Part 3 (1/2)
The main argument, which at first appears to be thus set aside, is that which is founded on the marks of design, and which is worked out in his own way with marvellous skill by Paley in his Natural Theology. Paley's argument rests as is well known on the evidence of design in created things, and these evidences he chiefly finds in the frame-work of organised living creatures. He traces with much most interesting detail the many marvellous contrivances by which animals of various kinds are adapted to the circ.u.mstances in which they are to live, the mechanism which enables them to obtain their food, to preserve their species, to escape their enemies, to remove discomforts. All nature thus examined, and particularly all animated nature, seems full of means towards ends, and those ends invariably such as a beneficent Creator might well be supposed to have in view. And whilst there is undeniably one great objection to his whole argument, namely that the Creator is represented as an Artificer rather than a Creator, as overcoming difficulties which stood in His way rather than as an Almighty Being fas.h.i.+oning things according to His Will, yet the argument thus drawn from evidence of design remains exceedingly powerful, and it has always been considered a strong corroboration of the voice within which bids us believe in a G.o.d.
Now it certainly seems at first as if this argument were altogether destroyed. If animals were not made as we see them, but evolved by natural law, still more if it appear that their wonderful adaptation to their surroundings is due to the influence of those surroundings, it might seem as if we could no longer speak of design as exhibited in their various organs; the organs we might say grow of themselves, some suitable, and some unsuitable to the life of the creatures to which they belonged, and the unsuitable have perished and the suitable have survived.
But Paley has supplied the clue to the answer. In his well-known ill.u.s.tration of the watch picked up on the heath by the pa.s.sing traveller, he points out that the evidence of design is certainly not lessened if it be found that the watch was so constructed that, in course of time, it produced another watch like itself. He was thinking not of Evolution, but of the ordinary production of each generation of animals from the preceding. But his answer can be pushed a step further, and we may with equal justice remark that we should certainly not believe it a proof that the watch had come into existence without design if we found that it produced in course of time not merely another watch but a better. It would become more marvellous than ever if we found provision thus made not merely for the continuance of the species but for the perpetual improvement of the species. It is essential to animal life that the animal should be adapted to its circ.u.mstances; if besides provision for such adaptation in each generation we find provision for still better adaptation in future generations, how can it be said that the evidences of design are diminished? Or take any separate organ, such as the eye. It is impossible not to believe until it be disproved that the eye was intended to see with. We cannot say that light was made for the eye, because light subserves many other purposes besides that of enabling eyes to see. But that the eye was intended for light there is so strong a presumption that it cannot easily be reb.u.t.ted. If indeed it could be shown that eyes fulfilled several other functions, or that species of animals which always lived in the dark still had fully-formed eyes, then we might say that the connexion between the eye of an animal and the light of heaven was accidental. But the contrary is notoriously the case; so much the case that some philosophers have maintained that the eye was formed by the need for seeing, a statement which I need take no trouble to refute, just as those who make it take no trouble to establish, I will not say its truth, but even its possibility. But the fact, if it be a fact, that the eye was not originally as well adapted to see with as it is now, and that the power of perceiving light and of things in the light grew by degrees, does not show, nor even tend to show, that the eye was not intended for seeing with.
The fact is that the doctrine of Evolution does not affect the substance of Paley's argument at all. The marks of design which he has pointed out remain marks of design still even if we accept the doctrine of Evolution to the full. What is touched by this doctrine is not the evidence of design but the mode in which the design was executed. Paley, no doubt, wrote on the supposition (and at that time it was hardly possible to admit any other supposition) that we must take animals to have come into existence very nearly such as we now know them: and his language, on the whole, was adapted to that supposition. But the language would rather need supplementing than changing to make it applicable to the supposition that animals were formed by Evolution. In the one case the execution follows the design by the effect of a direct act of creation; in the other case the design is worked out by a slow process. In the one case the Creator made the animals at once such as they now are; in the other case He impressed on certain particles of matter which, either at the beginning or at some point in the history of His creation He endowed with life, such inherent powers that in the ordinary course of time living creatures such as the present were developed. The creative power remains the same in either case; the design with which that creative power was exercised remains the same.
He did not make the things, we may say; no, but He made them make themselves. And surely this rather adds than withdraws force from the great argument. It seems in itself something more majestic, something more befitting Him to Whom a thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years, thus to impress His Will once for all on His creation, and provide for all its countless variety by this one original impress, than by special acts of creation to be perpetually modifying what He had previously made. It has often been objected to Paley's argument, as I remarked before, that it represents the Almighty rather as an artificer than a creator, a workman dealing with somewhat intractable materials and showing marvellous skill in overcoming difficulties rather than a beneficent Being making all things in accordance with the purposes of His love. But this objection disappears when we put the argument into the shape which the doctrine of Evolution demands and look on the Almighty as creating the original elements of matter, determining their number and their properties, creating the law of gravitation whereby as seems probable the worlds have been formed, creating the various laws of chemical and physical action, by which inorganic substances have been combined, creating above all the law of life, the mysterious law which plainly contains such wonderful possibilities within itself, and thus providing for the ultimate development of all the many wonders of nature.
