The problem of problems, and its various solutions

Front matter

THE

^5

PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS,

Appendix

Tyndall's Statement of the Evolution Hypothesis 374

Anthropomorphism of Scientists 374

Objections to the Nebular Hypothesis... 375

The Propaganda of Atheistic Scientists 376

Is the God Idea an Intuition? 379

Involution before Evolution 379

Tiiree Ways of getting rid of Intelligence in Evolution 3S0

Reasons why certain tribes have been called Atheistic 381

Another Subterfuge of Evolutionists 381

Matter and Force not Self-existent, but creations of mind 382

The First Cause not Unknown and Unknowable 388

Underwood's Reductio ad Absuidum 392

Is Religion a Perversion of Man's Nature? 396

Can Physical Science and Evolution give Morality? 398

Draper's Conflict of Religion and Science 400

Biblical Contradiction of Science. Mosaic Record of Creation. Noachian

Deluge. Joshua's Command 402

Absurdity of Materialism— Anecdote 410

Mill's Absurd Attempt at Wit 411

The Man with Two Wives 412

Mimicry of Nature 413

Blind, Irrational, Insensate Matter and Force 414

Parolles and his Drum 416

Proper Tests of the Two Theories 420

Evolution Hypotheses and Copernican System , 421

Another Absurdity in Illustration 422

Review of Huxley's Demonstration of Evolution 423

Review of Carpenter's Fallacies of Testimony for the Supernatural 444

Review of an Atheistic Tract 459

Materialism and Christianity Contrasted 468

Conclusion 477

Gii)

TO REVIEWERS AND CRITICS.

The author of this volnme is aware that, writing as he has on topics that are, above all others, matters of the sharpest controversy, his work will be subjected to a searching criticism. To this he does not object. Indeed, he invites tlie most sifting examination of all he has written. He, however, has two requests to make : Tlie first is, that all reviewers and critics carefully read the book before they review it. If there is censure or condemnation of what is written, let it be only after the critic understands what he condemns, and because he understands it.

The second request is, that the publishers of all publications, noticing and reviewing the book, and all writers reviewing it, send one copy of the publication containing such review to the author, at Abingdon, Knox County, Illinois. The author is especially anxious to receive all publications containing adverse criticisms, and replies to positions and statements of the book. It will aid him in his own search for the truth.

Claek Braden.

IlfTEODUCTIOE",

Every book has a life and history as real and often as interesting as that of the author, for generally it is but a transcript of the soul-life of the author. The most successful books have been those that grew out of and portrayed the life experience and struggles of the author. In works of a polemic character, like the present volume, the most successful and useful have been those in which the author reproduces his own doubts and strivings for the truth and conflicts with error, and the means by which he emerged out of them. The present book has grown out of a life's experience. Beginning life in a community saturated with Puritanic influences, and reared in the most implicit belief of the Scriptures, at the early age of fourteen, the author began to have those doubts and questions of head and heart incident to thoughtful youth. Through them he passed into a state of skepticism ; and the flrst notoriety he acquired as a public speaker was as lecturer and debater on the skeptical side of the religious topics then agitating the minds of the community in which he lived. In the good providence of God, at the age of twenty-four, he met a preacher, now enjoying the rewards of eternal life, who had had a similar experience. By him he was led to a confession of Christ, and he began a Christian life. Immediately he was called upon to advocate the cause he had now espoused, and especially to discuss the views he once defended. He did this in sermons and lectures, and especially in public debates with representatives of skepticism in its various forms. With them he has held twelve public oral discussions, and one written discussion in the columns of a public journal.

