Christianity and evolution

Front matter

PRINCETON, N. J.

Christianity and evolution |

Edited by the

Chapter I. Evolution And Beginnings

Kyolution the working hypothesis of scientific men-—- Evolution as a dogmatic faith—Truth of evolution— The primitive nebulosity—Spectrum analysis—Star systems—Professor Karl Pearson on lifeless chaotic mass—Chaos unthinkable—Homogeneousness—Evolution must commence somewhere—Its commencement a relative unity . : ; : ° : Scart

Chapter II, Evolution And Law

Nature is what is fixed, stated, settled —Law and hypothesis—The nebular theory—Its plausibilities and its difficulties—The nebular theory and evolution—It involves a rational system—The theistic argument— Continuity—Evolution a real process—<‘ Instability of the homogeneous’’—Multiplication of effects— “Ts the effect more complex than the cause ?”— Criticism of this statement. me ee

Chapter III. Nature And Intelligibility

Additional factors—Transition from physicsto chemistry— Chemical elements—-Their character, relations, adaptations, periodicity—Rational character of these relations—Nature is intelligible, and therefore related to intelligence—Attempts at explanation—The chemical elements exist in the unity of one system . A 5-33 vi CONTENTS

Chapter IV. The Strife Against Purpose

Is the issue raised by evolution new or old?—Scope of evolution—Is evolution self-explanatory ?—Fiske on teleology, against. and for—Order and purpose— Efficient and final causes—Caprice—Spinoza on final causes — Mathematics —Purposiveness —The same facts and laws appear from the point of view of cause and of purpose—Chance or purpose . °. .

Chapter V. Evolution And Creation

History of the earth—Evolution as seen in geologic eras —Continuity of the process—Succession—Advance and preparation for advance—Physics and geology— Some unsettled questions—Professor Caird on evolution from two points of view—At the beginning or at the end, which ?—Is the issue arbitrary arrangement versus evolution ?—No: creation by slow,process is creation—Illustrations—Mechanics and purpose once more . : : 4 ; : ceeds :

Chapter VI. Organic Evolution

Statement by Professor Ray Lankester—New sets of terms used in biology—Why are there new terms ?—Dr. Burdon Sanderson—Darwinism—Variation, struggle for existence, natural selection, transmission— Anthropomorphic character of the process—Malthusianisma—Utilitarianism—What is natural selection ? —Comparision with the process of denudation in geology by Mr. J. T. Cunningham—Darwin on the eye—Professor Huxley’s reproduction of chance— Organic evolution likely true, but its factors not yet discovered . :

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER VII. ORGANIC EVOLUTION (continued)

Prony before and after Darwin—Physical continuity of life—Laws and conditions of life—Adequacy or inadequacy of natural selection ?—Inter-relations of life—Professor Geddes on anthropomorphism of the nineteenth century and of the eighteenth— Weismann —Natural selection is elimination of the unfit— Oscillation between natural selection as negative and as positive—Poulton, “that selection is examination”—Teleology run mad—Mimicry—Search after utility—Mutual benefit of species in co-operation— Iilustration—Struggle for existence thus modified— Results : : : ° : : ° ° . 110

Chapter VIII. Super-organic Evolution

Controversy regarding heredity—Spencer and Weismann—Machinery of evolution defective—Limits of organic evolution—Man does not modify himself, but modifies his environment—Survival of the fittest

explained by Huxley and by Spencer—Evolution does not account for advance—Lilustration of man’s power of modifying his environment—Results . . 132

Chapter IX. Evolution And Psychology

Human and animal intelligence—Rational self-consciousness—Habit—Feelings, emotions, appetites in rational beings and in irrational—Differences in kind and in degree—Romanes and Spencer—Can feelings make a consciousness ?—The self—Genesis of self according to Romanes and Spencer—Unity of human nature—Russel Wallace’s deistic view— Creation is continuous—Results A : : . 154 viii CONTENTS

