 
 one another, either or both of these two portions 
 can in three or four days complete itself into an 
 entire new Clavellina, since, by means of true 
 regeneration proceeding from the incision, the gill- 
 basket makes itself an intestinal sac and the in- 
 testinal sac makes itself a new gill-basket. This 
 is a wonderful thing, and is much as if a loco- 
 motive engine, split into two halves immediately 
 in front of its " cab," were to remake two engines 
 one out of the old boiler and pistons and drivers, 
 and one out of the old cab, and did this out of its 
 own material and without obtaining fresh metal 
 except from the circumambient air. But it is a 
 process with which zoologists are quite familiar in 
 the earthworm, the hydra, and other living things. 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 67 
 
 But sometimes Clavellina, and this is especially 
 the case when smaller individuals are operated 
 upon, does a much more remarkable thing than 
 this. It reconstructs itself not by direct regenera- 
 tion, as in the case mentioned above, but by a 
 process commencing by one of regression. The 
 organization of the gill-basket, its ciliated clefts, 
 its openings, all the other parts of which it consists 
 gradually disappear. At the end of five or six 
 days no more organization is to be seen in these 
 parts, which appear like white spheres : in fact, the 
 describer states that, when he first saw this condi- 
 tion, he came to the conclusion that the Clavellina 
 was either dead or on the way to death. It was 
 not so, however, for though the creature remains 
 or may remain in this condition for two or three 
 weeks, at last the day comes when it begins to 
 lose its turbidity and stretch, and then after the 
 end of two or three days it is found that the 
 amorphous mass has once more become a complete 
 ascidian with gill-basket and intestinal sac. It has 
 become a perfectly new organism which has no 
 continuity with the parts of the earlier organization, 
 though it has with its material. Its gill-basket is 
 not a derivative of the old one ; it is very much 
 smaller and has fewer and smaller openings. 
 What has happened is that the old organized gill- 
 basket has returned to an indifferent substance and 
 then, from this indifferent substance on embryo- 
 
68 Facts and Theories 
 
 logical lines, a new smaller individual has been 
 constituted. But this is not the whole story, for it 
 is not merely the isolated gill-basket which can 
 restore itself by means of this roundabout process, 
 but, after having isolated the basket, it can itself 
 be divided either into an upper and lower portion or 
 into an anterior and a posterior bit, and each of 
 these portions will then go through the same 
 process that is, each of them will first of all return 
 to the indifferent condition and then from that re- 
 constitute itself into a new small ascidian. 
 
 Let us for a moment endeavour to transmute 
 this into terms of an ordinary machine. We shall 
 then have to suppose that the locomotive " cab " 
 gradually loses all semblance of a "cab." Its 
 levers and its gauges all melt into a shapeless, 
 homogeneous mass, and thus it lies for a week or 
 weeks. Suddenly one bright day the mass begins 
 to move and differentiate itself, and lo ! in two or 
 three days a new locomotive fit for a toy-railway, 
 but complete and capable of drawing small wag- 
 gons along a diminutive line. Of course it may 
 be urged that such comparisons are altogether 
 crude and rough. I admit it ; but they may 
 fairly be urged when on the other hand we have 
 it claimed that processes such as those which 
 we have studied in Clavellina can be explained 
 on purely mechanical lines. To the present 
 writer, at any rate, such happenings seem to be 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 69 
 
 wholly inexplicable except in terms of a vitalistic 
 philosophy. 
 
 This "something over," the principle of life in 
 the lower animals at least, "was held by the 
 schoolmen to be an example of a simple principle 
 which is nevertheless not spiritual, since it is 
 altogether dependent upon the organism, or, as 
 they said, completely immersed in the body. St. 
 Thomas accordingly speaks of the corporeal souls 
 of brutes." x The vegetative and sensitive " souls " 
 assigned by the scholastic philosophy to vegetables 
 and the lower animals are other terms for the 
 " vital principle " or whatever other name we like 
 to give to the "something over" which distin- 
 guishes the Amceba, a mere drop of living matter, 
 from the most complicated crystal of the inorganic 
 world. And in using this word " crystal " I will for 
 a moment allude to the arguments against vitalism 
 based on crystals, their behaviour, and particularly 
 their power of regenerating. The matter cannot 
 be pursued further here, and I only mention it 
 lest it should be urged that I have neglected it. 
 A fuller discussion of this question will be found 
 in my book, as cited above. 
 
 Let us now try to clear up the position so far 
 as this part of the subject is concerned. It is 
 not true that all biologists think that the phe- 
 nomena of life can be explained in terms of 
 
 1 Maher, Psychology, 5th edition, p. 469. 
 
70 Facts and Theories 
 
 chemistry and physics. A large, an important, 
 and a growing number believe that there is a 
 "something over" the "corporeal soul" of St. 
 Thomas, though many of them would perish rather 
 than give it such a dreadfully antiquated name 
 as that of a soul. Moreover, they believe that it 
 is this something over which controls the operations 
 of the living thing and that it has a teleological 
 significance : that is, it is pursuing its course towards 
 a definite end. It is quite clear what such an 
 explanation entails, that is, a Framer of the purpose 
 towards which the organism is making. 
 
 It is not necessary or advisable in a book such 
 as this, even were its writer capable of such a 
 task, to deal with theological questions respecting 
 the human soul and its relation to the body and 
 its operations. What I am trying to establish is 
 the existence of another and a non-material factor 
 in living matter, a factor which is not existent in 
 non-living matter, and that it is just the existence 
 of this factor which differentiates the one from 
 the other. 
 
 Confident writers sometimes maintain that there 
 is no such factor. There is good evidence to 
 show that they are wrong in this view, though it 
 would be absurd to say that the whole biological 
 world is at one on the question. But when 
 confident and ignorant persons state, as they 
 sometimes do, that the biological world is at one 
 
On Life and the Explanations Offered 7 1 
 
 in agreeing upon a chemico-physical explanation 
 of life, they state a thing that is not true, as has 
 been, I hope, abundantly shown by the quotations 
 introduced into this chapter. 
 
 From our point of view as Catholics we may 
 claim that the attempt to show that life, as we 
 know it, is a chemico-physical phenomenon or 
 set of phenomena, that there is no higher or 
 other factor in living than there is in not-living 
 matter, has so far completely failed ; and that the 
 number of authorities believing in such an explana- 
 tion year by year decreases. Still more then 
 does the attempt made to show that there is no 
 soul, no higher or other factor in man than those 
 of chemistry and physics, fail along this line 
 of attack. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ON THE ORIGINATION OF LIFE: BIOGENESIS 
 AND ABIOGENESIS 
 
 THE next question which we have to discuss is the 
 manner in which this " something over " which we 
 have been dealing with in the last chapter origin- 
 ated. It is a thing sui generis ; that we have been 
 trying to prove. Does it arise from pre-existing 
 life, or can it originate from not-living matter? 
 To put the matter in scientific language is bio- 
 genesis the proper explanation of the origin of life, 
 or may we hold by abiogenesis? For long ages 
 the latter theory held the field ; nor is it wonderful 
 that it should have done so. There was no micro- 
 scope to reveal the wonders of the infinitely small. 
 All around them men saw decomposing flesh 
 swarming with maggots, cheeses developing mites, 
 the waters apparently producing all sorts of living 
 things. It would have been wonderful indeed if 
 they had formed any other conception than that 
 which they did form. There is a celebrated 
 controversy on record which took place between 
 
 72 
 
On the Origination, of Life 73 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna, the purport of 
 which is sometimes misrepresented. St. Thomas 
 was opposed to Avicenna's view of spontaneous 
 generation, not because he was opposed to spon- 
 taneous generation in se, but because Avicenna 
 held that matter inanimate matter, of course 
 produced life by its own inherent powers, whereas 
 St. Thomas held, as we should hold now in a similar 
 controversy, that if inanimate matter does produce 
 life, it is because the Creator has given it power to 
 do so. 1 
 
 It may be convenient to add a further remark 
 upon this matter. There are some persons who 
 imagine that if spontaneous generation were 
 actually to become a proved fact, as is, of course, 
 within the bounds of possibility ; if a chemist were 
 actually to produce living matter in a test-tube in 
 his laboratory ; that then and there the whole system 
 of Christianity, not to say of Catholicity, would 
 immediately collapse, leaving not a wrack behind. 
 Well, in the first place it may be said that, as the 
 later pages of this chapter will show, it is eminently 
 improbable that any such discovery will be made. 
 But suppose it were made, Christianity and the 
 Catholic Church would be just where they were in 
 the days of St. Thomas, and as they are to-day. 
 " If," says Father Sharpe, 2 "against all probability, 
 
 1 Summa Theol, I. p.q, 71, art. i, ad. I um. 
 
 2 The Principles of Christianity, 1906, p. 56. 
 
74 Facts and Theories 
 
 life could be shown to be spontaneously generated 
 from matter, this would merely mean that the 
 sentient or vegetative soul (which one may also 
 speak of as the vital principle or under any other 
 term which connotes the existence of an extra- 
 physical agency in living matter) is a resultant 
 from certain chemical combinations, and not as 
 has been supposed, the direct work of the Creator. 
 But there is no more inherent impossibility in 
 holding that animal life is brought into being by 
 a certain combination of chemical substances than 
 in the converse belief, which is incontestable, that it 
 is brought to an end by the dissolution, natural or 
 artificial, of that combination. If we can destroy 
 an animal's soul, as we certainly can, there is no a 
 priori reason why we should not be able to make 
 one." 
 
 Returning from this digression to the main stream 
 of history, we find that spontaneous generation 
 continued to be taught until the seventeenth 
 century. Harvey, that great glory of the English 
 school of biologists, was opposed to it ; but it was 
 Redi, an Italian physician, who, in 1698, first showed 
 by experiment the unstable ground on which the 
 theory of spontaneous generation rested. In his 
 book he proved that if meat were covered with 
 gauze, no maggots formed in it, and that the reason 
 of this was that the gauze kept blow-flies from 
 depositing the eggs from which the maggots arose. 
 
On the Origination of Life 75 
 
 For a time this disposed of the question, but it arose 
 again with the discovery of the microscope and the 
 knowledge of the otherwise invisible world of life 
 which was furnished by that instrument. During 
 the eighteenth century an active controversy took 
 place on this subject, the protagonists on both 
 sides being Catholic priests. Needham (1713- 
 1781) held that spontaneous generation did occur ; 
 Spallanzani (1729-1799) held that it did not. 
 Spallanzani again appealed to experiment, and 
 showed this is still the crucial and capital 
 experiment in the matter that if infusions, which 
 if left open to the air would develop life, were suffi- 
 ciently sterilized by boiling and then hermetically 
 sealed up, no life would appear. Again the question 
 seemed to be settled in favour of biogenesis ; but in 
 1858, Pouchet, a French observer, declared that he 
 had seen infusoria spontaneously produced in 
 sterilized fluids which had only been exposed to 
 sterilized air. The French Academy in 1860 
 offered a prize for the solution of this question, and 
 Pasteur appeared upon the scene. He repeated 
 Spallanzani's experiments and showed that they 
 were correct. But, it was argued, of course no life 
 is produced in the fluid, because you deprive it of 
 fresh air. Fresh air will do the fluid no harm was, 
 in effect, Pasteur's reply, so long as it is clean air ; 
 and to show that this was so, he placed his fluid in 
 a bottle corked with a mass of cotton-wool, which 
 
76 Facts and Theories 
 
 allowed the entrance and exit of air but filtered it 
 as it passed through. Further, he even allowed air 
 to enter freely, so long as it entered through a tube 
 bent into a number of zigzags. In neither of 
 these cases did life originate in the sterilized 
 fluid. 
 
 The explanation of all this is very simple now 
 that we know it. The air all around us is full of 
 minute plants, called bacteria, which are visible, 
 most of them, only under the highest powers of the 
 microscope. When these little plants fall on to a 
 suitable soil they begin to grow, and sometimes 
 their growth is accompanied by the direst results 
 to the object furnishing the soil on which they 
 flourish. For example, the bacilli of consumption 
 (tuberculosis) are all around us, and probably 
 every one of us has swallowed and breathed in 
 millions upon millions of them during our lifetime. 
 Fortunately for the public health, most people are 
 strong enough to resist these bacteria, or, in other 
 words, the soil is not favourable. Where it is favour- 
 able the bacteria grow, and the characteristic disease 
 is the result. Now, the sterilised meat-juice, or 
 whatever other substance is being used for the 
 purposes of the experiment, is a soil much beloved 
 by many kinds of bacteria. Leave this fluid open 
 to the air, and the tiny plants of which I have been 
 speaking will be deposited upon it and will set up 
 their characteristic growth with the results with 
 
On the Origination of Life 77 
 
 which we are all familiar. Filter the air, and you 
 keep out the plants. Let the air in by a narrow, 
 devious path, and the plants will be intercepted and 
 never reach the fluid. In either case the result 
 will be the same ; no life will appear in the fluid. 
 The scientific world was convinced, after long dis- 
 cussions had taken place, that Pasteur was right ; 
 and his view still holds the field. 
 
 Let us, however, be quite clear in our minds what 
 Pasteur did actually prove. Many persons hastily 
 conclude that Pasteur has proved that living matter 
 never comes from not-living matter. They forget 
 the impossibility of proving a universal negative. 
 What Pasteur actually did prove at least so 
 practically every man of science believes was that 
 by taking certain precautions, things which would 
 otherwise become the prey of the tiny, invisible 
 plants of the air, can be kept safe from their ravages. 
 But then, it must be remembered, it was precisely 
 the effects of these tiny plants (and in earlier days 
 of other and coarser agencies, such as flies) which 
 had led people to suppose that spontaneous genera- 
 tion did take place. Consequently the elimination 
 of this factor from the controversy was the 
 elimination also of almost all the arguments which 
 could be brought forward in favour of abiogenesis. 
 It must be admitted that Pasteur's views have 
 even to-day their opponents, few though they 
 be. There was, for example, Mr. Burke's effort 
 
78 Facts and Theories 
 
 to prove that his radiobes were a kind of half- 
 way house between living and not-living matter. 
 These, however, have been proved to be of a 
 chemical character, and to have no bearing upon 
 the question. 
 
 Of greater importance are the statements of Dr. 
 Charlton Bastian. He holds that it is over- 
 sterilization which is responsible for the non- 
 appearance of life in suitable fluids when excluded 
 from the air. To this it may be replied that the 
 effect of under-sterilization is to leave in existence 
 the spores of the plants which it is desired to kill, 
 and that in that very fact is found the complete 
 refutation of his theory which, by the way, has, I 
 believe, no upholder but himself. 
 
 At the present day, moreover, there is an over- 
 whelming argument in favour of Pasteur's views, 
 and that is the fact that the whole of the vast 
 bottling and canning trades depend upon its 
 validity. Securus judicat orbis terrarum. Millions 
 upon millions of tins of meat and bottles of soup 
 and cans of fruit are put up annually and annually 
 eaten, none of which could have thus been dealt 
 with had Pasteur been wrong. " Sterilize and 
 exclude bacteria " were Pasteur's lessons, and the 
 Chicago tinner acts upon them with the results 
 with which we are all familiar. 
 
 Hence, it may be said that, if there is any one 
 subject on which scientific opinion is unanimous 
 
On the Origination of Life 79 
 
 at this moment it is that there is no proof that 
 life can come from anything but life. Tyndall 
 said in 1874 : 1 "If you ask me whether there exists 
 the least evidence to prove that any form of life 
 can be developed out of matter without demon- 
 strable antecedent life, my reply is ... men of 
 science frankly admit their inability to point to 
 any satisfactory experimental proof that life can 
 be developed save from demonstrable antecedent 
 life " ; and four years later : 2 "I affirm that no 
 shred of trustworthy experimental testimony exists 
 to prove that life in our day has ever appeared 
 independently of antecedent life." 
 