What conception of foresight and purpose can rise above that which imagines all history gathered as it were into one original creative act from which the infinite variety of the Universe has come and more is coming even yet?
And yet again, it is a common objection to Paley's and similar arguments that, in spite of all the tokens of intelligence and beneficence in the creation, there is so much of the contrary character. How much there is of apparently needless pain and waste! And John Stuart Mill has urged that either we must suppose the Creator wanting in omnipotence or wanting in kindness to have left His creation so imperfect. The answer usually given is that our knowledge is partial, and, could we see the whole, the objection would probably disappear. But what force and clearness is given to this answer by the doctrine of Evolution which tells us that we are looking at a work which is not yet finished, and that the imperfections are a necessary part of a large design the general outlines of which we may already trace, but the ultimate issue of which, with all its details, is still beyond our perception! The imperfections are like the imperfections of a half-completed picture not yet ready to be seen; they are like the bud which will presently be a beautiful flower, or the larva of a beautiful and gorgeous insect; they are like the imperfections in the moral character of a saint who nevertheless is changing from glory to glory.
To the many partial designs which Paley's Natural Theology points out, and which still remain what they were, the doctrine of Evolution adds the design of a perpetual progress. Things are so arranged that animals are perpetually better adapted to the life they have to live. The very phrase which we commonly use to sum up Darwin's teaching, the survival of the fittest, implies a perpetual diminution of pain and increase of enjoyment for all creatures that can feel. If they are fitter for their surroundings, most certainly they will find life easier to live. And, as if to mark still more plainly the beneficence of the whole work, the less developed creatures, as we have every reason to believe, are less sensible of pain and pleasure; so that enjoyment appears to grow with the capacity for enjoyment, and suffering diminishes as sensitivity to suffering increases. And there can be no doubt that this is in many ways the tendency of nature. Beasts of prey are diminis.h.i.+ng; life is easier for man and easier for all animals that are under his care: many species of animals perish as man fills and subjugates the globe, but those that remain have far greater happiness in their lives. In fact, all the purposes which Paley traces in the formation of living creatures are not only fulfilled by what the Creator has done, but are better fulfilled from age to age. And though the progress may be exceedingly slow, the nature of the progress cannot be mistaken.
If the Natural Theology were now to be written, the stress of the argument would be put on a different place. Instead of insisting wholly or mainly on the wonderful adaptation of means to ends in the structure of living animals and plants, we should look rather to the original properties impressed on matter from the beginning, and on the beneficent consequences that have flowed from those properties. We should dwell on the peculiar properties that must be inherent in the molecules of the original elements to cause such results to follow from their action and reaction on one another. We should dwell on the part played in the Universe by the properties of oxygen, the great purifier, and one of the great heat-givers; of carbon, the chief light-giver and heat-giver; of water, the great solvent and the storehouse of heat; of the atmosphere and the vapours in it, the protector of the earth which it surrounds. We should trace the beneficent effects of pain and pleasure in their subservience to the purification of life. The marks of a purpose impressed from the first on all creation would be even more visible than ever before.
And we could not overlook the beauty of Nature and of all created things as part of that purpose coming in many cases out of that very survival of the fittest of which Darwin has spoken, and yet a distinct object in itself. For this beauty there is no need in the economy of nature whatever. The beauty of the starry heavens, which so impressed the mind of Kant that he put it by the side of the Moral Law as proving the existence of a Creator, is not wanted either for the evolution of the world or for the preservation of living creatures. Our enjoyment of it is a super-added gift certainly not necessary for the existence or the continuance of our species. The beauty of flowers, according to the teaching of the doctrine of Evolution, has generally grown out of the need which makes it good for plants to attract insects. The insects carry the pollen from flower to flower, and thus as it were mix the breed; and this produces the stronger plants which outlive the compet.i.tion of the rest. The plants, therefore, which are most conspicuous gain an advantage by attracting insects most. That successive generations of flowers should thus show brighter and brighter colours is intelligible. But the beauty of flowers is far more than mere conspicuousness of colours even though that be the main ingredient. Why should the wonderful grace, and delicacy, and harmony of tint be added?
Is all this mere chance? Is all this superfluity pervading the whole world and perpetually supplying to the highest of living creatures, and that too in a real proportion to his superiority, the most refined and elevating of pleasures, an accident without any purpose at all? If Evolution has produced the world such as we see and all its endless beauty, it has bestowed on our own dwelling-place in lavish abundance and in marvellous perfection that on which men spend their substance without stint, that which they value above all but downright necessities, that which they admire beyond all except the Law of Duty itself. We cannot think that this is not designed, nor that the Artist who produced it was blind to what was coming out of His work.
