Thus we might expect that it would be a vain task to seek anywhere in nature for evidence of Divine action, such that no one could sanely deny it. God will not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's crucible, or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, revelation appeals to the whole of man's mental nature and not to the reason alone.[287]
None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence of the direct action of the first cause in merely natural phenomena ever eludes our grasp; for assuredly those same phenomena will ever remain fundamentally inexplicable by physical science alone.
There being then nothing in either authority or reason which makes "evolution" repugnant to Christianity, is there anything in the Christian doctrine of "Creation" which is repugnant to the theory of "evolution"?
Enough has been said as to the distinction between absolute and derivative "creation." It remains to consider the successive "evolution" (Darwinian and other) of "specific forms," in a theological light.
As to what "evolution" is, we cannot of course hope to explain it completely, but it may be enough to define it as the manifestation to the intellect, by means of sensible impressions, of some ideal entity (power, principle, nature, or activity) which before that manifestation was in a latent, unrealized, and merely "potential" state—a state that is capable of becoming realized, actual, or manifest, the requisite conditions being supplied.
"Specific forms," kinds or species, are (as was said in the introductory chapter) "peculiar congeries of characters or attributes, innate powers and qualities, and a certain nature realized in individuals."
Thus, then, the "evolution of specific forms" means the actual manifestation of special powers, or natures, which before were latent, in such a successive manner that there is in some way a genetic relation between posterior manifestations and those which preceded them.
On the special Darwinian hypothesis the manifestation of these forms is determined simply by the survival of the fittest of many indefinite variations.
On the hypothesis here advocated the manifestation is controlled and helped by such survival, but depends on some unknown internal law or laws which determine variation at special times and in special directions.
Professor Agassiz objects to the evolution theory, on the ground that "species, genera, families, &c., exist as thoughts, individuals as facts,"[288] and he offers the dilemma, "If species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation theory maintain, how can they vary? and if individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of species?"
But the supporter of "evolution" need only maintain that the several "kinds" become manifested gradually by slight differences among the various individual embodiments of one specific idea. He might reply to the dilemma by saying, species do not exist as species in the sense in which they are said to vary (variation applying only to the concrete embodiments of the specific idea), and the evolution of species is demonstrated not by individuals as individuals, but as embodiments of different specific ideas.
Some persons seem to object to the term "creation" being applied to evolution, because evolution is an "exceedingly slow and gradual process." Now even if it were demonstrated that such is really the case, it may be asked, what is "slow and gradual"? The terms are simply relative, and the evolution of a specific form in ten thousand years would be instantaneous to a being whose days were as hundreds of millions of years.
There are others again who are inclined absolutely to deny the existence of species altogether, on the ground that their evolution is so gradual that if we could see all the stages it would be impossible to say when the manifestation of the old specific form ceased and that of the new one began. But surely it is no approach to a reason against the existence of a thing that we cannot determine the exact moment of its first manifestation. When watching "dissolving views," who can tell, whilst closely observing the gradual changes, exactly at what moment a new picture, say St. Mark's, Venice, can be said to have commenced its manifestation, or have begun to dominate a preceding representation of "Dotheboys' Hall"? That, however, is no reason for denying the complete difference between the two pictures and the ideas they respectively embody.
The notion of a special nature, a peculiar innate power and activity—what the scholastics called a "substantial form"—will be distasteful to many. The objection to the notion seems, however, to be a futile one, for it is absolutely impossible to altogether avoid such a conception and such an assumption. If we refuse it to the individuals which embody the species, we must admit it as regards their component parts—nay, even if we accept the hypothesis of pangenesis, we are nevertheless compelled to attribute to each gemmule that peculiar power of reproducing its own nature (its own "substantial form"), with its special activity, and that remarkable power of annexing itself to certain other well-defined gemmules whose nature it is also to plant themselves in a certain definite vicinity. So that in each individual, instead of one such peculiar power and activity dominating and controlling all the parts, you have an infinity of separate powers and activities limited to the several minute component gemmules.
