EVOLUTION AND DOGMA J.A.ZAHM. . - '- I Stratford & Green 640 S, Main St., Los Angeles, - - Cal. . \ UCSB LIBRARr BY THE REVEREND J. A. ZAHM, Ph.D., C. S. C. Professor of Physics in the University of Notre Dame. Author of "Sound and Music,'.' "Bible. Science and Faith," "Catholic Science and Catholic Scientists," etc. TJdvra dtex6ff/j.r i ff voofr. ANAXAGORAS. THB rose-seed holds the glory of the rose ; Within its heart sweet summer fragrance bides. And there each petal's tender blush-tint hides, Till June bids nature all her charms disclose. The sleeping infant's heart and brain may hold The glorious power that in future years Shall move the listening world to smiles and tears 'Tis life potential that the days unfold. One act of Will Divine, and lo ! the seed Of growth was sown in young creation's heart. From Life Eternal hath all life its start And endless change as changeless law we read. CHICAGO D. H. MCBRIDE & co. 1896 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY J. A. ZAHM. \. THE WERNER OWPAfrt . I PHKTEBS BINOBB PREFATORY NOTE. PART Second of this work covers substantially the same ground as my lectures on Evolution, delivered before the Madison and Plattsburgh Sum- mer Schools and before the Winter School of New Orleans. Indeed, the chief difference between the subject-matter of Part Second, and that of the lec- tures as given at the Summer and Winter Schools, consists in the foot-notes which have been added to the text, and in a more exhaustive treatment of cer- tain topics herein discussed than was possible in the time allotted to them in the lecture hall. J. A. ZAHM, C. S. C. NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY, December 18, 1895. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGES INTRODUCTION. .... xiii-xxx PART I. EVOLUTION, PAST AND PRESENT. CHAPTER I. NATURE AND SCOPE OF EVOLUTION. EARLY Speculations Regarding Nature and Man Com- prehensiveness of Evolution Evolution Denned Literature of Evolution Freedom from Bias in the Discussion of Evolution 13-22 CHAPTER II. EARLY EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS. FIRST Studies of Nature Evolution Among the Greeks Aristotle's Observations Mediaeval Writers. . . . 23-30 CHAPTER III. FOSSILS AND GIANTS. EARLY Notions Regarding Fossils Italian Geologists on Fossils Legends About Giants True Significance of Fossils Controversy in the French Academy. . . 31-40 (7) 8 E VOL U TION A ND DOGMA. CHAPTER IV. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. PAGBS EARLY Views Regarding Abiogenesis Fathers and School- men on Abiogenesis Redi's Experiments Later Researches General Advance in Science Chemistry and Astronomy Testimony of Biology 4'~54 CHAPTER V. FROM LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. FIRST Materials for the Controversy Bacon and Kant Linnaeus and Buffon Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck Species and Varieties 55~64 CHAPTER VI. CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. DARWIN'S " Origin of Species " Herbert Spencer and Com- peers Science and Philosophy Anticipations of Discoveries Species and Creation Evolutionists and Anti-Evolutionists No Via Media Possible The Miltonic Hypothesis Views of Agassiz Evolu- tion 65-83 CHAPTER VII. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. SYSTEMS of Classification Cuvier and His Successors Points of View Taxonomic Divisions Plato's "Grand Ideas " Cuvier on Species Definition of Species Difficulties Regarding Species Agassiz' Views Species in the Making De Candolle and Baird Evidences of Organic Evolution A Philological Illus- tration Tree-like System of Classification The Ar- gument from Structure and Morphology Rudimentary Organs Argument from Embryology Amphioxus TABLE OF CONTENTS. 9 PACKS and Loligo Meaning of Recapitulation Geograph- ical Distribution of Organisms Facts of Geological Succession The Demonstrative Evidence of Evolu- tion Generalized Types Probability of Evolution Special Creation and Evolution 84-139 CHAPTER VIII. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. DECLARATIONS of And- Evolutionists Historical and Ar- chaeological Objections Egyptian Mummies Testi- mony of the Monuments Evidence from Plants Views of Agassiz, Barrande and Others Misappre- hension of the Nature of Evolution, and Answer to Objections Existence and Cause of Variations Paucity of Transitional Forms Variations and the Formation of Fossiliferous Deposits Romanes on Difficulties Attending Preservation of Fossils Small Percentage of Fossil Forms Extraordinary Interca- lary Forms Imperfection of the Geological Record Time, Change and Equilibrium Paleontology Com- pared With Egyptology and Assyriology Sterility of Species When Crossed Morphological and Physiolog- ical Species True Significance of the Term "Spe- cies " Factors of Evolution Evolutionary Theories and Their Difficulties The Ideal Theory. . . . 140-202 PART II. EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. CHAPTER I. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY, ERRORS IN DOC- TRINE AND MISTAKES IN TERMINOLOGY. EVOLUTION of the Evolution Theory Evolution and Dar- winism Evolution, Atheism and Nihilism Evolu- 10 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. PAGES tion and Faith Evolution and Science Ignorance of Terms Materialism and Dualism Pantheism Dogma of Creation The Vatican Council on Crea- tion Meaning of the Word "Nature" Nature and God. 205-229 CHAPTER II. MONISM AND EVOLUTION. H^ECKEL and Monism Hseckel as a Scientist Haeckel's Nature -Philosophy Five Propositions of Haeckel God and the Soul Organic and Inorganic Matter The Religion of the Future Hseckel's Limitations Verbal Jugglery False Analogy Type of a Class. 230-253 CHAPTER III. AGNOSTICISM AND EVOLUTION. NATURE and Scope of Agnosticism Late Developments of Agnosticism Mansel, Huxley and Romanes Doc- ta Ignorantia Agnosticism as a Via Media Origin of the Universe Spencer's Unknowable Max Miil- ler on Agnosticism Sources of Agnosticism Infinite Time Infinite Space Mysteries of Nature Chris- tian Agnosticism Gods of the Positivist and the Ag- nostic. 254-278 CHAPTER IV. THEISM AND EVOLUTION. EVOLUTION and Faith T- Teachings of St. Augustine Views of the Angelic Doctor Seminales Rationes Creation According to Scripture The Divine Administration Efficient Causality of Creatures Occasionalism An- thropomorphism Divine Interference Science and Creation Darwin's Objection Limitations of Spe- cialists Evolution and Catholic Teaching The Scho- lastic Doctrine of Species Milton and Ray. . . 279-319 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER V. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE. PAGES SPONTANEOUS Generation The Nature of Life The Germ of Life Abiogenesis Artificial Production of Life Protoplasm 320-339 CHAPTER VI. THE SIMIAN ORIGIN OF MAN. THE Missing Link The Human Soul Creation of Man's Body Mivart's Theory Angelic Doctor on Creation of Adam Views of Cardinal Gonzales Opinions of Other Writers Interpretation Not Revelation. . 340-368 CHAPTER VII. TELEOLOGY, OLD AND NEW. THE Doctrine of Final Causes A Newer Teleology Evo- lution and Teleology Design and Purpose in Na- ture 369-377 CHAPTER VIII. RETROSPECT, REFLECTIONS AND CON- CLUSION. EVOLUTION Not a New Theory Teachings of Greek Phi- losophers Teleological Ideas of Anaxagoras and Aristotle Influence of Aristotle { JJarwinism Not Evolution: Evolution in the Future Ejolution Not Antagonistic to Religion^- Objections Against New Theories Galileo and the Copernican Theory Con- servatism in Science Conflict of Opinions Beneficial Evolution and Creationism Errors in the Infancy of Science Science Not Omnipotent Bankruptcy of Science Conquests of Science Evidences of De- sign and Purpose Rudimentary Organs Evolution, Scripture'and Theology r Evolution and Special Crea- tion Genesiac Days, Flood, Fossils and Antiquity of Man Eminent Catholics on Evolution Faith Has Nothing to Apprehend from Evolution Misappre- hensions Regarding Evolution .Evolution, an Ennob^ (Un^ConceptionT) 378-438 PART I. INTRODUCTION. " II faut savoir douter ou il faut, assurer ou il faut, et se soumettre ou il faut. Qui ne fait ainsi n'entend pas la force de la raison. II y en a qui faillent centre ces trois principes ; ou en assurant tout comme demonstratif, manque de se connaitre en demonstration ; ou en doutant de tout, manque de savoir ou il faut se soumettre ; ou en se soumettant en tout, manque de savoir ou il faut juger." Pascal, "Pensees." " We must know when to doubt, when to feel certain, when to submit. Who fails in this understands not the force of reason. There are those who offend against these three rules, either by accepting everything as evidence, for want of knowing what evidence is ; or by doubting every thing, for want of knowing when to submit ; or by yielding in everything, for want of knowing when to use their judgment." INTRODUCTION. T$ itev yap cdjjBcl iravra awatiei ra vrrdpxovra, TO Si -tyevSel TO.XV Siafyuvtl rafaflii. ARISTOTLE. "For with the truth all things that exist are in harmony, but with the false the true at once disagrees." THE present work is devoted chiefly to the dis- cussion of three topics which, although in a measure independent one of the other, are, never- theless, so closely allied that they may be viewed as parts of one and the same subject. The first of these topics embraces a brief sketch of the evolutionary theory from its earliest beginnings to the present time ; the second takes up the pros and the cons of the theory as it now stands ; while the third deals with the reciprocal and little-understood relations be- tween Evolution and Christian faith. It is often supposed by those who should know better, that the Evolution theory is something which is of very recent origin ; something about which little or nothing was known before the publication of Charles Darwin's celebrated work, "The Origin of Species." Frequently, too, it is confounded with Darwinism, or some other modern attempt to ex- plain the action of Evolution, or determine the fac- tors which have been operative in the development of the higher from the lower forms of life. The (xiii) xiv EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. purpose of the first six chapters of this book is to show that such views are unwarranted ; that Evolu- tion, far from being of recent date, is a theory whose germs are discernible in the earliest dawn of philo- sophic thought. In the two following chapters are given, in brief compass, some of the principal argu- ments which are usually adduced in favor of, or against, Evolution. These chapters, together with those which precede them, constitute Part First of the present volume ; Part Second being wholly devoted to the consideration of the third topic, namely, Evolution in its relation to Catholic Dogma. For avowed Christians, to whatever creed they may belong, the subject relates to matters of grave import and abiding interest, and this import and interest, great as they are from the nature of the theme itself, have been enhanced a hundred fold by the protracted and violent controversies to which Evolution has given rise, no less than by the many misconceptions which yet prevail, and the many doubts which still remain to be dissipated. Can a Catholic, can a Christian of any denomi- nation, consistently with the faith he holds dear, be an evolutionist ; or is there something in the theory that is so antagonistic to faith and Scripture as to render its acceptance tantamount to the denial of the fundamental tenets of religious belief ? The question, as we shall learn, has been answered both affirmatively and negatively. But, as is evident, the response cannot be both yea and nay. It must be one or the other, and the query now is, which an- swer is to be given, the negative or the affirmative ? INTRODUCTION. XV Whatever may be the outcome of the controver- sy, whatever may be the results of future research and discovery, there is absolutely no room for ap- prehension respecting the claims and authority of Scripture and Catholic Dogma. Science will never be able to contradict aught that God has revealed ; for it is not possible that the Divine works and the Divine words should ever be in any relation to each other but one of the most perfect harmony. Doubts and difficulties may obtain for a time; the forces of error may for a while appear triumphant ; the testimonies of the Lord may be tried to the utter- most ; but in the long run it will always be found, as has so often been the case in the past, that the Bible and faith, like truth, will come forth un- harmed and intact from any ordeal, however severe, to which they may be subjected. For error is im- potent against truth ; the pride of man's intellect is of no avail against the wisdom of the Almighty. False teaching and false views of nature are but the vain projections of the imaginations of men ; false theo- ries and false hypotheses are often no more than what St. Augustine aptly designates "the great ab- surdities of great teachers magna magnorum deli- ramenta doctorum. How true, indeed, the words of the old distich: Nostra damus quum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est, Et quum falsa damus, nil nisi nostra damus. The fictions of opinions are ephemeral, but the testimonies of the Lord are everlasting. Opinionum comment a delet dies, says Cicero. This utterance of XVi EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the old Roman philosopher applies with singular point to all those conjectures of scientists, philoso- phers and exegetists, who fail to make their views a true reflex of the teachings of nature, natures indicia, or who promulgate theories manifestly an- tagonistic to the declarations of faith or of the In- spired Record. A striking illustration of the unwisdom of com- mitting one's self to premature notions, or unproved hypotheses, especially before all the evidence in the case is properly weighed, is afforded in the long and animated controversy respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch. Many reasons have been assigned by the higher critics why it could not have been the production of Moses, to whom it has so long been ascribed by a venerable tradition, and one of the objections urged against the Mosaic authorship was, that written language was unknown in the age dur- ing which the Jewish legislator is reputed to have lived. Now, however, the distinguished philologist and archaeologist, Prof. Sayce, comes forward and proves, beyond doubt or quibble, that the conten- tion of the higher critics respecting the authorship of the Bible is ill-founded. So sure, indeed, is he, whereof he speaks, that he does not hesitate to assert " not only that Moses could have written the Pentateuch, but that it would have been something like a miracle if he had not done so." Even in Germany, the great stronghold of the Higher Criticism, we meet with the expression of similar views, and that, too, on the part of such noted Biblical scholars as Rupprecht, and Dr. INTRODUCTION. xvii Adolph Zahn of Stuttgart. The former, as a re- sult of his investigations, declares positively " that the Pentateuch dates back to the Mosaic period of Divine revelation, and that its author is Moses himself, the greatest prophet in Israel." And as to the groundless assertion that writing was unknown at the time of the Hebrew law-giver, we have the deliberate statement of Sayce that "Canaan, in the Mosaic age, like the countries which surrounded it, was fully as literary as was Europe in the time of the Renaissance." ' Such and similar instances of premature claims for unwarranted hypotheses, should teach us the wisdom of practicing a proper reserve in respect of them, and of suspending judgment until we can yield assent which is based on unimpeachable evidence. But this does not imply that we should go to the extreme of conservatism, or display a fanatical obsti- nacy in the assertion of traditional views which are demonstrably untenable. There is a broad reach between ultra-conservatism and reprehensible liber- alism or arrogant temerity. In this golden mean 1 See The Contemporary Review, pp. 480-481, for Octo- ber, 1895. Cf., also, by the same author, The Higher Criti- cism and the Verdict of the Monuments, chapter n, and Literature of the Old Testament in "The People's Bible History," mentioned later. In the last-named contribution to Biblical lore, the erudite Oxford divine affirms, and without fear of contradiction, " that one of the first and most important results of the discoveries which have been pouring in upon us during the last few years, is the proof that Canaan was a land of readers and writers long before the Israelites entered it, and that the Mosaic age was one of high literary activity. So far as the use of writing is concerned, there is now no longer any reason for doubting that the earlier books of the Bible might have been contemporaneous with the events they profess to record." xviii EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. there is ample field for research and speculation, without any danger on the one side of trenching on faith, or of putting a bar to intellectual progress on the other. The Fathers of the early Church and the Schoolmen of mediaeval times, show us what liberty of thought the Catholic may enjoy in the discussion of all questions outside the domain of revealed truth. I am not unaware of the fact that Evolution has had suspicion directed against it, and odium cast upon it, because of its materialistic implications and its long anti-Christian associations. I know it has been banned and tabooed because it has received the cordial imprimatur of the advocates of Agnosticism, and the special commendation of the defenders of Atheism ; that it has long been identified with false systems of philosophy, and made to render yeoman service in countless onslaughts against religion and the Church, against morality and free-will, against God and His providential government of the uni- verse. But this does not prove that Evolution is ill-founded or that it is destitute of all elements of truth. Far from it. It is because Evolution con- tains so large an element of truth, because it ex- plains countless facts and phenomena which are explicable on no other theory, that it has met with such universal favor, and that it has proved such a powerful agency in the dissemination of error and in giving verisimilitude to the most damnable of doctrines. Such being the case, ours is the duty to withdraw the truth from its enforced and unnatural alliance, and to show that there is a sense in which INTRODUCTION. xix Evolution can be understood in which it must be understood, if it repose on a rational basis in which, far from contributing to the propagation of false views of nature and God, it is calculated to render invaluable aid in the cause of both science and religion. From being an agency for the pro- mulgation of Monism, Materialism and Pantheism, it should be converted into a power which makes for righteousness and the exaltation of holy faith and undying truth. It were puerile to imagine that religion has any- thing to fear from the advance of science, or from Evolution receiving all the prominence which the facts in its favor will justify. Science and religion, revelation and nature, mutually supplement one an- other, and it would be against the best interests of both religion and science to do aught that would divorce them, or prevent their remaining the close allies which Infinite Wisdom designed them to be. " Logically regarded, the advance of science, far from having weakened religion has immeasurably strengthened it." So wrote shortly before his death one who, during the best years of his life, was an ardent Darwinian and an avowed agnostic. And the same gifted votary of science declared, that " The teleology of revelation supplements that of nature, and so, to the spiritually minded man, they logically and mutually corroborate one another." ' It behooves us to realize that in our age of doubt and intellectual confusion, when so many seek in the gloaming what is visible only in the effulgence of the 1 " Thoughts on Religion," p. 179, by George Romanes. E.-xa XX EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. midday sun, when the skeptic sees an interrogation point at the end of every proposition, and when un- certainty and mystery hover over so much we should like to know it behooves us, I say, to realize, that we must have recourse to everything that is calcu- lated to dispel the darkness with which we are sur- rounded, and to relieve the harrowing doubts with which so -many of our fellow men are oppressed. But more than this. Important as it is for us to bear in mind that we live in an age of doubt and disquietude, it is none the less important for us not to lose sight of the fact that our lot is cast in an age of dissent and conflict. Religion is assailed on all sides; principles we hold most dear are treated with contumely and scorn, and the very foundations of belief in a personal Creator, and in the immortality of the soul, are systematically attacked by the enemies of God and His Church. If, then, we would accomplish anything in the conflict which is now raging so fiercely all around us, it is imperative that we should provide ourselves with the most approved means of attack and defense, and that we should be able not only to guard the stronghold of the faith, but that we should likewise be equipped and ready to meet our enemies out in the open. In these days of Maxim guns, old worn-out blunderbusses are worse than useless. To attempt to cope with the modern spirit of error by means of antiquated and discarded weapons of offense and defense, were as foolish as to pit a Roman trireme or a mediaeval galley against a modern steel cruiser or the latest type of battleship. IN TRODUC TION. xxi To pass from the language of metaphor to lan- guage simple and unadorned, our great, or more truthfully our greatest enemy, in the intellectual world to-day, is Naturalism variously known as Ag- nosticism, Positivism, Empiricism which, as Mr. Balfour well observes, " is in reality the only system which ultimately profits by any defeats which the- ology may sustain, or which may be counted on to flood the spaces from which the tide of religion has receded." ' It is Naturalism that, allying itself with Evolution, or some of the many theories of Evolution which have attracted such widespread attention during the last half century, has counted such a formidable fol- lowing that the friends of religion and Scripture might well despair of final victory, did they not know the invincibility of truth, and that, however it may be obscured for a time, or however much it may appar- ently be weakened, it is sure to prevail and in the end issue from the contest triumphant. In writing the present work I have ever had be- fore my mind the words of wisdom of our Holy Father, Leo XIII, concerning the duty incumbent on all Catholics, to turn the discoveries of science into so many means of illuminating and corroborating the teachings of faith and the declarations of the Sacred Text. In public and in private, in season and out of season, in briefs, allocutions and encyclicals, he has constantly and strenuously urged a thorough study of science in all its branches. But nowhere does he insist more strongly on the profound study of 1 "The Foundations of Belief," p. 6. xxii E VOL U TION A ND D OGMA . science, than in his two masterly encyclicals " jEterni Patris " and " Providentissimus Deus." In these noble utterances both the clergy and the laity are stimulated to take an active part in the contest which is everywhere so furious ; " to repulse hostile assaults," and that, too, by " modern methods of attack," and by " turning the arms of a perverted science into weapons of defense." He tells us that " a knowledge of natural science will be of very great assistance in detecting attacks on the Sacred Books and in refuting them." For " attacks of this kind," the venerable Pontiff remarks, " bear- ing as they do on matters of sensible experience, are peculiarly dangerous both to the masses and also to the young who are beginning their literary studies." In reading these precious documents one would almost think that the Holy Father had in mind the manifold materialistic hypotheses, so dangerous to the faith of the uninstructed, which have grouped themselves around the much-abused theory of con- temporary Evolution. For, is it not a matter of daily observation and experience, that there is an in- creasing number of pious but timid souls who are sorely distressed by doubts which have been occa- sioned by the current theories of Transformism ? They imagine, because it is continually dinned into 1 "Quoniam igitur tantum ii possunt religioni importare commodi, quibus cum catholicae professionis gratia felicem indol- em ingenii benignum numen impertiit ; ideo in hac acerrima agi- tatione studiorum, qua Scripturas quoquo modoattingunt, aptum sibi quisque eligant studii genus, in quo aliquando excellentes obiecta in illas improbse scientiae tela, non sine gloria, repellant." From the encyclical " Providentissimus Deus." IN TRODUC riON. xxiii their ears, that there is a mortal antagonism between the principles of faith and the teachings of Evolu- tion. They are assured, moreover, not only that such an antagonism actually exists, but also that it is based on undeniable facts, on absolute demonstra- tion. They are told that if they wish to be consis- tent, if they wish to obey the certain behests of reason, they must choose between Evolution and faith, between science and superstition. The re- sult is, too often, alas ! that they make shipwreck of their faith, and plunge headlong into the dark and hopeless errors of Naturalism. But not only have I been ever mindful of the teachings of the venerable Pontiff, Leo XIII ; I have also, to the best of my ability, striven to follow the path marked out by those great masters of Catholic philosophy and theology, St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquin. I have always had before me their declarations respecting creation, and the man- ner in which we may conceive the world to have been evolved from its pristine chaotic condition to its present state of order and loveliness. And to make my task easier, I have had frequent recourse to those two modern luminaries of science and faith, the profound Jesuit, Father Harper, and the eminent Dominican, Cardinal Gonzales. To the " Metaphys- ics of the School," by the former, and to " La Biblia y la Ciencia," by the latter, I am specially in- debted for information and points of view that it would be difficult to find elsewhere. Both of these distinguished scholars evince a rare mastery of the subjects which they discuss with such lucidity, and XXI V B VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . one may safely follow them with the utmost confi- dence, and with the full assurance that ample justice will always be done to the claims of both science and Dogma. In the present work I have studiously avoided everything that could justly be construed as an ex- aggeration of the results achieved by science, or as a minimizing of the dogmatic teachings of the Church of God. I have endeavored to present Catholic doctrines and scientific tenets in their true light, and to exhibit the mutual relations of one to the other in the fairest possible manner. Purely ex parte statements and special pleadings are alien from a pro- fessedly didactic work, and hence my constant effort has been to avoid all bias, to present impartially and dispassionately both sides of controverted questions, and to favor only such conclusions as seemed to be warranted by indisputable evidence. The Church is committed to no theory as to the origin of the world or its inhabitants. Hence, as a Catholic, I am bound to no theory of Evolution or of special creation, except in so far as there may be positive evidence in behalf of such theory. As a man of science I must estimate, as everyone else must estimate, the merits or demerits of any hy- pothesis respecting the genesis and development of the divers forms of life, simply and solely by the arguments which can be advanced in its support. I have no prepossessions for Evolution ; nor have I any prejudice against special creation. If it can be demonstrated that Evolution is the modus creandi which the Almighty has been pleased to adopt, I INTR OD UC TION. xxv shall rejoice that one of the greatest of the world- problems has at length received a solution. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that the traditional view of special creation is the one to which we must give our adhesion, I shall rejoice equally, for the sole desire of every student of nature, as well as the sole desire of every son of the Church, should be the truth, and the truth whole and undefiled. I have, then, no pet theory to exploit, nothing sensational to defend, nothing to uphold that is in- consistent with the strictest orthodoxy or the most rigid Ultramontanism. My sole aim and purpose in writing this work has been, I repeat it, to remove misconceptions, to dispel confusion, to explain diffi- culties, to expose error, to eliminate false interpre- tation, to allay doubt, to quiet conscience, to benefit souls. How far I have succeeded remains for others to judge. That in the discussion of so many difficult and delicate questions, I may have made statements that could be improved, or should be somewhat modified, is quite possible. But if, in anything, I have been wanting in accuracy of expression ; if I have misstated a fact of science, or misapprehended a Dogma of faith ; I shall consider it a special favor to have my attention directed to what, on my part, is wholly an unintentional error. It will not do to say, as has been said, that the discussion, whether from the platform or elsewhere, of such topics as constitute the main feature of this work, is inopportune or inexpedient. If the rea- sons already assigned did not suffice to justify the expediency and opportuneness of such discussions, xxvi EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the example given by the International Catholic Scientific Congress ought to dispel all doubts that might be still entertained on the subject. For on every occasion the Congress has yet assembled, the discussion of evolutionary topics has been given special prominence. And the interest exhibited in such discussions was not confined to laymen and specialists, but it was shared in by distinguished prelates and scholars of international reputation. They recognized the necessity of having all possi- ble light on a question of such widespread inter- est ; of seeking by all possible means to attain the truth respecting a subject which has been so prolific of error and has proved such an agency for evil. What these learned and zealous men deemed it wise to do, in the cultured capitals of the Old World, we certainly can and ought to do in this land of ours, where ignorance of the subject in question is more dense and where knowledge is more needed. The fact that certain propositions in this work have given rise to such misunderstandings, and have led to such misdirected controversy and such useless logo- machy as have prevailed during some months past, is the best evidence that there is yet much to be learned regarding what is so often incontinently condemned without a hearing. The great trouble now, as it has always been, is the very general ignorance of the clench on the part of those who pose as critics of Evolution and of evo- lutionary theories. Without a sufficient knowledge of the facts they venture to discuss, they are often led to make statements which a wider acquaintance with IN TR OD UC TION. xx vii nature compels them to retract. Evolution, how- ever, has not fared differently from the other grand generalizations that now constitute the foundations and pillars which support the noble and imposing edifice of science. The Copernican theory, it will be remembered, was denounced as anti-Scriptural ; Newton's discovery of universal gravitation was con- demned as atheistic ; while the researches of geolo- gists were decried as leading to infidelity, and as being " an awful evasion of the testimony of Reve- lation." That the theory of Evolution should be obliged to pass through the same ordeal as awaited other attempts at scientific progress, is not surprising to those who are familiar with the history of science; but it is not a little strange that there are yet among us those who derive such little profit from the lessons of the past, and who still persist in the futile attempt to solve by metaphysics problems which, by their very nature, can be worked out only by the methods of induction. Dr. Whewell, the erudite author of the " History of the Inductive Sciences," was wont to declare that every great discovery in science had to pass through three stages. " First people said, ' It is absurd ! ' then they said, ' It is contrary to the Bible ! ' and finally they said, 'We always knew it was so!' 1 The truth of this observation of the famous Master of Trinity is well exemplified in the case of Evolu- tion. There are some who still denounce it as con- trary to reason ; there are others who honestly believe that it contradicts Scripture ; while there are not a few, and the number is rapidly augmenting, who are xxviii EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. convinced that the germs of the Evolution theory are to be found in Genesis, and that its fundamental principles were recognized by Aristotle, St. Augus- tine and St. Thomas of Aquin. The final result of the controversy belongs to the future. If the the- ory which has excited such animosity, and provoked such unbridled disputes, be founded on the facts of nature, it will ultimately prevail, as truth itself will prevail in the end ; if, however, it repose only on assumption and unsupported hypotheses, if it have no better foundation than a shifting reef, it is doomed, sooner or later, to the fate which awaits everything that is unwarranted by nature or is at variance with truth. Strange as it may appear, there are still some well-meaning people who foolishly imagine, that science, when too profoundly studied, is a source of danger to faith. Such a notion is so silly as scarcely to deserve mention. Pope's well-known verse : " A little learning is a dangerous thing," has its appli- cation here, as in so many other instances. The familiar quotation from Bacon : "A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to Atheism, but depth in phi- losophy bringeth men's minds about to religion," ex- presses a truth which holds good for science as well as for philosophy. Illustrations of the truth of the second part of this statement are found in the lives of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Linnaeus, Newton, Cuvier, Cauchy, Agassiz, Barrande, Leverrier and numberless others of the world's most illustrious discoverers and most profound thinkers. The great Linnaeus, than whom no one ever studied nature INTRODUCTION, xxix more carefully or deeply, saw in all created things, even in what was apparently the most insignificant, evidences of the power and wisdom and goodness of God, which to him were simply overwhelming. 1 And the immortal Pasteur, whose recent death a whole world mourns, whose exhaustive study of nature has been a subject of universal comment and admiration, did not hesitate towards the end of his glorious ca- reer to declare, that careful and profound study in- spires in one the deepest and the most childlike faith, a faith like unto that of a people who are proverbial for the earnestness and simplicity of their religious spirit, the faith of the pious and unspoiled inhabi- tants of Catholic Brittany. 2 In one of his sublime pensfcs, Pascal, applying the method of Descartes to the demonstration of faith, and causing this instrument of science to con- found all false science, declares that " we must be- gin by showing that religion is not contrary to rea- son ; then that it is venerable, to give respect for it ; then to make it lovable, and to make good men hope that it is true ; then to show that it is true." 3 Some- 1 In the introduction to his " Systema Naturae," the Swedish botanist writes: " Deum sempiternum, immensum, omniscientem, omnipotentem, expergefactus a tergo transeuntem vidi et ob- stupui. Legi aliquot ejus vestigia per creata rerum, in quibus omnibus, etiam in minimis ut fere nullis, quae vis ! quanta sap- ientia ! quam inextricabilis perfectio ! " 2 '' Quand on a bien e"tudie"," the renowned savant avers, " on revient a la foi du paysan breton. Si j'avais etudie plus en- core, j'aurais la foi de la paysanne bretonne." 3 " II faut commencer par montrer, que la religion n'est point contraire a la raison; ensuite qu'elle est venerable, en donner respect ; la rendre ensuite aimable, faire souhaiter aux bons qu'elle fut vraie ; et puis, montrer qu'elle est vraie." XXX EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. thing akin to the idea contained in this beautiful passage, has been uppermost in my mind in the pen- ning of the following pages. A kindred thought has been dominant in every topic discussed. It has given me courage to undertake, and strength to com- plete, a work which otherwise would never have been attempted, and which, during the whole course of its preparation, I would fain have seen intrusted to more competent hands. My sole, my ardent desire, has been to show that there is nothing in true sci- ence, nothing in any of the theories duly accredited by science and warranted by the facts of nature, nothing in Evolution, when properly understood, which is contrary to Scripture or Catholic teaching ; that, on the contrary, when viewed in the light of Christian philosophy and theology, there is much in Evolution to admire, much that is ennobling and inspiring, much that illustrates and corroborates the truths of faith, much that may be made ancillary to revelation and religion, much that throws new light on the mysteries of creation, much that unifies and coordinates what were otherwise disconnected and disparate, much that exalts our ideas of creative power and wisdom and love, much, in fine, that makes the whole circle of the sciences tend, as never before, ad major em Dei gloriam. PART I. EVOLUTION, PAST AND PRESENT. CHAPTER I. NATURE AND SCOPE OF EVOLUTION. Early Speculation Regarding Nature and Man. FROM time immemorial philosophers and stu- 'dents of nature have exhibited a special interest in all questions pertaining to the origin of man, of the earth on which he lives and of the universe to which he belongs. The earliest speculations of our Aryan forefathers were about the beginnings of things. Questions of cosmology, as we learn from the tablets preserved in the great library of Assur- banipal in Nineveh, received their meed of attention from the sages of ancient Assyria and Babylonia. And long before Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldea had reached the zenith of their power, and before they had attained that intellectual eminence which so distinguished them among the nations of the ancient world, the peoples of Accad and Sumer had raised and discussed questions of geogony and cosmogony. They were a philosophical race, these old Accadians and Sumerians, and, as we learn from the records which are constantly being exhumed in Mesopotamia, ('3) 14 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. they had a breadth of view and an acuteness of intel- lect, which, considering their environment and the age in which they lived, were simply astonishing. Well have they been called " the teachers of Greece," for all the subtlety of thought and keenness of per- ception, all the love of science, art and letters, which were so characteristic of the Greek mind, were pos- sessed in an eminent degree by those old pre-Baby- lonian masters who thought and taught and wrote many long generations before Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, untold centuries before Thales taught and Homer sang. And the musings of the mystic Hindu along the banks of the Indus and the Ganges ; the meditations of the Egyptian priest in the tem- ples of Memphis and Heliopolis ; the speculations of the wise men of Attica and Ionia, all turned more or less on the same topics which possessed such a fascination for the sages of old Chaldea, and which were discussed with such zest in the schools of Nineveh and Babylon. Whence are we? Whither are we going? Whence this earth of ours and the plants and animals which make it their home ? Whence the sun, and moon, and stars those distant and brilliant, yet mys- terious representatives of our visible universe? Did they have a beginning, or have they existed from all eternity ? And if they had a beginning, are they the same now as they were when they first came into existence, or have they undergone changes, and, if so, what are the nature and the factors of such changes? Are the development and mutations of things to be referred to the direct and immediate NA TURE AND SCOPE OF E VOL UTION. 15 action of an all-powerful Creator, or are they rather to be attributed to the operation of certain laws of nature laws which admit of determination by human reason, and which, when known, serve as a norm in our investigations and experiments in the organic and inorganic worlds ? Are there special in- terventions on the part of a Supreme Being in the government of the universe, and are we to look for frequent, if not constant, exhibitions of the mirac- ulous in the natural world ? Has God's first creation of the universe and all it contains, of the earth and all that inhabits it, been followed by other creations at divers periods, and if so, when and where has such creative power been manifested ? These are a few of the many questions about the genesis and development of things which men asked themselves in the infancy of our race. And these are questions which philosophers are still putting to themselves, and which, notwithstanding the many thousands of years during which they have been under discussion, have to-day a greater and more absorbing interest than in any former period of human history. It is beside my present purpose to enumerate the various theories in science to which the discus- sion of the questions just propounded have given rise, or to dwell on the divers systems of philosophy and religion which have been the natural outgrowth of such or similar discussions. Materialism, Pantheism, Emanationism, Hylozoism, Traducianism, Atheism and other isms innumerable have always been, as they are to-day, more or less closely identified with many 16 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. of the speculations regarding the origin and consti- tution of the visible universe. And despite the great advances which have been made in our knowl- edge of nature and of the laws which govern the organic and inorganic worlds, many of the questions which so agitated the minds of the philosophers of the olden time, are still as far from solution as they were when first proposed. New facts and new dis- coveries have placed the old problems in a new light, but have diminished none of their difficulties. On the contrary, the brilliant search-light of modern sci- ence has disclosed new difficulties which were before invisible, and proved that those which were consid- ered before are in many respects far graver than was formerly imagined. With the advance of science, and the progress of discovery, many problems, it is true, find their solution, but others, hydra-like, arise in their place and obtrude themselves on the scien- tist and philosopher, and will not down until they have received due recognition. Comprehensiveness of Evolution. To answer some, if not all, of the questions just alluded to ; to explain the phenomena of the cosmos ; to solve the problems of life and mind, and throw light on the beginning and development of things, recourse is now had to a system of philosophy and science which, within the last few decades, has at- tained a special vogue under the name of Evolution- ism, or, as its adepts prefer to call it, Evolution. Evolution, we are assured, is the magic word which explains all difficulties ; the " open sesame " which ad- NA TURE AND SCOPE OF E VOL UTION. 17 mits us into the innermost arcana of nature. We are told of the Evolution of the earth, of the Evolution of the solar system, of the Evolution of the sidereal universe. Men discourse on the Evolution of life, the Evolution of the organic and inorganic worlds, the Evolution of the human race. We have simi- larly the Evolution of society, government, religion, language, art, science, architecture, music, literature, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and the various other branches of knowledge as well. We now talk of the Evolution of the steamboat, the locomotive, the dynamo, the machine-gun, the telescope, the yacht and the bicycle. All that ministers to com- fort, luxury and fashion are objects of Evolution. Hence it is that we hear people speak of the Evolu- tion of the modern house-furnace and the cooking- stove ; the Evolution of the coach and the dog-cart ; the Evolution of seal-skin sacques, high-heeled shoes and of that periodically recurrent bete noire of fond husbands and indulgent papas the latest pat- tern of a lady's hat. Anything which has developed or improved and what has not ? is spoken of as having come under the great law of Evolution, and, presto ! all is explained, and any little enigmas which before may have existed instantly vanish. As is evident from the foregoing, Evolution may mean a great deal, or it may mean little or nothing. It is manifestly a term of very general application and may often be very misleading. Properly under- stood it may be of signal service to the searcher after truth, while, on the contrary, if it is constituted an ever-ready deus ex niachina, capable of solving all 18 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. difficulties, it may lead to inextricable confusion and tend to obscure what it was designed to illumine. It is obvious, too, that we must restrict the meaning of the word Evolution, for it does not come within the scope of our work to speak of Evolution in gen- eral. We have to consider only a particular phase of it, and for this purpose it is important to have a definition of what is meant by Evolution. Evolution Defined. Herbert Spencer, who is regarded by his admirers as the great philosopher of Evolution, defines it to be a "change from an indefinite, incoherent homogene- ity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; through continuous differentiations and integrations. 1 And the operation of Evolution," continues the same au- thority, "is absolutely universal. Whether it be in the development of the earth, in the development of life upon its surface, in the development of society, of government, of manufactures, of commerce, of lan- guage, of literature, science, art, this same advance from the simple to the complex, through successive differentiations, holds uniformly. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest re- sults of civilization, we shall find that the transfor- mation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in which Evolution essentially consists." 2 Spencer's definition, however, exact as it may be deemed, embraces far more than we shall have occasion to consider, for my task shall be confined 111 First Principles," p. 216. 2 Id. p. 148. 1VA TURE AND SCOPE OF E VOL UTION. 19 to the Evolution of the earth and its inhabitants, and only incidentally shall I refer to cosmic Evolution. Indeed, properly speaking, the Evolution of which I shall treat shall be limited almost entirely to organic Evolution, or the Evolution of the plants and ani- mals which live or have lived on this earth of ours. All references, therefore, to the Evolution of the earth itself from its primeval nebulous state, and to the Evolution of organic from inorganic matter, will be mostly by way of illustration, and in order to show that there is no breach of continuity between organic Evolution, which is my theme, and inorganic or cosmic Evolution. Literature of Evolution. The subject is a vast one, and to treat it ade- quately would require far more space than I have at my disposal. It has indeed a literature and a bibli- ography of its own a literature whose proportions are already stupendous, and are daily, and with amazing rapidity, becoming more collossal. For the past third of a century, since the publication of Darwin's " Origin of Species," it has been uppermost in the minds of everyone given to thinking on seri- ous subjects. Everybody talks about Evolution, and more write about it than about any other one subject. More than five thousand distinct works, relating to Goethe, who died in 1832, have, it is estimated, already been printed, and additions are continually being made to this enormous number. Peignot, who wrote in 1822, declared that up to his day more than eighty thousand distinct works had appeared on the 20 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . history of France. The number of volumes that have been written on our Civil War can soon be enumerated by myriads, and still other works on the same subject are being published in rapid succession. Startling, however, as these figures may appear, they are insignificant in comparison with those relating to the subject of Evolution. In every language of the civilized world, books, brochures, and maga- zine articles innumerable, have been written on Evo- lution, and the number of publications of various kinds specially treating of this topic is now almost beyond computation. Such being the case, it will evidently be impos- sible for me to do more than give a brief sketch of the history of Evolution, and of its status to-day in the world of thought, religious, scientific and philo- sophic. It is something that one cannot develop dans un mot, as a certain French lady expected of a noted savant, when asking him to explain his system of philosophy. For a similar reason, also, I can dis- cuss but briefly the bearings of Evolution on religion and Catholic dogma. I shall, therefore, have to limit myself to a few general propositions, and refer those who desire a more exhaustive treatment of the sub- jects discussed, to the many elaborate and learned works that have been given to the world during the past few decades. Freedom From Bias in the Discussion of Evolution. I may here be permitted, before going further, to remind the reader that it is of prime importance, in the discussion of the subject of Evolution, especially NA TURE AND SCOPE OF E VOL UTION. 21 in its relation to religion and dogma, for one to weigh fairly and dispassionately the arguments and objections of evolutionists, and to divest one's self of all bias that may proceed from prejudice or early education, to consider the question on its merits, and not to let one's mind be swayed by preconceived, or it may be, by erroneous notions. Let the value of the evidence adduced be estimated by the rules of logic and in the light of reason. This is essential. In the discussion of the subject during the past thirty and odd years much has been said in the heat of controversy, and on both sides, that had no foundation in fact. There have been much exagger- ation and misrepresentation, which have given rise to difficulties and complications that might easily have been avoided if the disputants on both sides had always been governed by a love of truth, and the strict rules of dialectics, rather than by passion and the spirit of party. Misguided zeal and ignorance of the true teachings of the Church, always betray one into making statements which have no founda- tion in fact, but, in the discussions to which the sub- ject of Evolution has given rise, there has often been exhibited, by both the defendants and the opponents of the theory, a lack of fairness and a bitterness of feeling that are certainly not characteristic of those whose sole desire is the attainment of truth. Such polemics have injured both parties, and have delayed a mutual understanding that should have, and would have, been reached years ago if the ordinary rules of honest controversy had always been inviolably observed. 