i?tatt Coriegc of agriculture ^t Cornell Winiiietsiits Mata. B. W. Hibvav^ Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924055007177 3 1924 055 007 177 STUDIES SCIENCE AND RELIGION. BY G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, AITTHOB OB" THE LOQIC OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, J[nir(tu^r: WARREN F. DRAPER. 1882. Entered according fo Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by WAREEN F. DEAFER, in the OfBce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. TO PEOF. ASA GEAT, whose discussions of natural theology are as persuasive as his contributions to botany are authouitative, with the affection and esteem of The Author. PEEFAOE. Strictly speaking, tlie present volume is a companion to the Logic of Christian Evidences, they being together the partial outcome of the author's studies in Inductive Logic, begun four- teen years ago. It was at first decided to style this. The Unity of Method in Science and Religion ; but that would have been more appropriate as a designation for the two volumes considered together as developments of the same principles when applied to difierent subjects. The Logic of Christian Evi- dences might be taken as an illustration of the inductive method applied to the proof of Chris- tianity, while the bulk of this may be regarded as an application of the same principles to the two most prominent scientific questions now engross- ing the attention of the public. We do not care to conceal our growing convic- tion that the best defences of Christianity, so far as it is a system of positive revelation, are not to be (V) VI PEEFACB. found in speculative philosophy. Christianity in its appeal to historical evidence allies itself with modern science rather than. with the glittering generalities of transcendentalism. It is proper, also, that the author should from his own experience bear testimony that the engrossing cares of a clergyman, in the midst of which these studies have been pursued, need not dull one's interest in scientific study ; and, on the other hand, that prolonged study of science does not of itself diminish one's respect for Christianity, and one's interest in the all-important work it is accomplishing for the world. The first chapter was published nearly in its present form in the New Englander, October 1871. The next four chapters appeared at various inter- vals in tlie Bibliotheca Sacra ; these have, however, been rewritten and enlarged to meet the demands of the present time. Chapter sixth is in the line of the author's original investigations, and will, with its illustrations, it is hoped, enlarge some- what the boundary of human knowledge. The last chapter, upon the Relations of the Bible to Science, might be longer ; but it is prob- ably best, in general, to treat the subject with PREFACE. Vll corresponding brevity. There is great danger of making too much of apparent conflict between science and religion. Before the scientific discov- erer affirms a discrepancy to exist, he should ask if correct principles have been applied to the inter- pretation of the portion of the Bible in question ; and the religious teacher may often evade a con- flict by asking concerning an alleged scientific dis- covery, What of it ? and then provisionally revis- ing his interpretation of Sci'ipture. He may be confident that the conflicts between science and religion will be concerning non-essential forms of expression ; for science cannot penetrate to the depths in which the springs of religious activity are hidden. Unless he knows well the ground, the religious leader is unwise if he abandons his strongholds of defense, " to carry the war into Africa," and to wage an uncertain contest in a field with which he is not familiar. Thanks are due to Mr. Geo. A. Bates of Salem, Mass., to Professor F. W. Putnam, Curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Cambridge, Mass., to Dr. C. C. Abbott of Trenton, N. J., and to Professor H. Carvill Lewis of Philadelphia, Pa., for the illustrations on pages 293, 297, 325, taken VIU PREFACE. Falaeolith from Abbeville, S'rahce, ^ The geological conditions under which the implements figured on this and the following page are found are very similar. For their relation to the glacial age see chapter vi. PRKFACE. IX Palaeolith from Trenton, N.J. | X PREFACE. from Dr. Abbott's^ recent, valuable, and exhaustive work on Primitive Industry of the Native Races of the Northern Atlantic Seaboard of America (Geo. A. Bates, Salem, Mass., 1881) ; and to Professor Dana for the cut on page 342 from the American Journal of Science. Of the five maps, II. is orig- inal ; I. is adapted from a map by Hitchcock, in New Hampshire Geological Report, Vol. 3 ; III. from Cook's Geological Report of New Jersey for 1878 ; IV. from Lyell's Travels in America (First Series) ; and V. from N. H. Winchell's Fifth Annual Report on the Geology of Minnesota. Important additions from original information have been made to I. and III. , In addition to the cuts in the body of the chap- ter, two made specially for this work are here presented, facing each other that the reader may compare the rough stone implements found in New Jersey with those found in similar conditions in Europe. The one on page eight is natural size, and is No. 3034 of the Mortillet Collection from Abbeville, France. The one on page nine is shortened one inch in the cut, and is proportion- ally narrow, the original being 5| inches long, and 3i wide. This is No. 19723 in Dr. Abbott's col- PREFACE. XI lection from Trenton. Both these collections are in the Archaeological Museum in Cambridge, Mass., where these specimens can at any time be seen. No. 19723 is specially interesting, because Professor Putnam took it with his own hands out of Trenton gravel from behind a small boulder which was firmly embedded four feet below the surface of the soil (see Proceeduigs of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. xxi. p. 149). For the sake of those who are not perfectly familiar with the order of the geologic formations, a table is here inserted. TABLE OP SEDIMENTARY STKATA. POST-TEETIARY ) „ „ „ „„„ „ ,, , > QUATEKNART or FLBISTOCBNB. (Age of Man.) ) CADfOZOIC or TERTIARY S Mio^cTnb^' (Age of Mammals.) < eocene. MESOZOICor SECONDARY ^ CRETACEons. (Age of Reptiles.) } Jurassic. PALEOZOIC or PRIMARY (Age of Invertebrates and Fishes.) Triassic. ' Permian. CARBONIFEROnS. Devonian. Silurian. Cambrian. . Lacrentian. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. Obbblin, Ohio, April 1882. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER L THE GROUND OF CONFIDENCE IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. The Problem of Induction stated, 1-7 ; Principles upon which it is solved, 7-15 ; Relation of the Solution to the Doctrine of Design in Nature, 15-24 ; Conclusion, 24-26. (pp. 1-26.) CHAPTER n. DARWINISM AS AN ILLUSTRATION OP THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Introductory, 27-33 ; Definition of Species, 33-38 ; Impor- tance and Difficulty of Classification, 38-41 ; Does a Species have more than one Centre of Dispersion ? 41—45 ; Distri- bution of Species in Space, 46-49 ; Species arranged in Clusters, 49-59 ; Distribution of Species in Time, 59-61 ; Connecting Links between Species, 61-66 ; Homologous and Rudimental Structures, 66-70 ; Analogous Variation, 70-72 ; Summary of Facts, 72-73 ; Propriety of Specula- tion upon the Problem, 74-76 ; Darwin's Method of Solu- tion, 76-78 ; Elasticity of Species, 78-81 ; Natural Selection, 81-83 ; The Struggle for Life, 83-89 ; Time as a Factor in the Equation, 89-92; Conspectus, 93-95. (pp. 27-95.) (xiii) Xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER m. OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM AND THE REJOINDERS OF ITS ADVOCATES. A Mere Theory, 96-98 ; Abrupt Appearance of Species, 98- 109; Absence of Intermediate Varieties, 109-113; Lapse of Time Insufficient for the Effects, 113-121 ; Existing Difficulties of Classification Inevitable under any Circum- stances, 121-125 ; Individual Variations Counteracted by Intercrossing, 125-128; Natural Selection and Specific Stability Incompatible, 128-132; Natural Selection In- operative in the Incipient Stages of Advantageous Vari- ation, 132-139; Independent Similarities of Structure, 139-143 ; Infertility of Hybrids, 143-146 ; Agassiz on the Significance of Embryology, 146-148 ; Natural Selec- tion Incompetent to Produce Beauty, 148-150 ; Natural Selection accounts for the Preservation of Species, but not for their Origin, 150-155 ; Natural Selection subject to Peculiar Limitations when applied to Man, 155-160 ; Conclusion, 160-164. (pp. 96-164.) CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE TRUE DOCTRINE OP FINAL CAUSE OR DESIGN IN NATURE. Is there Design in Nature ? 165-170 ; Paley did not Reason in a Circle, 1 70-1 75 ; Life does not Exist or Continue by Necessity, 1 76-181 ; Difficulties in the Way of an Exhaus- tive Interpretation of God's Designs in Nature, 182-186 ; The Doctrine of Second Causes involves Difficulties Anal- ogous to those in the Doctrine of Final Causes, 186-193 ; How fully can the Human Mind interpret the Design in Nature ? 193-205 ; The Revelation of God is the Highest End of Nature, 205-211. (pp. 165-211.) CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER V. 80MK ANALOGIES BETWEEN CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. Introductory Cautions, 212-214; Salient Features of Cal- vinism, 214-217; Ground of Opposition to Calvinism, 217-220; Darwinism not a Theory of Universal Pro- gress, 220-224 ; The Organic Connection of the Human Bace, 224-230 ; Evolution, Correlation, Design, Fore- ordination, and Free-will, 230-243 ; Calvinism and Darwinism assign similar Limits to the Speculative Faculty, 243-251 ; The Reign of Law, 251-254; Con- clusions, 254, 255. (pp. 212-255.) CHAPTER VI. AN ESSAY ON PREHI8T0KIC MAN. Greological Agencies of Preservation, 256-258 ; Instability of the Earth illustrated, 258-260 ; Early Man in Denmark, 260-262 ; Man progresses by Leaps rather than by Gradual Evolution, 268-265 ; Succession of Races in Europe, 266- 268; PalaeoUthic Man in the Old World, 268-278; Palaeo- lithic Man and the Glacial Period in Europe, 278-283; Prehistoric Man in California, 283-292 ; Palaeolithic Man in Trenton, N. J., 292-296 ; Relative Age of the Trenton Gravel, 296, 297 ; The Trenton Gravel and the Glacial Period, 298-308; Terraces, 309-311; Rames, 311-316; The Champlain Epoch, 317, 318; Glacial Floods of the Delaware Valley, 318-325 ; Date of the Glacial Epoch, 326-347 ; Man is Man even in the Savage State, 347-350. (pp. 256-350.) CHAPTER VIL RELATION or THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. Sense in which the Bible is regarded as Infallible, 851-355 ; Principles on which Scriptural Allusions to Science should be interpreted, 355-363 ; The Bible and Astronomy, 863- XVi CONTENTS. 365; The Bible and Geology, 365-367; The Bible and Evolution, 367-370 ; Chronology and the Bible, 371-377; Conclusion, 377-380. (pp. 351-380.) MAPS. I. Glaciated Region of North America, 307; 11. Portion of a Kame in Andover, Mass., 315 ; III. Glaciated Begion of the Delaware Valley, 321 ; IV. Preglacial and Post- glacial Gorges below Niagara Falls, 333; V. Preglacial and Post-glacial Gorges below the Falls of St. Anthony, 337. CUTS. 1. Palaeolith from Trenton Gravel, 293, also, viii., is. ; 2. Section of Delaware Valley above Trenton, 297; 3. Sec- tion of the Bluflf below Trenton, 325; 4. Section of Kettle- hole, Andover, Mass., 342. STUDIES SCIENCE AND RELIGION. CHAPTER I. THE GKOUND OF COMTDENCE IN EJDUCTIVE REASONING. 1. Weiters on logic find it difl&cult to defend the deductive syllogism from the charge of baldly begging the question. It is certainly harder to prove the major premise than to prove the conclu- sion. For example, it would seem impossible for those who state their syllogisms merely in exten- sion, to show that John is in the class mortal until they have proven that he is really mortal. If all men are mortal, how can it be known that John is a man before he dies ? In the hands of Sir William Hamilton the reasoning of the deductive' syllogism is repre- sented as merely an explication of the concept contained in the major premise. Upon this view the advance made through use of the syllogism is merely towards clearness of conception. In the a THE GEODND OP CONFIDENCE case referred to the attribute of mortality is post- ulated as a part of the concept man ; and the sentence " all men are mortal " is made to mean " all men possess mortality," that is, mortality is a part of the definition of the word " man." The difficulty in the reasoning is that we see the other attributes, while this of mortality re- mains yet to be realized. By what right does this element enter the concept " man " ? How is the unseen attribute of mortality so connected with those that are visible as necessarily to be joined to them ? This is no imaginary difficulty, but is a genuine paradox. Hamilton cuts the Gordian knot by maintaining that deductive logic relates only to the forms of truth, having no regard to the truth itself as involved in the major premise ; thus, in reality, throwing the whole bur- den of proof back into the field of induction, where the major premise itself must find its guarantee of truthfulness. Plainly this is an evasion rather than a solution of the mystery. John Stuart Mill denies that there are any imperative, universal propositions such as are wont to figure in the major premise of deductive syllogisms, and squarely defends the doctrine that all productive reasoning is strictly inductive. With him the deductive syllogism is valuable only as a convenient register of past observations by which we may readily check rash conclusions IN INDUCTIVE REABONING. 3 from too narrow an experience. The statement of the major premise leads us to go over the ground again, and assure ourselves of the exact force of our past experience. But the real rea- soning, he maintains, is from particulars to particulars. From observing that John, Thomas, and Harry are mortal, we advance to the conclu- sion that James, who is still alive, is mortal also. Here is not an explication of the more clearly known from the less clearly known, but the addi- tion of something entirely new.^ To ascertain the authority ■ for this something entirely new which is added in inductive reasoning is the object of our present inquiry. Hamilton avers that we advance from the limited observation to the universal conclusion by adding to it the force of the natural presumption " that nature is uniform in her operations." ^ This , presumption of the uniformity of nature's operations would be his authority for translating the " some " of inductive reasoning into the " all " of the deductive formulary. Tliis, however, he would not call a logical conclusion, but merely a " philosophical presumption " ; and the real ques- tion still remains, By what authority do we make this philosophical presumption ? For, as Hamilton 1 See Mill's Logic, Book ii. chap. 3. Examination of HamiUbn, Vol. ii. p. 195 (Spencer's ed., Boston, 1866). 2 Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 72, 510; Logic, pp. 451, 453 (Boston, 1865). 4 THE GROUND OF CONFIDENCE remarks, " In some cases the observation of a very few particulars or individual examples is sufficient to warrant an assertion in regard to the whole class ; in others the total judgment is hardly competent until our observation has gone through each of its constituent parts For example, it would require a far less induction to prove that all animals breathe than to prove that the mammalia, and the mammalia alone, have lateral lobes to the cerebellum." Mill states the difficulty even more forcibly :i " When a chemist announces the existence and properties of a newly-discovered substance, if we confide in his accuracy, we feel assured that the conclusions he has arrived at will hold universally, although the induction be founded but. on a sin- gle instance Here, then, is a general law of nature inferred without hesitation from a single instance — a universal proposition from a singu- lar one. Now mark another case, and contrast it with this. Not all the instances which have been observed since the beginning of the world in support of the general proposition that all crows are black would be deemed a sufficient presump- tion of the truth of the proposition to outweigh the testimony of one unexceptionable witness who . should affirm that in some region of the earth not fully explored he had caught and examined a 1 Logic, Book iii. chap. 3. IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 5 crow, aud had found it to be gray. Why is a single instance in some cases sufficient for a com- plete induction, while in others myriads of concur- ring instances, without a single exception known or presumed, go such a very little way toward establishing a universal proposition ? Whoever can answer this question knows more of the philosophy of logic than the wisest of the ancients, and has solved the great problem of induction." Hamilton attempts a solution by propounding a distinction between characters that are essential and characters that are unessential. Still he adds,^ " the difference of essential and accidental is one itself founded on induction, and varies according to the greater or less perfection to which this has been carried. In the progress of science, the lateral lobes of the cerebellum may appear to future physiologists as necessary a con- dition of the function of suckling their young as the organs of breathing appear to us of circulation and of life." Hamilton's distinction of essential and acci- dental characters seems to involve the same theory that is presented by Professor H. N. Day ,2 in which all inductive reasoning is made to depend upon the relation of part to complementary part. From one part of a causal whole, all the parts are necessarily inferred. There seems, however, to 1 Logic, p. 453. " Logic, pp. 195-902. 6 THE GROUND OP CONFIDENCE be some doubt -whether causal is used by him with reference to "final cause" at all, or wholly with regard to secondary causes. President Porter,^ advocating this distinction between essential and accidental characters, as giving validity to inductive reasoning, would de- termine what is essential and what accidental by a judicious appeal to the intuition of final causes. In his opinion, the decisive reason why we believe it to be a uniform law of nature that men's heads are situated above their shoulders on so much less evidence than we would believe it a uniform law of nature that birds having the anatomical structure of swans must always be white, is that the position of the head in the anatomical struct- ure is an essential attribute, while the color of the skin is an unessential attribute. The position of men's heads in their anatomical structure is essen- tial, because " otherwise they could not perform the functions of men with any convenience or success. Such a form would ofiend both the eye and the mind, and would be entirely incompatible with the ideal of beauty and convenience to which we assume nature would certainly conform." *' Considerations of convenience and of adapta- tion, and even of beauty and grace," he adds, " go far towards deciding the question. They give that weight and force to those ' single instances 1 Human Intellect, pp. 481, 482, et al. IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 7 which in some cases are sufl&cient for a complete induction,' and detract all force from ' the myriads of coiicurring instances ' in other directions." The assumption is here made that we are created in the image of God, and hence can positively inter- pret his ends and methods in creation. The other assumptions which he considers as underlying the inductive process are the reality, " first, of the distinction of substance and attribute ; second, of the causative relation ; third, of time and space ; fourth, of uniformity in the indications and opera- tions of nature ; fifth, of the adaptation of the beings and powers of nature to certain ends." Upon these he asserts, " the entire process of in- duction rests, and upon their validity is founded its trustworthiness." The object of the present discussion is to consider more critically and fully the degree of validity belonging to these various assumptions, and their relation to the real basis of confidence in induction. II. 1. In regard to the assumptions that there is a distinction between substance and attribute — being and phenomena — and, what amounts to the same thing in the end, the assumption that there is a relation of causality in the sense of secondary, or efficient, causality, we remark that these may be ruled out of the case, as tending to entangle the real problem with useless questions concerning ontology, or the nature of things in themselves. 8 THE GBOUND OP CONFIDENCE We need not for the purposes of the present discussion concern ourselves with the question whether we can hy experience get back of the attributes of substance, the phenomena of being, or the effects of causes. So far as all confidence in inductive reasoning is concerned, we shall not be embarrassed by adopting the phrase of Mill, " permanent possibility of phenomena," as being all there is between us and God. The words " permanent possibility " would here cover all the ground of secondary causes needed for the argument. 2. The assumption with regard to the so-called law of uniformity in nature needs restatement. What, for example, do writers mean when they say that belief in the uniformity of nature's opera- tions is the ground of our confidence that the sun will rise to-morrow ? They certainly do not speak of an absolute uniformity, for no one denies that the movements which occasion the phenomena of sun-rising had a beginning. The nebular hypoth- esis agrees with others regarding that. Nor do they mean that these motions are necessarily to continue forever. This appears forcibly in the accotiut Mill gives of his belief in to-morrow's sun-rising.