Evolution illuminating the Bible

Front matter

Oh*-

LI BRARY

OF THE

Chapter I. Pages

The Developing Properties inherent in matter lead to Spontaneous Generation — Life so produced sustains itself by transforming dead matter into Living Forms, . . . i — 16

CHAPTER H.

Life as sensation viewed in its Progressive Form, . 17 — 25

CHAPTER in.

A short account of the Mechanical Process at work in Developing

Conscious States by the human nervous structure, . 26 — 60

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

Memory and its Laws, . . . ' . . 79 — no

CHAPTER VL Vital Energy in its Automatic Form, . . . m — 139

CHAPTER VIL Process Creating and Developing Immortal Soul, . 140 — 168

CHAPTER VIH.

Will guided by Motives, ..... 169 — 183

CHAPTER IX.

The Social Organism — What is it ? Human in its Origin —

Immortal in its Destiny, .... 184 211

X. CONTENTS.

PAGES

CHAPTER X.

The Bible Illuminating Evolution is Illuminated Thereby,^ 212 — 276

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XII,

CHAPTER XIII.

Vital Christianity — What is it ? Loving and Working, . 332 — 350

CHAPTER XIV.

Intellectual Christianity — What is it ? Do Good Works and Live. Into which a few remarks on lirain Structure enters, ..... 351—367

CHAPTER XV.

Mysteries of Christianity explained in Scientific Language.. 368 — 393

CHAPTER I.

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER LEAD

TO SPONTANEOUS GENERATION LIFE SO PRODUCED

SUSTAINS ITSELF BY TRANSFORMING DEAD MATTER INTO LIVING FORMS.

^i^^^yTE must assume throughout our whole argument that the Laws of Nature reveal God's mode of working as the Intelligence who created universal space. Matter viewed thus in its developing properties, is created by God, in order to produce the intelligent beings of our race, whose imaginative faculty enables them to anticipate future events in the world's history which God in His foreknowledge has decreed to bring to pass. By this view in the imaginative faculty of our race revealed truth finds its correlative. This theory of the God of matter and of humanity is not ante-scientific — on the contrary, it rests on a true scientific basis. For when the anticipated conception in the imagination of an individual is in harmony with God's design, he signifies approval of it through the medium of a special revelation understood as such by the individual so inspired.

Inherent in matter, whicli is a product of God, are the laws of unity in nature which recent scientific investigation has brought to light. This unity will eventually enable the student of nature to explain the world, including its social organism, as a systematic whole, which the phenomena of nature have combined to produce.

Thus may human inteUigence deal with matter and its laws. But to explain whence matter came is beyond the power of Natural Science. Here, so far as it is concerned, eternal silence must reign. Revelation alone can bridge the gulf. It tells us that God is the originator of all.

This gap in Science is however being gradually filled up, which makes it apparent that there is no break in Nature in the way hitherto inferred from God's interference. For Matter has been proved capable of transformations so varied and so remarkable, that no limit can be assigned to its power of adaptation, change, and efficiency.

Every Molecule is placed in its position by attractions and repulsions due to the nature of the Molecules themselves. It thus comes to pass, that matter displaying in special circumstances the structural power exhibited in crystallisation, as well as in different and more complex circumstances, manifests the organic power witnessed in vegetable and animal life. All demonstrates the potentiality inherent in matter (itself a production of God), giving expression to the Laws with which His foreknowledge concerns itself.

Certain it is, that prior to the creation of universal space, all was in form conceived by God.

Our own section of the system of universal space in its developing capacity is graphically defined by Professor Huxley in his " Physical Basis of Life." He says, " Plants are the accumulators of the powers which animals distribute and dispense. But it will be observed that the existence of the matter of life depends on the pre-existence of certain compounds — namely, carbonic acid, nitre, and ammonia. Withdraw any one of these three from the world and all

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. 3

vital phenomena come to an end. They are related to the protoplasm of the plant as the protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain proportions and under certain conditions to give rise to carbonic acid ; hydrogen and oxygen produce water ; nitrogen and hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought together under certain conditions they give rise to the still more complex body protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life. I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I am unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one term of the series may not be used to any of the others. We think it fit to call different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and activities of these substances as the properties of matter of which they are composed. When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in certain proportions, and the electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a quantity of water equal in weight to the sum of their weights appears in their place. There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given rise to it. In some way or another the properties of the water result from the properties of the compound elements of the water.