 Virchow, in i887, 3 said: "Never has a living 
 being, or even a living element let us say, a 
 living cell been found of which it could be pre- 
 dicated that it was the first of its species. Nor 
 have any fossil remains ever been found of which 
 it could ever be likely that it belonged to a being 
 the first of its kind, or produced by spontaneous 
 generation." To come nearer to our own times, 
 two further witnesses may be cited. Hertwig : 4 
 " In the existing condition of science there is 
 little hope that any worker will be able to produce 
 the simplest manifestation of life in any artificial 
 
 1 Belfast Address to British Association. 
 
 2 Nineteenth Century, 1878. 
 
 3 Address at Wiesbaden. 
 
 4 Allgem, Biologie^ 2 Aufl., s. 263. 
 
8o Facts and Theories 
 
 way from non-living matter. He has certainly no 
 more chance of success in his endeavours than 
 Wagner, in Goethe's Faust, had of brewing a 
 Homunculus in his retort." 
 
 Professor B. Moore, F.R.S., 1 writes : " The mode 
 of production of living matter is characteristic, and 
 cannot be brought about by the action solely of 
 inorganic forms of energy. Living matter is pro- 
 duced only by the action of other living matter 
 upon the materials and forms of energy of the 
 non-living world. In the process the matter in- 
 volved is built up into substances of great chemical 
 complexity, and it has been supposed that this is 
 the essential portion of the process of production 
 of a living structure ; but it must be noted that even 
 this very production of complexity of structure 
 from simple inorganic bodies at the expense of the 
 solar rays takes place and can only take place in 
 a living structure itself. The very building up of 
 the machine or transformer in which the manifesta- 
 tions of biotic energy are subsequently to take 
 place is then a cogent argument that here we are 
 dealing with a type of energy which is not met 
 with elsewhere. For nowhere else in Nature does 
 a similar process appear to that of the production 
 of living structure, and by no combination or 
 application of the forms of energy apart from life 
 can it be repeated or simulated." 
 
 1 Recent Advances t eic., p. 7. 
 
On the Origination of Life 81 
 
 We may take it, then, that life does not originate 
 except from life; where then did life originally 
 come from? What started the operations which 
 have been going on for so many millenniums 
 upon this earth ? There are three theories which 
 may briefly be considered. 
 
 It has been suggested that the germs of life 
 were introduced to this planet from some other 
 by a meteor. To this it may be replied, first, that 
 science has no evidence of anything of the kind, 
 for nothing in the shape of life has, so far as I 
 am aware, ever been discovered on any meteor. 
 Secondly, it may fairly be doubted whether any- 
 thing in the shape of living matter could possibly 
 stand the intense heat which is engendered in a 
 meteoric fragment by its passage through our 
 atmosphere. Thirdly and finally, and most con- 
 clusively, if it could be proved that life was from 
 time to time introduced on to our earth in this 
 way, it would not help us one little bit in our 
 difficulty. Suppose a new island to arise in the 
 Pacific Ocean, it begins by being lifeless ; then 
 life appears upon it. I am asked how it has 
 arisen, and I reply that it has been introduced by 
 birds from some other island. Have I answered 
 the question as to the origin of life? If life 
 per impossibile did come to us from another planet, 
 we still should have to ask how it originated on 
 that planet. 
 
 6 
 
82 Facts and Theories 
 
 Of this theory it may be said, " Doubtless God 
 could have introduced life in this way, but doubtless 
 God never did." In fact, Reinke, the botanist, 
 says on this point that the idea would never have 
 been devised if spontaneous generation had not 
 been regarded "as lost beyond all hope of re- 
 covery." 1 
 
 A second view which has been seriously put 
 forward, and is from time to time put forward 
 to-day, may be summarized as follows : " I am 
 willing to admit that spontaneous generation does 
 not occur to-day ; that seems to be pretty well 
 proved. But I feel perfectly certain that it did 
 take place in former ages before there was any 
 man on the earth to observe it, and I hold this 
 certainty though there is not one single scientific 
 fact which points in this direction." 
 
 Huxley 2 thought that if it were given to him 
 " to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded 
 time" which, parenthetically it may be added, 
 it certainly was not, he might "expect to be 
 a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm 
 from not-living matter." Yes; but why? He 
 admitted 3 that in the controversy between bio- 
 genesists and abiogenesists the former were 
 
 1 Teste Wasmann, Modern Biology, etc. , p. 204. 
 
 2 Critiques and Addresses ) p. 239. 
 
 3 In his Presidential Address to the British Association. The 
 second quotation is in a letter to Charles Kingsley, Life and 
 Letters, i. 352. 
 
On the Origination of Life 83 
 
 "victorious all along the line," yet he held that 
 spontaneous generation was " a necessary corollary 
 from Darwin's views if legitimately carried out " ; 
 and consequently, as he could not claim or hope 
 to claim that spontaneous generation takes place 
 to-day, he set it back to a period of which we 
 have and can have no sort of knowledge. This 
 is hardly a good example of the science which 
 does not speak until it knows. Herbert Spencer's 
 observation on the subject is well worthy of 
 quotation, if only to show what nebulous theories 
 can be put before the public in the outraged 
 name of science. He says : 1 " At a remote period 
 in the past, when the temperature of the surface 
 of the earth was much higher than at present, 
 and other physical conditions were unlike those 
 we know, inorganic matter, through successive 
 complications, gave origin to organic matter." 
 There are apparently people so constituted as to 
 be hollow enough to swallow such remarks as this 
 without seeing that in the nebulous phrase "through 
 successive complications " lies the whole begging 
 of the question. It is just those "successive 
 complications" which Spencer postulated, but of 
 which science knows nothing, at least as yet, which 
 form the centre and kernel of the whole question. 
 At least these things are clear: that there is no 
 evidence whatsoever for any such occurrence in 
 
 1 Nineteenth Century, May 1886. 
 
84 Facts and Theories 
 
 past ages as that postulated in the above attempt 
 to explain the origin of life ; further, that there 
 is no reason to suppose that there is any single 
 condition or combination of conditions under which 
 the earth may have existed in those bygone 
 ages which cannot be perfectly and successfully 
 reproduced in our laboratories to-day ; yet. as we 
 have seen, there is no expectation on the part of 
 men of science that the result postulated by 
 Huxley and Spencer is in the least likely to be 
 obtained. Sir Henry Roscoe, whose word may 
 be taken as final on this matter in chemistry, 
 says : 1 "It is true that there are those who pro- 
 fess to foresee that the day will arise when the 
 chemist, by a succession of constructive efforts 
 may pass beyond albumen, and gather the ele- 
 ments of lifeless matter into a living structure. 
 Whatever may be said of this from other stand- 
 points, the chemist can only say that at present 
 no such problem lies within his province. Proto- 
 plasm, with which the simplest manifestations 
 of life are associated, is not a compound, but a 
 structure built up of compounds. The chemist 
 may successively synthesize any of its component 
 compounds, but he has no more reason to look 
 forward to the synthetic production of the structure 
 than to imagine that the synthesis of gallic acid 
 leads to the artificial production of gall-nuts." 
 
 1 Presidential Address, British Association, 1887. 
 
On the Origination of Life 85 
 
 On this theory Reinke remarks that "just as at 
 no stage of the earth's cooling was it possible for 
 two lines to form a triangle, so was it never 
 possible for an organism of the most primitive 
 kind to be produced by the forces and combina- 
 tions of inorganic matter." x 
 
 There remains the third theory a simple theory 
 in its way, and one which has held the field for 
 a good many years. It is the theory that God 
 Almighty created life. Reinke, the botanist just 
 quoted, says : 2 "If we agree that living matter has 
 at some time come from inorganic substances, 
 then, in my opinion, the Creation hypothesis is 
 the only one which meets the necessities of logic 
 and of causality and therewith answers to the 
 needs of a prudent seeker after Nature." 
 
 From our standpoint as Catholics it is not 
 necessary to bring forward any arguments in 
 favour of a theory which we hold as of faith, 
 namely, that God is the origin of life. At the 
 same time it is instructive to find that by a process 
 of elimination others come back to that view, 
 having previously, to all appearance, exhausted the 
 possibilities of the problem. If spontaneous genera- 
 tion is to account for things and it can only ac- 
 count for them up to a point, for we should still 
 have to account for spontaneous generation itself 
 
 1 Teste Wasmann, Modern Biology ', etc. , p. 204. 
 
 2 Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie> s. 559. 
 
86 Facts and Theories 
 
 it must either have occurred at some distant period 
 or it must occur to-day and have always occurred. 
 There is no kind of proof for either of these views ; 
 rather all the proof is the other way. Then we 
 come back to the old Christian hypothesis. 
 
 Let us look for a moment before this chapter 
 terminates at the position held by the present 
 opponents of this theory. 
 
 We may sum them up in the statement of 
 Weismann, who, as we have seen, has a way of 
 blurting out the truth : l " Spontaneous generation, 
 in spite of all vain efforts to demonstrate it, remains 
 for me a logical necessity." Well, a logical 
 necessity presupposes some sort of syllogistic 
 treatment. Weismann's major premise is perfectly 
 clear : " There is no such thing as a Creator." His 
 minor term is, " So life was not created ; " and his 
 conclusion, which follows, it is claimed, from the 
 premises is "therefore spontaneous generation 
 takes place." Many a false conclusion has followed 
 from false premises. But what is to be said of 
 the arguments of a man of science who is capable 
 of putting forward, in effect, a syllogism of this 
 kind where the major premise begs the whole 
 question at issue ? 
 
 On the subject of the origin of life, then, the 
 Catholic mind may be at peace. There is no 
 proof that it has ever originated independently, 
 
 1 Essays, Poulton's translation, p. 34. 
 
On the Origination of Life 87 
 
 and so long as that state of affairs remains we are 
 nearer to the Creator, so to speak, than we should 
 otherwise be. But, suppose for a moment that 
 spontaneous generation were actually to be proved, 
 we should only be one stage further off from Him, 
 for it would then be impossible to explain how 
 spontaneous generation came to pass unless, as 
 St. Thomas argued against Avicenna, it was because 
 the Creator gave matter, under certain conditions, 
 the power of spontaneously generating life. 
 
 NOTE. When the last proof-sheets of this book were in the 
 writers hands, the report of Professor Schafer's Presidential 
 Address to the British Association appeared in the papers. 
 Under these circumstances it would have been quite impossible 
 to have entered into any detailed consideration of the views 
 put forward therein ; but fortunately there is no need to pursue 
 any such course, for, though the presentation is new, the 
 ideas put forward are not, as, indeed, may be seen by a 
 perusal of the preceding chapters, where they have all been 
 dealt with by anticipation. The scientific reputation of 
 the Professor entitles all that he says to respectful con- 
 sideration, and certainly no one would be so foolish as to 
 deny the possibility of the artificial or even the spontaneous 
 production of living from not-living matter ; but it is per- 
 missible to doubt whether the discovery is as near at hand 
 as he believes. Should it ever take place and be sub- 
 stantiated, the Catholic position, as set out on p. 73, will 
 remain absolutely unchanged. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ON THE VARIABILITY OF LIVING THINGS, 
 AND ON "DARWINISM" 
 
 WE see around us a great variety of living things 
 belonging to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
 How did this variety come about ? This question 
 brings us in contact with two theories those of 
 permanence and of evolution. The former maintains 
 the absolute invariability of the systematic species ; 
 the latter avers that organic species have been 
 evolved from earlier forms which belonged to 
 previous ages. Several subsidiary questions come 
 under consideration in connection with this latter 
 hypothesis, amongst which are : 
 
 (i) Is evolution to be considered as having taken 
 place on mono- or poly-phyletic lines? In other 
 words, are we to believe that all things, animal and 
 vegetable, are the product of a single original living 
 cell, the descendants of which branched off into 
 two directions, plants and animals, each again sub- 
 dividing into numerous species ; or are we to think 
 of separate origins for plants and animals and 
 
 88 
 
On the Variability of Living Things 89 
 
 perhaps also for the chief phyla or lines of each of 
 these ? 
 
 Darwin himself, as we shall see, seemed to 
 hesitate upon this point, and there is some diversity 
 of opinion concerning it amongst scientific writers 
 at the present day. We cannot spare space to 
 deal with this question here, but must pass on to 
 the second. 
 
 (ii) What were and are the causes and methods 
 of evolution ? Under this heading is included the 
 whole mass of hypotheses compendiously included 
 under the title of " Darwinism," with which the 
 remainder of this book is concerned. As it is not 
 intended here to discuss and contrast the two 
 hypotheses above alluded to, the attention of 
 readers may be directed to the fact that they will 
 find the whole matter most fully dealt with by one 
 who is an authority both on theology and on 
 science, in Fr. Wasmann's Modern Biology and the 
 Theory of Evolution a work which should be in the 
 hands of everyone interested in the consideration 
 of questions such as those dealt with in these pages. 
 Meantime, as some at least seem to imagine that 
 acceptance of the hypothesis of evolution does 
 away with the necessity for belief in a Creator or 
 detracts from His powers and dignity, it may be 
 well, before passing to a detailed consideration of the 
 views of Darwin and his followers, to cite two or 
 three quotations from Catholic writers in order 
 
go Facts and Theories 
 
 to show that " Transformism," which, as we shall 
 see, has been discussed by several of the Doctors 
 of the Church, is not in conflict with Catholic Faith, 
 does not derogate from the dignity and greatness 
 of the Creator, and is very far indeed from doing 
 away with the necessity for a belief in such a Being. 
 
 Fr. Wasmann says (p. 300) : " If the theory 
 of descent holds its ground, and takes the place of 
 the old theory of permanence, the theory of crea- 
 tion, and with it the Christian cosmogony, remains 
 as firmly established as ever. Indeed, the Creator's 
 wisdom and power are revealed in a more brilliant 
 light than ever, as this theory shows the organic 
 world to have assumed its present form, not in 
 consequence of God's constant interference with 
 the natural order, but as a result of the action of 
 those laws which He Himself has imposed on 
 nature." 
 
 And again : " The Christian cosmogony, that 
 accords with the theory of evolution, reduces the 
 history of animal and vegetable life upon our 
 planet (though it covers hundreds of thousands of 
 years) to a mere line in the book of the natural 
 evolution of the whole cosmos ; but on this book's 
 title-page stands written in indelible characters : 
 ' IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN 
 AND EARTH.'" 
 
 In further chapters of this book the matter just 
 alluded to will receive fuller attention and St. 
 
On the Variability of Living Things 91 
 
 Augustine's views on it will be cited; but before 
 passing to the next section one more quotation 
 from a modern theologian may be permitted. 
 Fr. von Hammerstein 1 says: " If the Creator did 
 not create each single species of animal in its 
 present form, but caused it to acquire its present 
 appearance and instincts by means of an inde- 
 pendent evolution, carried on through a long line 
 of ancestry, His wisdom and power are mani- 
 fested the more clearly. Therefore if the theory 
 of evolution is proved to be true within definite 
 limits, it by no means sets aside the Creator, 
 but, on the contrary, an all-wise and all-powerful 
 Creator becomes the more necessary and indis- 
 pensable, as the First Cause of the evolution of the 
 organic species. A simile will bring out the truth 
 of this very clearly. A billiard player wishes to 
 send a hundred balls in particular directions; which 
 will require greater skill to make a hundred 
 strokes and send each ball separately to its goal, 
 or, by hitting one ball, to send all the ninety-nine 
 others in the direction which he has in view ? " 
 
 Perhaps in connection with this simile we may 
 recall Kingsley's parable in the Water-Babies in 
 which Mother Carey says to Tom, "Know, silly 
 child, that anyone can make things if they will 
 take time and trouble enough : but it is not every 
 one who, like me, can make things make them- 
 
 1 Gottesbeweise, Treves, 1903, p. 150, teste Wasmann. 
 
92 Facts and Theories 
 
 selves." And there with all reverence the matter 
 may be left for the moment. 
 