^ He believes that he discovers so many causes in operation to produce the rising of the sun to-morrow, that there could not bo coun- ^ Logic^ Book iii. chap. 19. IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 9 teracting causes enough in operation to prevent it in so short a time, without exhibiting signs of their presence to-day. Still he admits that, if asked whether the sun will rise a million years hence, he has no answer. As it stands this answer of Mill is evidently fallacious. What ground has he for believing that causes sufl&cient to counteract the forces pro- ducing the phenomena of the sun-rising to-morrow, must exhibit themselves to-day, i.e. one day before their efifectuation ? Why does a million of years change the conditions of the problem ? Has he never heard of nitro-glycerine, which presents a constant and harmless set of phenomena under a great variety of circumstances, but only awaits some otherwise insignificant changes to complete the conditions necessary to bring its explosive properties into working order ? What grounds of confidence have we that there are not in the solar system forces analogous to this ? If it is answered : such phenomena are extremely rare in nature's large operations, we ask what is a long interval in eternal time, and what is a large opera- tion ? Our experience, for good reasons, has not taught us the exact accompaniments of the explo- sion of a solar system ; but certainly there is no natural impossibility in its taking place without premonition. Nor is there any allowance made in this answer for the supposition that a personal 10 THE GROUND OP CONFIDENCE ruler of the universe may be operating by such catastrophes as we have supposed, for the pur- pose of promoting the ultimate good of his crea- tion. It will thus be seen that such a question as that immediately before us cannot be settled with- out discussing the question of the existence and discoverability of final causes in the constitution and laws of the physical creation. , Consider now another instance. It is not exaggeration to aflBrm that our present material civilization is built upon the belief, that iron will continue to exhibit its well-known attributes of hardness, tenacity, and non-explosiveness. There is, however, no natural absurdity in supposing that the earth may come into such different rela- tions to the forces operating in the universe that iron shall lose some of these properties, and be- come utterly unreliable for the purposes to which it is now put. Indeed, the forces of nature are so multifarious, and their interactions so nearly infinite, that it is well nigh absurd for us to speak of the uniformity of its working in material things. Everything changes. There may be a conserva- tion oi force, but there are infinite changes of form. This is especially noticeable in the organic world. Both the Darwinians and their opponents admit that nature is not uniform in her products, but works on a line of development. It has come to be a postulate in natural history that nature IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 11 never exactly repeats herself. On any theory, when one species dies its place is somehow sup- plied by a new species. Absolute uniformity is not proved to be a law of nature anywhere in the physical world. To be valid our reasoning must take into consideration not merely the nature of the things themselves, but as well the nature of all things acting upon them and modifying them. 3. But as has just been remarked, we cannot avoid considering the question of our ability to discover final causes in the phenomena about us. As this subject is still obscured by an indefinite use of language, it will facilitate matters to draw what we consider to be the real distinction between deduction and induction. Deduction may be de- fined as the process by which man enlarges his knowledge of the things that have no dependence upon a personal Creator. Time, space, and the moral law in its highest sense are not objects of creation. They are necessary forms under which all creation proceeds. Pure mathematics and moral philosophy deal theoretically with these forms. These sciences are built up wholly and purely by deduction. Inductive logic, on the other hand, deals with the particular facts occurring under the necessary forms with which deduction has to do — facts which depend upon the action of a personal Creator. In this realm no other than iuductive, or what is 12 THE GROUND OP CONFIDENCE really the same thing, analogical, reasoning is possible. The problem of inductive reasoning, however, is not so forbidding as would appear at first glance, for we have a body of experimental facts to guide us toward a conclusion. We are not compelled, as some suppose, to evolve the whole conception of nature out of our own consciousness. We are not left to foretell from a priori knowledge what the Creator would do under the all-pervading conditions of infinite space, eternal time, and a perfect moral law. In inductive reasoning we start with the facts of experience, and proceed upon the assumption (the ground of which we do not here discuss) that the Creator works in accordance with the highest wisdom for the highest good of being. In this conception the " good of being " is the abso- lute, final cause of the creation, both when con- sidered as a whole and in its several parts. No statement less general than this meets all the conditions of the problem. No single and limited good can be assigned as the final cause of any contrivance in nature. The real final cause of any contrivance in nature is the sum of all the uses to which it is ever to be put. Any use to which a contrivance in nature is put, we may be sure formed a part of the Creator's purpose in causing it to be. An element in making up the final cause of the existence of a particular tree, IN INBUCTIVE REASONING. 13 for example, is the good the birds get out of it in building their nests in its branches. But the birds would be very far from the truth were they to regard *that good as exhausting the purposes for which the tree exists. A part of the manifest design of the human form is to embody ideas of physical beauty, and to serve man's temporal pleasure and convenience. But it may be as dif- ficult for us to tell beforehand just how groat a share of the final causes of the creation of our bodies consists of the good thus derived, as for the swallows to tell what portion of the final cause for building the barn consisted in the convenience it affords them for the purposes of nest-building. In a world where there is, without question, moral disorder we cannot tell, without going beyond the evident limit of human acquirements, how much of physical deformity and iigliness is necessary for discipline. Taking the facts as we find them, it would be diflBcult for us to say in so plain a case apparently, for instance, as that of the final cause for the ex- istence of our teeth, whether they were chiefly designed to assist the stomach in digestion, or for purposes of moral discipline through their liability to disease and decay. They certainly do not assist the stomach as much as they might. Recurring to the idea that beauty and grace in the human form are the final cause of its being 14 THE GROUND OP CONFIDENCE shaped as it is, we' would ask where is the ground of confidence that that element of beauty which undoubtedly enters as one factor in the sum of good composing the final cause of thfe creation of some individuals and some races may not in other circumstances be overborne by such moral considerations as require that ugliness of physical form and inconvenience of locomotion shall be the general result ? Who but he that knows all things shall say beforehand that a race of beings with their heads anywhere but on their shoulders might not be a necessary accompaniment of certain develop- ments of sin — i.e. necessary for the highest good ? Who would be so bold as to say that nowhere, never, shall human beings be found in bodies con- forming to the grotesque and horrid shapes that filled the imagination of Daiite ? Are there not, in fact, many deformities of disease which well nigh realize some of the strangest of his visions of bodily deformity in " Inferno " ? And as matter of fact, other peculiarities of anatomical structure, like the appearance of rudi- mentary forms for which there can be no assign- able use discovered, are as persistent in their continuance as is that of the relation of the head to the spinal column. So that practically we must fall back upon Mill's process of solving the paradox, viz. that the statement that men existed with heads beneath their shoulders would have IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 15 to be established against all analogy ; while en- dence that what were crows in everything else but color, were sometimes gray instead of black, would have the antecedent improbability against it al- most all removed by what is familiar in regard to variability of color in other birds and animals. In consenting to this statement of the case, however, we do not abandon the assumption of final cause, but only prepare the way for introducing it in another form. III. Let us now give formal and fuller state- ment to the exact truth regarding the extent of our knowledge upon this subject. The -assumptions which underlie all inductive reasoning are four in number : 1. The " good of being " is the absolute final cause of all things. 2. God's choice of the good of being and his wisdom in promoting it are the only actual and absolute uniformities. We do not discuss here the genesis of these ideas ; that is remanded to natural theology and metaphysics proper.^ Nor do we propose to show how with these postulates all the diflSculties of the universe can be solved, for it would require an infinite mind to understand all that an infinite mind might do. It will be seen at once that with 1 For a brief discussion of this theme see the author's Logic of Christian Evidences. Part II. Chap. 1. 16 THE GROUND OF CONFIDENCE these postulates alone a finite being could not do much either at ■world-making or at world-inter- preting. On mere a priori grounds we cannot determine accurately the proximate ends that would conduce to the good of being ; and with our limited experience we can hope to determine proximate ends only about as accurately as we can guess how mauy grains of sand make a hand- ful. That the creation is calculated to promote the good of being we may be sure. This involves only the two assumptions that the goodness of God designed it for that end ; and that his wisdom has not been amiss in its arrangements. 3. We assume that the universe is a " solidar- ity" — that nothing is made in vain — that every part is a complement to every other part. That is a corollary from the wisdom of God ; but is not exactly the same principle as what is usually styled the law of parsimony. The simplest means for attaining certain ends cannot be determined till we know what the ends are. Men wliose business is transportation might insist that the law of parsimony demanded that all rivers should be straight and of gentle current, if, indeed, of any current at all. Whereas farmers and mill-owners would enlarge the conception of the law so as to have it include their individual ends. Thus the law of parsimony really can exist only in relation to the final cause as we have IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 17 defined it above. The economy of contrivance can be estimated only from its fitness to promote the good of being in general. Hence, we cannot say that the law of parsimony characterizes any contrivance in its relation to any single or proxi- mate end. The difficulty in the way of our interpretation of nature lies in our limited capacity and expe- rience. Were there another infinite mind, he could understand the meaning of the whole uni- verse from an inspection of any part. To such a mind, " the part brings the whole with it, as absolutely as the whole brings the part." The problem, then, in inductive reasoning is not merely to ascertain what appears in the narrow circle of our observation, but rather to determine the significance of what appears, — to divine what other phenomena they indicate as connected with them, and thus to enlarge our knowledge by rea- soning upon the facts of experience. Properly we assume that nothing would have been just what it is except everything else had been just what it has been. Putting our experience and our a priori ideas together, our great business in life is to strike out before us a line of practical belief and action. The nature and difficulties of the problem will be illustrated by those that would meet a ship- builder while inspecting a strange vessel in process of construction. He has this positive knowledge 18 THE GEOUN]> OP CONFIDENCE to start with, that every portion of the vessel rep- resents some idea of the builder ; but in interpret- ing that idea he labors under several very serious embarrassments. He may not know whether his own ideas of economy of construction are the same with those of the builder. That the ship is designed for the good of being he may be sure, but by just what methods it is designed to promote the good of being, whether by its fast-sailing properties or by its. strength, he cannot know, except from the indications given in the part before him. If he were examining the engine designed for a Monitor, its strength might suggest a fast-sailing steamer, or one designed for long ocean voyages. While a Monitor was being put in shape by Erio- son, one who had no conception of the wants of modern warfa,re would have had insuperable dif- ficulties in inferring the idea of it from an incom- plete specimen. A Phoenician mariner might ex- amine even a completed one without catching the idea at all. So it must be admitted that we are most incompetent judges of the- practical reasons for the creation of such crafts as the infinite mind has launched on eternity's sea. Still it would not do for us to deny ourselves all power of interpret- ing proximate ends. Build we should, and build we must. It is of infinite concern that we know what our foundation is, that we may determine how high it is safe to build. IN INDUCTIVB REASONING. 19 . 4. The Veracity of God. An appeal is sometimes made to the veracity of God, as if that gave the ground of confidence in inductive reasoning. When God has done a thing nine times we take this as a promise that he will do it the tenth time. In efifect this postulate is equivalent to that of the uniformity of nature. It should be noted, however, that God's veracity can- not be made manifest to us abpolutely, except with reference to the ultimate end of all things. For we cannot perfectly translate the language of an infinite being — we cannot fully understand any contrivance designed to secure an end so far off, and composed of so many items, as the general good of being. Hence it is, both in theory and in fact, that only by the most laborious processes do we sift out the things that seem in nature from the things that are. Great pains are taken in the uni- verse, as Coleridge says, to " show how cheap dirt is." Numerous elaborate material contrivances seem to have been made for the purpose of being destroyed, so that thereby the moral creation might be forced to think of its own superlative worth. The gourd grew not so much to shelter Jonah's head as to point a moral when it was withered. The Paley line of argument respecting design in nature is especially faulty in the exaggerated im- portance it attaches to economy of contrivance for the accomplishment of mere material ends. God'a 20 THE GROUND OF CONFIDENCE ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts' than our thought!. Moral ends are infinitely superior to material ends. Let it not be supposed, however, that we are left in total ignorance of the ideas of God. If we were wc could not reason at all. In proportion as we come to understand the most imperative wants of our spiritual nature, we shall be able to discern the significance of the things that surround us. Hence, we may assume as a corollary from God's love that the exhibition of his veracity mil he of such hind as to give us opportunity to supply our wants — the wants lohich he has created. This follows also from his wisdom, which has made everything adapted to everything else. Now one of man's deepest needs is that of a tolerable degree of uniformity in the material and spiritual facts which he takes as a basis on which to build his character. It is not absolute reign of proximate laws that is needed ; for that would not sufficiently educate his spiritual powers. Man needs uniformity enough to serve as a basis for practical morality. He needs uncertainty enough to develop his sagacity. He requires that changes should approach slowly enough to ^ive his limited understanding fair opportunity to adapt itself to the varying circumstances. It is of prime impor- tance that proximate causes should be so perma- nent and of such ease of apprehension, as properly IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 21 to develop our sagacity, and to reward us with an amount of certainty such that we can make safe calculation concerning the future. If it be objected that in the use of the words " tolerable," " fair," " properly," etc., and in the involved structure of the sentence the meaning is left somewhat vague, the answer is that it is im- portant to leave the statement just as vague as the facts. The rule can at best be only approxi- mate. Inductive reasoning, as Hamilton truly says, can never be demonstrative. Its conclusions have only a greater or less degree of probability. In many cases the observations may have been so extensive that the probability would hardly be distinguished from a certainty. In chemical sci- ence, for example, the appearance of certain phenomena may be taken as almost demonstrative evidence that other' definite possibilities of phe- nomena are permanently connected with those that come under the field of observation. To take an example that has only theoretical importance, we rely with great confidence upon the revelations of the spectroscope concerning the nature of the light that comes to us from the sun and stars, and rest assured that if we could get at them with other tests, we should find the burning substances which furnish the light of those orbs exhibiting the whole group of phenomena that are known to be connected with the corresponding lines of light, 22 THE GEOUND OF CONFIDENCE as it is spread out on the spectrum of various burning metals tnat we experiment on here. It is very clear that moral beings, like ourselves, could not attain the " summum bonum ■' in any such state of uncertainty as would exist if phe- nomena, cross-questioned as those of chemical science are, could not be depended upon as prac- tically permanent, — not permanent forever, per- haps, but as aflfording safe ground for calculation, somewhat as the ice on our northern rivers furnishes good roads for a season, though nothing but the low degree of the heat it possesses keeps it from running like any other water. Of all the contrivances adapting things to this need of the moral nature for tolerable permanence of phenomena, perhaps the most wonderful is that constitution of society resulting in the fact that the number Of births, marriages, and deaths, and various other social events, in a large section of country usually remains for long periods about as uniform from year to year as anything that appears in the purely physical world. Here is uniformity without sameness of substance, in the ordinary ac- ceptance of that word, and such as to afford a basis for political and social organizations. In attempting to discover these uniformities^ our supposed knowledge of the specific ends essen- tial to the final end of all creation must be used with the greatest caution. Our success depend? IN INDUCTIVE REASONING. 2S upon the exercise of such accuracy, comprenen- siveness, and discrimination in the observation of facts that the veracity of God shall be implicated in our conclusions. With our moral natures and heeds such as they are, God's actions which d,re seen become, within certain indefinite limits, prom- ises of what shall be in the future. If we can only interpret it, one part of what God does truly rep- resents the whole of what he does. This corollary, which results from our primitive belief in God's wisdom and benevolence, as related to the wants which he has impressed upon our nature, lies at the bottom of all our confidence in inductive reasoning. We have to do in this realm first of all with final causes, as defined above. And sec- ondly, with the marks in creation, which reveal what, with that end in view, the actual plan of divine wisdom is. The moral nature of man really furnishes the inductive philosopher with the postulates upon which he bases his reasoning. The assumption of a jsupreme designer, and of a final cause, accompanies the man of science at every step of his progress. He does not prove divine goodness and wisdom ; he studies their manifestations.^ MilP defines a complete induction as " one in 1 For the ground of this assumption consult the author's Logic of Christian Evidences, pp. 75-87. 2 Examination of Ham., Vol. 11. p. 162. note. ' 24 THE GROUND OP CONFIDENCE which the nature of the instances is such that no other result than the one arrived at is consistent with the universal law of causation." This defi- nition may be accepted with the proviso that the universal law sliall be understood as that which is in the realm of final causes, as defined above. To speak of any universal law of causation short of that, i.e. among efficient causes, as Mill under- stands them, is pure dogmatism. No universal law of causation can be proved outside the realm of final causes ; and in that realm we are abso- lutely sure only of the corollaries flowing from the assumed wisdom and goodness of God. In this view induction is only another word for interpretation — interpretation of the ideas of God as they are revealed in creation through the phe- nomena of matter and of mind. IV. The line of reflection in which this discus- sion leads is of very great importance at the present time. The looseness of thought concerning final causes so habitual with some schools of theology, the positive manner in which certain proximate and, for all we know, incidental ends are fixed upon by many as the final cause for particular forms of development in nature, and the tendency of the intuitional school of philosophy to bring into the discussion some things as intuitions which are not, greatly embarrass us in our dis- cussion with men of leanings to what is called m INDUCTIVE REASONING. 