We do not assume that something called aquosity entered into and took possession of the oxide of •hydrogen as soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their place in the facets of the crystal or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost. Does anybody .quite comprehend the modus operandi of an electric spark which traverses a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen ? What justification is there then for the assumption of the existence in the Hving matter of a something which has no representative or correlative in the not-Hving matter which gives rise to it ? What better philosophical status has " vitality " than " aquosity " ? and why should "vitality" hope for a better fate than the other of Huxley's " itys which have disappeared " ? My answer to this question is — We Christians have no right to assume that vitality has a different fate from the other forces referred to, till in the advancing series of organic life we arrive at the human form with its marvellously constituted brain and nervous structure. These combining to produce the most highly endowed vital force known to us, give birth to human intelligence in creating " Sentient Personality," which is developed as conscious states technically called the energy of self-conservation, soul, or ego. This form of vitality cannot cease its activity on the death of the organism, but as an immortal unit maintains its individuality in functioning the conscious states which the human organism and environment give birth to in creating the ego, the immortal part that Christianity takes to do with.

It is evident " that what is called vital force is simply mechanical and chemical force transformed through the special conditions under which it acts. The human body is as incapable of generating force as a steam engine or a galvanic battery. It only distributes the forces which it receives from the world without, and varies its manifestations to the senses. Its walking and climbing, pulling and pushing, respiration and digestion, assimilation and exertion, can be shown to be either a mechanical or chemical operation." Yet in "Sentient Personality" the human organism developes the immortal form of force we call Ego.

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. 5

A part of God's fore-ordained plan was that nature should develop vital force. This being so, the case is just what we are entitled to expect, that " the life of the body and its functions are manifestations of the same generic principle as the life of the soul and its functions." For it is evident that the bodily organism and its environment develop the soul or Sentient Personality which is the immortal part of man's being. This is God's way of working through nature. Now the whole range of nature is subject to the same laws. There is only a difference of degree between the highest mental and the lowest vital faculties. There is no absolute break or distinction, but on the contrary a continuous progression along the entire psychological line." . . *' The doctrines of the correlation of forces and of development are as applicable to the explanation of mind as of life. Mind is force — the highest development of force — the force which is accumulated in the brain and nerves ; and the mental is as exactly correlated with vital and with physical force as these are with each other. It may be proved by a variety of scientific considerations that all forces come under the same generalisation. Motion, heat, and light may be transformed into sensation, emotion, and thought, and these can be reconverted into motion, heat, and light."

This is man's definition of God's mode of working in Nature — the Universe of Space, representing, we shall say, God's First-born. This plan of His is a specimen of how He regulates the successive manifestations of His will in Nature to suit the requirements of the developments towards immortality made by our race in its onward movement through eternity. We become acquainted through Physical Science with the Universe of Space ; while Evolution, which deals with the Laws at work therein, teaches us our relation to it. These Laws we, as Christians, acknowledge as the correlative of God's decrees which Nature supplies. These decrees proclaim our Father's mode of working as One Who, in the course of race-development which St. Paul so vividly describes in Rom. viii. 19-22, gradually unveils to us His hidden purposes. With St. Paul's shout of victory sounding in our ears we can turn to poor suffering humanity and say, that although it is true that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," yet deliverance is sure to come at last.

There can be no doubt that " as surely as every future grows out of the past and present, so will the physiology of the future gradually extend the realm of matter and law until it is co-extensive with knowledge, with feeling, and with action " (Prof. Huxley.) Mind embodied in the Ego is co-existent with the realm of matter and law composed of energy which finds expression in conscious states as the correlative. For mind, which embodies human intelligence, includes all that is known of matter and law, and mind and matter thus qualified embraces our immortal race in its units. In accepting the materialism which the doctrine of evolution necessarily includes^ what have we, as Christians, to fear? If we view it in the light the Christian records reveal, do we not find that it, like them, acknowledges that God was the originator of all, that His laws are the agents evolution employs to secure the immortality of the race ? Seen from this standpoint, the doctrine of evolution satisfies the legitimate claims of unity of design in Nature. From the standpoint of evolution, the law that regulates life is that of vital force, sustained in the survival of the fittest.