Chapter X. Evolution And Ethics

Ethics of evolution—Professor Huxley’s ethical ideal— Whence derived ?—Not from cosmic process, not from Greek or Roman ethics, nor from ordinary human ethics—Ethical life: what it is—Struggle for existence partial in cosmos; at its fiercest in human life—Spheres of human conduct non-moralised—Moral ideals—Moral obligation—The Christian ethical ideal—Its acknowledged supremacy—Its character—Recognition of it—Not derived from evolution—Christian ethics both test and goal of ethical evolution . : ; . : . Poe Wf

Chapter XI. Evolution And Religion

Ue Christian religion—The Christian goal of life— Fellowship with God—Christian religious ideal real. ised in Jesus Christ—Immanence of God—Christ not evolved—Evolution holds for all others—The ghost ~ theory of religion—Spencer’s reconciliation of science and religion—Criticism—Worship for ancestors distinguished from worship of ancestors— Evolved conduct and evolved belief—Universality of religion—Manifestations of religion—Correspondence with reality—Eternal element in religious emotion—Christianity and evolution—Analogy between evolution in all spheres and the evolution of Christian life . ° . : : . . 204

Chapter I Evolution And Beginnings

Evolution the working hypothesis of scientific men—Evolu- ; tion as a dogmatic faith—Truth of evolution—The primitive nebulosity—Spectrum analysis—Star systems— Professor Karl Pearson on lifeless chaotic mass—Chaos unthinkable—Homogeneousness—Evolution must commence somewhere—Its commencement a relative unity.

VOLUTION is the working hypothesis of most scientific men at the present time. In no branch of science is it without influence, and in the sciences which deal with life it is dominant. We cannot escape from it. Its technical phrases have become parts of current common speech; and such words as “natural selection,” the “struggle for existence,” and “the survival of the fittest” are on the lips of every one. It does not matter to what sphere of human work we turn, for in all alike we meet with the same mental atmosphere. Are we students of physics or chemistry, we have no sooner mastered the elements of the science than we are plunged into questions which deal with the “ evolution” of the “atom” or the “molecule” from simpler forms of matter. Do we study mechanics, then we are brought into a sphere where men talk cf the evolution of the steam engine or of some other 1 machine which has slowly grown from less to more till it has reached its present state. Are we students of man, then we become accustomed to inquiries into the evolution of the family, of marriage, of the community, of the state. Morality is evolved, religion also. On all hands men are busy tracing out the lines of evolution from the general to the particular, from the simple to the complex, until it is affirmed “that the whole world, living and not living, is.the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the powers possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed” (Huxley, Life of Darwin, vol. u1., p. 210).

It is evident enough that, in these views of Professor Huxley, evolution has passed beyond the stage of a working hypothesis, and has become both a philosophy and a dogmatic faith. We are restricted to molecules, their powers, and the interactions of their powers for the explanation of the universe; when _ the molecules are given in their primitive nebulosity, | the whole result follows. There can be no increment from without, no guidance from above, nor any _ leading along a definite line to a predetermined end. The molecules and their interactions must be competent to produce all that has come out in the process. We need not say how great is the issue involved in this claim, nor how strenuously it is to be resisted. It is something gained, however, to have the claims of evolution considered as a dogmatic faith stated so clearly, and to know with what we have to deal. Manifestly evolution as a working hypothesis and evolution as a dogmatic faith mean very different things. Even if we grant that it is more than a working hypothesis—let us grant that it is the highest scientific generalisation to which the human mind has yet attained; that in it we have a law of the widest working which is operative in all the realm of nature, animate and inanimate —yet this concession falls far short of the immeasurable demand which Professor Huxley makes in the name of evolution. Let us suppose it proved as a scientific generalisation, and we may still say, with Professor Fraser, ‘ evolution itself, if proved, would be only an expression of physical causation—of phenomenal significance and interpretability—though it may yet turn out to be the most comprehensive of all merely phenomenal laws, and the highest expression of the sense symbolism, a physical causation, which Berkeley has so emphatically contrasted with spiritual and transcendent causality ” (Fraser on Berkeley, p. 227). But the advocates of evolution are not content with the concession that it is the most comprehensive of all phenomenal laws ;

they demand absolute submission. Evolution must | reign without a rival; everything must bend to its sway.