It is possible that in some minds, the notion may lurk that such powers are simpler and easier to understand, because the bodies they affect are so minute! This absurdity hardly bears stating. We can easily conceive a being so small, that a gemmule would be to it as large as St. Paul's would be to us.
Admitting then the existence of species, and of their successive evolution, is there anything in these ideas hostile to Christian belief?
Writers such as Vogt and Buchner will of course contend that there is; but naturalists, generally, assume that God acts in and by the various laws of nature. And this is equivalent to admitting the doctrine of "derivative creation." With very few exceptions, none deny such Divine concurrence. Even "design" and "purpose" are recognized as quite compatible with evolution, and even with the special "nebular" and Darwinian forms of it. Professor Huxley well says,[289] "It is necessary to remark that there is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution." ... "The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not necessarily mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely thereby is he at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe."[290]
Professor Owen says, that natural evolution, through secondary causes, "by means of slow physical and organic operations through long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of all adaptive mind, because we have abandoned the old error of supposing it to be the result[291] of a primary, direct, and sudden act of creational construction." ... "The succession of species by continuously operating law, is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' Such law, however discerned in the properties and successions of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may be evolved in orderly succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable impress of Divine volition."
Mr. Wallace[292] declares that the opponents of evolution present a less elevated view of the Almighty. He says: "Why should we suppose the machine too complicated to have been designed by the Creator so complete that it would necessarily work out harmonious results? The theory of 'continual interference' is a limitation of the Creator's power. It assumes that He could not work by pure law in the organic, as He has done in the inorganic world." Thus, then, there is not only no necessary antagonism between the general theory of "evolution" and a Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any strong theological bias.
The very same may be said as to the special Darwinian form of the theory of evolution.
It is true Mr. Darwin writes sometimes as if he thought that his theory militated against even derivative creation.[293] This, however, there is no doubt, was not really meant; and indeed, in the passage before quoted and criticised, the possibility of the Divine ordination of each variation is spoken of as a tenable view. He says ("Origin of Species," p. 569), "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone;" and he speaks of life "having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one," which is more than the dogma of creation actually requires. We find then that no incompatibility is asserted (by any scientific writers worthy of mention) between "evolution" and the co-operation of the Divine will; while the same "evolution" has been shown to be thoroughly acceptable to the most orthodox theologians who repudiate the intrusion of the supernatural into the domain of nature. A more complete harmony could scarcely be desired.
But if we may never hope to find, in physical nature, evidence of supernatural action, what sort of action might we expect to find there, looking at it from a theistic point of view? Surely an action the results of which harmonize with man's reason,[294] which is orderly, which disaccords with the action of blind chance and with the "fortuitous concourse of atoms" of Democritus; but at the same time an action which, as to its modes, ever, in parts, and in ultimate analysis, eludes our grasp, and the modes of which are different from those by which we should have attempted to accomplish such ends.
Now, this is just what we do find. The harmony, the beauty, and the order of the physical universe are the themes of continual panegyrics on the part of naturalists, and Mr. Darwin, as the Duke of Argyll remarks,[295] "exhausts every form of words and of illustration by which intention or mental purpose can be described"[296] when speaking of the wonderfully complex adjustments to secure the fertilization of orchids. Also, we find co-existing with this harmony a mode of proceeding so different from that of man as (the direct supernatural action eluding us) to form a stumbling-block to many in the way of their recognition of Divine action at all: although nothing can be more inconsistent than to speak of the first cause as utterly inscrutable and incomprehensible, and at the same time to expect to find traces of a mode of action exactly similar to our own. It is surely enough if the results harmonize on the whole and preponderatingly with the rational, moral, and æsthetic instincts of man.
Mr. J. J. Murphy[297] has brought strongly forward the evidence of "intelligence" throughout organic nature. He believes "that there is something in organic progress which mere Natural Selection among spontaneous variations will not account for," and that "this something is that organizing intelligence which guides the action of the inorganic forces, and forms structures which neither Natural Selection nor any other unintelligent agency could form."