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. 7

Further, wherever there is a nervous element, vital force is as clearly defined in the very lowest forms as in the highest. Vital force always conforms to the law of attraction and repulsion, by attracting what sustains life and repelling what does not. Defined briefly, vitality is the force explained in human language as attracting a pleasure and repelling a pain. For such is the law that sustains and governs Life. In recognising this, we demonstrate Life itself by giving the condition whereon it rests. Vitality so understood is the very condition which gives birth to the nervous structure which it has created to serve as its support. It uses this system henceforth as its medium to repel what we shall agree to call pain, and attract what we shall call pleasure. It is, of course, well known that these terms cannot be applied in their literal sense where there is no brain organism, for in that case, although the action of Life is the same, these sensations are absent. The Brain is the seat of conscious states. It enables consciousness to feel, as pleasure and pain, vital force, in attraction and repulsion, and, however complicated such actions may be in the highest forms of life, they are at the root of every vital movement on our planet. Therefore life, as we know it, must centre in the double effort to attract and repel, for attraction and repulsion are the forces that show the action of that vitality (governed by the law of afiinity), which attracts pleasure and repels pain. Affinity seems to be the law that governs all forms of force, organic and inorganic. Sensation, feeling, or life, attracts what gratifies (tiiat is what sustains) it, and repels what weakens it. We have thus proved that affinity does regulate organic life. The Law therefore that creates Sensation or Life, must be the affinity that attracts pleasure and repels pain wherever there is a brain organism.

When Life can be explained as a form of force so simple as this, we may justly infer that it originates through the action of Light, as a disturber of elements ; for light is well known as a powerful chemical agent. That light, as such, does store itself up, is proved by decomposing the compound — molecule carbonic acid — on the green leaf of the tree in which light, as force, is absorbed, to reappear in equal proportions when the wooden fibre is burned.

Life is wholly dependent on the energy dispensed by the sun. If the sun ceased to shine, all life, such as we know it on our planet, would terminate. The inference this leads to is that the Sun is the origin of Life, of Sensation, and of Immortality too. For it builds up the human organism which develops conscious states (the equivalent of the immortal Ego or Sentient Personality) — the highest and most enduring because the immortal form of the sun's energy. For every conscious state is the correlative of the energy that forms it. Both conditions are coexistent. With this proposition accepted, the question that arises is — What induces Sensation ? or let us say — What causes the condition that leads up to what we know as Sensation in its most rudimentary form ? For an organism to feel, or to be capable of feeling, constitutes a living form. Life centres in a consciousness of differences, however vague. From this point it is quite permissible to view spontaneous generation, as originating in conditions, causing the vaguest possible conception of change. Such change might occur thus : Suppose the process of storing up light to be going on during the sun's presence in some part of our planet, under exceptionally favourable circumstances. The sun sets (or ceases to shine at least on that place), and thus leaves this process subject to a changed condition, which generates a

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. 9

shock. This shock consists of the most rudimentary form of sensation, as the result of the altered circumstances. When the sun returns to shine, and the process of accumulating its rays is resumed, changed condition again takes place, and in the fresh shock produced thereby, there is embodied the very vaguest consciousness of change. These conditions would henceforth be inseparable, and would reappear together, multiplying in complexity just as the shocks, through various reasons, might increase in variety ; each distinctive kind of shock generating the structural form that corresponded to it. Viewed from the human standpoint, the nature of the shock might be stated thus — When the storing up process ceases, a shock of lowered vitality or weakness is felt ; when the process is resumed, a shock of strength or increased vitality is perceived. The presence and absence of the sun may in this way actually develop that feeblest possible form of sensation, above referred to as consciousness of change, or in one word. Life. For to feel is to live. And the battle of life centres in the affinity that draws towards it what strengthens, and refuses what weakens. It seems quite reasonable to suppose that changes so simple as this were all that were required to produce organic matter. For is not God all and in all ? and spontaneous generation demonstrates His Law which bridges the gulf between organic and inorganic matter. Life, as pleasure and pain, is known to us as a state that gratifies, associating with a condition that depresses. Sensation, the condition that distinguishes a living organism from a dead organism, is thus created ; indeed it is the law of life. The case, as above stated, may have been the very conditions that generated life. Anyhow, in these conditions we have cause and effect, found to be so related as may have been capable lO EVOLUTION ILLUMINATING THE BIBLE.

of developing vital force. The sun as a powerful chemical agent, dispersing radiant matter, may have produced this law of cause and effect, from which the forces we call vital, spring.