The imperious demands which Professor Huxley, | Mr. Herbert Spencer, and others make in the name of evolution must not be allowed, however, to frighten us away from the name, or to blind us to the truth which is contained in it. Extravagant claims must not be allowed to discredit legitimate demands, In fact, the real work done by evolution, tho truth set forth by it, the grandeur of its generalisation, and its consistency with scientific truth generally,

& CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION make one sorry when the theory is pushed to an extreme which makes it untrue and inadequate. We are not surprised when the expounders of this theory of the universe are filled with cosmic emotion at the greatness and grandeur of the process they describe ; nor do we wonder that they are carried away with the rapture into which they are thrown: — for no reader can withhold his sympathy and admiration. It is grand and ennobling to sweep back in thought across the hundred million years or so which separate us from the time when our earth was only vapour, and to be led on from that point of time, through all the intervening ages, as one science after another guides our footsteps, until we arrive at the complex, differentiated, integrated world of the present time, with its life, intelligence, ethics, religion, science, art, and to have some understanding of the process whereby this has come out of that. But we may still — have the rapture and the admiration : we may admire and so far revere and be thankful for the work done in the service of evolution, and yet withhold that ‘final sacrifice demanded in her name.

Almost every book cn evolution and every magazine article devoted to the subject tries to hark back to the “ primitive nebulosity.” Not many of them, however, commit themselves to any definite theory on the question of the nebular view. ome, indeed, with a courage which we cannot sufficiently admire, speak as if Kant or Laplace had left nothing for their followers — to do. Mr. Fiske is quite sure on the matter. “In | the slow concentration of the matter constituting this solar nebula,’ he says, ‘‘as both Kant and

Laplace have elaborately proved, the most prominent peculiarities of the solar system find their complete explanation” (Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i., p. 360). We shall have something to say of this later on. At present we may observe that Professor Huxley’s statement does not limit itself to the solar system ; it extends to the universe. The progress of science has made it much more probable that some form of the nebular theory is true. While this is so, any tenable view of the nebular hypothesis, or any view consistent with facts, has presented that hypothesis in a form which is not available for the purposes of evolution. Professor Huxley assumes “a primitive nebulosity of the universe.” If this has any meaning, | we must try to imagine all the matter of the universe dispersed equally through space, and in a uniform physical condition. If we were to trace the process backwards from the present hour, and try to follow the various steps by which the star systems came — to their present condition, we should finally arrive | at the primitive nebulosity. But then we should ) have to explain the fact that there are so many | systems that have not yet emerged from their first estate.

Spectrum analysis has made us acquainted with the physical condition of many kinds of stars. If we study such works as Schellen’s Spectrum Analysis, or ‘ Miss Clerke’s System of the Stars, we shall become acquainted with worlds at all stages of their history. “We can indeed hesitate to admit neither the fundamental identity of the material elements of the universe, nor the nebulous origin of stars. The

(Tey transition from one to the other of the two great families of the sidereal kingdom is so gradual as to afford a rational conviction that what we see contemporaneously in different objects has been exhibited successively in the same objects. Planetary nebule pass into gaseous stars on one side, into nebulous

_ stars on the other, the greater nebule into clusters.

The present state of the Pleiades refers us inevitably to an antecedent condition closely resembling that of the Orion nebula ; the Andromeda nebula may represent the nascent stage of a splendid collection of suns. But even though stars without exception have sprung from nebule, it does no not follow that nebulee without exception grow into stars. The requisite conditions need not invariably have been present.

Other ends than that of star production are perhaps subserved by the chief part of the present nebulous contents of the heavens. The contrast between stellar and nebular distribution is intelligible only as expressing a definitive separation of the life-histories of the two classes—a divergence destined to be perpetual along their lines of growth.” (System of the Stars, p. 396.) Thus we see how naturally astronomy uses the language of evolution, and how the new astronomy with the aid of the mighty instrument of spectrum analysis has added to our knowledge and increased our wonder. <A_ cross section seems to give us also the line of the life-history of a star or a system of stars, And the theory of Kant with regard to the solar system seems to have reference also to the sidereal system. May we by an act of faith go back to the primitive nebulosity of the universe, and, assuming a primitive nebulosity, with known qualities and laws, seek thus to account for the universe? We must start somewhere, and perhaps for some purposes a primitive nebulosity is as good a starting-place as we can have. But we should observe how many things we have assumed, and how much we have taken for granted. |