This intelligence, however, Mr. Murphy considers may be unconscious, a conception which it is exceedingly difficult to understand, and which to many minds appears to be little less than a contradiction in terms; the very first condition of an intelligence being that, if it knows anything, it should at least know its own existence.
Surely the evidence from physical facts agrees well with the overruling, concurrent action of God in the order of nature; which is no miraculous action, but the operation of laws which owe their foundation, institution, and maintenance to an omniscient Creator of whose intelligence our own is a feeble adumbration, inasmuch as it is created in the "image and likeness" of its Maker.
This leads to the final consideration, a difficulty by no means to be passed over in silence, namely the Origin of Man. To the general theory of Evolution, and to the special Darwinian form of it, no exception, it has been shown, need be taken on the ground of orthodoxy. But in saying this, it has not been meant to include the soul of man.
It is a generally received doctrine that the soul of every individual man is absolutely created in the strict and primary sense of the word, that it is produced by a direct or supernatural[298] act, and, of course, that by such an act the soul of the first man was similarly created. It is therefore important to inquire whether "evolution" conflicts with this doctrine.
Now the two beliefs are in fact perfectly compatible, and that either on the hypothesis—1. That man's body was created in a manner different in kind from that by which the bodies of other animals were created; or 2. That it was created in a similar manner to theirs.
One of the authors of the Darwinian theory, indeed, contends that even as regards man's body, an action took place different from that by which brute forms were evolved. Mr. Wallace[299] considers that "Natural Selection" alone could not have produced so large a brain in the savage, in possessing which he is furnished with an organ beyond his needs. Also that it could not have produced that peculiar distribution of hair, especially the nakedness of the back, which is common to all races of men, nor the peculiar construction of the feet and hands. He says,[300] after speaking of the prehensile foot, common without a single exception to all the apes and lemurs, "It is difficult to see why the prehensile power should have been taken away" by the mere operation of Natural Selection. "It must certainly have been useful in climbing, and the case of the baboons shows that it is quite compatible with terrestrial locomotion. It may not be compatible with perfectly easy erect locomotion; but, then, how can we conceive that early man, as an animal, gained anything by purely erect locomotion? Again, the hand of man contains latent capacities and powers which are unused by savages, and must have been even less used by palæolithic man and his still ruder predecessors. It has all the appearance of an organ prepared for the use of civilized man, and one which was required to render civilization possible." Again speaking of the "wonderful power, range, flexibility, and sweetness of the musical sounds producible by the human larynx," he adds, "The habits of savages give no indication of how this faculty could have been developed by Natural Selection; because it is never required or used by them. The singing of savages is a more or less monotonous howling, and the females seldom sing at all. Savages certainly never choose their wives for fine voices, but for rude health, and strength and physical beauty. Sexual selection could not therefore have developed this wonderful power, which only comes into play among civilized people. It seems as if the organ had been prepared in anticipation of the future progress of man, since it contains latent capacities which are useless to him in his earlier condition. The delicate correlations of structure that give it such marvellous powers, could not therefore have been acquired by means of Natural Selection."
To this may be added the no less wonderful faculty in the ear of appreciating delicate musical tones, and the harmony of chords.
It matters not what part of the organ subserves this function, but it has been supposed that it is ministered to by the fibres of Corti.[301] Now it can hardly be contended that the preservation of any race of men in the struggle for life could have depended on such an extreme delicacy and refinement of the internal ear,[302]—a perfection only fully exercised in the enjoyment and appreciation of the most exquisite musical performances. Here, surely, we have an instance of an organ preformed, ready beforehand for such action as could never by itself have been the cause of its development,—the action having only been subsequent, not anterior. The Author is not aware what may be the minute structure of the internal ear in the highest apes, but if (as from analogy is probable) it is much as in man, then a fortiori we have an instance of anticipatory development of a most marked and unmistakable kind. And this is not all. There is no reason to suppose that any animal besides man appreciates musical harmony. It is certain that no other one produces it.