The sun, as an agent capable of acting as a chemical force, is a powerful disturber of those atoms, which we on our cool planet call elements. This being so. Spontaneous Generation may have developed by the action of the sun breaking up some very stable combination — say, carbonic acid. The eleiVients of such a molecule in parting, we shall infer, would have the most rudimentary form of sensation induced in them, and this sensation all such elements so parted would retain. They, in consequence, would combine among themselves, as we know the organic atoms do, and in doing so, generate the sensation called "consciousness of changed condition." This feeling may be partaken in by the elements of all such compound molecules. Under the conditions we have imagined we would have created in the carbon and oxygen (the ingredients of the compound, carbonic acid) this sense (although a very feeble one) of altered condition which, we shall say, is peculiar to all liberated parts of a molecule thus broken. This sense is equivalent to, say, the general sensation that every vital organism possesses in itself, if these conditions are accepted. It has been shown that under those circumstances, a compound molecule is capable, both as a unit and when broken up into parts, charged with vitality, of building up a living organism which would increase in complexity in proportion to the complexity of the shocks, until the human brain and nervous structure, which produces and includes in its units the intellect of the race, was developed.

We do know that the oxygen and carbon are liberated

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. II

on the green leaf of the tree — the carbon going to build up the woody fibre. Further, that in the burning process of the tree, these elements again unite, and proclaim their union in developing the equivalent of light and heat absorbed when liberated.

However, that sensation might have sprung from such data as I have given, is all that I am concerned with, for these show the basis on which vitality rests, and supply a working hypothesis to enable us to comprehend how the light and heat of the sun may transform dead matter into a living organism. For we have, by this time, made it quite clear that vital force is capable of transforming dead matter* into a living form. This is the condition that sustains life as we know it. Does not the blood carry into all parts of the body what was dead matter, but which is transformed into living matter when it becomes part of the tissue of our living bodies. This marvellous transformation, which is constantly taking place in our daily experience, is as wonderful as that which took place when dead matter was first transformed into a living form in, say, Spontaneous Generation. But we are so familiar with the fact that it passes unnoticed.

Let us strive to contemplate the magnitude of the change that has taken place on our planet in the effects that this form of force (the conversion of non-living Substances into living beings or forms) has produced. The origin of it may have been as simple in form as the process I have described of the effect produced by the ray of the sun. Yet it is a force capable of developing all the varied forms of organic life found on our earth.

Man as the head of the series, is capable of feeling and of reasoning, as well as of anticipating, far reaching con-

12 EVOLUTION ILLUMINATING THE BIKLE.

elusions (a gift which a well informed imaginative faculty confers), and in predicting conditions yet to be realized. Individuals so constituted, are the medium God makes use of to forecast the future, which He in His foreknowledge has decreed. For in creating matter, God included the laws that produce all. Such laws are seen in great complexity in the forces at work in the social medium that surrounds us, and of which we form part. Wonderful this is indeed when we realize that the social organism is the result of this force. We have seen that this force once developed has power to convert lifeless matter into living substances; and into these the immortal part of man, in the shape of energy, finding expression in conscious states, enters as the human soul. It is when we contemplate all this that we begin to perceive the marvellous transformation that has taken place by the development of vital force, since it came to be one of the forces of our planet. It is no exaggeration to say, this force has changed the face of the earth. It has done so. For although organic life may have been in its origin no more complex than that of perceiving the change the sun's presence or absence indicated, yet it has eventually altered the whole appearance of the globe. It has also filled it with human beings, forming the social medium into which we are plunged at birth, and of which we then begin to form part.

The force we call vital which has produced all, begins and ends with Sensation. For Sensation — a consciousness of differences — is the distinguishing quality of all living organisms, whether animal or vegetable. It is an indisputable fact that in the lowest forms of life it is impossible to distinguish between animal and plant life. Some Naturalists have in fact classed some forms as vegetable life which