22 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Now that the smoke of battle is beginning to vanish, and that the participants in the contest have time to reckon results and to look back to the causes which precipitated the struggle, it is found, and I think generally conceded, that certain of the repre- sentatives of science were the ones who brought on an imbroglio for which there was not the slightest justification. But it is the old story over again hatred of religion concealed behind some new dis- covery of science or enveloped in some theory that, for the nonce, was raised to the dignity of an indis- putable dogma. It was not, it is true, so much the chief representatives of science who were to blame as some of their ill-advised assecla, who saw in the new teachings an opportunity of achieving notoriety, and, at the same time, of venting their spleen against the Church and casting obloquy on religion and Scripture. CHAPTER II. EARLY EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS. First Studies of Nature. EVOLUTION, as we now know it, is a product of the latter half of the present century. It would; however, be a mistake to imagine that Min- erva-like it came forth from the brain of Darwin or Spencer, or that of anyone else, as the fully-developed theory which has caused so great a stir in the intel- lectual world. No ; Evolution, as a theory, is not the work of one man, nor the result of the work of any body of men that could be designated by name. Neither is it the product of any one generation or epoch. On the contrary, it has been the joint achieve- ment, if such .it can be called, of countless think- ers and observers and experimenters of many climes and of many centuries. It is the focus towards which many and divers lines of thought have converged from the earliest periods of speculation and scientific research down to our own. The sages of India and Babylonia; the priests of Egypt and Assyria; the philosophers of Greece and Rome ; the Fathers of the early Church and the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, as well as the scholars and discoverers of sub- sequent ages, contributed toward the establishment of the theory on the basis on which it now reposes. (23) 24 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. This being the case, it will help us to a more intelligent appreciation of the theory to take a brief retrospect of the work accomplished by the earlier workers in the field, and to review some of the more important observations and discoveries which led up to the promulgation of Evolution as a theory of the universal application which is now claimed for it. Such a review will likewise serve another purpose. We are often disposed to imagine that all the great discoveries and generalizations in science are entirely the result of modern thought and investigation. We forget that the way has been prepared for us by those who questioned nature thousands of years ago, but who, not having the advantages or appliances of modern research, were unable to possess them- selves of her secrets. We underrate and disparage the work of the earlier students and speculators, be- cause we are oblivious of the fact that they planted the germ which we see developed into the full-grown tree, because we do not realize that we are reaping what others have sown. All great movements in the world of thought are, we should remember, simply the integration of infinitesimals; the sum- mation of an almost infinite series of factors which are ordinarily ignored or disregarded. The success- ful generalizer and the framer of legitimate scientific theories are, as a rule, those who avail themselves of the data and patient indications of others, who accumulate and correlate disjointed and independent observations which, separately considered, have little or no value, and which tell us little or nothing of the operations of nature and nature's laws. Thus EARLY EVOLU TIONA R Y VIE WS. 25 Kepler's laws were based on the observations of Tycho Brahe ; Newton's great discovery of the law of universal gravitation was founded on Abb Pic- ard's measurement of the earth's meridian ; and Leverrier's discovery of the planet Neptune was suggested by the perturbations which various astron- omers had observed in the motion of Uranus. So, too, is it, but to a greater extent, in respect of the theory of Evolution. It is the result not only of the observations of the immediate predecessors of those who are now regarded as the founders of the theory, but of data which have been amassed and of reflections which philosophers have been making since our Aryan forefathers first began to in- terrogate nature and seek a rational explanation of the various mutations which were observed to char- acterize the earth's surface and its inhabitants. Evolution Among the Greeks. Thales, who was one of the first philosophers that attempted a natural explanation of the uni- verse, in lieu of the myths which had so long ob- tained, taught that all life had its origin in water. Anaximander, who flourished six centuries B.C., seems to forestall certain evolutionary theories which were taught twenty-five hundred years later. " The first animals," ra r.p&ra Zwv, f or> whereas other animals easily get their food by them- selves, man alone requires long rearing. Hence, had 26 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. man been originally such as he is now, he could never have survived." He first propounded the theory of " fish-men," which, in a modified form, was adopted by Oken. Anaximenes, a pupil of Anaximander, made air the cause of all things, while Diogenes of Appolonia held that all forms of animal and plant life originated from primordial slime the prototype of Oken's famous Urschleim. Anaxagoras sought the beginnings of animated nature in germs which preexisted in nature, and were distributed throughout the air and ether. In Empedocles, who is sometimes spoken of as the father of the Evolu- tion idea, we find the germ of what Darwin calls " natural selection," ' and what Spencer denominates " the survival of the fittest." With the representa- tives of the Ionian schools, he was a believer in spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis, but he ap- proximated more closely to the teachings of modern Evolution than did any of his predecessors or con- temporaries. He recognized the gradual develop- ment of the higher from the lower forms of life, and taught that plants made their appearance before animals. Aristotle's Observations. But the greatest of the Greek naturalists, as he was also the greatest of Greek philosophers^ was 1 In his "Physics," II, cap. vill, Aristotle refers to natural selection and the survival of the fittest, as taught by Empedocles and others, as follows : " For when the very same combinations happened to be produced which the law of final causes would have called into being, those combinations which proved to be advan- tageous to the organism were preserved; while those which were not advantageous perished, and still perish, like the mino- taurs and sphinxes of Empedocles." EARLT EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS. 27 Aristotle. Unlike Plato, who laid special stress on a priori reasoning as the source of true knowledge, even in the natural and physical sciences, he insisted on observation and experiment. " We must not," he tells us in his " History of Animals," "accept a general principle from logic only, but must prove its application to each fact. For it is in facts that we must seek general principles, and these must always accord with facts. Experience furnishes the partic- ular facts from which deduction is the pathway to general laws." When we consider how happy the Stagirite was in his generalizations from the meager facts at his command, how remarkable was his prevision of some of the most important results of modern investigation, how he had not only a true concep- tion of the modern ideas of Evolution, but had likewise a clear perception of the principle of adap- tation, when we remember that he was cognizant of the analogies, and probably also of the homol- ogies between the different parts of an organism, that he was aware of the phenomena of atavism and reversion and heredity, and that he foreshadowed the theory of epigenesis in embryonic development, as taught by Harvey long ages afterwards, when we call to mind all these things, we are forced, I re- peat, to conclude that the immortal Greek not only fully understood the value of induction as an instru- ment of research, but also that he was quite as suc- cessful in its use, considering his limited appliances for work, as was any one of his successors who lived and labored in more favored times. 28 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. He, then, and not Empedocles, should be re- garded as the father of the Evolution theory. The poet-naturalist of Agrigentum made, indeed, some observations in embryology, the first recorded, and may thus have been led to some of his fortu- nate guesses at the truth of Evolution ; but there is reason to believe that most, if not all of his theories, were based on a priori speculation rather than on experiment. He had by no means the wide ac- quaintance with nature which so distinguished Aris- totle ; neither did he possess the logical acumen, nor the skill in inductive reasoning we so much admire in the Samian philosopher. So far as was possible in his time, the Stagirite based his evo- lutionary views on observation and experiment, rather than on metaphysical ratiocination, and this is more than can be said of any of his prede- cessors, whether of the Ionian, Pythagorean or Eleatic schools, or of those immediately subse- quent. 1 Mediaeval Writers. The foregoing views of the Greek philosophers found acceptance at a later date with the philoso- phers of Rome, and prevailed, with but slight modi- fications, during the entire period of the Middle Ages. They were commented on by a number of Arabian writers, notably Avicenna, Avempace, Abu- 1 For an exhaustive exposition of the views of the Greeks, on the subjects discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, consult Zel- ler's "Philosophy of the Greeks." See also Ueberweg's "His- tory of Philosophv." EA RLT EVOLU TIONA R T VIE WS. 29 bacer, 1 and Omar " the learned," as well as by many of the Schoolmen, especially Albertus Magnus. The last-named scholar was remarkable for his extended knowledge of nature. Besides discussing the theo- ries which had been framed by his predecessors, he was a keen observer and skillful experimenter, and it is not too much to say that he contributed more towards the advance of science than anyone who had lived since the time of Aristotle. The illustrious pupil of Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, deserves a special mention here for his teachings respecting organic Evolution. Ac- cepting the views of Aristotle, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine, regarding the origin and develop- ment of animal and plant life, he laid down principles concerning derivative or secondary creations, which 'In a curious philosophical romance Abu bacer writes as follows on the birth of what he designates the " nature-man : " "There happens to be," he says, " under the equator an island, where man comes into the world without father or mother. By spontaneous generation he arises directly, in the form of a boy, from the earth, while the spirit, which, like sunshine, emanates from God. unites with the body, growing out of a soft, unformed mass. Without any intelligent surroundings, and without educa- tion, this 'nature-man,' through simple observation of the outer world, and through the combination of various appearances, rises to the knowledge of the world and of the Godhead. First, he perceives the individual, and then he recognizes the various species as independent forms, but as he compares the varieties and species with each other, he comes to the conclusion that they are all sprung from a single animal spirit, and, at the same time that the entire animal race forms a single whole. He makes the same discovery among the plants, and finally he sees the animal and plant forms in their unity, and discovers that among all their differences they have sensitiveness and feeling in common ; from which he concludes that animals and plants are only one and the same thing." How like unto many mod- ern speculations this fancy of the old Arab philosopher ! 30 BVOL U TION A XD DOGMA . scientists and theologians now recognize to be of ines- timable value. As we shall have occasion , in the sequel, to examine at length the teachings of the Angelic Doc- tor on this topic, it will suffice for the present sim- ply to advert to them, and to signalize in advance their transcendent importance. CHAPTER III. FOSSILS AND GIANTS. Early Notions Regarding Fossils. IN the beginning of the sixteenth century geolog- ical phenomena began to attract more attention than they had hitherto received. Special interest was centered in fossils, which were so universally distributed over the earth's surface, and their study contributed materially towards placing the theory of Evolution on a firmer basis than it ever before possessed. Aristotle and other Greek writers had, indeed, made mention of them, but did not, as it appears, devote to them any particular study. Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, supposed them to be due to "a certain plastic virtue" of the earth, which possessed the power of fashioning inorganic matter into organic forms. The distinguished painter, Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most gifted men that ever lived, was among the first to dispute the absurd theories which were currently accepted regarding the nature and origin of fossils. " They tell us," he says, " that these shells were formed in the hills by the influence- of the stars ; but I ask, where in the hills are the stars now forming shells of distinct ages and species ? And how can the stars explain the origin of gravel, (31) 32 E VOL U TION A ND DOGMA . occurring at different heights and composed of peb- bles rounded as by the motion of running water ; or in what manner can such a cause account for the petrification in the same places of various leaves, sea-weeds and marine crabs?" Fracostoro, a contemporary of Da Vinci, followed in the footsteps of the illustrious artist, and taught that fossils were the exuviae of animals that former- ly lived where their remains are now found. He showed the futility of the opinion then prevalent which attributed fossils to the action of the Noa- chian Deluge, which, according to the ideas then en- tertained, not only strewed the earth's surface with the remains of the animals which were destroyed, but also buried them at great depths on the highest mountains. Clear and cogent arguments like those adduced by Da Vinci and Fracostoro should have sufficed to end all controversy regarding the true nature of fossils, but unfortunately for the cause of science the dispute was destined to last nearly three cen- turies longer. All sorts of imaginary causes were feigned to account for the petrified organic forms everywhere abundant, and no theory was too fantas- tical to attract supporters, provided only it was not antagonistic to the notions of geogony and cos- mogony then popularly received. . Thus, according to Agricola, fossils were the prod- uct of a certain materia pinguis, or fatty matter, set in fermentation by heat ; porous bodies, like bones and shells, according to Mattioli, were petri- fied by what he designated a "lapidifying juice," FOSSILS AND GIANTS. 33 while according to Fallopio, of Padua, petrified shells were produced by the " tumultuous move- ments of the terrestrial exhalations." Olivi, of Cremona, considered fossils as mere lusus natures, or " sports of nature," while others regarded them as mere stones which " had assumed their peculiar configuration by the action of some oc- cult 'internal principle' from the influence of the heavenly bodies;" and others still maintained that they were bodies formed by nature " for no other end than to play the mimic in the mineral kingdom." That such fanciful notions regarding the nature of fossils could ever have been seriously entertained by men of sound judgment now seems almost inex- plicable. But if we reflect a moment we shall see that almost equally ridiculous views of nature are held by even eminent men of science at the present day. As for the students of nature who lived some centuries ago, it may be pleaded in extenuation of the errors into which they lapsed, that some of the theories which they deemed to be beyond question appeared to give color to their beliefs. Among these was the theory of spontaneous gen- eration, or the theory that certain living plants and animals are produced spontaneously from inorganic matter, or spring from organic matter in a state of decomposition. And then, too, they were confirmed in their views by observing the peculiar forms as- sumed by stalactites and stalagmites which grew under their very eyes ; by the strange figures found in agates, notably the moss agate, and the still E.-3 34 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. stranger figures which often characterize what is known as landscape marble, in which trees, castles, mountains and other objects are frequently depicted with striking fidelity. But in spite of the yoke of authority, especially of Aristotle, which bore heavily upon the students of science, and notwithstanding the generally received teaching, often based on the Bible, to oppose which required considerable courage, new views were slowly but surely supplanting the old. And strange as it may seem, it was not some philosopher who was the first to proclaim the truth, but the celebrated pot- ter, Bernard Palissy. " He was the first," says Fon- tenelle, " who dared assert in Paris that fossil re- mains of testacea and fish had belonged to marine animals." Italian Geologists on Fossils. A century after Palissy 's time, in 1669, Nicholas Steno, a Danish Catholic priest, showed the identity of the teeth and bones of sharks then living in the Mediterranean with those of fossil remains found in Tuscany. " He also compared the shells discovered in the Italian strata with living species ; pointed out their resemblance and traced the various grada- tions from shells which had only lost their animal gluten, to those petrifactions in which there was a perfect substitution of stony matter." And yet, notwithstanding the observations of such men as Steno, Palissy, and others, the old no- tions, according to which fossils were the products of a certain plastic virtue latent in nature, or were FOSSJLS AND GIANTS. 35 deposited in situ by Noah's flood, still found favor with the majority of geologists. This was especially the case with the physico-theological writers of Eng- land, who, in spite of the discoveries of the Italian ge- ologists, still persisted in accommodating all geolog- ical phenomena to their fanciful interpretations of the Scriptural accounts of the Creation and the Deluge. Thus Woodward taught that " the whole terrestrial globe was taken to pieces and dissolved by the Flood," and that subsequently the strata " settled down from this promiscuous mass as any earthy sediment from a flood." Such views were in marked contrast with those held by the learned Carmelite friar, Generelli, who strongly argued against the unreasonableness of calling " the Deity capriciously upon the stage, to make Him work miracles for the sake of confirming our preconceived hypotheses." He insisted on it that natural causes were competent to explain geo- logical phenomena, and to account for the occurrence of fossil remains on hills and mountains. In refer- ring to the formation of mountains and their denu- dation by the action of the elements, he forestalls the teachings of modern geologists when he declares " that the same cause which, in the beginning of time, raised mountains from the abyss, has down to the present day continued to produce others, in order to restore from time to time the losses of all such as sink down in different places, or are rent asunder, or in other ways suffer disintegration." l 1 See Lyell's " Principles of Geology," vol. I, p. 54. 36 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Legends About Giants. As illustrating the difficulties which students of science had to contend with, I may here refer to another curious but deeply-rooted notion that long prevailed regarding certain fossils. Accepting as certain the ordinary interpretation of the Hebrew word nephilim, D''*>' > Q5< in Genesis, vi, 4, as mean- ing giants, or persons of extraordinary stature, and taking as literal the mythical or exaggerated ac- counts of giants who were reputed to. have lived in the early ages of the world, the discoverers of large fossil bones had no hesitation in pronouncing them the remains of some one or other great giant of legendary lore. Greek and Roman authors, no less than German, French and English writers at a much later period, give us very detailed descriptions of the remains of giants discovered in various quarters of the earth. The bones found in one place, were, it was asserted, those of Antaeus or Orestes, those in another, of the giant Og, King of Bashan, while those of still another locality were identified as the skeleton of the famous Teutobocchus, king of the Teutons and Cimbri, who was defeated by the Roman general, Marius. According to the accounts which have come down to us, the teeth of these giants each weighed several pounds and were in some instances as much as a foot long, while the estimated stature of others of the giants whose remains are described was no less than sixty cubits. Later investigators, however, had no difficulty in showing that the sup- posed teeth of giants were nothing other than the FOSS/LS AND GIANTS. 37 molars of some extinct elephant or mammoth; that what were regarded as the vertebrae and femurs of Titans and giants belonged in reality to certain monstrous pachyderms long since extinct, and that what was exhibited as the hand of one of the huge representatives of the human family proved, on ex- amination, to be the bones of the fore-fin of a whale. And, as science advanced, it was finally discovered that there had never been any material difference in the stature of men, that the races of antiquity were no taller than those now existing, and that there is no evidence whatever that there were ever, at any period of the world's history, men of greater stature than those occasionally seen in our own day. 1 But notwithstanding the progress of discovery, people were loath to give up their belief in giants, as they were unwilling to change their opinions respect- ing the plastic power of the earth and the universally exterminating effects of the Flood. Men who be- lieved in the existence of griffons and flying dragons, and who regarded the horns of fossil rhinoceroses, so numerous in parts of Europe and Asia, as the claws of griffons and as certain proofs of the existence of these fabled creatures, could not be blamed if they gave more or less credence to the countless tradi- tionary tales respecting Titans and giants. True Significance of Fossils. The true significance of fossils, however, was not understood until the time of Cuvier, the illustrious 1 See Howorth's " Mammoth and the Flood," chaps, i and n, and Wood's " Giants and Dwarfs." 38 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. founder of paleontology. Many had asserted, as we have seen, that fossil remains were the exuviae of what were once living animals, but no one before Cuvier had a true conception of their relation to the existing fauna of the globe. At the close of the last century this profound naturalist commenced an exhaustive study of the rich fossiliferous rocks of the Paris basin, and was soon able to announce to an astonished world that the fossils there discovered were not only the remains of animals long since ex- tinct, but that they belonged to species and genera entirely different from any now existing. To the amazement of men of science he proved the exist- ence of a tropical fauna in the latitude of Paris, and exhibited animal forms totally unlike anything now living. His discoveries carried men's minds back to times far anterior to the Deluge of Noah ; back to epochs whose remoteness from our own is to be estimated by hundreds of thousands and millions of years. The theory that the fossiliferous strata of the earth were deposited by Noah's Flood was proven to be untenable and absurd, and it was therefore relegated definitively to the limbo of fanciful spec- ulations and exploded hypotheses. Thinking men were compelled to recognize the fact that the world is much older than had been imagined ; that far from having been created only a few thou- sand years ago, it had been in existence for many millions of years ; and that many strange forms of life had inhabited the earth long before the advent of man on our planet. Further investigations carried on by Brongniart, Cuvier's collaborator, by D'Or- FOSSILS AND GIANTS 39 bigny, Sedgwick, Murchison, Smith, Lyell and others, showed that there was a gradual develop- ment from the forms of life which characterize the earlier geological ages to those which appeared at later epochs. From the simple, primitive forms of the lower Silurian Age there was a steady progres- sion towards the higher and more specialized types of the Quaternary. Did this succession betoken genetic connection? Were the higher and later forms genealogically de- scended from the simpler antecedent types? Was there here, in a word, evidence of organic Evolution? Controversy in the French Academy. Such questions had been suggested before but they were now asked in all seriousness, and by those most competent to interpret the facts of paleontol- ogy. A storm was brewing in the scientific world, and when, in 1830, it burst in the French Acad- emy, in the celebrated contest between Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, it created an unpre- cedented sensation in the whole of Europe, notwith- standing the great political excitement of the time. An anecdote, told of Goethe, shows in what light the great poet-philosopher viewed the dispute which was to have such an important bearing on the ques- tion of the origin of species. The news of the out- break of the French Revolution of July had just reached Weimar, and the whole town was in a state of excitement. " In the course of the afternoon," says Soret, " I went around to Goethe's. ' Now,' exclaimed he to me, as I entered, 'what do you 40 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. think of this great event ? The volcano has come to an eruption ; everything is in flames, and we have no longer a transaction with closed doors ! ' ' Terri- ble affairs,' said I, ' but what could be expected un- der such outrageous circumstances, and with such a ministry, otherwise than that the whole would end with the expulsion of the royal family ? ' ' My good friend,' gravely returned Goethe, 'we seem not to un- derstand each other. I am not speaking of those crea- tures there, but of something quite different. I am speaking of the contest, so important for science, be- tween Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, wMch has just come to an open rupture in the French Acad- emy ! ' ' This individual contest between two giants was the signal for a general outbreak. The first gun was fired and a war ensued, which has continued with almost unabated vigor until the present time. The scientific world was divided into two camps, those who sympathized with the views of Geoffroy regarding Evolution, and those who sided with Cuvier, the ad- vocate of the traditional doctrine of special creations. Much, however, remained to be accomplished be- fore the views of Saint-Hilaire could be considered as anything more than a provisional hypothesis. The evidence of all the sciences had to be weighed, a thorough survey of the vast field of animate nature had to be made, before the new school could reason- ably expect its views to meet with .general accept- ance. Special and systematic investigations were accordingly inaugurated, in all parts of the world, in which representatives of every department of science took an active and interested part. CHAPTER IV. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION AND SCIENTIFIC DIS- COVERY. Early Views Regarding Abiogenesis. BEFORE recounting the results of .these investi- gations, it may not, perhaps, be out of place, briefly to summarize a chapter in the history of biol- ogy which has always had a peculiar interest for students of nature, and which, even to-day, notwith- standing many long and animated controversies on the subject, has probably a greater interest for a certain school of evolutionists than almost any other one topic. I refer to the subject of spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis, 1 to which reference has already been made en passant. The discussion of this question has played such an important part in the history of science, that any treatment of the theory of Evolution which should contain no reference to the subject of spontaneous generation, would ignore one of the most essential factors in a great and long-continued controversy. In good sooth, some knowledge of the more salient facts of abiogenesis are absolutely indispensable to a proper appreciation of certain of the most interest- ing problems connected with the theory of Evolution 1 Generatio sequivoca, heterogenesis, and autogenesis, are sometimes employed as synonyms of spontaneous generation. (41) 42 E VOL UTION A ND D OGMA . as now understood. In many respects, indeed, Evo- lution and abiogenesis go hand in hand and what throws light on the one at the same time illuminates the other, diminishing, part passu, the difficulties of both, or bringing, it may be, such difficulties into bolder relief. The doctrine that certain animals and plants arise from the fortuitous concourse of atoms of inor- ganic matter, or originate from decaying animal or vegetable matter, that nature is capable of bringing forth living bodies, " Qui rupto robore nati, Compositive luto, nullos habuere parentes." is one of those errors in science that can be traced back to the earliest period of scientific speculation. It received the imprimatur of Aristotle, who was a firm believer in spontaneous generation, and, like many other errors indorsed by the famous Stagirite, it was almost universally accepted as incontestable truth until a few decades ago. How much this belief, by engendering false notions regarding the unity and relationship of the animal world, may have retarded the progress of science, it is unnecessary here to in- quire. Suffice it to say that the discussions to which the subject gave rise from time to time had no slight influence in predisposing many minds in favor of the theory of Evolution, and of throwing a certain light on the subject of organic development that could come from no other source. According to Aristotle many of the lower forms of animal life originate spontaneously, sometimes SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 43 from decomposing animal or vegetable matter, some- times from the slime of the earth. Many insects, he tells us, spring from putrid matter ; certain fish have their origin in mud and sand, while eels, we are as- sured, are spontaneously produced in marshy ponds. 1 Aristotle's views were shared by his coun- trymen as well as by the Romans by poets and philosophers as well as by naturalists. Pliny and Varro speak of spontaneous generation as do also Virgil and Lucretius and Ovid. All readers of Ovid are familiar with the interesting account given in the " Metamorphoses" of the origin of bees, hornets and scorpions from putrid flesh, of frogs from slime, and of serpents from human marrow. * Entertaining such notions regarding the origin of living things, we can understand why Rome's poet-philosopher declares " It remains, therefore, to believe that the earth must justly have obtained the name of mother, since from the earth all living 1 See his " History of Animals," book V, chap, i, and book VI, chaps, xiv and xv. 2 " Si qua fides rebus tamen est addenda probatis, Nonne vides, quaecumque mora fluidove calore Corpora tabuerint, in parva animalia verti? I quoque, delectos mactatos obrue tauros; Cognita res usu, de putri viscere passim Florrilegce nascuntur apes . . . Pressus humo bellator equus crabronis origo est. Concava littoreo si demas brachia cancro; Cetera supponas terrae ; de parte sepulta Scorpius exibit ********* Semina limus habet viridea generantia ranas. ********* Sunt qui, cum clauso putrefacta est spina sepulchre, Mutari credant humunas angue medullas." Ovid, " Metamorphoses," Lib. XV., vv. 361, et seq. 44 B VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . creatures were born. And even now many animals spring forth from the earth, which are generated by means of moisture and the quickening heat of the sun." 1 Fathers and Schoolmen on Abiogenesis. The views of Aristotle and his successors were accepted and taught by the Fathers and the School- men of the Middle Ages. St. Augustine, in discuss- ing the question whether certain small animals were created on the fifth or sixth day, or whether they arose from putrid matter, says : " Many small ani- mals originate from unhealthy vapors, from evapora- tions from the earth, or from corpses ; some also from decayed woods, herbs and fruits. But God is the creator of all things. It may, therefore, be said that those animals which sprang from the bodies, and especially the corpses, of other living beings, were only created with them potentialiter and mater- ialiter. But of those which spring from the earth, or water, we may unhesitatingly say that they were created on the fifth and sixth days." St. Thomas Aquinas acquiesces in this opinion of the great bishop of Hippo, although he declined to accept Avicenna's theory that all animals could originate spontaneously. I direct special attention to the teachings of the Fathers and Schoolmen regarding abiogenesis, as " Linquitur, ut merito maternum nomen adepta Terra sit, e terra quoniam sunt cuncta creata, Multaque nunc etiam existant animalia terris Imbribus, et calido solis concreta vapore." Lucretius, "De Rerum Natura," Lib. V. 793-796. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 45 they have a profound significance in the discussion of certain questions which shall be referred to in the sequel. The principles which they admitted have an importance that is far-reaching, and should be more generally known than they are. For the appli- cation of these principles broad and deep they are will enable us to refute many objections that would otherwise be unanswerable, and enable us to es- cape from many difficulties which frequently give both scientists and theologians no inconsiderable trouble. For centuries after the time of St. Thomas, the theory of spontaneous generation was universally held and taught in all the schools of Europe. And more than this. Learned men of science and grave theologians did not hesitate to give in- structions as to how certain animals might be brought into existence by the mysterious power of abiogenesis. As late as the seventeenth century, the famous Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, confi- dently indicated the following method of produc- ing serpents by spontaneous generation : " Take as many serpents as you like, dry them, cut them into small pieces, bury these in damp earth, water them freely with rain water, and leave the rest to the spring sun. A'fter eight days the whole will turn into little worms, which, fed with milk and earth, will at length become perfect serpents, and by pro- creation will multiply ad infinitum" Van Helmont gave a recipe for making fleas, while there were others who gave equally explicit directions for the production of mice from cheese, or fish by the fer- mentation of suitable material. 46 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Even so late as the last century, there were learned men who did not hesitate to declare that mussels and shell-fish are generated from mud and sand, and that eels are produced from dew. Redi's Experiments. The first one effectively to controvert the doc- trine of abiogenesis was Francesco Redi, of the cele- brated Academia del Cimento, of Florence. In his remarkable work entitled " Esperienze intorno alia Generazione degl' Insetti," published in 1668, he dis- tinctly enunciates the doctrine that there is no life without antecedent life omne vivum ex vivo that all living organisms have sprung originally from preexist- ing germs, and that the apparent production of or- ganized beings from putrefied animal matter, or vege- table infusions, is due to the existence or introduc- tion of germs into the matter from which such beings seem to originate. The experiments by which Redi proved his as- sertion were as simple as they at the time were con- clusive. He placed some meat in a jar and then tied fine gauze over the top of the jar. The meat underwent putrefaction but no maggots appeared. Redi hence inferred that maggots are not generated by decomposing meat, but by something which is excluded from the jar by the gauze. He soon dis- covered that this something which had eluded all previous observers, was the eggs of a blow-fly, which, when deposited on meat, or dead animals, invariably gave rise to the maggots that had hitherto been SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 47 regarded as spontaneously generated. By a series of similar experiments he showed that in all cases the apparent production of living from dead matter was due to the introduction, from without, of living germs into the matter from which life seemed to originate. So deeply rooted, however, was the doctrine of spontaneous generation in the minds of men, that Redi's conclusions were far from meeting with ready acceptance. All kinds of objections were urged against his experiments and the inferences which he drew from them. Some of his opponents even went so far as to assert that his conclusions were con- trary to the teachings of Scripture, which, they con- tended, manifestly implied, if it did not expressly affirm, the doctrine of abiogenesis. In proof of their view they referred to the generation of bees from the lion which had been slain by Samson, and which suggested the riddle that so puzzled the Philistines : " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." ' From our present way of viewing the question such an objection seems very strange, to say the least, but stranger still does it appear when we re- flect that it was urged in the name of theology and Scripture. The spell of antiquity and authority was still hanging over the students of nature, and it re- fudges, chap, xiv, 5-14. Redi refers to the objections of his adversaries in the following passage from his " Esper- ienze: " " Molti e moltialtri ancora vi potrei annoverare, se non fossi chiamato a rispondere alle rampogne di alcuni che brusquamente mi rammentano cio che si legge nel capitolo quattordicesimo del sacrosanto Libro de' Giudici." p. 45. 48 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. quired an intrepid investigator like Redi, strong in his sense of right and certain in his interpretations of the teachings of experiment, to assert his intellec- tual freedom, and to cope with those who imagined that Aristotle could not err, and that certain meta- physical dicta, which were universally quoted, were, in natural science, to be accounted as so many canons of truth. But, notwithstanding the opposition which he excited, Redi was triumphant, and for a long time the theory of spontaneous generation was very gen- erally looked upon as something that had fallen into disrepute. Later Researches. . But the victory was but temporary. The inven- tion of the microscope, and the discovery of the world of infusorial animalculae, which before had been invisible, resurrected the old theory of abio- genesis, and many eminent naturalists now defended it as strenuously as had any one of its supporters before the experiments of Redi had called it in question. Arrong the most eminent champions of the theory of the spontaneous generation of infusory animalcules, were the English naturalist, Needham, and the distinguished French savant, Buffon. As the result of numerous experiments both these observers came to the conclusion that, whatever views might be entertained regarding the origin of the higher forms of animal life, there could be no doubt about the spontaneous production of certain SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 49 of the lower animalculse, from suitably prepared in- fusions of animal or vegetable matter. This apparent victory was, however, but ephem- eral. The experiments in question were taken up by a distinguished Italian ecclesiastic, the Abbate Spallanzani, who subjected them to a rigid and ex- haustive examination. The result of his labors issued in proving incontestably that the experiments of Needham were defective, and that his conclusions, therefore, were unwarranted. Spallanzani demon- strated that when the necessary precautions are taken against the admission of germs into the infu- sions employed, no animalcules whatever are devel- oped, and that the theories and conclusions of Buffon and Needham were not sustained by the facts in the case. But, notwithstanding the investigations of Redi and his successors, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Reaumur and Vallisneri, and despite the researches of Spallanzani, Schultze and Schwann, Van Siebold, Leuckart, and Van Beneden, there were not wanting men who still pinned their faith to the theory of abiogenesis. Foremost among these were the cele- brated chemists Berzelius and Liebig. " Was it certain," they asked, "that in the experiments which had hitherto been conducted, that the proper- ties of the air, or oxygen of the air, or of the men- strua themselves, had not been essentially changed, and thus had rendered them incompetent to give rise to the phenomena which they would exhibit in their natural and chemically unchanged condi- tion?" E.-4 50 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA, These questions were taken up and answered in the epoch-making researches of that prince of inves- tigators, the universally revered and world-renowned Pasteur. He demonstrated that in every instance life originates from antecedent life omne vivum ex vivo that the various forms of fermentation, putre- faction and disease are not only caused by the pres- ence and action of certain microbes, but that these microbes, as well as organisms of a superior organ- ization, are invariably produced by beings like them- selves ; that, in all cases, like proceeds from like, and that, consequently, spontaneous generation is, to use his own characterization of it, a " chi- mera." Is the discussion finally closed? Has the theory of abiogenesis received its coup de grdce? At the present moment Pasteur and his school are un- doubtedly lords of the ascendant. Will they always remain so? Time alone can answer this question. In the opinion of such men as Pouchet and Bastian, two of Pasteur's ablest antagonists, the question, so far as experiment goes, is at best settled only pro- visionally, and the same old controversy may break out any day, as it has so often broken out since the time of Redi, when it was declared to be definitively closed. But, whatever be the last word of science respect- ing abiogenesis, the discussion of the subject has led to the discovery of many new facts of inestimable importance, and has vastly extended our view of the domain of animated nature. It has disclosed to our vision a world before unknown, the world SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 51 of microbian life a world which has been aptly described as " the world of the infinitely little." General Advance in Science. The general progress of science, however, points towards some process of Evolution far more unmis- takably than does anything disclosed during the long controversy regarding spontaneous generation. Geology and physical geography have taught us that our earth is subject to mutations and fluctua- tions innumerable; paleontology has revealed a world whose existence was not only not suspected, a few generations ago, but a world whose existence would have been unhesitatingly denied as contrary to both science and Scripture, if anyone had been bold enough to proclaim its reality. Far from being only six thousand years old, as was so long imagined, our globe, as the abode of life, must now, as is shown by the study of the multifold extinct forms entombed in its crust, reckon its age by millions, if not by tens of millions of years. By the naturalists of the last century the num- ber of known species of plants and animals was esti- mated at a few thousands, or a few tens of thousands at most. But now, owing to the impetus which has been given to the study of zoology and botany, especially during the past few decades, the latest census of organic beings places the number of spe- cies at a million or more. Yet formidable as this number is, the list is far from being complete. Fresh additions are being made to it every day. The re- searches of naturalists in the many unexplored 52 EVOLUTION AXD DOGMA. fields of the earth ; the investigations of micro- scopists in the boundless domain of microbian life; the dredging of the ocean depths in various parts of the globe by a constantly increasing corps of trained votaries of science, show that we are yet very far from having anything approaching a complete cen- sus of the rich and varied fauna and flora which adorn our planet. But great as is the number of species actually existing, it is but a small fraction of those which are known to have lived and died since the dawn of life on the globe. A hundred million species or more, it has been computed, have appeared and died out since the time the Eozoon Canadense began its hum- ble existence. And as our knowledge of the past history of the earth becomes more thorough, there is every reason to believe that we shall find this esti- mate, extravagant as it may appear to some, below, rather than above, the reality. Synchronously with this advance in the knowl- edge of nature, the impression which had all along been entertained by a greater or lesser number of philosophers and students of nature has become stronger that all the changes and developments which the earth has witnessed ; all the prodigality of form and size and color, which a bounteous nature has lavished upon a fauna and flora whose species are past numbering, is the result not of so many separate creative acts, but rather of a single creation and of a subsequent uniform process of Evolution, according to certain definite and immu- table laws. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 58 Chemistry and Astronomy. The indications of paleontology and biology respecting Evolution have been corroborated by the revelations of chemistry, astronomy and stellar physics. Everything seems to point conclusively to a development from the simple to the complex, and to disclose "a change from the homogenous to the heterogenous through continuous differentiations and integrations." It is simple elements that go toward building up organic and inorganic compounds. And while it is now generally believed that there are some three score and odd substances which are to be classed as elementary, there are, nevertheless, not wanting rea- sons for thinking that all the so-called elements are but so many modifications, so many allotropic forms, of one and the same primal kind of matter. The telescope discloses to us in the nebulae which fleck the heavens, the primitive matter, the Urstoff, from which the sidereal universe was formed : " the gas- eous raw material of future stars and solar systems." The spectroscope, in spite of Comte's dogmatic dec- laration, that we should never know anything about the chemical constitution of the stars, has not only given us positive knowledge regarding the composi- tion of the heavenly bodies, but, thanks to the la- bors of Secchi, Huggins, Lockyer and others, has also furnished information concerning their relative ages, their directions of motion, and their velocities in space. As the astronomer, the chemist, and the physicist view the material universe, it is constituted throughout 54 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. of the same material, a kind of cosmic dust, similar to, if not identical with, that which com- poses the existing nebulae. No form of matter has yet been discovered in any of the heavenly bod- ies which is not found on the earth, and there is every reason to believe that in chemical constitution the visible universe is everywhere identical. And should it eventually be demonstrated that all the known chemical elements are only modifications of one primal form of matter, and this is far from im- possible, or even improbable, then will be vindi- cated the old Greek theory of a primordial matter, xpw-ij ukr h a theory ardently championed by St. Gregory of Nyssa and his school, and defended in some form or other by many of the Schoolmen. And then, too, will the theory of Evolution be furnished with a stronger argument than any other single one that has yet been advanced in its support. Testimony of Biology. But great as was the influence of discoveries in geology, paleontology, microscopy, chemistry, astron- omy and stellar physics, in preparing the minds of scientific men for the acceptance of the theory of or- ganic Evolution, the arguments which had the great- est weight, which finally enlisted in favor of Evolu- tion those who, like Lyell, still hesitated about giving in their adhesion to the doctrine of derivation, were those which were based on data furnished by the sciences of botany, zoology, physiology, and by those newer sciences, embryology and comparative osteology. CHAPTER V. FROM LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. First Materials for the Controversy. I HAVE spoken of the celebrated dispute between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in which Goethe was so much interested. Materials for this controversy had been rapidly accumulating during the half century preceding the date when it finally broke out in the French Academy. Indeed, it would be truer to say that materials had been accumulating during two centuries prior to the historic debate between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. From the time of Bacon, Descartes and Leibnitz, more, far more, had been done towards the development of the Evolution idea than had been effected during all the centuries which had elapsed between the earliest speculations of the Ionian school and the publication of the " Novum Organum." We have already learned what geology and pale- ontology contributed towards the establishment of the theory of Evolution. We have seen how the study of fossils and the careful and long-continued examina- tion of the much-vexed question of spontaneous gen- eration shed a flood of light on numerous problems which were before obscure and mysterious in the ex- treme. But while Da Vinci, Fracostoro, Palissy, Steno, Generelli, Redi, Malpighi, Leeuwenhoek, Schwam- merdam and their compeers, were carrying on their (55) 56 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. investigations regarding fossils and infusoria, students in other departments of science were not idle. Ges- ner, Vesalius, Fallopius, Fabricius and Harvey were then conducting their famous researches in zoology, anatomy, and embryology, while Cesalpinus, Ray, Tournefort and Linnaeus were laying the secure foundations of systematic botany and vegetable anat- omy. It was to this period, indeed, that, as has been truthfully observed : " We owe the foundation of microscopic anatomy, enriched and joined to physi- ology ; comparative anatomy studied with care ; class- ification placed on a rational and systematic basis." Bacon and Kant. Lord Bacon was not only a firm believer in organic Evolution but was one of the first to sug- gest that the transmutation of species might be the result of an accumulation of variations. Descartes, too, inclined to Evolution rather than to special crea- tion, and was the first philosopher, after St. Augus- tine, who specially insisted that the sum of all things is governed by natural laws, and that the physical universe is not the scene of constant mira- cles and Divine interventions. Leibnitz, like Bacon and Descartes, accepted the doctrine of the muta- bility of species, and showed in many passages in his works, that no system of cosmic philosophy could be considered complete which was not based on the demonstrated truths of organic Evolution. "All advances by degrees in nature," he tells us, " and nothing by leaps, and this law, as applied to each, is part of my doctrine of continuity." LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 57 Immanuel Kant, in common with his illustrious contemporary, Buffon, accepted the ideas that spe- cific mutability results from selection, environment, adaptation and inheritance. Like the great French naturalist, too, he derived all the higher forms of life from lower and simpler forms. He recognized also the law of degeneration from original types, and the principle of the survival of the fittest, which were subsequently to play such important roles in all theories of organic Evolution. Indeed, I do not think Kant has received due recognition for his con- tributions towards the philosophy of the cosmos. Like Aristotle, he had a faculty for correct gener- alization which sometimes gave his views almost the semblance of prophecy. Taking up the nebular hypothesis, as it was left by St. Gregory of Nyssa, he adapted it to the science of his time, and in many respects forestalled the conclusions of Laplace and Herschel. Similarly he took up the principles of Evolution as they had been laid down by St. Augus- tine and the Angel of the Schools, and, by giving them a new dress, he anticipated much of the evolu- tionary teaching of subsequent investigators. Con- sidering the time in which he wrote, nothing is more remarkable than the following comprehensive rtfsumd of his views on Evolution : " It is desirable to examine the great domain of organized beings by means of a methodical, com- parative anatomy, in order to discover whether we may not find in them something resembling a sys- tem, and that, too, in connection with their mode of generation, so that we may not be compelled to stop 58 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. short with a mere consideration of forms that are, which gives us no insight into their generation, and need not despair of gaining a full insight into this department of nature. The agreement of so many kinds of animals in a certain common plan of structure, which seems to be visible not only in their skeletons, but also in the arrangement of the other parts so that a wonderfully simple typical form, by the shortening and lengthening of some parts, and by the suppression and development of others, might be able to produce an immense va- riety of species gives us a ray of hope, though feeble, that here, perhaps, some results may be ob- tained by the application of the principle of the mechanism of nature, without which, in fact, no science can exist. This analogy of forms in so far as they seem to have been produced in accordance with a common prototype, notwithstanding their great variety strengthens the supposition that they have an actual blood relationship, due to derivation from a common parent ; a supposition which is ar- rived at by observation of the graduated approxima- tion of one class of animals to another, beginning with the one in which the principle of purposiveness seems to be most conspicuous, namely man, and ex-, tending down to polyps, and from these even down to mosses and lichens, and arriving finally at raw matter, the lowest stage of nature observable by us. From this raw matter and its forces, the whole ap- paratus of nature seems to have been derived ac- cording to mechanical laws, such as those which resulted in the production of crystals, yet, this ap- LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 59 paratus, as seen in organic beings, is so incomprehen- sible to us, that we conceive for it a different prin- ciple. But it would seem that the archaeologist of nature, that is, the paleontologist, is at liberty to regard the great family of creatures for a family we must conceive it, if the above-mentioned continuous and connected relationship has a real foundation as having sprung from the immediate results of her earliest revolutions, judging from all the laws of their mechanisms known to, or conjectured by him." ' Passing over such speculative evolutionists as De Maillet, Maupertuis, Bonnet, Robinet and Oken, who did little more than revamp the crude notions of the old Ionian speculators, we may scan in hasty review the principal contributions made to the evo- lutionary movement by the great naturalists who flourished between the time of Linnaeus and Cuvier. Linnaeus and Buffon. Linnaeus, who adopted the well-known aphorism of Leibnitz, natura non facit sa/tutn, was as much of a special creationist and, consequently, as much op- posed to Evolution as was the illustrious Cuvier. But although in the earlier part of his career he con- tended that there were no such things as new species nullce species nova still, at a later period, he was willing to admit that " all species of one genus constituted at first, that is, at creation, one species" ab initio unant constituerint speciem but maintained that " they were subsequently multiplied 1 Quoted in Osborne's useful little work " From the Greeks to Darwin," pp. 101, 102, 60 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. by hybrid generation, that is, by intercrossing with other species." 