We have assumed “molecules possessed of definite | / powers,” that these powers work according to definite | laws, and that out of their mutual interaction a definite world of order will arise. Now these are. large assumptions, and if granted have raised many important questions. What has been assumed is | something definite, and_yet the attempt is constantly - made to make it indefinite. There is nothing more common than to call the “ primitive nebulosity ” chaos. “‘ Suppose,” says Professor Karl Pearson, “the highly developed reason of some future man to start, say, with clear conceptions of the lifeless chaotic mass of 60,000,000 years ago, which now forms our planetary system, then from these conceptions alone he will be able to think out the 60,000,000 years’ history of the

“world with every finite phase which it had _ passed through; each will have its necessary place, its necessary course in this thought system. And this total history he has thought out? It will be identical with the actual history of the world; for that history has evolved in the sole way conceivable.” (Zhe Hthics of Freethought, p. 29.)

Apart from the other issues raised by this statement, we concentrate attention on one aspect of it. This we do mainly because Professor Karl Pearson is here a representative writer. Many other people, of less ability than he, speak of a primeval chaos out of which somehow order must emerge. But may we ask how we are to have “clear conceptions of a, lifeless chaotic mass,” whether we consider it as existing a number of years ago or at the present hour? We can only conceive of it just in proportion as we think the chaos away. A mass means something; it has a certain bulk, a certain shape, a certain kind of consistency ; and if it has these, to speak of it as,chaotic | is mere rhetoric. A clear conception is possible only | if there is something clear to be apprehended ; and to speak of a clear conception of a chaos implies something chaotic in the mind which speaks.

The primitive nebulosity, if it ever existed, was as definite, as much subject to law, as clearly marked by definite qualities, as the universe which is supposed to have evolved out of it. At all events, it existed in a definite material state ; it occupied space; molecules or atoms, or the material which afterwards aggregated into atoms or molecules, were there. There were definite laws at work, and there were mutual inter- | actions; and just in proportion as these existed, clear conceptions of the so-called “lifeless chaotic” mass are or were possible.

If the primitive nebulosity had any qualities whatsoever, then all the advantages which were gained by calling it chaotic are lost. Somehow, I do not know how, but there seems to be a hazy idea in the minds of many, that if a start can be made in chaos, —

! and afterwards a cosmos appears, a solution of the } problem of creation has been obtained. Given a i chaotic primitive nebulosity, and given clear conceptions of it, then the universe must arise: such is the problem and its solution. B

the transition, nor any rational attempt to show why and how chaos should cease and cosmos begin. This difficulty besets the mechanical theory of the universe as it besets every other theory. How to get our starting-point is the perplexity. We cannot begin

‘with chaos; and if we begin with anything definite, | where have we got it? We may place the elephant on the back of the tortoise, but what will support the tortoise ?

It is amazing that those who assume the primitive nebulosity do not see that it raises precisely those questions concerning order, its source, method, and law, which are raised by the universe as at present constituted. It raises these questions also in a form more difficult of solution. We may not ask how this nebulous mass came to be; if we did ask, we should at once be told that we must not inquire regarding origins. Leaving origins, then, we may ask whether the mass is constituted so and so, and in such a manner as to make a certain result inevitable. If, as Professor Karl Pearson says, ‘‘ the universe is what it is because that is the only conceivable fashion in which it could be—in which it could be thought ”—we may conclude that thought has gone to the making of it. If thought has come out of the universe, if the universe is a universe which can be thought, then thought has had something to do with it from the outset. There is thought in the primitive nebulosity, and thought of the most marvellous kind.

a

But we can scarcely ascribe the thought to the molecules, Whence has it come? We humbly submit that at this stage we require more thought to make clear what we mean.

If instead of Professor Karl Pearson’s chaotic mass we take the indefinite, incoherent homogeneity of

‘Mr. Herbert Spencer, we have not made any advance.

