Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith. Robert Patterson
as the tapeworm, as he supposed, was self-produced, so man was originated by the primeval slime. So also Professor Vogt, and M. Tremaux develop their animals from the land, and the latter accounts for their various qualities from the various qualities of their respective birthplaces, the crop being conditioned by the soil. But Mr. Darwin derives all his organisms from the sea. Electricity in its galvanic form was for a while the agent to fire the earthly or marine mud with the vital spark; and Mr. Crosse's experiments were supposed instances of the creation of acarii or mites in the battery bath, until it was found that the bath contained eggs and the electricity only hatched them. Some English evolutionists still adhere to the theory of Spontaneous Generation, but the leading Germans deny any instance of it being known. Huxley denies that any case of it has been established as now practicable; but supposes that if we could have been present at the beginning of the world, when all the elements were young and vigorous, we should have seen the chemical elements of the earth and air combining to form living beings, by the mere powers of their nature. If that were the fact, it would be a fact unique and unparalleled, utterly out of the course of nature, and so as contrary to the theory of evolution as if these living beings had been inspired with life by Almighty God.
So the theory here again is divided. Two utterly irreconcilable ideas of the origin of life claim our belief—the theories of Biogenesis, and of Abiogenesis, the one says all life is from the egg, and has always been so; and so we have an eternal begetting of finite creatures; the other alleges the spontaneous beginning of plants and animals; a fact, if it be a fact, as unparalleled as creation, and far more miraculous.
As to the history of the progress of the germs of plants and animals thus produced, we find still greater diversities of opinion, not only as to details, but as to principles. Each inventor has added to, or altered, the original idea of evolution, until it has been burdened with more improvements and new patents than the sewing machine; only the evolutionary improvements bid fair to improve the theory out of existence. We have seen M. Tremaux, with the autochthonic Athenians, deriving the powers of improvement of plants and animals from their native soils. Lamarck on the contrary, inspired all his plants and animals—fungi and frogs, and elephants and apes—with the desire of getting on in the world and improving their limbs by exercise; so the greyhound grew slim and fleet by running; the giraffe's neck elongated by reaching up to the branches of the trees on which it browsed, and the duck acquired web feet by swimming. Others attributed the evolution of differences to external conditions. The negro became black by exposure to the tropical sun; the arctic hare received its coat of thick white fur from the cold climate, and the buffalo and camel their humps of fat from the sterility of their pastures at certain seasons, and the consequent need of a reserved store of fat for food for the rest of the body. Mr. Darwin's doctrine of Natural Selection refuses Lamarck's notion of any conscious attempt of the plant or animal at improvement; and equally denies the power of external nature to improve anything, except by killing off poor specimens, save in that very limited range where good pastures make fat animals for a season or two. An innate power of accidental variation to a very small amount, and the slow but constant adding up of profitable variations during countless generations, with the killing off of the unimproved breeds by Natural Selection, is his patent populator and improver. But this theory is too slow for the nineteenth century, and so neither Huxley, nor Parsons, nor Mivart, nor even Wallace, accepts the doctrine as Darwin propounds it. It is, in fact, already becoming unpopular among scientific men. Lyell proposed the origination of new species by leaps; as we see great geniuses born of commonplace parents; and Huxley supports that opinion, and Parsons, Owen and Mivart coincide in this inexplicable explanation. The author of the Vestiges of Creation accounts for improved species from a prolongation of the period of gestation. But Hyatt and Cope derive them from quite the contrary process—accelerated development of gestation. MM. Ferris and Kolliker derive them from parthenogenesis, a mode of genesis of which our world offers no example whatever.
The origin of man, with all his mental powers and religious aspirations, is the great difficulty. Mr. Mivart excludes man wholly from the influence of Natural Selection, from the time he acquired a soul. Mr. Wallace, rejecting the action of one Supreme Intelligence for everything but the origin of universal forces and laws, "Contemplates the possibility that the development of the essentially human portions of man's structure and intellect may have been determined by the directing influence of some higher intelligent beings acting through natural and universal laws;"[13] i.e., the gods of the old heathen nations. And so after twenty-two centuries wandering over the world, we have got back to where Democritus started from—to pure old heathenism.
After such a history of the theory of evolution, and in presence of such contradictory presentations by its advocates, I need scarcely say that it is by no means an established scientific principle, were it not for the insolent manner in which some of them assert it as scientifically demonstrated; and denounce the Bible doctrine of creation as mere superstition, "A feather bed of respectable and respected tradition," and warn off Christians from any attempt to investigate theories of cosmogony; and overbear the ignorant by the array of the names of men of science who give their sanction to some phase of the theory. But let it be borne in mind that no well-established scientific principle, no demonstrated law, exhibits such contradictory and conflicting phases as those we have just witnessed. The laws of gravitation, or of chemical affinity, for instance, offer no such contradictions of their adherents; because they are founded on facts, while evolution is a mere notion, founded on ignorance and error, as we shall presently see. Accordingly, by far the greater number of the greatest scientists oppose it, as utterly unscientific, and have recorded their opposition, and the reasons for it. Sir John Herschel and Sir Wm. Thompson, among astronomers, have proclaimed its antagonism to the facts of physical astronomy. No new facts subversive of the foundations of faith in God as recognized in the universe by Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Descartes, Leibnitz, Pascal, Paley and Bell, have been discovered by such scientists as Whewell, Sedgwick, Brewster, Faraday, Hugh Miller, or our American geologists, Dawson, Hitchcock, and Dana. Nor have the deliberate and expanded demonstrations of its unscientific character by the late lamented Agassiz been ever fairly met, much less overturned. I refer to these honored names for the benefit of that large class who must take their science upon faith in some scientific prophet or apostle, in default of any possibility of personal investigation of the facts. Indeed, to the great majority, even of so-called scientific men, their science must be founded upon faith in the dogma of some scientific pope and council. And to such it may be reassuring, amidst the evolutionists' cries of Science! Science! to know that a great many of the greatest scientists, in spite of all these confused assertions, do still believe in Almighty God, do call their souls their own, and hope when they die to go to heaven.
As a specimen of the contempt in which this theory is held by the princes of science, read the following extract of an address by Agassiz, at a recent meeting of the Academy of Science:[14]
"As I grow older in the ranks of science," said the professor, "I feel more and more the danger of stretching inferences from a few observations to a wide field. I see that the younger generation among naturalists are at this moment falling into the mistake of making assertions and presenting views as scientific principles which are not even based upon real observation. I think it is time that some positive remonstrance be made against that tendency. The manner in which the evolution theory in zoology is treated would lead those who are not special zoologists to suppose that observations have been made by which it can be inferred that there is in nature such a thing as change among organized beings actually taking place. There is no such thing on record. It is shifting the ground from one field of observation to another to make this statement, and when the assertions go so far as to exclude from the domain of science those who will not be dragged into this mire of mere assertion, then it is time to protest.
"He thought it was intolerant to say he was not on scientific grounds because he was not falling into the path which was occupied by those who maintain that all organized beings have been derived from a few original progenitors. Other supporters of the transmutation doctrine assume that they can demonstrate the changes to have taken place by showing certain degrees of resemblance; but what they never touch is the quality and condition of those few first progenitors