For a number of years, at the request of churches of all denpminations, and of communities, the author has lectured on these topics. In numerous papers and magazines he has also written largely on them. His personal experience has given him

VI INTRODUCTION.

special advantages and training for the work he undertakes in this vohime. His own skepticism and doubt have given him an insight into the springs, motives and reliances of skepticism, that can be gained only by personal experience. As a lecturer and debater, he has had to meet the best that can be said on the side of skepticism, concerning the topics discussed in this volume. He lias been continually called on to answer the objections and questions of the skeptic, and to solve the troubles of the puzzled believer. He has a number of times had his arguments in defense of what he conceived to be the truth, canvassed by the ablest skeptical minds of our country. He has been compelled, by the demands of his work, to study for years, all that he could collect on these topics, and as only those study who have been compelled to make the.se topics a specialty that they may defend the truth. For a number of years he has been urged to write out and publish his lectures on these topics, and especially the ones discussed in this volume. In compliance with the request of many of his own and other denominations, he has written this book, in the hope that it will aid the cause of truth in the great struggle that is now agitating this and other lands. He has been impelled to write the book, by a conviction that of all the multitude of books written not one meets a real want felt by himself and others. He has endeavored to give the reader what he has collected to meet his own wants.

In this volume the author endeavors, in the first chapter, to give a concise but full view of the nature, extent and demands of the problem, for which modern skeptical science attempts to furnish a solution, and to give the reader a clear conception of what must be accounted for before the problem is solved. This has never been done completely and thoroughly, and in a connected manner. Glimpses of it have been given in detached portions in multitudes of books. In reviewing the assertions and assumptions of skepticism, writers have occasionally pointed out something for Avhich the speculations of the skeptic had no solution, but the boundless proportions of the problem have never been presented in one connected view. The result has been that the readers of the countless productions of modern skepticism, having no clear conception of the infinite proportions of the problem, have readily and easily accepted the strange and startling phenomena collected by Darwin and others, and the plausible speculations they base on them, as a full solution of the infinite problem of the universe. Then the

INTRODUCTION. Vll

first thing to be done is to place clearly before the reader the infinite proportions and demands of the problem, for which the speculations of the materialistic scientist are offered as a pretended solution, that he may clearly apprehend its extent and nature, and by a comparison of the speculations of the scientist with it, apprehend their flimsiness and meagerness, and appreciate their utter failure as even a plausible speculation. He will see that they have no explanation for the real difficulties of the problem, and in fact they leave them utterly untouched. The work attempted in the first chapter is a vital and fundamental one.

In the second chapter the author endeavors to present the postulata and data that we have and must use in solving the problem, and without which a solution is impossible. The great principle of a true inductive philosophy, which the scientist professes to take as his guide, is that we should carefully examine the phenomena, being careful to include all of them, and by such examination learn their nature and characteristics, and from their characteristics determine their cause, using in the solution all the phenomena and all the aids we can obtain. While pretending to take human' nature as his standard in his investigations and speculations, and human reason as his means of investigation, the skeptical scientist ignores the religious and spiritual element of our nature, and utterly discards the plainest utterances and intuitions of the highest — the regnant element of our nature. Then, in the second chapter, we insist on a full statement of all the phenomena, moral, rational, religious, and spiritual, as well as physical, that we may have all the data and a full use of all the elements of our nature. This is especially important, since the elements of our nature, ignored by the scientist, are the very ones and the only ones that can solve the problem. The great questions of causation and creation, intelligent causation and creation, can be solved only under the guidance and direction of pure reason, and the rational, moral, and religious elements of our nature, and chiefly by them. We shall endeavor to show that so long as the scientist pursues his present course he can only inform us of the manner in which the phenomena transpire, but is utterly impotent to tell what caused them and Avhy they transpire.