25 "positive philosophy," and needlessly multiply the topics of controversy with them. The theory here maintained leaves range enough to satisfy the roving propensities of any reasonable explorer in the realms of natural science. It allows Darwin and his opponents to fight out on purely scientific grounds the battle between their theories. It gives Mill and his school a tether as long as eternity, and liberty to roam up and down all spaee un- fettered by anything except the infirmities of their own powers. Let them open the book of nature and read, only they must not be allowed to read too much between the lines. Our views would limit somewhat the number of what are generally received by the intuitional school as first truths. If, however, some of the outposts are deserted, it is in order that we may intrench ourselves in an impregnable position. This line of thought has important bearings upon the proper defence of the credibility of the Bible, and of its purported revelation of a posi- tive religion. The principles determining the correctness of our interpretation of nature are not different in kind from those determining the trusts worthiness of our interpretation of the written revelation. The difierence is only in degree. In the evidences of Christianity the assumption of final cause comes not more absolutely, but only more prominently, into play. The evidences of 26 INDUCTIVE REASONING. Christianity are inductive like those of science. They rest on observations of facts so peculiar and extensive that when coupled with the known wants of man, and with the assumption of divine benev- olence and wisdom, God's veracity is implicated in their truth. A certain degree of uniformity in the operations of God in furnishing historical evidences is as securely established, and estab- lished .upon the same principles, as is the approx- imation to uniformity pervading the phenomena of the physical world. In both cases we have to assume that there are ascertainable marks impli- cating the divine veracity. Some principles partially developed here may also help us to a broader, deeper, and more rational interpretation of Bible history and types and prophecies. The machinery of interpretation known as the " analogy of faith " has by no means yet revealed the full measure of its power. The importance of having specific doctrines, like those of immortality, the atonement, and future judgment, come to us weighted with all the evi- dence of tliat wide induction of facts establishing the general trutli of the Bible can hardly be over- estimated. And, in turn, the weight of evidence wliich this meeting of the wants of man by the Bible supplies to the whole system of Christianity is not now appreciated as it should be. CHAPTER n. DARWINISM AS AN ILLUSTEATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. I. Introdnctorj. Dr. Whewell,^ in his chapter on the " Relation of Tradition to Palaetiology," has with great wis- dom and candor discussed the relations that ought to subsist between theologians and men of science. He shows, in the first place, how the promulgators of religious truth are compelled to avoid reference to the more recondite matters of science, for fear of calling attention away from the weightier mat- ters of the spiritual life that more personally con- cern men. He points out that the flexibility of the Scriptures in adapting their teaching to scien- tific discoveries arises chiefly from this excellence, that their language is " adapted to the common state of man's intellectual development, in which he is supposed not to be possessed of science." ^ But from these facts there must arise trials of faith. " The moral and providential relations of man's condition are so much more important to 1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 137-] 57. ^ Ibid , p. 143- %1 28 SCIENTIFIC METHOD him than mere natural relations, that at first we may well suppose he will accept the sacred nar- rative, as not only unquestionable in its true import, but also as a guide in his views even of mere natural relations. He will try to modify the conceptions which he entertains of objects and their properties, so that the sacred narrative of the supernatural condition shall retain the first meaning which he had put upon it in virtue of his own habits in the usage of language." ^ In the same chapter it is very well remarked that physical science can tell us nothing of the origin of things. " The thread of induction re- specting the natural course of the world snaps in our fingers when we try to ascertain where its beginning is. Since, then, science can teach us nothing positive respecting the beginning of things, she can neither contradict nor confirm what is taught by Scripture on that subject The providential history of the world has its own beginning and its own evidence." ^ Another fact of great interest is noticed by the same author. " Scientific views, when familiar, do not disturb the authority of Scripture When the language of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas which it calls up are quite as ' The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 141, 142. 2 Ibid., p. 145. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 29 reconcilable as the former ones were with the most entire acceptance of the providential dispensation. And when this has been found to be the case, all cultivated persons look back with surprise at the mistake of those who thought that the essence of the revelation was involved in their own arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance in the re- vealed narrative. At the present day we can hardly conceive how reasonable men could ever have imagined that religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty and use of the luminaries which revolve round it, would be interfered with by an acknowledgment that this rest and motion are apparent only. And thus the authority of revelation is not shaken by any changes introduced by the progress of science in the mode of interpreting expressions which de- scribe physical objects and occurrences ; provided the new interpretation is admitted at a proper season and in a proper spirit ; so as to soften, as much as possible, both the public controversies and the private scruples which almost inevitably accompany such an alteration." ^ The question is then raised as to the proper time and spirit in which the " religious and en- lightened commentator " is to make such changes in the current interpretation of sacred Scripture 1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 146, 147. See also. History of Inductive Science, Vol. i. p. 286. 30 SCIENTIFIC METHOD as shall adjust it to new scientific theories. "We may sum up his views in two or three easily remem- bered sentences. (1) Do not make scientific dif- ficulties for the sake of adjusting Scripture to them. The conservation of religious feeling is of so much value that it is a crime to disturb it wan- tonly, or before there is a tolerably clear case of necessity. (2) Face the difficulties manfully when they appear, and show the same candor in your treatment of scientific men that you would ask them to exhibit to you. Both theologians and men of science should remember, as Kepler says, that " it is for their common advantage to concili- ate the finger and the tongue of God — his works and his word." ^ There is great loss in unrea- sonably delaying the concessions which biblical interpreters must from time to time make to science. The proofs of an external revelation must be considered by inductive philosophers. To assume that religious belief and scientific induction are totally diverse in their character is an unpardon- able error ; for the same principles of reasoning are employed in forming the one which come into play in securing the other. Scientific induction cannot take the reasoner beyond the realm of faith, and the hopes of religion spring out of a legitimate scientific induction. 1 Quoted by Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 153. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 31 We are confident that the present bent of the sci- entific mind is peculiarly favorable to that style of reasoning by which the credibility and authority of the Bible have been establislied. In its efibrts to account for the origin of species, science is taking a higher aim than has heretofore been seriously maintained by any large number of her votaries. Scientific men now strive to do far more than observe and classify. They seek the deeper meaning of the facts which they observe, and are endeavoring to trace out the bond of order which all believe to reign supreme in nature. This kind of intellectual endeavor is congenial to the theological mind. Because, therefore, the work is both important and appropriate we make bold to enter the arena. There is constantly danger of misunderstanding arising between the students of nature and the in- terpreters of the Bible. They who should dwell together in peace are too often at war with one another. It is our purpose to mediate between these parties, to show how asperities may be avoided, to illustrate the principles of reasoning which both hold in common, and more definitely to mark out the provinces in which each may have undisputed sway. In another treatise we have examined the basis of facts UDon which the structure of Christian 32 SCIENTIFIC METHOD faith is reared.^ The unity of method pervading our reasoning upon both science and religion will now be shown to best advantage by drawing out at some length, for purposes of comparison, the arguments by which a widely accepted scientific theory is supported. Not long ago naturalists and theologians were in a heated discussion over the " Unity of the Human Race." The doctrine of the immutability of species was pushed by some to such an extreme that they declared it incredible that the different races of men could have descended from a single pair. Professor Agassiz was an advocate of this view ; and to a former generation his name was a terror to orthodox interpreters of the Bible. Even in 1872 Dr. Charles Hodge made the assertion that the unity of the human race is denied by " a large and increasing class of scientific men." ^ It would gratify a good deal of curiosity if the learned doctor had informed his readers fi'om what ranks this "large class of scientific men," who disbelieve in the unity of the human race, is receiving so many recruits ; for it seems to appear on the face of almost all recent works scientifically treating the subject of vegetable or animal life, that the question of the day is not whether the human 1 See the anther's Logic of Christian Evidences. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 1880. ^ Systematic Theology, Vol. ii. p. 77. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 38 races are of common origin, but whether the whole animal kingdom may not have descended in un- broken lines from one progenitor. 11^ Definition of Species. In approaching the question which of late years has so deeply agitated the students of natural his- tory, it is necessary first to ask, What is a Species ? Indeed, the whole discussion of the Darwinian theory has reference to the meaning of this ambig- uous and ill-defined word. With the objects immediately before us it probably would not be best to plunge deeply into the philosophical mazes opened by the discussions concerning nominalism and realism, though, in fact, these mediaeval mysteries are more closely related to modern scientific theories than is generally supposed. For example, a prominent question, involved in the study of natural history, has always been, What part does inheritance play in giving to individuals that degree of likeness which constitutes them one species ? The ordi- nary answer has been that the points of likeness which characterize a species are the result of the law of inheritance ; while the differences which constitute varieties and sub-varieties are the re- sult of the action of the diverse conditions of existence. Upon inspecting the definitions of naturalists it will be seen that the question of the 8 34 BCIENTIPIC METHOD derivative origin of species turns upon the theories entertained concerning the reality of secondary causes, and upon tlie prevailing conception re- specting the Creator's relation to the universe. Is God's relation to nature immanent or transcen- dent ? Is there a connection of physical causation between the successive phenomena of nature, or is the succession momentarily dependent upon the •will of the Creator ? God is the first cause of all things, the good of being is the final cause ; is there between these a real mechanism of secondary causes, or is there only the semblance of such a mechanism ? The definition of species given by Professor Dana is sufficiently realistic.^ " A species among living beings, as well as inorganic, is based on a specific amount or condition of concentred force defined in the actor law of creation," i.e. a species is a real unfolding of a real force, and by whatever act or law of creation defined, is the realization of a well-defined divine idea. But even this definition, distinct as it is in recognizing the creative act which is the initiatory cause of the species, does not determine the mode through which the creative impulse reaches its realization in natural forms. For anything given in this definition, it may be ^supposed that the forces which became at last per- manently concentred into the specific forms of life, 1 See Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. xiv. p. 861. ILLUSTRATED BT DARWINISM. 35 ran in devious and independent channels during all the time preceding tlieir intersection, and only then, and by consequence, produced what we call the species. A somewhat similar definition is that of Jor- dan : 1 " that which is tlie common ground and identical in all the representatives of the same species, that is the species." According to Linnaeus,^ " Species are as nu- merous as the diverse forms which were produced by the Infinite Being at the beginning ; which forms, according to hidden laws of generation, have produced more, but always like themselves." lu the words of Professor Oliver, " All indi- vidual plants which resemble each other so nearly that it is consistent with experience to suppose that they may all have sprung from one parent stock, are regarded as belonging to the same species."^ Agassiz, however, insists that to bring 1 Prom De CandoUe's G&graphie Botanique, Tom. ii. p. 1073; quoted in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Jan. 1882, by the late Professor Leonard S. Marsh in an elaborate and able essay upon the " Prac- tical Determination of Species." This Essay received the Talua- ble editorial supervision of Prof. J. E. Goodrich. '' " Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio produxit Infinitum Ens ; quae formae, secundum generationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes." — Philosophia Botanica (1770), 5 157, p. 99. Quoted in Jevon's Principles of Science, Vol. ii. p. 415. » Lessons in Elementary Botany. By David Oliver, E.B.S., F.L.S., etc. (3d ed., London, 1870), p. 122. 36 SCIENTIFIC METHOD in descent from one parent stock, as an element in the definition of species, is an entire begging of the question, and serves only to add perplexity to the subject;^ for no one has ever preserved the genealogy of plant or animal. Professor A.sa Gray contents himself with saying that " a species in biological natural history is a chain or series of organisms of which the links, or component individuals, are parent and offspring." ^ With this statement agrees that of Cuvier, who says that species should be defined as " the reunion of individuals descended one from another or from common parents and from those which resemble them as much as they resemble each other." ^ That of the elder De CandoUe is more definite. According to him, " Species is a collection of all the individuals which resemble each other more than they resemble others ; which can by sexual union produce fertile offspring ; and which re- produce themselves in such wise that it might be sxxpposed by analogy that they have all proceeded originally from the same parents."* The question immediately arises, How are we to prove that the individuals of a species have a com- 1 See Essay on Classification, p. 163 ff. 2 See Flora of North America, Vol. 1. Introduction. New York, 1879. 8 Cnvier, B^ne Animal. Paris, 1817. Tom. i. p. 19, quoted by Prof. Marsh. (See note above, p. 35 J. * Alph. De CandoUe, Geographic Botanique, Tom. ii. p. 1072. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 37 mon ancestry ? And it becomes evident that there can be no proof of the statement aside from what is inferential. " Individual plants [or animals] which resemble each other so nearly that it is con- sistent with experience to suppose that they may all have sprung from one parent stock " are inferred to have a common ancestry, becaiise inheritance is, in the case of plants and animals, a cause of resemblance known to be in operation on the most extended scale; and furthermore, it is the only known cause of such resemblance. It is, there- fore, by no false analogy that inheritance is brought in as the bond of unity in the constitution of a species. The reality of the bond, however, is necessarily a matter of inference ; and naturalists experience a vast amoimt of perplexity in deter- mining how great a degree of unlikeness is com- patible with descent from a common ancestry. The practical difl&culty encountered by naturalists in defining species may be seen in a statement of Professor Gray. " In a flora so small as the British, one hundred and eighty-two plants generally reckoned as varie- ties have been ranked by some botanists as species. Selecting the British genera which include the most polymorphous forms, it appears that Babing- ton's Flora gives them two hundred and fifty-one species, Bentham's only one hundred and twelve ; a difference of one hundred and thirty-nine doubt- 38 SCIENTIFIC METHOD ful forms Illustrations of this kind may be multiplied to a great extent." ^ Commenting upon these facts, the same distin- guished botanist remarks : " They make it plain that whether species in nature are aboriginal and definite or not, our practical conclusions about them, as embodied in systematic works, are not facts hat Judgments, and largely fallible judgments. We are constrained by our experience to ad- mit the strong likelihood, in botany, that varieties, on the one hand, and what are called closely-related species, on the other, do not differ except in degree. Whenever this Wider difference separating the latter can be spanned by intermediate forms, as it some- times is, no botanist long resists the inevitable conclusion Whether we should continue to regard the forms in question as distinct species, depends upon what meaning we shall finally attach to that term ; and that depends upon how far the doctrine of derivation can be carried back, and how well it can be supported." But this question runs insensibly into others of a kindred nature. The foregoing and the two fol- lowing sections are one problem in three forms of statement. UI. Importance and Difficulty of Classification. It is not optional with the scientific man whether he classify the facts of nature. He 1 Darwiniana, pp. 34, 35. ILLUSTRATED BY DABWINISM. 39 must classify or retire from the field. Unless lie groups things according to their prominent re- semblances, disregarding, meanwhile, their minor differences, the man of science will be put to utter confusion by the interminable number of objects claiming his attention. Even as it is, the progress of science in enumerating so-called species is rapidly outstripping the power of retention which a single finite mind may possess. For example, botanists enumerate more than one hundred thou- sand species of phaenogamous plants; zoologists, more than three hundred and fifty thousand species of animals. There are three hundred thousand species of the class articulata, and twenty-one thousand of vertebrata.^ The elder De CandoUe spent a long life on a descriptive catalogue of phaenogamous plants. His son took up the work, but afterwards abandoned it in despair. It is esti- mated that nearly four hundred years would be required for one man to arrange and systematically describe them.^ Between four and five hundred closely-printed octavo pages are required for their enumeration of the species of the Leguminous family,^ and between sixteen and seventeen hun- dred for those of the great family of Compositae. Were it not for the fact that there is method in 1 See Dana's Manual of Geology (1st ed.), p. 575. 2 See Popular Science Monthly, April, 1874. Also, Nation, Vol. xviii. p. 42. 8 Lindley's Ladies' Botany, Vol. i. p. 122. 40 SCIENTIFIC METHOD the relation of this vast multitude of species to one another, naturalists might well cease from the work of classification, and limit themselves to the contemplation of the individuals. But species do not have a hap-hazard existence ; they fall into a hierarchy of orders. "It is a truly wonderful fact — the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity — that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in groups, subordinate to groups, in tlie manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of the same species most closely related together ; species of the same genus less closely and un- equally related together, forming sections and sub-genera ; species of distinct genera much less closely related; and genera related in different degrees forming sub-families, families, orders, sub- classes, and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single- file, but seem clustered round points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles." ^ " According to the laws of botanical nomen- clature adopted by the International Botanical Congress held at Paris in August 1867, no less than twenty-one names of classes [i.e. grades of re- lationship] are recognized, viz. Kingdom, Division, 1 Darwin's Origin of Species, p. 104. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 41 Sub-division, Class, Sub-class, Cobort, Sub-cohort, Order, Sub-order, Tribe, Sub-tribe, Genus, Sub- genus, Section, Sub-section, Species, Sub-species, Variety, Sub-variety, Variation, Sub-variation." ^ IT. Does a Species have more than one Centre of Dispersion 2 There are few intellectual operations more in- teresting than to observe the method of natural- ists as they attack some of the more difficult problems concerning the distribution of the mem- bers of a single species. When, for example, the same, or apparently the same, species of animal or plant is found distributed over both England and the Continent, the question at once arises, How was this distribution effected ? In seeking an answer we shall here, as in all inductive reason- ing, find that the law of parsimony, or the prin- ciple of the continuity of naturo, is of the highest importance.'