1 The first one to formulate a working hypothesis respecting the mutation of species was the eminent French naturalist, Buffon. According to Lanessan, he "anticipated not only Lamarck in his conception of the action of environment, but Darwin in the strug- gle for existence and the survival of the fittest." The questions of heredity, geographical distribution, the extinction of old and the apparition of new species he discussed with rare perspicacity and suggestive- ness. He was undoubtedly a believer in the unity of type, and the community of origin of all animal forms, although the diverse views he entertained on these subjects at different periods of his life have led some to minimize the importance of his contribu- tions to the theory of Evolution. 8 '"Suspicio est," he says, " quam diu fovi neque jam pro veritate indubia venditare audeo, sed per modum hypotheseos propono ; quod scilicet omnes species ejusdem generis ab initio unam constituerint speciem, sed postea per generationes hybridas propagatse sint. . . . Num vero hse species per manum Om- nipotentis Creatoris immediate sint exortse in primordio, an vero pernaturam, Creatoris executricem, propagatze in tempore, non adeo facile demonstrabitur." " Amcenitates Academics." Vol. VI., p. 296. It is interesting to observe that this view found favor with the celebrated Scriptural commentator, Dom Calmet. Only on the supposition that all the species of each genus originally formed but one species, was he able to explain how all the ani- mals could find a place in the ark of Noah. 2 Speaking of the factors of evolutionary changes he writes : " What cannot nature effect with such means at her disposal ? She can do all except either create matter or destroy it. These two extremes of power, the Deity has reserved for Himself alone; creation and destruction are the attributes of His Omnipotence. To alter and undo, to develop and renew these are powers which He has handed over to the charge of nature." LORD BACON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 61 Buffon, also, was the first to formulate the law of uniformitarianism which was subsequently devel- oped with such care by Lyell and his school. In his " Theorie da la Terre" he tells us that " in order to understand what had taken place in the past, or what will happen in the future, we have but to ob- serve what is going on at present. 1 Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck. Erasmus Darwin, a contemporary of Buffon's and the grandfather of the famous naturalist, did much to popularize the idea of Evolution. In his " Zoono- mia," " Botanic Garden," and above all in his post- humous " Temple of Nature," he embodies not only the leading evolutionary views of the old Greek philosophers, as well as those of Leibnitz and Buf- fon, but he likewise introduces and developes new ideas of his own. He is truly a poet of Evolution and in his " Temple of Nature "we find selections of verse that for beauty and force of expression compare favorably with the finest lines of the " De Rerum Natura" of the old Roman evolutionist, Lucretius. As the founder of the complete modern theory of descent, " Lamarck," justly observes Osgood, " is the most prominent figure between Aristotle and Darwin." He was an accomplished biologist, and a prolific writer on botanical and zoological subjects. He laid special stress on the effects of environment, and of use and disuse in the modification of species. He assumed that acquired characters are inherited, 1 " Pour juger de ce qui est arrive et meme de ce qui arrivera, nous n'avons qu'a examiner ce qui arrive." 62 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. but never attempted to demonstrate a postulate which since his time has provoked such widespread discussion. 1 Among the contemporaries of Lamarck, who did much to develop and corroborate the theory of Evolution, must be mentioned Goethe, who has just- ly been called the greatest poet of Evolution, and Treviranus. As a morphologist and osteologist, Goethe exhibited talent of the highest order, and, had he devoted his life to science instead of litera- ture, he would have ranked with the most eminent naturalists of modern times. In referring to his essays on comparative anatomy, Cuvier declares that " One finds in them, with astonishment, nearly all the propositions which have been separately ad- vanced in recent times." As to Treviranus, Huxley places him alongside Lamarck as one of the chief founders of the theory of Evolution, although there are many who dissent from this opinion of the great English biologist. The truth is he was rather an 1 The nature and chief factors of Evolution according to Lamarck, are expressed in the following four laws : Premiere Lot. La vie, par ses propres forces, tend con- tinuellement a accroitre le volume de tout corps qui la possede, et a etendre les dimensions de ses parties, jusqu' a un terme qu' elle amene elle-meme. Deuxieme Loi. La production d'un nouvel organe dans un corps animal resulte d' un notiveau besoin survenu qui continue de se faire sentir, et d' un nouveau mouvement que ce besoin fait naitre et entretient. Troisteme Loi. Le developpement des organes et leur force d'action sont constamment en raison de 1'emploi de ces organes. Quatrieme Loi. Tout ce qui a ete acquis, trace ou change dans 1'organisation des individus pendant le cours de leur vie, est conserve par la generation et transmis aux nouveaux individus qui proviennent .de ceux qui ont eprouve ces changements. Cf. l> Histoire Naturelle," and " Philosophic Zoologique." LORD & AC ON TO CHARLES DARWIN. 63 exponent of the views of others than an originator of any theory of his own. Species and Varieties. The difficulty of distinguishing species from varieties a difficulty with which all botanists and zoologists are familiar, and one which augments with the progress of knowledge of the fauna and flora of the world and the almost perfect gradations charac- terizing the forms of certain groups of animals and plants, contributed more than anything else towards impelling naturalists from the time of Lamarck to accept the doctrine that species are derived from one another by a process of development. Observations similar to those made by Lamarck and other naturalists, led the Rev. W. Herbert, of England, to declare, in 1837, that " Horticultural ex- periments have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, that botanical species are only a higher and more permanent class of varieties." He enter- tained the same view regarding animals, and believed "that single species of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and that these by intercrossing and by variation have produced all our existing species." In 1844 appeared the famous " Vestiges of Crea- tion," an anonymous work by Robert Chambers. This work created a profound sensation at the time, and although lacking in scientific accuracy in many points, and advocating theories that have long since been demolished, it passed through many editions and commanded a wide circle of readers. In Great 64 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Britain the opposition to the views expressed in the work was violent in the extreme, although it seems that most of the adverse criticism was ill-founded. The main proposition of the author, determined on as he himself declares " after much consideration," is, " that the several series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are, under the providence of God, the results, first, of an impulse which has been imparted to the forms of life, advancing them in definite times, by generation, through grades of organization termi- nating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata, these grades being few in number, and generally marked by intervals of organic character which we find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affini- ties ; second, of another impulse connected with the vital forces, tending in the course of generations to modify organic structures in accordance with exter- nal circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat and the meteoric agencies, these being the adapta- tions of the natural theologian." Prior to this time the distinguished Belgian geol- ogist, D' Omalius d' Halloy, had expressed the opin- ion that new species are but modified forms of other species from which they are descended. And a short time subsequently the eminent French bota- nist, M. Charles Naudin, promulgated similar views, and taught that species as well as varieties are but the result of natural and artificial selection. He did not, it is true, employ these words words which were given such vogue a short time afterwards by Darwin but his theory implied all they express. T CHAPTER VI. CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. Darwin's " Origin of Species." HE culmination of all the tentative efforts which had hitherto been made, towards giving a rational explanation of the mode of production of the divers species of our existing fauna and flora, was in the publication of Darwin's now famous work, " The Origin of Species," which was given to the world in 1859. Simultaneously and "independently another naturalist, Mr. Alfred Wallace, who was then far away in the Malay Archipelago, had come to the same conclusions as Darwin. For this reason he is justly called the co-discoverer of the theory which has made Darwin so famous. The publication of "The Origin of Species" was the signal for a revolution in science such as the world had never before witnessed. The work was violently denounced or ridiculed by the majority of its readers, although it counted from the beginning such staunch defenders as Huxley, Spncer, Lyell, Hooker, Wallace, and Asa Gray. Professor Louis Agassiz, probably the ablest naturalist then living, in his criticism of the book declared : " The argu- ments presented by Darwin, in favor of a universal derivation from one primary form of all the pecul- iarities existing now among living beings, have E.-5 (65) 66 EVOL U TION A ND DOGMA . not made the slightest impression on my mind. Until the facts of nature are shown to have been mistaken by those who have collected them, and that they have a different meaning from that now generally assigned to them, I shall therefore consider the transmutation theory as a scientific mis- take, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency." 1 But in spite of the storm of criticism which the work provoked, it was not long until the great ma- jority of naturalists had executed a complete volte- face in their attitude towards Darwinism. If they were not willing to go to the same lengths as the author of " The Origin of Species," or hesitated about conceding the importance which he attached to nat- ural selection as an explanation of organic Evolution, they were, at least, willing to admit that he had supplied them with the working hypothesis which they were seeking. Upon these, says Huxley, it had the effect " of the flash of light, which to a man who has lost him- self in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road, which, whether it take him straight home or not, certainly goes his way." What naturalists were then looking for " was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be act- ually at work." " The facts of variability," contin- ues Huxley, "of the struggle for existence, of adap- tation to conditions, were notorious enough ; but 1 Quoted by Huxley in the " I Darwin," by his son, vol. I., p. 538. Life and Letters of Charles CONTROVERST AND PROGRESS. 67 none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Dar- win and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the 'Origin' guided the benighted.'" Herbert Spencer and Compeers. With Darwin came Herbert Spencer, " the phi- losopher of Evolution," according to whom the en- tire cosmos, the universe of mind as well as the universe of matter, is governed by Evolution,* Evo- lution being a " cosmical process," which, as Grant 'Op. cit., p. 551. 2 It is but just to remark that an essay published by Spencer in the Leader, in 1852, constitutes what has been called " the high-water mark of Evolution " prior to Darwin. In this essay he writes as follows : " Even could the supporters of the devel- opment hypothesis merely show that the production of species by the process of modification is conceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents. But they can do much more than this ; they can show that the process of modification has effected, and is effecting, great changes in all organisms subject to modifying influences. . . . They can show that any existing species, animal or vegetable, when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes of structure fitting it for the new conditions. They can show that in successive generations these changes continue until ultimately the new conditions become the natural ones. They can show that in cultivated plants and domesticated animals, and in the several races of men, these changes have uniformly taken place. They can show that the degrees of difference so produced are often, as in dogs, greater than those on which distinction of species are, in other cases, founded. They can show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these modified forms are varieties or modified species. And thus they can show that throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind they assign as the cause of these specific differences; an influence which, though slow in its action, does in time, if the circumstances de- mand it, produce marked changes ; an influence which, to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records im- ply, any amount of change." 68 E VOL UTION A ND D OGMA . Allen phrases it, is one and continuous " from neb- ula to man, from star to soul, from atom to so- ciety." Since its publication, the theory advocated by Darwin has undergone many modifications. Much has been added to it, and much has been eliminated from it. Among those who have discussed it most critically, and suggested amendments and improve- ments are Moritz Wagner, Nageli, Huxley, Mivart, Wallace, Spencer, Weismann, Cope, Hyatt and Brooks, not to mention scores of others who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to Darwinian literature. But whatever may now be the views entertained regarding natural selection as a factor of organic Evolution, the theory of Evolu- tion itself, far from being impaired, has been gaining strength from day to day, and is, we are assured by its advocates, finding new arguments in its favor in every new discovery in biology and physical science. Such being the case, it is, we are told, only a ques- tion of time, and a very short time at that, until every man who is competent to weigh evidence, shall be compelled to announce his formal accept- ance of the doctrine of Evolution, however much he may now be opposed to it, and however much it may seem counter to his preconceived notions, or to traditions which he has long regarded as sacred and inviolable. Science and Philosophy. Evolution, it is pertinent here to observe, may be considered from two points of view, a fact which it is of prime importance always to bear in mind. It CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 69 may be regarded as a scientific theory, devised to explain the origination of the higher from the lower, the more complex and differentiated from the simple and undifferentiated, in inorganic and organic bod- ies, or it may be viewed as a philosophical system, de- signed to explain the manifold phenomena of mat- ter and life by the operation of secondary causes alone, to the exclusion of a personal Creator. In the restricted sense in which we are considering it, it is a scientific hypothesis intended to explain the ori- gin and transmutation of species in the animal and vegetable worlds, by laws and processes disclosed by the study of nature. Important as it is, however, it is not always an easy matter to keep the scientific theory separated from the philosophical system. Hence, naturalists and philosophers are continually intruding on each other's territory. The naturalist philosophizes, and the philosopher, if I may give a new meaning to an old word, naturalizes. For naturalists and physicists, as all are aware, are very much given to making excursions into the domain of metaphysics and to substituting speculations for rigid inductions from observed facts. And metaphysicians sin in a similar manner by attempting to explain, by methods of their own, the various phenomena of the material world, and in seeking by simple a priori reasons to evolve from their inner consciousness a logical system of the physical universe. The result is inextricable con- fusion and errors without number. It is neither science nor philosophy, but a mixtum compositum, 70 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. which not only gives false views of nature but still falser views of the Author of nature, if indeed it does not positively ignore Him and relegate Him to the region of the unknowable. Such a philosophy, if philosophy it can be called, is that of Herbert Spencer, which is now so much the vogue; a philosophy which attempts to explain the origin and constitution of the cosmos by the sole operation of natural causes, and which recognizes only force and matter as the efficient cause of the countless manifestations of nature and mind which constitute the province of science and psychology. I would not, however, have it inferred that I regard science and by this I mean natural and physical science and metaphysics as opposed to each other. Far from it. They mutually assist and supplement one another, and a true philosophy of the cosmos is possible only when there is a perfect synthesis between the inductions of science on the one hand and the deductions of metaphysics on the other. Anticipations of Discoveries. It is indeed remarkable, even in the subject under discussion, how frequently philosophers, like poets, seem to have proleptic views of nature that are not disclosed to men of science until long after- wards. All who are familiar with the history of science and philosophy will be able, without diffi- culty, to call to mind some of the marvelous scien- tific intuitions of Pythagoras, Aristotle, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 71 The teachings of St. Gregory of Nyssa and of St. Augustine were in this respect specially remarkable. I have elsewhere 1 shown that the views of St. Greg- ory respecting the origin of the visible universe, were far more precise and comprehensive than were those of the Ionian schools, and that he it was who in very truth first laid the foundations of the nebu- lar hypothesis, elaborated and rounded out long centuries afterwards by Laplace, Herschel, and Faye. It was the great bishop of Hippo who first laid down the principles of theistic Evolution essen- tially as they are held to-day. a He taught that God created the various forms of animal and vegetable life, not actually but potentially ; that He created them derivatively and by the operation of natural causes. And the teaching of St. Augustine respect- ing potential creation was that which was approved and followed by that great light of the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas. In modern times Hobbes spoke of the principle of struggle bellum omnium contra omnes sug- gested by Heraclitus and insisted on so strongly by contemporary evolutionists. In discussing the scho- lastic doctrine of real specific essences, Locke devel- opes the idea of the continuity of species, the central idea of Darwinism and of the theory of organic Evo- lution. He also speaks of the adaptation of organic arrangements to " the neighborhood of the bodies that surround us," and thus indicates a factor on which modern evolutionists lay much stress when 114 Bible, Science and Faith," part I, chaps, in and iv. 2 Ibid. 72 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. they discourse on " the circumstances of the en- vironment," the conditions of life, or the monde ambiant, of Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire. Leibnitz in his " Protogaea " expresses similar views on the continuity of species, that is, of a graduated series of living forms " that in each remove differ very little from one another." Distinct evolutionary views had like- wise been propounded by Spinoza, Herder and Schelling, but it is unnecessary to dwell on them here. In its growth, then, the modern theory of Evolu- tion may aptly be compared with that of the cen- tury plant. For long generations it had been gath- ering material and strength, but at last, suddenly and almost unexpectedly, it blossomed forth into a working hypothesis of colossal proportions and uni- versal application. Philosophy anticipated many, if not all its leading tenets, but it was inductive science which placed it on the foundation on which it now rests and which gave it the popularity that it now enjoys. Species and Creation. The pervading idea of Evolution, as we have seen, is one of change, the idea of integration and differentiation. As applied to plants and animals it is the development, by the action of natural causes, of the higher from the lower forms. The various forms of animal and plant life ac- cording to this view are genetically related to one another. Species are therefore not immutable as is generally imagined, but mutable. What we call species are the results of descent with modification, CONTROVERST AND PROGRESS. 73 and instead of there having been as many species of living beings in the beginning as there are now, as Linnaeus believed, there was at first, as Darwin taught, only one primordial form, and from this one form, all that infinitude of forms of vegetable and animal life, which we now behold, is descended. The question raised, therefore, is manifestly one that appeals to us .for a solution. I again ask, are all the species of animals and plants, which have ex- isted on the earth since the dawn of life, the results of separate and successive creations by an almighty Power, as has so long been believed, or are they rather the product of Evolution, acting through long ages and in accordance with certain fixed natural laws and processes? Until the celebrated controversy, already men- tioned, between Cuvier and Geoffrey, there were, as we have seen, comparatively few who were not firm believers in the doctrine of special creations, at least of all the higher forms of life. Subsequent to this event, the number, especially among naturalists, of those who favored the development hypothesis began gradually to increase. After the publication of Darwin's famous " Origin of Species," the advocates of Evolution rallied their forces in a remarkable man- ner, and before many years had elapsed a large majority of the working naturalists of the world were professed evolutionists. Evolutionists and Anti- Evolutionists. Of course there were many, even among the ablest scientists of the age, who still withheld their 74 E VOL U TION A ND DOGMA . assent. The most distinguished of these, as we have already learned, was Professor Louis Agassiz, who remained a strenuous opponent of the new doctrine until the day of his death. Indeed, in the last course of lectures he ever gave, we find a strong arraignment of the development hypothesis, a hy- pothesis which was fascinating indeed, but one, so Agassiz declared, that was negatived by the facts of nature and misleading and mischievous in its tendencies. Even to-day the illustrious naturalist has sympathizers and followers and that, too, among the ablest arid most conspicuous representatives of modern science. Among anti-evolutionists, living or recently deceased, I need instance only such recognized savants as the noted geologists, Sir J. W. Dawson, Barrande, Davidson, Grand Eury, Car- ruthers, and that veteran biologist the rival of Pasteur on the importance and brilliance of his re- searches on the lower forms of life the late Profes- sor P. J. van Beneden, of the great Catholic univer- sity of Louvain. 1 In referring to the subject the distinguished Belgian professor asserts: "It is evi- 1 The distinguished French savant, the Marquis de Nadail- lac, is often spoken of as an anti-evolutionist, but this is an error. So far he is neither an evolutionist nor an anti-evolu- tionist ; he merely suspends judgment. Before the anthro- pological section of the International Catholic Scientific Con- gress, assembled last year at Brussels, he expressed himself on the subject as follows : " Pour ma part, si je ne suis guere dis- pose a admettre les conclusions de 1'ecole evolutioniste, je ne puis non plus les rejeter absolument. Le jury en 6cosse, outre la reponse habituelle, a le droit, sans se prononcer sur le fait en lui-meme, de repondre not proven cela n'est pas prouve. Telleest la disposition de mon esprit; telle est aujourd'hui ma conclusion ; et je crois qu'elle sera celle de tous ceux qui abord- eront cette etude sans parti pris et avec 1'unique desir d'arriver CONTROVERST AND PROGRESS. 75 dent to all those who place facts above hypotheses and prejudices, that spontaneous generation, as well as the transformation of species, does not exist, at least if we only consider the present epoch. We are leaving the domain of science if we take our arms from anterior epochs. We cannot accept any- thing as a fact which is not capable of proof." ' At the present day, among men of science, evolu- tionists outnumber creationists fully as much as the latter outnumbered the former a half century ago. It is only rarely that we meet a scientist who does not profess Evolution of some form or other, or who does not at least think that the older views regard- ing creation and the origin of species must be materi- ally modified in order to harmonize with the latest conclusions of science. No Via Media Possible. All the lines of thought which we have been following converge, then, as has already been ob- served, towards one point the origin, or rather the genesis, of species, and their succession and distribu- tion in space and time. Between the two theories, that of creation and that of Evolution, the lines are drawn tautly, and one or the other theory must be accepted by all who make any pretensions intelli- gently to discuss the subject. No compromise, no via media, is possible. We must needs be either creationists or evolutionists. We cannot be both. a la verite." " Compte Rendu," Section d' Anthropologie, p. 305. Cf. also "Probleme de la Vie," pp. 175-178, by the Marquis de Nadaillac. 1 Van Beneden's "Animal Parasites and Messmates," p. 106. 4 76 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . The theory of emanation is not here considered, it being contrary to the principles of sound philosophy as well as to the teachings of true science. How shall we, then, regard the problem of the origin of species, and what views, expressed not in general terms but carefully formulated, have been enter- tained by the great thinkers of the world on this all-important, and, at present, all-absorbing topic ? Dr. Whewell, the learned historian of the " Induct- ive Sciences," in referring to the forms of life of geological times says: " Either we must accept the doctrine of the transmutation of species, and must suppose that the organized species of one geological epoch were transmuted into those of another, by some long-continued agency of natural causes, or else we must believe in many successive acts of creation and extinction of species, out of the com- mon course of nature ; acts which therefore we may properly call miraculous." Whewell, in common with the majority of his contemporaries he wrote his masterly work over fifty years ago and in common with the large body of non-scientific people still living, unhesitatingly accepted the doctrine of " many successive acts of creation," as against the theory of the transmutation of species, which he regards as negatived by " an in- disputable preponderance" of evidence against it. The Miltonic Hypothesis. But even accepting the creational hypothesis, how are we to picture to ourselves the appearance 141 History of the Inductive Sciences," vol.11, p. 564. CONTROVERST AND PROGRESS. 77 of new species? "Are these new species," asks the erudite Master of Trinity, "gradually evolved from some embryo substance ? Or do they suddenly start from the ground, as in the creation of the poet ? " " Perfect forms Limbed and full grown : out of the ground up rose, As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den ; . . . The grassy clods now calved ; now half appear'd The tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brinded mane ; the ounce, The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw In hillocks; the swift stag from underground Bore up his branching head ; scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness: fleeced the flocks and bleating rose, As plants; ambiguous between sea and land The river-horse and scaly crocodile. At once come forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or worm." l We have here what Huxley calls the " Miltonic hypothesis" fully developed even in its minutest de- tails. But this view of special creation, it is but just to state, may be offset by another passage, less frequently quoted it is true, from the great bard, which as clearly tells of creation by Evolution. In both instances the archangel Raphael appears as the 1(1 Paradise Lost," Book VII. 78 E V OL U Tl ON A ND D O GMA . speaker. And if, in the verses just quoted, the poet Is in accord with the literal interpreters of the Gene- siac account of creation, in the following lines he re- flects the ideas of creation entertained by St. Augus- tine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Having spoken of "one first matter," and its subsequent progressive development, the poet continues : " So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More airy, last the bright consummate flower Spirit odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit, Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed, To vital spirits aspire, to animal, To intellectual; give both life and sense, Fancy and understanding; whence the soul Reason receives, and reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive; discourse Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours, Differing but in degree, of kind the same." Book V. Again, were these new species created by single or multiple pairs ; and, if by multiple pairs, was there one, or were there many centers of distribu- tion for the individual species ? Views of Agassiz. According to Linnaeus, the great Swedish nat- uralist, who voiced not only the opinion of his time, but of nearly all creationists since his time, species were created by single pairs, and the present num- ber is equal to that which was created in the begin- CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 79 ning. 1 According to Schouw, whose views were shared by the eminent botanist, Alphonse de Can- dolle, in the earlier portion of his career, there was " a double or multiple origin of species, at least of some species." Professor L. Agassiz, however, went much farther. He asserted not only the multiplic- ity of species, but also denied that there was " any necessary genetic connection among individuals of the same species, or of any original localization more restricted than the area now occupied by the spe- cies." According to this eminent student of nature, all animals and plants have occupied, from the be- ginning, those natural boundaries within which they stand to one another in such harmonious relations. Pines originate in forests, heaths in heaths, grasses in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in shoals, and men in nations. He asserts that " all animals originated in vast numbers indeed, in the average number charac- teristic of their species over the whole of their geographical area, whether its surface be continuous, or disconnected by sea, lakes, rivers, or by differ- ences of level above the sea, etc." 8 Elsewhere he declares: "There are in animals peculiar adaptations which are characteristic of their species, and which cannot be supposed to have arisen from subordinate influences. Those which live in shoals cannot be supposed to have been created in single pairs. Those which are made to be the food of others can- not have been created in the same proportions as 1(1 Species tot numeramus quot diverse formse in principle sunt create." " Philosophia Botanica," No. 157. 2 " An Essay on Classification," p. 59. 80 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. those which live upon them. Those which are everywhere found in innumerable specimens, must have been introduced in numbers capable of main- taining their normal proportions to those which live isolated, and are comparatively and constantly fewer. For we know that this harmony in the numerical proportions between animals is one of the great laws of nature. The circumstance that species occur within definite limits, where no obstacles prevent their wider distribution, leads to the further infer- ence that these limits were assigned to them from the beginning ; and so we should come to the final conclusion that the order which prevails throughout nature is intentional, and that it is regulated by the limits marked out the first day of creation, and that it has been maintained unchanged through ages, with no other modifications than those which the higher intellectual powers of man enable him to im- pose on some few animals more closely connected with him." 1 According to Agassiz, therefore, not only is the origin of species supernatural, but their general geographical distribution is also supernatural. And more than this. Not only are all the phenomena of origin, distribution and extinction of animal and vegetable life, to be directly referred to the Divine will, but also, he will have it, " Every adaptation of species to climate, and of species to species, is as ab- original, and, therefore, as inexplicable, as are the organic forms themselves." " The facts of geology," 1 ' Lake Superior," p. 337. CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 81 he tells us, " exhibit the simultaneous creation, and the simultaneous destruction of entire fauna, and a coincidence between these changes in the organic world and the great physical changes our earth has undergone." " The origin of the great variety of types of animals and plants, can never," he declares, " be attributed to the limited influence of monoto- nous physical causes which always act in the same way." On the contrary, it necessarily displays " the intervention of a Creator" in the most striking man- ner, in every stage of the history of the world. Agassiz returns to these points time and again, and illustrates his argument in ways that are always interesting, if not always conclusive. As a resume of his teaching respecting the origin, distribution and extinction of animals and plants, and as an indi- cation of his spirit of reverence and piety, nothing can be more explicit or edifying than the following paragraphs taken from his profound " Essay on Classification," so frequently quoted : " The products of what are commonly called physical agents are everywhere the same, that is, upon the whole surface of the globe ; and have al- ways been the same, that is, during all geological periods ; while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no causal or genetic connection. "The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful conceptions, exhibits not only thought ; it shows also premeditation, power, wisdom, great- ness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In one 82 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. word, all these facts, in their natural connection, pro- claim aloud the one God, whom we may know, adore and love ; and natural history must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, as well as in the inorganic world." 1 Evolution. As against the doctrine of separate and successive creations, we have, as already stated, the theory of the origin of species by derivation. But as in the creational doctrine there are different views respect- ing the manner in which species appeared, so, like- wise are there, according to Evolution, different hypotheses regarding the origin and development of the divers forms of organized beings. In the first edition of his " Origin of Species " Darwin expresses the belief that all " animals have descended from at most only four or five progeni- tors, and plants from an equal or lesser number." In the second edition of his work he arrives at quite a different conclusion and infers that " probably all organic beings which have ever lived on the earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator." The majority of evolutionists, who admit the existence of a personal God, accept the Darwinian view that all the forms of life at present existing in the world are derived, by the agency of natural forces and the influence of environment, from 1 P. 205 ; cf., also, chaps, x and xvi, of Agassiz' " Methods of Study in Natural History." C ON TR O VERS T A ND PR OGRESS. 83 one primordial created form. Evolutionists of the atheistic school, however, of which Ernst Haeckel is the chief representative, contend not only that all species of animals and plants are descended from a speck of protoplasm, a simple, structureless primitive moneron, but also that this primordial speck of pro- toplasm was not the work of the Deity, but was the result solely of the operation of some one of the physical forces on brute matter. But excluding the philosophical theories which have been built on Evolution, and the religious dis- cussions to which it has given rise, let us proceed to examine the evidences for and against it as a scien- tific theory. Let us inquire what are the grounds for the almost universal acceptance of this theory by contemporary scientists, and see whether the argu- ments advanced in its support are in accord with the canons of sound logic and the principles of true philosophy. The question is entirely one of natural science, not of metaphysics, and hence one of evi- dence which is more or less tangible. What, then, are the evidences of organic Evolution to which modern scientists usually appeal ? This is the ques- tion to which all that precedes is but little more than a preamble, and a question, too, that well de- serves our closest and most serious consideration. I shall endeavor to give the answer succinctly, but fairly, in the following chapter. CHAPTER VII. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. Systems of Classification. BEFORE discussing the evidences of Evolution, or examining the arguments advanced in its support, it is advisable to have some idea of the different systems of classification which have ob- tained in various periods of the history of science, and to learn on what such systems were based. Have naturalists in all ages employed essentially the same systems of classification, or have their systems been widely different, if not contradictory? Are scientific classifications expressions of natural ar- rangements existing in animated nature, or are they but artificial devices for coordinating our knowledge of nature and facilitating our investigations ? Have species, genera, families, orders, classes and branches, a real or an ideal existence? Are they manifestly disclosed in the plan of creation or are they but arbitrary categories hit upon by naturalists as con- venient aids in arrangement and research ? These are a few of the many questions which present themselves for an answer as we approach the subject of organic Evolution. Others there are also which might be discussed but we have not space for them now. (84) EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 85 The system of classification of Aristotle, and of the naturalists of antiquity generally, was of the most primitive character. It recognized but two groups, ylvof and elfl9, genus and species. These terms, as a rule, had only a very vague meaning, and were frequently made to embrace groups of animals that we should now refer to orders and classes. ' This system, however, incomplete and mislead- ing as it was, prevailed for upwards of two thousand years, and no serious attempt was made to improve on it until the time of the great naturalist, Linnaeus. He introduced new divisions and distinctions, gave to the study of zoology an impetus which it had never received before, and stimulated research in a manner that was simply marvelous. He was the first to introduce classes and orders into the system of zoology, in addition to the vague genera and species of the ancient philosophers. 11 Until the appearance of the "Regne Animal" of Cuvier, in the beginning of the present century, the "Systema Naturae" of Linnaeus, first published in 1735, was the only system of classification which received any recogni- tion. All other attempts at classification were only l ln the sixth chapter of the first book of his " History of Animals" Aristotle distinguishes between yev?/ /jryiara, -yevtf fieydfa and yevoc simply. This chapter will well repay perusal as illustrating the diversity of meanings given to a word which in modern zoology has such a definite and restricted signification. Although c5o? had sometimes a wider meaning than we now give to this term, it must, nevertheless, in justice to the illustri- ous Stagirite, be said that he usually employed it in the same sense as naturalists now use the word species. 2 Linnjeus called the class, genus summttm; the order, genus intermedium ; the genus, genus proximum. 86 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. modifications of the system introduced by the Swed- ish naturalist. But when Cuvier "the greatest zoologist of all time," as Agassiz denominates him began his epoch-making investigations, all was changed. The divisions of Linnaeus were based on external resemblances. Cuvier, as the result of an extensive survey of the whole animal kingdom, and more especially in consequence of his marvelous in- vestigations in the domain of comparative anatomy, a science of which he was the founder, demon- strated that classification should be based, not on external resemblance, but on internal structure. He was indeed the first to introduce order into chaos, and to place the science of zoology on something like a firm foundation. Cuvier and His Successors. Before Cuvier's time no attempt had been made to bring the various groups of animals under a more comprehensive division than that which exhibited the whole animal kingdom as composed of verte- brates and invertebrates ; a division which was not materially different from that of Aristotle, who classed all animals as sanguineous, Ztia eva/ja, and asanguineous, Ztia avat.ua. But, in his memorable com- munication to the French Academy in 1812, Cuvier declared that his researches had led him to believe " that all animals are constructed upon four different plans, or as it were, cast in four different moulds." l J The words of the French naturalist on this subject are: " Si Ton conside"re le regne animal d' apres les principes que nous venons de poser, en se debarassant des prejuges 6tablis sur les divisions anciennement admises, en n'avant egard qu'a 1'or- EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 87 The names given to the groups embranchemens, or branches, Cuvier calls them constructed on these four plans are vertebrates, mollusks, articulates and radiates. It will thus be seen that Cuvier introduces divisions above the classes of Linnaeus. In addition to this he also interpolates families between orders and genera. And then, again, the various divisions of Cuvier admit of numerous secondary divisions, such as sections, tribes, sub-genera and others besides. Important as was the " Systema Naturae" in stimu- lating research, its influence was almost insignificant in comparison with Cuvier's masterly " Lemons sur 1'Anatomie Compared," and his no less remarkable " Regne Animal," and " Ossemens Fossiles." The publication of these chefs-d'oeuvre not only gave to the study of natural history a stimulus it had never felt before, but it was likewise the occasion of numerous new systems of zoological classification of various degrees of merit. Naturalists now vied with one another in estab- lishing new divisions, in introducing new classes, orders, genera and species into their systems, and in claiming, each for his own system, some special value or point of superiority not possessed by the others. First came the system of Lamarck, then those of ganisation et a la nature des animaux, et non pas a leur gran- deur, a leur utilite, au plus ou moins de connaissance que nous en avons, ou a toutes les autres circonstances accessoires, on trouvera qu'il existe quatre formes principales, quatre plans ge"neraux, si 1'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, d'apres lesquels tous les animaux semblent avoir e"te modeles et dont les divisions ulteri- eures, de quelque titre que les naturalistes les aient decores, ne sont que des modifications assez legeres, fondees sur le developpe- ment ou 1' addition de quelques parties qui ne changent rien a 1'essence du plan." 88 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. De Blainville, Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Von Siebold and Stannius, Leuckart, Milne-Edwards, Kolliker, Vogt, Van Beneden, Owen, Von Baer, Agassiz, Huxley, Haeckel and Ray Lankester, not to men- tion scores of others of lesser importance. Points of View. But what is more striking than the number of zoological systems which our century has produced, are the diverse points of view which systematists have chosen in elaborating their systems. The pre- Cuvierian taxonomists, as we have seen, based their schemes of classification on external characteristics. Cuvier insisted that taxonomy should be based on internal structure, and that the structure of the en- tire animal should be considered. Certain later sys- tematists deemed this unnecessary, and attempted to build systems of classification on the variations of a single organ, or on the structure of the egg alone. Again, according to Cuvier's classification, the four branches of the animal kingdom are distin- guished by four distinct plans of structure. Accord- ing to Ehrenberg " the type of development of ani- mals is one and the same from man to the monad." According to Cuvier and his school, the four types of structure proceed along four parallel lines. Ac- cording to the evolutionary school, however, the entire animal kingdom is to be conceived as a gen- ealogical tree, Stanimbaum, the various branches and twigs, twiglets and leaves of which, are to be regarded as the classes, orders, genera and species of which zoologists speak. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 89 At first classification was based on only superfi- cial characteristics. Now we must take into account, not only external form and internal structure, not only anatomical and histological characteristics, but we must also incorporate in our classifications the teachings of embryology and cytology. We must study not only bone and muscle, but investigate the nature and structure of the cell, and study the embryo from its earliest to its latest state of devel- opment. We can now call no one master, for the days of magister dixit have passed. Neither Aris- totle, nor Linnaeus, nor Cuvier nor any other one person is to be our sole guide, but we must per- force elaborate a system from the combined ob- servations and generalizations of not only the great masters above-mentioned, but also from those of Schwann and Von Baer, Johann and Fritz Mu'ller, Kowalewsky and Darwin. We must dis- card much, once accepted as true, which more ex- act research has disproved, and combine into one systematic whole the gleanings of truth which are afforded by the investigations of so many stu- dents in the various departments of natural knowl- edge. Taxonomic Divisions. Our brief reference to some of the chief systems of classification conducts us naturally to a more im- portant topic, the nature of the various categories which we have been considering. Have branches, classes, orders, families, genera and species a real existence in nature, or are they 90 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. merely more or less successful devices of scientific men to arrange and correlate the facts and phe- nomena of nature? Are the divisions which natural- ists have introduced into their systems artificial and arbitrary, or have they rather been instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories of His mode of thinking? Are they but the inventions of the hu- man mind or have " the relations and proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable worlds an intellectual and ideal connection in the mind of the Creator?" " Have we, perhaps," asks the eloquent Agassiz, " thus far been only the un- conscious interpreters of a Divine conception, in our attempts to expound nature ? And when in the pride of our philosophy we thought that we were in- venting systems of science, and classifying creation by the force of our own reason, have we followed only and reproduced in our imperfect expressions, the plan whose foundations were laid in the dawn of creation, and the development of which we are labo- riously studying, thinking, as we put together and arrange our fragmentary knowledge, that we are in- troducing order into chaos anew ? Is this order the result of the exertions of human skill and ingenuity ; or is it inherent in the objects themselves, so that the intelligent student of natural history is led un- consciously, by the study of the animal kingdom itself, to these conclusions, the great divisions under which he arranges animals being indeed but the headings to the chapter of the great book which he is reading." ' 1 " Essay on Classification," pp. 8, 9. E VIDENCES OF E VOL UTION. 