 "DARWINISM" 
 
 Those whose business or hobby it is to read the 
 almost innumerable manuals, pamphlets, and maga- 
 zine articles dealing with what is compendiously 
 called " Darwinism," cannot fail to be struck with 
 the fact that the diverse, and not infrequently con- 
 flicting, opinions, put forward under that title are 
 not merely advanced as biological theories, but 
 that they are also, more often than not, set forward 
 with more than pontifical dignity, as a complete 
 philosophy of life on a monistic basis, as a sound 
 substructure for educational and even for far- 
 reaching political theories, and, in fact, one might 
 almost say, as a kind of new gospel wherein may 
 be found help and direction in all the changes and 
 chances of life. It is a bold claim ; and our object 
 must now be to see how far it is justifiable. 
 
 To those at any rate who have really studied 
 Darwin's works, and especially those works as 
 illustrated and commented on by his Life and 
 Letters, and who consequently know something of 
 what his real views were, the glosses to use no 
 stronger term which are put upon his theories 
 must often cause astonishment. Not less astonish- 
 ing is the calm way in which opinions put forward 
 by Darwin in a very tentative manner and opinions 
 
" Darwinism " 93 
 
 founded upon these, which were quite unknown to 
 that author are now enunciated as the last and 
 infallible word of science, which whoever denies 
 will without doubt be scientifically damned. 
 
 We have seen how Driesch complains of 
 " Darwinian " dogmatism, and how he complains 
 that Darwin's followers, especially in Germany, 
 have altered their master's doctrine. " How far," he 
 exclaims, " is ' Darwinism ' removed from Darwin's 
 own teaching and character ! " 
 
 We have now to consider what is meant by 
 " Darwinism " and how far it is related to or arises 
 from Darwin's own teachings, and further we have 
 to try and form some kind of opinion as to how it 
 stands in scientific estimation at the present day. 
 But before doing this we must endeavour to arrive 
 at some general rule respecting the evidence which 
 should be offered to a non-scientific reader in order 
 to induce him to give in his adhesion to a scientific 
 theory or hypothesis. He cannot, ex hypothesi, go 
 into the laboratory or dissecting-room himself and 
 find out for himself whether the facts on which the 
 hypotheses are based are as they are stated to be ; 
 and, if he could, from want of wider knowledge 
 and a scientific training, he would find it difficult 
 or impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion 
 on the matter. What then has he to do ? What 
 kind of evidence is he to expect ? Well, I think 
 we might put it somewhat in the following manner 
 
94 Facts ana Theories 
 
 without placing ourselves in the position of those 
 who demand too much or are unduly sceptical. 
 
 The ordinary non-scientific person cannot be 
 expected to embrace, and ought not to be expected 
 to embrace, any scientific opinion until it may be 
 asserted of that opinion that the genuine scientific 
 world is fairly unanimous in giving its adherence 
 to it. It may be claimed that this is the minimum 
 of evidence on which a doctrine should be received 
 as coming with authority. Tried by this test, how 
 very few of the theories of to-day would stand any 
 chance of survival ! 
 
 The following remarks in a review of some 
 works on evolution, by a witty writer in the 
 literary supplement of the Times} sum the situa- 
 tion up rhetorically, perhaps, but not inaccurately, 
 and much more graphically than is within the 
 power of the present writer : 
 
 " No one possessed of a sense of humour can con- 
 template without amusement the battle of evolution, 
 encrimsoned (dialectically speaking) with the gore 
 of innumerable combatants, encumbered with the 
 corpses of the (dialectically) slain and resounding 
 with the cries of the living, as they hustle together 
 in the fray. Here are zoologists, embryologists, 
 botanists, morphologists, biometricians, anthro- 
 pologists, sociologists, persons with banners and 
 persons without ; Darwinians and neo-Darwinians 
 
 1 June 9, 1905. 
 
"Darwinism" 95 
 
 (what a name !) Lamarckians and neo-Lamarck- 
 ians, Galtonians, Haeckelians, Weismannians, de 
 Vriesians, Mendelians, Hertwigians, and many 
 more whom it would be tedious to enumerate. 
 Never was seen such a melee \ The humour of it 
 is, that they all claim to represent ' Science,' the 
 serene, the majestic, the absolutely sure, the un- 
 divided and immutable, the one and only vice- 
 gerent of Truth, her other self. Not theirs the 
 weakness of the theologians or the metaphysicians, 
 who stumble about in uncertainty, obscurity, and 
 ignorance, with their baseless assumptions, flimsy 
 hypotheses, logical fallacies, interminable dis- 
 sensions, and all the other marks of inferiority on 
 which the votaries of science pour ceaseless scorn. 
 Yet it would puzzle them to point to a theological 
 battlefield exhibiting more uncertainty, obscurity, 
 dissension, assumption and fallacy than their own. 
 For the plain truth is that, though some agree in 
 this and that, there is not a single point in which 
 all agree ; battling for evolution, they have torn it 
 to pieces ; nothing is left, nothing at all on their 
 showing, save a few fragments strewn about the 
 arena." 
 
 "Exaggerated," you say. Well, read Professor 
 Kellogg's work Darwinism To-day. The Professor 
 is a man who has won his spurs in original re- 
 search ; he has a very wide acquaintance with the 
 literature of evolution, and he gives his summaries 
 
96 Facts and Theories 
 
 of it with scrupulous honesty at least that is my 
 judgement. He cannot be accused of anti-Dar- 
 winian bias, and he does not conceal his contempt 
 for the poor deluded Catholic. But read his book, 
 and particularly read the excellent summaries 
 appended to the chapters, and then ask yourself 
 the question, "Is the man in the Times so great 
 an exaggerator as I thought ? " 
 
 If further evidence on this point is desired or 
 necessary, I appeal to the following extract from 
 the prospectus of a publication called Bedrock^ 
 which appears under the editorship of a body of 
 scientific men. The extract deplores, and the 
 periodical is intended to remedy, the very state of 
 confusion and uncertainty to which allusion has 
 been made above. " At the present day, although 
 it is admitted that the subject-matter of Biology 
 does come within the province of Natural Law, 
 and also that the true method of dealing with it 
 is the universally accepted Newtonian method of 
 applying Induction, Deduction, and Verification to 
 ascertained facts, nevertheless among biologists 
 confusion reigns. This is but a further conse- 
 quence of the complexity of the subject-matter, 
 which renders the application of the Newtonian 
 method so much more difficult in this case than in 
 that of physics, chemistry, or astronomy. Induc- 
 tions may be made on insufficient data; the 
 instances chosen to serve as tests may be a priori 
 
' ' Darwinism " 97 
 
 ineffective; the process of verification may be 
 scamped and inexhaustive. At any rate, Biology 
 to-day teems with mutually incongruous opinions 
 (e.g. those held by Mendelians, Mutationists, 
 Biometricians, Selectionists, etc.), all of which are 
 conceivably incorrect. This diversity of opinion 
 as to the most vital problems now confronting 
 humanity can have none but the most paralyzing 
 effects, Statesmanship is left without authoritative 
 guidance. Empiricism remains its only refuge." 
 
 I began by saying that a scientific theory, if it 
 is to command the respect of the unscientific (let 
 alone the scientific) reader, should have something 
 like general consent behind it. If that proposition 
 is unassailable, then there are very few of the 
 theories grouped under the name of " Darwinism " 
 which occupy such a position or anything like such 
 a position, and this statement I now proceed to 
 elaborate and justify. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHAT DARWIN HIMSELF HELD 
 
 IT has already been pointed out that what Darwin 
 held is not exactly the same in some cases by no 
 means the same as what is commonly called 
 " Darwinism." It may, therefore, be well to take 
 a few points seriatim with the intention of dis- 
 covering what Darwin himself thought about them 
 and what is thought about them to-day. 
 
 (i) In the first place, then, it is quite clear that 
 Darwin held that Transformism was the explana- 
 tion of the world of life as we know it that is, that 
 all living things came from one or more forms and 
 were thus genetically related to one another. But 
 he did not commit himself absolutely, in The 
 Origin of Species, to either a mono- or a poly- 
 phyletic scheme of Transformism, for in the 
 celebrated passage which occurs at the end of that 
 book he alludes to "life, with its several powers, 
 having been originally breathed by the Creator 
 into a few forms or one," and it may be noted that 
 the words " perhaps into only one," which represent 
 
What Darwin himself Held 99 
 
 those quoted in the latest draft, were actually 
 written into it in pencil, as if they were an after- 
 thought. 1 
 
 (ii) Darwin also believed that Natural Selection 
 which unlike Transformism, an old theory (as we 
 shall see) of which he made use, was his own 
 original idea was a very potent agent of Trans- 
 formism. It was to prove this that his most 
 celebrated work was written, as its title often 
 ignored by persons who ought to be familiar with 
 it quite clearly shows: "The Origin of Species 
 by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation 
 of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." 
 
 (iii) Darwin further put forward a theory of 
 Sexual Selection, as an adjunct factor of Trans- 
 formism. According to this theory, the struggle 
 on the part of male members of a species to secure 
 the most desirable females also produces a form of 
 selection by which Transformism may be brought 
 about. 
 
 (iv) Darwin put forward the theory of Pan- 
 genesis, which is difficult to define as briefly as 
 must be done here, but which may be described as 
 a means of accounting for heredity by postulating 
 an accumulation in the germ from which the scion 
 is to arise, of small particles representing each 
 heritable factor in the parental body. 
 
 1 Origin of Species, etc. , 6th edition, p. 429 ; and see The Founda- 
 tion of the Origin of Species, 1909, pp. 52 note 2, and 254 note 4. 
 
ioo Facts and Theories 
 
 (v) Darwin held that Man, body and all, includ- 
 ing mental characteristics, was developed from 
 some lower form. 
 
 (vi) Darwin held doubtfully and tentatively to 
 various other matters, or perhaps it would be fairer 
 to say that he kept an open mind upon them, such 
 as Lamarckianism (now held by the neo-Darwinians 
 to be utterly opposed to his views), " He was 
 Lamarckian to a very far-reaching extent," says 
 Driesch. 1 Again, he does not make it absolutely 
 clear as to what he believed respecting the im- 
 portance of small and great variations respectively 
 in the process of evolution, which is, no doubt, 
 largely to be accounted for by the fact that this 
 point, now one of crucial importance, had been 
 but little discussed in his own time. At any rate 
 his own commentators of to-day seem uncertain as 
 to how his views are to be interpreted on this 
 matter. 2 
 
 (vii) Darwin's attitude towards the idea of a 
 Creator is a little difficult to define, but as he has 
 been claimed by Haeckel as a monist, something 
 should be said upon this point. As will be gathered 
 from the quotation given above, Darwin in the 
 Origin acknowledged the existence and work of a 
 Creator, and what is rather remarkable, actually 
 
 1 Op. cit. y vol. i. p. 260. 
 
 2 See the discussion on pp. 70 and 7 1 of Darwin and Modern 
 Science. 
 
What Darwin himself Held 101 
 
 added the words " by the Creator " in the second 
 edition. There they remained till the end, in spite 
 of any changes which took place in Darwin's own 
 opinions. These, as he himself admitted, became 
 more and more agnostic towards the end. In one 
 of his letters he states his " inward conviction " that 
 " the Universe is not the result of chance " ; but, he 
 continues, (< with me the horrid doubt always arises, 
 whether the convictions of man's mind which has 
 been developed from the mind of the lower animals, 
 are of any value or at all trustworthy." This 
 attitude of despair with regard to the intellectual 
 powers, it may be remarked incidentally, like 
 solipsism, must logically lead to a complete 
 paralysis of thought. 1 This change of mind may 
 perhaps be in part attributed to the Zeitgeist, for 
 materialism was then in the air far more than it is 
 now ; partly to the unkind, unfair, and unreasonable 
 things said about Darwin himself and his views, by 
 some of his religious, but imperfectly instructed, 
 opponents; and partly perhaps one may even 
 think largely, to the strange atrophying effect 
 upon a large part of his intellect caused by too 
 great absorption in scientific questions. 
 
 It is well known that Darwin admitted that 
 whilst he had once loved poetry, pictures, and 
 music, he had lost all these tastes, could not 
 
 1 See Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. i. p. 316. Further 
 statements respecting his religious attitude at same place. 
 
IO2 Facts and Theories 
 
 "endure to read a line of poetry," found Shake- 
 speare " so intolerably dull that it nauseated me," 
 and so on with other artistic pleasures. " My 
 mind," he says, "seems to have become a kind of 
 machine for grinding general laws out of large 
 collections of facts, but why this should have 
 caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, 
 on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot con- 
 ceive." l These points have been briefly mentioned 
 here because, from the paeans uttered by some, it 
 might be taken that Darwin himself had led an 
 anti-religious campaign ; whereas the fact seems to 
 have been that his interests were not vividly excited 
 in this direction at all, and that in his " most 
 extreme fluctuations " he had " never been an 
 atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a 
 God." 2 
 
 The above selection of opinions is (need it be 
 said ?) by no means exhaustive, but some of them 
 will suffice as a groundwork for the historical 
 criticism which has now to be attempted. More- 
 over, they will, in some measure, indicate what 
 Darwin's own views were and in what measure they 
 correspond with the thing called <( Darwinism " at 
 the present day. 
 
 We shall take up the various points seriatim, 
 before proceeding to the consideration of some 
 
 1 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. i. pp. loo-ioi. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 304. 
 
What Darwin himself Held 103 
 
 general matters which arise in connection with the 
 subject of Darwinism as a whole. 
 
 I. TRANSFORMISM 
 
 Transformism is the theory which teaches that 
 one living form or species is derived from another 
 and not specially created. ' * The fact of organic 
 evolution is at least as certain a part of knowledge 
 as the law of universal gravitation." 1 I have 
 already set down and commented on this amazing 
 quotation. As a mere matter of fact the theory of 
 Transformism or organic evolution is not proved ; 
 it may never be proved ; it is perhaps incapable of 
 complete demonstration. That this statement is 
 not merely the biased expression of opinion of a 
 mere Catholic can be proved by a quotation from 
 the work of a master of science I allude to 
 Professor T. H. Morgan. In a most admirable and 
 careful discussion of the whole question of so-called 
 "Darwinism," 2 after discussing Fleischmann's 
 views on evolution, and deciding that his arguments 
 have not seriously weakened the theory, he con- 
 tinues : " He has done, nevertheless, good service 
 in recalling the fact that, however probable the 
 theory (i.e. of evolution) may appear, the evidence 
 is indirect and an exact proof is still wanting." 
 
 1 cf. P . 39- 
 
 2 Evolution and Adaptation^ Macmillan Co., New York, 1903, 
 P. 57. 
 
104 Facts and Theories 
 
 There is the sober word of true science as opposed 
 to less responsible utterances. Let us now try to 
 estimate temperately the position held by the 
 transformist theory to-day. 
 
 (i) Unquestionably the overwhelming majority 
 of biologists would accept some doctrine of Trans- 
 formism, however much they may and do differ 
 as to details. Fleischmann, whose name has just 
 been mentioned, is perhaps the only biologist of 
 position who has taken up an attitude opposed to 
 the theory, and it cannot be said that his arguments 
 have produced any impression on scientific opinion. 
 In fact, it may be said, quite fairly and definitely, 
 that Transformism or organic evolution holds the 
 field as the working hypothesis generally adopted. 
 
