Part 6 (2/2)
No man is so foolish as to deny that his eye was intended to enable him to see, because he cannot tell what the spleen was made for. It is, however, useless to dwell upon this subject. If a man denies that there is design in nature, he can with quite as good reason deny that there is any design in any or in all the works ever executed by man.
The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the denial of design in nature is virtually the denial of G.o.d. Mr. Darwin's theory does deny all design in nature, therefore, his theory is virtually atheistical; his theory, not he himself. He believes in a Creator. But when that Creator, millions on millions of ages ago, did something,--called matter and a living germ into existence,--and then abandoned the universe to itself to be controlled by chance and necessity, without any purpose on his part as to the result, or any intervention or guidance, then He is virtually consigned, so far as we are concerned, to non-existence. It has already been said that the most extreme of Mr. Darwin's admirers adopt and laud his theory, for the special reason that it banishes G.o.d from the world; that it enables them to account for design without referring it to the purpose or agency of G.o.d. This is done expressly by Buchner, Haeckel, Vogt, and Strauss. The opponents of Darwinism direct their objections princ.i.p.ally against this element of the doctrine. This, as was stated by Rev. Dr. Peabody, was the main ground of the earnest opposition of Aga.s.siz to the theory. America's great botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, avows himself an evolutionist; but he is not a Darwinian. Of that point we have the clearest possible proof. Mr. Darwin, after explicitly denying that the variations which have resulted in ”the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided,” adds: ”However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief 'that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines' like a stream 'along definite and useful lines of irrigation.'”[58] If Mr. Darwin does not agree with Dr. Gray, Dr. Gray does not agree with Mr. Darwin. It is as to the exclusion of design from the operations of nature that our American, differs from the English, naturalist. This is the vital point.
The denial of final causes is the formative idea of Darwin's theory, and therefore no teleologist can be a Darwinian.
Dr. Gray quotes from another writer the sentence, ”It is a singular fact, that when we can find how anything is done, our first conclusion seems to be that G.o.d did not do it;” and then adds, ”I agree with the writer that this first conclusion is premature and unworthy; I will add, deplorable. Through what faults of dogmatism on the one hand, and skepticism on the other, it came to be so thought, we need not here consider. Let us hope, and I confidently expect, that it is not to last; that the religious faith which survived without a shock the notion of the fixedness of the earth itself, may equally outlast the notion of the absolute fixedness of the species which inhabit it; that in the future, even more than in the past, faith in an _order_, which is the basis of science, will not--as it cannot reasonably--be dissevered from faith in an _Ordainer_, which is the basis of religion.”[59] We thank G.o.d for that sentence. It is the concluding sentence of Dr. Gray's address as ex-President of ”The American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science,” delivered August, 1872.
Dr. Gray goes further. He says, ”The proposition that the things and events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism.” Again, ”To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos.... If Mr.
Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is atheistic.”[60]
We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism?
It is Atheism. This does not mean, as before said, that Mr. Darwin himself and all who adopt his views are atheists; but it means that his theory is atheistic; that the exclusion of design from nature is, as Dr.
Gray says, tantamount to atheism.
Among the last words of Strauss were these: ”We demand for our universe the same piety which the devout man of old demanded for his G.o.d.” ”In the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps and hammers, in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man, a helpless and defenceless creature, finds himself placed, not secure for a moment that on an imprudent motion a wheel may not seize and rend him, or a hammer crush him to a powder. This sense of abandonment is at first something awful.”[61]
Among the last words of Paul were these: ”I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.... The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
FOOTNOTES:
[40] _Science and Scripture not Antagonistic, because Distinct in their Spheres of Thought_. A Lecture, by Rev. George Henslow, M. A., F. L. S., F. G. S. London, 1873, p. 1.
[41] _Gott und Natur_, p. 200.
[42] _Protoplasm; or, Matter and Life._ By Lionel S. Beale, M. B., F. R.
S. Third edition. London & Philadelphia, 1874, p. 345; and the whole chapter on Design.
[43] _Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Darwin_, by C. R. Bree, M. D., F. Z. S. London, 1872, p. 290.
[44] When Professor Huxley says, as quoted above, that he does not deny the possibility of miracles, he must use the word miracle in a sense peculiar to himself.