In the third chapter we attempt a brief outline of the various solutions of the problem that have been offered for our acceptance. We have been careful to define evolution, development, Darwin's hypothesis, and kindred speculations, with especial

VUl INTKODUCTIOV.

reference to the technical use that their advocates make of them, ' that the reader may ever after be guarded against the common blunder of confounding these analogous speculations that are used technically in different senses. The reader has before him, then, the different solutions, and is prepared to compare them with the demands of the problem, and ready to examine them and test them by means of the data furnished him by the second chapter. In the fourth chapter the natural affinities of evolution, development, and Darwinism are exhibited, and their tendencies clearly pointed out, that all may understand their real nature. In the fifth chapter we have endeavored to classify the objections that can be urged against evolution, development, and Darwinism. These have been gathered from all the different departments of investigation, as fully as the authors ability and opportunities would permit, and classified so that the reader can see what can be said against these arrogant speculations, for which we are almost commanded to unship the faith of centuries and castHo one side the universal intuitions and the highest aspirations of the noblest and regnant element of our nature. We have arranged them as they Avould be naturally suggested in tracing the course of evolution claimed by the materialist. We could of course give only an outline of each objection, but we have endeavored to present the warp of the web of argument so clearly that the intelligent reader will be able to supply the woof.

In the sixth chapter we have attempted a resume of the theistic solution, adapted to the present state of the discussion and the demands of the thought of the day." Particular attention is paid to the objections of Spencer and others of the present time. In the seventh chapter we have endeavored to show that modern discovery and scientific generalization does not demand or warrant a casting to one side of the cardinal ideas of religion; but, on the contrary, they only amplify and establish them.

In the eighth and concluding chapter we endeavor to show that progress and discovery can not outgrow a religion of general principles and universal and eternally applicable truths. Then if we have accomplished our purpose, we shall have led the reader through a train of reasoning that will not only show that the assaults of modern skeptical science (falsely so called) on our j religious nature and faith are baseless, but also show that our ,j faith is based on and grounded in the clearest and deepest and strongest affirmations of the noblest and the regnant element of our nature. The author believes that the course he has pursued

IKTEODUCTION. IX

is the only logical, and of course the proper method of conducting the examination of this problem of problems and its various solutions. He has endeavored to avoid technical and scientific terras and disquisitions, and if the reader wishes for an elaborate discussion of many of the objections urged in the book, against the speculations of modern science, he is referred to the works of authors who have often devoted a volume to an objection, the substance of which is here presented in a few lines.

We will conclude this introductory chapter by giving a parable we often use to illustrate the course of the scientist, and in tliis way prepare the reader for the following chapters. An amateur in mathematics once submitted to the inspection of his friends certain mathematical operations and equations,, in which he claimed that he had solved some of the most profound problems in several departments of science. As they were quite intricate, and displayed great skill in mathematical manipulations, and as the conclusions that he claimed he had reached accorded with the wishes and views of some of his friends, they eagerly accepted and appropriated them, and pressed them into use, and extended them far beyond the claims of their author. But as these conclusions and the use that was made of them were in direct opposition to the most cherished views of all others, they subjected them to a most rigid scrutiny. A skillful mathematician urged the following objections:

I. In the statement of the problem, and many times in subsequent portions of the work, important elements were omitted either through ignorance or were intentionally ignored and rejected.

II. Many and vital points are assumed in the premises on which the work is based, for which no proof is offered or attempted, and they are the very things that should above all else be proved.

III. Others are assumed that are susceptible of but little proof, scarcely enough to render them probable.

IV. Others are assum.ed that are worthless because many grave and insuperable objections can be urged against them.

V. Others are assumed that are clearly and palpably untrue.

VI. In the manipulation of the equations, and in the reasoning often the things that stood most in need of proof were assumed, and evidently because they were necessary to establish the conclusion.

VII. Often there was no connection between different parts of the work, or between premises and conclusions.

X INTRODUCTION.

VIII. Finally, vastly more was clsiimed in the conclusion than was included in the premises or reasoning, or established by the reasoning, even if these Avere all conceded to be correct. Such were the objections of the mathematician.