Mr. Wallace also urges objections drawn from the origin of some of man's mental faculties, such as "the capacity to form ideal conceptions of space and time, of eternity and infinity—the capacity for intense artistic feelings of pleasure, in form, colour and composition—and for those abstract notions of form and number which render geometry and arithmetic possible," also from the origin of the moral sense.[303]
The validity of these objections is fully conceded by the Author of this book, but he would push it much further, and contend (as has been now repeatedly said), that another law, or other laws, than "Natural Selection" have determined the evolution of all organic forms, and of inorganic forms also. And it must be contended that Mr. Wallace, in order to be quite self-consistent, should arrive at the very same conclusion, inasmuch as he is inclined to trace all phenomena to the action of superhuman WILL. He says:[304] "If therefore we have traced one force, however minute, to an origin in our own WILL, while we have no knowledge of any other primary cause of force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of higher intelligences, or of one Supreme Intelligence."
If there is really evidence, as Mr. Wallace believes, of the action of an overruling intelligence in the evolution of the "human form divine;" if we may go so far as this, then surely an analogous action may well be traced in the production of the horse, the camel, or the dog, so largely identified with human wants and requirements. And if from other than physical considerations we may believe that such action, though undemonstrable, has been and is; then (reflecting on sensible phenomena the theistic light derived from psychical facts) we may, in the language of Mr. Wallace, "see indications of that power in facts which, by themselves, would not serve to prove its existence."[305]
Mr. Murphy, as has been said before, finds it necessary to accept the wide-spread action of "intelligence" as the agent by which all organic forms have been called forth from the inorganic. But all science tends to unity, and this tendency makes it reasonable to extend to all physical existences a mode of formation which we may have evidence for in any one of them. It therefore makes it reasonable to extend, if possible, the very same agency which we find operating in the field of biology, also to the inorganic world. If on the grounds brought forward the action of intelligence may be affirmed in the production of man's bodily structure, it becomes probable a priori that it may also be predicated of the formative action by which has been produced the animals which minister to him, and all organic life whatsoever. Nay more, it is then congruous to expect analogous action in the development of crystalline and colloidal structures, and in that of all chemical compositions, in geological evolutions, and the formation not only of this earth, but of the solar system and whole sidereal universe.
If such really be the direction in which physical science, philosophically considered, points; if intelligence may thus be seen to preside over the evolution of each system of worlds and the unfolding of every blade of grass—this grand result harmonizes indeed with the teachings of faith that God acts and concurs, in the natural order, with those laws of the material universe which were not only instituted by His will, but are sustained by His concurrence; and we are thus enabled to discern in the natural order, however darkly, the Divine Author of nature—Him in whom "we live, and move, and have our being."
But if this view is accepted, then it is no longer absolutely necessary to suppose that any action different in kind took place in the production of man's body, from that which took place in the production of the bodies of other animals, and of the whole material universe.
Of course, if it can be demonstrated that that difference which Mr. Wallace asserts really exists, it is plain that we then have to do with facts not only harmonizing with religion, but, as it were, preaching and proclaiming it.
It is not, however, necessary for Christianity that any such view should prevail. Man, according to the old scholastic definition, is "a rational animal" (animal rationale), and his animality is distinct in nature from his rationality, though inseparably joined, during life, in one common personality. This animal body must have had a different source from that of the spiritual soul which informs it, from the distinctness of the two orders to which those two existences severally belong.
Scripture seems plainly to indicate this when it says that "God made man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." This is a plain and direct statement that man's body was not created in the primary and absolute sense of the word, but was evolved from pre-existing material (symbolized by the term "dust of the earth"), and was therefore only derivatively created, i.e. by the operation of secondary laws. His soul, on the other hand, was created in quite a different way, not by any pre-existing means, external to God himself, but by the direct action of the Almighty, symbolized by the term "breathing:" the very form adopted by Christ, when conferring the supernatural powers and graces of the Christian dispensation, and a form still daily used in the rites and ceremonies of the Church.
That the first man should have had this double origin agrees with what we now experience. For supposing each human soul to be directly and immediately created, yet each human body is evolved by the ordinary operation of natural physical laws.