^ Upon this fundamental point Professor Gray remarks : " The ordinary and generally-received view assumes the independent, specific creation of each kind of plant and animal in a primitive stock, which reproduces its like from generation to gen- eration, and so continues the species When- ever two reputed species are found to blend in 1 Jevon's Principles of Science, Vol. ii. p. 417. 2 See the views of Hugh Miller in Pootprints of the Creator, p. 255, quoted in the author's Logic of Christian Evidences, p. 45. 42 SCIENTIFIC METHOD nature, through a series of intermediate forms, community of origin is inferred, and all the forms, however diverse, are held to belong to one species The orthodox conception of species is that of lineal descent : all the descendants of a common parent, and no other, constitute a species ; they have a certain identity, because of their de- scent, by which they are supposed to be recog- nizable. So naturalists had a distinct idea of what they meant by the term species, and a practical rule, which was hardly the less useful because difficult to apply in many cases, and be- cause its application was indirect, that is, the community of origin had to be inferred from the likeness ; such degree of similarity, and such only, being held to be conspecific as could be shown or reasonably inferred to be compatible with a com- mon origin." ^ It should be noted, however, that Professor Agassiz, as Professor Gray also observes,^ diverges from the ordinary views respecting species in ex- actly the opposite direction from Darwin. " Agassiz discards the idea of a common descent as the real bond of union among the individuals of a species, and also the idea of a local origin ; supposing, instead, that each species originated simultaneously, generally speaking, over the whole geographical area it now occupies or has occupied, 1 Darwiniana, pp. 11-16. " Ibid., pp. 13, 14. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 43 and in, perhaps, as many individuals as it num- bered at any subsequent period. Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, holds the orthodox view of the descent of all the individuals of a species, not only from a local birth-place, but from a single ancestor or pair ; and that each species has extended and established itself, through natural agencies, wher- ever it could ; so that the actual geographical distribution of any species is by no means a pri- mordial arrangement, but a natural result. He goes farther, and this volume [Origin of Species] is a protracted argument intended to prove that the species we recognize have not been independ- ently created, as such, but have descended, like varieties, from other species. Varieties, on this view, are incipient or possible species. Species are varieties of a larger growth and a wider and earlier divergence from the parent stock; the difference is one of degree, not of kind The theory of Agassiz, referring as it does the phenomena both of origin and distribution directly to the divine will may be said to be theistic to excess." Agassiz had thus expressed himself: ^ " It was a great progress in our science, when the more extensive and precise knowledge of the geograph- ical distribution of organized beings forced upon 1 Contrib. to Nat. Historv, etc.. Vol. i. pp. 39, 40. Boston, 1857. See also, pp. 165, 166. 44 SCIENTIFIC METHOD its cultivators the conviction, that neither animals nor plants c6uld have originated upon one and the same spot upon the surface of the earth, and hence have spread more and more widely until the whole globe became inhabited All animals and plants have occupied, from the beginning, those natural boundaries within which they stand to one another in such harmonious relations. Pines have originated in forests, heaths in heath- ers, grasses in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in schools, buffaloes in herds, men in nations ! I see a striking proof that this must have been the case in the circumstance that representative species, which as distinct species must have had from the beginning a different and distinct geographical range frequently occupy sections of areas, which are simultaneously inhabited by the representa- tives of other species which are perfectly iden- tical over the whole area Facts lead, step by step, to the inference that such birds as the Mallard and the Scaup originated simultaneously and separately in Europe and in America; and that all animals originated in vast numbers ; in- deed, in the average number characteristic of their species, over the whole of their geographical area, whether its surface be continuous or disconnected by sea, lakes, or rivers, or by differences of level above the sea, etc. The details of the geograph- ical distribution of animals exhibit, indeed, too ILLUSTHATBD BY DARWINISM. 45 much discrimination to admit for a moment that it could be the result of accident, that is the re- sult of the accidental migrations of the animals or of the accidental dispersion of the seeds of plants. The greater the uniformity of structure of these widely distributed organized beings the less prob- able does their accidental distribution appear. I confess that nothing has ever surprised me so much as to see the perfect identity of the most delicate microscopic structures of animals and plants from the remotest parts of the world." Notwithstanding this remarkable language from high authority, we shall in continuing the present discussion proceed upon the assumption that there is an organic connection between members of the same species, however widely the individuals may be separated either by time or space, for the views of Agassiz upon this point are now very generally discarded. Until recently a specific difference was regarded by scientific men as necessitating separate original creation ; the species of a genus being always re- garded as of independent origin ; and with still greater reason were the genera and other higher orders supposed to be altogether ideal, with no connecting bond of physical causation between their subordinate members. We must now con- sider the facts which have forced upon us the higher problem of accounting, by natural means, for the origin and dispersion of allied species and genera. 46 SCIBNTIPIC METHOD T. Distribntion of Species in Space. In studying the distribution of living animals and plants, we encounter the existence of natural barriers which prevent the present intermingling of species. The rule is, that in proportion as the barriers which separate provinces are impassable, the contrasts are greater throughout the whole range of organic life. For example, the larger part of the dry land of the globe lies in the north- ern hemisphere, and is nearly contiguous in the arctic zone ; while geological evidence is abundant, that during the Tertiary period a warm climate extended far up towards the pole. Fossil animals and plants, like those which now can endure noth- ing colder than a warm temperate climate, are found in Greenland and adjacent lands. Thus it is plain that during a recent geological period the insuperable barriers which now prevent the migra- tion of plants and animals from Europe and tem- perate Asia to America were not in existence. This fact derives special significance when viewed in connection with the close similarity of the faunas throughout the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. " The fauna of Europe is very closely related to that of the United States proper Notwithstanding the immense extent of country embraced, the same stamp [of animal life] is every- where exhibited. Generally the same families, IliLUSTRATBa) BY DARWINISM. 47 freqiiently the same genera, represented by differ- ent species are foimd." ^ On the other hand, it was observed as long ago as the days of Buffon that as we proceed on either contineikt through the torrid and south temperate zones, where the oceanic and climatic barriers are, and doubtless for a long time have been, vastly greater ; " instead of that general resemblance, that family likeness which we have noticed be- tween all the faunas of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, we find here the most com- plete contrasts. Each of the three continental peninsulas which jut out southerly into the ocean represents in some sense a separate world. The animals of South America beyond the tropic of Capricorn are in all respects different from those of the southern extremity of Africa." ^ But this dissimilarity of native animals and plants does not arise solely from dissimilarity, in the physical conditions of those regions ; for im- ported plants and animals have often flourished to a remarkable degree. For example, in New Zealand the Norwegian rat has extirpated the na- tive rat, and is to be found everywhere. The progeny of the pigs which Captain Cook and other navigators left on the island run wild in such a 1 Principles of Zoology, by Agassiz and Gould, pp. 203, 200. ^ Buffon, referred to in Lyell's Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. pp. 329, 332. 48 SCIENTIFIC METHOD •way that it is impossible to destroy them. There are large tracts of country where they reign su- preme. In South America the horse has with equal facility increased in a wild state. Among European plants which have become -noxious weeds in South Africa and Australia, we may mention the Scotch thistle, the brier, the rose^ plantains, and docks.^ Lyell pertinently remarks, that if we reject the generally receiyed doctrine of specific centres of creation and natural barriers to distribution, " the fact that not a single native quadruped is common to Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, and South America can in no way be explained by adverting to the wide extent of intervening ocean, or to the sterile deserts, or the great heat or cold of the cli- mates through which each species must have passed before it could migrate from one of those distant regions to another. It might fairly be asked of one who talked of impassable barriers, why the same kangaroos, rhinoceroses, or llamas should not have been created simultaneously in Australia, Africa, and South America ? The horse, the ox, and the dog, although foreign to these countries until in- troduced by man, are now able to support them- selves there in a wild state ; and we can scarcely doubt that many of the quadrupeds at present 1 See Hooker, in Popular Science Review (London), Vol. vi. p. 131 ff. ILLUSTEATED BY DARWINISM. 49 peculiar to Australia, Africa, and South America might have continued in like manner to inhabit all the three continents, had they been indigenous in each, or could they once have got a footing there as new colonists." ^ TI. Species arranged in Clusters. Notwithstanding the great dissimilarity between the products of life on the southern extremities of the three Continents, there is a striking similarity between the species inhabiting these several penin- sulas and those found upon the islands adjacent to each. The islands are, in their forms of life, the satellites of the nearest continents. One of the most striking illustrations of this principle is found in the relation of the fauna and flora of the Gala- pagos archipelago to those of South America. These islands lie nearly on the equator, five hun- dred miles west of the main-land. They are of volcanic origin, and in their soil, elevation, and climate diflfer greatly from the neighboring coast. In these natural respects they very much resemble the Cape de Verde Islands, which are also situated in the torrid zone, and about the same distance to the west of Africa that the Galapagos are west of South America. The environments, or the condi- tions of life, are very much alike on the Galapagos and on the Gape de Verde Islands ; while the 1 Lyell, Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. p. 333. 4 50 SCIENTIFIC METHOD conditions of life on each of these archipelagos are in great contrast to those which surround the faunas and floras of their adjacent continents. Tlie species of birds, reptiles, and plants found on the Galapagos are, for the most part, such as exist nowhere else in the world. On the ordinary view, naturalists would say they must have been created there. But according to Mr. Darwin,^ — and it was this fact which turned his mind into the channel of speculation with which his name is associated — " nearly all [these species] bore an American stamp. In the song of the mocking- thrush, in the harsh cry of the carrion-hawk, iu the great candlestick-like opuntias, I clearly per- ceived the neighborhood of America, though the islands were separated by so many miles of ocean from the main-land, and differed much from it in their geological constitution and climate. Still more surprising was the fact that most of the in- habitants of each separate island in this small archipelago were specifically different, though most closely related to each other." The animals and plants on the Cape de Verde Islands have a corresponding affinity to those of Africa. The problem is to find, if possible, the bond of second- ary causation which shall explain these com- plex phenomena. It must account for the 1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. i. p. 21. See also Origin of Species, pp. 353-356. ILLTJSTRATED BT DARWINISM. 51 similarity under diverse conditions, and the di- versity under similar conditions. Mr. Darwin believes that it is idle for us to search here for a " final cause." So far as there is truth in his re- mark it is, in our opinion, partially owing to the inadequate views current regarding the doctrine of final causes. Mr. Darwin supposes he has found a natural mode of accounting for the simi- larities and the difference of representative species, in the effect of diversity of condition acting on the descendants of a common ancestry. According to him, the facts delineated witli regard to the rela- tionship between the forms of life on the islands and those on the adjoining continental Areas, point to community of descent in comparatively recent time ; and no one can deny that there is great plausibility in this explanation. In furtlier illustration similar facts may be adduced regarding the island of Madagascar, where all the species of animals but one, and nearly all the genera, are different from those on the continent of Africa.^ Yet these genera and species resemble those in Africa more than they do those of any other province. To get the significance of these facts they must be seen in their connections, and somewhat more in detail. As is now well known, there is a marked distinction between the life upon islands sur^ I Tijell's Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. p. 347. 52 SCIENTIPIC METHOD rouuded by deep seas and that upon islands sepa- rated from continents by sliallow seas. True oceanic islands are such as rise from an ocean floor ten tliousand feet or more in depth ; of which the Bermudas, the Azores, tlie Galapagos, St. Helena, and the Sandwich Islands are exam- ples. Upon such islands no native mammalia, nor even frogs and reptiles, are to be found ; but their native inhabitants are limited to birds and insects, and such other animals and plants as could have been transported naturally from the neighboring continents over the intervening ex- panse of water. On the other hand, continental islands, or those surrounded by shallow seas, in- dicating a comparatively recent land connection with the continents, are inhabited by many species which could have migrated only on dry land. Such islands are Great Britain, Borneo, Java, Japan, Formosa, and Madagascar. In the case of all these an elevation of a few hundred, or, at the most, two or three thousand, feet would establish a continental connection. The sea sep- arating Siam from Borneo and Java is only about three hundred feet, and that surrounding England is not over six hundred feet, in depth. Now the rule is, that the antiquity of the type of life pres- ent upon a continental island is proportionate to the depth of the sea separating it from the main- land. Of this principle Madagascar presents some ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 63 of the most interesting iHustrations. It is prob- able, from the depth of the Mozambique Channel and from the distribution of shoals in the Indian Ocean, that Madagascar was, at an early period, joined to Africa, and that several islands, now submerged, existed in the direction of India; and the forms of life in Madagascar have affinities with those in India only in the case of such species as could migrate from island to island ; while with Africa the affinities are such as to necessitate a continuous land connection, there being similitude in no less than sixty-six species of mammalia. But these affinities with Africa are not with the species now most characteristic of that continent. Madagascar does not contain monkeys, baboons, apes, lions, leopards, zebras, elephants, giraffes, and antelopes, which abound in Africa ; but the larger part of its species belongs to the lemuroid family. This family is now represented by a few scattered species in West Africa, India, Ceylon, and the Malay Archipelago, all very unlike the species in Madagascar. The inference is that Madagascar was joined to Africa during an early extension of the lemuroid family, and became iso- lated before the advent in Africa of its present characteristic mammalia. To find that period, the geologist has to go back to the first portion of the Tertiary epoch, when lemurs and the other families, now characteristic of Madagascar, are 64 SCIENTIFIC METHOD known to have been abundant in Europe. We know, also, that about that time, during the Eocene and Miocene periods, the northern portion of Africa was submerged, transforming the south- ern portion into an immense island. The theory which explains the peculiar distri- bution of the lemuroid family and its present pre- dominance in Madagascar is, that at the time just referred to Madagascar and Southern Africa were united, allowing lemurs to spread over the whole territory ; but that before land connection was re- established with Asia and Europe Madagascar had become separated from the main-land, and has ever since maintained its insular position, and its plants and animals have consequently been preserved from that competition with new northern forms of life which took place when, in later Tertiary times, the barriers to immigration were removed from the northern part of the continent. According to present evidence, the camel originated in America during the Tertiary period, and most of the char- acteristic larger mammalia of Africa, in Europe and central Asia during the Tertiary isolation of Africa. When, later, access was given them to Africa, they availed themselves of the opportunity and gradually crowded out the lemuroid family ; but Madagascar was beyond their reach. For another illustration we turn to the Canary Islands, which lie in close vicinity to the west ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 55 coast of Africa, some of them being not more than fifty miles distant. The Madeira group are to the northwest of the Canaries, and about four hundred miles from Morocco. The Azores are still farther in the same direction, being in the mid-Atlantic, nearly a thousand miles west from Lisbon. These islands are of volcanic origin, and all rise out of the ocean from a depth of from five thousand to eighteen thousand feet of water. It is therefore improbable that they ever had any land connection with the continent. Now, according to the gen- eral rule regarding the animals inhabiting islands thus situated, there are no native batrachians on them and no mammals, except bats, though the conditions are admirably fitted to sustain numer- ous species of mammals when once they are intro- duced ; and frogs have become a nuisance in Ma- deira and the Azores. The only indigenous species of animals, beside the land mollusks, are birds, bats, butterflies, and beetles, whose presence can be accounted for by their power of flight when aided by the furious storms which sometimes sweep out- ward from the continent. In nearly every case this animal life has its closest aSinities with the species of Europe and Northern Africa. Of the two hundred and thirty-six genera of beetles from the Madeira group, forty-four are peculiar to the Atlantic islands. " Most of them are, however, closely allied to European genera, of which they 66 SCIENTIFIC METHOD are evidently modifications." A most striking fact regarding these genera of beetles is the preva- lence of wingless varieties. " This is especially the case with groups which are confined to the Atlantic islands, many of which consist wholly of wingless species; but it also afiFects the others — no less than twenty-two genera of which are usually or sometimes winged in Europe having only wingless species in Madeira; and even the same species which is winged in Europe becomes, in at least three cases, wingless in Madeira, without any other perceptible change having taken place. But there is another most curious fact noticed by Mr. Wol- laston — that those species which possess wings in Madeira often have them rather larger than their allies in Europe." In searching for an explanation it is easy to see that with beetles on a stormy island the absence of wings may he an advantage ; for if the beetle has no wings he will not use them. If he possesses only moderately strong wings, more likely than not he will be using them when a storm is arising, which will blow him into the sea, and he will be drowned. If, however, he has unusually strong wings he may get back ; and so, as is frequently the case, the individuals of the middling sort will drop out of existence, since they do not have the advantage of either extreme. There are two methods by which to attempt an ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 57 explanation of these complicated facts ; one of which is that these beetles were directly adapted to their conditions of existence by an act of imme- diate creation. This would account for the wing- less condition of some and the superior power of wing in others, since these are both, thougli for opposite reasons, real advantages. But the hy- pothesis of direct creation does not explain the existence of rudimentary wings in many species, and the conformity in pattern of them all to that of beetles on the nearest continent. On the con- trary, the hypothesis of indirect creation of species by natural selection, through " descent with modi- fications" accounts for all the elements of the problem, and furnishes no less evidence of design. Common descent from European forms explains the afl&nity with those forms. Another fact equally impressive with the fore- going is to be found in the direction and character of the boundary line between the fauna of Asia and that of Australia. The Philippine Islands, with Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, are in a sea that is nowhere more than six hundred feet deep. So that with an elevation of the Malay archipelago to that amount, the continent of Asia would ex- tend as far southeast as the island of Java, or twelve degrees of latitude beyond the Malay penin- sula. Beyond a line drawn from the southeast end of Java to the southernmost of the Philippine '58 SCIENTIFIC METHOD Islands the depth of the ocean is more than six hundred feet. According to Mr. Wallace,^ the line of soundings of six hundred feet, marking the termination of shallow seas, between the Indo- Malayan and the Austro-Malayan regions, is also the boundary between Australian and Asiatic genera of plants and animals, though in one in- stance the islands of these diflferent zoological provinces are within sight of each other. The animals and plants of Asia are supposed to have migrated to the farthest islands in the shallow seas of the Malay Archipelago when they were continuously connected by land now moderately submerged ; while the Marsupials of Australia maintained their ground on the islands that are now, and probably have been from a very remote period, surrounded by deep water. Thus the principle is pretty well established that, with little regard to natural conditions, the fauna of islands is more nearly allied to that of the nearest continent than to that of any other region, and that the deeper the sea between them the more diverse is the fauna.