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. I 3

Others have classed as the animal kingdom. It is true of animal and plant life that the true function of living matter is manifested by both kingdoms. Both show by their activities that they possess the vitality of sensation, i.e., the power to feel and to discriminate. This capacity is shown in their attracting what sustains, and repelling what weakens. This power of vitality is always the same wherever we meet with it. It is a force which, once developed, has the property of perpetuating and increasing itself by absorbing none-living matter and transforming it into its kind by vitalizing it. This is done (to quote an authority) — " Not otherwise than a spark of fire grows into a flame and continues to spread when it meets with suitable elements.'^ The function which living-matter imparts to dead-matter is power to feel. It imparts the vitality with which it is itself endowed, and converts none-living substances into sentient matter with wonderful rapidity. Thus it transforms the inanimate forces of nature into living forms, having the power to feel, to know, and to think. In the human form it approaches God through Christ in prayer, in adoration, and in love, being .capable of glorifying God and of enjoying Him for ever. This is the expression of the highest form of intellectual emotion, that a living human being in our world, or any other, is capable of. Yet, marvellous as the human form with the powerful intellect is, it also has sprung from the lowest forms of life. One of these elementary forms is seen in " the gory dew, a dark red slimy film not unfrequently to be seen on damp walls and in shady places.'^ In plant life, when cells group themselves together, the phenomena of life becomes more distinctly marked ; and where their natural affinity is gratified, we may see the plant gradually incline to where the excitation comes from.

Plants automatically turn towards the sun. The clinging plant perceives points of support, the insect-eating plant is sensitive to its touch, and every flower feels the light and strives to bend its head towards it. Botanists have shown that some flowers feel the effect of light so strongly as to fold up at night, and unfold themselves in the morning. So strongly as this, do some mark their sense of satisfaction and its opposite when their affinities are affected. The water-lily hides in the water at night, but its natural affinities being gratified by the sun, the flower is called out of its hiding place by it. When you examine the sensitive plants, you find species with their leaves beautifully divided, being again and again pinnate into a great number of small leaves, of which the pairs close upwards when touched. On repeated or roughter touching, the leaflets of the neighbouring pinion also close together, and all the pinions in turn sink down till at last the stalk itself hangs down, and the whole leaf looks withered. If the stem is shaken, all tlie leaves exhibit the same phenomena. After a short time, the leaf if shaken, rises, and the leaflets stand upright again. We have in this shrinking plant the very phenomena giving expression to pain, when in the highest forms of life vitality is attacked. For we all know how innerving pain is, and how prostrated we are when greatly pained, either physically or mentally. See how the child or the dog cringes under the smart of the lash. Also mark how both assume their usual expression when the pain and its cause pass away. Man then stands erect, and so does the dog and the plant, each in its own way. The effect being such, we are compelled to recognize sensibility and life as identical, because these phenomena hold good under all conditions, marking the distinction between dead and Hving

THE DEVELOPING PROPERTIES INHERENT IN MATTER. I 5

matter. Since they hold good in all forms of organic life, we are led to the conclusion that between the effect of rough handling in the sensitive plant referred to, and that of pain in man, the distinction is simply one of degree, not of kind. And we must remember pain is a phenomenon of life. Further, the degree which marks the distinction is to be measured by the progress made in the nervous system, which reaches its climax in the human form. •

Life is so developed that the human nervous system makes us the constituents of the social organism, and the social medium is the condition that creates and maintains the moral element in us. For we are social and moral units being surrounded by the men and women of our race, and having mutual interests which develop the moral element in us. All spring from sensation or vital force, which possesses the inherent power of transforming dead matter into living substances, and also of developing morality out of selfishness. For the individual finds it to his interest to combine with the community, so as better to secure his individual wellbeing. The power of man's intellect enables him to arrive at this conclusion.

Intellect is defined by Bain in his *' Mind and Body," as the senses of feeling, classified as three : Discrimination, Similarity, and Memory — " these three functions, however they are mingled and inseparably mingled in our mental operations, are yet totally distinct properties, and each the ground work of a different superstructure." Intellect, thus defined, is the product of sensations of this simple nature ; yet it is capable of developing the marvellous capacities which the intellectual growth of our race displays in producing a Newton, a Darwin, a Stuart Mill, &c., as well as the Christian Martyrs, beginning with St.

Stephen and St. Paul. All such martyrs, in possessing the new sense that Conversion develops, were capable of analyzing and discriminating the change in their mental state that follows it. St. Paul, however, was the great master Apostle, far surpassing all the others in defining the mental changes conversion produces. Though the change is a manifestation of the Spirit of God in the human soul, take note it is the power the human intellect confers which enables man to perceive the change wrought, as such, in his mental state. It is therefore the Intellect, and the Intellect alone, that gives expression to the mental change that accompanies conversion in making that change apparent to the individual.