91 On a correct answer to this last all-import- ant question depends, in great measure, the truth or falsity of the theory of organic Evolution. It is a shibboleth which cannot be evaded, a crux which must be explained before an intelligent dis- cussion of the evidences of Evolution is even pos- sible. Plato's " Grand Ideas." According to Plato, "the world of particular things is somehow determined by preexisting uni- versal ideas." Species and genera, therefore, are but expressions of the ideas of the Creator ; and classifi- cations of animals and plants, according to types, are but translations of the thoughts of God ; expres- sions of grand ideas which from all eternity have been before the Divine mind. Types, then, are but the copy ; the Divine ideas, the pattern or arche- type. Species, as Plato conceived them, were im- mutable, and organic Evolution, as now understood, was, accordingly, impossible. During the Middle Ages, Plato's doctrine of types was accepted without question, and species were looked upon as being as immutable as the rules of dialectics, as unchangeable as truth itself. Thus the great Scotus Erigena, probably the profoundest philosopher of his time, declares that " that art which divides genera into species, and re- solves species into genera, which is called dialectics, is not the product of human ingenuity, but has its origin in the nature of things and is due to the Author of all arts which are true arts, and has been 92 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. simply discovered by the wise." ' But this classifi- cation, this division into species and genera, which, according to Erigena, is something not artificial and conventional, but something that is real and Divine, applied, in the estimation of most philosophers prior to the time of Darwin, not only to logic and metaphysics but also to the natural sciences as well. Linnaeus held similar views. He tells us ex- plicitly that " the number of species is equal to the number of divers forms which the Infinite Being created in the beginning ; which forms, according to the prescribed laws of generation, produced others, but always like unto themselves." 1 Cuvier on Species. But the strongest and most eminent advocate of the creation and fixity of species was Cuvier. In the introduction to his " Regne Animal " he asserts that " there is no proof that all the differences which now distinguish organized beings are such as may have been produced by circumstances. All that has been advanced upon this subject is hypothetical; experi- ence seems to show, on the contrary, that, in the actual state of things, varieties are confined within 1 "Intelligitur quod ars ilia, quae dividet genera in species et species in genera resolvit, quae 6ia/.eK.TtK^ dicitur, non ab humanis machinationibus sit facta, sed in natura rerum ab Auctore omnium artium, quse verse artes sunt, condita et a sapientibus inventa." ' De Divisione Naturae," iv, 4. * " Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infinitum Ens; quse forma?, secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes." " Philosophia Bo- tanica," 99,157. E VIDENCES OF EVOLU TION. 93 rather narrow limits, and, so far as we can retrace antiquity, we perceive that these limits were the same as at the present. We are thus obliged to ad- mit of certain forms which, since the origin of things, have been perpetuated, without exceeding these limits ; and all the beings appertaining to one of these forms constitute what is termed a species. Genera- tion being the only means of ascertaining the limits to which varieties may extend, species should be defined as the reunion of individuals descended from one another, or from common parents, or from such as resemble them as closely as they resemble each other; but although this definition is rigorous, it will be seen that its application to particular individuals may be very different when the necessary experi- ments have been made." But not only, according to Cuvier, are existing species fixed and the result of special creative ac- tion ; the same views must also be held regarding the countless geological species which have so long disappeared from the face of the earth. The great naturalist was a firm believer in the doctrine of suc- cessive creations and destructions, of a series of de- populatings and repeoplings of the world. As is well known, he was the author of the celebrated Period or Concordistic theory, which attempts to reconcile the statements of the Mosaic narra- tive of creation with the declarations of geology and paleontology a theory which has had a great vogue, and which, after the lapse of three- quarters of a century, has even now not a few advo- cates. 94 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Definition of Species. We come now to the definition of the term spe- cies, the critical point in the controversy between creationists and evolutionists. Aristotle's concep- tion of species was, as we have seen, far from being precise. With his followers, for more than two thou- sand years, the idea of a physiological species was vague and nebulous in the extreme. It was usually nothing more than a metaphysical concept, and was of little or no value to the working naturalist. In- deed, strange as it may seem, no definition of the term species, as it is now used, was given until the latter part of the seventeenth century. One of the first definitions found is in the " Historia Plantarum " of the noted English botanist Ray, although Yung, of Hamburg, and Tournefort, the distinguished French botanist, contemporaries of Ray, appear to have an- ticipated the English naturalist in arriving at a true conception of physiological species. According to Ray, " specific characters rested not only on close and constant resemblance in outward form, but also on the likeness of offspring to parent, a considerable measure of variability being, however, recognized." Ray's definition of species and Linnaeus' binomial system of nomenclature, which so greatly facilitated classification, contributed immensely towards estab- lishing order where chaos had so long reigned su- preme. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that, after the labors of Ray, Linnaeus, Cuvier, and their collaborators, there was perfect unanimity respect- E VWENCES OF E VOL UTION. 95 ing the nature and signification of species. On the contrary, the divergence of views was rendered greater in proportion to the progress of research and discovery, so that it soon became difficult to find any two persons who could agree on a definition of the term "species." Everyone who wrote on zoology, as we have learned, had his own system of classification. In like manner, everyone who had occasion to treat of questions of natural history found himself compelled to define the little word " species," and the defini- tion given usually differed in important respects from those of previous investigators. Indeed, if we compare the definitions of species which have been given since the time of Ray, we shall find that there has been as great a change of opinion respecting its nature, as there has been displayed in the various systems of classification that have been elaborated since the period of Linnaeus. Everywhere there is uncertainty, doubt, nebulosity. The learned anthropologist, De Quatrefages, in his interesting work, " Darwin et ses Precurseurs Frangais," gives, besides his own definition of the term, no fewer than twenty definitions of species he might have given many more as proposed by as many eminent naturalists. 1 Some, like Ray and Flou- rens, base their definition on genealogical connection ; others like Tournefort and De Candolle regard like- ness among individuals as the essential thing in a true definition of species, while others still, and these for P P . 186, 187. 96 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the nonce are in the majority, aver that both filia- tion and resemblance must be taken into account in any true definition of the term. Thus, the illustrious botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, the founder of the "natural system" of botany, which superseded the artificial or sexual system of Linnaeus, defines species as " a succession of individuals entirely alike, which are perpetuated by generation." ' Similar definitions have been given by Lamarck, Cuvier, Johann Mu'ller, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and others. According to De Quatrefages a " species is a collection of individuals, more or less resembling each other, which may be regarded as having descended from a single primi- tive pair by an uninterrupted and natural succession of families." " Agassiz, however, who, as we have seen, contended that individuals of the same species existing in disconnected geographical areas had in- dependent origins, insisted that we are forced "to remove from the philosophic definition of species the idea of a community of origin, and consequently, also, the idea of a necessary genealogical connec- tion." 3 To the foregoing I may add the declarations of our eminent American botanist, Professor Asa Gray, who declares : " We still hold that genealogical con- nection, rather than mutual resemblance, is the fun- 1 In his great work, " Genera Plantarum," Jussieu says of species: " Nunc rectius definitur perennis individuorum similium successio continuata generatione renascentium." 2l< The Human Species," p. 36. 3 " Essay on Classification," p. 256. E VI DEN CBS OF E VOL UTION. 97 damental thing first on the ground of fact, and then from the philosophy of the case. Practically, no botanist can say what amount of dissimilarity is compatible with the unity of species ; in wild plants it is sometimes very great, in cultivated races often enormous." 1 What the learned professor here af- firms of plants, may likewise, with equal truth, be predicated of animals both wild and domestic. Difficulties Regarding Species. What, then, is species? Is it something real, as some have averred, or is it, as others maintain, some- thing which is only ideal? And if it have an exist- ence, real or ideal, how may it be recognized? The definitions given do not, as we have seen, throw much light on the subject. On the contrary, they are all more or less defective, and often quite con- tradictory. It is only, however, when we come to consider the practical applications of these or similar defini- tions, that we find how illusory and unsatisfactory they are. We have but to compare the classifica- tions of different botanists and zoologists when treating of the same florae and faunae, to realize how utterly inadequate are even the best definitions of species as guides in the classificatory work of prac- tical naturalists. No two naturalists, it may safely be asserted, have ever yet agreed on the same clas- sification as to species, even for the animals and plants of restricted geographical areas. Some aug- lu Darwiniana," p. 203. E.-? 98 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA. ment the number of species; others diminish it. Some make species out of what others regard as only races or varieties ; whilst others again combine in one what still others contend are demonstrably two or more distinct species. Thus, we have it on the authority of Gray that " In a flora so small as the British, one hundred and eighty-two plants, generally reckoned as varieties, have been ranked by some botanists as species. Selecting the British genera which include the most polymorphous forms, it appears that Babbington's flora gives them two hundred and fifty-one species, Bentham's only one hundred and twelve ; a differ- ence of one hundred and thirty-nine doubtful forms. These are nearly the extreme views, but they are the views of two most capable and most experienced judges in respect to one of the best-known floras of the world. The fact is suggestive, that the best- known countries furnish the greatest known number of such doubtful cases." ' The relativity and variability of species are still more strikingly illustrated in the case of the hawk- weed, hieracium, of Germany. One author de- scribes no fewer than three hundred species of this plant, another makes the number one hundred and six, a third reduces it to fifty-two, while a fourth is equally positive that there are but twenty species all told! 2 1 "Darwiniana," p. 35. Cf. "The Origin of Species," chap. n. 2 It was such difficulties of classification that led the natu- ralist, Deslonchamps, to declare : "Plus on voit d'echantillons, moins on fait d'especes." For a similar reason Darwin ex- claims: "How painfully true it is that no one has a right to EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 99 Hseckel's well-known monograph on the calca- reous sponges shows, even in a more remarkable manner, to what an extent classification depends on the personal equation of the systematist, or " on his predilection for lumping and splitting." In this monograph the Jena professor, considering the same set of forms from different points of view, offers no fewer than twelve different arrangements, " among which the two most nearly conventional propose respectively twenty-one genera and one hundred and eleven species, and thirty-nine genera and two hundred and eighty-nine species." Similar, although less marked instances of spe- cific indefiniteness are exhibited regarding the oak, willow, beech, birch, chestnut, and other well-known trees. It is, however, in the lowest forms of life that it is most difficult to draw the line of demarca- tion between one species and another, and where, as all admit, the grouping of species into genera is at best a matter of conjecture. The countless and com- plete series of transitional forms brought up from the ocean depths by the dredge and trawl are cases in point. But more puzzling still to the systematist, are those extraordinary microbian forms of life called schizomycetes, which embrace the numerous micro- scopic organisms known as microbes, bacteria, examine the question of species who has not minutely described many. . . . After determining a set of forms as a distinct species, tearing them up and making them separate, and then making them one again (which has happened to me), I have gnashed my teeth, cursed species, and asked what sin I had committed to be so treated." 100 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA. microphytes, and their congeners. Here classifica- tion is at best provisional and arbitrary, and depends entirely on the point of view from which they are studied. In such lowly forms of life, not only is the certain discrimination of species impossible, but it is impossible even to draw a hard and fast line between what is incontestably animal life on the one hand, and vegetable life on the other. Such being the case, what, it may be asked, be- comes of species? What of classification? What of the various systems which have been proposed ? Have species any real existence, the question is again asked, or are they but mere figments of the imagination, ignes fatui, which have ever eluded the grasp of the investigator, and which are now even farther away from it than they ever were before? Are they but varying, metaphysical entities, airy nothings, convenient only for purposes of specula- tion and for a classification which, from the very nature of the case, must at best be but provisional and arbitrary ? In reply to these questions it may be stated that there are still those, and their number is far from being small, who yet cling to the old idea of species as something real, immutable, and always recogniza- ble. The instances I have just alluded to may not indeed, it is conceded, exhibit all the specific definite- ness of the Venus' flytrap, or the pearly nautilus, but nevertheless, it is contended, the species exist, despite the difficulties which obscure their definition, or which, for the time being, make their recognition impossible. E VIDENCES OF E VOL UTION. 101 Agassiz' Views. Yet even in the face of the difficulties which have been referred to, Agassiz persisted, as others still persist, in maintaining that species are entities, real or ideal, which continue to exist from generation to generation. But he went further than this, further even than most of his predecessors had been willing to go. For not only, according to his views, are species unchangeable units, but genera, orders, classes, and the other groups as well, "are founded in nature, and ought not to be considered as arti- ficial devices, invented by man to facilitate his studies." "To me," says Agassiz, "it appears in- disputable, that the order and arrangement of our studies are based on the natural, primitive relations of animal life those systems to which we have given the names of the great leaders of our science who first proposed them, being, in truth, but trans- lations into human language of the thoughts of the Creator." In the opinion of the illustrious Swiss savant, " man has not invented, but only traced, the systematic arrangement of nature." "The relations and proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world, have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator. The plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was the free conception of the Almighty intellect, matured in His thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms." " In 102 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. a word, species, genera, families, etc., exist as thoughts ; individuals as facts." * Species in the Making. But while some of the old school who are not naturalists, still subscribe to these or similar views, and while a few, possibly even among naturalists, may yet be found who entertain like notions, the great majority of working naturalists have entirely discarded the traditional idea of species, as some- thing fixed and unchangeable, and substituted in its stead the idea of a species which is variable and transmutable. For evolutionists, all such variable and doubtful forms as those I have indicated are but " species in the making," which become definite in proportion as certain varieties become especially adapted to their environment, and become isolated by the dying out of the intermediate forms. From the evolutionary standpoint both species and classi- fication have a significance which is not only ex- cluded from the creationist's view, but which is absolutely incompatible with it. By the aid of the Evolution hypothesis, too, mysteries are solved which 1 Cf. " Essay on Classification," chap, i , sec. i , and "Amer- ican Journal of Science," July, 1860, p. 143. Very few naturalists, even among Agassiz' predecessors, among those, namely, who like himself, were from conviction special creationists, would, I think, subscribe to this statement. The majority of them, I am disposed to believe, regarded all divisions above species as purely conventional. For, even in pre- Darwinian days, as Romanes well observes, " the scientifically orthodox doctrine was, that although species were to be regarded as fixed units, bearing the stamp of a special creation, all the higher taxonomic divisions were to be considered as what may be termed the artificial cre- ation of naturalists themselves.""' Darwin and After Darwin," vol. I, p. 20. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 103 had long baffled the efforts of the keenest investi- gators of the old school, and a simple explanation is afforded of difficulties and apparent anomalies which, without this hypothesis, are simply inexpli- cable. A few simple examples will illustrate my meaning, and at the same time indicate the nature of one of the arguments adduced in favor of organic Evolution. De Candolle and Baird. The eminent Swiss botanist, M. Alphonse de Candolle, as the result of an exhaustive study under particularly favorable circumstances, of the oak, es- pecially the oak of the Old World, comes to the con- clusion that current notions regarding this important genus must be materially modified ; that far from having the large number of species usually attrib- uted to it, the number is in reality very small; that what are so frequently considered as species, are at best but varieties and races ; that there is every rea- son to believe, if indeed there is not positive proof, that all the multitudinous gradations observed among oaks are originally derived from but a few forms, or that all of them may be traced back to the same pri- meval ancestor. His investigations regarding the oak, demonstrate beyond question what other naturalists had observed and suspected, viz : that what appears to be a distinct species, when only a few specimens from a limited area are examined, proves on the ex- amination of a larger number of specimens, from a wider geographical area, to be, at most, but a race or a variety. 104 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Considering the relations to each other of only existing species, De Candolle felt obliged to curtail greatly the number of species of the genus quercus, but when the genealogy of the oak is studied in the light of geology and paleontology, it is found that it originated far back in the Cretaceous Period, and that this ancient geologic form is undoubtedly the common ancestor of all the species and varieties now existing. For we have it on the testimony of such a competent witness as Lesquereux, that not only the oak but all " the essential types of our actual flora are marked in the Cretaceous Period, and have come to us, after passing without notable changes through the Tertiary formations of our conti- nent." Baird's researches upon the birds of North Amer- ica, admirably corroborate De Candolle's induction, to wit: "That when a large number of specimens from a sufficiently extensive territory are examined and compared, it is found that what are ordinarily regarded as quite distinct species are often no more than races and varieties, or what evolutionists would denominate incipient species. For along the border- ing lines of the habitats of such species, it is observed that the specific characters of the divers forms are so blended that it is often difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish one species from another. Indeed, whether the birds observed in such cases belong to the same or to different species will depend, mainly or entirely, either on the naturalist's point of view, or on the number of intermediate forms which he may be able to collect and compare." EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 105 Evidence of Organic Evolution. After this long preamble respecting classification and species a preamble which the nature and scope of the topic now under discussion have rendered necessary we are at length prepared for an intelli- gent appreciation of the arguments commonly ad- duced in support of the theory of organic Evolution. If species are not the immutable units they have so long been considered ; if, far from being easy of rec- ognition, as is so often fancied, they are with diffi- culty recognizable, if at all ; if, far from being perma- nent and unchangeable, they are, on the contrary, variable and mutable ; we have legitimate a priori reasons for believing in the possibility of Evolution, if not in its probability. The actuality, however, of Evolution, is a question of evidence ; not indeed of evidence based on metaphysical assumptions, but of evidence derived from observation and a trustworthy interpretation of the facts of nature. To the discus- sion of this evidence, which I shall make as brief as is consistent with clearness and the nature of the argument involved, I shall now direct the reader's attention. The evidence usually advanced in support of organic Evolution is fourfold, and is based: First, on the classification of animals and plants ; second, on their morphology ; third, on their embryology ; and fourth, on their distribution in space and time. This, especially the evidence derived from paleontology, is what Huxley designates as "the 106 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. demonstrative evidence of Evolution," and is well worthy of our most serious consideration. Of course it will be understood that I can give only the baldest outline of the arguments ad- vanced in favor of the theory of Evolution as applied to plants and animals. Space precludes my doing more than this ; besides it is unnecessary, as count- less treatises by specialists have been written, in which the various arguments in favor of Evolution are given in extenso, and to these is referred the reader who is desirous of more detailed information. The argument from classification has been inci- dentally touched upon in what precedes. We have noted the differences of views entertained by divers naturalists respecting the classification of certain plants and animals, and how difficulties of classifica- tion increase as we descend from higher to lower types of animated nature. On the theory that all the manifold forms of animal and vegetable life are descended from one primitive form, these difficul- ties, which on the special creation theory are simply inexplicable, find a ready and simple explanation. Assuming that all forms of life are originally de- rived from simple monera or undifferentiated parti- cles of protoplasm, and that all are but more or less modified descendants of the same humble ancestor, we can understand why there are such striking re- semblances in some instances, and such wide diver- gencies in others. A Philological Illustration. An illustration taken from philology will make this statement clearer. In the Romance languages, EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 107 for instance, we observe many marked similarities of form and structure, but no one would think of assert- ing that all these different tongues are directly due to Divine intervention, or that Spanish is derived from Italian, or Italian from French. And yet, they are genetically related to one another, because we know that they are all derived from an older speech the Latin. In like manner we are able to trace relationships between the numerous members of the great Aryan family of languages between, for ex- ample, such widely dissimilar tongues as Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Slavic, Zend, Gothic, German, Irish. We cannot, of course, arrange them in a linear series, but it can be shown that all of them are de- scended from the same mother-tongue and that they all, therefore, belong to the same family tree. Tree- Like System of Classification. As in philology, so also in botany and zoology, we must look upon the whole of animated nature as constituting but a single genealogical tree. The trunk of this tree represents those lower forms of life which cannot be said with certainty to be either animal or vegetable. It first bifurcates into two minor trunks, or large branches, which are known as the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Each of these trunks or branches bears other branches which de- note classes, and these, in turn, ramify in such wise as to produce boughs, twigs, twiglets, and leaves, repre- senting families, orders, genera, and species. This tree-like system of classification of animals and plants obtained long before the time of Darwin, 108 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . but he gave it a significance it never before pos- sessed. He showed that it was in reality the only natural system, and the only one which was compe- tent to explain the varied and complicated facts of the organic world. He demonstrated more clearly than had any of his predecessors the impossibility of attempting, as had Lamarck and others, to arrange animals and plants in a series of linear groups. By classifying animals in lineally ascending groups, Lamarck had placed snails and oysters above such marvelously organized creatures as bees and butter- flies. The same system of classification would place the humble duck-bill, because it is a mammal, above the eagle and the condor, the lowly amphioxus above the crab, and the degraded lepidosiren above the salmon. Again, the tree-like system of classification eludes such blunders and shows that differences of structure, and not complexity of organization, are to be con- sidered in every rational attempt to ascertain the true position of any organism in the animal king- dom. Unlike all popular classifications, it is not based on mere external resemblances, but on resem- blances which are deeper and more fundamental. Thus, for instance, a whale is often regarded as a fish, because, forsooth, it bears some likeness to a fish in form and habits. A closer examination, how- ever, reveals the fact that it is more like a dog or an ox than a fish. The same may be said of other cases that might be cited, wherein the true position of an organism in the scale of life can be determined, not by superficial resemblances, but by likenesses E VIDENCES OF E VOL UTION. 109 which are revealed only by dissection likenesses which can be fully appreciated only by the trained anatomist. The more closely, then, one examines the divers forms of life, the stronger grows the conviction that they are genetically related in the manner indicated by a Stammbaum, or genealogical tree. No other system is competent to explain the facts observed ; neither is there any other system which can explain the " progressive shading off of characters common to larger groups into more and more specialized characters distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups." It is just such a system as we should ex- pect to find if the theory of descent be true ; just such a system as would obtain if the law of parsi- mony be admitted, the law, to-wit, that " forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects." Indeed, so powerful does the argument from classification appear to some minds, that it alone is regarded as decisive in favor of Evolution. Referring to this matter Mr. Fiske declares: " In my own case the facts presented in Agassiz' ' Essay on Classifica- tion ' went far toward producing conviction before the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the ' Origin of Species,' where the significance of such facts is clearly pointed out and strongly insisted upon." ' The Argument from Structure and Morphology. We now pass to the argument from structure and morphology. To confine ourselves to the ver- 111 Cosmic Philosophy," vol. I, p. 454. 110 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. tebrates, which are more familiar to the general reader, we observe that all the members of this ex- tensive group are constructed on the same general type. They belong, as it were, to the same style of architecture, and we can trace the variations of structure of similar parts with ease and precision. They are all descendants of but one archetypal form, of one primal vertebrate, from which all others are derived by adaptive modification. This is beautifully illustrated in the homologies of the vertebrate skeleton. And here it is necessary to remark that analo- gous organs are by no means homologous organs. Analogous organs are those which are similar in form and function, but of different origin. Homol- ogous organs, on the contrary, are those which, however different their form and functions, can be shown to have community of origin. Thus, the wings of birds and butterflies are analogous, but not homologous. They have the same general form and function, but they have not the same origin ; that is, they have not been produced by modification from the same organ or part. On the other hand, the arms of men and apes, the fore-legs and fore-paws of mammals and reptiles, the wings of bats and birds, and the paddles of cetacea and the breast-fins of fishes are homologous, because, how- ever diverse their forms and functions, they can all be demonstrated to have a common origin. They have essentially the same structure and are com- posed of the same pieces, although in view of their diverse functions they are so modified that the EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. Ill superficial resemblance has entirely disappeared. But although the modifications are so great, they are, nevertheless, just such modifications as would have originated from the fore-limb of some arche- typal form, if this limb had been called upon to perform entirely different functions from those for which it was first adapted, or if the archetypal an- cestor had been introduced to an entirely different environment from the one in which it was originally placed. Analogy, then, is but a superficial resem- blance, whereas, homology is an essential and fun- damental one which, in many cases, can be detected only by experts in comparative anatomy. Now, it is precisely the fact of homology of structure, which finds its sole explanation in com- munity of origin, that constitutes one of the strong- est proofs of the theory of Evolution. According to the evolutionary theory of natural selection, it is inferred that hereditary characters undergo a change whenever a change will better adapt an organism to changed conditions of life. The whale is again a case in point. From the best evidence obtainable, it is concluded that the ances- tors of whales were land quadrupeds, which became aquatic in their habits. But such a change in their mode of life would necessitate a corresponding change in the functions of various parts and organs. The hind-legs would not be required for purposes of locomotion, and hence they would disappear. The fore-legs would be adapted for swimming, and would, therefore, be transformed into fins or pad- dles. There would also be important changes in 112 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the skin, teeth, muscles and form of the organism, rendering it more fish-like in shape, and better adapted for moving in the water. But even with all these modifications, necessi- tated by changes of environment and consequent mode of life, the anatomist would experience no difficulty in demonstrating that the whale is not a fish, but a mammal, and in exhibiting the various homologies existing between the divers parts of this monster of the deep, as we now know it, and parts of its hypothetical terrestrial progenitor. Thus, the paddles, as we have seen, correspond to the arms of man, the fore-legs of quadrupeds, the flippers of turtles, and the wings of birds. The hind-legs are not visible, externally, it is true, but they exist in- ternally in a rudimentary state. The same may be said of the teeth. The fully-developed baleen whale, for instance, has no teeth, for it has no need of them, but in its embryotic condition it possesses a complete rudimentary set of teeth, which are never cut, but are absorbed during the embryonic life of the organism. Similarly, the bones of the head of the whale are exactly homologous with those of the mammal, although the better to adapt it for aquatic locomotion, the shape of the head more closely re- sembles the head of a fish. But great and numer- ous as are the modifications observed, they have all been effected with the least possible divergence from the ancestral type which is compatible with the changed conditions of life. In form and in the functions of certain of its parts, the whale is a fish; in type and structure it is a mammal a lineal de- EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 113 scendant, according to the Evolution theory, of some mammoth terrestrial quadruped of which no trace has as yet been discovered. Rudimentary Organs. It were easy to multiply indefinitely examples of such rudimentary organs as those exhibited by the cetacea. We see them in the tails of birds, in the gill-arches of reptiles, in the dew-claws of a dog's foot, in the splint-bones of the horse, and in the wings of the ostrich and apteryx. Indeed, there is not a single representative of the higher forms of animal life, which does not exhibit one or more parts in an atrophied or rudimentary condition. But what is the significance of such aborted and useless organs? What is their origin, and can any reason be assigned for the existence of such func- tionless parts? The only natural explanation which can be offered, the only rational solution of the difficulty which science can give, is that suggested by the theory of Evolution. According to the theory of descent with adaptive modification, rudimentary organs are remnants of "some generalized primal form," in which they were useful, and had a definite function to perform. By reason of changed condi- tions of life of the individual, and corresponding dis- use of certain parts, great modifications in size and form and function ensued, and thus what was useful and necessary in the ancestral form ceased to be of value in its successor. " Rudimentary organs," then, to quote from Dar- win, " by whatever steps they may have been 114 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. degraded into their present useless condition, are the record of a former state of things and have been retained solely through the power of inherit- ance. They may be compared with the letters in a word still retained in the spelling, but become use- less in pronunciation, but which serve as a clue for its derivation. On the view of descent with modifi- cation, we may conclude that the existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect and useless con- dition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been antici- pated in accordance with the views here ex- plained." ' Considering, then, these wonderful homologies, of which but brief mention has been made, and pon- dering over the problems raised by the existence of rudimentary or vestigial organs, in such a large por- tion of the animal kingdom, what inference are we to draw from the point of view of science ? " What now," demands Spencer, " can be the meaning of this community of structure among these hundreds of thousands of species filling the air, burrowing in the earth, swimming in the water, creeping among the sea-weed, and having such enormous differences of size, outline and substance, that no community would be suspected between them ? Why, under the down-covered body of the moth, and under the hard wing-cases of the beetle, should there be discov- ered the same number of divisions as in the calcare- ; The Origin of Species," vol. II, p. 263. E VIDENCES OF E VOL U TION. 115 ous framework of the lobster?" ' But two answers have been given or can be given the answer of the special creationist, 3 that all forms of life were cre- ated as we find them, and the answer of the evolutionist, who contends that community of struc- ture betokens community of origin. Argument from Embryology. The argument from embryology is next in order, but it is of such a character that its full import can be appreciated only by experts in the science on which it is based. The most remarkable character- istic of the argument is that we find in the life- history of the individual, ontogeny, an epitome of its ancestral history, phylogeny. And this charac- teristic is not only in complete accordance with the theory of organic Evolution, but is, moreover, just what we should expect if the theory be true. The great embryologist. Von Baer, was the first to call attention to the remarkable agreement 1 " Principles of Biology," vol. I, p. 381. 2 Replying to the argument that rudimentary organs were specially created by God in order to complete the symmetry and harmony of the organism, Dr. Maisonneuve observes : " II me semble etrange que 1'on soit oblige d'en venir a preter a Dieu Tidee de faire des troinpe-l'ceil passez-moi 1'expres- sion et de supposer que 1'Auteur de toutes choses a si mal pris ses mesures, qu'il a ete oblige d'en venir a proceder comme un architecte, dont les plans mal concus ne lui permettent plus de ne placer des fenetres ou des lucarnes que seulment la ou leur existence se trouve justifiee a tous points de vue. Car. vous reconnaitrez sans peine, j'imagine, que 1'ideal pour 1'architecte, c'est d'arriver a ce que chaque detail du palais qu'il construit presente a la fois toutes les qualites.utilite, agrement et beaute." " Compte Rendu du Congres Scientifique International des Catholiques.' 1 tenu a Paris, 1891, Section d'Anthropologie, p. 59. 116 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. between the development of the individual and the development of the ancestral line to which the indi- vidual belongs. He showed that in every organism, as well as in its component parts, there is a gradual progress from the simple to the complex, from the general to the special. As Haeckel puts it, " ontog- eny is a recapitulation of phylogeny, or, somewhat more explicitly, the series of forms through which the individual organism passes during its progress from the egg-cell to its fully developed state, is a brief compressed reproduction of the long series of forms through which the animal ancestors of that organism, or the ancestral forms of its species, have passed from the earliest period of so-called organic creation down to the present time." Thus, observation shows, as the theory of Evolu- tion demands, that the germs of all animals are, at the outset, exactly like each other; but in the process of development each germ acquires, first, the differential characteristics of the sub-kingdom to which it belongs ; then, successively, the characteris- tics of its class, order, family, genus, species and race. For example, the highest mammal, man, be- gins his corporeal existence as a simple germ-cell, in form and appearance like unto an adult amceba, and utterly indistinguishable from the germ-cell of other vertebrates. As development progresses the embryo gradually becomes more and more differen- tiated. In its earlier stages it may be recognized as the embryo of a vertebrate, but it is impossible to tell to which class of vertebrates it belongs. So far 1 " The Evolution of Man," vol. I, pp. 7-8. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 117 as appearances go, it may be that of a fish, a rep- tile, a bird, or a mammal. Subsequently it exhibits the characteristics of a bird or a mammal, but the order to which it pertains is disclosed only at a yet later period. At a still later stage, after manifest- ing the characteristics of the family, genus, and species of which it is a member, it acquires the dis- tinguishing attributes of its race. Amphioxus and Loligo. A more striking instance of recapitulation is exhibited in the life-history of the amphioxus, or lancelet, interesting, among other things, for being the lowest known form of vertebrate. Here, as in the case of all other animals, the first stage of devel- opment is a simple germ-cell. This soon subdi- vides, but the subdivisions, instead of separating, as occurs in many of the lower forms of life, remain together and constitute what is known as the mor- ula stage, because of the resemblance in shape of the group of cells to a mulberry or blackberry. They subsequently assume a tubular form, in which condition the cells are disposed around a central tube-like cavity, open at each end. This is suc- ceeded by the blastula stage, in which the cells are grouped together in the form of a hollow ball, the outer cells being provided with cilia, thus enabling the embryonic amphioxus to move freely in the water. This condition is followed by a series of other changes, until, finally, the animal, after numer- ous and instructive transformations, acquires the adult form. 118 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Now, the interesting fact in connection with the development of this curious animal is, that the vari- ous stages through which it passes can be paralleled by organisms which remain permanently in the con- ditions in which the amphioxus rests but temporarily. The simple unicellular monad illustrates the in- cipient condition or first stage of the amphioxus. The second stage is paralleled by the pandorina, which is but a group of cells, each similar to the monad, living together in a common capsule. The third stage is represented by the remarkable salin- ella, which is a tubular structure composed of a single layer of simple, monad-like cells. The fourth condition is found in a common fresh-water volvox, which, like the blastula stage, is an organism con- sisting of a hollow sphere composed of a single layer of simple flagellate cells. The four organisms just mentioned do not, it is true, constitute a lineal series, a series, namely, in which the more complex is genetically derived from the simpler. But they prove, nevertheless, that all the earlier temporary stages of the amphioxus, the several curious embryonic conditions through which it passes, can be paralleled by organisms which have an actual permanent existence as adults, and which are classed as so many distinct species. This, to students of embryology, is a very remarkable fact, and to the evolutionist, who believes that the history of the individual is but a recapitulation of the history of the race, it is profoundly suggestive and significant and seems to indicate unmistakably the derivative origin of higher from lower forms of life. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 110 But this recapitulation may be observed, not only in the organisms themselves, but likewise in their constituent parts. A striking illustration is afforded in the development of the eye of the loligo, one of the higher cephalopoda, as compared with the rudimentary eyes of various species of mollusca. Thus, as the late Mr. Marshall tells us: " In solen we find the simplest condition of the molluscan eye, merely a slightly depressed and slightly modified patch of skin, which can only distinguish light from darkness, and in which the sensitive cells are pro- tected by being situated at the bottom of the fold of skin. In patella the next stage is found, where the eye forms a pit with a widely-open mouth. This is a distinct advance on the preceding form, for, owing to the increased depth of the pit, the sensory cells are less exposed to accidental injury. The next stage is found in haliotis, and consists of the narrowing of the mouth of the pit. This is a simple change but a very important step forward, for, in consequence of the smallness of the aperture, light from any one part of an object can only fall on one particular part of the pit or retina, and so an image, though a dim one, is formed. The next step consists in the formation of a lens at the mouth of the pit, by a deposit of cuticle-; this form of eye is found in fissurella. The gain here is two-fold, viz., increased protection and increased brightness of the image, for the lens will focus the rays of light more sharply on the retina, and will allow a greater quan- tity of light, a larger pencil of rays from each part of the object, to reach the corresponding part of 120 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the retina. Finally, the formation of the folds of the skin, known as the iris and eyelids, provides for the better protection of the eye, and is a distinct advance on the somewhat clumsy method of with- drawal seen in the snail. This is found in the cephalopoda, such as loligo. " If now we study the actual development of the eye of a cuttle-fish, we find that the eye, although a complicated one, yet passes in its own develop- ment through all the above series of stages from the slight depression in the skin, through the stages of the pit with large and small mouth, lens, and finally eyelids, being developed." ' In the case of the cuttle-fish, as well as in that of the lancelet, we have transitory stages paralleled by permanent conditions In lower forms of life. The eye of the cuttle-fish, as just stated, not only gives an epitome, as it were, of the history of devel- opment of the visual organ in several distinct spe- cies of mollusca, but also traces out for us, according to evolutionists, the gradual development of the eyes of the ancestral forms from which the cuttle- fish itself is descended. Each stage indicated in the development of the cuttle-fish's eye, marks a distinct advance on the one preceding, as each stage in the development of the amphioxus exhibits progress from the simple to the more complex, from the less highly to the more highly organized. It is not, indeed, always possible to adduce such remarkable examples of recapitulation as those just 1 " Lectures on the Darwinian Theory," by Arthur Milnes Marshall, pp. 106 et seq. E VIDENCES OF E VOL UTION. 121 instanced, but this is a consequence of the newness of the science of embryology, and of our ignorance of details which shall be disclosed by future re- search, rather than of the non-existence of such recapitulatory illustrations. Nor is it necessary that we should be able to trace such parallelisms in all cases. The countless numbers which embryologists have already pointed out are abundantly ample for the purpose of the argument in question. Meaning of Recapitulation. The marvelous coincidences and analogies we have just considered, and it were easy to add others, suggest questions that clamor for an an- swer. Why, then, is it, that every complex organ- ism thus epitomizes the history of its ancestors ; that in its embryonic life it exhibits a series of forms characteristic of organisms lower in the series of which it is a member? Many of the stages through which it passes in the course of its develop- ment have no adaptation either to its embryonic or to its adult condition. Wherefore, then, the reason of the existence of these curious stages? On the special creation hypothesis they admit of no rational explanation whatever. "What," queries Mr. Lewes, " should we say to an architect who was unable, or being able, was obstinately unwilling to erect a palace, except by first using his materials in the shape of a hut, then pulling it down, and re- building them as a cottage, then adding story to story and room to room, not with any reference to the ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly with 122 EVOLU TION A ND D OGMA . reference to the way in which houses were con- structed in ancient times? What should we say to the architect who could not directly form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but was forced to begin as if going to build a mansion ; and after proceeding some way in this direction, altered his plan into a palace, and that again into a museum ? Yet this is the sort of succession on which organisms are con- structed." On the theory of Evolution all this recapitulation of ancestral forms, so characteristic of higher organisms, admits of an explanation which is as beautiful as it is consonant with fact and reason. And, from the theistic point of view, it exhibits the Deity creating matter and force, and putting them under the dominion of law. It tells of a God who inaugurates the era of terrestrial life by the creation of one or more simple organisms, unicellular mon- ads, it may be, and causing them, under the action of His Providence, to evolve in the course of time into all the myriad, complicated, specialized and perfect forms which now people the earth. Surely this is a nobler conception of the Creator than that which represents Him as experimenting, as it were, with crude materials, and succeeding, only after numerous attempts, in producing the or- ganism which He is supposed to have had in view from the beginning. To picture the Deity thus working tentatively, is an anthropomorphic view of the Creator, which is as little warranted by Catholic dogma as it is by genuine science. It is rather on a par with the view of those theologians and scien- tists who fancied fossils to be "rejected models" of E VIDENCES OF E V OL U TION. \ 23 creatures subsequently perfected, or tentative and unfinished efforts toward the creation of organisms which were never endowed with vitality because the Creator was not satisfied with His work. This is, certainly, as we shall see in the sequel, not the Au- gustinian view of creation, and, to those who are familiar with even the elementary facts of embry- ology, it cannot be the scientific view. From the point of view of embryology the great body of facts make for the theory of Evolution, as against the theory of special creation, and it is not surpris- ing, therefore, to find that those who are most com- petent to interpret the facts of the case, are disposed to regard the argument from embryology as of itself sufficient to demonstrate the derivation theory of all forms of animal life. Geographical Distribution of Organisms. There yet remains another testimony to be con- sidered, and that is the argument based on the dis- tribution of organisms in space and time, or in other words, the argument based on the facts of geograph- ical distribution and geological succession. One of the most striking facts of natural history is that which regards the marked diversity of the fauna and flora of regions widely separated, or of adjacent regions separated by impassable natural barriers. Thus, the animals and plants of Europe are to a great extent unlike those of America, while those of Africa and Australia are entirely different. Even in passing from one portion of the continent to another, the observant traveler cannot help being 124 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. impressed with the divers new and strange organ- isms which are continually presented to his view. The fauna on the opposite sides of mountain chains are often quite unlike, although the conditions of existence may be essentially the same. The animals on the contiguous islands of an archipelago are specif- ically distinct from one another, and generically dif- ferent from the animals on the nearest mainland. The marine fauna on the opposite sides of the Isthmus of Panama, although the conditions of ex- istence on the eastern and western shores are appre- ciably the same, are almost wholly distinct, when, if we considered only their environment, we should expect them to be exactly alike. Whithersoever we go, we observe that " barriers of any kind, or obstacles to free migration, are related in a close and important manner to the differences between the productions of various regions. We see this in the great difference in nearly all the ter- restrial productions of the New and Old Worlds, excepting in the northern parts where the land almost joins, and where, under a slightly different climate, there might have been free migration for the northern temperate forms, as there is now for the strictly Arctic productions. We see the same fact in the great difference between the inhabitants of Australia, Africa and South America under the same latitude; for these countries are almost as much isolated from each other as is possible. On each continent, also, we find the same fact ; for on the opposite side of lofty and continuous mountain ranges, of great deserts and even of large rivers, we EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 125 find different productions; though as mountain chains, deserts, etc., are not as impassable, or likely to have endured so long as the oceans separating continents, the differences are very inferior in degree to those characteristic of distinct continents.'