Suppose we grant the possibility of such a homo-— geneity, we cannot get it to act. Mr. Spencer himself recognises this: “One stable homogeneity only is hypothetically possible. If.centres of force, absolutely uniform in their powers, were diffused with absolute uniformity through unlimited space, they would remain in equilibrium. This, however, though a verbally intelligible supposition, is one which cannot be represented in thought, since unlimited space is incon-

\ceivable. But all finite forms of the homogeneous, ‘all forms of it which we can know or conceive, must inevitably lapse into heterogeneity.” (Mirst Principles, p- 429.) The homogeneity which his system demands is dismissed as inconceivable, “since unlimited space is inconceivable.” And then he proceeds to speak of ‘all finite forms of the homogeneous”; and by so

' doing cuts down the only branch on which he can sit. A finite form of the homogeneous is really destructive of his hypothesis. For the finiteness of the form postulates a difference between the homogeneous and its environment; and as that difference is both continuous and active, it will not allow the homogeneous to exist. The very notion of a finite homogeneity is self-destructive. : Another result follows. The objection which is

EVOLUTION AND BEGINNINGS Ls brought against absolute homogeneity implies that the absolute or the ultimate reality can manifest itself only in finite forms. Any other than a finite manifestation, “ though a verbally intelligible proposition, is one that cannot be represented in thought, since the unlimited is inconceivable.” How contradictory this is of many of Mr. Spencer’s propositions we need not here determine. But the remark that “ unlimited space is inconceivable” does not hinder him from saying on the same page, ‘‘ The absolutely homogeneous must lose its equilibrium,” and yet “they would remain In equilibrium.” Hence we have this dilemma: If the homogeneous is absolute, it will remain in equilibrium ; if the equilibrium is disturbed, then the homogeneity ‘ is not absolute. |

- How does evolution commence according to Mr. Spencer? ‘All finite powers of the homogeneous— all forms of it which we can know or conceive—must inevitably lapse into heterogeneity. In three several ways does the persistence of force necessitate this. Setting external agencies aside, each unit of a homogeneous whole must be differently affected from any of the rest by the action of the rest on it. The resultant force exercised by the aggregate on each unit, being in no two cases alike in both amount and direction, and usually not in either, any incident force, even if uniform in amount and direction, cannot produce like effects on the units. And the various positions of the parts in relation to any incident force preventing them from receiving them in uniform amounts and directions, a further difference in the effects wrought on them is inevitably produced.”

(First Principles, p. 429.) Let any one try to think out these propositions. ‘ Each unit of a homogeneous whole must be differently affected from any of the rest by the aggregate action of the rest on it.” Why? The necessity is not apparent. If a whole be homogeneous, then it would result that each unit must be similarly affected by the aggregate action of the rest on it. If it be differently affected, whence the difference? If the difference be one in position, then homogeneity has vanished and _ hetero- ) geneity has begun. Every attempt made by Mr. | Spencer_to make a commencement postulates differ- - ence,and_any difference is destructive of the homo- \ geneity. At the beginning of all evolution he has ‘to bring in somehow actual differences, real adjustments, and relations, and yet he endeavours to evolve these out of an original simplicity. Evolution has to

begin, not from a minimum simplicity, but from what

| looks like a rational, intelligible adjustment of means - | to ends, and of qualities and properties in relation ;

_ and this is exactly the theistic position: "

The primitive nebulosity of Professor Huxley, the lifeless chaotic mass of Professor Karl Pearson, the absolutely homogeneous of Mr. Spencer, and, we may add, similar postulates of other writers, do not serve the purpose of those who have introduced them to our notice. They do not help us to pass from the indeterminate to the determinate, and they do not help us to get intelligence out of what is not intelligent. Every problem presented by the present complex universe is presented also by the primitive nebulosity. - it is an attempt to get what is adjusted out of