 (ii) The evidence on which it is based is, as has 
 been said, not completely convincing, and certain 
 pieces of evidence brought forward, and formerly 
 considered as conclusive, have not now the weight 
 which they once possessed. Two examples may 
 be cited : 
 
 (a) The so-called recapitulation theory of Fritz 
 Miiller and Haeckel (which teaches that ontogeny 
 recapitulates phylogeny, that is to say, that the 
 life-history of the individual portrays that of the 
 species) is, I see, described in a translation lately 
 published in America, 1 " established, now perhaps 
 
 1 On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters, Rignano, Open 
 Court Publishing Co., 1911, p. n. 
 
What Darwin himself Held 105 
 
 irrefutably." Professor Dendy 1 thinks that the 
 facts he cites leave "no doubt as to the general 
 truth of the recapitulation hypothesis." Yet, on 
 the other hand, Professor Kellogg 2 says of this 
 same theory, that it "is chiefly conspicuous now 
 as a skeleton on which to hang innumerable 
 exceptions." And further: "the recapitulation 
 theory is mostly wrong ; and what is right in it, is 
 mostly so covered up by the wrong part, that few 
 biologists longer have any confidence in discovering 
 the right." With this uncertainty on the question 
 it would appear that the evidence for Transformism 
 founded on this doctrine has at least been weakened. 
 (b) The whole intermediate link evidence is not 
 as strong as, during earlier days, it was expected 
 that it would become. Further, some parts of 
 it do not hold as strong a position as they did 
 when the field of geology had been less explored. 
 For example, the well-known and oft-cited case 
 of the horse's foot is still claimed by some as a 
 "conclusive proof" 3 of the truth of organic evolu- 
 tion. Yet, as a master of zoology points out, 4 
 "there are flaws in the chain of evidence, which 
 require careful and detailed consideration " ; and, 
 after pointing out some of these flaws and difficul- 
 ties, he adds, " It is possible that these difficulties, 
 
 1 Outlines of Evolutionary Biology ', 1912, p. 281. 
 
 2 Op. '/., pp. 1 8 and 21. 
 
 3 Saleeby, Organic Evolution, pp. 56 seq. 
 
 4 Sedgwick, Text- Book of Zoology, 1905, p. 600. 
 
io6 Facts and Theories 
 
 and others of the same kind, will be overcome with 
 the growth of knowledge, but it is necessary to 
 take note of them, for in the search after truth, 
 nothing is gained by ignoring such apparent dis- 
 crepancies between theory and fact." This guarded 
 statement is worthy of careful attention, for it 
 shows that further observations have not always 
 confirmed the impressions of the earlier writers. 
 
 (iii) Transformism in its simplest terms has 
 been a theory put forward by many writers prior 
 to Darwin, and by quite a number of Catholic 
 writers of the first authority. Not to labour this 
 point, the following quotation from Fr. Wasmann's 
 work may suffice : l 
 
 " Even to St. Augustine it seemed a more exalted 
 conception, and one more in keeping with the omni- 
 potence and wisdom of an infinite Creator, to 
 believe that God created matter by one act of 
 creation, and then allowed the whole universe to 
 develop automatically by means of the laws which 
 He imposed upon the nature of matter. God does 
 not interfere directly with the natural order when 
 He can work by natural causes : this is a funda- 
 mental principle in the Christian account of nature, 
 and was enunciated by the great theologian Suarez, 
 whilst St. Thomas Aquinas plainly suggested it 
 long before, when he regarded it as testimony to 
 the greatness of God's power, that His providence 
 
 1 Modern Biology, 1910, p. 274. 
 
What Darwin himself Held 107 
 
 accomplishes its aims in nature not directly but by 
 means of created causes." l 
 
 (iv) From what has been said it follows quite 
 clearly that a belief in Transformism in no way 
 leads up to a monistic philosophy. It may be 
 looked upon as a method of creation, but it does 
 not in any way explain the origin of things, or the 
 origin of life, nor does it in any kind of way help 
 us to do without an Author and Designer of the 
 laws whatever they may be under which it 
 works. These statements cannot be further dealt 
 with here ; they form part of quite another line of 
 discussion, but since it has been claimed that a 
 monistic philosophy logically follows from Darwin's 
 theories, it may be said that from this one of his 
 beliefs, no such conclusion follows, Transformism 
 may be looked at from a Christian or an anti- 
 Christian point of view. The former at least offers 
 an explanation of matters left wholly unexplained 
 by the latter. 
 
 II. NATURAL SELECTION 
 
 Natural Selection is the great contribution to 
 theory made by Darwin. I emphasize the word 
 theory because one must never forget the great 
 additions to positive science which were made by 
 him, additions which must always remain a glory to 
 
 1 The reader desirous of following this matter further may be 
 referred to the concluding portion of Mivart's Genesis of Species. 
 
io8 Facts and Theories 
 
 him, even if some of his hypotheses disappear under 
 the destructive criticism of more widely-informed 
 ages. As we have seen, Transformism as a theory 
 did not owe its origin to Darwin, though it un- 
 questionably did owe to his writings its sudden rise 
 to popularity and to that general acceptance which 
 it has obtained. Transformism, so to speak, was 
 in strong solution at the time that Darwin published 
 his greatest work. That work was like the added 
 crystal which causes the whole fluid contents of the 
 vessel to become crystalline. But the crystal added 
 was the theory of the origin of species by Natural 
 Selection^ and hence it will be necessary to devote 
 some little space to the consideration of this matter. 
 The theory is based on the knowledge which we 
 possess that the offspring of all living things, whilst 
 generally resembling their parents, still differ more 
 or less from them : in other words, it is based on the 
 observed fact that variations do occur. Darwin 
 concluded that some at least of these variations 
 would be of such a character as to make their 
 possessor a more successful combatant in the battle 
 of life, and thus more likely to be the progenitor of 
 a strong and vigorous race. The perpetuation and 
 intensification of such variation might in time lead 
 to the formation of a new and distinct species. 
 " Can we doubt/' he says (remembering that many 
 more individuals are born than can possibly 
 survive), " that individuals having any advantage, 
 
What Darwin himself Held 109 
 
 however slight, over others, would have the best 
 chance of surviving, and of procreating their 
 kind ? " 1 Since the theory was first brought before 
 the public it has been subjected to every kind of 
 criticism, favourable and unfavourable, and it may be 
 said that scientific opinion at this moment is much 
 divided as to the real value which is to be given to 
 this supposed factor in the process of Transformism. 
 There are those who stand by it even more strongly 
 than did its author, if that be possible. Lankester, 
 for example, says, " in looking back over twenty- 
 five years, it seems to me that we must say that 
 the conclusions of Darwin as to the origin of species, 
 by the survival of selected races in the struggle for 
 existence, are more firmly established than ever." 2 
 On the other hand there are writers of equal weight 
 who will have nothing whatever to do with the 
 theory. 
 
 I take the most extreme expression of this form 
 of opinion that has come under my notice, that of 
 Korschinsky, a Russian botanist, who says that 
 " the struggle for existence, and the selection that 
 goes hand in hand with it, constitute a factor which 
 limits new forms and hinders further variation, and 
 is, therefore, in no way favourable to the origin of 
 new forms. It is a factor inimical to evolution." 3 
 
 1 Origin of Species, 6th edition, p. 63, 
 
 2 The Kingdom of Man, 1907, p. 124. 
 
 3 As quoted by Kellogg, op. cit., p. 333. 
 
no Facts and Theories 
 
 Then, finally, there is the middle and much the 
 largest group of those who, while holding that 
 Natural Selection is a factor, even a very potent 
 factor, in the process of Transformism, hold it with 
 greater or less modifications ; and all of whom agree 
 in believing that it is only a partial explanation 
 of the process and not, as Darwinian extremists 
 would argue, a complete key to the secrets of 
 Nature's operations. Even in Darwin's own time 
 the view was put forward that Natural Selection 
 was the cause of the variations which it was sup- 
 posed to control. Darwin himself comments on 
 this view and disclaims it : " Some have even 
 imagined that Natural Selection induces variability, 
 whereas it implies only the preservation of such 
 variations as arise and are beneficial to the being 
 under its conditions of life." l This makes Darwin's 
 attitude quite clear, and probably the prevalent 
 opinion of to-day would be in accordance with the 
 views of de Vries when he says : 2 
 
 " Natural selection acts as a sieve ; it does not 
 single out the best variations, but it simply 
 destroys the larger number of those which are, 
 
 1 Origin of Species, p. 63. 
 
 2 Darwin and Modern Science^ p. 70. The reader who is desirous 
 of studying a close criticism of the present position of the theory 
 of Natural Selection may be referred to Driesch's Science and 
 Philosophy of the Organism, pp. 261 et seq., from which a quotation 
 is here given, and the very full account of modern writings on this 
 point in Kellogg. 
 
What Darwin himself Held 1 1 1 
 
 from some cause or another, unfit for their present 
 environment. In this way it keeps the strains up 
 to the required standard, and in special circum- 
 stances may even improve them." 
 
 It is quite clear that a great many people who 
 write and talk about Natural Selection have a 
 most confused idea of its possible functions. This 
 confusion is so well explained and confuted by 
 Driesch x that I quote his statement at length : 
 
 "It must be certain from the very beginning of 
 analysis that Natural Selection, as defined here, 
 can only eliminate what cannot survive, what 
 cannot stand the environment in the broadest 
 sense, but that Natural Selection never is able to 
 create diversities. It always acts negatively only, 
 never positively. And therefore it can ' explain ' 
 if you will allow me to make use of this am- 
 biguous word it can ' explain ' only why certain 
 types of organic specifications, imaginable a priori, 
 do not actually exist, but it never explains at 
 all the existence of the specifications of animal 
 and vegetable forms that are actually found. In 
 speaking of an ' explanation ' of the origin of the 
 living specific forms by Natural Selection one 
 therefore confuses the sufficient reason for the 
 non-existence of what there is not, with the 
 sufficient reason for the existence of what there 
 is. To say that a man has explained some organic 
 
 1 Op, cit. vol. i. p. 262. 
 
1 1 2 Facts and Theories 
 
 character by Natural Selection is, in the words 
 of Naegeli, the same as if someone who is asked 
 the question, ' Why is this tree covered with 
 these leaves ? ' were to answer, ' Because the gardener 
 did not cut them away.' Of course that would 
 explain why there are no more leaves than those 
 actually there, but it never would account for 
 the existence and nature of the existing leaves 
 as such. Or do we in the least understand why 
 there are white bears in the Polar Regions if we 
 are told that bears of other colours could not 
 survive ? " 
 
 Natural Selection, at any rate, is no proof of 
 monism ; for this excellent reason, that it explains 
 nothing. For nothing is explained until the origin 
 of variation is explained. What makes the living 
 organism vary ? That is the question of questions. 
 To that question science so far has no certain 
 reply, as might be shown were it possible to 
 devote more space to the point. Vitalists and 
 neo-vitalists say that it is the entelechy or principle 
 of life, a factor wholly different from the material 
 factor of the organism, which causes variation, 
 and, as many of them, and these not Catholics, 
 would also say, causes variation along fixed and 
 predeterminate lines. Naegeli, for example, be- 
 lieved in a " principle of progressive development, 
 a something inherent in the organic world which 
 makes each organism in itself a force or factor 
 
What Darwin himself Held 1 1 3 
 
 making towards specialization, adaptation, that 
 is, towards progressive evolution." x Most persons 
 of ordinary common-sense would agree that if a 
 principle of this far-reaching character is found 
 to be inherent in the organic world, that inherent 
 principle must have been put into the organic 
 world by someone or by something. We Catholics 
 say that it was put in by the Creator of all things, 
 and the only reply that we meet with on the part 
 of our opponents is that no one can know who 
 put it in. I am now, of course, speaking of those 
 opponents who believe in an inherent tendency : 
 those who do not have still to meet the initial 
 difficulty of explaining how variations occur. As 
 one further development of Naegeli's views may 
 be cited his statement that " animals and plants 
 would have developed about as they have, even 
 had no struggle for existence taken place, and 
 the climatic and geologic conditions and changes 
 been quite different from what they have been." 2 
 It is pretty obvious that views such as these do 
 not compel a monistic explanation : most persons 
 would say that they run directly contrary to it. 
 
 III. SEXUAL SELECTION 
 
 This was another very attractive theory put 
 forward side by side with that just discussed, 
 
 1 Kellogg, p. 277. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 278. 
 
H4 Facts and Theories 
 
 and intended to assist in the explanation of 
 Transformism. 
 
 Darwin thought that the brilliant colours, and 
 many other characteristics which sometimes but 
 by no means always distinguish the males of a 
 species from the females, might be accounted for 
 by the fact that these secondary sexual characters 
 were pleasing to the female, and that those males 
 whose variations had been in the direction of an 
 acquisition of, or an intensification of, these 
 characters would be most likely to secure the 
 most desirable females. Now this theory was, of 
 course, more or less vitiated by the underlying 
 fallacy that it depends upon an anthropomorphic 
 interpretation of the animal mind. There is little 
 proof that brightly coloured members of one sex 
 do, by that fact, attract members of the other. 
 As a matter of fact, actual experiment has shown 
 that amongst insects where coloration may be 
 said to reach its maximum dyeing of the wings 
 with strange colours does not seem to have made 
 any difference in the sexual relations between 
 changed and unchanged specimens. And other 
 experiments seem to prove that, again amongst 
 insects, it is scent and not sight which attracts 
 the sexes towards each other. One must bear 
 in mind that just as it has been said (by Wundt) 
 that the reason that animals do not talk is because 
 they have nothing to talk about, so also it may 
 
What Darwin himself Held 1 1 5 
 
 be said, with good reason, that they do not admire 
 the points in their kind which seem to us so 
 exquisitely beautiful, for the simple reason that 
 they have no aesthetic sense and admire nothing. 
 Kipling and others write charming books in which 
 animals talk to one another, and reason as if they 
 were human beings. We must beware of taking 
 these things seriously, and of reasoning from our 
 own ideas of which we know something, though 
 perhaps not much, to those of animals of which 
 we know just nothing. One need not delay long 
 over the theory of Sexual Selection. It was 
 never adopted by Wallace, Darwin's great com- 
 panion in broaching the theory of Natural Selection, 
 and it has steadily declined in popularity since it 
 was first formulated. The balance of the tendencies 
 of later days, as the last edition of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica says, 1 " has been against the attachment 
 of great importance to Sexual Selection," and there 
 we may leave the matter with this final remark, 
 that if it is a factor, it is only a factor and is no 
 more but rather much less an explanation than 
 is Natural Selection. 
 
 IV. PANGENESIS 
 
 Strictly speaking, this theory was not original 
 with Darwin, for Buffon had suggested something 
 of a similar character long before. But Darwin's 
 
 1 Art. "Evolution," p. 34. 
 
1 1 6 Facts and Theories 
 
 hypothesis was the first attempt to grapple with 
 the physical explanation of heredity which gained 
 any great amount of public attention. An explana- 
 tion is needed of why the child resembles its 
 parents, and resembles them sometimes too in the 
 smallest points, such as a birth-mark, a dimple, a 
 curious arrangement of the eyebrows not less, of 
 course, why it resembles its parents at all. This, 
 again, is a matter which cannot possibly be dealt 
 with here, but it may be said that Darwin's theory 
 and that of the other micromerists, if one may use 
 Delage's convenient term to group them together, 
 however those theorists may differ in detail, is 
 governed by the idea that in the tiny germ are still 
 tinier infinitely tinier they must needs be re- 
 presentatives of every variable portion of the body, 
 by the development of which representatives the 
 new body is built up with the necessary resem- 
 blances. Of course, this theory is one which never 
 could be scientifically demonstrated. The germ is 
 often far more often than not a microscopic 
 object, and it has been calculated that some trillions 
 of the minor elements in it would be required to 
 meet the necessities of the case. These could 
 never, it may safely be said, be demonstrated by 
 the microscope, or by any other means conceivable 
 to our present knowledge of science and scientific 
 methods. The weakness of this theory is in its 
 amazing complexity, a complexity which goes 
 
What Darwin himself Held 1 1 7 
 
 beyond the bounds of belief when it is carefully 
 studied. " Any theory which involves the assump- 
 tion of morphological units as representing char- 
 acters must bring us to an impasse in a very few 
 generations, as is demonstrated by the working out 
 of such a theory to comparatively few degrees 
 upward from offspring to parents, grandparents, and 
 so on." x It cannot be said that the theory of 
 Pangenesis and others of its kind have secured any 
 firm hold on scientific opinion ; rather must it be 
 said that they are losing what hold they once 
 possessed. 2 
 
 1 Walker, Hereditary Characters and Their Mode of Transmis- 
 sion^ 1910, p. 121. 
 
 2 See the criticism of Pangenesis in Morgan, Evolution and 
 Adaptation, pp. 233 et seq. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF MAN 
 
 THIS vast and important subject cannot receive 
 full treatment in so small a book as this, but some 
 attempt must be made to sketch the outlines of 
 the controversy as it now stands and to indicate 
 further sources of information. 
 