* ' An instructive illustration of the matter under discussion is afforded by Darwin, in his observations on the flora and fauna of the Galapagos Archipel- ago. This is a group of islands situated between five and six hundred miles west of South America, the constituent islands being separated from one another by straits from twenty to thirty miles in width. " Each separate island of the Galapagos Archipel- ago," says the great naturalist, " is tenanted, and the fact is a marvelous one, by many distinct species ; but these are related to each other in a very much closer manner than to the inhabitants of the Ameri- can continent, or of any other quarter of the world." * From observations made by naturalists all over the world, it is learned that the foregoing is but one of countless similar instances that might be adduced. Hence the general conclusion reached by the dis- tinguished German savant, Moritz Wagner, that "the limits, within which allied species are found, are de- termined by impassable natural barriers." Pacts of Geological Succession. It is only, however, when we come to compare the facts of geographical distribution with those of geological succession, that we are able to appreciate 1 Darwin's " Origin of Species," vol. II, pp. 130-131. a Op. cit., vol. II, p. 190. 126 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the full significance of the observations of Darwin, Wagner and their compeers. It is then found that the distribution of species in space is intimately con- nected with their succession in time ; that the ani- mals which occur in a determinate locality at pres- ent, closely resemble extinct animals which inhabited the same locality in ages long past, and hence the inference the naturalist draws, that existing types in a given area are genetically related to antecedent types of the same area. Thus, the marsupials which now inhabit Australia are allied to their fossil prede- cessors in the same part of the world. Similarly, the sloths, ant-eaters and armadillos now found in South America, are intimately related to numerous fossil forms which have been brought to light in this part of the Western continent. Indeed, it is just such facts as these which im- pelled Darwin and others to conclude, that existing species must have originated by derivation from an- tecedent species, and that the divers species of any given area are but modified descendants of species long extinct. " I was so much impressed with these facts," declares Darwin, "that I strongly insisted, in 1839 and 1845, on this 'law of succession of types,' on this wonderful relationship in the same continent, between the dead and the living ! Prof. Owen sub- sequently extended the same generalization to the mammals of the Old World. We have the same law exhibited in his restoration of the extinct and gigantic birds of New Zealand. We see it also in the birds of the caves of Brazil. Mr. Woodward EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 127 has shown that the same law holds good with sea- shells, but from the wide distribution of most mol- lusca it is not well displayed by them. Other cases could be added, as the relation between the extinct and living brackish-water shells of the Aralo-Caspian sea." 1 It is no explanation of the facts of geographical distribution to say that species are specially adapted to the habitats in which they are found ; that South America, for instance, is especially fitted for eden- tates, and Australia for marsupials. " That it is not the suitability of organisms to the areas which they inhabit that has determined their creation upon these areas, is," says Romanes, " conclusively proved by the effects of the artificial transportation of species by man. For in such cases it frequently happens, that the imported species thrives quite as well in its new as in its old home, and indeed often supplants the native species. As the Maoris say : 'As the white man's rat has driven away the native rat, so the European fly has driven away our fly, so the clover kills our fern, and so will the Maori him- self disappear before the white man.' "* The Demonstrative Evidence of Evolution. We come now to what Huxley designates spe- cifically "the demonstrative evidence of Evolution," the evidence based on the lineal succession of several carefully-studied types, and above all, the 1% 'The Origin of Species," vol. II. p. 121. 2 " Scientific Evidence of Organic Evolution,'' chap. iv. 128 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. evidence based on the ancestors of the horse dis- covered by Marsh and others. So strong, indeed, is this evidence considered, that it has been said that if the theory of Evolution had not existed before, "paleontology would have been compelled to invent it, so clearly are the traces of it to be seen in the study of Tertiary mammalia discovered since 1859." According to Prof. Huxley, "the primary and direct evidence in favor of Evolution can be fur- nished only by paleontology." Again he avers that: " The only perfectly safe foundation for the doctrine of Evolution lies in the historical, or rather archaeo- logical evidence, which is furnished by fossil remains, that particular organisms have arisen by the gradual modification of their predecessors." He tells, too, that "On the evidence of paleontology, the Evolution of many existing forms of life from their predeces- sors is no longer a hypothesis, but a historical fact ; it is only the nature of the physiological factor to which that Evolution is due which is still open to discussion." 1 But what about the pedigree of the horse? What about those ancestral equine forms about which so much has been said and written? The ancestors of the horse, as revealed by the discoveries of Marsh and others, are " Protohippus or hipparion, which is found in the Pliocene ; miohip- pus and mesohippus^ found in the Miocene; orohippus in the Eocene ; and eohippus, at the base of the Eo- cene. In the protohippus each foot has three well- formed digits ; miohippus, in addition to this, has a 1 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. VIII, p. 751. E VIDENCES OF E VOL UTION, 129 rudimentary metacarpal bone of a fourth digit in the fore-foot ; in mesohippus this rudimentary meta- carpal bone is more fully developed ; in orohippus there are four well-developed digits in the fore-foot, three in the hind-foot ; while in eohippus five digits are present. Thus, this series of fossil forms fur- nishes a complete gradation, from the older Tertiary forms with four toes, up to the horse with one toe. These forms differ not only as regards the number of toes, but also in other respects, chiefly in the gradual diminution and loss of independence of the ulna and fibula, and in the gradual elongation of the teeth and increasing complexity of the grinding surfaces." ' Another interesting example frequently cited, of transitionary forms, is the fossil, planorbis, found in the bed of an old lake near the small village of Steinheim, in Wurtemberg. In the successive strata of this lake bottom occur an immense number of shells of divers forms, and all from a few varieties of one and the same species. In passing from the lowest to the highest layers a great modification of forms is observed, so much so, indeed, that were it not for the countless intermediate forms one should unhesitatingly say that the extreme forms belong, not only to different species, but even to different genera. As it is, however, the gradations are so in- sensible that the conclusion is almost irresistible 1 " Lectures on the Darwinian Theory," by Dr. A. M. Mar- shall, p. 67. For an interesting discussion with diagrams, of this remarkable series of ancestral equine forms, see the third of Huxley's " Lectures on Evolution," entitled The Demonstra- tive Evidence of Evolution. E.-9 130 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. that the various species observed are, at least in this case, originated by derivation with modifica- tions. 1 The case just adduced is frequently appealed to by evolutionists, not only because ft has been exhaus- tively studied, but also because it tells so strongly in favor of the theory of derivation. An equally striking instance, perhaps, is found in the case of another group of mollusca belong- ing to the paludina. At first, the six or eight known gradational forms of this mollusc were reck- oned as entirely distinct species. Subsequently, however, numerous connecting forms were discov- ered, so that now over two hundred varieties are counted. But so gradual are the transitions of one form into another, that shells which other- wise would be considered as belonging to dif- ferent genera are, by reason of the known con- necting links, regarded as constituting but one and the same species. 2 Similar gradations have been shown by Cope to exist among certain extinct mammalian forms, not- ably among the species of the generalized family, oreontita, but it is unnecessary to give further illus- trations of this character, as those just instanced are quite sufficient to exhibit the nature and force of the argument which is based on the existence of such gradational forms. 1 Cf. A. Hyatt's "Anniversary Memoir of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1880, on Genesis of Tertiary Species of Planorbis at Steinheim." J Cf. Romanes' " Darwin after Darwin," vol. I, p. 19. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 131 Generalized Types. Confirmatory of the argument founded on the re- markable series of transitional forms we have just been considering, are those curious extinct animals called by Huxley generalized, and by Dana, comprehen- sive types ; types which by Agassiz were variously designated as combining, connecting, synthetic and prophetic types, and which embrace those strange creatures that embodied the characters of two or more groups at present widely separated from each other. Among these were certain early verte- brates which possessed both fish-like and reptilian characters. At a later geologic epoch there existed other animals, which possessed the characters of rep- tiles and birds in such a curious combination, that we are yet unable to decide whether they should be called reptilian birds or bird-like reptiles. Among these generalized types there were, in the words of Grant Allen : " Lizards that were almost crows, mar- supials that were almost ostriches, insectivores that were almost bats, rodents that were almost mon- keys." "Just on the stroke, when they were most needed," declares the same writer, "connecting links turned up in abundance between fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and birds, birds and mammals, and all of these together in a perfect net- work of curious cross-relationships." Among these generalized forms may be men- tioned the archceopteryx, the pterodactyl and the compsognathus. "In the archceopteryx" says Hux- ley, " we have an animal which, to a certain extent, occupies a midway place between a bird and a 132 BVOLU-TION AND DOGMA. reptile." The pterodactyl was a reptile which was avi-form and capable of flying. The compsognathus, like the archceopteryx, was intermediate in form be- tween a reptile and a bird, but was probably rather an avian reptile than a reptilian bird. Again we have such fossil vertebrates as Cuvier's anoplotherium, which was intermediate in charac- ter between pigs and ruminants ; the palaotherium which connected together such dissimilar animals as the horse, the tapir, and the rhinoceros. More remarkable still are the generalized types known as the condylarthra, the primitive form of which Cope considers the common ancestor of all true mam- malia. 1 And so we might mention other synthetic types brought to light by Gaudry, Rutimeyer, and other paleontologists. It was, indeed, M. Gaudry 's re- searches in Attica, where he discovered an extraor- dinary number of gradational forms among the higher vertebrates, which convinced him that Evolu- tion is the only theory that is competent to ex- plain the existence of those remarkable connecting types which are every day, thanks to the investiga- tions now conducted throughout the world, becom- ing more numerous and marvelous. "A few strokes of the pick-axe at the foot of Mount Pentelicus," says the eminent French savant, "have revealed to us the closest connecting links between forms which before seemed very widely separated." How much closer and more remarkable these links will become with the progress of research, when 1 Cf. " Origin of the Fittest," pp. 343, et seq. E VI DEN CBS OF E VOL UTION. 133 the as yet vast and unexplored regions of the earth shall have yielded up a portion of their fossil treas- ures, can easily be divined. Already the general- ized fossil types which have been discovered, have completely revolutionized all systems of classifica- tion which were based on existing specialized forms. For, by tracing the widely separated groups of the present back to past geologic time, we find that the specialized types of our day gradually converge towards, and merge into, the generalized types long since extinct. Species the most diverse gradually approach each other, and eventually unite to form common branches, and these again coalesce in a common trunk. 1 And this is just what the theory of Evolution demands. For, " If the theory of Evolution be true," says Huxley," it follows that however diverse the different groups of plants and of animals may be, they must all, at one time or other, have been connected by gradational forms ; so that, from the highest animals, whatever they may be, down to the lowest speck of protoplasmic matter in which life may be manifested, a series of gradations, lead- ing from one end of the series to the other, either exists or has existed." " l " Hence," declares Huxley, in his article on Classification in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, " it follows that a perfect and final zoological classification cannot be made until we know all that is important concerning: i, the adult structure; 2, the per- sonal development; 3, the ancestral development of animals. It is hardly necessary to observe that our present knowledge, as regards even the first and second heads, is very imperfect ; while as respects the third it is utterly fragmentary. a " Lectures on Evolution." Lecture II. 134 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA . Probability of Evolution. Such, then, in brief, is the argument in favor of Evolution from classification, morphology, embry- ology, geographical distribution and geological suc- cession. The argument, as based on any one of these four classes of facts, is strong, and to many, if not most contemporary naturalists, conclusive. But when we consider the joint effect of the argu- ment built on the four classes of facts, and note in detail the perfect harmony, the argument becomes still stronger and, to all appearances, irrefragable. The evidence furnished by one class of facts corrob- orates and explains those offered by the others, and thus the cumulative force of the testimony, given by all the four classes, renders the theory, to say the least, in the highest degree probable. We may not be prepared to admit that the theory has the force of a demonstration. If it had, organic Evolution would cease to be any longer a matter of scientific inquiry and would at once become a matter of scientific fact. But although Evolution is but a theory, and not a demonstration, a probability and not a certainty, it nevertheless possesses for the working naturalist a value that can be fully appreciated only by those who have labored in the museum and in the labora- tory. " Probability," Bishop Butler tells us, " is the guide of life." It is no less truly the guide of sci- ence, and a highly probable theory often contributes as effectually towards the advancement of science and the acquisition of truth as would a demon- strated fact. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 135 From what precedes it is evinced, that Evolu- tion as a theory, to claim no more for it, is in the highest degree probable. It is, in fact, the sole natu- ral explanation of the facts discussed ; the sole theory that is in accordance with what Sir William Hamil- ton calls the law of parsimony ; a law which was fully recognized by Fathers and Scholastics when they taught that we should not invoke the action of supernatural causes, when natural agencies are ade- quate to account for the facts and phenomena ob- served. Special Creation and Evolution. Special creation, as an explanation of the multi- tudinous forms of life with which the earth teems, and has teemed during long aeons past, is but an assumption, and an assumption, too, that has no warrant outside of the individual opinions of certain commentators of Scripture; opinions which, by the very nature of the case, can carry with them no greater weight than would attach to the views of their authors on any other question of natural sci- ence. As to Scripture itself, and the teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, we shall see in the sequel that their testimony is as strongly in favor of derivative creation, Evolution under the Provi- dential guidance of natural causes, as it possibly can be in favor of the old and now almost universally discarded theory of special creations. 1 14 En paleontologie,'' declared the Abbe Guillemet before the International Catholic Scientific Congress at Brussels last year, " les inductions evolutionistes expliquent sans peine par la descendance d'anctres communs ces encliaincments si bien mis 136 EVOLU TION A ND D OGMA . As a theory, Evolution certainly reposes on as firm a foundation as do the atomic theory of matter and undulatory theory of light, or as does Newton's theory of universal gravitation. And as these theo- ries have been of priceless service to the chemist, the physicist and the astronomer, in the study of their respective sciences, so also has Evolution been of untold value to the naturalist, in enabling him to coordinate a vast body of facts, that else were naught but a stupendous chaotic mass. It has proved to him to be an "open sesame" to many of nature's secrets, and like the clue of Ariadne, it has enabled him to find his way out of the bewildering labyrinth in which every true student of nature must pass at least a portion of his existence. It is said that " a striking corroboration of a scien- tific theory is furnished when it enables us correctly to predict discoveries." Judged by this standard Evolution can compare favorably with the best ac- credited theories of modern science. It will suffice to refer to but two cases in point, although it were easy to adduce numerous others. en evidence par des savants spiritualistes et Chretiens, tels que D'Omalius d'Halloy et Albert Gaudry, et dont M. de Nadaillac nous a concede la realite". Le fixisme, au contraire, en est re"duit a invoquer une filiation intellectuelle dans la pense"e du Createur, une sorte d'evolutionisme ideal. On comprend cela pour un architecte humain, qui ne peut pas tirer une cathe"drale d'une cathedrale sinon par imitation. Mais celui dont ' les dons sont sans repentance' detruira-t-il sans cesse ce qu'il a cree pour recreer a nouveau ? Ne preferera-t-il pas conserver a ses creatures une vie renouvelee et rajeunie dans une descend- ance qu'il perfectionnera de generation en generation, recom- pensant par 1'ascension de fils la fidelite dea progdniteurs a leur lois naturelles." " Compte Rendu," Section d'Anthropologie, p. 27. EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 137 In the first edition of his " Origin of Species " Dar- win wrote: "We may thus account even for the distinctness of whole classes from each other for instance, of birds from all other vertebrated animals, by the belief that many animal forms of life have been utterly lost, through which the early progeni- tors of birds were formerly connected with the early progenitors of other vertebrate classes." At the time this prophecy was made there was no positive evidence of the existence of such inter- calated forms as Darwin required. Three years later the archaopteryx was discovered, meeting completely all the requirements of theory. Subse- quent discoveries, notably by Marsh, disclosed other transitional forms which "bridge over the gap be- tween reptiles and birds, in this sense, that they en- able us to picture to ourselves forms from which both birds and reptiles as we know them could have sprung." In his lecture on the Evolution of the horse, in 1876, Prof. Huxley spoke as follows: "Thus, thanks to these important researches [those of Marsh and other paleontologists], it has become evident that so far as our present knowledge extends, the history of the horse type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of Evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation that, when the still lower Eocene deposits, and those which belong to the Cretaceous epoch, have yielded up their remains of ancestral equine animals, we shall find first, a form with four complete toes, 138 E VOL UTION A ND D OGMA . and a rudiment of the innermost or first digit in front, with probably a rudiment of the fifth digit in the hind foot ; while in still older forms the series of the digits will be more and more complete, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which, if the doc- trine of Evolution is well founded, the whole series must have taken its origin." Only a few months after this declaration, Prof. Marsh unearthed in the Eocene deposits of the West an equine animal, eohippus, having four complete toes and a rudimentary one in the front foot, thus making good the first part of the prophecy. As to the remaining part, it is, for men of science, only a question of time until it, too, sees its fulfillment. But the theory of Evolution enables not only pal- eontologists, but also morphologists and embryolo- gists, to predict the unseen and unknown. And this, to say no more, is certainly a strong substantiation of its truth. For we can ask no mere of a theory than that it accord with the facts it is designed to explain. And the more perfectly the theory har- monizes with the facts observed, the more nearly is it demonstrated, so far as any purely inductive con- clusion can be demonstrated. The theory of organic Evolution may not, as yet, be susceptible of an experimental demonstration although there are not wanting those who think such a demonstration is forthcoming, if, indeed, it has not already been furnished but it unquestionably occu- pies a high rank among the best accredited theories of contemporary science. It seems, even now, to re- pose on as firm a basis as did the Copernican theory EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 139 in the days of Galileo and Tycho Brahe. For Evo- lution, like the heliocentric theory, is in perfect har- mony with all the manifold facts which it is designed to integrate and interpret. How long will it be before it passes from a theory to a demonstration ? Or, will it ever be demonstrated in such wise as to command the assent of all who are capable of weigh- ing evidence, and discriminating between a scientific fallacy and a legitimate scientific induction ? ' These are questions which only the future can answer. Judging, however, by the progress which has been made during the past half century towards the solu- tion of many of the problems which have been dis- cussed in this chapter, it does not seem unreasonable to express the belief that it is only a question of time, and probably not a very long time, until the theory of organic Evolution shall be as firmly established as is now the Copernican one of the solar system. CHAPTER VIII. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. Declarations of Anti- Evolutionists. HAVING considered some of the arguments which are usually adduced in support of Evo- lution, we may now proceed to examine certain of the objections which are urged against it. But as it would require a large volume for anything approach- ing a detailed presentation of the reasons advanced for the acceptance of Evolution, so, likewise, would it demand far more space than can here be afforded for even a cursory discussion of the difficulties which anti-evolutionists have raised against a theory which, they contend, is discredited both by sound philosophy and the incontestable facts of science. " The theory is easy," declared De Quatrefages, " but the application is difficult ; hence it is that those transformists who have attempted this application have invariably found that their hypotheses have led to conditions which are inadmissible." ' 1 Journal des Savants, May, 1891. It was in view of the hypothetical character of current evolutionary teachings, especially of natural selection, that Mgr. d'Hulst in referring to them expressed himself in the following forcible and epigrammatic manner: " Le besoin de vivre creant la vie, le besoin d'organes creant les organes, le besoin d'ordre creant 1'harmonie." Le Correspondant, Dec. 25, 1889. (140) OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 141 The distinguished French savant, Dr. Charles Robin, is even more pronounced in his views. Evo- lution, he asserts, is at best but "a poetical accumu- lation of probabilities without proofs, of seductive explanations without demonstration." As to the defenders of the theory of Evolution, they are accused of drawing universal conclusions from particular premises ; of mistaking resemblance for blood relationship; of confounding variability with transmutability, and of falsely proclaiming the existence of a genealogical succession where there is nothing more than a hierarchy of organic forms. Anti-evolutionists may not, indeed, deny the possi- bility of the derivation of higher from lower forms of life ; they impugn the reality of such derivation. They love to descant on the dictum of the Scholas- tics, a possibili ad actum non valet consecutio possi- bility is far from implying existence. They charge their opponents with making species of what are only races, and confidently challenge them to indi- cate a single instance in which one species has been changed into another species, either in historic or in geologic time. 1 Species, they insist on it, are Divine 1 A few years ago, in 1888, M. Emile Blanchard, a distin- guished naturalist and a member of the French Institute, wrote as follows in the preface to his interesting work, " La Vie des Etres Animes : " " J'ai souvent declare autour de inoi que si un investigateur parvenait a faire la demonstration scientifique d'une certaine transformation chez quelques repre"sentants d'un groupe du regne animal, je me tenais a sa disposition pour pre- senter ce resultat a 1'Academie des Sciences, pour affirmer, pour proclamer le triomphe de 1'auteur." So far, it seems, no one has accepted his challenge; a challenge made not in the spirit of animosity or party, but solely in the interests of truth. For as yet, the eminent savant contends, the theory of transformism is not supported by a single serious and logical argument. And 142 EVOLU TION A ND D O GMA . and immutable. With Linnaeus, they declare species and genera to be the work of nature, 1 and contend that the ingenuity of man is incompetent to produce anything beyond races and varieties. The spider, they will have it, still spins its web as it did in the time of Aristotle, and the ant col- lects its store of provisions in precisely the same manner as was its wont in the days of Solomon. For the sake of brevity, I shall limit myself to the consideration of three of the chief objections urged by anti-evolutionists against the theory of derivation. The first refers to the alleged ab- sence of all evidence regarding the transmutation of hence, he continues, " Plus que jamais je renouvelle mon appel, je declare ma bonne volonte 1 , assurant que je ne souffrirais en aucune fajon de me trouver vaincu. Avant pour me consoler la perspective d'un progres scientifique dont Timportance serait immense, c'est de toutes les forces de mon ame que je jette cette parole a tous les amis des sciences naturelles: Montrez-nous une fois Vexemple de la transformation d'une especeT 111 Nature opus semper est species et genus ; cultune ssepius varietas; artis et naturae classis et ordo." Elsewhere he writes " Classes and orders are the inventions of science, species the work of nature Classis et ordo est sapientia?, species naturae opus." In his " Philosophia Botanica," 59, he declares that genera, like species, are primordial creations. " Genus omne est naturale, in primordio tale creatum." In contradistinction, however, to the above dogmatic state- ments, Linnaeus, as we have already learned, was not averse from the idea that certain closely allied species had a common origin and were the products of extended variation or hybridiza- tion. Such species he called " the daughters of time " tem- poris filiae. He seemed also to have a presentiment that the day would come when botanists would regard all the species of the same genera as descended from a common parent " Tot species dici congeneres quot eadem matre sint progenitas," he writes in vol. VI, p. 12, of the "Amcenitates Academical." Nay, more, in this same work, vol. I, p. 70, he suggests that not only species but even genera, may have arisen from hybrids. '' Novas species immo et genera, ex copula diversarum specierum in regno vegetabili oriri." OB JE C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL U TION. 143 species in times past, whether historic or geologic ; the second to the imperfection of the geological rec- ord ; while the third is based on the infecundity among individuals of different species. All three objections are obvious and popular ones, and they are, it must be admitted, not without their difficul- ties. Men of science, however, are satisfied that they have met these difficulties, and flatter them- selves that they have long since given adequate, if not complete, answers to the three objections men- tioned. But the objectors themselves., are not so minded. They still persist in asserting that their difficulties remain unexplained, and that their ob- jections have lost little, if any, of their original cogency. Historical and Archaeological Objections. The first objection, then, is based on certain well- known facts of history, prehistoric archaeology, and paleontology. As to history and archaeology we are informed, that all their indications positively negative the con- tention of evolutionists that there is not the slight- est evidence, from the earliest dawn of civilization until the present time, that there has ever been a sin- gle instance of the transmutation of any one species, whether plant or animal, into another species. On the contrary, it is averred, all the well-attested facts of history bearing on the subject, make unmistak- ably for the absolute stability and immutability of species in both the great kingdoms of nature, animal and vegetable. 144 EVOLU Tl ON A ND D OGMA . Regarding animals, the testimony elicited is as interesting as it is apparently conclusive. Thus, a collection of shells has been unearthed in the house of a painter in Pompeii, and all of them, even in their minutest details, are identical with shells of the same species now existing. As Pompeii was buried in ashes A. D. 79, we have, therefore, certain proof that the shells of the species in question have undergone no change during the last eighteen hundred years. The anatomical descriptions given by Galen of the monkeys which he dissected in Alexandria, in the second century of our era, enabled Camper not only to recognize the species to which they belonged, but to affirm that the species had, during the long period elapsed, remained perfectly immutable. Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century B. C., has left us ac- counts of many marine and terrestrial animals, and so accurate is he in his statements that naturalists are able to assert positively, that the species described have undergone no change during the long centuries which have intervened between the days of the Stag- irite and our own. But the monuments of the Nile valley permit us to extend our observations far beyond the times of Galen and Aristotle. In the numerous paintings, sculptures and bas-reliefs of this marvelous land, we have to hand an astonishing mass of evidence and apparently of such a character as to satisfy the ob- jections of even the most critical and skeptical. Egyptian Mummies. The attention of the scientific world was first directed to the value of these monuments in the OBJECTIONS A GAINS T E VOL UTION. 145 beginning of the present century. During the French occupation of Egypt, from 1797 to 1801, the men of science who accompanied the army made a large collection of the embalmed bodies of conse- crated animals and sent them home to swell the treasures of the museums of Paris. Some idea of the enthusiasm excited by the reception of these precious remains of an age long past, may be formed from the following passage of an official report regard- ing them drawn up by Cuvier, Lamarck and Lace- pede, professors in the Museum of Natural History. " It seems," they write, "as if the superstition of the ancient Egyptians had been inspired by nature with a view of transmitting to after ages a monu- ment of her history. That extraordinary and eccen- tric people, by embalming with so much care brutes which were the objects of their stupid adoration, have left us, in their sacred grottoes, cabinets of zoology almost complete. The climate has con- spired with the art of embalming to preserve the bodies from corruption, and we can now assure ourselves by our own eyes what was the state of a great number of species three thousand years ago. We can scarcely restrain the transports of our imag- ination on beholding thus preserved, with their minutest bones, with the smallest portions of their skin, and in every particular most perfectly distin- guishable, many an animal, which at Thebes or Memphis, two thousand or three thousand years ago, had its own priests and altars." ' 1 "Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle," Tom. I, p. 234. E. 10 146 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Among the mummies thus collected were those of wild as well as those of domestic animals. " My learned colleague, M. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire," writes Cuvier in his great work, " Discours sur les Revolu- tions de la Surface du Globe," ' " has collected in the temples of upper and of lower Egypt all the mummies of animals he was able to procure. He has brought back ibises, birds of prey, dogs, mon- keys, crocodiles, the head of a bull, all embalmed; and one does not discern any greater difference between them and those we now see, than -is ob- served between human mummies and the skeletons of men of the present day." Interesting, however, as are the mummified remains of wild animals, those of domestic animals have a greater value in all discussions bearing on the question of transmutation of species. Among the animals frequently embalmed were the dog, the cat and the bull. But since the times when these animals were worshipped on the banks of the Nile, representatives of their species have been trans- ported by man to almost every portion of the Old and New Worlds, and have been exposed to every ex- treme of climate and to the most diverse conditions of life. And yet, notwithstanding all these great changes of environment, the cat and the dog have undergone little or no mutations, and the bull Apis which was such a special object of worship among the Egyptians, was in no wise different from repre- sentatives of the same species now living. 1 P. 132, edition of 1830. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 147 Testimony of the Monuments. The testimony afforded by mummies is corrob- orated by that of the monuments; by the paintings, sculptures and bas-reliefs which adorned the temples and tombs of the Pharaohs. Thanks to the re- searches of Nott, Broca and others, we are now able to assert positively that the greyhound and the terrier of the days of Rameses II., and even of an earlier date, were the same in form and appearance as they are at present, and that, consequently, they have suffered no perceptible change during the last four thousand or more years. 1 And what holds good for the dog holds good also for other animals which are represented on the monuments of the Nile valley. " I have," says Cuvier, " examined with care the figures of animals and of birds engraved on the numerous obelisks brought from Egypt to ancient Rome. In their ensemble, which alone was the object of special atten- tion on the part of the artists, these figures bear a perfect resemblance to species now in existence. Anyone may examine the copies of them given by Kircher and Zoega. Without preserving the defini- 1 There is in Egypt an indigenous type of dog, the p arias, formerly in a domestic, now in a semi-wild state, which can claim a much greater antiquity than the greyhound or the terrier. It is the image of this dog that constitutes the sole and invariable sign for the word " dog " in all hieroglyphical inscrip- tions, even the most ancient. This dog, there is reason to believe, existed in a domestic state as early as the time of Mena, of the first dynasty, a date which, according to Brugsch, would carry us back over an interval of more than six thousand years. And yet, despite all the vicissitudes through which they have passed, the parias of to-day, so far as observation can discern, are exactly what they were in the days of Egypt's first ruler. 148 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. tion of the original engravings, they nevertheless offer figures which are readily recognizable. Among them one may distinguish the ibis, the vulture, the screech-owl, the falcon, the Egyptian goose, the lap- wing, the rail, the asp, the horned viper, the long- eared Egyptian hare and the hippopotamus. 1 The monuments of Chaldea and Babylonia tell the same story as those of Egypt. On a magnifi- cent bas-relief found among the ruins of Babylon, dating, it is said, from the time of Nabuchodonosor, is depicted the figure of a noble mastiff, which in form, proportions and physiognomy is so like unto that of the finest type of a modern mastiff, that one would say the engraving was made from a photograph of one of our prize exhibition dogs. Similarly, Layard gives us, in his " Nineveh and Babylon," a drawing of a type of dog of which the characteristics are so marked that naturalists have had no difficulty in identifying it with a race still occurring in Thibet. Evidence From Plants. What has been said of animals may also be iterated, and with equal truth, of plants both wild and cultivated. There is no certain evidence that even one of them has undergone any specific change since the earliest dawn of history. More than this, as far back even as paleobotany will serve as a guide, we are unable to point to a single well-at- tested instance of transmutation in a single species of plant. 1 Op. cit. OB J B C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL UTIOJV. 149 Thus, the woods used in mediaeval buildings, as well as those found in the buried ruins of British and Roman villages, differ in no appreciable feature from existing woods. Again, chestnuts, almonds and other fruits found in the shop of a fruit-dealer in Herculaneum, under the lava deposits made eight- een centuries ago, are identical with those still grown in the vicinity of Vesuvius. But it is Egypt which supplies us with the best preserved vegetable, as it has furnished the best ani- mal specimens of an ancient date. Recent explora- tions, particularly in the Nileland, have put us in possession of materials which are far better for pur- poses of comparison than anything which had been previously known. "And happily," says Mr. Car- ruthers, " the examination of these materials has been made by a botanist who is thoroughly acquainted with the existing flora of Egypt, for Dr. Schwein- furth has been a quarter of a century exploring the plants of the Nile valley. The plant remains were included within the mummy-wrappings, and being thus hermetically sealed, have been preserved with scarcely any change. By placing the plants in warm water, Dr. Schweinfurth has succeeded in preparing a series of specimens, gathered four thousand years ago, which are as satisfactory for the purposes of science as any collected at the present day. These specimens, consequently, supply means for the closest examina- tion and comparison with their living representatives. The colors of the flowers are still present, even the most evanescent, such as the violet of the larkspur and the knapweed, and the scarlet of the poppy ; the 150 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. chlorophyll remains in the leaves, and the sugar in the pulp of the raisins. Dr. Schweinf urth has deter- mined no less than fifty-nine species, some of which are represented by the fruits employed as offerings to the dead, others by flowers and leaves made into garlands, and the remainder by branches on which the body was placed and which were inclosed within the wrappings." * Among the fruits used as votive offerings, dates. figs and palm fruits are common, and are identical with those which are still seen in the markets of Egypt. Branches of the sycamore, one of the sacred trees of Egypt, which had been used for the bier of a mummy belonging to the twelfth dynasty, a thou- sand years B.C., " were moistened and laid out by Dr. Schweinf urth, equaling," he says, " the best speci- mens of this plant in our herbaria, and consequently permitting the most exact comparison with living sycamores, from which they differ in no respect." Very large quantities of linseed, found in tombs three thousand and four thousand years old, differ in nowise from the linseed still cultivated in the Nile valley. And from the seeds examined it has also been evinced, that the weeds which infest the cultivated fields of today were not absent from the 1 See opening address before the Biological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as reported in Nature* Sept. 9. 1886. Mr. Carruthers is recognized as one of the most eminent of contemporary English botanists, and hence, his words in the matter under discussion have special weight. I have myself examined Dr. Schweinfurth's wonderful col- lections in Cairo, and can testify that Mr. Carruthers" account of them is in no waj exaggerated. OBJECTIONS A GAINS T E VOL UTION. 151 gardens and plantations of the Pharaohs. The spiny medick and the charlock, for instance, were as much of a pest to the growers of barley and flax during the age of the pyramid-builders, as they are to the fellahin of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. " It is difficult," continues Mr. Carruthers, " with- out the actual inspection of the specimens of plants employed as garlands, which have been prepared by Dr. Schweinfurth, to realize the wonderful condition of preservation in which they are. The color of the petals of papaver rheas, and the occasional presence of the dark patch at their bases, present the same peculiarities as are still to be found in this species growing in Egyptian fields. The petals of the lark- spur not only retain their reddish violet color, but present the peculiar markings which are still found in the living plant. A garland composed of wild celery and small flowers of the blue lotus, fastened together by fibers of papyrus, was found on a mummy of the twelfth dynasty, about three thou- sand years old. The leaves, flowers and fruits of the wild celery have been examined with the greatest care by Dr. Schweinfurth, who has demonstrated in the clearest manner their absolute identity with the indigenous form of this species now abundant in most places in Egypt. The same may be said of the other plants used as garlands, including two species of lichens." Nor is this all. The evidence afforded by archae- ology and paleobotany is as direct and as unequivocal as that of history. The cereals cultivated in prehis- toric times, during the Roman occupation of Britain, 152 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. during the times of the mound-builders in the Mississippi valley, and during the reign of the Incas in Peru, were specifically the same and of as good quality as those harvested by the scientific farmer of to-day. And yet more. We may even go so far back as the Glacial and pre-Glacial periods periods so re- mote that, according to the calculations of Lyell, Ramsay and others, they antedate our own era by fully two hundred and fifty thousand years and we fail to find from an examination of the vegetable re- mains of the time, that there has been any transi- tion from one species to another. Scores of trees and plants are known to have existed during pre- Glacial times, which were in every respect, even in the venation of the leaf, identical with their living representatives of the present day. And yet, it is urged by anti-transmutationists, this is not what one should expect if the teachings of Evolution be true. For as Mr. Carruthers pertinently observes : " The various physical conditions which necessarily af- fected these species, in their diffusion over such large areas of the earth's surface, in the course of, say, two hundred and fifty thousand years, should have led to the production of many varieties, but the uniform testimony of the remains of this con- siderable pre-Glacial flora, as far as the materials admit of a comparison, is that no appreciable change has taken place." Views of Agassiz, Barrande and Others. One of the favorite arguments of Professor Louis Agassiz against the transmutation of species, OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 153 was, as is well known, based on the observed perma- nence of divers species of the marine forms which contributed towards the production of the coral reefs of Florida. In his charming work, "Methods of Study in Natural History," ' the illustrious Swiss savant declares that " upon the lowest calculation, based upon the facts thus far ascertained as to their growth, we cannot suppose that less than seventy thousand years have elapsed since the coral reefs already known to exist in Florida began to grow." And as there is reason to believe that the entire penin- sula of Florida is formed " of successive concentric reefs, we must," the same authority asserts, "believe that hundreds of thousands of years have elapsed since its formation began." Continuing, he writes : " So much for the dura- tion of the reefs themselves. What, now, do they tell us, of the permanence of the species of which they were formed ? In these seventy thousand years has there been any change in the corals living in the Gulf of Mexico ? I answer, most emphat- ically, No. Astraeans, porites, maeandrinas, and madrepores were represented by exactly the same species seventy thousand years ago as they are now. Were we to classify the Florida corals from the reefs of the interior, the result would corre- spond exactly to a classification founded upon the living corals of the outer reefs to-day. Every spe- cies, in short, that lives upon the present reef is found in the more ancient one. They all belong to our own geological period, and we cannot, upon the 1 Chap. xn. 154 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. evidence before us, estimate its duration at less than seventy thousand years, during which time we have no evidence of any change in species, but, on the contrary, the strongest proof of the absolute perma- nence of those species whose past history we have been able to trace." But strong as is the evidence just adduced, against the mutability of species, that based on the investi- gation of the eminent French paleontologist, Joachim Barrande, is, so we are told, even more conclusive, and that for the reason that it extends over a vastly longer period of time. Barrande was undoubtedly one of the most careful and most successful inquirers into the life-history of certain periods of the remote, geologic past, whom the world has yet known. In Bohemia he had an exceptionally favorable area for the study of the fossiliferous strata of the Silurian Age, and his masterly work, " Systeme Silurien de la Boheme," the most complete production of the kind in existence, will ever remain a noble monu- ment to his untiring industry and his incomparable genius for research in the domain of the earlier forms of terrestrial life. The conclusion which this eminent man of science arrives at, after long years of patient investigation, and after the most careful examination of many thousands of specimens, is, to quote his own words, as follows : "Among the three hundred and fifty species (of trilobites) of Bohemia, there is not a sin- gle one which can be considered as having produced by its variations a new specific form, distinct and permanent. Thus, the traces of transformation by OB JE C TIONS A GA fNS T E VOL U TION. 1 55 way of filiation, are completely imperceptible among the trilobites of the Silurian Age in Bohemia." ' Concerning cephalopods, of which more than a thousand distinct forms are described, M. Barrande declares, that there is not one among them, however long the species may have lasted, which, during the different stages of its existence, presents more marked differences than do those which coexist on the same horizon ; that not a single one of the countless ceph- alopods which were examined by him, can be consid- ered as even the first step towards transformation, for all these forms disappear simultaneously, with- out any recognizable posterity. 