[45] _Jenaer Literaturzeitung_, January 3, 1874. In this number there is a notice by Doctor Haeckel of two books,--_Descendenzlehre und Darwinismus_, von Oscar Schmidt, Leipzig, 1873; and _Die Fortschritte des Darwinismus_, von J. W. Spengel, Coln and Leipzig, 1874; in which he says: ”Erstens, um in Sachen der Descendenz-Theorie mitreden zu konnen, ein gewisser Grad von tieferer biologischer (sowohl morphologischer als physiologischer) Bildung unentbehrlich, den die meistzen von jenen Auctoren (the opposers of the theory) nicht besitzen. Zweitens ist fur ein klares und zutreffendes Urtheil in diesem Sachen eine rucksichtslose Hingabe an vernunftgema.s.se Erkenntniss und eine dadurch bedingte Resignation auf uralte, liebgewordene und tief vererbte Vorurtheile erforderlich, zu welcher sich die wenigsten entschliesen konnen.”
[46] In his _Naturlische Schopfungsgeschichte_, Haeckel is still more exclusive. When he comes to answer the objections to the evolution, or, as he commonly calls it, the descendence theory, he dismisses the objections derived from religion, as unworthy of notice, with the remark that all Glaube ist Aberglaube; all faith is superst.i.tion. The objections from _a priori_, or intuitive truths, are disposed of in an equally summary manner, by denying that there are any such truths, and a.s.serting that all our knowledge is from the senses. The objection that so many distinguished naturalists reject the theory, he considers more at length. First, many have grown old in another way of thinking and cannot be expected to change. Second, many are collectors of facts, without studying their relations, or are dest.i.tute of the genius for generalization. No amount of material makes a building. Others, again, are specialists. It is not enough that a man should be versed in one department; he must be at home in all: in Botany, Zoology, Comparative Anatomy, Biology, Geology, and Palaeontology. He must be able to survey the whole field. Fourthly, and mainly, naturalists are generally lamentably deficient in philosophical culture and in a philosophical spirit. ”The immovable edifice of the true, monistic science, or what is the same thing, natural science, can only arise through the most intimate interaction and mutual interpenetration of philosophy and observation (Philosophie und Empirie).” pp. 638-641. It is only a select few, therefore, of learned and philosophical monistic materialists, who are ent.i.tled to be heard on questions of the highest moment to every individual man, and to human society.
[47] This short but significant sentence is omitted in the excellent translation of Strauss's book, by Mathilde Blind, republished in New York, by Henry Holt & Company, 1873.
[48] _The Fallacies of Darwinism_, by C. R. Bree, M. D., p. 308.
[49] _The Fallacies of Darwinism_, p. 305.
[50] _Bibliotheca Sacra_, 1857, p. 861.
[51] _The Story of Earth and Man_, p. 358.
[52] Dr. Bree, p. 275. We presume geologists differ in the terms which they use to designate strata. Aga.s.siz calls the oldest containing fossil, the sub-Cambrian. Princ.i.p.al Dawson calls the oldest the Laurentian, and places the first vertebrates in the Silurian. This is of no moment as to the argument. The important fact is that each species is distinct as soon as it appears; and that many have remained to the present time.
[53] _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1874.
[54] We have heard a story of a gentleman who gave an artist a commission for a historical painting, and suggested as the subject, the Pa.s.sage of the Israelites over the Red Sea. In due time he was informed that his picture was finished, and was shown by the artist a large canvas painted red. ”What is that?” he asked. ”Why,” says the artist, ”that is the Red Sea.” ”But where are the Israelites?” ”Oh, they have pa.s.sed over.” ”And where are the Egyptians?” ”They are under the sea.”
[55] _As Regards Protoplasm in Relation to Professor Huxley's Essay an the Physical Basis of Life_. By Dr. James H. Stirling. See, also, _Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man_, by L. S. Beale; also, _The Mystery of Life in Reply to Dr. Gull's Attack on the Theory of Vitality_. By L. S. Beale, M. D., 1871.
[56] The address delivered by Sir William Thomson, as President of the British a.s.sociation at its meeting in Edinburgh, 1871.
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