EVOLUTION AND BEGINNINGS i3 what is not adjusted, relations out of what has none, and. differences out of that which has no difference. ‘Every step proceeds on what has been formally denied, and the result is mere. confusion of thought; for evolution can commence only when change begins, and the absolutely homogeneous, if left to itself, cannot even begin to change. Thus we are at the outset constrained to postulate some force outside of the homogeneous in order that change may begin ; or if the beginning of change is due to something eathin the homogeneous, then we have difference to start with. There is no way of escape from the thought of prearranged activities within the mass which Professor Karl Pearson calls chaotic. Prearranged activities, however, is the very supposition of which the writers in question seek to get rid. They value the primitive nebulosity just in proportion as it enables them to make a beginning, and to get the work of intelligence without the help of intelligence. It is just the old attempt of trying to get something out of nothing. We are not to ask | any question about the primitive nebulosity. We are not to ask how it happened to be there, nor inquire into its previous history, if it had a history. We are to be willing to take it for granted. At a certain time, many millions of years ago, there existed a primitive nebulesity, an undifferentiated chaotic mass of matter, in an extremely attenuated form, equally balanced in all directions, and each part of it indistinguishable from every other part. It is homogeneous throughout. Let us suppose also that the mass is in what may be called the pre-chemical state of matter.

What is now known as atoms and molecules has not yet come to be. The different chemical elements have not yet aggregated together. There is one stuff, and only one, and each part of it is identical with every other part. Let us grant the supposition. It is possible that such stuff has existed. The experiments and reasonings of Mr. Norman Lockyer have made it at least possible. The chemical elements may be various combinations of one uniform stuff. \ There may have been a time when matter was absolutely homogeneous. But the supposition does not ‘help us. |For somehow change has to begin and change has to continue, and has to continue in (jone direction, As soon as change has begun the undifferentiated stuff becomes differentiated, the indeterminate becomes determinate, and the chemical > ‘elements appear. When once they are made they are < never unmade. It is not necessary for our purpose to ~ inquire as to whether science can trace the genesis of the molecule; for all the kinds of matter we know are gathered up into various limited sorts, and each of these sorts is practically indestructible. “ Though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built, the foundation-stones of the material universe, remain unbroken and unworn.” So speaks Professor Clerk Maxwell. Again he says: “There are immense numbers of atoms of the same kind, and the constituents of each of these atoms are incapable of adjustment by any powers now in action. ach is physically independent of all the others. Whether or not the conception of a multitude of beings existing from all eternity is in itself self-contradictory, the conception becomes palpably absurd when we attribute a relation of quantitative equality to all these beings. We are then forced to look beyond them to some common cause or common origin to explain why this singular relation of equality exists, rather than any of the infinite number of possible relations of inequality. Science is incompetent to reason on the creation of the world out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent, it must have been * created.” (Hneyc. Brit., vol. iii, art. “ Atom,” p. 49, 9th ed.) We should like to ask whether the primitive _nebulosity is composed of definite atoms and molecules or not. If it isin the pre-atomic stage pictured by

Mr. Norman Lockyer, then clearly its first work is to become atomic. If it has become atomic, then we have no longer to deal with a homogeneous kind of stuff, but with a stuff that has got itself packed into sixty or seventy different kinds—kinds which persist, which no power can change, and no use can wear out. The problem thus becomes infinitely more complicated. It is not now a case of the absolutely homogeneous losing its equilibrium, and thus instituting a series of changes; but it becomes a problem of how to obtain a unity out of sixty. or seventy different sets of things, each set of which is different, from all the others, and of each set there is an incalculable number. The problem ‘is not how to obtain otherness out of unity, but to gather the differences into a unity. An abstract unity will not suffice. It is not enough to abstract from the difference of each separate set of molecules, and generalise them all under the common name _ of matter; nor to abstract from the various energies at work in the universe, and generalise them under the common name of force: what is needed is.a kind of unity which shall keep the differences, and recognise the special nature of each kind. And this is a unity material system there “is evidence of rationality of the very highest order. Given sixty or seventy different kinds of stuff, each with its own proper qualities and attributes, to make out of them a stable and progressive universe—that is the problem; and it is one evidently of a higher kind than that presented to us by Mr. Spencer.

Thus we have the theistic problem and answer before evolution can be said to have begun. Whether these molecules have had a previous history or not, at all events they have passed now out of any sphere which can be influenced by the struggle for existence. A molecule of hydrogen continues to be a molecule of hydrogen wheresoever it may be, in whatsoever combination it may exist, and whatsoever work it may be doing. If it ever had to struggle for existence, it has long ago got past that stage. It exists, it cannot be changed, it does work, and about it evolution has nothing to say. And yet the problem cf its existence and its qualities and its relations is as great as those which evolution is called on to solve.