A chemist objected that the operator had ignored the teachings of chemistry in certain parts of his work, and the very principles that were needed to enable him to prosecute his investigations. Without them, investigation was impossible, and unless controlled by them the results must be absurd. An adept in natural philosophy objected that certain assumptions in the work and the conclusions contradicted some of the most palpable and clearly established facts of natural philosophy. A physiologist objected that the mathematician had presumed, by his manipulations of mathematical symbols, to decide some of the gravest problems in physiology, when his work had no connection with these problems. Not only this, but while presuming thus to decide what Avas utterly foreign to his work, he had deliberately ignored or denied the fundamental principles of physiology, and had rejected its fundamental methods, and the only methods by which investigation could be conducted in trying to solve these problems. Irritated and chagrined by these damaging criticisms of his hobby, and these attacks on the bantling of his brain, the author attempted to overawe his mathematical critic by an assumption of superior mathematical knowledge and by dogmatic assertions. His critic coolly replied that be his superior knowledge ever so great it could not remove one particle of one of his objections. They were unanswered and unanswerable. The author attempted to silence the chemist, physicist, and physiologist by quoting to them the old adage — Ne sutor ultra crepidam; "Let not the cobbler get above his last." They retorted, "But these things are our last, and pre-eminently our last. You are the one that has violated his own rule. Do you stick to your last? A mere mathematician, you have presumed, by your equations, to decide questions that are utterly foreign to them, and that can have no possible connection with them. You presume to settle the gravest questions in our departments, while most presumptuously ignoring their plainest facts and fundamental methods and principles." But enamored by a certain mathematical skill displayed in the manipulation of the symbols, and inclined by their prejudices to accept the conclusions claimed, because they accorded with their preconceived notions, certain parties persisted in laud-

INTRODUCTION. XI

ing the work thus criticised as the ne plus ultra of science and truth, and claimed that its assumptions and begged conclusions were the clearest of truth. In like manner we think it can be shown that the speculations known as evolution and Darwinism are open to the following objections:

I. In the first steps in the investigation, and all through the investigation, important elements, vital factors, are omitted, either through ignorance or they are deliberately ignored and rejected.

II. Many things are assumed in the premises on which they are based, of which there is no proof.

III. Others are assumed that are not susceptible of proof.

ly. Others are assumed that have hardly enough proof to render them even probable.

V. Others are assumed that are worthless on account of grave and often insuperable objections that are urged against them.

VI. Still others are assumed that are most palpably untrue.

VII. Often in the course of reasoning, the very things to be proved, and that need to be proved above every thing else, are quietly assumed.

VIII. Often the things thus assumed are the things needed to establish the conclusion, and are evidently assumed because they are thus necessary to the predetermined conclusion.

IX. Often in the course of reasoning there is no connection between different parts of the process, or between the premises and conclusion.

X. Finally, infinitely more is claimed in the conclusion than is contained in the premises or the reasoning or proved by the speculations, even if all these assumptions and speculations be conceded to be entirely true. Such are the objections that can be urged to the methods of what now arrogantly appropriates to itself the exclusive use of the term science.

The student of mental philosophy and psychology can object that the fundamental methods and principles of mental philosophy and psychology are utterly ignored — the only principles and methods by which certain portions of the investigation can be conducted. It is sheer folly to even attempt an investigation, except in accordance with these methods. The moralist can object that some of the clearest and most palpable truths and facts of men till and moral philosophy and phenomena are flatly contradictrfl. with an assurance that would be sublime if it were not so jibsurd. The psycliologist can urge the same objection.

XU INTRODUCTION.