 As we have seen, Darwin believed that man, 
 body and soul (if we may be permitted to use the 
 latter term in such a connection) was developed 
 from some lower form, and we have also seen the 
 result which this conviction produced in his own 
 mind. This result, one would have thought, should 
 have led him to doubt the certainty of his own 
 conclusions as to the spiritual relationship of man 
 and apes, rather than to doubt the dependability 
 of human reasoning. Now, in considering this 
 question we must separate the two aspects of the 
 case. There is a clear separation in the Biblical 
 account of the creation of man. " Man was made 
 rational after he was made ' corporeal.' The Lord 
 
 Eli 
 
The Origin of Man 1 1 9 
 
 God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
 man became ' a living soul ' (Gen. ii. 7). Here are 
 two acts on the part of the Creator the forming 
 the dust and the breathing the life." l Let us dis- 
 cuss from a purely scientific standpoint the two 
 separately, and let us commence with the inferior. 
 
 (a) The Body of Man. Unquestionably, in a 
 general way, it may be said that the anatomical 
 outlines of the human body closely resemble those 
 of the higher apes. There are differences, of course, 
 but the resemblances are far more numerous. This 
 at least suggests a genetic connection through some 
 common ancestor, and some would say like 
 Schwalbe 2 that the experiments of Friedenthal 
 and others as to the behaviour of the blood of man 
 and other mammals strengthened this probability. 
 This particular point is at present in too inchoate 
 a condition to be dealt with otherwise than tenta- 
 tively, and those who desire to know more about 
 it may be referred to the account of the discussion 
 between Friedenthal and Wasmann, where it would 
 appear to be admitted that no relationship in the 
 sense of community of origin is claimed to have 
 been proved by this method. 3 But a suggestion is 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day, 1869, 
 sermon viii., p. 101. 
 
 2 In his article in Darwin and Modern Science , p. 129. 
 
 3 Wasmann, Problem of Evolution, pp. 67 and 139. 
 
I2O Facts ana Theories 
 
 not a proof. There may be a score of ways of 
 explaining the likeness between two things, all or 
 at least nineteen of which may be wholly illusory. 
 Let us look at certain points of difficulty. In the 
 first place, it may be said as will be gathered from 
 a previous section that the recapitulation or bio- 
 genetic theory has proved to be a doubtful aid, and 
 that the arguments once adduced from it with 
 regard to the descent of man can only be accepted 
 with great caution and with many reservations. 
 
 And here a word may usefully be said on the 
 subject of " phylogeny," for which so much import- 
 ance has been claimed ; and here, once more, I will 
 call to my aid Professor Driesch 1 and give a 
 somewhat lengthy statement of his views on the 
 subject which will show that here also we have the 
 utmost divergence of opinion and that complete 
 uncertainty exists even as to any probable line of 
 descent. "The philosopher Liebmann," he says, 
 " complained of phylogeny that it furnishes nothing 
 but a 'gallery of ancestors/ And this gallery of 
 ancestors set up in phylogeny is not even certain ; 
 on the contrary, it is absolutely uncertain, and very 
 far from being a fact. For there is no sound and 
 rational principle underlying phylogeny ; there is 
 mere fantastic speculation. How could it be 
 otherwise where all is based upon suppositions 
 which themselves have no leading principle at 
 
 1 Op. cit,> vol. i. p. 256. 
 
The Origin of Man 1 2 1 
 
 present ? I should not like to be misunderstood in 
 my polemic against phylogeny. I fully grant you 
 that it may be possible in a few cases to find out 
 the phylogenetic history of smaller groups with 
 some probability, if there is some palaeontological 
 evidence in support of pure comparative anatomy ; 
 and I also do not hesitate to allow that such a 
 statement would be of a certain value with regard 
 to a future discovery of the ' laws ' of descent, 
 especially if taken together with the few facts 
 known about mutations. But it is quite another 
 thing with phylogeny on the larger scale. Far 
 more eloquent than any amount of polemics is the 
 fact that vertebrates, for instance, have already 
 been ' proved ' to be descended from, firstly, the 
 amphioxus; secondly, the annelids; thirdly, the 
 Sagitta type of worms; fourthly, from spiders; 
 fifthly, from Limulus, a group of crayfishes; and 
 sixthly, from echinoderm larvae. That is the 
 extent of my acquaintance with the literature, with 
 which I do not pretend to be specially familiar. 
 Emil du Bois-Raymond said once that phylogeny 
 of this sort is of about as much scientific value as 
 are the pedigrees of the heroes of Homer, and I 
 think we may fully endorse his opinion on this 
 point." These remarks may serve in some sort as 
 a corrective to the " ancestral trees " which 
 flourish with such luxuriance in the works of 
 certain writers on biological subjects. 
 
122 Facts and Theories 
 
 Then, in the next place, there is the question of 
 the missing link or links. "There is not, as is 
 often assumed, one ' missing link ' to be discovered, 
 but at least a score of such links, to fill adequately 
 the gap between man and apes ; and their non- 
 discovery is now one of the strongest proofs of the 
 imperfection of the geological record." l What an 
 amazing non sequitur \ Surely it might be claimed 
 with at least equal justice, that the fact that the 
 " missing links " have not turned up is some sort 
 of proof that they do not exist. See the force of 
 a parti pris \ The venerable writer of the lines 
 just quoted has in a paragraph almost immediately 
 preceding stated that " all evolutionists are satisfied 
 that the common ancestor of man and the anthro- 
 poid apes must [his italics] date back to the Miocene, 
 if not to the Eocene, period." So that the line of 
 argument is this : Although no one has ever seen 
 any trace of him, man and the apes must have had 
 a common ancestor at the time mentioned ; 
 nothing has ever been found of that ancestor ; 
 therefore the geological record is imperfect. It 
 does not need any profound acquaintance with 
 logic to see through that syllogism. 
 
 At any rate Wallace admits that there are a 
 number of missing links, and Branco, who, as 
 Director of the Geological and Palaeontological 
 Institute of the Berlin University, may be accepted 
 
 1 Wallace, The World of Life, 1911, p. 247. 
 
The Origin of Man 123 
 
 as a competent authority, tells us that in the history 
 of our planet man appears as a genuine Homo 
 novus. It is possible, he says, to trace the ancestry 
 of most of our present mammals among the fossils 
 of the Tertiary period, but man appears suddenly 
 in the Quaternary period, and has no Tertiary 
 ancestors as far as we know. Human remains of 
 the Tertiary period have not yet been discovered, 
 and the traces of human activity, which have been 
 referred to that period, are of a very doubtful 
 nature, but Diluvial remains abound. Man of the 
 Diluvial epoch, however, appears at once as a 
 complete Homo sapiens. 1 And further to the 
 question, " Who was the ancestor of man ? " he 
 replies, " Palaeontology tells us nothing of the 
 subject it knows no ancestors of man." 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at what is known at 
 present with regard to the earliest remains of man. 
 There are two anomalous and puzzling examples, 
 and then something like a definite series. The 
 first of the former group is the collection of bones 
 found near Trinil, in Java, by Dubois, and some- 
 times alluded to as Pithecanthropus erectus. With 
 regard to these it may be said that (i) there is 
 some doubt as to whether the objects discovered 
 viz., the top of the skull, the tooth, and the thigh- 
 
 1 Wasmann, Modern Biology, p. 477. The address was given in 
 1901. Since then the " traces of human activity" in the Tertiary 
 period have been practically abandoned by authorities. Cf. Sollas, 
 Ancient Hunters. See note at end of chapter. 
 
124 Facts and Theories 
 
 bone, all belonged to the same individual, since 
 they were found at some little distance from one 
 another ; (2) the careful explorations made by an 
 expedition conducted by Mme. Selenka to the 
 same place, which have lately been made public, 1 
 have failed to reveal any further remains of a 
 similar kind, or any evidence of implements or 
 such traces of human activity ; (3) there is the 
 widest difference of opinion as to the kind of 
 animal to which the top of the skull belonged, 
 some holding it to have been an ape, others an 
 ape-like man, others an individual half-way between 
 the two. It must be obvious that at present it 
 would be very dangerous to build up any theory 
 on such a basis of sand, though, to judge from 
 what one sees in some manuals and pamphlets, we 
 might know Pithecanthropus as well as we know 
 the Gorilla or the Macaque. 
 
 The other case is that of the Heidelberg lower 
 jaw. Of this curious and most interesting relic, all 
 that can be said at present is that the bony part is 
 more monkey-like than that of any human jaw so 
 far examined, whilst, on the other hand, the teeth 
 are less monkey-like than those of some undoubtedly 
 human examples of the present day. Here again 
 it is impossible to build a theory on a single lower 
 jaw, and especially on one with such anomalous 
 characteristics. 
 
 1 V Anlhropologie, 1911, p. 551. 
 
The Origin of Man 125 
 
 Passing away from these puzzling specimens, 
 the significance of which may be cleared up some 
 day, we come to the first race of man of whom we 
 have something like definite information, those of 
 Le Moustier, to which it would appear that the 
 much-disputed Neanderthal skull belongs. And 
 what do we know about them ? In the first place, 
 we know that they were men in every sense of the 
 word, and big-brained men too, since the cubic 
 capacity of their skulls is greater than that of the 
 average European of the present day. In the 
 second place, we know that they had the hands of 
 men, since they fashioned, with the utmost skill, 
 wonderful implements of flint. And in the third 
 place, we know that they believed in a soul and a 
 future life for that soul, for the very earliest inter- 
 ment known, that of the valley of the Chapelle-aux- 
 Saints, is one with those "accompanying gifts" 
 which all the world over have but one significance : 
 namely, a belief in the after-life and a desire to 
 provide the spirit of the dead person with objects 
 useful to it in that life. No wonder that Professor 
 Sollas should say that it gives one something like 
 a shock to run up against this world-wide custom 
 during the disappearance of the Great Ice Age. 1 
 It would appear then from the most recent dis- 
 
 1 For a careful discussion of the matters just alluded to, see Sollas, 
 Ancient Hunters^ 1911 ; the Professor of Geology in Oxford is 
 admittedly a first-rate authority on these matters. 
 
 
126 Facts and Theories 
 
 coveries that Wallace has very good reason for 
 admitting the need of the missing links and for 
 acknowledging their present absence. 
 
 As regards the extraordinary persistence of 
 type of the human species no more remarkable 
 facts can be imagined than those which Professor 
 Elliot Smith, F.R.S., has recorded concerning the 
 ancient inhabitants of Egypt. " The hot, dry sands 
 of Egypt," he tells us, 1 " have preserved through a 
 span of more than sixty centuries the remains of 
 countless multitudes of the earliest people known 
 to have dwelt in the Nile Valley ; and not the 
 mere bones only, but the skin and hair, the muscles 
 and organs of the body; and even such delicate 
 tissues as the nerves and brain, and, most marvel- 
 lous of all, the lens of the eye, are available for 
 examination to-day. Thus we are able to form a 
 very precise idea of the structure of the body of the 
 Proto-Egyptian." Many of the bodies of these Pre- 
 Dynastic people of the Stone Age and prior to what 
 has generally been considered, up to recent years, to 
 be the earliest civilization of Egypt, were examined 
 by Elliot Smith, himself a distinguished anatomist. 
 Not only this, but the nature of their food was 
 determined from the contents of their stomachs. 
 What was the result obtained from all these in- 
 vestigations ? That the Pre-Dynastic Egyptian can 
 " be found re-incarnated in his modern descendants 
 
 1 The Ancient Egyptians, p. 41. 
 
The Origin of Man 1 2 7 
 
 with surprisingly little change, either in physical 
 characteristics or mode of life, to show for the 
 passage of six thousand years " (p. 43). Of course 
 it may be argued that the persistence of type here 
 is due to the persistence of environment, even to 
 the form of food used. Further, some at least 
 would argue that six thousand years is but a short 
 period. Whatever force there may be in these 
 statements, the facts I have just quoted are more 
 than remarkable and, so far as they go, do not 
 make, at any rate, for the view that evolution 
 proceeds by means of minute variations. 
 
 Lastly, so far as this imperfect sketch is con- 
 cerned, there is the exceeding great difficulty of 
 explaining how man came to be evolved, and how 
 it was that he was not exterminated during the 
 process. It is held by most Darwinians that it is 
 by the slow accumulation of small variations that 
 evolution works its way. One of the greatest 
 difficulties set in the way of Darwin's theories was 
 that which pointed out that for a time every such 
 small variation, before it could get far enough to be 
 of advantage to its possessor, would or might be a 
 positive disadvantage as requiring greater strength 
 to carry it, greater nutriment to provide for it, and 
 the like. Now in the case of man it would seem 
 that every step in the direction of evolution, and 
 that perhaps for long ages, must have made him 
 less able to contend with his environment, must in 
 
128 Facts and Theories 
 
 fact have placed him in a position in which 
 nothing could have saved him from destruction. 
 The late Professor Dwight, whose lamented death 
 has deprived America of a distinguished man of 
 science and the Church of a most loyal son, sums 
 this argument up most pithily in his last work. 1 
 Speaking of man, he says : 
 
 " Not very strong of arm, not very swift of foot, 
 without a well-developed hairy hide, or large teeth, 
 or strong claws, he seems as a mere animal, an 
 exceedingly unfortunate one, good neither for 
 attack nor defence, in short, very unfit for the 
 struggle for existence, in that imaginary period of 
 half-fledgedness between brute and man. His 
 instincts and his senses, that of touch perhaps 
 excepted, though in the savage state undoubtedly 
 greater than those of civilized man, are by no 
 means remarkable. Take him as a mere animal, 
 what is he but an egregious failure? By what 
 kind of evolution could such a creature rise who 
 shows throughout his body only instances of the 
 survival of the unfittest ? Let us try to imagine 
 him rising in the scale according to the dogmas of 
 evolution. Let us watch the arboreal monkey 
 well-fitted for his surroundings gradually losing 
 all that fits him for them. We see his coat grow- 
 ing thinner, his arms shorter, so that he loses his 
 ' reach/ his legs longer, so that climbing becomes 
 
 1 Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist ', 1911, p. 158. 
 
The Origin of Man 129 
 
 harder, and at the same time his brain growing 
 in some incomprehensible way, and for no good 
 reason, excepting that it is necessary for the theory 
 to believe that the brain-development went on so 
 swimmingly that it compensated for the physical 
 degeneration." 
 