^ This class of facts is naturally explained on the supposition that the Creator has given to the life- principle a power co-ordinate with that of the con- 1 See "The Malay Archipelago," pp. 20-31. Also Lyell'a Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. pp. 349, 350. ^ The preceding illustrations are mainly drawn from Wallace's ' Geographical Distribution of Animals " and " Island Life." ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 59 ditions of existence. The changes in the forms of life follow a long way behind the changes in the physical conditions. The islands surrounded by deep water are supposed to have retained the earlier forms of life because they have been longer isolated, and the conditions have there been more uniform, and there has been less room for compe- tition between varieties. The full bearing of these facts cannot, however, be seen till they are joined with two or three other co-ordinate series of phenomena. We proceed, therefore, to speak Yn. Of the Distribution of Species in Time. As long ago as 1844, Professor Owen enunciated the law " that with extinct as with existing Mam- malia, particular forms were assigned to particular provinces, and that the same forms were restricted to the same provinces at a former geological period as they are at the present day."^ In 1861, he added : " That period was the more recent Ter- tiary one. In carrying back the retrospective com- parison of existing and extinct Mammals to those of the Eocene and Oolitic strata, in relation to their local distribution, we obtain indications of extensive changes in the relative position of sea and land during these epochs, in the degree of ' Quoted from Transactions of the British Association, 1844, in Owen's Palaeontology, p. 433, 60 SCIENTIFIC METHOD incongruity between the generic forms of the Mammalia which then existed in Europe and any that actually exist on the great natural continent of which Europe now forms part. It wo\ild seem, indeed, that the further we penetrate into time for the recovery of extinct Mammalia, the further we must go [from Europe] into space to find their existing analogues. To match the Eocene Palaeo- theres and Lophiodons we fetch Tapirs from Su- matra or South America, and we must travel to the antipodes for Myrmecobians, the nearest living analogues to the Amphitheres of our Oolitic strata." The law of the distribution of species in time and space has been stated by Professor Dana thus: ^ " The Orient has always been the continent of progress. From the close of the Palaeozoic its species of animal life have been three times- as numerous as those of North America, and more varied in genera. In the early Tertiary its flora in the European portion had an Australian type, and there were Marsupials and Edentates there. In the middle and later Tertiary it represented recent North America in its flora. But from this condition it emerged to a higher grade. In the Pos^tertiary it became the land of the Carnivores, while North America was the continent as dis- tinctly of Herbivores ^ an inferior type; South America of Edentates — still lower ; Australia of 1 Manual of Geology (1st ed., Philadelphia, 1863), p. 585. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 61 the lowest of quadrupeds — the Marsupials. In the closing creations Australia remained Marsu- pial, though with dwindled forms ; South America was still the land of Edentates, but of smaller species, and with inferior Carnivores and the in- ferior type of monkeys, or Quadrumana ; North America of Herbivores, also small compared with the Post-tertiary ; while the Orient, besides its new Carnivores, received the highest of Quadru- mana. Thus the Orient has successively passed through the Australian and American stages, and, leaving the other continents behind, it stood in the forefront of progress." ^ Dawson emphasizes the same point: "It thus appears that the Miocene flora of Europe resem- bles that of America at present, while the Eocene flora of Europe resembles that of Australia, and the Eocene [Pliocene ?] flora of America, as well as the modern, resembles the Miocene of Europe. In other words, the changes of the flora have been more rapid in Europe than in America, and prob- ably slowest of all in Australia. The eastern continent has thus taken the lead in rapidity of cliange in the Tertiary period, and it has done so ill animals as well as in plants." ^ ViXl. Connecting Links between Species. The argument in favor of the affinity of species 1 See also Principles of Zoology, by Agassiz and Grould, p. 235. 2 Story of the Earth and Man, pp. 259, 260. 62 SCIENTIFIC METHOD cannot be adequately set forth, until attention has been called to the general unities of anatomical structure which pervade the species, genera, and orders of each of the four departments of the animal kingdom, and which serve as the basis upon which they are grouped together in classes. "We will attend to these deeper unities a little later ; restricting ourselves in this section to what may more properly be called intermediate links between species that are now reckoned as distinct. It is a fact, commented on at length by Dana and Agassiz, that the species which appear earlier iu the history of the globe are of a more comprehensive type than those which appear later. The earlier forms are not so specialized in their structure as the later. The earlier types are spoken of as prophetic. Their structure contains intimations of what the peculiarities of future species are to be. All palaeontologists admit that as the present is approached there is progress in the geological record of life. The grade of life indicated in a geological formation is, in a general way, intermediate between that of the formation above and that below. Numerous transitional forms are found between the vai'ious classes and genera of vertebrate animals. Reptiles are ana- tomically intermediate between fishes and birds. The passage from the water-breathing class of Ver- tebrates to an air-bireathing class is " by close tran- ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 63 sitional steps." ^ The affinities of reptiles while they are close, in vertebral structure, with the ganoid fishes, are equally close with birds and mammals. .The archaeopteryx was half reptile and half bird. It had the vertebrate tail of the reptile, which was, at the same time, supplied with the true feathers of the bird. Its foot had no characteristics that would distinguish the class to which it would belong. Professor Marsh ^ has found in the Cretaceous strata of Nebraska birds possessing teeth. In the Dinosauria the reptile class is allied more closely to the mammals. The Marsupials are midway between the oviparous Vertebrates and the placental Mammalia. Be- tween the mastodon and the elephant there are many transitional species.^ There are numerous intermediate forms joining together the rhinoceros and the horse, the bear and the wolf, the hyena and the civet, and even forms so diverse as the hog and the camel.* Professor Owen remarks ^ that when the trans- mutation theories of the early part of the century were under discussion by Cuvier, with whom he 1 See Owen, Palaeontology, p. 320. ^ See American Journal of Science for October, 1872, and Jan- uary, 1873 ; also American Naturalist for October, 1875. ' Owen's Palaeontology, p. 376. * See Wallace, Contrib. Theory of Nat. Selec, pp. 299, 300. ' Anatomy of the Vertebrates, Vol. iii. pp. 789-792. See also Dana, Manual of Geology (2d ed.), pp. 503-520. 64 SCIENTIFIC METHOD was then studying, in opposition to these theories reliance was chiefly placed on the absence of in- termediate species, especially the lack of interme- diate forms between the Palaeoth^rium of the early Eocene .and the hoofed quadrupeds of the present age. But adds : " The progress of Palaeon- tology since 1830 has brought to light many miss- ing links unknown to the founder of the science. ..... The discovery of the remains of the Hippa- rion supplied one of the links, required by Cuvier, between the Palaeotherium and the horse of the present day; and it is still more significant of the fact of filiation of species that the remains of such three-toed horses are found only in deposits of that Tertiary period which intervene between the older palaeotherium one and the newer strata in which the modern horse first appears to have lost its lateral hooflets Other missing links of this series of species have been supplied ; as e.g. by the Paloplotlierium of the newer Eocene of Hordwell, Hants ; by the Palaeotherium aurelian- ense from tlie ' molasse marine ' of Orleans, and by the Palaeotherium hippoides of the lacustrine calcareous beds of Sansan, all which deposits are Miocene, or are transitional between Eocene and Miocene." In the last two examples, " the whole foot is loiiger and more slender, with a longer and thicker middle toe, than in the older Eocene type- genus, whence the generic name Anchitherium, applied to them by von Meyer." ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 65 Professor Marsh has since found a very complete gradation of fossil horses in America, some with three hoofs on each foot, others with a main hoof and two hooflets, and others in which the fingers are all rudimental, except the middle one which bears the hoof.^ The general law, that interme- diate geological formations contain intermediate species, was early announced by Professor Agassiz in the following words : " Eacli formation contains remains peculiar to itself, which do not extend into the neighboring deposits above or below it. Still there is a connection between the different formations more strong in proportion to their proximity to each other. Thus the animal re- mains of the Chalk, while they differ from those of all other formations, are, nevertheless, much more nearly related to those of the Oolitic forma- tion, which immediately precedes, than to those of the Carboniferous formation, which is much more ancient ; and, in the same manner, the fossils of the Carboniferous group approach more nearly to those of the Silurian formation than to those of the Tertiary." 2 Thus in every quarter it is admitted that the broken lines of life upon which we stumble in the geological record are not parallel ; but lie in di- 1 American Jonrnal of Science (March, 1874), pp. 247-258. See also Dana, Manual of Geology, p. 505 2 Principles of Zoology, pp. 221, 222. 5 66 SCIENTIFIC METHOD rections radiating from a well-defined centre. There is more interlacing of these lines than we have been accustomed to admit. Life has woven an intricate web. IX. HomoloiTons and Bndimental Stractnres. Vertebrate animals are all variations of one type of structure. A significant unity pervades the whole department. Even generic distinctions are founded upon " minor peculiarities of anatomical structure, such as the number, disposition, or proportions of the teeth, claws, fins, etc Thus the lion, tiger, leopard, cat, etc. agree in the structure of their feet, claws, and teeth, and they belong to the genus Felis ; while the dog, fox, jackal, wolf, etc. have another and different peculiarity of the feet, claws, and teeth, and are arranged in the genus Canis."^ The species is founded upon less important distinctions, such as color, size, proportions, sculpture, etc. The persistent and fundamental unity of struct- ure throughout the vertebrates is extremely remark- able. For example, in the class of mammals the cervical vertebrae are constant in their number throughout all genera. The long neck of the giraffe has the same number of vertebrae with the short neck of the whale or the elephant. For all practical purposes both the whale and the ele- 1 See Principles of Zoology, by Agassiz and Gould, p. 18. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 67 pliant might as well have but one bone in their necks ; but each has seven, so small, and crowded so closely together, that they are in effect but one. Limbs that are used for very different purposes frequently are the same in anatomical structure. The bones of the human arm and hand have their homologues in the legs and feet of all quadrupeds, in the wings of all birds, and in the pectoral fin of the fish, and the flipper of the seal. The hoof of the horse is on his middle finger ; the other phalanges though rudimental, are all present. The carpal and metacarpal bones are also par- tially preserved in the legs of --the horse ; so also is the radius, although these bones are now rudi- mentary and useless. Among other rudimentary structures may be mentioned the foetal teeth of whales and of tho front part of the jaw of ruminant quadrupeds. " These foetal structures are minute in size, and never cut the gum ; but are re-absorbed without ever coming into use, while no other teeth succeed them or represent them in the adult condition of those animals. The mammary glands of all male beasts constitute another example, as also does the wing of the apteryx, — a New Zealand bird utterly incapable of flight, and with the wing in a quite rudimentary condition (whence the name of the animal). Yet this rudimentary wing contains 68 SCIENTIFIC METHOD bones which are miniature representatives of the ordinary wing-bones of birds of flight." ^ Is there in all this any meaning which the hu- man mind can interpret ? Do these facts have any natural correlation to those innate tendencies of the mind on which beliefs are based ? Is their glimmer of light in any degree trustworthy, and if so, to what degree ? Or are they altogether lilte Will-o'the-wisps going before us but to de- ceive ? Mr. Darwin's comparison has the merit of being clear, if not'cogent. " Rudimentary or- gans may be compared with the letters in a word, still retained in the spelling, but become useless in the pronunciation, but which serve as a^clue for its derivation. On the view of descent with modification, we may conclude that the existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect, and useless condition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been antici- pated in accordance with the views here ex- plained." ^ X. Embryology. Another class of facts presenting peculiar diffi- culties to the ordinary hypothesis of special creation relates to the process of development through which the young animal passes in its embryonic condition. 1 See Mivart, Genesis of Species (New York, 1871), p. 19. " Origin of Species, p. 402. n^LUSTEATED BY DARWINISM. 69 We quote again from the elementary work on Zo- ology by Professor Agassiz. " As a general result of the observations which have been made up to this time [1855] on the embryology of the various classes of the animal kingdom, especially of the Vertebrates, it may be said, that the organs of the body are successively formed in the order of their organic importance, the most essential being always the earliest to appear. In accordance with this law, the organs of vegetative life, the intes- tines and their appurtenances, make their appear- ance subsequently to those of animal life, such as the nervous system, the skeleton, etc. ; and these, in turn, are preceded by the more general phe- nomena belonging to the animal as such Hence the embryos of different animals resemble each other more strongly when examined in the earlier stages of their growth. We have already stated that during almost the whole period of embryonic life the young fish and the young frog scarcely differ at all ; so it is also with the young snake compared with the embryo bird." ^ " This similarity of members of the same great class, in their embryonic condition, — the embryo, for instance, of a mammal, bird, reptile, and fish being barely distinguishable," — is pronounced by Darwin " the most wonderful fact in the whole round of natural history." '^ That the embryos of 1 Principles of Zoology, pp. 153, 154. 2 Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. i. p. 24. 70 SCIENTIFIC METHOD the higher vertebrates should in their development pass through all the stages of the lower orders of their class, taking upon them at successive stages the peculiarities that characterize the order, the family, the genus, the species, and the individual ; that this order coincides with the distribution of species in time ; and that rudimentary organs are often developed at particular stages of the growth, and then partially or wholly re-absorbed, are cer- tainly coincidences which it is hard to accept as accidental or meaningless. But on the theory of a common descent with modifications, all these facts come in harmoniously, this element of descent being the hidden bond of connection which naturalists, in their efforts at classification, have been seeking, under the term of the natural system.^ XI. Analogous Variation. An argument is also drawn from the facts of analogous variation. For instance, distinct breeds, like those of the domestic pigeon, which are now very unlike, tend to vary in a similar manner, resembling one wild species from which they are supposed to have descended. The slaty-blue color and the black bars across the wings of the original rock pigeon are occasionally assumed by indi- viduals of all the varieties, though when kepi 1 See Origin of Species, pp. 381, 396, and 403. ILLUSTRATED BT DARWINISM. 71 pure they usually breed true and have no trace of those colors. When, however, different breeds are crossed, the tendency of the black bars and the blue color to appear is greatly increased, and the peculiarities of the crossed birds disappear. Similar facts afford proof of the affinity of the horse and the ass to the zebra. The appearance of the stripes which characterize the zebra are some- times seen on every variety both of the horse and of the ass ; and the mule, which is a cross between the horse and the ass, is much more likely than either to display those characteristic stripes, espe- cially when young. Upon which Darwin remarks : ' " He who believes that each equine species was independently created, will, I presume, assert that each species has been created with a tendency to vary, both under nature and under domestication, In this particular manner, so as often to become striped like other species of the genus ; and that each has been created with a strong tendency, when crossed with species inhabiting distant quar- ters of the world, to produce hybrids resembling in their stripes, not their own parents, but other species of the genus. To admit this view is, as it seems to me, to reject a real for an unreal, or at least for an unknown cause. It makes the works of God a mere mockery and deception. I would almost as soon believe with the old and ignorant 1 Origin of Species, p. 130. 72 SCIENTIFIC METHOD cosmogonists that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone, so as to mock the shells living on the sea-shore." XII. Summary of Facts. Before proceeding to an explanation of these phenomena, we will briefly recapitulate. 1. If in the animal kingdom we take one of the depart- ments. Vertebrates, for instance, we find that all the individuals are characterized by certain funda- mental likenesses, and are distinguished by vary- ing degrees of unlikeness. Upon the bond of the similarity characterizing the grand division, the differences are superimposed which designate the more specific stages of our advancement in classi- fication. There is a natural order of classification in which, branching off from a common point along several lines of divergence, we pass through more and more restricted clusters till we reach species, varieties, and individuals. Until the species is reached there is no intermingling of forms and little ground for confusion. 2. Theories of evolution have in their favor the analogies of the known mode of the production ol individuals ; for so far as we know, individuals are born and developed ; not produced by a direct act of creation, or by spontaneous generation. " Every life is from an egg." So constant is this law that the supposed production of a living thing without ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 73 a cell for its origin is strong proof either of the incompetence of the observer's method or of the imperfection of his instruments. 3. The natural system of classification corresponds in general with the embryonic development of each individual. The more generic characters of the animal appear first in the developing embryo. The specific char- acters are superinduced from time to time, as the period of birth approaches, or, indeed, long after- wards in the post-natal development. 