Some of the clearest and most palpable facts and phenomena of psychology are flatly denied by these men of science, so called. The religionist can object that the scientist presumes to decide by his methods and speculations some of the gravest problems in morals and religion, when his investigations and methods and the facts he reaches by them, have absolutely no connection with them ; and he utterly ignores and rejects the plainest truths and facts of mental and moral philosophy and religion. The scientist ignores and rejects the plainest principles and methods of mental and moral philosophy and religion, and denies their clearest and plainest facts and phenomena, and rejects the only principles and methods by which investigation can be conducted in these departments of science, and yet presumes to decide the gravest problems in these departments, by his methods and facts, that have no more connection with them than the rules of grammar have with the manipulation of mathematical equations. If we urge on the scientist the consideration of the ten objections we have enumerated above, and array hundreds of illustrations of them, we are met with an assumption of vast superiority in scientific knowledge. Do n't Darwin and Huxley and Tyndall and Wallace and that school of scientists know? What right have religious men or priests to question their deductions, no matter how many facts can be urged against them ? It matters not how much they may know, their knowledge can not set to one side palpable facts. It is bootless for the scientist to screajn at the student of mental or moral philosophy or religion, "Ne sufor ultra crepidam" for his speculations embrace questions that are peculiarly and pre-eminently the last of the students of these departments. It is the scientist that violates with the coolest effrontery the very maxim he so superciliously quotes to others. The careful attention and clearest scrutiny of the reader is invited to the following chapters of this book, in which we attempt to establish the charges here made against modern skeptical science.

OR,

ATHEISM, DARWIJSriSM AND THEISM.

CHAPTER I. Statement of the Problem

One of the wise utterances of one whom his cotemporaries declared spoke as never man spoke was, that no wise man would begin to build a house before he had carefully calculated the cost, and no prudent monarch would rush into a war before he had carefully calculated and compared his own strength and that of his enemy; and no thoughtful person will accept a solution of a problem, much less risk priceless interests on it, until he carefully weighs the nature and demands of the problem, and thoughtfully compares the proposed solution with the nature and demands of the problem, for which it claims to account. In the last illustration used by the Christ an army might make an imposing display, and accomplish much in certain cases, but it would be utterly inadequate to cope with an army twice its own strength. If its commander did not understand and appreciate the strength of his enemy, he would certainly be undeceived when too late, and meet Avith disaster on the field of conflict. In like manner, if persons do not understand and appreciate the full extent and demands of the problem for which the physicist of to-day undertakes to give a solution, they will be apt to be bewildered by the strange and startling phenomena presented by the physicist, and the plausible speculations of evolution, de-

14 TPIE PPvOBLEM OF PROBLEMS.

velopment, and Darwinism presented by him, and led to accept them as a full solution of the infinite problem of the universe. Then let us begin by endeavoring to array before our minds the phenomena, and endeavor to grasp the infinite demands of the problem, for which the advocates of these speculations, either directly or by implication, claim they are a full solution.

One obstacle in the way of a proper comprehension of the vastness and diflSculty of the problem, is that by constant contact with the phenomena of nature, and the familiarity arising from such constant contact with its most inscrutable processes, we have lost all apprehension and appreciation of their vastness, their intricacy, and their wonderful mysteries. We have, from the first dawn of observation, witnessed continually transpiring before our eyes, almost unheeded, the most wonderful and mysterious operations of nature, and have never thought perhaps how vast, how wonderful, and how mysterious they are. It is only by a careful and thoughtful survey of them that our minds can be aroused to apprehend, even partipJly, the infinity in number, the vastness in extent, and the inscrutable mystery in method, of the processes of nature, for which the physicist attempts to account by theory, speculation, and hypothesis. Let us then marshal before us nature in all her various forms, and hold communion with her, and endeavor to prepare ourselves for an apprehensicm of the problem before us. When we look out on the world around us, we see production, reproduction, growth, development, decay, and dissolution ever transpiring in every department of nature. As we pass downward in the £icale of being, we descend from the wonderful processes of animal and vegetable life, through simpler forms, into chemical organization and mere mechanical and mineral arrangement of matter, and mere mechanical displays of force, until we are led back to the first constitution of things. The physicist assures us that all that we now see is the result of evolution, development, and progression. If so, it must have had a beginning. Let us then, as far as we can, divest ourselves of our conceptions of the universe as we now see it in its order and

I

•

liarmony of arrangement and organization, and endeavor to form some conception of the beginning, the first constitution of such a course of evolution and progression. When we have placed ourselves at this stand-point, let us trace the course of development claimed by the physicist, and endeavor to apprehend, as far as possible, all the details of the problem — all that has to be accounted for before the problem is solved.