Professor Flower in his Introductory Lecture[306] (p. 20) to his course of Hunterian Lectures for 1870 well observes: "Whatever man's place may be, either in or out of nature, whatever hopes, or fears or feelings about himself or his race he may have, we all of us admit that these are quite uninfluenced by our knowledge of the fact that each individual man comes into the world by the ordinary processes of generation, according to the same laws which apply to the development of all organic beings whatever, that every part of him which can come under the scrutiny of the anatomist or naturalist, has been evolved according to these regular laws from a simple minute ovum, indistinguishable to our senses from that of any of the inferior animals. If this be so—if man is what he is, notwithstanding the corporeal mode of origin of the individual man, so he will assuredly be neither less nor more than man, whatever may be shown regarding the corporeal origin of the whole race, whether this was from the dust of the earth, or by the modification of some pre-existing animal form."
Man is indeed compound, in him two distinct orders of being impinge and mingle; and with this an origin from two concurrent modes of action is congruous, and might be expected a priori. At the same time as the "soul" is "the form of the body," the former might be expected to modify the latter into a structure of harmony and beauty standing alone in the organic world of nature. Also that, with the full perfection and beauty of that soul, attained by the concurrent action of "Nature" and "Grace," a character would be formed like nothing else which is visible in this world, and having a mode of action different, inasmuch as complementary to all inferior modes of action.
Something of this is evident even to those who approach the subject from the point of view of physical science only. Thus Mr. Wallace observes,[307] that on his view man is to be placed "apart, as not only the head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being.[308] From those infinitely remote ages when the first rudiments of organic life appeared upon the earth, every plant and every animal has been subject to one great law of physical change. As the earth has gone through its grand cycles of geological, climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has been subject to its irresistible action, and has been continually but imperceptibly moulded into such new shapes as would preserve their harmony with the ever-changing universe. No living thing could escape this law of its being; none (except, perhaps, the simplest and most rudimentary organisms) could remain unchanged and live amid the universal change around it."
"At length, however, there came into existence a being in whom that subtle force we term mind, became of greater importance than his mere bodily structure. Though with a naked and unprotected body, this gave him clothing against the varying inclemencies of the seasons. Though unable to compete with the deer in swiftness, or with the wild bull in strength, this gave him weapons with which to capture or overcome both. Though less capable than most other animals of living on the herbs and the fruits that unaided nature supplies, this wonderful faculty taught him to govern and direct nature to his own benefit, and make her produce food for him when and where he pleased. From the moment when the first skin was used as a covering; when the first rude spear was formed to assist in the chase; when fire was first used to cook his food; when the first seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the earth's history had had no parallel, for a being had arisen who was no longer necessarily subject to change with the changing universe, a being who was in some degree superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and regulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony with her, not by a change in body, but by an advance in mind."
"On this view of his special attributes, we may admit 'that he is indeed a being apart.' Man has not only escaped 'Natural Selection' himself, but he is actually able to take away some of that power from nature which before his appearance she universally exercised. We can anticipate the time when the earth will produce only cultivated plants and domestic animals; when man's selection shall have supplanted 'Natural Selection;' and when the ocean will be the only domain in which that power can be exerted."
Baden Powell[309] observes on this subject: "The relation of the animal man to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual man, resembles that of a crystal slumbering in its native quarry to the same crystal mounted in the polarizing apparatus of the philosopher. The difference is not in physical nature, but in investing that nature with a new and higher application. Its continuity with the material world remains the same, but a new relation is developed in it, and it claims kindred with ethereal matter and with celestial light."
This well expresses the distinction between the merely physical and the hyperphysical natures of man, and the subsumption of the former into the latter which dominates it.
The same author in speaking of man's moral and spiritual nature says,[310] "The assertion in its very nature and essence refers wholly to a DIFFERENT ORDER OF THINGS, apart from and transcending any material ideas whatsoever." Again[311] he adds, "In proportion as man's moral superiority is held to consist in attributes not of a material or corporeal kind or origin, it can signify little how his physical nature may have originated."