4. In the distribution of animals in time the same order of development is observable. The earlier forms of life that are studied in fossil re- mains are, as a rule, more generalized in their structure than the later forms. Classes of animals, like birds, reptiles, and fishes, were not so clearly distinguishable in the early Tertiary and in the Mesozoic times as now. 5. Again, in space animals and plants are sepa- rated by natural barriers. The farther you recede from the continental hemisphere of the earth the more diverse the existing forms of life are from each other, and the nearer they resemble the more generalized forms of past time. Also the forms of life on islands are, as a rule, conformed not so much to the requirements of the existing conditions of soil and climate as to the type of animal life on the nearest continental area. 74 SCIENTIFIC METHOD Xni. Propriety of Speculation upon the Problem. The foregoing are the more important of the facts that press upon the naturahst for explanation. It is not in accordance with what we specially value in the modern habits of thought to cut the Gordian knot with the simple assertion, " so God has made it," and set tliat up as the Ultima Thule of our investigation. Such a course would be suicidal to all scientific thought, and would en- danger the rational foundation upon which our proof of revelation rests. It is superstition, and not reverence, which leads us to avoid the ques- tions concerning the order and mode of the divine operations. The law of parsimony is never to be forgotten in any department of study. We are to press known secondary causes as far as they will go in explanation of facts. We are not to resort to an unknown cause for explanation of phenomena un- til the power of known causes has been exhausted. If we cease to observe this rule there is an end to all science and of all sound sense. In viewing the complicated movements of the heavenly bodies, it would relieve us from much labor if we should simply register the phenomena, and attribute them directly to the divine activity. Newton, however, was not satisfied till he had interpreted the laws under which these movements oroceed. He be- ILLUSTKATED BY DARWINISM. 75 lieved that in the peculiarities of planetary move- ments God permitted us to read the method of his operations. By a most successful application of the law of parsimony all that variety of move- ment in cycle and epicycle was traced to the effects of two forces, centripetal and centrifugal, the one constant, the other varying as the square of the distance between the attracting objects. Through a generalization of lijje nature Mr. Darwin has, with greater success than any pre- vious naturalist, approached the exceedingly com- plex phenomena exhibited in the organization of living forms. And as Newton left the nature of the centrifugal and centripetal forces with the mysteries of the creation, so Darwin can and should leave where they belong specula- tions concerning the forces moving and directing the development of life upon the earth. So far the naturalist does well to remain an agnostic. Human pride may not boast too confidently of having sounded any of the deep things of God. The genuine man of science does not use the word " explanation " with reference to the final solution of the problems of nature. In this respect Mr. Darwin is much more cautious than some of his followers ; since in the main he contents himself with viewing the unknown in the light of the known, and refrains from speculating upon the nature of the ultimate facts of observation. 76 SCIENTIFIC METHOD In the highest sense of the word, it is no ex- planation of the movements of the moon to show that they are to be classed with those of an apple as it falls from a tree. To any thoughtful mind the absolute mystery is rather increased than ex- plained by such classification. Thus always to the philosopher, scientific explanation intensifies rather than diminishes our admiration of divine power. If the undevout astronomer be mad, it would in still greater degree be true that the irreverent disciple of Darwin is mad. XIT. Darwin's Method of Solution. Darwin starts with two or three principles de- rived from our observation of living individuals and varieties of species, and tries to see how far there are indications that these principles have had sway in past times. The lamp by which he guides his feet among the scattered fragments of the creation is the fundamental axiom of all sci- ence, that similarity of efiect indicates similarity of cause. It is a matter of common observation that while it is true, in a loose sense, that " like begets like," — that plant and animal beget after their kind, — still the progeny is never just like the parent. There is no dead level of uniformity in organic beings. Not even two peas are exactly alike. The law of heredity in animals aiid plants is a resultant of two ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 77 tendencies ; the one to likeness, the other to varia- tion. The tendency to variation revolves around the tendency to uniformity. One force is centrip- etal, the other centrifugal. This is a general truth about which there is no dispute. It re- mains for the more accurate and extended obser- vation of scientific men to determine the orbit of this revolution and the limits of this oscillation. Is there such degree of plasticity in species that the orbit of one may break into that of another ? This question we cannot hope to settle by direct observation. But, as has already been remarked, we are permitted to determine very few things by direct observation. We never see the curve of the orbit of a star. We see the star at different points of its orbit, and supply the rest of the curve on the ground of our confidence in the fundamental principle of induction. We go beyond observation whenever we try to prove anything. We believe that Biela's comet was drawn out of its orbit by the force of the attraction of the planet Jupiter. The proof of it is an exercise of mind far nobler than that of watching a vaporous disk in the glass of a telescope. The conformity of complicated facts to theories concerning the operation of natural forces may as effectually involve the testimony of God to, the truth of those theories, as the agree- ment of a signature with a business man's known hand-writing may connect the two together, and 78 SCIENTIFIC METHOD prove the genuineness of the document. In this light let us try to answer the question, Are species transmuted into other species ? XT. Elasticity ot Species. That the formative power producing a species is in some degree plastic is evident to all, from the fact that varieties exist and that individuals are distinguishable from one another. Under the guidance of man, both animals and plants vary to a remarkable extent. So great are the varia- tions thus produced in the vegetable world, that botanists are much averse to pronouncing upon the species of a domestic plant. For example, plants can be made to vary in almost any part of their structure. There are several hundred varieties of our American grapes, with fruit ranging from the small acrid berry that grows wild on our river banks to the luscious Ca- tawba that could not ripen in Northern New Eng- land out of a conservatory. Yet they all range under three or four species.^ The strawberry was confined a hundred years ago to a very small num- ber of varieties ; while now, principally through the skill of gardeners within the last sixty years, the varieties are innumerable.^ Potatoes, cab- bages, apples, roses, and many other cultivated 1 See Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. i. p. 400 f., ■which, however, chiefly relates to European varieties. 2 Ibid., p. 423. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 79 plants are synonymes for Tariability in different parts of their organism. In the animal creation too, every one is familiar with facts disclosing a great amount of variability in domestic breeds. Indeed, the word breed indi- cates the fact. Horses have probably all descended from what would be called one species. Yet what a contrast between a dray-horse and an English race-horse ! Or between Black-Hawk and a Cana- dian pony! Whatever might be said about the original diversity of the wild varieties of the cow and the sheep, which have been domesticated, there is no doubt that the skill of breeders has produced additional and most important changes. It is almost demonstrable that domestic pigeons are descended from one parent species — the rock- pigeon. But now they have been transformed by fanciers into the strange forms of the pouter, fan- tail, carxier, barb, tumbler, and a hundred other varieties that breed true, and have been named. These are made to differ in various points of ana- tomical structure more than is often required to establish a difference of species, or even of genus.^ The changes in domestic animals and plants take place under the directing agency of man. Man does not produce the variation. He only util- izes it when for some unknown reason it appears. 1 See Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. i. p. 194. 80 SCIENTIPIC METHOD The tendency to variation has its origin in a cause that is mysterious ; though change of circum- stances increases the tendency. The agency of man is confined to accumulating by selection the variations that appear in a certain line. Without his interference, the tendencies to vary in opposite directions would, where communication was un- restricted between individuals, counteract each other, and keep the species uniform. Hence, it might occur that when a skilful breeder passed away, the breed would disappear with him, from lack of skill in selecting the animals from which to propagate the variety. How far this process of variation may proceed in a particular line is still undetermined. Indeed, that is the question under consideration. With pigeons, as we have said, it has gone so far that the varieties if found in a wild state would be called species. The difficulties of classification are evidence of a great plasticity in species. It repeatedly occurs that what have been classed as distinct species are, by the subsequent discovery of intermediate forms, grouped together as varieties of a single species. In such cases the divergence of the varieties from the type of the species measures the known degree of the elasticity of the species. The production of new varieties through arti- ficial selection is beset with many difiiculties aris- ing from the ignorance of the breeder. The ILLUSTRATED BY DABWINISM. 81 changes ■which man secures in animals and plants by systematically selecting for propagation the individuals that possess qualities subservient to human want or caprice are, in one sense, super- ficial, since they are made blindly. A variety is chosen for propagation because of peculiarities tliat can be seen, in ignorance of their correlated relation to profounder anatomical or physiological changes that simultaneously occur. Man also protects his animals from the effect of deficient food or shelter, and so may preserve a peculiarity of structure which would be fatal to the existence of the animal if in a natural state. If we go beyond the reach of the directing agency of man it would seem that there could be no anal- ogous force able to enlarge indefinitely the orbit of individual variability. XTI. Natural Selection. But Mr Darwin must have the credit of pre- senting in a new light, if not of discovering, a natural power of selection which is marvellous in its possibilities and probabilities. In the first place, the physical agencies that produce the suc- cession of the seasons and the distribution of heat and moisture, and that so powerfully influence the animal and vegetable world, are in a state of UElitable equilibrium. The seasons vary in periods that are of unequal duration, and that are depend- 6 82 SCIENTIFIC METHOD ent on far-reaching causes. If we extend our observation through the long ages of geologic record, we have brought to view alternations from temperate to frigid, and from frigid to torrid, cli- mates that are as extensive as the globe. In the alternate contraction and expansion of the con- tinental areas, through the elevation and depres- sion of the land, there are brought to light other important changes in the conditions to which animal and vegetable life have been subjected. At one time Europe is an archipelago of scattered islands. At another time Ireland is joined to England and to the continent by a continuous belt of land. During the periods of contraction, and at such times as drouth or winter was creeping over the world, there must have been a struggle for existence between the various individuals liv- ing at the time, in which the weakest would die first. At one time the survival of an individual would depend on the nature of the instinct, at another on the fleetness or size, at another on the ability to withstand extremes of heat and cold. In some conditions increase of size would be an advantage, in others it would be a disadvantage. In time of scarcity of food increase of size would make more food necessary, and perhaps bring more food within reach. It is evident that these extraordinary trials would sift out those least fitted to the conditions, ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 83 and leave behind those best fitted. "Animals, like men, are tried in the fire of affliction. The hay, wood, and stubble are burned, and the gold is left." In Darwin's system, however, " gold " does not mean necessarily a higher organism, but those peculiarities of the organism protecting it from present physical evils, whether it be pecu- liarities that indicate progression or retrogression. Indeed, the very opposite qualities might secure immunity from destruction. A large dog might jump over a fence where a small one would go through, and only the medium sized be kept in by it. A nervous animal might live where a stupid one would die, and vice versa.^ XTII. The Struggle for Life. In enumerating these changes in external na- ture, we have brought before us only one of the known agencies which serve as a crucible in which to test the tenacity of the life of any organic form. Whatever may be the ultimate explanation of it, it is a fact that the " whole creation groanetli and travaileth together in pain until now." There is a constant state of warfare in the organic world. The grub is trying to kill the tree, and the wood- pecker is seeking, with exquisite instruments, to take the life of the grub ; the parasite is worrying ' See above pp. 56, 57, the illustration of the wingless beetles in ' Madeira. 84 SCIENTIFIC METHOD the life of the woodpecker, and so on through the whole story of the house that Jack built " So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey ; And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum." The Malthusian law of the tendency of all living things to increase through reproduction in geomet- rical ratio, while the stores from which they feed and the houses in which they live are limited by definite measurements, becomes in Darwin's hands a mighty power. If slow-breeding man were not limited by many unavoidable evils from increasing and multiplying according to his natural instincts, there would in a few thousand years be so many people in the world that standing-room could not be found for them. If a plant should produce two seedlings a year, and its two produce each two more, and so on, there would in twenty years be a million plants. Mr. Darwin says : ^ " The ele- phant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase ; it will be safest to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth three pairs of young in this interval ; if this be so, at the end of the fifth century there would be alive fifteen I Origin of Species (5th ed., 1869), p. 73. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 85 million elephants, descended from the first pair." When now we come to consider the rapidity with which innumerable other organisms tend to in- crease, we shall have before us a faint idea of the power that is here brought into the equation. We may safely assume that plants produce every year a million times as many seeds fitted for growth as ever come to perfection ; so that the ground of a forest is year by year literally covered with seed- lings that are destined to die from lack of room and want of access to the elements necessary to their growth. Of the smaller plants we know that the ground is full of their seeds. Turn up the ground where you will, and it will be found that there are germs of life in it, or that they will lodge on it, sufficient to cover it very speedily with a rank vegetation. A few sturdy weeds, like the burdock or the thistle, delight to lord it over their weaker brethren. Infanticide and oppression are, in a figure, practised to an alarming extent throughout the vegetable kingdom. " Plants do not grow where they like best, but where other plants will let them." Animals have feeling, which plants have not ; but of compassion the animal kingdom is utterly devoid. The equilibrium of the animal world is maintained not merely by preparation for war, but by actual and unceasing conflict. Almost every species of animal is pressing beyond the limits of 86 SCIENTIFIC METHOD its means of subsistence. There are low forms of animals that produce millions of young every season. Yet the number of progeny which sur- vives may not be at all in proportion to that which comes into existence. The mishaps that befall a young trout are far more numerous than those to which a whale is liable. " The condor lays a couple of eggs, and the ostrich a score ; and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two. The fulmar petrel lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the most nu- merous bird in the world." Thus it is plain that the number of living individuals at any time repre- senting a species is largely dependent on ability to contend against forces, both organic and inorganic, which oppose them after they are born. The great difSculty to be overcome in the continual existence of a species is that of adjusting itself to the other forms of life. By reason of this there is a constant oscillation in the comparative numbers of different classes of animals. As the food of herbivorous animals for any cause increases, the law of geometrical increase soon fills the enlarged possibility of subsistence, and individuals of this order are in competition again with each other. But the increase of Her- bivora is soon followed by that of the Carnivora feeding upon them, until these two orders are again in sharp competition, and the Carnivora ILLUSTEATED BY DARWINISM. 87 contend with a diminishing relative supply of food. When the animals are superabundant upon which the Carhivora feed, the weakest and most clumsy of that order can supply himself with food, and it will be the most helpless of tlie Herbivora that are to be devoured. But when the balance is restored and the competition com- menced again, the fleetest or strongest of the Her- bivora, or those that have some other advantage, will be preserved ; only the more favored of the Carnivora can then take or overcome them. The unfortunate of both orders will perish, and the more favored ones of both survive. When the struggle is in the same family with lessening amount of food, either absolute or relative, or with changing climate, analogous results must follow. In both cases, those variations from the type of the species that occur in every individual are the centrifugal force tending to divergence, counteracted, when nothing else interferes to aug- ment it, by the law of inheritance and by the inter- crossing of individuals with opposite variations. The external power in nature which supplies the place of man's agency as seen in domesticating animals, is the varying conditions of life arising from changes in climate, in temperature, in the extent of territory open for the range of the spe- cies, and from the encroachment of other species upon their domain. In this complicated environ- 88 SCIENTIFIC METHOD ment a power is revealed which Darwin per- sonifies as " Natural Selection." He speaks, we suppose, of power in the secondary sense, as when we use similar language regarding the force of gravity ; and proceeds to trace the action of this secondary cause with reference to the production of species, as geologists would try to account for the features of a river valley by the erosive action of flowing water, or as the mathematician verifies the law of gravitation by the solutions it afibrds to the complicated observations of the astronomer. Or yet again, the problem is similar to that of the historian who sits in judgment on the documents before him, and pronounces them true or false ac- cording as they conform or not to the known action of the human mind under the stress of given motives. It should be remembered in this connection that the limit which has ordinarily been set to the liberty of variation inherent in species is alto- gether arbitrary. It is perfectly proper for any person to proceed according to the law of parsi- mony from what is actually known of the varia- bility of species and of the power - of natural selection, and see how far these factors will account for all the changes that are apparent. To the theologian the question regards the mode of the divine operations in nature. Darwin's law of natural selection merely furnishes a natural bond ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 89 for what Agassiz calls the ideas of God that were realized in innumerable special creations, and dur- ing countless periods of past time. The theologian stands in no more need of mira- cles for the production of species than he does for that of the planets and their movements. Direct providential interposition is not for the irrational creation, but for the rational. So we may divest ourselves of theological prepossessions of any kind in reference to the material machinery by which the diversity of animal and vegetable life has been produced. But of these points we will speak far- ther on. XVlll. Time as a Factor iu the Equation. The rate at which changes may proceed through natural selection is an indeterminate quantity. If natural selection be the secondary cause that has determined the development of species, then its speed must have been inversely as tlie time in which it has operated. If time has been short, natural selection must either have been incompe- tent for the results, or have worked the faster. No certain and satisfactory clue has been given as to the rapidity with which, in favorable circum- stances, changes can proceed in species. Mr. Darwin insists, too strenuously perhaps, \ipon a very slow rate of variation. But it is by a singular misnomer that the school in geology led by Lyell, 90 SCIENTIFIC METHOD and of which Darwin's is the complement in nat- ural history, is called uniformitarian, since both these distinguished authors emphasize not so much the uniformity of the past as the instability of the present. Time can easily be eliminated when cause and effect are brought into line. It must be admitted also that geological measures of time are very indefinite and unsatisfactory. Without dispute, however, geology opens up an expanse of time through which plants and animals have lived that is ample enough for almost any purpose. The geological succession of the earth's strata extends the present order of things back to a point that is far out of sight. Darwin can with confidence claim twenty-five million years, and without much fear of contradiction, four times that period, as a field in wliich his law may have operated. As near as can be ascertained, we are in the middle of duration, and God has been no more pressed for time in which to do his work in the past than he is to be for the future. God is as prodigal of time as of space, and to appearance has shown himself as little concerned about the fate of the mere forms of life that have in suc- cession inhabited the world, as about the quan- tity of dirt it has required to make the world ; though doubtless, before divine omniscience, every hair of_ each minutest insect has its place in the general scheme of organic development, ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 91 and every grain of sand on the surface has been weighed. As a single illustration of the demands which geology makes upon us for time, it is enough to refer to the great gorge of the Colorado.