Once more, the doctrine of Evolution restores to the science of Nature the unity which we should expect in the creation of G.o.d. Paley's argument proved design, but included the possibility of many designers.
Not one design, but many separate designs, all no doubt of the same character, but all worked out independently of one another, is the picture that he puts before us. But the doctrine of Evolution binds all existing things on earth into one. Every mineral, every plant, every animal has such properties that it benefits other things beside itself and derives benefit in turn. The insect developes the plant, and the plant the insect; the brute aids in the evolution of the man, and the man in that of the brute. All things are embraced in one great design beginning with the very creation. He who uses the doctrine of Evolution to prove that no intelligence planned the world, is undertaking the self-contradictory task of showing that a great machine has no purpose by tracing in detail the marvellous complexity of its parts, and the still more marvellous precision with which all work together to produce a common result.
To conclude, the doctrine of Evolution leaves the argument for an intelligent Creator and Governor of the world stronger than it was before. There is still as much as ever the proof of an intelligent purpose pervading all creation. The difference is that the execution of that purpose belongs more to the original act of creation, less to acts of government since. There is more divine foresight, there is less divine interposition; and whatever has been taken from the latter has been added to the former.
Some scientific students of Nature may fancy they can deduce in the working out of the theory results inconsistent with religious belief; and in a future Lecture these will have to be examined; and it is possible that the theory may be so presented as to be inconsistent with the teaching of Revelation. But whatever may be the relation of the doctrine of Evolution to Revelation, it cannot be said that this doctrine is antagonistic to Religion in its essence. The progress of Science in this direction will a.s.suredly end in helping men to believe with more a.s.surance than ever that the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath He established the heavens.
LECTURE V.
REVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
The evolution of Knowledge. Does not affect the truth of Science. Nor of Religion. Special characteristic of evolution of Religious Knowledge, that it is due to Revelation. All higher Religions have claimed to be Revelations. The evolution of Religious Knowledge in the Old Testament; yet the Old Testament a Revelation. Still more the New Testament. The miraculous element in Revelation. Its place and need. Harmony of this mode of evolution with the teaching of the Spiritual Faculty.
LECTURE V.
REVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
'G.o.d, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son.' _Hebrews_ i. 1.
The doctrine of Evolution has been applied not only to the formation of all created things, but to the development of human knowledge; and this with perfect justice, though with some risk of misunderstanding. It is certain, and, indeed, it is obvious, that knowledge grows. The ordinary experience of mankind becomes larger and clearer in the course of time, and the systematised experience which we call Science makes the same progress in still greater measure and with more a.s.surance.
Our Science has been built on the labours of scientific men in past ages. New generalisations imagined by one thinker, new crucial experiments devised by another, new instruments of observation invented by another,--these have been the steps by which Science has grown and established its authority and enlarged its dominion. When or by whom the first steps were made we have no record. No mathematician that ever lived showed greater natural power of intellect than he, whoever he was, who first saw that the singular contained the universal; but we know neither his name nor his age, nor his birthplace nor his race. But after those first steps had been taken, we know who have been the leaders in scientific advance. And we know what they have done, and what they are doing; and we can conjecture the direction in which further advances will be made. And so we can trace the development of this kind of knowledge, and in a certain and very real sense this development may be called an evolution.
But there is this difference between the evolution of nature and the evolution of the science of nature. The evolution of nature results in the existence of forms which did not exist before; the evolution of knowledge results in the perception of laws which were already in existence.
The knowledge grows, but the things known remain. The knowledge is not treated as if independent of the things known or believed to be known, as a phenomenon belonging merely to the human mind, with beginnings and laws and consequences and history of its own. And, consequently, its having a regular growth is not used as an argument against its substantial truth.
The Science of Mathematics, for instance, has a history; but no mathematician will admit that the fact that it has a history affects its claims to acceptance as truth. We may ask, how men have been brought to believe the deductions of the higher mathematics, and we may answer our own question by tracing the steps; but our conviction is not shaken that these deductions are true.
And so, too, we can trace the steps by which the great generalisations of Science have been reached, and we may show that Kepler grew out of Copernicus, and Newton out of Kepler; but the proof that the knowledge of one truth has been evolved out of the knowledge of another, and that out of the knowledge of another, is not used to show that all this Science has nothing to do with truth at all, but is only a natural growth of human thought. Science has grown through all manner of mistakes--mistakes made by the greatest thinkers and observers, mistakes which men ignorantly laugh at now, as their own mistakes will be no doubt laughed at in turn hereafter. But we do not, therefore, treat scientific thought as nothing more than one of the phenomena of humanity; ways of thinking which necessarily grew out of the conditions in which men have existed, but sufficiently accounted for by their origin and mode of growth having been shown, and having no solidity of their own.