At the very outset, before we can begin our investigation, or form a conception of the beginning of this course of evolution, we encounter this question of questions: What is the origin, the beginning of all things ? It is a favorite maxim of the physicist, Ex nihilo nihil fit — "Out of nothing nothing comes," hence something must have existed forever, and been self-existent, independent, and self-sustaining. This axiom of the physicist we will implicitly accept. Then there are open to us but two alternatives. Either blind, irrational, insen.-=ate matter, and blind, irrational physical force, are eternal, self-existent, independent, and self-sustaining; or rational force, mind or spirit is eternal, self- existent, independent, and self-sustaining. The physicist takes the former alternative. He has mere chaos without law, order, property, constitution, co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, or plan. We have an universe pervaded by chaotic matter and chaotic force. Whether this force would be attractive or repellant, latent or active, constructive or destructive, we know not. Again we have a grave problem in forming our first conception of this force. Is physical force self-active? Is there self-activity or spontaneity in physical force ? We recognize spontaneity only in mind force. Again, as we look on matter, we recognize in it certain essential properties^ so essential tliat we can not conceive of its existence without them. They are extension, form, density, impenetrability, rarity, malleability, ductility, elasticity, porosity, and inertia. If we place ourselves back of the first constitution of things, we can not conceive of matter as existing without them. Then we have to make these properties eternal, if we make matter eternal. If these properties, the primordial factors of the progression that the pliysicist claims, be eternal, then the j^rogression that he claims they produce must be eternal. If eternal, it must become perfect in an eternity. But it is not perfect, hence it had a beginning, and the matter of which these properties are the essential properties, is not eternal, and had a beginning. But even if we concede the eternity of matter and these properties, we have but a turbulent chaos, a fortuitous clashing together of atoms, without order, system, or law. Then we can not conceive of the existence of matter without these essential forces — attraction, repulsion, adhesion, cohesion, heat, electricity, chemical action, and affinity, and crystallization. If we place ourselves back of the first constitution of matter, we can not conceive of it as existing without these forces. It matters not whether we regard these forces as different forces, or as different manifestations of one force, we can not conceive of matter as existing without them.

Even if we should attempt to hold in conception that nondescript, unthinkable something-nothing, matter without properties or force, as existing from eternity, we have only increased the difficulty. If " out of nothing, nothing comes," whence came these properties and these forces Avhen . they came into being? If latent in matter until progression began, whence came the impulse that commenced their activit}^? Here is another grave objection. If these properties were latent or inactive, then there is no spontaneity or self-activity in them. There is no inherent self-evolving activity in them, as the physicist claims. Then matter and force must have had a beginning. If not, how did they exist for an eternity without acting on each other ^ If they acted on each other in a progression during an eternity, they would have resulted in a perfect system. Then the eternity of matter and physical force, necessary as a basis for the progression claimed by the physicist, is an impossibility. Next we find in matter over sixty elementary substances, known as the original element of matter. Whence came they? Were they eternal, or was homogeneous matter at some time charged into them? Whence came their number and their proportion to each other?

Then we have to account for the co-ordination, adjustment, and adaptation of these elementary substances and the forces we see in matter, and the essential properties of matter to each other. There has to be co ordination, adaptation, and adjustment of all these to each other, and laws as to when they shall act, where they shall act, how they shall act, how long and how often they shall act, and in what order and in what succession they shall act. We know all this is adjusted in exact mathematical proportion, and in accordance with exact mathematical law. After all this assumption, and after we have passed over all these difficulties, we have only mineral and mechanical combination, such as would produce homogeneous masses, or mere mechanical mixtures.