 So far as I am aware there has been no successful 
 attempt to get out of this dilemma, nor do I see 
 any way out of it, except by assuming under the 
 Mutation theory that a great and wonderful 
 change was made, and made suddenly, by which 
 the brute became corporeally man. This is 
 scientifically tenable, and would avoid the difficulty 
 raised by Professor Dwight, but it must candidly 
 be admitted that there is no direct evidence for it, 
 and indeed it is hard to see how there could be any 
 evidence for such a thing. Meantime this question 
 may be asked, still from the standpoint of science : 
 Suppose such a great and sudden mutation to 
 have occurred, and suppose that this corporeally 
 developed being became man, as we know him, by 
 the inbreathing of an immortal soul ; is there 
 any great difference between that series of events 
 and the special creation of man at which some 
 scientific men look so much askance ? But apart 
 from this surmise, for it can be no more, looking 
 fairly at all the facts, can it really be claimed that 
 the origin of man is a question on which science 
 has said the last word or, indeed, has any 
 
 9 
 
130 Facts and Theories 
 
 right to express anything but the most guarded 
 hypothesis? He would be a hardy man who 
 claimed that the subject of the origin of man's 
 corporeal part was resjudicata. Yet we have this 
 very theory of the evolution of man's body laid 
 down as a proved fact time after time in the 
 manuals and articles to which I have so often 
 alluded. We have Darwin doubting his own 
 competence to form any opinion, because he was 
 so sure of that one opinion that his brain had come 
 from that of an ape, and by his brain he meant his 
 sentient part. Finally, we have all sorts of theories 
 of education, and what not else, built up on a 
 foundation which surely is not strong enough to 
 carry the edifice which has been erected upon it. 
 To what these lead we shall later on refer. 
 
 (b) The Soul of Man. Here I must be much 
 more brief, for here we are in contact with a 
 psychological argument which it is impossible for 
 me to develop here, and here too we are in contact 
 with a question which is a settled one for Catholics, 
 namely, the existence of a soul and its attributes 
 and origin. 
 
 All that I propose to do here is to set down a few 
 observations by non-Catholics, which at least show 
 that our Catholic view is not the hopelessly anti- 
 quated and discredited thing that many would like 
 to make out. I will take four instances, and they 
 shall all be recent ones, 
 
The Origin of Man 1 3 1 
 
 (i) Dr. McDougall, F.R.S., is Reader in Mental 
 Philosophy in the University of Oxford. He has 
 recently published a book, in the preface of which 
 he says that "to many minds it must appear 
 nothing short of a scandal that anyone occupying 
 a position in an academy of learning, other than a 
 Roman Catholic seminary, should in this twentieth 
 century defend the old-world notion of the soul of 
 man." 1 Scandal or no scandal, after a lengthy 
 consideration of what is to be said on the other 
 side and in spite, so it would appear, of some 
 preliminary prejudice against the view, he does 
 come to a conclusion not markedly different from 
 that which we hold as to the existence of the soul 
 of man. 
 
 (ii) Driesch I have already quoted from, and I will 
 once more quote from him to show his opinion 
 with respect to the fact that the difference mentally 
 between man and apes is one of kind and not 
 of degree : 
 
 " Darwinism and phylogeny laid stress on man's 
 affinity to animals, and with justice in respect to 
 most details of his organization ; that was all right 
 so far, though there was always a difficulty with 
 regard to the hemispheres of the brain. In agree- 
 ment with this particular, the experiments of the 
 last few years, carried out by English and 
 American authors (Lloyd Morgan, Thorndike, 
 
 1 Body and Mind) 1911. 
 
132 Facts and Theories 
 
 Hobhouse, Kinnamann), have shown that as far 
 as the degree of acting is the point of comparison, 
 there is a difference between man and even the 
 highest apes which is simply enormous; man, 
 f.fter all, remains the only 'reasoning' organism, 
 in spite of the theory of descent." l 
 
 (iii) A. R. Wallace, F.R.S., was the co-emitter of 
 the theory with which Darwin's name came to be 
 chiefly connected. In his last work, from which 
 I have already quoted, he considers the question 
 of man's position present and future, and says that 
 the glory and distinction of man is "that he is 
 continually and steadily advancing in the know- 
 ledge of the vastness and mystery of the universe 
 in which he lives ; and how any student of any part 
 of that universe can declare, as so many do, that 
 there is only a difference of degree between himself 
 and the rest of the animal-world that, in Haeckel's 
 forcible words, 'our own human nature sinks to 
 the level of a placental mammal, which has no 
 more value for the universe at large than the ant, 
 the fly of a summer's day, the microscopic infu- 
 sorium, or the smallest bacillus' is altogether 
 beyond my comprehension." 2 
 
 (iv) Professor Sedgwick, F.R.S., of the Royal 
 College of Science, London, is the author of a 
 well-known text-book of zoology. The terminat- 
 
 1 Op. cit., ii. p. 1 06. 
 
 2 The World of Life, p. 374. > 
 
The Origin of Man 133 
 
 ing words of the second volume shall be my last 
 quotation under this heading : l 
 
 11 The mental qualities which are so characteristic 
 of the genus Homo have led many naturalists to 
 create a special family (Anthropidce) or even order 
 (Bimana) for its reception. But in this work we 
 are concerned with man from the standpoint of 
 morphology, and in assigning him his position in 
 the system we can only take into consideration the 
 facts of his bodily structure, as we have done in 
 the case of the other animals. If psychical char- 
 acters were taken into account in zoology, the 
 whole of classification would be thrown into con- 
 fusion ; and in the case of man how should we 
 define the position to be assigned to him? For 
 what a piece of work is a man ! How noble in 
 reason ! how infinite infacultv ! inform and moving 
 how express and admirable ! in action how like an 
 angel ! in apprehension how like a god 7 And again : 
 Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels 
 and hast crowned him with glory and honour \" 
 
 Of course, in making these quotations I am not 
 to be taken as trying to prove from them that our 
 Catholic view is correct. The position, as I should 
 put it, is something like this. We Catholics believe 
 in the existence of an immortal soul, created by 
 God Almighty Himself and temporarily occupying 
 
 1 Sedgwick, Text-book of Zoology ', vol. ii. p. 665. Italics as in 
 original. 
 
134 Facts and Theories 
 
 a human body. In connection with this view we 
 can bring forward psychological arguments, not 
 unworthy of attention but not to be attempted 
 here. For holding this view we have been much 
 contemned by some scientific and many pseudo- 
 scientific men in the past. Here I produce for you 
 four men of science, none of whom are Catholics 
 and all of whom are emphatically men who must 
 be listened to when they speak, yet all of whom 
 support more or less the thesis which we have 
 always held. I submit that this is worthy of 
 consideration and that we may feel some satisfac- 
 tion at finding science in the way of reverting to 
 the position which we have always occupied. 
 
 If I wanted further to emphasize this point I 
 would ask readers to note that the most powerful 
 modern non-Catholic philosophy of to-day, that of 
 M. Bergson, is far away from us, no doubt, and from 
 our traditional philosophy ; but it is at least non- 
 materialistic and emphasizes free-will, and is, there- 
 fore, much more remote from the materialistic 
 philosophies of yesterday. 
 
 NOTE to p. 123. Sir E. R. Lankester's paper in Phil. 
 Trans., 202, appeared whilst these pages were passing through 
 the press. It does not modify the conclusion mentioned in 
 this chapter, since the Red Crag deposits are accepted by him 
 as Pleistocene. But it undoubtedly seems to set back the date 
 of the first appearance of man in what is now Britain. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 "DARWINISM" AND CERTAIN SUPERSTRUCTURES 
 MORALITY AND MORALS 
 
 WE are now at an end of this brief consideration 
 of the points which we laid down, and may rapidly 
 summarize the conclusions arrived at : 
 
 (i) Transformism, though widely accepted, is not 
 proved to a demonstration. It is an excellent work- 
 ing hypothesis, and, as such, need not disturb the 
 mind of a Catholic in the smallest possible degree. 
 
 (ii) Natural Selection is held by some and denied 
 by others. In any case it is only a means to an 
 end, and in no sense a cause. 
 
 (iii) Sexual Selection is much less widely and 
 definitely held than it once was. It also, if it exists, 
 is only a means to an end. 
 
 (iv) Pangenesis is more than doubtful, and is 
 abandoned by most biologists. 
 
 (v) However indications may seem to point to the 
 development of man's body from that of some lower 
 form, there is at present no sufficient evidence to 
 prove anything of the kind. All psychological evi- 
 dence goes to prove that man's spiritual part differs 
 in kind as well as in degree from that of the beast. 
 
136 Facts and Theories 
 
 (vi) That there is a drift of opinion unfavourable 
 to many of the views called " Darwinism," some of 
 which were Darwin's own, some not, is clear from 
 what has been said, and I may sum up the matter 
 by a further quotation from Kellogg, 1 who says : 
 
 " Such older biologists and natural philosophers 
 as von Baer, von Kolliker, Virchow, Nageli, 
 Wigand and Hartmann, and such others writing in 
 the nineties and in the present century as von 
 Sachs, Eimer, Delage, Haacke, Kassowitz, Cope, 
 Haberlandt, Henslow, Goette, Wolff, Driesch, 
 Packard, Morgan, Jaeckel, Steinmann, Korschinsky, 
 and de Vries, are examples which show the dis- 
 tinctly ponderable character of the anti-Darwinian 
 ranks. Perhaps these names mean little to the 
 general reader; let me translate them into the 
 professors of zoology, of botany, of palaeontology, 
 and of pathology, in the universities of Berlin, 
 Paris, Vienna, Strassburg, Tubingen, Amsterdam, 
 Columbia University, etc." 
 
 Is it putting it too high to conclude that there 
 is an air of great uncertainty about many or all 
 of the above-mentioned theories when they are 
 dispassionately examined in the light of modern 
 opinion ? I admit that no trace of this uncertainty 
 is allowed to appear in the little cock-sure manuals 
 which I have so often alluded to, but the uncertainty 
 is there all the same, and no one can carefully study 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 26. 
 
Monism and Morality 137 
 
 the literature of science without becoming aware 
 of it. Indeed, no scientific man would hesitate to 
 admit, at least as much as has been stated in these 
 pages, as to the differences of opinion which exist 
 amongst the exponents of evolution. 
 
 Yet it is on this uncertain and shifting sand that 
 we are asked to build up an impregnable and 
 unshakeable edifice of monism and morality. 
 " We have now," says the late Professor Dwight, 
 "the remarkable spectacle that just when many 
 scientific men are of accord that there is no part 
 of the Darwinian system that is of any very great 
 influence, and that as a whole the theory is not only 
 unproved but impossible, the ignorant half-educated 
 masses have acquired the idea that it is to be 
 accepted as a fundamental fact. Moreover, it is 
 not to them an academic question of biology, but, 
 as the matter has been presented to them, it is a 
 system : to wit, the monistic system of philosophy. 
 Thus presented it undeniably is fatal not only to 
 all religion but to any system of morals founded 
 on a supernatural basis." 1 "Thus presented" 
 that is exactly the point. It is thus presented, 
 because those who thus present it are either blinded 
 by their own prejudice, or deliberately desire to 
 blind others so that they may not perceive the real 
 bearings of these biological hypotheses and discus- 
 sions upon religious and moral questions. 
 1 op. tit., p. 6. 
 
138 Facts and Theories 
 
 It is not possible to discuss the questions of 
 monism and morality here with any completeness, 
 but it will be well to glance for a moment at the 
 matter and see what is entailed by an acceptance 
 of the views of a man like Haeckel. Haeckel's 
 "monism" is something like the old and well- 
 known doctrine of hylo-zoism, but, as the last 
 edition of the Encyclop&dia Britannica says, " it is 
 materialism dignified by a higher title." This 
 theory implies that " matter," i.e. the material 
 universe, is infinite, that so is the "ether," that 
 they fill infinite space, and that both are " eternal," 
 and both are " alive." So Wallace sums it up, and 
 continues that " none of these things can possibly 
 be known,) yet he states them as positive facts" 
 Further, that these assertions are " surely not 
 science, and very bad philosophy." x 
 
 As has been already said, we cannot here discuss 
 the question of whether the universe itself is 
 eternal and alive, but it may just be mentioned 
 that this alternative to their view was suggested 
 by the learned authors of The Unseen Universe in 
 the preface to their second edition, where they 
 seem to anticipate the very words of Haeckel : 
 " To reduce matters to order, we may confidently 
 assert that the only reasonable and defensible 
 alternative to our hypothesis (or, at least, some- 
 thing similar to it) is the stupendous pair of 
 
 1 World of Life ', p. 7. Italics as in original. 
 
Monistic Philosophy 139 
 
 assumptions that visible matter is eternal, and that 
 IT is ALIVE. If anyone can be found to uphold 
 notions like these (from a scientific point of view), 
 we shall be most happy to enter the lists with 
 him." In this passage, the italics and capitals of 
 which are those of the authors, it is clear that they 
 consider that they have proved their view by a 
 reductio ad absurdum, yet this absurdum is the 
 theory which Haeckel and his followers would 
 have us accept. The real fact is that Haeckel 
 advances the theory that " Darwinism " is the main 
 weapon in the fight for monism, because he means 
 by " Darwinism " his own monistic paraphrase of 
 that collection of hypotheses. From what has been 
 said it is abundantly clear that Darwin's views and 
 the views of his predecessors in teaching Trans- 
 formism do not compel the acceptance of a monistic 
 philosophy of life. That it does compel such an 
 acceptance is the Haeckelian statement, but it is 
 absolutely and demonstrably false. It cannot be 
 too frequently pointed out that Darwin and 
 Darwinism as expounded by Darwin and not as 
 "glossed" by his followers provide no explana- 
 tion of the start of things, though they may or 
 may not provide an explanation of how things 
 went on once they had been started. Haeckel 
 says that they never were started, but that they 
 were always going and always alive, but that view 
 is no part of the depositum of Darwinism as 
 
140 Facts and Theories 
 
 enunciated by Darwin : it is a Haeckelian gloss. 
 It is unnecessary for us to explain here the 
 Christian attitude towards the question, and it 
 must be left to the candid reader to consider which 
 view is intrinsically the more likely to be true, and 
 whether the idea that all matter is alive and 
 sentient is really one to commend itself to a sane 
 consideration of things as they are. 
 
 MORALITY AND MORALS 
 
 Meantime, before passing to the last section of 
 this book, it may be well to say a few words as to 
 the bearing of this question on that of morality 
 and morals. If Darwinism, as expounded by its 
 wilder prophets, is to be a rule of life, a guide in 
 education and a general gospel, we should at least 
 take a look at the road along which it is likely to 
 lead us. Now, as we have seen, of all the items 
 included in the creed of Darwinism, that of Natural 
 Selection is the most important. It was set in 
 the forefront of his theories by Darwin himself, 
 and is extolled by his most faithful followers as 
 being a process of the highest importance in 
 connection with evolution. If Darwinism, then, is 
 to be taken as a rule of life, it behoves us to assist 
 and co-operate with the process of Natural Selec- 
 tion as it applies to our own species, which, we learn 
 from the same teaching, differs only in degree and 
 not in kind from other species in the animal 
 
Morality and Morals 141 
 
 kingdom. Very well ; but Natural Selection im- 
 plies the Survival of the Fittest, and, if we consider 
 for one moment, that implies the Eradication of the 
 Un fittest. If, therefore, we are to carry out our 
 Darwinian principles to their logical end, we must 
 ruthlessly condemn to the lethal chamber every weak 
 and sickly member of our race ; the consumptive and 
 the feeble-minded must be exterminated as soon as 
 their condition is conclusively determined ; charity 
 must come to an end, and rigid justice demand the 
 abolition of all human beings who are not likely to 
 conduce to the production of a strong, healthy, and, 
 if possible, improved race of human beings. 
 