^ " This Canon is three hundred miles long, and has walls of rock three thousand to six thousand feet high. The walls are sections of nearly horizontal strata, ranging for the principal part of their extent from the granite to the top of the Carboniferous, and higher up the stream to the top of the Cretaceous ; and the whole bears undoubted evidence, accord- ing to Newberry, that it was made by running water. The granite has been excavated in some places to a depth of nearly one thousand feet; above this there are two thousand to two thousand five hundred feet of Palaeozoic sandstones, shales, and limestones, one thousand feet of probably Sub- carboniferous limestone, and one thousand two hundred feet of Carboniferous sandstones and limestones." This enormous gorge must have been principally worn out since the beginning of the Tertiary period, for very little progress could have been made before the elevation of the moun- tains of that region that bear upon their shoulders the Cretaceous formation. Time enough to allow of such enormous erosion has elapsed since there 1 Dana's Manual of Geology {1st ed.), p. 569. The account is not materially different in the 2d edition. 92 SCIENTIFIC METHOD are known to have existed a number of species of animals (Palaeothere, Lophiodon) closely allied to the horse and the hog (Hieracothere, Chaeropota- mus), also those that partook of characteristics between the Pachyderms and the stag among Ruminants (as the Anoplothere and Dichobune). " There were also monkeys, bats, deer, and opos- sums in England and France, although in the present age there are no opossums out of America, and monkeys are confined to the tropical zone." It is evident that the rate of change reqxiired to pass during such a period from the Palaeotherium to the horse and from Chaeropotamus to the hog might be very slow. Reflection on the vastness^ of these pre-historic ages does much to smooth the way for the acceptance of such a theory as that of Darwin. Time is one factor ; change is another. To produce a given result each would vary in- versely as the other. As we pass into the period preceding the Tertiary the vistas of time recede in increasing ratio to the beginning of organic exist- ence. During this period positive evidence con- cerning the plasticity of the existing species diminishes, while there is a corresponding in- crease of the unmeasured element of time and physical change. The more cautious scientific men pause before venturing far into the mazes of primordial time. TLLUSTEATED BY DARWINISM. 93 XIX. Conspectus. Setting out from that period when the Creator first breathed life into one, or more probably four or five, distinct forms, Mr. Darwin supposes the development to have been something as follows : A vast, extremely complicated, and inscrutable environment of physical forces has furnished both material and limits to the development of organic life. The generic thread of life has been contin- uous from its introduction to the present day. Species in every part of their organism were en- dowed with an indefinite and imperfectly under- stood power of variability. Those variations that were best fitted to the changing conditions of their existence have of course survived. The conditions favoring the existence of a divergence from the type may continue so long that new species shall result. The qualities required to give a new va- riety the advantage in the struggle for life are as varied as the whole range of organic functions, of animal impulse, and of social instinct. " Utility " has as broad a meaning in Darwin's law of natural selection as " desire " has in systems of ethics or political economy. Desire ranges from the brutal instincts of the savage to the loftiest aspiration of the philosopher or the Christian martyr. The con- clusions of the science of political economy are as indefinite as its basis of desire is broad. In like 94 SCIENTIFIC METHOD manner the superstructure of Darwin's evolution- ary hypothesis must be as indeterminate as its base of utility is comprehensive. The preservation of a divergent variety may depend on its own ab- solute completeness for the struggle, or on the comparative weakness of its competitors. It may depend on gigantic stature or diminutive little- ness, on endurance or alertness, on boldness or timidity, on acuteness or stupidity. The range of social and sexual instinct is also exceedingly wide. "We give the logical chain according to Wallace.^ Organisms tend to a rapid increase, while the total number of individuals is stationary : this induces a struggle for existence, which combined with "heredity and variation," results in the " survival of the fittest " ; this, combined with " unceasing change of external conditions," secures changes of organic forms, of such degree and permanency that they are called specific : thus Species may originate. On the supposition of a preponderance of land during an early period in the southern hemi- sphere, analogous to that which now exists in the , northern, many of the anomalous facts of the dis- tribution of species, and the retention of old forms of life in the isolated centres of the south, will approach solution. Through the discovery of connecting links, and ^ Contrib. Theory Nat Selec., p. 302. ILLUSTRATED BY DARWINISM. 95 fresh investigation of the facts bearing upon the distribution, gradation, and variability of species, much presumptive proof of evolution has accumu- lated. What was required further, and what " nat- ural selection " has now to some extent supplied, was not so much additional positive arguments, as the production of a theory that should not in its mode of operation do violence to the facts pointing so strongly in an opposite direction. A secondary cause, known to operate within certain limits, and which may have operated through the whole extent of organic life, and bound all species of an order into a united whole is brought to light. It is endeavored thus to put the advocates of the independent creation of species on the defence, and to throw the burden of proof upon those who deny the organic unity of the animal and vegetable creation. Of the defences put forth for the old- time view of the manner of the production of species we will speak in the next chapter. CHAPTER III. OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM AND THE EEJOIN- DEES OF ITS ADVOCATES. I. A Mere Theory. The comprehensive objection to the view that species have been transmuted into one another mainly through the agency of natural selection is, that it is a mere theory, supported by some vague analogies and by very few facts. It is alleged that nearly all the facts upon which the view is based had been before the world for a half- century or more, and that it is not likely that so simple a clue to the maze as Mr. Darwin proposes would have escaped the notice of preceding naturalists. The objection is well taken, when urged against the sweeping generalizations of many who have espoused the doctrine. Very likely Mr. Darwin, even, with all his caution, has not escaped alto- gether the danger of being the servant, rather than the master, of his theory. It should, however, be remembered that Darwin was not in haste to pub- lish, but, after he was recognized as among the most careful of scientific observers, worked assidu- 96 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM. 97 onsly, but silently, over his problem for twenty years. Furthermore, the publication was hastened by the circumstance that another scientific observer (Mr. Wallace) had been led independently to a similar, or even identical, theory. However much value this objection of novelty might have had at the beginning, the theory has now been too long under discussion, and swept too many students of nature under its influence, lightly or sueeringly to be set aside. One thing is certain ; it has not proved an easy task to in- validate the theory altogether. Indeed, little has been attempted by the candid opponents of nat- ural selection except to set metes and bounds to its operations. As to the importance of the facts adduced, they must speak for themselves. The contemporaries of Newton derided him for taking notice of the analogy between the falling of an apple and the motion of the moon. Comte, the father of what is called the " positive philosophy," spoke with contempt of those who, from the anal- ogy between light and heat, endeavored to corre- late their laws of action. It is to be remembered that there is analogy and analogy. The argument from analogy applies to almost every subject, and carries every degree of probability. It would be difi&cult to go into a forest of gigantic trees in California, and prove, except by analogy, that these princely forms were ever mere seedlings. T yo OBJECTIONS TO DABWINISM _,One of the ablest of the defences of Cliristianity is Butler's " Analogy." II. Abrupt Appearance of Species. The fact that geological history can be divided into periods, appears to militate against a gradual development of the species of one epoch into those of another. At first thought, it would seem that, upon the theory under discussion, there ought to be such a minute and continuous gradation of species from beginning to end of the geological formations that the divisions of the strata into Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic should be altogether ar- bitrary. Innumerable forms of transitions must have existed. Why have they disappeared ? Why, in fact, are the beginnings of these periods so ab- rupt ? Barrande, one of the most eminent of modern palaeontologists, has pressed this objection vrith great force in his work on the Trilobites of the Silurian epoch. This widely extended family of Crustaceans appears suddenly and in a highly de- veloped form. If we except the still controverted Eozoon Canadense, the Trilbbite is one of the old- est forms of life whose remains have thus far been discovered. Yet hundreds of species swarmed in the Cambrian and Silurian seas of Europe and America, and the remarkable eyes of these animals were apparently as well developed in the earlier, AND REJOINDERS. 99 as in the later, periods of the existence of the family. If these species were transmuted from previously existing and lower organisms, why are there no premonitions of their approach in the epochs immediately preceding ? But there is no direct evidence that they had any ancestry.^ Again, fishes appear with equal abruptness in the Devonian formation. Below the very upper- most divisions of the Silurian system not a single bone of any aquatic animal of the Vertebrate class lias been detected. Yet in the Old Red Sand- stone, immediately above the Silurian, there are found the fossil remains of more than a hundred species to which the anatomist would assign " by no means a low place in the Piscene class." ^ Again, " The transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic forms of life was strongly marked in geological history." " At the close of the Carbo- niferous age there was a complete extermination of all living species." ^ In this step upward we have passed from the age of fishes to the age of reptiles with an abruptness that is somewhat start- ling to any theory of transmutation, and especially to a theory one of whose fundamental principles 1 See Summary of Barrande in Winchell, pp. 125-144. 2 See Lyell, Principles of Geology, Vol. i. p. 151 f. Also, Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator. 2 Dana, Manual of Geology (1st ed.),pp. 413,403. The second edition is much more guarded and omits this with many other like sweeping assertions. 100 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM is that this transmutation has been by minute and slowly succeeding gradations. The transition from the Palaeozoic period to the Mesozoic is not a mi- nute transition nor a local step, but a passage from water-breathing to air-breathing animals, like the Ichthyosaurus and his congeners, whose " long Greek names alone give us an idea of their main features." Still again, the Tertiary period brings in ab- ruptly a new order of things. " No species of the European Cretaceous is known to occur in the Ter- tiary formation, and none of Asia or of Eastern North America. In the Rocky Mountain region some Cretaceous species and genera continue on, if the coal series is Tertiary ; and yet the number now known is less than half a dozen. The vast majority of the species and nearly all the character- istic genera disappear. The facts do not authorize the inference that extermination was so complete as is [sometimes alleged] , although estab- lishing that it was remarkable for its universality and thoroughness."^ " With the Tertiary epoch we are introduced to animal forms which, as the age progresses, are in increasing numbers identical with species that are now living." But in the case of man there is again a sudden leap forward ; not so much, how- ever, in the anatomical structure of his skeleton 1 Dana, Manual of Geology (2d ed.), pp. 487, 488. AND REJOINDERS. 101 as in the size and office of his brain. "Not the first link below the lowest level of existing man has yet been found. This is the more extraordi- nary, in view of the fact that, from the lowest limit in existing men there are all possible gra- dations up to the highest ; while below that limit there is an abrupt fall to the ape level, in which the cubic capacity of the brain is one half less. If the links ever existed, their annihilation without a relic is so extremely improbable that it may be pronounced impossible. Until some are found, science cannot assert that thoy ever existed." ^ Such are some of the leading objections to Dar- winism drawn from the apparent abruptness of the introduction of the geological eras. We will present the rejoinders in inverse order. In the case of man it has been said, that it will not break the force of the general argument to admit that he is exceptional, and that the charac- teristic and higher endowments of his nature were miraculously bestowed. Those who defend the occurrence of miracles do not suppose that thereby the belief in the ordinary uniformity of nature is disturbed. Miracles are extraordinary interven- tions, made for sufficient reasons. The reasons for divine intervention on the occasion of trans- forming an animal life into, or adding to that life the impress of, the divine image, are such as can- 1 Dana, Manual of Geology (2d ed.), p. 603. 102 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM liot be shown to exist at other stages of organic history. Another mode of reply consists in a wholesale appeal to our ignorance of what has taken place in the unexplored parts of existing continents, and on lands that are now submerged by the ocean. As this appeal to the imperfection of the geo- logical record is on the one hand so often made by the Darwinians, and on the other as often spoken of with derisiop by their opponents, it is necessary to treat it at some length. Tlie Cretaceous formation, which separates the Mesozoic or Secondary period from the Cainozoic or Tertiary, represents a time when the continents best known were submerged in deep seas. The Pyrenees, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Rocky Mountains, all give evidence of the long and deep submergence of the Cretaceous era.^ The changes, if any, which were taking place at that time in the transformation of reptiles' into Mammalia, would have occurred in regions which were then existing as dry land. When these sea- bottoms of the Chalk period again emerged, the sudden appearance of a range of species altogether different from those whose remains are found in the formation below would naturally be accounted for by migration. During the progress of the Cre- 1 See Dana, Manual of Geology (2d ed.), p. 480. AND REJOINDERS. 103 taceous formation, time enougli may have elapsed, and pliysical clianges sufficiently extensive and pro- found have occurred, to allow of such a gradual transformation of species as is supposed. On this supposition, old forms of life had succumbed to the change of circumstances, as new and better adapted varieties had gradually taken their place. Under these circumstances, the sudden appear- ance of new species on the re-elevation of the con- tinent would be more apparent than real, and might be attributed to the effect of colonization, rather than of new creation. The process can be better understood, if we imagine the bed of the Indian Ocean to be elevated till it becomes dry land. The new region would be at once supplied with plants and animals from adjacent continents. If we suppose the forms of life to have been under- going gradual changes during all the period of subsidence, the transition from the species that peopled this hypothetical continent before the sub- mergence to those that colonized it after would appear to have been sudden, whereas it was not. Furthermore, the amount of denudation that may have taken place between two strata which are in contact, is sometimes a very large and unknown quantity. It is obvious that successive geological formations were deposited from the debris of those that were of earlier origin. The sediment of the lake or lagoon is the " wash " of the hills. The 104 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM removal, by sub-aerial agencies, of the continents to the sea is only a question of time. Deposition of sediment and denudation of material are correl- ative facts. Known instances of the immense amount of the former are easily matched by cor- responding instances of the latter. For example, there are numerous places along the Appalachian cliain of mountains where " faults " exist which show that many thousands of feet of material have been removed since the fracture occurred. A fault is a crack in the crust of the earth along which the strata on one side have been upheaved or thrown on the other. According to Lesley, one such, twenty miles in length, occurs near Cham- bersburg, Pennsylvania, of which the eastern side " must have stood high enough in the air to make a Hindoo Koosh [at least twenty thousand feet] ; and all the materials must have been swept into the Atlantic by the denuding flood. The evidence of this is of the simplest order, and patent to every eye. Portions of the Upper Devonian wall against the lowest portions of the Lower Silurian A man can stand astride across the crevice, with one foot on Trenton limestone, and the other on Hamilton slates." ^ Should that region be submerged, and covered with a fresh deposit, three leaves of the geological book as far apart as the Lower Silurian the Meso- 1 See Dana, Mannal of Geology (2d ed.), p. 399. AND REJOINDERS. 105 zoic, and the Post-tertiary would lie in contact, with all the vast intervening records removed. Sir Charles Lyell sets in strong light these, and various other, evidences of the incompleteness of the geo- logical record. They afford the Darwinian large opportunity to account for the sudden appearance of groups of species in a new formation, on the hypothesis of migration. ^ It is by sucli supposi- tions only that he can work around the obstacles presented to his theory by the apparently abrupt changes of species on the introduction of the Ter- tiary (Cainozoic), the Secondary (Mesozoic), and the Silurian (Palaeozoic) eras. This appeal to the incompleteness of the geological record is not made by the Darwinians for the purpose of ad- ducing positive argument, but to break the force of the negative arguments which their opponents array against them. By this means they attempt to give a probable explanation of the gaps that ap- pear in their cliain of positive evidence. It must be remarked, however, that these asserted hard- and-fast lines of demarcation between the geolog- ical eras are gradually disappearing before the advance of scientific discoveries. There is, for example, constantly increasing evidence that birds and marsupial quadrupeds existed in great num- bers as early as the middle portion of the Second- 1 See Dana, Manual of Geology (2d ed.), pp. 600, 601, where the weight of tbi8 counter evidence is candidly discussed. 106 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM ary period.^ " The hiatus, which, in the idea of most geologists, intervened between the close of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Tertiary, appears to have had no existence so far as concerns the vegetation."^ According to the same author, " there is no tree or slirub in Europe, in North America, and in the Canary Islands, which is not found fossil under a specific form more or less in- timately allied to one of our own time." The sudden appearance of groups of highly de- veloped species, like the Trilobite, in the lowest fossiliferous strata is confessed by Mr. Darwin to remain as yet inexplicable ; and he acknowledges that it " may be truly urged as a valid argument against " his views ^ At' the same time, he pre- sents an hypothesis " to show that it may hereafter receive some explanation." The reader should note carefully the character of Mr. Darwin's rea- soning, as distinguished from the multitude of a priori evolutionists who have espoused his cause. His endeavor is to feel his way backwards from manifest present afiBnities along the converging lines of geological evidence, as far as they are tan- gible. He would claim that his positive analogies are sufQcient to outweigh a large amount of merely '■ See I/yell, Principles of Geology, Vol. i. pp. 155-160. ' Count Gaston de Saporta, quoted by Gray, in Darwiniana, p. 197. * Origin of Species, p. 287. AND REJOINDERS. 