Now physical science, as such, has nothing to do with the soul of man which is hyperphysical. That such an entity exists, that the correlated physical forces go through their Protean transformations, have their persistent ebb and flow outside of the world of WILL and SELF-CONSCIOUS MORAL BEING, are propositions the proofs of which have no place in this work. This at least may however be confidently affirmed, that no reach of physical science in any coming century will ever approach to a demonstration that countless modes of being, as different from each other as are the force of gravitation and conscious maternal love, may not co-exist. Two such modes are made known to us by our natural faculties only: the physical, which includes the first of these examples; the hyperphysical, which embraces the other. For those who accept revelation, a third and a distinct mode of being and of action is also made known, namely, the direct and immediate or, in the sense here given to the term, the supernatural. An analogous relationship runs through and connects all these modes of being and of action. The higher mode in each case employs and makes use of the lower, the action of which it occasionally suspends or alters, as gravity is suspended by electro-magnetic action, or the living energy of an organic being restrains the inter-actions of the chemical affinities belonging to its various constituents.
Thus conscious will controls and directs the exercise of the vital functions according to desire, and moral consciousness tends to control desire in obedience to higher dictates.[312] The action of living organisms depends upon and subsumes the laws of inorganic matter. Similarly the actions of animal life depend upon and subsume the laws of organic matter. In the same way the actions of a self-conscious moral agent, such as man, depend upon and subsume the laws of animal life. When a part or the whole series of these natural actions is altered or suspended by the intervention of action of a still higher order, we have then a "miracle."
In this way we find a perfect harmony in the double nature of man, his rationality making use of and subsuming his animality; his soul arising from direct and immediate creation, and his body being formed at first (as now in each separate individual) by derivative or secondary creation, through natural laws. By such secondary creation, i.e. by natural laws, for the most part as yet unknown but controlled by "Natural Selection," all the various kinds of animals and plants have been manifested on this planet. That Divine action has concurred and concurs in these laws we know by deductions from our primary intuitions; and physical science, if unable to demonstrate such action, is at least as impotent to disprove it. Disjoined from these deductions, the phenomena of the universe present an aspect devoid of all that appeals to the loftiest aspirations of man, that which stimulates his efforts after goodness, and presents consolations for unavoidable shortcomings. Conjoined with these same deductions, all the harmony of physical nature and the constancy of its laws are preserved unimpaired, while the reason, the conscience, and the æsthetic instincts are alike gratified. We have thus a true reconciliation of science and religion, in which each gains and neither loses, one being complementary to the other.
Some apology is due to the reader for certain observations and arguments which have been here advanced, and which have little in the shape of novelty to recommend them. But after all, novelty can hardly be predicated of the views here criticised and opposed. Some of these seem almost a return to the "fortuitous concourse of atoms" of Democritus, and even the very theory of "Natural Selection" itself—a "survival of the fittest"—was in part thought out not hundreds but thousands of years ago. Opponents of Aristotle maintained that by the accidental occurrence of combinations, organisms have been preserved and perpetuated such as final causes, did they exist, would have brought about, disadvantageous combinations or variations being speedily exterminated. "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 advantageous to the organism were preserved; while those which were not advantageous perished, and still perished like the minotaurs and sphinxes of Empedocles."[313]
In conclusion, the Author ventures to hope that this treatise may not be deemed useless, but have contributed, however slightly, towards clearing the way for peace and conciliation and for a more ready perception, of the harmony which exists between those deductions from our primary intuitions before alluded to, and the teachings of physical science, as far, that is, as concerns the evolution of organic forms—the genesis of species.
The aim has been to support the doctrine that these species have been evolved by ordinary natural laws (for the most part unknown) controlled by the subordinate action of "Natural Selection," and at the same time to remind some that there is and can be absolutely nothing in physical science which forbids them to regard those natural laws as acting with the Divine concurrence and in obedience to a creative fiat originally imposed on the primeval Cosmos, "in the beginning," by its Creator, its Upholder, and its Lord.