 In a sense this is the view which underlies a 
 certain amount of what is now called Eugenics, 
 though it must at once be admitted that the pro- 
 fessors of this doctrine are only very tentatively 
 approaching any such extreme measures. How- 
 ever, once we accept a rule of life, we must have 
 done with picking and choosing ; we must follow 
 that rule ; and we see what a logical following of the 
 Darwinian theory as a rule of life a thing never 
 contemplated by Darwin himself would lead us to. 
 The fact is that it is impossible to deduce a moral 
 code from a purely materialistic philosophy of life. 
 Let me remind my readers of Driesch's observations 
 on this point (see p. 56), and let me quote another 
 writer in continuation of this train of thought : 
 
 " There is no such thing as ' natural religion ' or 
 
142 Facts and Theories 
 
 1 natural ethics,' if we understand by these terms a 
 religion or an ethical code derived from ' Nature.' 
 Nature is not a moral entity ; there is no morality 
 in Nature. And if we profess to derive an ethical 
 law from Nature, we are deriving this law, not from 
 Nature as she is, but from Nature as we see her, 
 and this is an entirely different thing. When we 
 set about to discover a foundation for the moral 
 law which is to be purely rationalistic, and when we 
 think to discover this foundation in Nature herself, 
 we are crediting Nature with qualities she does 
 not possess, we are reading into the book of Nature 
 metaphysical conceptions of our own, whether we 
 will it or not. As soon as an appeal is made to a 
 moral law, appeal is made to something surpassing 
 the individual, to something the validity of which 
 we assume quod semper, quod ubique, quod omnibus. 
 Consequently, this ' something ' cannot be contained 
 in the individual reason, the validity of which is 
 purely personal ; it must of necessity transcend 
 individual reason; or, in other words, it must be 
 supra-rational. Rational moralists, once they at- 
 tempt to discover the categorical imperative, appeal 
 to the supra-rational." x 
 
 We do not propose to discuss hie et nunc the 
 question of what the world would do without a 
 system of morality. But what we are advancing 
 here is the theory that no such thing as a scheme 
 
 1 Chatter ton- Hill, Heredity a nd Selection in Sociology ^ 1907, p. xxvi. 
 
Morality and Morals 143 
 
 of morality which would be recognizable as such 
 by ordinary decent-minded people can be deduced 
 from external Nature ; and that the scheme of life, 
 morally and socially, which would follow upon a 
 close copy of Nature of Nature " red in tooth and 
 claw" as we see it around us, would be one which 
 could not be contemplated without horror even by 
 the most thoughtless and debauched human being. 
 The choice, then, is placed before us : a materialistic 
 world with no moral sanction or a world on 
 principles taught by Christianity, and we may ask 
 ourselves which picture most commends itself to 
 all that is best in our natures ? And before passing 
 away from this part of our subject let us once more 
 impress on our readers that " Darwinism," falsely 
 so called by many of its prophets of to-day, and 
 Darwinism as propounded by Darwin, are two 
 wholly different things; that Darwin never pro- 
 posed to explain the origin of things or to establish 
 a rule of life, and that whatever may be said of the 
 truth of his theories and it must be admitted that 
 many of them crumble away more or less under 
 criticism, they in no way warrant many of the con- 
 clusions which his followers have drawn from them. 
 It may seem like vain repetition once more to 
 enunciate this opinion, but it can scarcely be urged 
 too often : at least so one has to conclude from the 
 ignorance still shown on the point by so many 
 writers and readers. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME OTHER " ISMS " 
 
 DARWIN chiefly allowed for evolution through the 
 operation and accumulation of small variations. 
 No doubt the question of small versus great 
 variations had not in his time assumed anything 
 like the importance which it now has, and no doubt 
 also he did in some measure allow for major 
 variations, as, for example, in the well-known case 
 of Pavo nigripennisl But in the main it is clear 
 that Darwin chiefly relied upon small variations. 
 Indeed, Huxley, his prophet, says that Darwin 
 had embarrassed himself by his adhesion to the 
 aphorism Natura non facit saltum. Huxley him- 
 self was tentatively at least of another mind, for he 
 says, " We greatly suspect that she " (sc. Nature) 
 "does make considerable jumps in the way of 
 variation now and then, and that these saltations 
 give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist 
 in the series of known forms." 2 
 
 1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2nd edition, i. 305. 
 J Lay Sermons, p. 342. 
 
 144 
 
Some Other "Isms" 145 
 
 Huxley very clearly saw that the past picture of 
 Nature, or perhaps it would be more accurate to 
 say the picture of Nature in the past as known to 
 us, is a discontinuous picture, just as the picture of 
 Nature all round us is also a discontinuous picture. 
 If evolution is still going on, as is assumed, and if 
 it is being carried out by the constant accumulation 
 of minute variations, as Darwin taught, it would 
 appear as if the picture, if not absolutely continuous, 
 ought to be much more continuous than it actually 
 is. By this is meant that there ought to be a 
 good deal less sharpness of interval between 
 species and species, and much more merging of 
 one into another, than is actually the case either in 
 Nature at present or in that record of Nature, 
 though no doubt somewhat imperfect, which we 
 possess. 
 
 How is this discontinuity to be accounted for? 
 This is a question which has engaged the attention 
 of various writers, and was brought forcibly under 
 the notice of the scientific world by Bateson in his 
 great work, Materials for the Study of Variation. x 
 Here he calls special attention to the discontinuous 
 picture of Nature, to which we have been alluding, 
 and asks the question which we have just asked. 
 Then he gives the reply made by Lamarck and 
 that made by Darwin. Both of these, he shows, 
 make specific diversity of form consequent upon 
 
 1 Macmillan, 1894. 
 
 IO 
 
146 Facts and Theories 
 
 diversity of environment, diversity of environment 
 being thus the ultimate measure of diversity of 
 specific form. But this reply is met at once by 
 the overwhelming difficulty that diverse environ- 
 ments often shade into one another insensibly and 
 form a continuous series, whereas the specific forms 
 of life, which are subject to them, on the whole form 
 a discontinuous series. Many of the vast collection 
 of facts contained in his work go to prove the 
 point just stated. Bateson asks whether if the 
 discontinuity is not in the environment, it may not 
 be in the living thing itself. Here we approach 
 the heart of the whole controversy. It is, as 
 already urged, the origin of variations which we are 
 really in search of: if these origins are not external 
 they must be internal, and we may go a stage 
 further and argue that if they are internal, they 
 must have been put into that interior by the 
 Supreme Power which was the ultimate source of 
 Life, for in no other way can their presence be 
 accounted for. And, further, since according to 
 the evolution theory this capacity for variation 
 contained within it the future plumage of the 
 peacock, the vocal machinery of the nightingale, 
 the optical instrument called the eye, and a myriad 
 other things of beauty and utility, it will be difficult 
 to doubt that that Power must also be Supremely 
 Intelligent. Hence the violent struggle of the 
 materialist to show that environment is the factor 
 
Some Other "Isms" 147 
 
 an argument which would not serve him much, 
 were it true, for it still would fail to account for the 
 power possessed by the organism to respond to the 
 environment. And the environmental theory 
 having largely broken down, hence also Weismann's 
 now considerably discredited attempt to build up a 
 vast edifice of theories of biophores and germinal 
 variation and selection. 
 
 The suggestions at which we have now arrived 
 are that the variations come from within, and that 
 they are discontinuous, that is to say, that they 
 are considerable and sudden. Now, these are views 
 which have been put forward tentatively by various 
 writers previous to our own immediate period. 
 Huxley, as we have seen, was inclined to agree 
 that Nature did at times make a leap. But the 
 first important attempt to deal with the point was 
 that made by the late Sir Francis Galton, 1 in his 
 celebrated polygon. This was a polygonal slab, 
 which could be made to stand on anyone of its 
 various-sized edges on a level table. A push will 
 disturb it so that it may rest in quite a different 
 position from that at first assumed, yet in a stable 
 position. Yet the figures presented in the one and 
 in the other position are wholly different. To put 
 the matter into other language, the change from 
 one species to another has been sudden and 
 obvious. Now, such sudden changes have long 
 
 1 Natural Inheritance, Macmillan, 1889, p. 27. 
 
148 Facts and Theories 
 
 been recognized and spoken of by breeders as 
 " sports." Of late years they have been more care- 
 fully considered, and the facts dealing with them 
 have been woven into a theory under the name of 
 the Mutation theory, a mutation being understood 
 to mean a considerable change, as opposed to a 
 Variation which is an alteration of a minor character. 
 
 DE VRIES AND THE MUTATION THEORY 
 
 The theory of Mutations is mainly associated 
 with the name of the Professor of Botany in 
 Amsterdam, who first laid it before the public, in 
 its complete form, in a course of lectures delivered 
 in the University of California. 1 De Vries saw 
 the difficulty of accounting for variation by the 
 Lamarckian or the Darwinian theory, but he also 
 saw, as Lock puts it, 2 that " if, at this point, we find 
 that in Nature a co-ordinated set of structures can 
 and does arise in an already perfected condition 
 at a single step, and that such phenomena take 
 place with sufficient frequency to give ample oppor- 
 tunities for the survival of the new type so arising, 
 we have at once discovered an alternative way out 
 of the difficulty." 
 
 No doubt ; but the question now before us is 
 whether there is real evidence that such events 
 
 1 Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation , Chicago, 
 Open Court Publishing Co., 1905. 
 
 2 Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and 
 Evolution, Murray, 1906, p. 115. 
 
Some Other "Isms" 149 
 
 actually do take place in Nature. De Vries relies, 
 as indeed is quite natural, seeing the position 
 which he occupies, chiefly upon botanical evidence. 
 He cites the case of Chelidonium laciniatum, which 
 apparently suddenly appeared in the garden of 
 Sprenger, an apothecary in Heidelberg, in 1590, as 
 a " sport " or " mutation " from Chelidonium majus, 
 the well-known Greater Celandine. Then there is 
 the case of the Shirley Poppy, and finally there are 
 the series of cases in connection with (Enothera 
 Lamarckiana (the Evening Primrose), on which 
 de Vries himself mainly relies. 
 
 Now, with regard to all these cases, it must be 
 confessed that scientific opinion is at present in no 
 way satisfied that they establish the theory in 
 question. Take the case of GELnothera, on which 
 de Vries built his theory. It is not clear that this 
 is really a wild type. It may be a hybrid, and, if 
 so, the forms which de Vries saw may merely 
 represent a process of disintegration or splitting up 
 of the hybrid into its original types, perhaps even 
 on Mendelian lines. 0. Lamarckiana^ it is clear, 
 does generally breed true, but perhaps that is 
 because the form has existed so long that it has 
 got rid of most of the possible hybrid combinations 
 which it could produce. Further, it has been 
 urged that most mutations with which we are 
 acquainted are due to losses of one, or perhaps 
 even more than one, of the characters of the wild 
 
150 Facts and Theories 
 
 type. These retrogressive mutations, as de Vries 
 calls them, follow Mendel's law of heredity. Yes, 
 but all these are losses, and we are looking for 
 something which will give us gains or additions to 
 the older type. Are such things due to muta- 
 tions ? The question is made even more complex 
 when we consider that some of the things which 
 look like additions, in domesticated forms, are 
 really due to the loss of something which in the 
 past has inhibited the appearance of the new 
 feature. But then these, too, are retrogressive 
 mutations. On the whole, then, it may be said 
 that whilst the theory of mutations would really 
 explain the discontinuity of Nature by exhibiting 
 for us a discontinuous method of evolution in 
 actual operation, it does not follow, therefore, that 
 it must necessarily be true. It is a fascinating 
 theory, but we must wait for further information 
 before we can consider it to be scientifically estab- 
 lished. Meantime we may say that the Darwinian 
 theory within the limits above stated we may 
 call it the Darwinian theory that small variations 
 are to be relied upon for the processes of evolution, 
 has, in the opinion of a large number, possibly the 
 overwhelming majority, of scientific men, com- 
 pletely broken down. De Vries's view may also 
 break down, and what then has to be said ? Only 
 that we shall be completely in the dark as, indeed, 
 it may be said that we are at this moment in the 
 
Some Other "Isms" 151 
 
 dark as to the real method of evolution, suppos- 
 ing that evolution does exist. And here once more 
 we may call the attention of our readers to the 
 series of assumptions upon which the whole of the 
 stupendous edifice of Darwinism, as it now stands, 
 has been reared. At the risk of being accused of 
 vain repetitions, let us once more urge that whilst 
 there is a good deal of indirect evidence in favour 
 of Transformism, there is not much really direct 
 evidence for it, and it remains a theory still 
 unproved. Further, that if it exists or existed, 
 we are still absolutely in the dark as to the methods 
 by which it came to pass. And, finally, that this 
 is no foundation upon which to build up theories, 
 philosophical, educational, or political. And now 
 we may ask ourselves, Is there anything taught by 
 science which is likely to survive the destructive 
 criticism, which, as has been shown, has been fatal 
 to so many fair theories of the past ? Some at least 
 would point to the theories of Mendel as occupy- 
 ing such a position, and to them we must at any 
 rate devote some small amount of attention. 
 
 MENDEL'S THEORY OF INHERITANCE 
 
 The story of Gregor Mendel, Abbot of the 
 Augustinian Abbey of Brunn, has been told so 
 often of recent years that it need only be repeated 
 here in mere outline. 1 His remarkable observa- 
 
 1 See sketch of his life by Father Ellington, O.P. (C.T.S., id.). 
 
152 -Facts and Theories 
 
 tions were made at about the time that Darwin's 
 views were being given to the world. The Abbot 
 hid his paper in the pages of a not very well- 
 known journal. It excited no attention at the 
 time, though its author was always sure that in due 
 course it would do so. He was right, for some- 
 fifty years after its publication his paper was un- 
 earthed by several men of science, and Mendel and 
 his theories now occupy the premier position, for 
 the time at any rate, in the biological arena. It 
 would be absurd to pretend that scientific opinion 
 is at one on this matter, but undoubtedly the 
 Mendelian view has gained ground since it was first 
 made known to the world, and would appear to be 
 still gaining ground. Its adherents extol its im- 
 portance in the highest terms, and one of the most 
 recent writers on the subject has not hesitated to 
 claim that the results which have been obtained by 
 work on Mendel's lines have been sufficient in 
 themselves to show that his discovery " was of an 
 importance little inferior to those of a Newton or 
 aDalton." 1 
 
 The fundamental feature of Mendel's method is 
 the directing of attention to single characters of 
 the organism, not to the organism as a whole, and 
 to the observation of the behaviour of these isolated 
 characteristics. When this is done it is found that 
 these characters, under processes of breeding, 
 
 1 Lock, op. cit., p. 164. 
 
Some Other "Isms" 153 
 
 behave not haphazard, but according to a very 
 definite law. Let us take the best-known example 
 perhaps of his theory, that of the tall and short 
 peas. Mendel took two varieties of peas, which he 
 had already found to breed true, as regards height. 
 The normal height of one was six feet (tall), and 
 of the other one and a half (dwarf). These two 
 strains were crossed with one another, sometimes 
 the pollen of the tall being used, sometimes that 
 of the dwarf. The results were the same in both 
 cases. In all cases the result was that the offspring 
 were all "tails," some of them even taller than the 
 parent " tall." Mendel, therefore, called " tallness," 
 in this instance, the dominant^ and " dwarfishness " 
 the recessive character. It might have been thought 
 by the hasty observer that dwarfishness had been 
 wiped out, but what was the result of the sow- 
 ing of the seeds of the self-fertilized hybrids ? A 
 mixed generation consisting of "tails" and 
 "dwarfs," but most significant fact of no in- 
 termediate forms. Further, it was found that the 
 "tails" were to the "dwarfs" as three is to one. 
 The seeds of this second hybrid generation were 
 also saved, those from each individual plant being 
 carefully harvested and separately sown. What 
 was the result? The seeds of the "dwarf" re- 
 cessives bred perfectly true, none but " dwarfs " 
 resulting. But not so the " tails." 
 