1 In view of the importance of M. Barrande^s testimony, I here present his conclusions in full, as found in his work entitled, " Defense des Colonies," p. 155. " i. Les Trilobites de Boheme qui offrent dans leurs formes la trace de quelques variations sont au nombre de 10. Comme nous connaissons aujourd'hui 350 especes de cette tribu, dans notre bassin, on voit qu'il en reste environ 340 qui paraissent conserver une forme invariable, pendant toute la duree de leur existence. " 2. Les variations signalees dans les especes qui ont joui de la plusgrande longevite, sont relatives seulement aux dimensions du corps, a la grosseur des yeux, au nombre correspondant des lentilles, au nombre des articulations visibles du pygidium, et au nombre des pointes ornementales. " 3. Ces variations ne sont pas permanentes, maisfuremettf iemporaires, et, dans la plupart des cas, nous avons constate le retoitr des derniers representants de Tesp'ece a la forme typiquc ou primitive. Ainsi ces variations ne semblent etre que des oscillations transitoires. Elles se manifestent quelquefois parmi des individus contemporains, et, par consequent, sans 1'influence des ages geologiques. "4. Parmi les 350 especes de Boheme, il n'en existe aucune qui puisse etre consideree comme ayant produit, par ses varia- tions, une nouvelle forme specifique, distincte et permanente. Ainsi, les traces de la transformation, par voie de filiation, sont c-onpletement imperceptibles parmi les trilobites du Silurien de Boheme." 156 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Davidson's exhaustive researches on the brachio- pods of the English formations, lead him to the same conclusions as those arrived at by Barrande after his prolonged studies of the trilobites and cephalopods of Bohemia, viz., that there is not the slightest trace of any tendency towards development on the part of the species examined. Similar testimony is given by Mr. Williamson regarding fossil plants. After forty years of patient study of the vegetable remains of different geolog- ical ages, he does not hesitate to affirm that the ferns whose imprints are of such frequent occurrence in certain strata of the Carboniferous Age, have re- tained their essential characteristics until the present time. For, if we compare those which now abound in our forests with those which gave beauty to the landscape in Paleozoic time, we find that they have neither advanced nor retrograded. It were easy to add to the list of persistent types of animals and plants, of those, namely, which en- dured unchanged during long geologic periods. I might speak of the terebratulae and globigerinae which take us back to the Cretaceous Period ; of certain types of scorpions which flourished during the Carboniferous Age and which are scarcely dis- tinguishable from modern scorpions ; of the lingulae and lingulellae which, appearing in the lower Silu- rian rocks, have persisted practically unchanged through all the grand climacterics of the world. 1 1 For able and dignified discussions of the questions here considered, see " Paleontologie et Darwinisme," by the eminent Belgian geologist, Charles de la Vallee Poussin, in the " Revue OBJE C TIONS A GA INS T BVOLU TION. 157 In the preceding pages I have presented fully, and somewhat in detail, one of the stock arguments of anti-evolutionists against the transmutation of spe- cies. I have allowed the ablest and most noted oppo- nents of the Evolution theory to present their objec- tion in their own words, and have endeavored to select what have always been considered the most telling arguments against transpeciation. What, now, is the answer to the objection, or is any answer possible ? What explanation can be given of facts which seem so utterly irreconcilable with the cardinal principles of Evolution, and so antagonistic to the fundamen- tal tenets of the leading exponents of transformism. Misapprehension of the Nature of Evolution and Answer to Objections. The objection, as presented, rests on a total misapprehension of the nature of Evolution. It assumes that when an animal or a vegetable form once comes into existence, it must necessarily and continuously undergo progressive modifications. It assumes, too, that such modifications as may oc- cur, must take place at the same rate in one form of life as in another. Both these postulates are equally unwarranted, for they are both totally at variance with Evolution as understood by its founders and approved spokesmen. An answer, however, to the objection, was indi- cated nearly a century ago by Cuvier's great con- de Questions Scientifiques " for January, 1877, and " Le Trans- formisme et la Discussion Libre," in the same review for Janu- ary and April, 1889, by De. Kirwan, who writes under the pseudonym of Jean d' Estienne. 158 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. temporary, Lamarck. Replying to the argument based on the unchanged condition of the fauna and flora of Egypt, he observed that " the animals and plants referred to had not experienced any modification in their specific characters, because the climate, soil and other conditions of life had not varied in the interval. But if," he continued, " the physical geography, temperature and other natural conditions of Egypt, had altered as much as we know they have done in many countries in the course of geological periods, the same animals and plants would have deviated from their pristine types so widely as to rank as new and distinct species." ' This answer of Lamarck's is, with some modifi- cations, the answer which is now given by men of science to the objection under consideration. When- ever the environment remains unchanged, where the conditions of life are always identical, the fauna and flora of a given area may persist without any spe- cific mutations for an indefinite period of time. Re- garding Egypt it is notorious, that its climate and soil are to-day precisely what they were during the reign of the first of the Pharaohs, and precisely what they were when the bull Apis was led in solemn pro- cession to the temples of Memphis and Heliopolis. As to other examples of animals and plants which .have resisted specific change, not only during thou- sands, but also millions of years, the same answer may be given. The environment may have been modified more or less, but not sufficiently to effect 1 " Philosophic Zoologique," pp. 70, et seq. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 159 transmutation of the species named. For it must be borne in mind, that all species are not equally susceptible of change in consequence of mutations of climate and physical geography. Some are more stable and more cosmopolitan than others, and hence are capable of accommodating themselves within certain limits to quite considerable changes in surrounding conditions, without exhibiting the slightest indications of specific transmutations. Then, too, we have " elastic types," those types, namely, which as M. Gaudry tells us, have the power of undergoing greater or less modifications and of returning sooner or later to their original condition. The rhynconella is a case in point. When the ocean bed is in anywise modified, rhyn- conella exhibits a corresponding change ; when the ocean returns to its original state, rhynconella re- verts to its pristine condition. Thus, in virtue of its elasticity, of its facility of accommodating itself to changes of environment, this marvelous brachio- pod has been able to pass unscathed through mutations and catastrophes innumerable. Again, it may be observed, that the changes of environment are not always so great as they are sometimes imagined to be. Thus, the conditions of life in a given area of the ocean may remain practi- cally unchanged for long geological periods. The temperature and depth of the water might easily remain constant for untold aeons, and, in such an event, there is no reason why the ocean fauna should not endure without variation for an indefinite time. 160 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Even in the case of the vegetable organisms which Mr. Carruthers puts in evidence, there is reason to believe that the variations in climate to which they have been subject, have been far less than is usually thought. We can say of these what Darwin asserts of certain Arctic forms, that " they will not have been exposed to any great diversity of temperature and, as they all migrated in a body together, their mutual relations will not have been much disturbed." ' Where, however, Arctic species have been left stranded on Alpine areas by the retreat of glaciation, and where the species thus isolated have been subsequently exposed to differ- ences of climate, and to the influences of foreign plants and insects, we would expect to discover evidences of transmutation, to find the stranded species to differ, not only from their parent Arctic forms, but to differ also from those of the same origin occurring on neighboring mountain ranges. And this is what Darwin tells us is the fact, " for if," he says, " we compare the present Alpine plants and animals of the several great European mountain ranges, one with another, though many of the species remain identically the same, some exist as varieties, some as doubtful forms or sub-species, and some as distinct, yet closely allied species, repre- senting each other on the several ranges." '' In the instance just quoted, as in countless others that might be adduced, we have an illustra- tion of a phenomenon with which all naturalists are 1 " The Origin of Species," vol. II, p. 154. 2 Op. cit. vol. II, p. 155. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 161 familiar, to-wit, that some types, both of animals and plants, are more plastic than others. Those which are the most plastic most readily undergo specific transformation, whilst, on the contrary, those which are rigid experience little or no change, even when exposed to very considerable mutations of environment. Existence and Cause of Variations. Of the existence of variations, numerous and im- portant, there can then be no reasonable doubt. This fact, long known, is daily corroborated by evidence which cannot be gainsaid. But the existence of variations must not be confounded with the cause which originates them, for this, as yet, is shrouded in mystery. Huxley admits this without hesitation and refers to it as follows : " The cause of the pro- duction of variations is a matter not at all properly understood at present. Whether variation depends upon some intricate machinery, if I may use the phrase, of the living organism itself, or whether it arises through the influence of conditions upon that form, is not certain, and the question for the present may be left open. But the important point is that, granting the existence of the tendency to the production of variations, then, whether the varia- tions which are produced shall survive and supplant the parent, or whether the parent form shall survive and supplant the variations, is a matter which de- pends entirely on those conditions which give rise to the struggle for existence. If the surrounding conditions are such that the parent form is more 162 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. competent to deal with them, and flourish in them, than the derived forms, then in the struggle for exis- tence the parent form will maintain itself and the derived forms will be exterminated. But if, on the contrary, the conditions are such as to be more fa- vorable to a derived than to a parent form, the parent form will be extirpated and the derived form will take its place. In the first place there will be no pro- gression, no change of structure, through any imaginable series of ages ; and in the second place there will be modification and change of form." ' Paucity of Transitional Forms. The second objection, like the preceding, is an obvious one, and at first sight equally plausible. It is based on the paucity of transitional forms, or " missing links," in the various sedimentary strata of the earth's crust. At first blush the objection seems to be fatal to the theory of Evolution, as it certainly would be fatal, if well founded, to the the- ory of natural selection, which supposes that species have advanced from lower to higher forms by infini- tesimal increments. So much importance, indeed, does Darwin attach to this objection, that he devotes a whole chapter in his " Origin of Species " to its so- lution. And although he frankly admits that the geological record, so far as at present known, still opposes insuperable difficulties to his theory of nat- ural selection, it does not follow, as we shall see far- ther on, that such difficulties can validly be urged 1 " Science and Hebrew Tradition," pp. 83 and 84. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 163 against the general theory of organic Evolution, as distinguished from Evolution through natural selec- tion. In the first place it is to be observed, that transi- tional forms are the first to become extinct in the struggle for existence; for it is well known that competition is more marked and devastating among intermediate or intercalated forms, than among forms which are more widely divergent. Thus, in phi- lology it is remarked, that among a large number of dialects, certain closely allied ones die out, whilst others, more widely differentiated, become the domi- nant forms of speech. The means perish, while the extremes wax strong and end by attaining suprem- acy. Hence, of the countless dialects which in Italy, France and Spain had their origin in the Latin tongue, but three have attained to the dignity of a dominant language, and of being the vehicle of a national literature. These three are what are now known as the Italian, French and Spanish languages, the competing dialects having been worsted in the struggle for existence, and condemned to an earlier or later extinction. A process quite analogous to this goes on among the divers forms of animated nature, the means showing themselves the weaker, and the extremes exhibiting themselves the stronger in the contest for supremacy. Commenting on this fact, Darwin writes as follows : "As the species of the same genus usually have, though by no means invariably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe 164 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. between them, if they come into competition with each other, than between the species of distinct genera. We see this in the recent extension over the United States, of one species of swallow, having caused the decrease of another species. The recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush. How fre- quently we hear of one species of rat taking the place of another species under the most different climates ! In Russia, the small, Asiatic cockroach has every- where driven before it its great congener. In Aus- tralia, the imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small, stingless, native bee. One species of char- lock has been known to supplant another species ; and so in other cases. We can dimly see why com- petition should be most severe between allied forms which fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature ; but probably in no one case could we pre- cisely say why one species had been victorious over another in the great battle of life." ' Variations and the Formation of Fossiliferous Deposits. Then again, it must be observed that it is not probable that variation has been going on at a uniform rate during the long course of the life-history of the earth. On the contrary, it is more likely that long periods of stability have alternated with brief periods of disturbance of greater or less extent. During the former periods specific forms would experience com- paratively little change, whereas, during the latter, variations would rapidly accumulate and be strongly 1 "The Origin of Species," vol. I, pp. 93 and 94. OBJECTIONS A GA INS T E VOL UTION. 1 65 accentuated. Such being the case, the number of gradational forms will be far less numerous than the forms contained in the species which persist with little or no modifications during long cycles of time. Furthermore, it is now generally admitted that the strata which are richest in fossils were usually, if not always, deposited during eras which were least favorable for the development of transitional forms, that is, during eras when variation and extinction were least rapid. On the theory that natural selec- tion has been the dominant factor in Evolution ; on the theory, namely, that progress has resulted solely, or at least chiefly, in consequence of the accumula- tion of infinitesimal increments, a condition of things must have existed during the formation of fossilifer- ous strata, which it is certain could have obtained only at extremely rare intervals. For, as Darwin points out : " In order to get a perfect gradation be- tween two forms in the upper and lower parts of the same formation, the deposit must have gone on con- tinuously accumulating during a long period suffi- cient for the slow process of modification ; hence the deposit must be a very thick one, and the spe- cies undergoing change must have lived in the same districts throughout the whole time. But we have seen that a thick formation, fossiliferous throughout its entire thickness, can accumulate only during a period of subsidence ; and to keep the depth approxi- mately the same, which is necessary that the same marine species may live on the same space, the sup- ply of sediment must nearly counterbalance the amount of subsidence. But this same movement of 166 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. subsidence will tend to submerge the area whence the sediment is derived, and thus diminish the sup- ply whilst the downward movement continues. In fact, this nearly exact balancing between the supply of sediment and the amount of subsidence is prob- ably a rare contingency ; for, it has been observed by more than one paleontologist, that very thick de- posits are generally barren of organic remains, except near their upper or lower limits." ' The foregoing are but a few of the reasons that might be assigned for the paucity of intermediate forms which characterizes the earth's fossil-bearing strata. When we come to reflect on the matter, however, the wonder is not that there is such a small number of gradational forms, but rather that there are any fossils at all. For everything has tended to render their formation impossible ; and in the com- paratively few instances in which circumstances have been favorable to the fossilization of animal or vege- table forms, a variety of circumstances has intervened to compass their destruction. Such being the case, therefore, we should be surprised, not at the exist- ence of such extensive tracts that are utterly devoid of any traces of organic life, but rather at the fact that there are so many formations in different parts of the world which contain such a wealth of fossil remains. For let us consider for a moment under what ad- verse conditions the slight vestiges of the fauna and flora of the ancient world have been preserved ; what are a few of the agents of destruction, how 1 Op. cit., vol. II. pp. 68 and 69, OBJE C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL U TION. 167 continuous their action, and how inevitable their ef- fect. We shall then learn that evolutionists have reason for insisting so strongly on the imperfection of the geological record, and for appealing to the re- sults of future research and discovery for a confirma- tion of certain facts of their theory, and for an ex- planation of certain difficulties which, as matters now stand, are admittedly insoluble. As to the formation of fossils, it is, as is well known, only the hard portions of organisms which are ever fossilized. But even these, as well as the softer parts, soon suffer disintegration unless in some way screened from sub-aerial agencies competent to decompose them, and unless they are protected from the solvent action of salt water, or fresh water hold- ing carbonic acid in solution. Again, as Darwin remarks, " we probably take a quite erroneous view, when we assume that the sediment is being deposited over nearly the whole bed of the sea at a rate sufficiently thick to embed and preserve fossil remains. Throughout an enor- mously large proportion of the ocean, the bright blue tint of the water bespeaks its purity. The many cases on record of a formation conformably covered, after an immense interval of time, by an- other and later formation, without the underlying bed having suffered in the interval any wear and tear, seem explicable only on the view of the bottom of the sea not rarely lying for ages* in an unaltered condition." ' " In regard to the mammiferous re- mains," the same authority continues, "a glance at . cit., vol. II, p. 58. 168 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the historical table published in Lyell's 'Manual' will bring home the truth, how accidental and rare is their preservation, far better than .pages of detail. Nor is their rarity surprising when we consider how large a proportion of the bones of Tertiary mammals have been discovered either in caves or in lacustrine deposits ; and that not a cave or true lacustrine bed is known belonging to the age of our secondary or Palaeozoic formations." 1 But if the formation of fossils be rare and some- thing wholly exceptional, when we consider the myriad organisms which are never fossilized ; if shells and bones are always disintegrated unless adequately protected from the countless unfavorable and destructive agencies to which they are exposed, their preservation, after having been formed, is something which, when the facts of the case are known, must appear even more remarkable. Romanes on Difficulties Attending Preservation of Fossils. Mr. George Romanes, Darwin's favorite and most ardent disciple, has so accurately and picturesquely described the divers agencies which contribute to the annihilation of fossil forms, that I need make no apology for quoting him at length. "But of even more importance, "he writes, "than this difficulty of making fossils in the first instance, is the difficulty of preserving them when they are made. The vast majority of fossils have been formed under water, and a large proportional num- ber of these, whether the animals were marine, ter- 1 Ibid, pp. 59 and 60. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 169 restrial, or inhabitants of fresh water, have been formed in sedimentary deposits either of sand, gravel or other porous material. Now, where such deposits have been afterwards raised into the air for any considerable time, and this has been more or less the case with all deposits which are avail- able for exploration, their fossiliferous contents will have been, as a general rule, dissolved by the per- colation of rain-water charged with carbonic acid. Similarly, sea-water has recently been found to be a surprisingly strong solvent of calcareous material ; hence, Saturn-like, the ocean destroys its own prog- eny as far as shells and bones of all kinds are con- cerned, and this to an extent of which we have probably no adequate conception. " Of still greater destructive influence, however, than these solvent agencies in earth and sea, are the erosive agencies of both. Anyone who watches the pounding of the waves upon the shore ; who then observes the effect of it upon the rocks broken into shingle, and on the shingle reduced to sand ; who, looking behind him at the cliffs, sees there evi- dence of the advance of this all-pulverizing power an advance so gradual that no yard of it is accomplished until within that yard the ' white teeth ' have eaten well into the ' bowels of the earth ; ' who then reflects that this process is going on simultaneously over hundreds of thousands of miles of coast-lines through- out the world ; and who finally extends his mental vision from space to time, by trying dimly to im- agine what this ever-roaring monster must have consumed during the hundreds of millions of years 170 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. that slowly rising and slowly sinking continents have exposed their whole areas to her jaws ; whoever thus observes and thus reflects must be a dull man, if he does not begin to feel that in the presence of such a destroyer as this we have no reason to wonder at a frequent silence in the testimony of the rocks. " But although the erosive agency of the sea is thus so inconceivably great, it is positively small as compared with erosive agencies on land. The con- stant action of rain, wind and running water, in wearing down the surfaces of all lands into ' the dust of continents to be ; ' the disintegrating effects on all but the hardest rocks of winter frosts alter- nating with summer heats ; the grinding power of ice in periods of glaciation, and last, but not least, the wholesale melting up of sedimentary forma- tions whenever these have sunk any considerable distance beneath the earth's surface all these agencies taken together constitute so prodigious a sum of energies, combined through immeasurable ages in their common work of destruction, that when we try to realize what it must amount to, we can scarcely fail to wonder, not that the geolog- ical record is highly imperfect, but that so much of the record has survived as we find to have been the case. And, if we add to these erosive and solvent agencies on land the erosive and solvent agencies of the sea, we almost begin to wonder that anything deserving the name of geological record is in exist- ence at all." 1 1 " Darwin and After Darwin," vol. I, pp. 423-425. For an exhaustive discussion of the disintegrating and destructive ef- OBJE C TIONS A GA INS T EVOLU TION. 1 71 That the effects of denudation are not exag- gerated in the preceding quotation, is manifest from a number of facts to which Darwin has directed at- tention, and of which he was the first to realize the true import in their bearings on Evolution. In Europe, but especially in North and in South Amer- ica, there are immense areas, embracing many thou- sands of square miles, in which the surface rocks are entirely granitic or metamorphic. This implies that denudation has here taken place on a tremendous scale. And the utter absence of fossils in such rocks shows conclusively how completely the work of de- struction was accomplished, so completely, indeed, that of the animal and vegetable remains which must have originally existed in these portions of the earth not a vestige now remains. In view of such facts Darwin considers it "quite probable, that in some parts of the world whole formations have been completely denuded, with not a wreck left be- hind." Small Percentage of Fossil Forms. But this is not all. We have positive evidence that during certain periods many species existed in countless numbers, although, so far, not a fragment of bone has been found within the area in which they once flourished. The strange, bird-like forms that once inhabited the Connecticut valley are in- stances in point. Although more than a score of fects of aqueous, glacial and igneous agencies, the reader may consult with profit the pages of Lyell's admirable " Principles of Geology." 172 E VOL U TION A ND DOGMA . species of this character had their habitat in the district, and in its vicinity, the only tangible evidences which we yet possess that they ever existed, are the tracks and foot-prints which they left in the shales and sandstones of Connecticut and New Jersey. In other cases, again, all that has so far been discovered of what, in their time, were manifestly important species, is a single tooth, or a single bone, or even only a small fragment of bone. That future research will disclose remains of these species, in larger quantities or in greater numbers, there is reason to believe, but however rich the finds may be, it will always be true that the fossils which have been preserved are but an insignificant portion of those which were actually formed, and that the re- mains of organisms which were fossilized were but an infinitesimal part of those which were completely destroyed before fossilization was possible. Darwin's observations on sessile cirripeds corrob- orate in the most striking manner what has been stated in the preceding paragraphs, and show how a large group of animals, represented by an extraor- dinary number of individuals all over the world, in every latitude and " inhabiting various zones of depths from the upper tidal limit to fifty fathoms," may fail to leave even a trace of their existence during long geological periods. " Not long ago, paleontolo- gists maintained that the whole class of birds came suddenly into existence during the Eocene Period ; but now we know, on the authority of Prof. Owen, that a bird certainly lived during the Upper Green- sand ; and still more recently that strange bird, the OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 173 archaeopteryx, with a long lizard-like tail bearing a pair of feathers on each joint, and with its wings furnished with two free claws, has been discovered in the Oolitic slates of Solenhofen. Hardly any recent discovery shows more forcibly than this how little we as yet know of the former inhabitants of the world." 1 Another important fact we should not lose sight of is, that as yet but a comparatively small portion of the earth has been explored by geologists. The formations of the earth in North America are fairly well known, but even in these portions of the world there is still much to be learned. As to South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, they are for the most part terra incognita to the paleontologist. Such being the case it were foolish in the extreme to dogmatize on the sequence of organic forms in past geologic time, or to attempt to base an argument against Evolution on the absence of certain transi- tional types and on the consequent imperfection of the record so far at our disposal. It has been estimated that not so much as one per cent., of the countless species of animals which have flourished since the first dawn of life, has left the slightest trace of its past existence. Marine forms, as might be expected, are better represented than land forms. Indeed there are not wanting those who assert, that of terrestrial types not more than one species in a thousand is represented by known fossils. 1 " The Origin of Species," vol. II, pp. 79 and So. 174' EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Extraordinary Intercalary Forms. But in spite of the rarity of fossils in comparison with the almost infinite number of individuals repre- sented ; in spite of the paucity of fossil species as compared with the total number which must have existed since the advent of life ; in spite of the lim- ited area of the earth which has so far been ex- plored by the paleontologist, there are, as indicated in the preceding chapter, many examples of inter- calary forms of the most extraordinary character. And all the instances adduced, be it remembered, constitute so much positive evidence in behalf of the theory of organic Evolution. The absence of transitional varieties in certain formations is, at best, but negative evidence, and such evidence is of but little value, or rather it is of no value, in face of all the positive evidence which recent research has brought to light. Thanks to the discoveries of Gaudry, Marsh, Cope and others, the number of intermediate forms has, within the past few years, been wonderfully augmented, and there is every reason to believe that future exploration will, in like manner, contribute towards filling up many of the lacunae which at present are pointed to as difficulties in the way of yielding rational assent to the current theory of transformism. " Indeed, it may be asserted," Prof. Fiske truth- fully observes, " as one of the most significant truths of paleontology, that extinct forms are almost al- ways intercalary between forms now existing. Not only species, genera and families, but even orders of OBJE C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL U TION. 175 contemporary animals, apparently quite distinct, are now and then fused together by the discovery of extinct intermediary forms. In Cuvier's time, horse, tapir, pig and rhinoceros were ranked as a distinct order from cow, sheep, deer, buffalo and camel. But so many transitional forms have been found in Tertiary strata, that pachyderms and ruminants are now united in a single order. By numerous connecting links the pig is now seen to be closely united with the camel and the antelope. Similar results relating to the proboscidians, the hyena family of carnivora, the apes, the horse and the rhi- noceros, have been obtained from the exploration of a single locality near Mount Pentelicus in Greece. Among more than seventy species there discov- ered, the gradational arrangement of forms was so strongly marked, that the great paleontologist, M. Gaudry, became a convert to Mr. Darwin's theory in the course of the search." ' Indeed, so much was M. Gaudry, who renews in our own day the tri- umphs of Cuvier in paleontology, impressed by the fossil remains of Greece and the transitional forms of other lands, that he did not hesitate thirty years ago to declare, that " the more we advance and fill up the gaps, the more we feel persuaded that the remaining voids exist more in our knowledge than in nature. A few blows of the pick-axe at the foot of the Pyrenees, of the Himalayas, of Mount Pentelicus ; a few diggings in the sand-pits of Ep- pelsheim or in the Mauvaises Terres of Nebraska, have revealed to us the closest connecting links 1 " Cosmic Philosophy," vol. II, pp. 40 and 41. 176 BVOLU TION A ND D OGMA . between forms which seemed before so widely sepa- rated. How much closer will these links be drawn when paleontology shall have escaped from its cradle." ' Imperfection of the Geological Record. What precedes supplies us with an answer re- garding two great difficulties on which anti-evolu- tionists have always laid special stress. These difficulties, briefly stated, are the sudden apparition of whole groups of allied species in certain forma- tions, even in the lowest fossiliferous strata, with- out any previous transitional forms leading up to such groups, and the occurrence in geological time of numerous animal forms of a much higher grade than an evolutionist should antecedently ex- pect. From what has already been said not only respect- ing the absence of countless species, but also of the de- nudation of immense areas which must at one time have been rich in important fossiliferous deposits, it is manifest that the objection is at best but a neutral one, and as such may be dismissed as in nowise se- riously affecting the contention of evolutionists. Re- garding the appearance in the earlier strata of ani- mals which are zoologically of a higher grade than the principles of Evolution would lead one to look for, it may be said in reply that the objection urged proves, at most, that the imperfection of the geolog- ical record is even more extensive than it has usually been thought to be, and, likewise, that the advent of 1 " Les Animaux Fossiles de Pikermi," p. 34. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 177 life on the earth must date back much farther than is commonly thought. Not long since, it was the gen- eral opinion, that the first living organisms had their origin in the lower strata of the Silurian Age, but since then the Cambrian, the Huronian, and the Laurentian formations have been discovered, the united thickness of which, according to the eminent geologist, Sir W. Logan, " may possibly far surpass that of all the succeeding rocks from the base of the Palaeozoic series to the present time," and may, therefore, carry us back to a period so remote, that the oldest Silurian fauna may in comparison be re- garded as comparatively modern. So far as the in- formation of paleontologists now extends, Eozoon Canadense, found even in the lowest deposits of the Laurentian, was the earliest form of life, but it is not impossible that in yet lower strata, beneath the ocean's floor perhaps, there are still more primitive types which as much antedate the time of Eozoon Canadense, as it antedates the advent of the last highest vertebrate. Time, Change and Equilibrium. But, it will be objected that the existence of such formations implies far more time than geologists can reasonably claim, far more than can be allowed by the almost certain conclusions of thermodynamics and astronomical physics. In reply it will suf- fice to observe, that much, very much, yet remains to be learned, concerning the time which has elapsed since the earth became a fit abode for the lower forms of life, and that until physicists, astronomers E. 19 178 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. and mathematicians can agree among themselves, as to the data on which they base their calculations, and until they can furnish more satisfactory results than they have hitherto offered, geologists will be quite within their right in regarding the objections urged as negative or indifferent, In all discussions relating to the ascent of life and the paucity of transitional forms, we should not lose sight of the fact that ours is a period of tranquility, and that, therefore, in accordance with the principles of Evolution, there should now be fewer changes in the fauna and flora of the earth than during periods of change and widely-extended disturbance. But the earth has not always been so stable and tranquil. During the inconceivably long interval which has elapsed since the first beginnings of life on our globe, there have been countless periods of equilibrium alternating with changes which were more or less paroxysmal. The last of these critical epochs was during that long stretch of time, known as the Gla- cial Period, when ice and snow reigned supreme over a great portion of Europe and North America. And during these long geologic rhythms, these alterna- tions of upheaval and subsidence, of denudation and sedimentation, during these periods of comparative tranquility and almost cataclysmal mutation, there were alternately periods which in the one case fa- vored the permanence of species, and in the other were conducive to their rapid metamorphosis, and to the speedy production of intercalary forms which connected all the links of living organisms in one grand unbroken chain. OBJ EC TIONS AGA INS T EVOLU TION. 1 79 Paleontology Compared with Egyptology and Assyriology. The work of the paleontologist resembles in great measure the work of those who, from fragmentary and unpromising materials, have revived for us the histories, so long buried in oblivion, of those great nations of the Orient which erstwhile flourished amid such splendor on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the beginning of the present century the history of Egypt was almost a sealed book, and as to Chaldea, Assyria and Baby- lonia, it could be affirmed, and with truth, scarcely yet a generation ago, that many of the most impor- tant features of their respective histories had little more for a basis than myth and conjecture. But thanks to the labors and discoveries of Champollion, Lassen, Burnouf, Rawlinson, Layard, George Smith, Mariette, Maspero, and their compeers, the myste- rious hieroglyphics and curious cuneiform characters have been deciphered, and the treasures of knowledge so long concealed by them have been opened up to the world. In Egypt, temples and tombs have been searched for records bearing on the past. Pyramids and obelisks, sphinxes and cartouches, have been carefully scrutinized and compelled to give up their secrets to the persistent and determined votaries of history and science. And so, too, it has been in Mesopotamia and in the territory adjacent. From the Persian Gulf to the site of ancient Nineveh, from Tyre and Sidon to glorious Palmyra, the pick and the spade of the archaeologist have been busy, especially during the past four decades, and the result has been that we now have more complete and 180 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. more accurate information respecting peoples who lived four and five thousand years ago, than we have in regard to the inhabitants of many of the most powerful nations of Europe during periods which carry us back but a few hundred years. Rolls of papyrus and mummy cases, tablets and cylinders, which were once but so many meaningless objects for the curious, have been converted into trustworthy records regarding an almost forgotten past. Seti and Rameses, Sennacherib and Assurbanipal live again, and in all their salient features they come before us with fully as much distinctness as do the historic and romantic figures of Charlemagne and Coeur de Lion. Thus, likewise, is it in respect of paleontology. Thanks to the discoveries and labors of Cuvier, Smith, Sedgwick, Hugh Miller, Murchison, Hall, Barrande, Gaudry, Marsh, and a host of other successful students of nature, who have consecrated their lives to the work of collecting and coordinating the testimony of the rocks, we have now light where before all was darkness ; we have knowledge where all was mystery. And though paleontology, like Egyptology and As- syriology, is still in its infancy, it has, nevertheless, already achieved marvels. From a few scattered fragments, the disjecta membra of organisms long since extinct, it has constructed for us a history which embraces periods of such duration, that in compari- son with them the long dynasties of the Pharaohs sink into positive insignificance. It tells us the story of life from its humblest beginnings till the advent of man, the paragon of God's visible universe. It OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 181 shows us the grand unity of plan which has character- ized the fauna and flora of the world, and exhibits to our view the direction Evolution must have taken in its progress from the simple to the complex, from the general to the special, from the primitive monad to the highest vertebrate. Like the records of the Egyptologist and the Assyriologist, those of the student of the past history of the earth have been imperfect and fragmentary in the extreme, but, not- withstanding this, and notwithstanding the enormous gaps which are everywhere discernible, the paleontol- ogist has been able to give us an account which, considering the difficulties under which it has been written, all thoughtful minds must recognize as singularly complete and satisfactory, even in many of its details. Darwin, in closing Tiis interesting chapter on the imperfection of the geological record, makes a com- parison which so beautifully illustrates the character of the materials from which the paleontologist must weave his story of the earth and its former inhabi- tants, that I reproduce it here in his own words: " For my part, following Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as the history of the world, im- perfectly kept and written in a changing dialect. Of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved ; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may repre- sent the forms of life, which are entombed in our 182 EVOL U TION A ND D OGMA . consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear." ' Sterility of Species when Crossed. The third objection against Evolution, the last one we shall consider, is based on the sterility of species when crossed and on the infertility of hybrids. The argument as usually advanced appears well-founded, and is, it must be confessed, not without its difficulties. According to anti-evolutionists species have been rendered barren by a special provision of nature, in order thereby to prevent confusion which would result from intercrossing. So convinced, indeed, was Frederick Cuvier, the brother of the illustrious paleontologist, of this view, that he did not hesitate to declare: "Without the employment of artificial means or without derogation to the laws of Provi- dence, the existence of hybrids would never have been known." And Dufr^noy affirmed that "animals instinctively mate with individuals of their own species only, and avoid those of others, as they instinctively select food and eschew poison." "In fact," writes De Quatrefages, who to the day of his death was opposed to the transmutation theory, " if in the organized world there exists any- thing which ought to strike the superficial observer, it is the order and constancy which we see there reigning during the past ages; it is the distinction which is maintained among those groups of beings 1 "The Origin of Species," vol. II, p. 88. OBJE C T7ONS A GA INS T E VOL U TION. 183 which Darwin and Lamarck, like ourselves, call species, even when in general form, function, instinct and habit, they resemble one another so closely that their discrimination is a matter of difficulty. Certainly the cause which maintains this order, this constancy over the entire surface of the globe, is of far greater importance than any mere particularity affecting individual life, or the simple local existence of a domestic race. " Now, this cause is simple and unique. Suppress infecundity among different species; suppose that the unions among wild species were to become in every way fertile, and indefinitely so, as they are in our dove-cotes, cow-houses and dog-kennels among domestic races. And instantly what comes to pass? Barriers separating species and genera are taken away ; crosses are effected in all directions ; every, where intermediate types make their appearance, and everywhere existing distinctions are gradually effaced. As for myself, I cannot see where the con- fusion would end. Entire orders and probably even classes would, after a few generations, present noth- ing but a group of bastard forms of doubtful charac- ters, irregularly allied and intercrossed, among which disorder would go on increasing, thanks to the mix- ture rendered more and more complete, and thanks to atavism which would doubtless struggle for a long time with direct heredity. This is not an imaginary picture. Every reader, when asked what will be produced by promiscuous unions among the one- hundred-and-fifty races of pigeons recognized by Darwin, and the one-hundred-and-eighty races of 184 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. dogs shown at our expositions, will certainly give the same answer as I do. " Infertility among species, therefore, has, in the organic world, a role which is almost analogous to gravitation in the sidereal world. It preserves the zoological or botanical distance among species, as attraction maintains the physical distances among the stars. Both have their perturbations, their un- explained phenomena. But, has anyone called in question the great fact which fixes in their respective places both satellites and suns ? No. And can one, on this account, deny the fact which assures the sep- aration of species the most closely allied, as well as of groups the most widely separated? By no means. In astronomy we should reject incontinently every hypothesis in opposition to the first. And, although the complication of phenomena is much greater in botany and zoology, serious study will always lead us to discard all doctrines that are at variance with the second." ' Infertility among distinct species, as De Quatre- fages here views the matter, is thus seen to be de- manded by the fitness of things. It is required for the harmony of animated nature, and is rendered necessary by the hopeless confusion which would re- sult if such infertility did not exist. But the argument from infertility, as urged against evolutionists, has even greater force when regarded from another point of view I mean from the standpoint of fact. Evolution, it is alleged, is disproved, not because it seems fit and necessary lu Darwin et ses Precurseurs Franjais," pp. 259 and 260. OBJECTIONS A GAINS T E VOL UTION. 185 that species should be reciprocally sterile, but be- cause of the fact of infecundity ; because, so it is said, not a single instance can be cited of continued fertility among the hybrid offspring of any two spe- cies, however closely related. Here is the core of the difficulty, " le fait" as the Marquis de Nadaillac phrases it, " qui domine toute la question"^ Evolu- tionists, say their opponents, confound species with race, assert of one what is true only of the other, pile hypothesis upon hypothesis, and ulti- mately deny the reality of species, or see in this fundamental group only an artificial combina- tion. Morphological and Physiological Species. As is evident, we are here again confronted with the old question of the reality and permanence of species. And, unfortunately, most of the reasoning one is asked to follow on the subject is carried on in a vicious circle, or is based on assumptions which are wholly unwarranted. What is species? This is a question which again comes to the fore. Morpho- logically, many of the domesticated pigeons, of which Darwin makes mention, notably the pouter, the tumbler, the fantail, and the carrier, are so unlike 1 For a masterly presentation of the Marquis de Nadaillac's objections against Evolution, see his " Problemede la Vie," and 11 Le Progres de 1 'Anthropologie," in the Compte Rendu of the International Catholic Scientific Congress at Paris, in 1891. For a critical examination of his views, see a paper on " Crea- tion et Evolution," by Dr. Maisonneuve, in the same Compte Rendu, Section of Anthropology, as also a paper entitled, " Pour la Theorie des Ancetres Communs," by the Abbe Guillemet, in the Compte Rendu of the same Congress, held at Brussels in 1894. 186 E VOL UT1 ON A ND DOGMA . each other that they would be regarded as belong- ing not only to different species, but even to differ- ent genera, did we not know that they are all de- scended from the ordinary rock pigeon, Columbia livia. For these birds, Huxley tells us, " not only differ most singularly in size, color, and habit, but in the form of the beak and the skull ; in the number of tail feathers ; the absolute and relative size of the feet ; in the presence or absence of the uropygial gland ; in the number of the vertebrae in the back ; in short, in precisely those characters in which the genera and species of birds differ from one another." And so it is with the different races of dogs. Whether they are all originally descended from one or more species is yet a moot question, although there is reason to believe that most, if not all of them, are descended from the wolf and the jackal. But be this as it may, when we compare the divers races of the domestic dog, when we observe how they differ in the number of their teeth, toes and vertebrae, and note the divergencies in the form and disposition of other portions of the body, we see that they are so unlike that if found in a state of nature they would unhesitatingly be pronounced distinct species. Even Cuvier was forced to admit, that the differences in the forms of the skulls of certain canine races are so great, as to justify one in assigning them to distinct genera. What has been said of pigeons and dogs may also, in great measure, be iterated in respect of sun- dry races of fowls, rabbits, sheep and horses. Mor- phologically their differences are so marked, that OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION. 187 they should be reckoned not only as distinct species, but also as distinct genera, but because they are fer- tile when crossed inter se, they must be regarded, anti- evolutionists insist, as all belonging to one and the same species. And for this reason, too, we are told that the species of any given organism is to be de- termined, not by its form, but by its filiation. Ac- cording to this view, therefore, the determining characteristic of species is not something morpholog- ical, as Tournefort opined, but rather something, as Ray and Flourens taught, which is physiological. But even physiological species is not the con- stant quantity it is represented to be by anti-trans- formists. Infertility of species and of their hybrid progeny does not constitute the positive line of demarcation, so often claimed by the advocates of the immutability of specific forms. On the con- trary, as Darwin and others have shown, " neither sterility nor fertility affords any certain distinction between species and varieties." Long-continued experiments, of the most ingenious character, have demonstrated beyond question that sterility in ani- mals is not to be regarded as an indelible charac- teristic, but as one capable of being removed by domestication. And, observations on numberless groups of plants and animals have disclosed the remarkable fact, that " the degree of fertility, both of first crosses and of hybrids, graduates from zero to perfect fertility." From the foregoing, then, it is evinced that physi- ological species present as many and as grave diffi- culties as do morphological species. If it be true, 188 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA. as is so often contended, that species have been endowed with sterility in order thereby to prevent their becoming confounded in nature, why is it that we find so many exceptions to what is said to be an invariable law? "Why," asks Darwin, "should the sterility be so extremely different in degree when various species are crossed, all of which we must suppose it would be equally important to keep from blending together? Why should the degree of sterility be innately variable in the individuals of the same species ? Why should some species cross with facility, and yet produce very sterile hybrids ; and other species cross with extreme difficulty, yet produce fairly fertile hybrids? Why should there often be so great a difference in the result of a re- ciprocal cross between the same two species? Why, it may even be asked, has the production of hybrids been permitted ? To grant to species the special power of producing hybrids, and then to stop their further propagation by different degrees of sterility, not strictly related to the facility of the first union between their parents, seems a strange arrange- ment." ' To show to how great absurdities a too strong insistence on physiological species, as an absolute criterion as to what is a true species and what is but a simple variety, may sometimes lead, I need only refer to a large number of groups of flowers, in which individuals of a given species can be more easily fertilized by pollen from a different plant, or even by the pollen of a different species, than by 1 " The Origin of Species," vol. II, p. 17. OBJECTIONS AGAINST E VOLUTION. 