 Some of these bred true, producing only "tails," 
 
154 Facts and Theories 
 
 but some of them acted like the first hybrid genera- 
 tion of " tails," and produced a generation of" tails " 
 and "dwarfs" in the proportion of three of the 
 former to one of the latter. Further experiments 
 with other pairs of characteristics, such as yellow 
 and green colour, etc., led Mendel to lay down the 
 law that "in every case where the inheritance of 
 an alternative pair of characters was concerned, 
 the effect of the cross in successive generations 
 was to produce three, and only three, different sorts 
 of individuals, viz., dominants which bred true, 
 dominants which gave both dominant and recessive 
 offspring in the ratio of three to one, and recessives 
 which always bred true." l 
 
 Of his further deductions it is not possible to 
 say more here ; inquirers will find all that they 
 require in the works of Bateson, Punnett, and Lock 
 on the subject. But this may be said, that, in 
 spite of much even acrid criticism, the result of 
 the vast amount of work which has been done 
 during the past ten years on these lines has tended 
 to confirm rather than to shake the belief in 
 Mendel's views. 
 
 "The scheme of inheritance, which he was the 
 first to enunciate, has been found to hold good for 
 such diverse things as height, hairiness, and flower 
 colour and flower form in plants, the shape of 
 pollen grains, and the structure of fruits; while 
 
 1 Punnett, Mendelism, 3rd edition, Macmillan, 1911, p. 18. 
 
Some Other "Isms" 155 
 
 among animals the coat colour of mammals, the 
 form of the feathers and of the comb in poultry, the 
 waltzing habit of Japanese mice and eye colour 
 in man, are but a few examples of the diversity 
 of characters which all follow the same law of 
 transmission." l 
 
 But, after all, from the point of view of the 
 present series of articles, the really important 
 fact which emerges from a consideration of 
 Mendel's views is that, if they are true, as would 
 certainly appear to be the case, they reveal a 
 definite, orderly law, and that such a law clamours 
 aloud for the necessity of a Lawgiver. Professor 
 Plate, who cannot be arraigned either for ignorance 
 of science or any partiality for the idea of a 
 Creator, in his speech at the Berlin discussion, 2 
 said, " Personally, I always maintain that, if there 
 are laws of Nature, it is only logical to admit 
 that there is a Lawgiver." 
 
 True, he proceeds : " But of this Lawgiver we 
 can give no account, and any attempt to give one 
 would lead us into unfounded speculations. It 
 is there that faith begins, and many of us have 
 given up all faith." With this latter part of the 
 speech this series of papers cannot deal ; what 
 we are concerned with is the admission surely 
 no sane person could really doubt it that if we 
 
 1 Punnett, op. at., p. 26. 
 
 2 Problem of 'Evolution , p. 108. 
 
156 Facts and Theories 
 
 find a law, that is a regular, orderly uniformity, 
 we must postulate a Lawgiver. Further, the 
 question also arises : If variation is in any way 
 definite, may it not, nay, must it not, also be 
 definite in its direction ? Bergson, 1 whilst urging 
 the essential difference between spirit and matter, 
 and thus wholly dissenting from a material ex- 
 planation of the universe, seems to postulate a 
 blind God, inherent in Nature, driving it on to 
 an end unknown to Himself. With all respect to 
 this most brilliant and fascinating writer, such 
 a conclusion seems to be little other than an 
 appeal to that blind chance which has long 
 seemed so unsatisfactory to anyone who dis- 
 passionately considers the question. At any rate 
 quite a number of scientific writers, from Lamarck, 
 through Naegeli and Eimer and others, down to 
 the present day, have believed, wholly apart from 
 any religious bias, that variation was guided in 
 some way, that is, have accepted a teleological 
 explanation of Nature. That the Mendelian laws 
 may drive even unwilling converts to the same 
 view, may be seen from the following quotation, 
 part of which has already been cited, from a very 
 candid man of science : 
 
 " With the experimental proof that variation 
 consists largely in the unpacking and repacking 
 of an original complexity, it is not so certain, as 
 
 1 Creative Evolution, Macmillan, 1911. 
 
Some Other "Isms" 157 
 
 we might like to think, that the order of these 
 events is not predetermined. For instance, the 
 original 'pack' may have been made in such a 
 way that at the #th division of germ- cells of a 
 sweet pea a colour-factor might be dropped, and 
 that at the n-\-n division the hooded variety be 
 given off, and so on. I see no ground whatever 
 [he hastens to add] for holding such a view, but 
 in fairness the possibility should not be forgotten, 
 and in the light of modern research it scarcely 
 looks so absurdly improbable as before." 1 
 
 In the earlier portion of this book this quotation 
 has been considered in connection with the subject 
 of dogmatic Darwinism. 
 
 We have now arrived at a point where we may 
 try to sum up what this account of modern-day 
 Darwinism has tried to bring out. Such summaries 
 have been made up to the point then reached 
 more than once in the course of these pages. 
 But they may be set together once more here, 
 at the conclusion of our matter, in order that 
 the various points brought forward may be 
 welded as far as possible into one continuous 
 argument. 
 
 (i) The main doctrine of Transformism is one 
 which has not been proved, and perhaps never 
 can be proved to a demonstration. There is a 
 good deal of indirect evidence for it, but not 
 
 1 Bateson, in Darwin and Modern Science, p. 101. 
 
158 Facts and Theories 
 
 much direct evidence, It, therefore, remains and 
 must remain, perhaps forever, a theory and not 
 a proved fact. 
 
 (ii) Since Darwin brought it into prominence, 
 this doctrine of Transformism has taken stronger 
 and stronger hold of the scientific world, and it 
 would not be unfair to say that in some form or 
 another it is held as the best working hypothesis 
 by the vast majority of scientific men, however 
 much they may differ and they do differ pro- 
 foundly as to the method by which Transformism 
 has taken place. 
 
 (iii) This doctrine was, in all its essential features, 
 recognized as acceptable by St. Augustine, by 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, by Suarez, and by other 
 authoritative Catholic writers. If true, it offers, 
 therefore, no difficulties to Catholic thinkers. 
 
 (iv) Whether true or not, the hypothesis in 
 no way demands or necessitates a monistic or 
 materialistic explanation of the universe. On the 
 contrary, it would seem to entail the existence of 
 a code of laws which have directed the trans- 
 formations, and this code of laws would seem to 
 demand the existence of a Lawgiver. 
 
 (v) Further, whether true or not, this theory 
 gives us, and can give us, no information as to 
 the beginning of things, or how the transformistic 
 process started its operations. It had a beginning, as 
 to which the theory admittedly can tell us nothing. 
 
Some Other "Isms" 159 
 
 (vi) Darwin's various theories as apart from 
 his re-exposition of Transformism and his positive 
 additions to scientific knowledge do not hold 
 to-day the position that they did towards the latter 
 end of the nineteenth century. Many would agree 
 with this statement so far as Natural Selection is 
 concerned, and most so far as Sexual Selection 
 and Pangenesis are concerned. 
 
 (vii) Even if they were all proved up to the hilt, 
 none of them would afford real proof of a monistic 
 or materialistic explanation of the universe, since, 
 again, none of them throw the slightest light on 
 the beginning of things. 
 
 (viii) With regard to the case of the theory of 
 man's descent. Many non-Catholic men of science 
 would accept the theory that man's body was 
 developed perhaps by a "mutation" from that 
 of some lower form, though there is very little 
 positive evidence to prove this descent. Many 
 also are prepared to accept the development of his 
 spiritual characters, but the psychological argument 
 against this development forces at least some of 
 them to believe that the theory is impossible and 
 untenable. For Catholics the latter question is, of 
 course, settled, but it is open to them to show, as 
 they can show, that their view is identical with 
 the view of ordinary common-sense. 
 
 (ix) It is impossible to derive a moral law from 
 external Nature, and no one can contemplate, 
 
160 Facts and Theories 
 
 without horror, a return to the principles of the 
 Struggle for Existence and of Sexual Selection on 
 the part of the human race. The very fact that 
 all the efforts of man of the better nature of man 
 and of the best races of man are at this moment 
 being directed to frustrate the efforts of Nature, 
 shows that " Nature's insurgent son " is actuated 
 and directed by something of a higher origin than 
 mere matter. 
 
 (x) The views of Mendel, which are rapidly 
 gaining ground, point towards a law and an order 
 in variation and development which can only be 
 accounted for on the hypothesis that they are the 
 outcome of the idea of an Omnipotent Lawgiver. 
 
 (xi) The glib and often most ill-informed 
 utterances of the writers of too many pamphlets, 
 articles, and popular manuals may be very largely 
 discounted, and persons reading them should 
 always keep before their mind's eye the difference 
 between a scientific fact and a scientific hypothesis. 
 The former, if really a fact, cannot affect religion 
 in any way. The latter is only the thought of 
 some man's mind, and may take its place any day, 
 as many and many a theory has done, on the 
 scientific scrap-heap. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abiogenesis, 72. 
 Accompanying gifts, 125. 
 Acquired modifications, 23. 
 Ancestral trees, I2O. 
 Anthropomorphic interpretation 
 
 of animals, 114. 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 69, 73, 
 
 106. 
 Assumptions, Weismann's, 24, 
 
 25- 
 
 Augustine, St., 106. 
 Avicenna, 73. 
 
 Bacilli, 76. 
 Bacteria, 76. 
 Bastian, 78. 
 Bateson, 145, 154, 156. 
 Bathybius Hacckelii, 47. 
 Bedrock, 96. 
 Bergson, 134, 156. 
 Bias, ii, 22, 27. 
 scientific, 21. 
 Biogenesis, 72. 
 Blood of man and mammals, 
 
 119. 
 Books, scientific, their varieties, 
 
 Boyle, Robert, 48. 
 Branco, 122. 
 Buffon, 115. 
 
 Celandine, 149. 
 Cell, the living, 60. 
 Chance, blind, 156. 
 Chapelle-aux-Saints, 125. 
 Chesterton on specialists, 15. 
 
 Church, the, and dogma, 29 
 Clavellina lepadiformis , 65. 
 Coloration of insects, 114. 
 Corporeal souls, 69. 
 Creation, 85, 107. 
 Creator, the, 90, 100, 107, 113, 
 H9, 133, J 46, 155- 
 
 Darwin, opinions on religion, 
 
 lOt. 
 Darwin and Modern Science, 
 
 1 10. 
 
 .Darwinism, 33, 92, 136, 143. 
 Darwinism To-day % 95. 
 Dendy, 105. 
 de Vries, no, 148. 
 Discontinuous nature, 145. 
 Dogma, 28. 
 
 scientific, 31. 
 
 and Darwin, 33. 
 Driesch, 32, 56, 59, 93, IOO, 
 
 111, 120, 131. 
 Dubois, 123. 
 Dwight, 128, 137. **"^ 
 
 Egyptians, pre-dynastic, 126. 
 Elements, chemical, 48, 51. 
 Embryology, experimental, 60. 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 115. 
 Energy, conservation of, 45. 
 Entelechy, 112. 
 Environment, effect of, 23. 
 Eradication of the unfittest, 141. 
 Eugenics, 141. 
 Evening primose. 149. 
 Evolution, 88. 
 
 161 II 
 
162 
 
 Facts and Theories 
 
 Evolution, law of, 47. 
 Experimental embryology, 60. 
 
 Facts, scientific, 42. 
 Fleischmann, 39, 103, 104. 
 Friedenthal, 119. 
 Frog-spawn, 61. 
 
 Gallon's polygon, 147. 
 Generation, spontaneous, 73. 
 Gravitation, law of, 45. 
 
 Haeckel, 17, 104, 138, 
 
 Haldane, 58. 
 
 Hammerstein, von, 91. 
 
 Harvey, 74. 
 
 Heidelberg jaw, 124. 
 
 Hertwig, 79. 
 
 Horse's foot, 105. 
 
 Huxley, 34, 43, 47, 50, 55, 82, 
 
 144- 
 Hypotheses, 49, 51. 
 
 Idol of the customary epithet, 
 
 12. 
 
 Idols of the market-place, 12. 
 Insects, coloration of, 114. 
 Intermediate links, 105. 
 
 Kellogg, 15, 22, 95, 105, 136. 
 Kingsley, C., 91. 
 Korschinsky, 109. 
 
 Lamarckianism, 100. 
 Lankester, 109, 134. 
 Laws of Nature, 42. 
 Le Dantec, 55. 
 Le Moustier, 125. 
 Life, explanations of, 54. 
 Links, missing, 122. 
 Lock, 148, 152. 
 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 18, 45. 
 
 McDougall, 131. 
 
 Maggots, 74. 
 
 Maher, 69. 
 
 MaR, origin of, 100, 118, 135. 
 
 Materia prima, 49. 
 
 Mendel, 151. 
 
 Meteor, introduction of life by, 
 
 81. 
 
 Micromerism, 116. 
 Missing links, 122. 
 Mivart, 12, 107. 
 Modifications, acquired, 23. 
 Monistic philosophy, 107, 139. 
 Moore, 59, 80. 
 
 Morality and mechanism, 56. 
 Morals, 137, 140. 
 Morgan, 36, 39, 103. 
 Moustier, Le, 125. 
 Miiller, Fritz, 104. 
 Mutations, 129, 148. 
 
 Naegeli, 112, 113. 
 
 Natural selection, 13, 24, 99, 
 
 107, no, 135. 
 " Nature," 40. 
 Neanderthal skull, 125. 
 Needham, 75. 
 Newman, 119. 
 
 (Enothera, 149. 
 
 Origin of Species, The, 98, 100. 
 
 Pangenesis, 99, 115, 135. 
 Pasteur, 75. 
 Peacock, the, 52. 
 Peas, 153. 
 Permanence, 88. 
 Phylogeny, 120. 
 Physiological processes, 62. 
 Pithecanthropus erectus, 123. 
 Plate, Prof., 155. 
 Poppy, Shirley, 149. 
 Pouchet, 75. 
 
 Radiobes, 78. 
 
 Recapitulation theory, 104. 
 Redi, 74. 
 Regeneration, 64 
 Reinke, 82, 85. 
 Roscoe, Sir Henry, 84. 
 Ruskin on science, 30. 
 
 Salamander, regeneration in, 65. 
 Saliva, secretion of, 62. 
 Saltations, 144. 
 
Index 
 
 63 
 
 Schafer, 87. 
 
 Scientific books, 34. 
 
 Secretion of saliva, 62. 
 
 Sedgwick, 132. 
 
 Sexual selection, 99, 113, 135. 
 
 Sharpe, Father, 73. 
 
 Shirley Poppy, 149. 
 
 Small variations, selective value 
 
 of, 24, 127, 144. 
 Smith, Elliot, 126. 
 Sollas, 123, 125. 
 Soul, 129, 130, 133. 
 
 corporeal, 69, 
 Spallanzani, 65, 75. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 83. 
 Spontaneous generation, 73, 87. 
 Stewart and Tait, 32, 138. 
 Suarez, 106. 
 
 Tait and Stewart, 32, 138. 
 
 Theophobia, 26. 
 
 Theories, uncertain, 94, 144. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, St., 69, 73, 
 
 106. 
 
 Times, 94. 
 Tinned meats, 78. 
 Transformism, 98, 103, 108, 135. 
 Trinil, 123. 
 Tyndall, 79. 
 
 Uncertain theories, 94. 
 Unseen universe, 32, 138. 
 
 Variations, origin of, 146. 
 
 small, 24, 127, 144. 
 Virchow, 17, 79. 
 Vitalism, 57. 
 Vulgarization, books of, 36. 
 
 Walker, 117. 
 
 Wallace, A. R., 17, 122, 132, 
 
 138. 
 
 Wasmann, 14, 26, 89, 90, 123. 
 Weismann, 23, 33, 86, 147. 
 Wilson, 59, 60. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON. 
 
 N. Sept. 1912. 
 
-ss3Sgw 
 
 LD2lA-6m-7 f '75 
 
 (S7525L.) 
 
 University ol J-a 
 Berkeley