189 their own pollen. The corydalis cava is a striking illustration of this strange phenomenon. Accord- ing to Hildebrand, the flowers of this species are absolutely incapable of being fecundated by their own pollen, and are rendered but imperfectly fertile by pollen from other flowers of the same stem. They are, however, always perfectly fecundated when the pollen is brought from a flower of a differ- ent stalk, or from the flower of a closely allied species. In this case we are absolutely certain that the stamens and carpels of any given flower, came from the same seed ; that they have, consequently, a common parentage. Wherefore, then, their ste- rility; and why is it that the carpel of the given flower can be perfectly fecundated only by pollen from the flower of an independent stem, or of a dif- ferent species? The only answer which can con- sistently be given by anti-evolutionists, who pin their faith to the usually-accepted definition of physiological species, is that the stamens and car- pels, not only of the different flowers of the same stem, but also those of the same flower of the given stalk, belong to distinct species, and that only the stamens and carpels of flowers of independent plants, or of different species, belong to the same species. It is scarcely necessary to observe that a more perfect reductio ad absurdum can hardly be im- agined. Strictly speaking, the infertility of hybrids is rather an objection against the theory of natural selection than against that of Evolution. From what is known of the extreme sensitiveness of the 190 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. reproductive system of most forms of life, and of the intimate dependence of this system on the organism to which it belongs, it appears a priori quite natural that species or races, which in the beginning were reciprocally fertile, should, in the course of time, owing to some change in the conditions of existence, or to protracted subjection to different sets of cir- cumstances, become completely infertile. Many causes have been assigned for this infecundity, but the answers given are, it must be confessed, far from satisfactory. " He who is able," says Darwin, " to explain why the elephant, and a multitude of other animals, are incapable of breeding when kept under only partial confinement in their native coun- try, will be able to explain the primary cause of hybrids being so generally sterile. He will, at the same time, be able to explain how it is that the races of some of our domesticated animals, which have often been subjected to new, and not uniform, con- ditions, are quite fertile together, although they are descended from distinct species which would prob- ably have been sterile if originally crossed." 1 True Significance of the Term " Species." From what precedes, then, it is manifest that whether viewed from the standpoint of morphology, or from that of physiology, species is something which is extremely vague, and pregnant with diffi- culties of all kinds. But it is also equally manifest that the sterility of species, and of their hybrid prog- eny, is something which establishes different groups 1 Op. cit, p. 28. OBJE C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL UTION. l9l of organisms that require to be designated by a special term. Evolutionists are willing to accept the term " species," provided, however, it be understood that this term does not imply specific immutability during all time. That species may be immutable during a relatively brief period, or during the time it may have been possible to study them, evolution- ists are ready to concede, but they decline to admit, that because certain forms are known to have been permanent for a limited period, they must, therefore, have been immutable during an indefinite past time. This indefinite immutability is what De Quatrefages and his school demand, but it is, as is obvious, a simple begging of the question. Even more than a third of a century back, the eminent comparative anatomist, Richard Owen, al- though never in sympathy with the dominant school of contemporary Evolution, felt himself constrained to write regarding species as follows : " I apprehend that few naturalists, nowadays, in describing and proposing a name for what they call a new species, use that term to signify what was meant by it thirty years ago ; that is, an originally distinct creation, maintaining its primitive distinction by obstructive generative peculiarities. The proposer of the new species now intends to state no more than he actu- ally knows, as, for example, that the differences on which he founds the specific characters are constant in individuals of both sexes, so far as observation has reached ; and that they are not due to domesti- cation, or to artificially superinduced circumstances, or to any outward influence within his cognizance ; 192 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. that the species is wild, or is such as it appears in nature." l Nothing could better illustrate the uncertain character of species and the impossibility of distin- guishing species from varieties, or one species from another species, even when they are widely diverg- ent, than certain experiments made some years ago by a Russian naturalist, Schmankewitsch, upon a species of crustacean known as artemia Miihlhaus- enii. Normally, this organism lives in water which is slightly saline. By increasing the salinity of the water, this experimenter was enabled to transform the species in question into an entirely different one, artemia salina. Reversing the process, the original species was obtained. But this was not all. By continuing to diminish the amount of salt in the water, a species was finally obtained that was so entirely different from the original one, that it had previously been regarded as belonging to a distinct genus, branchippus. The changes mentioned took place slowly, the complete transformation being effected only after several generations. And all the types here referred to as having been artificially pro- duced, were known before, and had always been considered as distinct species and genera. Now, however, that their genetic relationship has been demonstrated, anti-transformists assert that all the three forms spoken of are but varieties of one and the same species. And so they must assert, for 1 Cf. contribution " On the Osteology of the Chimpanzees and Orangs," in the Transactions of the Zoological Societies for 1858. OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVOLUTION, 193 otherwise they would be confronted with what they have always challenged their opponents to pro- duce a tangible instance of the transmutation of species. Here, then, we have another illustration of the impossibility of satisfying those who, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, persist in af- firming specific immutability. They group organ- isms into species and genera, in accordance with their preconceived notions of species and genus, but when it is shown that these organisms are genetic- ally related to one another, they hasten to proclaim that such forms of life are all only varieties of the same species. Such being the case, it is obviously impossible to give an experimental proof of Evolu- tion, for just the moment that organisms, however widely divergent they may appear, are proved to be connected by filiation, they are forthwith pro- nounced to be but simple varieties, no matter what views taxonomists may have previously held regard- ing them. Phantom-like, the proof desired vanishes, just at the moment it is thought to be established. And such, doubtless, will continue to be the case, until naturalists shall discover some infallible method of distinguishing species, a highly improba- ble event, or until they shall be willing to agree that species, as ordinarily understood that is, something permanently immutable has, in nature, no real existence. Factors of Evolution. In this and the preceding chapters I have con- sidered the arguments for and against Evolution in F..-I3 194 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. general, aside from any of the numerous theories which have been advanced to account for the com- monly accepted fact of Evolution. But, before closing this protracted discussion, it is important, for a proper understanding of our subject, to make a few brief observations respecting the factors which have been operative in the origination and develop- ment of species, and to say a few words regarding some of the most popular theories concerning the modus operandi of Evolution. As has incidentally been observed in the forego- ing pages, the principal factors of Evolution are: i, the physical environment ; 2, the use or disuse of organs ; 3, natural selection. The first two of these were recognized by Lamarck ; ' while the third owes its prominence to the labors and speculations of Charles Darwin. In addition to these three factors, two others have attracted some attention, namely, sexual selection, suggested by Darwin, and physio- logical selection, which was especially insisted on by the late Professor Romanes. By physical environment are understood, among other things, the external conditions of life, such as temperature, nature of the soil, humidity, dryness and rarity of the atmosphere. That organisms, whether animal or vegetable, are markedly affected by changes of environment has long been admitted, and it suffices here to refer to the well-known results 1 The action of the environment was not unknown to Buffon, and hence some of his admirers are wont to speak of this factor as " Buffon's factor." It was, however, reserved for Lamarck to demonstrate the important role which environment plays in causing variation of organic forms. OBJECTIONS A GA INS T E VOL UTI.ON. 195 of adaptation due to changes of climate. Thus, to go no further, "pigs with fleece are to be found on the cold plateaus of the Cordilleras, sheep with hair in the warm valleys of the Madeleine, and hairless cattle in the burning plains of Mariquita." That use and disuse are factors in Evolution is evinced by facts within the experience of everybody, such, for in- stance, as the general development of the body of the athlete, the highly delicate senses of touch and hear- ing of the blind, or the atrophied limb of the paralytic. The Lamarckian factors were deemed of little importance by Darwin, but recently they have, with some modifications, come into special prominence in America, and constitute the basis of the new the- ory of Neo-Lamarckism. According to Cope and Hyatt, two of the most prominent exponents of this theory, the Lamarckian factors, especially the activi- ties of animals in their constant endeavor to accommo- date themselves to their environment, have been the chief agencies in producing varieties and species, and consequently, the chief agencies also in the Evolu- tion of higher from lower forms of life. Natural selection, or the "survival of the fittest," as Spencer loves to call it, is an abbreviated expres- sion for several well-recognized causes of evolution- ary change. Among the more prominent of these are heredity, variation and struggle for existence. Darwin, however, did not teach, as is sometimes imagined, that natural selection is the sole factor of Evolution, although he did, indeed, contend that it is the chief factor. He frankly admitted, especially in his later works, that it left much unexplained, and 196 VOL U TION A ND DOGMA . that he had at first over-estimated its importance. Sexual selection, and the two Lamarckian factors just referred to, he always considered as quite sec- ondary and subordinate to natural selection. But some of Darwin's disciples, notably Wallace, Haeckel, and Ray Lankester, attribute a far greater potency to natural selection than did Darwin himself, and are disposed to regard it as the sole and sufficient cause of all organic development. So different, indeed, are their views from those of their master, that they have given rise to a new school of thought known as Neo-Darwinism. Evolutionary Theories and Their Difficulties. But all the theories of Evolution connected with the above-named factors, Lamarckism and Darwin- ism, Neo-Lamarckism and Neo-Darwinism, involve numerous and grave difficulties, which, so far, have not been satisfactorily answered. Thus, it is not yet positively demonstrated that the effects of use and disuse are inherited. To obtain direct evidence of the inheritance of acquired variations of this kind has hitherto been attended with insuperable diffi- culties. As to natural selection, it labors under dif- ficulties which are apparently even more serious, and to such an extent is this true, that it may well be questioned if there is a single pure Darwinian now living. ' 1 Many years ago, it will be remembered, Mivart charac- terized natural selection as "a puerile hypothesis." Time seems to have confirmed him in his opinion, for in a recent magazine article he refers to natural selection as an "absurd and childish theory." OB JE C TfONS A GA INS T E VOL UTION. 197 Why do animals tend to vary? Why do they transmit their characteristics to their offspring? How can chance, irregular, infinitesimal variations, give rise to all the countless species which are known to have existed since the dawn of life, and that within the interval of time which astronomers and physicists are willing to allow? Why, if species have originated by minute, indefinite and irregular variations, are there not more transitional forms than the geological record actually discloses? And how can variations be of any avail in the production of a new species, if these variations, as seems to be the case, are always eliminated by crossing, and if ac- quired characters are not transmitted by inheritance? Why is it that certain features, which are demon- strably useless to the individual, are preserved, and how is it that organs which are useful only when highly developed, could ever have had a beginning? These are but a few of the many questions which might be asked, to which the advocates of natural selection have not as yet given satisfactory an- swers. Many attempts, it is true, have been made to overcome the objections against natural selection, but the success of all such attempts is still open to question. Thus, Moritz Wagner, observing that isolation is favorable to the development of varieties, formulated his theory of isolation by migration. To overcome the difficulty embodied in the slow and irregular variations which Darwin postulated, Mivart and others have formulated their theory of extraor- dinary births. They deny the truth of Leibnitz' 198 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. aphorism, natura non facit saltum, and contend that species are always formed by what has been desig- nated as saltatory Evolution, that is, Evolution which effects such notable change in an organism that it is constituted a distinct species from the be- ginning. Among the extraordinary births which are appealed to as evidence of the existence of sal- tatory Evolution, are the Ancon and Mauchamp breeds of sheep, Niata cattle, pug dogs, tumbler pigeons, hook-bill ducks, and a large number of vege- table forms that have suddenly appeared with essentially the same characteristic features which they now exhibit. ' To the objection that we have no evidence that wild species ever originate in this way, it is- replied that "we have never witnessed the origin of a wild species by any process whatever; and if a species were to come suddenly into being in a wild state, as the Ancon sheep did under domestication, how could you ascertain the fact? If the first of a newly-be- gotten species were found, the fact of its discovery would tell nothing about its origin. Naturalists would register it as a very rare species, having been only once met with, but they would have no means 1 The real author of the theory of saltatory Evolution was Geoffrey Saint- Hilaire. It has, however, been specially devel- oped and supported by such eminent authorities as Mivart, Owen, Kolliker, and the Duke of Argyll. Even Huxley is in- clined to take a favorable view of it. " We greatly suspect," he says, " that she (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." Mr. Bateson's recent theory of " discontinuous variations," is essentially only a modification of the theorv of saltatory Evolution as held by Mivart and others. OBJECTIONS A GAINS T E VOL UTION. 199 of knowing whether it were the first or the last of its race." Regarding the laws governing such extraordinary births, Mivart is unable to vouchsafe any informa- tion. He is, however, of the opinion, that sufficiently numerous instances of such births are known to jus- tify one in accepting the theory. If it could be demonstrated to be true, it would at once remove all the difficulties presented by the lack of geolog- ical time, the absence or paucity of transitional forms, the origin of rudimentary organs, and the elimina- tion of variations by crossing ; difficulties which natural selection -has been thus far impotent to re- move. As is manifest, Mivart's theory does not explain the facts it deals with ; it simply refers the sudden changes demanded to the action of unknown internal forces. This, at bottom, is not unlike the theory of the German botanist, Nageli, who would account for development by assuming that there ex- ists in all organisms an internal tendency towards progression. But this is obviously only another way of expressing the action of the "perfecting principle" of Aristotle, as Darwin's theory of chance variations is but a modification of the conjecture of " fortuity in nature," of old Empedocles. Concerning Weismann's theory of heredity, Haeckel's speculations on perigenesis, Jager's notions regarding soul-stuff, and Brooks' hypothesis respect- ing both heredity and variation, we need say noth- ing except that Weismann's theory has many points of weakness, that the views of Haeckel and Jager are based mostly on fancy, and that the hypothesis of 200 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Brooks is an attempt to combine the theories of some of his predecessors, especially those of Darwin and Weismann. From the preceding paragraphs, therefore, it is clear that, as yet, we have no theory of Evolution which is competent to coordinate all the facts that Evolution is supposed to embrace. Neither singly nor collectively do the theories just discussed meet the many objections urged against them. All of them, doubtless, contain an element of truth, but how far they can be relied upon as guides in re- search it is still impossible to say. The same may be said concerning the so-called factors of Evolution. All of them, there is reason to believe, are more or less potent in organic development, but it is gener- ally admitted that other factors, factors probably more important than any of those yet mentioned, remain to be discovered before we can properly un- derstand the working of Evolution, and account for numberless phenomena of the organic world which are still involved in mystery. The Ideal Theory. The discovery of a true, comprehensive, irrefraga- ble theory of Evolution ; of a theory of the " or- dained becoming " of new species by the operation of secondary causes ; of a theory which will admit a preconceived progress "towards a foreseen goal;" 1 of a theory which in its " broad features " will disclose the unmistakable evidence and the certain impress of a Divine intelligence and purpose this is something 1 Cf. Owen's " Anatomy of Vertebrates," vol. Ill, ch. XL, OB JE C TIONS A GA INS T E VOL U TION. 201 which still remains to be accomplished, but some- thing which can scarcely be realized before many years shall have elapsed, and until much serious labor shall have been expended on the vast, and as yet but partially explored, domain of animated na- ture. 1 Such a theory, when fully worked out, will do for biology what the heliocentric theory has achieved for astronomy. It will place in the clear light of day what is now veiled in darkness, and render certain what at present can but vaguely be surmised. The lack of this perfected theory, how- ever, does not imply that we have not already an adequate basis for a rational assent to the theory of organic Evolution. By no means. The arguments adduced in behalf of Evolution in the preceding chapter, are of sufficient weight to give the theory a degree of probability which permits of little doubt as to its truth. Whatever, then, may be said of Lamarckism, Darwinism and other theories of Evolution, the fact of Evolution, as the evidence now stands, is scarcely any longer a matter for controversy. Hence, it is the factors which have been operative during the long course of organic development, and a theory that can be brought into harmony with these factors, and which is at the same time in consonance with the phenomena observed, that men of science 1 In the American Naturalist for May, 1895, Professor Osborn, in concluding an interesting article on the " Search for the Unknown Factors of Evolution," pertinently observes : "My last word is that we are entering the threshold of the Evolution problem instead of standing within its portals. The hardest tasks lie before us, not behind us, and their solution will carry us well into the twentieth century." 202 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. are now seeking. Whether the divers conjectures which at present obtain, regarding the method ac- cording to which Evolution has acted in past time, and according to which it must still act, be true or false, matters little so far as Evolution itself is con- cerned. The true, the all-embracing theory, which is now the object of the earnest quest of so many ardent investigators the world over, and which, as Professor Owen believed, should constitute the chief end and aim of biological research, is something which we must look to the future to supply. And when such a theory shall have been elaborated, as every advance in science leads us to believe it will be, then will it be found to be as superior in sim- plicity, beauty and comprehensiveness, to all current theories of Evolution, as the grand and far-reaching conceptions of Copernicus and Newton are superior to the almost forgotten speculations of Ptolemy and Aristarchus. PART II. EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. lvat yap rcaoris TrTMvrjs KOI tyevdodol-ias alnovj TO fir) 6vvaa6ai v, m/ re a7M/7>Mis TO. ovra KOIVUVEI, KOI irf/ dievfyvo^ev. El Jt fir/ Kara diupiafifva TIS TOV 2,6yov ifadevoi, /.f/aerai avy^eas -a re KOIVO. KOI Ta I6ia TOVTOV 6e -yivofievov, els avodiav nal nAdvqv f/tiriKTeiv avayKaiov. " For the cause of all error and false opinion, is inability to distinguish in what respect things are common, and in what re- spect they differ. For unless, in things that are distinct, one closely watch speech, he will inadvertently confound what is common and what is peculiar. And where this takes place, he must of necessity fall into pathless tracts and error." Clement of Alexandria. " Stromata." Book VI, chap. x. PART II. EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. CHAPTER I. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY, ERRORS IN DOCTRINE AND MISTAKES IN TERMINOLOGY. Evolution of the Evolution Theory. IN the preceding pages we have considered what might be termed the evolution of the theory of Evolution. We traced its development from its earliest germs, as disclosed in the speculations of Hindu and Greek philosophy, and reviewed some of the evidence ordinarily adduced in its support, as well as the objections which are commonly urged against its acceptance. We also adverted to some of the many attempted explanations of Evolution, which have been proposed since the publication of Darwin's " Origin of Species," and noted the wide divergence of views which obtains respecting some of the most fundamental elements of the theory. We learned that the great majority of contemporary scientists are believers in some theory of organic Evolution ; that the controversy is no longer about the fact of Evolution that being assumed, if not demonstrated but rather regarding the factors which have been (206) 206 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . operative in the onward march of animal and vege- table life, and the processes which have characterized organic development in its divers phases and epochs. We may not be prepared to go the same lengths as do Spencer, Huxley and Fiske, in the demands which they make for Evolution as the one controlling agency in the world of phenomena ; we may refuse assent to the theories of Darwin, Mivart, Cope, Brooks, Weis- mann, Nageli and others ; but it seems difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the fact that some kind of Evolution has obtained in the formation of the material universe, and in the development of the divers forms of life with which our earth is peopled. The question now is : How are we to envisage this process of Evolution, and what limits are we to assign to it? Is it as universal in its action as it is usually claimed to be, or, is the sphere of its activity restricted and confined within certain definite, fixed limits, beyond which it may not extend ? And then, a far more important question comes to the fore, a question to which all that has hitherto been said is but a preamble a long one, it is true, but still only a preamble and that is, how is faith affected by Evolution, or, in other words, what is the attitude of Dogma towards Evolution ? Evolution and Darwinism. "^j0T ~ b* + matt />* c , To this last question various answers have been given, many of them contradictory, more of them absurd, few of them satisfactory or philosophical, -//x All remember the storm that was raised against Darwinism on its first appearance, a few decades MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORT. 207 ago. Darwinism, however, is not Evolution, as is so often imagined, but only one of the numerous at- tempts which have been made to explain the modus operandi of Evolution. Nevertheless, for a long time Darwinism and Evolution were regarded as synony- mous as in the popular mind they are still synony- mous even by those who should have been better informed. The objections which were advanced against Darwinism were urged against Evolution, and vice versa. And in most of the controversies relating to these topics there was a lamentable, often a ridiculous, ignorance of the teachings of the Church, and this, more than anything else, accounts for the odium theologicum, and the odium scientifi- cum, which have been so conspicuous in religious and scientific literature during the past third of a century. During the first few years after the publication of " The Origin of Species," there were but few, even among professed men of science, who did not con- demn Darwinism as irreligious in tendency, if not distinctly atheistic in principle. " Materialistic " and " pantheistic," were, however, the epithets usually applied both to Evolution and the theory so pa- tiently elaborated by Darwin. Prof. Louis Agas- siz, as we have already seen, did not hesitate to denounce "the transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency." Certain others of Darwin's critics characterized his theory as " an acer- vation of endless conjectures," as an " utterly rotten fabric of guess and speculation," and reprobated his 208 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. "mode of dealing with nature" as "utterly dis- honorable to natural science," and as contradict- ing "the revealed relation of the creation to its Creator." l Darwinism was spoken of as " an attempt to de- throne Godj" as " the only form of infidelity from which Christianity has anything to fear;" as doing " open violence to everything which the Creator Himself has told us in the Scriptures of the methods and results of His work." It was declared to be " a dishonoring view of nature;" "a jungle of fanciful assumption ;" and those who accepted it were said to be "under the frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas." " If the Darwinian theory is true," averred another, " Genesis is a lie, the whole frame- work of the Book of Life falls to pieces, and the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare." Evolution naturally shared in the denunciations hurled against Darwinism. It was designated as "a philosophy of mud;" as "the boldest of all the philosophies which have sprung up in our world ; " as "a flimsy framework of hypothesis, constructed upon imaginary or irrelevant facts, with a complete 1 M.Flourens, perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, thus wrote of Darwin's " Origin of Species,"shortlv after its appearance : " Enfin 1'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne peut qu'etre frappe" du talent de 1'auteur ; mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses! Quel jargon metaphysique jete mal-a-propos dans 1'histoire naturelle, qui tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, des idees justes. Quel langage pretentieux et vide ! Quelles personifications pueriles et surannees ! O lucidite ! O solidite de 1'esprit fran9ais, que devenez-vous?" MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE OR T. 209 departure from every established canon of scientific investigation." It was stigmatized as "flatly op- posed to the fundamental doctrine of creation," and as discharging God " from the governing of the world." The distinguished Canadian geologist, Sir J. W. Dawson, in speaking of the subject, affirms that " the doctrine [of Evolution] as carried out to its logical consequences excludes creation and Theism. It may, however, be shown, that even in its more modified forms, and when held by men who main- tain that they are not atheists, it is practically atheistic, because excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving all things into the action of unintelligent forces." ' Evolution, Atheism and Nihilism.""" X V* j J ^ ' 5 To judge from the declarations of some of the most ardent champions of Evolution, it must be^ ad- mitted that orthodoxy had reason to be at least suspicious, of the theory that was heralded forth with such pomp and circumstance. For it was announced with the loudest flourish of trumpets, not only that Evolution is a firmly established doc- trine, about whose truth there can no longer be any doubt, butjitjwas aj[so_boldly^ jeclared, by^some of its most noted exponents, to be subversive of ajl religion jmdj)f all belief in a Deity. Materialists, atheists, and anarchists the world over, loudly pro- claimed that there is no God, because, they would have it, science had demonstrated that there is no 1 " Story of the Earth and Man," p. 348. .-14 210 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. longer any raison d'etre for such a Being. Evolu- tion, they claimed, takes the place of creation, and eternal, self-existent matter and force exclude an omnipotent personal Creator. " God," we are told, " is the world, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in its being and in its laws, but ever-varying in its cor- relations." A glance at the works of Haeckel, Vogt, Biichner, and others of this school, is sufficient to prove how radical and rabid are the views of these " advanced thinkers." It is in accordance with the spirit of such teach- ing that " science," as Caro observes, " conducts God with honor to its frontiers, thanking Him for His provisional services." It is such science that de- clares that " faith in a personal and living God is the origin and fundamental cause of our miserable social condition ; " and that advances such views as these : " The true road to liberty, to equality, and to happiness, is Atheism. No safety on earth, so long as man holds on by a thread to heaven. Let noth- ing henceforth shackle the spontaneity of the hu- man mind. Let us teach man that there is no other God than himself; that he is the Alpha and Omega of all things, the superior being, and the most real reality." It was in consequence of the circulation of such views among the masses, that Virchow and others declared Evolution responsible, not only for the at- tempts made by Hodel and Nobeling on the life of the emperor of Germany, but also for all the miser- ies and horrors of the Paris Commune. For the theory of Evolution, in its atheistic form, is one of MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORT. 211 the cardinal tenets of nihilists, and their device is : " Neither God, nor master," Ni Dieu, ni maitre. It is at the bottom of the philosophy of the Krapot- kins and Rclus, who " see in the hive and the ant-hill the only fundamental rule of right and wrong, although bees destroy one class of their number and ants are as warlike as Zulus." And we all remember how Vaillant, the bomb-thrower in the Chamber of Deputies, boastfully posed as the logical executant of the ideas of the Darwins and the Spencers, whose teachings, he contended, he was but carrying out to their legitimate conclusions. 1 Evolution and Faith. But all evolutionists have not entertained, and do not entertain, the same opinions as those just mentioned. America's great botanist, Prof. Asa Gray, was not so minded. One of the earliest and most valiant defenders of Darwinism, as well as a professed Christian believer, he maintained that there is nothing in Evolution, or Darwinism, which is incompatible with Theism. In an interesting chapter on Evolution and Theology, in his " Dar- winiana," 1 he gives it as his opinion, arrived at after long consideration, that " Mr. Darwin has no atheis- tical intent, and that, as respects the test question of design in nature, his view may be made clear to the theological mind by likening it to that of the 1 Ravachol, another dynamitard, of the same school as Vaillant, confessed on his way to the guillotine : "Si favais cru en Diai, je n'aurais fait ce que fai fait" 2 P. 258. 212 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 'believer in general, but not in particular, Provi- dence.' " So far, indeed, was Darwin from having any " atheistical intent," that when interrogated re- garding certain of his religious views he replied: "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God." ' And the late Dr. McCosh declared, that he had " never been able to see that religion, and in particular that Scripture, in which our religion is embodied, is concerned with the absolute immuta- bility of species." * The Rev. Doctor Pohle thus expresses himself in an able and interesting article on Darwinism and Theism : . " I feel bound to confess that I never could prevail upon myself to believe, that Darwinism contains nothing short of a hot-bed of infidelity and iniquity, brought into a system, and is, therefore, irreconcilable on principle with a sincere and pious belief in a First Cause and Designer of the world." 3 The illustrious Dominican confe'rencier, Father Monsabre", records it as his opinion that the theory of Evolution, " far from compromising the orthodox belief in the creative action of God, reduces this action to a small number of transcendent acts, more .in conformity with the unity of the Divine plan and the infinite wisdom of the Almighty, who knows how to employ secondary causes to attain his ends." 4 This is in keeping with the view of the dis- lu Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," vol. I, p. 274. 2 "The Religious Aspect of Evolution," p. 27. 8 American Ecclesiastical Revieiv, Sept. 1892; p. 163. 4 " L'fivolution des Especes Organiques, par le Pere M. D. Leroy, O. P.," p. 4. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORT. 213 tinguished German Catholic writer, Doctor C. Gutt- ler, who asserts that " Darwin has eliminated neither the concept of creation, nor that of design ; that, on the contrary, he has ennobled both the one and the other. He does not remove teleology, but merely puts it farther back." ' Evolution and Science. But there are yet others to be heard from. Ac- cording to Huxley, who is an avowed agnostic, the " doctrine of Evolution is neither anti-theistic nor theistic. It simply has no more to do with Theism than the first book of Euclid has." a It will be ob- served that with Huxley, Evolution is neither a hy- pothesis nor a theory, but a doctrine. So is it with many others of its advocates. It is no longer some- thing whose truth may be questioned, but something which has been established permanently on the solid foundation of facts. It has, we are assured, success- fully withstood all the ordeals of observation and experiment, and is now to be counted among those acquisitions of science which admit of positive dem- onstration. Thus, a few years ago, in an address be- fore the American Association for the Advancement 1 " Lorenz Oken und sein Verhaltniss zur modernen Ent- wickelungslehre," p. 129. " Transformismus Darwinianus," declares the Rev. J. Cor- luy, S. J., "dicendus est sensui Scripturae obvio contradicere, non tamen aperte textui sacro adversari ; tacet enim Scriptura modum quo terra varietatem illam specierum produxerit, an statim an decursu temporum, an cum specierum firmitate an cum relativa duntaxat. Sed et de sensu disputari posset quern Scriptura hie assignet nomini ~\ "Mp," Min., " Specilegium Dog- matico-Biblicum," torn. I, p. 198. * " Life and Letters of Darwin," vol. I, p. 556. 214 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. of Science, Prof. Marsh said : " I need offer no argu- ment for Evolution, since to doubt Evolution is to doubt science, and science is only another name for truth." " The theory of Evolution," writes M. Ch. Martins, in the Revue de Deux Mondes, " links to- gether all the questions of natural history, as the laws of Newton have connected all the movements of the heavenly bodies. This theory has all the characters of Newtonian laws." Prof. Joseph Le Conte, however, goes much further : " We are con- fident," he declares, "that Evolution is absolutely certain, not indeed Evolution as a special theory Lamarckian, Darwinian, Spencerian but Evolution as a law of derivation of forms from previous forms ; Evolution as a law of continuity, as a universal law of becoming. In this sense it is not only certain, it is axiomatic." Ignorance of Terms. But, wherefore, it may be asked, have we such diverse and conflicting opinions regarding the nature and tendency of Evolution ? Why is it that some still persist in considering it a " flimsy hypothesis," while others as stoutly maintain that it is a firmly established doctrine? Why is it that some believe it to be neutral and indifferent, so far as faith is con- cerned, and others find in its tenets illustrations and corroborations of many of the truths of Dogma ; that there are so many who see, or fancy they see in it, the negation of God, the destruction of religion, and the subversion of all order, social and political ? 1 "Evolution, and Its Relation to Religious Thought," p. 65. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY. 215 These are questions which are frequently asked, and that press themselves upon even the most su- perficial reader. Are they insoluble? Must they be relegated forever to the domain of paradox and mystery, or is there even a partial explanation to be offered for such clashing opinions and such glaring contradictions ? With all due deference to the judg- ment of those who see nothing good in Evolution, nothing which must not incontinently be con- demned as false and iniquitous, I think that the enigma may be solved, and that it may be shown that the contradictions, as is usually the case in such matters, are due mostly, if not wholly, to an ignoratio elenchi, a misapprehension of terms, or to a delibe- rate intention of exploiting a pet theory at the ex- pense of religion and Dogma, which are ostenta- tiously repudiated as based on superstition and falsehood. The two words most frequently misunderstood and misemployed are " creation " and " nature." They are of constant occurrence in all scientific treatises, but no one who is not familiar with the writings of modern evolutionists has any conception of the extent to which these terms are misapplied. For this reason, therefore, it is well, before proceed- ing further, briefly to indicate the meaning which Catholic theology attaches to these much-abused words. Materialism and Dualism. From the earliest times, the dogma of creation has been a stumbling-block to certain students of 216 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. science and philosophy. The doctrines, however, which have met with most general acceptance re- garding the origin and constitution of the universe, can be reduced to a few typical and comprehensive classes. First of all, comes the Materialism of Leucippus and Democritus, of Heraclitus and of Empedocles, of Epicurus and the philosophers of the Ionian school. The only reality they recognized was matter.. Simple atoms, infinite in number, eternal and uncre- ated, moving eternally in avoid infinite in exteni^are, of themselves, the only postulate demanded by mate- rialists to explain the universe and all the phenom- ena which it exhibits. It excludes the intervention dfan intelligent cause, and attributes all life and thought to the mere interaction of the ultimate atoms of brute matter. Morality, according to this teaching, is but " a form of the morality of pleasure," religion is the outcome of fear and superstition, and God the name of a being who has no existence out- side of the imaginations of the ignorant and the self- deceived. Materialism, as is obvious, is but another name for Atheism, and is a blank negation of creation as well as of God. " Rigorously speaking," as M. Caro well observes, " Materialism has no history, or, at least, its history is so little varied that it can be given in a few lines. Under what form soever it presents itself, it is immediately recognized by the absolute simplicity of the solutions which it proposes. Contemporary Materialism has in nowise changed the framework of this philosophy of twenty centuries' MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE OR T. 217 standing. It has never deviated from its original program ; it has but been enriched with scientific notions ; it has been transformed in appearance only, by being surcharged with the data, the views, the hypotheses, infinite in number, which are the out- growth of the physical, chemical, and physiological sciences. Democritus would easily recognize his teaching, if he were to read the works of M. Btich- ner ; even the language used has undergone but a trifling change." 1 Indeed, "the history of Material- ism," as has well been remarked, "may be reduced to indicating the influence which it has exercised at divers epochs, and to recording the names of its most famous representatives." The advocates of Dualism, like the defenders of Materialism, taught the eternity of matter, but in addition to eternal, uncreated matter, recognized the existence of a personal God. Many of the philoso- phers of antiquity, who escaped the errors of Mate- rialism and Pantheism, fell headlong into those of Dualism, which possessed as many forms as Proteus himself. Thus, the Manicheans asserted the exist- ence of two principles, one good, the other evil ; the former, the creator of souls, the latter, the crea- tor of bodies. According to the gnostics, the world is the work of the angels, and not the immediate re- sult of Divine creative action. Even according to J. Stuart Mill, matter is uncreated and eternal. God, he will have it, but fashioned the universe out of self-existent material, and far from being the Crea- 1 " Le Mate*rialisme et la Science," p. 136. 218 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. tor of the world, in the strict acceptation of the term, is but its architect and builder. Both Materialism and Dualism are one in assert- ing the eternity of matter. Materialism, however, is atheistic, in that it excludes a Creator, while Dual- ism, although rejecting creation, properly so called, admits the existence of a Supreme Being. But God, according to dualists, is little more than a demiurge. He is powerful, but not omnipotent. The eternal, self-existent matter which is postulated, and which exists outside of God, rebels against His action, and becomes a cosmic power against which He is powerless. / 6**** "0* * Pantheism. m Pantheism is the opposite of Materialism. Ac- cording to the latter, as we have seen, everything is matter; according to the former, as the word indicates, everything is God. The finite and the infinite ; the contingent and the necessary ; beings, which appear in time, and God, who is from eternity, are, according to the teachings of pantheists, but dif- ferent aspects of the same existence. Whether we consider the emanation of the Brahmans, the Pan- theism of the Eleatics, or that of the neo-Platonists of Alexandria, or that of Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the doctrines so taught issue in the nega- tion of creation as well as in the negation of the true nature of God. For to predicate, in what manner soever, an identity of God with the world, or to conceive God as the material principle, or the primal matter, from which everything emanates, as pantheists do, is to negative completely not only MISCONCEPTIONS OF THBORT. 219 the Christian idea of God, a Being eternal, spiritual in substance, and distinct from the world in reality and essence, but also the Christian and the only true idea of creation. Having briefly adverted to some of the principal philosophical doctrines which exclude creation in the Christian and Scriptural sense, and having given a hasty glance at some of the more widely-spread errors respecting the nature of the Creator and His creatures, we are now prepared to consider the teachings of Catholic philosophy and theology as to creation, and as to the origin and nature of the material universe. -? Dogma of Creation. ^A\\ ))^ -fj\3. Creation, in its strictest sense, is the production, by God, of something from nothing. The universe and all it contains was called into existence ex nihilo, by an act of the Creator, which was not only super- natural, but also absolute and free. It was, there- fore, in no wise formed from preexisting material, for none existed, nor by any emanation from the Divine substance. God alone is necessary and eternal ; the world of matter and the world of spirit, outside of God, are contingent, and have their exist- ence in time. But, notwithstanding that the nature of the world of created things is finite, and entirely different from the Divine nature, which alone is in- finite and necessary, nevertheless, all the creatures of God have a real existence, although limited in its duration and dependent entirely on Divine Providence for its continuance. 220 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. A secondary meaning of the word " creation," is the formation, by God, of something from preexist- ing material. This is the natural action of God in the ordaining or administering of the world, as dis- tinguished from the supernatural act of absolute creation from nothing. In this sense God is said to create derivatively, or by the agency of secondary causes. He creates potentially ; that is, He gives to matter the power of producing or evolving, under suitable conditions, all the manifold forms it may ever assume. In the beginning He created matter directly and absolutely, once for all ; but to the mat- ter thus created He added certain natural forces what St. Augustine calls rationes seminales and put it under the action of certain laws, which we call " the laws of nature." Through the operation of these laws, and in virtue of the powers conferred on matter in the beginning, God produces indirectly, derivatively, by the operation of secondary causes, all the various forms which matter may subsequently assume, and all the divers phenomena of the phys- ical universe. In another sense, also, the word " creation " may be employed, as when we speak of the creations of genius, or refer to creations of Raphael, Michael Angelo, or Brunelleschi. In these cases, the work of the artist or of the architect consists simply in making use of the laws, and powers and materials of nature, in such wise as to effect a change in form or condition. The action of the intelligent agents in this case being natural, but more than physical, may conveniently be designated as hyperphysical. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY. 221 With hyperphysical creation we shall have little to do. Our chief concern will be with absolute, or direct creation, and with secondary or derivative creation, both of which are so often misunder- stood and confounded, if not positively denied. It would, indeed, seem that the sole aim and purpose of a certain school of modern scientists, is to discover some means of evading the mystery of creation. For they not only deny creation, but also deny its possi- bility, and all this because they, with "the fool," per- sist in saying in their hearts " There is no God." So great, indeed, is their hatred of the words " Creator" and " creation," that they would, if possible, obliter- ate them from the dictionary, and consign all works containing them to eternal oblivion. ' The Vatican Council on Creation. - For a clear and succinct statement of Catholic doctrine, in respect of God as Creator of all things, as well for an expression of the Church regarding the errors of Materialism and Pantheism now so rife, we can have nothing better or more pertinent to our pres- ent subject than the constitution and canons of the Vatican Council: De Deo Rerum Omnium Creator e. The " Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Faith," in reference to " God, the Creator of all things," reads as follows : " The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church believes and confesses, that 1 " In properly scientific works," says Buchner, who de- clares that '' science must necessarily be atheistic," " the word [God] will seldom be met with ; for, in scientific matters the word ' God' is only another expression for our ignorance." " Man in the Past, Present, and Future," p. 329. 222 EVOLUTION AXD DOGMA. there is one true and living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, Almighty, Eternal, Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite, in intelligence, in will, and in all perfection, who, as being one, sole, abso- lutely simple and immutable spiritual substance, is to be declared as really and essentially distinct from the world, of supreme beatitude in and from Him- self, and ineffably exalted above all things which exist, or are conceivable, except Himself. " This one only true God, of His own goodness and Almighty power, not for the increase or acquire- ment of His own happiness, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, and with absolute freedom of counsel, created out of nothing, from the very beginning of time, both the spiritual and the corporeal creature, to wit, the angelical and the mundane, and afterward the human nature, as partaking in a sense of both, consisting of spirit and body." But the canons of the Council relating to God as Creator of all things, are, if anything, stronger and more explicit than what precedes. They are as follows : "i. If anyone shall deny one true God, Creator and Lord of things visible and invisible , let him be ' > anathema. c. "2. If anyone shall not be ashamed to affirm that, except matter, nothing exists; let him be anathema. " 3. If anyone shall say that the substance and essence of God and of all things is one and the same ; let him be anathema. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE OR T. 223 " 4. If anyone shall say that infinite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, have emanated from the Divine substance ; or that the Divine Essence by the manifestation and evolution of Itself becomes all things ; or lastly, that God is universal or indefinite being, which by determining itself constitutes the universality of things, distinct according to genera, species and individuals ; let him be anathema. " 5. If anyone confess not that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, have been, in their whole substance, pro- duced by God out of nothing ; or shall say that God created, not by His will free from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the necessity whereby He loves Himself ; or shall deny that the world was made for the glory of God ; let him be anathema." We have here in a nutshell the Catholic doctrine of creation, as well as an authoritative pronounce- ment, which cannot be mistaken, respecting the attitude of the Church towards the Atheism, Mate- rialism and Pantheism which have infected so many minds in our time, and exerted such a blighting influence on contemporary science. Meaning of the Word " Nature." Knowing, now, in what sense we may interpret the word "creation," in what sense it must be under- stood according to Catholic teaching, we next pro- ceed to the discussion of the word " nature," about which so much crass ignorance prevails, even among 224 E VOL UTION AXD DOGMA. those who employ it most frequently, and whom it behooves to have clear ideas as to its import. " Nature " is frequently employed to designate " the material and spiritual universe as distinguished from the Creator ; " to indicate the " world of sub- stance whose laws are cause and effect ; " or to signalize " the aggregate of the powers and proper- ties of all things." It is used to signify " the forces or processes of the material world, conceived as an agency intermediate between the Creator and the world, producing all organisms, and preserving the regular order of things." In this sense it is often personified and made to embody the old gnostic notion of a demiurge, or an archon ; a subordinate, creative deity who evolved from chaos the corporeal and animated world, but was inferior to the infinite God, the Creator of the world of spirits. It is made to refer to the " original, wild, undomesticated con- dition of an animal or a plant," or to " the primitive condition of man antecedent to institutions, espe- cially to political institutions," as when, for instance, we speak of animals and plants being found, or men living in a state of nature. It likewise distinguishes that which is conformed to truth and reality " from that which is forced, artificial, conventional, or re- mote from actual experience." These are only a few of the many meanings of the word " nature," and yet they are quite sufficient to show us how important it is that we should al- ways be on our guard lest the term, so often ambig- uous and so easily misapplied, lead us into grave mistakes, if not dangerous errors. In works on nat- MfSCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY. 225 ural and physical science, where the word " nature " is of such frequent occurrence, and where it pos- sesses such diverse meanings, having often different significations in a single paragraph, there is a special danger of misconception. Here, unless particular attention be given to the changed meanings of the term, it becomes a cloak for the most specious fal- lacies, and a prolific source of the most extravagant paralogisms. Any one of the diverse meanings of the word" na- ture," as just given, is liable to be misconstrued by the unwary. But the chief source of mischief with incautious readers arises from the habit scientific writers have, of indiscriminately personifying nature on all occasions ; of speaking of it as if it were a single and distinct entity, producing all the various phe- nomena of the visible universe, and of referring to it as one of the causes that " fabricate this corporeal and sensible world ; " as a kind of an independent deity " which, being full of reasons and powers, orders and presides over all mundane affairs." When poets personify nature there is no danger of misconception. In their case the figurative use of the term is allowed and expected. Thus, when Bryant tells us that nature speaks "a various lan- guage," or when he bids us " Go forth under the open sky, and list To nature's teachings ; " or when Longfellow declares that "No tears Dim the sweet look that nature wears," we understand at once that " nature " is but a E.-is 226 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. poetical fiction ; and that the term is to be inter- preted in a metaphorical and not in a literal sense. With naturalists, however, and philosophers, who are supposed to employ a more exact terminology, such a figurative use of language cannot fail, with the generality of readers, to be both misleading and mischievous. Darwin, and writers of his school, are continually telling us of the useful variety of animals and plants given to man " by the hand of ' nature,' " and recount- ing how " 'nature' selects only 'for the good of the being which she tends,' " how " every selected char- acter is fully exercised by her," and how " natural selection entails divergence of character and ex- tinction of less improved forms." Huxley loves to dilate on how " ' nature ' supplied the club-mosses which made coal," how she invests carbonic acid, water, and ammonia " in new forms of life, feeding with them the plants that now live." He assures us that " thrifty ' nature,' surely no prodigal ! but the most notable of housekeepers," is "never in a hurry, and seems to have had always before her eyes the adage, ' Keep a thing long enough, and you will find a use for it ; ' " that " it was only the other day, so to speak, that she turned a new creature out of her workshop, who, by degrees, acquired sufficient wits to make a fire." Nature and God. Now, there is no doubt but that all these quota- tions can be understood in an orthodox sense, but the fact, nevertheless, remains, that they are not MISCONCEPTIONS OF THEORY. 227 always so construed, and for the simple reason that both the writers from whom these citations are made, are avowed agnostics. So far as Huxley and Darwin are concerned, there may be a personal God, the Creator of the universe ; but, they will have it, there is no evidence of the existence of such a Be- ing. On the contrary, according to their theory, there is nothing but matter and motion, and if they do not, like King Lear, say: "Thou, nature, art my goddess," their teachings tend to incline others to the belief that there does really exist an entity subordinate to God, if not independent of Him, that produces all existing phenomena, not only in the world of matter, but also in the world of spirit. It is, then, against this constant misuse of the word " nature," and especially against the many false theories which are based on the misapprehen- sion of its true significance, that it behooves us to be constantly on our guard. Errors of the most dangerous character creep in under the cover of am- biguous phraseology, and the poison of false doc- trine is unconsciously imbibed, even by the most cautious. We may, if we will, personify nature, but, if we do so, let it not be forgotten that nature, with all her powers and processes, is but a creature of Omnipotence ; that far from being merely an in- ward, self-organizing, plastic life in matter, inde- pendent of God, as was asserted by the hylozoist, Strato of Lampsacus, nature, as good old Chaucer phrases it, is but " the vicar of the Almightie Lord." "What else," asks Seneca, "is nature, but God, and a certain Divine purpose manifested in the world? 228 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. You may, at pleasure, call this Author of the world by another name." ' Again, in referring to the Deity, under the name of Jupiter, he inquires, "Wilt thou call Him nature? Thou wilt not sin. For it is from Him that all things are born, and by whose Spirit we live." 1 All this, and more, is affirmed with equal beauty and terseness by the " Christian Cicero," Lac- tantius: "If nature," he asks, "does all that she is said to do ; if she everywhere displays evidences of power, intelligence, design, wisdom ; why call her nature, and not God?" Having explained the meaning of the words "creation," and "nature," we are now prepared to consider the subject of Evolution in relation to the teachings of faith. Here, however, we must again distinguish, and explain. There are evolutionists, and evolutionists. There are evolutionists who give us in a new guise the old errors of Atheism, Materialism and Pantheism ; there are others who assert that our knowledge is confined to the phenomenal world, and that, consequently, we can know nothing about the 1 " Quid enim aliud est natura quam Deus et divina ratio toti mundo et partibus ejus inserta ? Quoties voles, tibi licet aliter hunc auctorem rerum nostrarum compellare." Seneca, " De Beneficiis." Lib. IV, chap. i. 1M Vis ilium naturam vocare ? non peccabis. Est enim ex quo nata sunt omnia, cujus Spiritu vivimus." " Natural. Qusest." Lib. II. 8 " Natura, quam veluti matrem esse rerun) putant, si men- tem non habet, nihil efficiet umquam, nihil molietur. Ubi enim non est cogitatio, nee motus est ullus ; nee efficacia. Si autem concilio suo utitur ad incipiendum aliquid, ratione ad disponen- dum, arte ad efficiendutn, virtute ad consummandum, potestate ad regendum, et continendum, cur natura potius quam Deus nominetur." " De Ira Dei," cap. x. MISCONCEPTIONS OF THE OR T. 229 absolute and the unconditioned ; and there are others still, who contend that Evolution is not incon- sistent with Theism, and maintain that we can hold all the cardinal principles of Evolution without sac- rificing a single jot or tittle of Dogma or revelation. For the sake of simplicity, we shall designate these three classes of evolutionists as: i, monists ; 2, agnostics ; and 3, theists. Their doctrines are clearly differentiated, and naturally distinguish three schools of contemporary thought, known respectively as : I, Monism ; 2, Agnosticism ; and 3, Theism. This is the most convenient and comprehensive grouping we can give, of the tenets of the leading representa- tives of modern science and philosophy, and, at the JLf * same time, the most logical and satisfactory. In order to secure as great exactness, and make my ex- position as concrete and tangible as possible, I shall, when feasible, allow the chief exponents of Monism, Agnosticism, and Theism, to speak for themselves^ and to present their views in their own words. This will insure not only greater accuracy, but will also be fairer, and more in keeping with the plan I have fol- fowed in the preceding pages. CHAPTER II. MONISM AND EVOLUTION. Haeckel and Monism. T fISTORICALLY considered, Monism, as a sys- 11 tern of philosophy, is as old as speculative thought. It has, however, had various and even contradictory meanings. Etymologically, it indi- cates a system of thought, which refers all phenom- ena of the spiritual and physical worlds to a single principle. We have, accordingly, idealistic Monism, which makes matter and all its phenomena but modifications of mind ; materialistic Monism, which resolves everything into matter ; and, finally, the system of those who conceive of a substance that is neither mind nor matter, but is the underlying principle or substantial ground of both. In each and all of its forms, Monism is opposed to the phil- osophical Dualism which recognizes two principles matter and spirit. The Monism, however, with which we have to deal here, is not the idealism of Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Hegel or Schopenhauer, nor the atheistic Materialism of D'Holbach and La Mettrie, which was but a modified form of Epicureanism, but rather a later development of these errors. An outgrowth of recent speculations in the natural and physical (230) MONISM A ND EVOLU TION. 231 sciences, its origin is to be traced to certain hypoth- eses connected with some of the manifold modern theories of Evolution. The universally-acknowledged protagonist of con- temporary Monism is Ernst Haeckel, professor of biology in the University of Jena. He is often called " the German Darwin," and is regarded, with Darwin and Wallace, as one of the founders of the theory of organic Evolution. From the first appear- ance of Darwin's " Origin of Species," he has been a strong and persistent advocate of the development theory, and did more than anyone else to popularize it in Germany and throughout the continent of Europe. He has, however, gone much further than the English naturalist, in his inductions from the premises supplied by the originator of the theory of natural selection. He draws conclusions from Dar- winism at which many of its advocates stand aghast, and which, if carried out in practice, would not only subvert, religion and morality, but would sap the very foundations of civilized society. Anti-monists, of course, contend that Haeckel's conclusions are not valid, and that there is nothing either in Dar- winism, or Evolution, when properly understood, which warrants the dread inductions which have been drawn from them by the Jena naturalist. To understand the nature of Haeckel's doctrines, and to appreciate the secret of his influence, we must consider him in a three-fold capacity as a scientist, as a philosopher, and as the hierophant of a new form of religion, " the religion of the future." 232 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. Haeckel as a Scientist. As a scientist, especially as a biologist, he deserv- edly occupies a high place. Of unquestioned ability, of untiring industry, and of remarkable talent for original research, he is distinguished also for a cer- tain intrepidity and assertiveness in promulgating his views, which have given him, not only a reputa- tion, but a notoriety which is world-wide. His best work, probably, has been done in connection with his investigations of some of the lower forms of life, especially the protista, the radiolaria, and the calca- reous sponges. His researches in this direction would alone have been sufficient to make him famous in the world of science. But concerning these researches the general public knows little or nothing. The works of Haeckel which have made his name familiar the world over, are his popular expositions of evolu- tionary doctrines, viz., his " Natiirliche Schopfungs- geschichte," or " Natural History of Creation," and "Anthropogenie,"or " Evolution of Man." In these works, his chief endeavor is to present the theory of Evolution in a popular form, and to give the evi- dences on which it is founded. Haeckel's Nature-Philosophy. But he does more than this. Not satisfied with being an expounder of the truths of science, he promulgates views on philosophy and religion which are as radical as they are irrational. He appears not only as a professor of biology, but poses as the founder of a new school of philosophy, and as the high-priest of a new system of religion. He commits MO NTS M A ND E VOL UTION. 283 the error into which so many have fallen, of con- founding the methods of metaphysics with those of experimental science, and of mistaking a priori rea- soning for strict inductive proof. The name which Haeckel gives his nature-philos- ophy, as he loves to call it, is, as already stated, Mon- ism. The word " Monism " is often attributed to the Jena professor, but erroneously, as it was coined by Wolf long before. Haeckel has, however, given it a new meaning, and the one which is now generally understood when Monism is in question. He has, as he tells us, chosen this term so as to eliminate the errors attaching to Theism, Spiritualism, and Mate- rialism, as well as to the Positivism of Comte, the Synthetism of Spencer, the Cosmism of Fiske, and other like evolutionary systems of philosophy. But here I shall let Haeckel speak for himself. In his " Evolution of Man," ' he declares that " this mechanical or monistic philosophy asserts that everywhere the phenomena of human life, as well as those of external nature, are under the control of fixed and unalterable laws ; that there is everywhere a necessary causal connection between phenomena, and that, accordingly, the whole knowable universe forms one undivided whole, a ' monon.' It further asserts that all phenomena are produced by mechan- ical causes, causes efficientes, not by prearranged, pur- posive causes, causce finales. Hence, there is no such thing as ' free-will ' in the usual sense. On the con- trary, in the light of this monistic conception of nature, even those phenomena which we have been 1 Vol. II, p. 455- 234 E VOL U TION A ND D OGMA . accustomed to regard as most free and independent, the expressions of the human will, appear as subject to fixed laws as any other natural phenomenon. In- deed, each unprejudiced and searching test applied to the action of our free will, shows that the latter is never really free, but is always determined by pre- vious causal conditions, which are eventually refera- ble either to heredity or to adaptation. Accordingly, we cannot assent to the popular distinction between nature and spirit. Spirit exists everywhere in nature, and we know of no spirit outside of nature." Else- where, he tells us that " unitary philosophy, or Mon- ism, is neither extremely materialistic, nor extremely spiritualistic, but resembles rather a union and com- bination of these opposed principles, in that it con- ceives all nature as one whole, and nowhere recog- nizes any but mechanical causes. Binary philosophy, on the other hand, or Dualism, regards nature and spirit, matter and force, inorganic and organic na- ture, as distinct and independent existences." ' Again, he assures us that the theory of develop- ment of Darwin must, " if carried out logically, lead us to the monistic, or mechanical, causal, conception of the universe. In opposition to the dualistic, or teleological conception of nature, our theory con- siders organic, as well as inorganic bodies, to be the necessary products of natural forces. It does not see in every species of animal and plant the em- bodied thought of a personal Creator, but the ex- pression, for the time being, of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a mechanical cause, causa efficiens. 1 Op. cit, vol. II, p 461. MONISM A ND EVOLU TION. 235 Where teleological Dualism seeks the thoughts of a capricious Creator in the miracles of creation, causal Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal, immutable laws of nature." 1 Five Propositions of Haeckel. These quotations would seem to be sufficiently explicit, but Haeckel, not satisfied with such gen- eral statements, has been pleased to lay down five theses, respecting the theory of Evolution, which ad- mit neither doubt nor ambiguity. They are worded as follows : 1. " The general doctrine [of Evolution] appears to be already unassailably founded. 2. " Thereby every supernatural creation is com- pletely excluded. 3. " Transformism and the theory of descent are inseparable constituent parts of the doctrine of Evo- lution. 4. "The necessary consequence of this last con- clusion is the descent of man from a series of verte- brates. 5. " The belief in an ' immortal soul,' and. in ' a personal God ' are therewith i. e., with the four pre- ceding statements completely ununitable \vollig unvereinbar\" a Such, then, in brief compass, is Monism as ex- pounded by its latest and most applauded doctor and prophet. Such is Haeckelism, about which so 1 " History of Creation," vol. I, p. 34. 2 "Evolution in Science, Philosophy and Art," p. 454 236 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. much is said, but concerning which there is so little accurate knowledge. As is manifest from the above five propositions, it is but a neologistic formulation of old errors ; a recrudescence, in modern scientific terminology, of the teachings of the Ionian and Greek materialistic schools ; a rechauff of the well- known atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera ; a mixtum compositum of science, philoso- phy and theology ; an olla podrida compounded of the most glaring errors and absurdities of Atheism, Materialism and Pantheism, ancient and modern. God, and the Soul. God, according to Haeckel, is but a useless hy- pothesis. A personal " Creator is only an idealized organism, endowed with human attributes ; a gross anthropomorphic conception, corresponding with a low animal stage of development of the human or- ganism." Haeckel's idea of God, an idea which, he assures us, " belongs to the future," is the idea which was expressed by Giordano Bruno when he asserted that : "A spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but contains a part of the Divine substance within itself, by which it is animated." In the words of one of Haeckel's school, the true God is the totality of the correlated universe, the Divine reality, and there is, therefore, "no possible room for an extra-mundane God, a ghost, or a spook, anyway or anywhere." The atom, eternal and uncreated, is the sole God of the monist. Haeckel's atom, however, is not the atom of the chemist an infinitesimally small par- MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 237 ticle of inorganic matter, the smallest constituent part of a molecule. It is far more. It is a living thing, endowed not only with life but also possessed of a soul. And this is no mere hypothesis with him. It is, he will have it, a demonstrated doctrine, an established fact. "An atom soul," "a molecule soul," " a carbon soul," are among the first corollar- ies of Monism, which, one of its advocates tells us, is now " irrefragable, invincible, inexpugnable." Organic and Inorganic Matter. There is, in Haeckel's estimation, no essential dif- ference between inorganic and organic matter; no impassable chasm between brute and animated sub- stance. All vital phenomena, especially the funda- mental phenomena of nutrition and propagation, are but physico-chemical processes, identical in kind with, although differing in degree from, those which obtain in the formation of crystals and ordinary chemical compounds. Like D'Holbach, he identifies mental operations with physical movements; and, like Robinet, he attributes the moral sense to the action of special nerve-fibres. His Weltseele is not like that of Schelling, a spiritual principle or intelli- gence, but a blind unconscious force which always accompanies, and is inseparably connected with, matter. According to his views, sensation is a product of matter in movement, and consciousness is but a summation of the rudimentary feeling of ultimate sentient atoms. The genesis of mind is thus en- tirely a mechanical process, and the conceptions of 238 B VOL UT10N A ND DOGMA . genius are but the result of the clash of atoms and the impact of molecules. Intellectual work is the correlative of certain brain-waves ; thrills of grati- tude, and love of friends and country, are mere oscillations of infinitesimal particles of brute matter. Pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, are the direct product of vibratory motion, and the difference in the nature of these emotions arises solely from the difference in the character of the generating shakes and quivers. Like Cabanis, Haeckel makes thought a secretion of the brain, and holds, with Vogt, that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. With Moleschott, he would assert that thought is dependent on phosphorus, and with Biichner he would declare it to be a product of nervous elec- tricity. In the words of Caro, he teaches that : " In matter, resides the principle of movement ; in move- ment, is the reason of life ; in life, is the reason of thought." Hence, in returning to the first term of the series, we observe that thought and life are only forms of movement, which is the original inherent property of eternal matter. 1 With Hugo, Haeckel would exclaim : " Learn that everything knows its law, its end, its way ; . . . That everything in creation has consciousness. Winds, waves, flames, Trees, reeds, rocks, all are alive ! All have souls . . . Compassionate the prisoner, but compassionate the bolt ; 1 " Le Materialisme et la Science," p. 116. MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 239 Compassionate the chain, in dark, unhealthy prisons ; The axe and the block are two doleful beings, The axe surfers as much as the body, the block as much as the head." The Religion of the Future. Such, in brief outline, are the leading conclu- sions of Haeckel's teachings in science and philoso- phy. What, now, are his views on religion? For his friends and disciples assert that he is not only a great scientist, and a great philosopher, but that he is also to be saluted as the prophet and high-priest of the religion of science, which means, we are assured, the religion of the future. According to a recent exponent of Haeckelism, " We find the reli- gious history of our race to consist of a gradual Evo- lution of its leading peoples from a broad base of general Animism and Fetichism, thence to astrology, thence to Polytheism, thence to Monotheism, and thence to Scientism, expressed chiefly to us in the Pantheism of Goethe, the Positivism of Comte, the Synthetism of Spencer, the Cosmism of Fiske, and finally by the Monism of Haeckel."" His new form ! " Sache que tout connait sa loi, son but, sa route ; . . Que tout a conscience en la creation . . . Vents, ondes, flammes, Arbres, roseaux, rochers, tout vit ! Toutest plein d'ames. Ayez pitie ! Voyez ames dans les choses . . . Plaignez le prisonnier, mais plaignez le verrou ; Plaignez la chaine au fond des bagnes insalubres ; La bache et le billot sont deux Stres lugubres ; La hache souffre autant que le corps, le billot Souffre autant que la tfite." " Les Contemplations." Tom. II, p. 315. 2 " Evolution in Science, Philosophy and Art, 1 ' p. 41. 240 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA of religion, we are told, " rises above all religions as the culmination of all. If anything can be, it is, the universal faith," and this because " it is based upon verified science." Truth to tell, however, Haeckel's own views con- cerning religion are as crude and as extravagant as many of his expressed opinions respecting philoso- phy and science. The monistic religion of nature, he informs us, " which we should regard as the ver- itable religion of the future, is not, as are all the religions of the churches, in contradiction, but in harmony with a rational knowledge of nature. While the latter have no other source than illusions and superstitions, the former reposes on truth and science. Simple, natural religion, based on a per- fect knowledge of nature and its inexhaustible treasure of revelations, will, in the future, impress on Evolution a seal of nobility, which the religious dogmas of divers peoples have been incapable of giving it. For these dogmas rest on a blind faith in obscure mysteries, and in mythical revelations formu- lated by priestly castes. Our epoch, which shall have had the glory of achieving the most brilliant result of human research, the doctrine of Evolution, will be celebrated in coming ages as having inaugu- rated a new and fecund era for the progress of humanity; an era characterized by the triumph of freedom of investigation over the domination of authority, through the noble and puissant influence of monistic philosophy." ' 111 Schopfungsgeschichte,'' yth edition, p. 681. MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 241 This brief extract from Haeckel's inept state- ments about religion, concerning which, it is mani- fest, he is crassly ignorant, will relieve us from the ne- cessity of following further this trumpeted reformer of religion and omniscient seer of Monism. It would be difficult to collect together, in the same space, a greater number of misstatements of fact, more glar- ing absurdities, or more preposterous propositions, than those contained in the foregoing quotation from one of his best-known and most popular works. I shall not attempt categorically to refute his errors of history and philosophy, of science and theology, as this is beyond the scope of the present work. Neither shall I waste time in indicating wherein he has put himself, especially in matters of theology and religion, against the unanimous teaching of the saints and sages of all time. A mere presentation of his errors, in a clear light and in bold relief, is a sufficient, if not the best refutation, for all reasona- ble men. Haeckel's vagaries but emphasize once more a fact which has often been signalized the danger incurred by specialists, particularly by mere physicists and biologists, when they attempt to dis- cuss matters of which they are not only ignorant, but which are entirely foreign to their ordinary trend of thought, and when they pass the frontiers with which they may be familiar, and, entering upon a do- main of knowledge with which they are entirely unac- quainted, seek the discussion of topics for which both their temper and education totally disqualify them. Such a congeries of errors, scientific, philosophic and theologic, error personified, as it were, as that 242 EVOLUTION AND DOGAfA. which we have just been contemplating, forcibly re- minds one of the words of the Mantuan bard when he describes the giant Polyphemus, whose solitary orb was burnt out by Hercules, " Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.'" But if Haeckel is the accomplished biologist he is reputed to be, if he is one of the leading representa- tives of contemporary science, and even his enemies will not deny that he is all this, how comes it, it will be asked, that he has fallen into so many errors and that he has so many enthusiastic followers? 1 " A frightful, misshapen, huge monster deprived of sight." In his latest work, " The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science," Hreckel gives expression to absurdities which are almost incredible. It would, indeed, seem impossible that any sane man, much less one who pretends to be a leader in science and philosophy, should be guilty of such utterances as the following : " The Monistic idea . . . can never recognize in God a 'personal being,' or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. . . . Every atom is ... animated, and so is the ether; we might, therefore, represent God as the infinite sum of all natural forces, the sum of all atomic forces, and all ether vibrations. . . . ' Homotheism,' the anthropomorphic representation of God, de- grades this loftiest cosmic idea to that of a gaseous vertebrate." Pp. 78-79. Again, on p. 92 of the same work, he says : " As the simpler occurrences of inorganic nature, and the more complicated phe- nomena of organic life, are alike reducible to the same natural forces, and as, further, these in their turn have their foundation in a simple primal principle pervading infinite space, we can regard this last [the cosmic ether] as all-comprehending Divin- ity, and upon this found the thesis : ' Belief in God is recon- cilable with science.' " Similar unphilosophical language, to use no stronger terms, is found in " The Religion of Science," by Paul Carus, the chief trumpet and propagandist of Hsckelism in the United States. MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 243 For those who are familiar with the life-work of the Jena professor, and know how blindly the multi- tude follow one who is looked upon as an authority in science, how prone they are to hero worship, there will be no difficulty in answering those questions and in reconciling what are, at least, apparent contradic- tions. Haeckel's Limitations. Haeckel, no one questions it, has achieved de- served eminence in his chosen field of work. But Haeckel is a specialist, an ardent specialist, and his limitations are very strongly marked. As a student of the lower forms of life, to which he has devoted the greater portion of his time, he has probably no superior, and but few peers. But the very ardor with which he has cultivated science, and forced every- thing to corroborate a pet theory, has made him one- sided and circumscribed in his views of the cosmos as a whole, so as practically to incapacitate him for the discussion of general questions of science and philosophy, and much more those of theology. Like all specialists, he suffers from intellectual my- opia, and it is almost inevitable that such should be the case. He examines everything as he would a microbe or a speck of protoplasm, under the ob- jective of his microscope. He applies the methods of induction to questions of metaphysics, and con- founds the principles of metaphysics with the data of experimental science. The result, as might be an- ticipated, is to "make confusion worse confounded." For such a one, the only cure is a broader knowledge and a rigid and systematic drill in the fundamental 244 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. rules of dialectics. Verily, for a specialist afflicted as Haeckel is, and he is but a type of the majority of specialists, it behooves him -to purge " With euphrasy and rue The visual nerve, for he hath much to see." But is this the sole explanation of the manifold errors into which the German naturalist has lapsed, and will this account for his false declamation against religion, and his vehement denunciation of the Church, and of what she regards as most sacred ? It is to be feared not. There is more than simple antipathy in his case. There is downright hatred. Only on this assumption can we explain the use of the violent and blasphemous language which is of such frequent occurrence in his more popular works. As to the reading public, their position is not difficult to understand. They are, as it were, hyp- notized, by what a German writer, Wiegand, aptly designates, " the confused movement of the mind of our age," and are, so far as their ability to think and judge for themselves goes, in a state of chronic cata- lepsy. They mistake assertions for proof, theories for science, and regard a conglomeration of neolo- gisms, which explain nothing, as so much veritable knowledge. Verbal Jugglery. The secret of Haeckel's prestige and influence with his readers, is not due simply to the extent of his information in his special line of study, nortothe astonishing mass and variety of facts which he dis- cusses and compares, but rather to his manner of M Off ISM AND EVOLUTION. 245 presenting facts, and to his adroitness in drawing the conclusions which suit him, whether such conclusions are warranted by the facts or not. With Haeckel, especially when treating of his favorite topics, Evo- lution and Monism, the wish is always father to the thought, and he has a way of convincing his readers that he is right, even when they have reason to suspect, if they are not certain, that he is positively wrong. One of the chief reasons for Haeckel's success as a theorist, is to be found in the fact that he is an ex- pert in verbal jugglery, and a consummate master in the art of sophistry. Whether his use of sophism is in- tentional or not, is not for me to say. It does, how- ever, seem almost incredible, that anyone endowed with ordinary reasoning powers could unconsciously fall into so great, and so frequent, errors of logic, as may be seen on almost every page of Haeckel's evo- lutionary works. He possesses in an eminent de- gree, as has been well said of him, what a French prestidigitator declared to be the leading principle of legerdemain, viz., "the art of making things appear and disappear." This is true. What Robert Houdin is among conjurers, that is Haeckel among what the Germans call the " nature-philosophers " of the pres- ent generation. A striking illustration of adroitness in verbal jugglery is given in his genealogy of man. In his genealogical tree Haeckel recognizes twenty-two "form-stages," through which he traces human an- cestry from monad to man, from the beginning of the Laurentian to the Quaternary Period, when homo sapiens first appeared on this planet. 246 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA . In accordance with his theory of Monism, Haeckel, as might be supposed, is a strenuous advo- cate of spontaneous generation, to which he gives the new names, plasmogeny and autogeny. His chief reason for believing in autogeny is, that if we do not do so, we must believe in creation and a Crea- tor, which, according to his notions, is both anti- scientific and anti-philosophical. The first product of spontaneous generation was the moneron, a simple unicellular, structureless bit of slime or protoplasm, or, as Haeckel himself de- scribes it, a form of life of such extreme simplicity as to deserve to be called an " organism without or- gans." It is due to the action of some natural force, heat, electricity, or what not, on brute matter, and is not only the simplest form of life that can exist, but also the simplest form conceivable. No one, it is true, has ever seen a moneron, not even Haeckel himself. But this matters not. The moneron, if it did not exist, should have existed because theory demands it. To confirm his views regarding this first form- stage of the human ancestral line, Haeckel appeals to the famous bathybius, over which Huxley and him- self went into such ecstasies for awhile, but which eventually proved to be as imaginary as the moneron itself. The immediate successor of the monera in the phylogeny of man were the amoebae. These differed from the former in having a nucleus in the cell-sub- stance or protoplasm. Both these stages existed as simple individuals. They were, however, succeeded MOWISM A ND E VOL U TION. 247 by what are termed amoeboid communities, " simple societies of homogeneous, undifferentiated cells." Under the action of a favorable environment, these amoebae developed into various larval or gastrula forms, and these, in turn, by the action of inherent forces, evolved into worms, and -into animals similar to our modern sea-squirts, lancelets, lampreys, sharks and mud-fish. The mud-fish, or its prototype, a kind of salamander fish, was followed by animals nearly related to existing sirens, axolotls, and by a cross between tailed amphibians and beaked ani- mals, the precursor of the monotremata. The next in the order of succession were marsupials or pouched animals, semi-apes ; tailed, narrow-nosed apes ; tail- less, narrow-nosed apes, or men-like apes ; speechless men, or ape-like men ; and finally, as the culmination of all, the crown and glory of the genealogical tree, whose germ was but a simple speck of slime, or plas- son, we have homo sapiens man, dowered with the power of reason and articulate speech. 1 The twenty-two parent forms of the human an- cestral line indicated by Haeckel are, we are assured, but a few of those which actually existed. They are 1 In marked contrast with the atheistic, mechanical theory of Haeckel are the views entertained by Darwin's great rival, Alfred Russel Wallace. Writing in his " Darwinism," chap, xv., of " the introduction of sensation or consciousness," as "constituting the fundamental distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdoms," he expresses himself as follows : " Here, all idea of mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether prepos- terous to assume, that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into existence a thing that feels, that is conscious of its own existence, Here we have the certainty that 248 E VOL UTION A ND DOGMA. given only as typical stages, and are far from com- plete. In reality, instead of being only a score in number, there were thousands and tens of thousands of transitional forms, intermediate between the first moneron and primitive man. I have said that the existence of the first form of life indicated in this genealogical tree is purely imag- inary. So, likewise, are many others. So far as paleontology teaches, fully ten of the twenty-two groups mentioned by Haeckel are unknown as fossils, while a number of the others do not, so far as our present knowledge extends, belong to the periods to which he assigns them. But this matters not. Se non } vero e ben trovato. If the facts required for the support of the theory do not exist, they must be manufactured. And if facts are found which contra- vene the theory which has been elaborated with such care, tant pis pour les faits. The facts must be wrong, because, forsooth, the theory is right. something new has arisen a being whose nascent consciousness has gone on increasing in power and definiteness till it has culminated in the higher animals. No verbal explanation or attempt at explanation such as the statement that life is the re- sult of the molecular forces of the protoplasm, or that the whole existing organic universe from amoeba up to man was latent in the fire-mist from which the solar system was developed can afford any mental satisfaction, or help in any way to a solution of the mystery." Referring to the origin of man he concludes : " We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its ex- treme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how a man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection ; but it also teaches us, that we possess intellectual and moral facul- ties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin ; and for this origin we only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of spirit." MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 249 False Analogy. Some of the most striking and characteristic of Haeckel's methods of ratiocination are specially dis- played in the foregoing attempt to outline the genealogy of our species. Among these may be noted the fallacy of regarding analogous processes as identical. Thus, to his mind the development of the individual animal man, for instance from a simple germ, is but a repetition within a short space of time of what has actually occurred in the develop- ment of the species. Embryological facts in the life-history of the individual animal, ontogenesis, are considered as corresponding exactly with those which must have characterized phylogenesis, or the devel- opment of any species in geological time. The former being open to observation and study, while the latter are not, the facts which must have ob- tained in phylogeny are inferred from the known facts of ontogeny. This fallacy of false analogy is one into which Haeckel is constantly lapsing, and one, therefore, against which the reader must always be on the alert. But it is by no means peculiar to Hseckel alone. It is a frequent occurrence in most of our current scientific literature, and has probably been more productive of error than any other one form of sophism. Instead of being employed in its strict sense, as it should always be used in science and philosophy, analogy is taken most loosely or given a meaning it will not bear. In lieu of being under- stood to imply a similarity of relations, which is its 250 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. proper and specific meaning, it is used to signify essential resemblance, which is wholly inexact. In order that the argument of analogy should be valid, the data given should be identical, and should refer to two different classes of beings viewed under the same bearings. When this is the case, the iden- tical data given may be regarded as premises, from which conclusions may be drawn applicable to both classes of beings. Until, therefore, Haeckel and his school can demonstrate, that the causes which have operated and the conditions which have prevailed in phylogeny, are identical with those which exist in respect of ontogeny, his argument is inconclusive, if not worthless, and the theories based on his as- sumptions are at best but simple hypotheses and should be so considered. ' The suppositions which he continually makes, and the postulates which everywhere abound in his writings, show the looseness of his reasoning and the flimsiness of the structure which he has reared with such a flourish of trumpets, and to which he points with such evident feelings of arrogant exalta- tion. On almost every page of his " Evolution of Man," and his " History of Creation," we find such phrases as " there can be no doubt ;" " which may 1 It is not my purpose to minimize the force or plausibility of the argument in favor of Evolution which is based on the teachings of embryology. On the contrary, I am quite willing to accept the argument for what it is worth, and in the earlier part of this work I have endeavored to present it as fairly as possible within a brief compass. The facts of embryology may justify the conclusions which evolutionists draw from them, but so far there is no positive evidence that such is the case. The argu- ment from analogy may, in this particular instance, be warrant- MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 251 safely be regarded;" "as is now very generally acknowledged ;" " we can with more or less certainty recognize ;"" it might be argued;" "a conception which seems quite allowable ;" " we can, therefore, assume ;" " we may assert ;" " this justifies the con- clusion ;" and numberless others of similar import, which, like the paraphernalia of the magician, are designed to perplex and deceive. Attention, how- ever, to the matter under discussion, will always re- veal the imposture in Haeckel's case, and disclose the fact that his plausible statements are often nothing more than rhetorical artifices and tricks of dialectics ; the reasonings of a special pleader who has before his mind but one aim, to give vraisemblance to an assumption that cannot be substantiated by fact. Understanding his methods of reasoning, and the reckless manner in which he draws conclusions not contained in the premises, we need not be surprised to have Haeckel tell us, as he does in his fanciful pedigree of man, that we must " regard the am- phioxus with special veneration, as that animal which alone, of all extant animals, can enable us to form an approximate conception of our earliest Silurian verte- brate ancestors." Neither need we be surprised, because we know the man's flippancy and cynicism, ed, but this remains to be demonstrated. What I take excep- tion to in Hreckel's argumentation are, the exaggerated impor- tance he attaches to faint or imaginary resemblances, and his continual attribution to the argument from analogy of a value which it rarely, and which, as he ordinarily uses it, it never possesses and never can possess. As usually employed in biology, analogical reasoning can at best afford us nothing more than probability ; Hseckel would have his readers believe, in the instances referred to, that it gives physical certainty, which it is very far from doing. 252 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. when he declares that " the amphioxus, skull-less, brainless and memberless as it is, deserves all re- spect as being of our own flesh and blood," and that this same brainless creature " has better right to be an object of profoundest admiration and devoutest reverence, than any of that worthless rabble of so- called 'saints,' in whose honor our 'civilized and en- lightened* cultured nations erect temples and decree processions." Type of a Class. But we need not follow further the Jena profes- sor in his extravagant speculations and his wild dia- tribes against religion and Christian philosophy. He has already been given more attention than his work deserves. He is, however, a type of a class, and of quite a large class of scientific men who hold sim- ilar views, and who reason in a similar manner. The saying, ab uno disce omnes, is specially applicable here, because to know one, and, especially, to know the leader, is to know all. The methods of all those be- longing to the school of which Haeckel is such an outspoken exponent are identical. They are all ex- perts in the " art of making things appear and dis- appear," and if not as adroit as their master in the use of sophism, they are, nevertheless, able to deceive the unwary and thus accomplish untold mischief. Considering the nature of the teachings of Mon- ism, it is not surprising that Haeckel and his school should have such a multitude of adherents and sym- pathizers as they are known to have. "In the troublous times in which we live," ob- serves the distinguished savant, the Marquis de MONISM AND EVOLUTION. 253 Nadaillac, " and in the midst of the confusion of ideas of which we are the sorrowful witnesses, human pride has attained proportions hitherto unknown. Science has become more dogmatic and more imperious than was ever theology. It counts, by thousands, adepts who speak with emphasis of modern science, with- out very often knowing the first word about it. But I am mistaken they have been taught that modern science is the negation of creation, the negation of the Creator. God belongs to the old regime; the idea of his justice weighs heavily on our enervated consciences. Accordingly, when a hypothesis, or a discovery, seems to contravene Christian beliefs, it is accepted without reflection and promulgated with inexplicable confidence. It is in this fact, rather than in its scientific value, that we must seek the raison d 'etre of transformism." ' But probably no better explanation could be given of the confusion and perplexity which now reign supreme, especially among the masses, in mat- ters of science, philosophy and theology, than is ex- pressed by the old Epicurean poet when he affirms : " Omnia enim stolidei magis admirantur amantque, Inversis quae sub verbis latitantia cernunt ; Veraque constituunt, quae belle tangere possunt Aureis, et lepido quae sunt fucata sonore." * 1 " Le Probleme de la Vie," p. 64, et seq. 2 "For fools rather admire and delight in all things which they see hid under inversions and intricacies of words, and con- sider those assertions to be truths which have power to touch the ear agreeably, and which are disguised with pleasantness of sound." Lucretius, " De Re rum Natura," Lib. I, 642-45. CHAPTER III. AGNOSTICISM AND EVOLUTION. Nature and Scope of Agnosticism. A MORE popular form of error than Monism, or scientific Atheism, and one which is more wide-spread and devastating in its effects, is the new- fangled system, if system it can be called, known as Agnosticism. To the superficial student it is not without color of plausibility, and by concealing the objectionable and repulsive features of Monism, it now counts more adherents, probably, than any other form of scientific error. Like Monism, Agnosticism is a system of thought which has allied itself with the theory of Evolution, from which, as ordinarily understood, it is insepara- ble. Like Monism, it is a mixtum composition of sci- ence, philosophy and theology, in which science and Evolution are predominant factors. And, like Monism, too, it is a new name for an old form of error. Unlike Monism, however, Agnosticism af- fects to suspend judgment, where Monism makes a positive assertion, or enters a point-blank denial. In many questions of fundamental importance, Agnos- ticism is ostensibly nothing more than simple doubt, or gentle skepticism, while Monism is always arro- gant, downright affirmation, or negation. In its (254) A GXOS TIC ISM A Nt> E VOL tTtlOti. 255 ultimate analysis, however, Agnosticism as well as Monism issues in a practical denial of a personal God, the Creator of the universe, and relegates Providence, the immortality of the soul, and the moral responsibility of man to a Divine Being, to the region of fiction. Again, Agnosticism, like Monism, is peculiarly and essentially the product of a combination and a succession of causes and conditions. As no one individual can be pointed to as ther father of Mon- ism, so no one person can be singled out as the founder of Agnosticism. Both may have, and have had, their recognized exponents ; both, like a Greek drama, have their choragi and coryphei, but these exponents, these choragi and coryphei, are not spon- taneous growths. They do> not, Minerva-like, leap suddenly into the intellectual arena, fully developed and armed cap-a-pie. On the contrary, they are the product of their environment, as affected by a series of antecedent factors and influences. They had their predecessors and prototypes; those who planted the seeds which lay dormant until new con- ditions favored germination and development. Then the fruit contained in the germ was made manifest, and the poison which had been so surreptitiously instilled, was discovered when it was too late to administer an antidote. The word "agnostic" was invented by the late Prof. Huxley in 1869. He took it from St. Paul's mention, in the Acts of the Apostles, of the altar erected by the Athenians " to the unknown God," few, and, to the inventor's great satisfaction, 256 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. the term took, and soon found a recognized position in the languages of all civilized nations. 1 Late Developments of Agnosticism. As a creed, or system of philosophy, Huxley derives Agnosticism from the teachings of Kant, Hume and Sir William Hamilton. At an early age his mind, he informs us, " steadily gravitated towards the conclusion " of Kant, who affirms, in his " Kritik der reinen Vernunft," that " the greatest and per- haps the sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement (of knowledge), but as 1 Father Clarke, S. J., in a note to an interesting series of articles on Agnosticism in The Month, for June, July and August, 1882, declares that the term Agnosticism is " an impos- tor from the Greek vocabulary," and further that " the analogy of other Greek formations is fatal to its claims of recognition." " The word Agnosticism," he tells us, " is founded on a false analogy to Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the doctrine of those who are yv&xmKot, men professing yv