107 negative evidence, and that it is sufficient for him to show by hypothesis that the obstacles opposed by negative evidence are not insuperable. Nevertheless, it is incumbent ou him to proceed with more aud more caution as he gets away from his base of observation. Mr. Darwin's method may be compared to that of astronomers in establisliing the unlimited oper- ation of tlie law of gravitation. It is a mistake to suppose that they have proved the general preva- lence of this law with anything like mathematical accuracy. The planetary bodies do not yet all come around on time. No astronomer pretends that he has measured all the disturbing forces which determine the motions of tlie heavenly bodies. But, after having adduced a certain amount of positive evidence, it is sufficient for his purpose to show that unexpected aberrations could be accounted for on the hypothesis of dis- turbing powers such as are known to exist. It cannot by any means be said that the proof of the derivative origin of species has reached so liigh a degree of perfection as that of the theory of grav- itation. It might more properly be compared to the condition of that theory just previous to the work of Laplace, wlio, by explaining a great num- ber of apparent irregularities in the solar system, as the result of gravitation acting on masses of hypothetical size and density, and situated at 108 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM hypothetical distances from each other, has estab- lished the theory beyond peradventiire. Astron- omy was a science before Laplace. Since his day it has merited the title of an " exact science." The science of tidology offers a comparison more nearly in point. The tides are, doubtless, effects of gravitation. But no mathematician can deductively work out the problem of those effects for all shores, and for every bay and inlet. The tide of each locality has a law of its own. All that can be done regarding abnormal instances, such, for example, as the enormous rise in the tide in the Bay of Fundy, is to show that they are not inconsistent with the theory, of their being the effect of gravitation, as conditioned by the cliang- ing positions of the earth and moon and sun, acting on bodies of water confined by shores that are but partially surveyed, and resting on a bottom whose character is to a still greater degree unknown. Or, again, those who reconstruct the original text of our sacred Scriptures do not pretend that they have a copy as it came from the hands of the authors. They, however, approach the central century, in which Christ and the apostles lived, on converging lines, some sborter, some longer ; only a few reaching to the second or third century. By such a process it is believed that we are even more certain that we liave the substance of gospel history and apostolic doctrine than we could be if AND REJOINDERS. 109 we were supposed to have the original records. For it would be a more difficult matter to prove those alleged original documents to be original than it is to prove their substance from the manu- scripts we have. For when manuscripts and ver- sions with minor variations are traced along different lines toward a centre, we may rely on the aberrations of one class to correct those of another. Lest this may seem to some a digression, we re- peat that the arguments of naturalists cannot be weighed without coming back repeatedly to the foundations on which all evidence reposes ; and it should be put to the credit of Mr. Darwin that, in the main, he tries to adhere to the canons of proof that are generally accepted in all sciences dealing with actual things. m. Absence of Intermediate Yarieties. In the preceding section we have spoken of the " sudden appearance of groups of allied species " at the beginning of the so-called geological eras. The present objection to Darwinism closely resem- bles the previous one. It is alleged that, ac- cording to theory, there ouglit to be in any single formation an innumerable number of interme- diate forms, shading into each other by impercep- tible steps, and connecting the species which lived at the commencement with those living at the IIQ OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM close of the period. But the links as hest made out, when compared with tliose that must have actually existed, are few and disconnected. The only reply that can be made is that the geological record, even in the best preserved sec- tions, is poor and beggarly beyond description.^ To get the force of this reply, one must conceive more fully the contingencies attending the pre- servation of fossils.^ 1. The " bird must be caught." The animal must die in a situation sucli tliat he shall be speedily imbedded in fine sediment. This is one contingency, and can occur only to a compara- tively few individuals of a species. 2. The strata in which the fossil is deposited must be preserved from subsequent denudation. 3. " In order to get a perfect gradation between two forms in the upper and lower parts of the same formation, the deposit must have gone on continuously accumulating during a long period, sufficient for the slow process of modification ; hence the deposit must be a very thick one, and the species undergoing change must have lived in the same district throughout the whole time."^ 4. In order to have a record of gradations in a * See Origin of Species, Chaps, vi.' and x. Lyell's Elements, p. 115 ; Priaciples, Vol. i. p. 341 f. ; Vol. ii. p. 490. " See Dana, Manual of Geology {2d ed.), p. 600. * Origin of Species, p. 277. FS^jJ AND REJOINDERS. Ill Bingle formation, the life of the species must be shorter than the period in which the formation was deposited. Mr. Darwin closes his patient discussion of this objection with the remark that, " if there be some degree of truth " in the consid- erations he presents, " we have no right to expect to find in our geological formations an infinite number of those transitional forms which, on our theory, have connected all the past and present species of the same group into one long and branching chain of life. We ought only to look for a few links ; and such, assuredly, we do find. But I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor was the record in the best preserved geological sections, had not the absence of innumerable transitional links between the species which lived at the commencement and close of each formation, pressed so hardly on my theory." ^ Almost the last communication of Professor Agassiz to the press contains an assertion that the incompleteness in the geological record in which Mr. Darwin so often took refuge to hide the weak points of his theory did not exist in America, but that here we had in many parts a " complete se- quence." Latterly Mr. Clarence King and Pro- fessor Le Conte^ have emphasized and illustrat(;d ' Origin of Species, p. 282. Le Conte's Elements of Geology, pp. 333, 402, 475. 112 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM this idea. To account for the vast changes in organic life that have evidently taken place be- tween the great geologic epochs recourse is had to the idea of Mivart, expressed in the ingenious phrase " paroxysmal evolution." Speaking of the transition from the Silurian to the Devonian formation, the strata of which in England are unconformable, but in the United States are " conformable throughout," Le Conte remarks " it is impossible to overlook the comparative suddenness of the appearance of a new class (fishes) and a new department (Vertebrates) of the animal kingdom. Observe that at the hoi'izon of appearance in the uppermost Silurian there is no apparent break in the strata, and therefore no evidence of lost record ; and yet the advance is immense. It is impossible to account for this, un- less we admit paroxysms of more rapid movement of evolution — unless we admit that when condi- tions are favorable and the time is ripe for a par- ticular change, it takes place with exceptional rapidity, perhaps in a few generations." Again, the Permian formation represents a period of transitions between the Palaeozoic and the Meso- zoic system of rocks. The greatest change of organisms in the whole history of the earth appar- ently took place in the midst of the conformable strata of this period. From this he reasons, as before, that the transmutation must have been AND REJOINDERS. 113 comparatively rapid. Again, between the Meso- zoic era, or age of reptiles, and the Cainozoic, or age of mammals, there is a great break in the life system, and in Europe, in the rock system, — the strata being there universally unconformable, — whereas in America " the record seems to be continuous" — " conformable rocks connecting the two eras This it seems impossible to explain on the theory of evolution, unless we admit periods of rapid evolution." These are certainly very weighty considerations. We presume, however, that Mr. Darwin will not consider the evidence adduced as sufficient to establish the fact of a marked periodic acceleration in the operation of the forces of organic development. For the terra incognita into which he can flee is still sufficiently large. He will suppose that the changes in or- ganic life had been in progress somewhere else, and the sudden apparition of these new-fledged forms was due to fresh facilities for migration. As the European geologist must look to this country for the record of the progress of the horse, so the American geologist should look else- where for the record of the earlier history of fishes and of reptiles. IT. Lapse of Time Insufficient for tbe Effects. Though we be at the middle point of duration, the world has not existed in its present condition 8 114 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM forever. The physical philosophers have some- thing to say about the age of the world. ^ The earth is kept in its present condition by the inter- action of a variety of correlated physical forces. Heat, light, electricity, chemical attraction, and motion are passing from one into the other in varying degrees of rapidity. Change can occur only where there is a disturbance of the equilib- rium of these forces. All these modifications are tending to one effect, viz. an equilibrium that must be lifeless. The cosmos is running down like a clock. The heat of the world is dissipating. The earth is retarding its pace. Perpetual motion is as much an absurdity in a planetary system; as in a human machine. " Nature no more works without friction than we can." " The power man can extract from a ton of coals is limited ; but perhaps not one reader in a thou- sand will at first admit that the power of the sun and that of the chemical affinities of bodies on the earth is equally limited." We are assured, how- ever, on the highest authority, that " the sun will be too cold for our, or Darwin's, purposes before many millions of years — a long time, but far enough from countless ages. Quite similarly, past countless ages are inconceivable, inasmuch as tlie heat required by the sun to have allowed him to cool from time immemorial would be such as 1 See North British Eeview, Vol. xlvi. pp. 294-305. AND REJOINDERS. 115 to turn him into mere vapor, which would extend over the whole planetary system and evaporate us entirely." ^ " Darwin's theory requires countless ages during which the earth shall have been habi- table. ..... In answer, it is shown that a general physical law obtains, irreconcilable with the per- sistence of active change at a constant rate ; in any portion of the universe, however large, only a cer- tain capacity for change exists ; so that every change which occurs renders the possibility of future change less, and, on the whole, the rapidity or violence of changes tends to diminish Their [sun and earth] present state proves that they cannot remain forever adapted to living be- ings, and that living beings can have existed on the earth only for a definite time,, since in distant periods the earth must have been in fusion, and the sun must have been mere hot gas, or a group of distant meteors, so as to have been incapable of fulfilling its present functions as the compara- tively small centre of the system."^ This sounds as if the way were preparing for a problem in the rule of three. And such is the case. Sir W. Thomson fixes the extreme limit in the past at which the heat of the earth's crust would have permitted the existence of life, at four hundred million years, and the probable limit at 1 See North British Review, Vol. xlvi. pp. 297, 300. ■'■ Ibid., pp. 304, 305. 116 OBJECTIONS TO DABWINISM two hundred million years.^ Professor Newcomb estimates " that the balance of causes which would result in the sun radiating heat just fast enough to preserve the earth in its present state has prob- ably not existed more than 10,000,000 years." ^ In surmising as to the rate of change which the theory of natural selection will allow, one says : " We are fairly certain that a thousand years has made no very great change in plants or animals living in a state of nature. The mind cannot conceive a multiplier vast enough to con- vert this trifling change by accumulation into differences commensurate with those between a butterfly and an elephant, or even between a horse and a hippopotamus." ^ " Darwin would prob- ably admit that a million years would be no long time to ask for the production of a species differing only slightly from the parent stock. We doubt whether a thousand times more change than ■we have any reason to believe has taken place in wild animals in historic times would produce a cat from a dog, or either from a common ancestor. If this be so, how preposterously inadequate are a few hundred times this unit for the action of the Darwinian theory ! " * Mr. Murphy states the problem more precisely. ~ 1 See Origin of Species, p. 286. * Newcomb's "Popular Astronomy," p. 519. * North British Review, Vol. xlvi. p. 294. « Ibid., p. 301. AND REJOINDERS. 117 If favorable variations in one organ occur once in a thousand times, and, to secure survival, ten or- gans should have to vary simultaneously in given directions, the probability of the occurrence is 1 to 10^", a fraction the denomination of which is equal to " a number which is about ten thousand times as great as the number of waves of light that have fallen on the earth since historical time be- gan," i.e. (189,216 X lO^) seconds X (535 X lOi^^) iindulations = 101,230,560 X lO^^.i This manner of statement is good for certain purposes, especially as showing there must be a divinity shaping the ends of organic life, let natural selection rough hew them as it will. If there has been no appreciable progress in the development of species by natural selection since human history began, and if the limits to geolog- ical time as set by Sir William Tliomson are cor- rect, that is an end of the matter. But the following line of rejoinder is open : First, it is not proved that the rate of change among all wild species is imperceptible, even within the historic period. Such an inference has been made from the fact that man and certain domestic species of animals, as drawn on the 1 See Habit and Intelligence, Vol. 1. 320. The necessity of a simultaneous variation of different organs to secure preserration is so nearly akin to the subjects of sections vi. to x. that we haro not given it separate treatment. 118 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM earliest Egyptian monuments, are identical ia their features witli their descendants of the pres- ent day. Likewise, it is conceded that well- determined species do persist even through the whole length of vast geological periods. But these facts do not conflict with the supposition thafcj under favoring circumstances, variations may have branched off from the parent stock,, and pursued their line of march in parallel lines with their genealogical ancestors. For very good reason, the record of wild varieties is not pre- served, except in those analogies by whicli we infer their origin. On the other hand, varieties of marked and persistent characteristics have arisen since the historical era, under the direc- tion of human selection. The amount of this domestic variation multiplied by tens of thou- sands would present a very large sum. He who believes in a providential Ruler can easily grant that the Creator, through the combination of the forces which produces a natural selection,^ may hasten the development of a variation even more rapidly and surely than man can do by his combi- nation of these forces. So we cannot say what the first member of our proportion is. The rate at which, under the ordinary operation of nature, a species may cliange has not been determined. " But Mr. J. A. Allen [of Harvard College] has made elaborate observations and measurements AND REJOINDEES. 119 of the birds of the United States, and he finds a wonderful, and altogether unsuspected, amount of variation between individuals of the same species. They differ in the general tint, and in the mark- ings and distribution of the colors ; in size and proportions ; in the length of the wings, tail, bill, and feet ; in the length of particular feathers, altering the shape of the wing or tail ; in the length of the tarsi and of the separate toes ; and in the length, width, thickness, and curvature of the bill. These variations are very considerable, often reaching to one sixth or one seventh of the average dimensions, and sometimes more. Thus Turdus fuscescens (Wilson's thrush) varied in length of wing from 3.58 to 4.16 inches, and in the tail from 3.55 to 4 inches ; and in twelve spec- imens,- all taken in the same locality, the wing varied in length from 14.5 to 21 per cent, and the tail from 14 to 22.5 per cent. In Sialia sialis (the blue-bird) the middle toe varied from .79 to .91 inch, and the hind toe from .58 to .72 inch, or more than 21.5 per cent, on the mean ; while the bill varied from .45 to .56 inch in length, and from .80 to .38 inch in width, or about 20 per cent in both cases. In Dendraeca coronata (the yellow-crowned warbler) the quills vary in propor- tionate length, so that the first, the second, the third, or the fourth is sometimes longest ; and a similar variation of the wing involving a change 120 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM of proportioii between two or more of the feathers, is recorded in eleven species of birds. Color and marking vary to an equal extent ; the dark streaks on the under surface of Melozpiza mehdia (the American song sparrow) being sometimes reduced to narrow lines, while in other specimens they are so enlarged as to cover the greater part of the breast and sides of the body, sometimes uniting on the middle of the breast to a nearly con- tinuous patch. In one of the small spotted wood- thrushes. Tardus fiiscescens, the colors are some- times very pale, and the markings on the breast reduced to indistinct narrow lines ; while in other specimens the general color is much darker, and the breast-markings dark, broad, and triangular. All the variations here mentioned occur between adult males, so that there is no question of differ- ences of age or sex, and the pair last referred to were taken at the same place and on the same day."i Secondly, geologists are slow to grant the va- lidity of mathematical calculations regarding the age of the earth. Both divisor and dividend are so indeterminate that the quotient must be still more conjectural. The amount of uncertainty is illustrated in the extreme limits which Sir W. Thomson sets for the date of the first consolida- tion of the earth's crust. It " can hardly have 1 Wallace's Island Life, pp. 55, 56. AND EEJOINDiaiS. 121 occurred less than twenty, nor more than four hundred, million years ago." ^ Y. Existing Difficulties of Classification Ineritable under any Hypothesis.' This is not a direct objection to Darwinism, but is aimed at one of the prominent pillars of proof on which the theory rests. In this objection it is assumed only, first, that there " are different laws," under which " all existing substances or beings of which we have any scientific knowledge exist " ; secondly, that there is a limited number of ele- ments from which combinations can be made. With these self-imposed restrictions which the Creator has put upon his work in the material Tvorld, the problem of classification is one of per- mutations and combinations. " The limits to the possible number of combinations become more and more restricted, as we burden these combinations with laws more and more complicated." ^ For ex- ample, if it be required to find the number of words of five letters each which can be formed out of the English alphabet, and if there be no other restric- tion on the combinations than that there be five letters in each, we shall have the number 7,890,000. 1 Origin of Species, p. 286. See also Lyell, Principles of Geol- ogy, Vol. i. pp. 234, 235; also, Dana, Manual of Geology (lat ed.), p. 684. ''■ See North British Review, Vol. xlvi. pp. 305-313. Ibid., p. 307. 122 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM If, however, we insert the condition that no two of the combinations shall begin with the same letter, the number of possible words of five letters is reduced to twenty-six. If it be further stipulated that no two of the words shall have any letter in common, the number is reduced to five. Now, animals and plants are combinations of inorganic elements under conditions of almost in- conceivable complexity. These elements are to be so arranged as to constitute an " eating, breathing, moving, feeling, self-reproducing thing." i How else than in a continuous series of combinations, each resembling its neighbor, could these elements be arranged under these conditions, if there were to be an indefinite number of individuals ? Pro- fessor Agassiz 2 seems to affirm that the possibilities of economical construction are exhausted in the four grand divisions of the animal kingdom — the Radiate, the Moluscan, the Articulate, and the Vertebrate. Mathematical laws determine that varieties, if they are made to exist, should be pro- duced by incorporating minor changes upon these fundamental forms. The narrowness of the limits in wliich the creative power must move, unless the whole order of natural forces be changed, would compel such similarity in results as to create difficulties in classification. Such perplex- 1 See North British Review, Vol. xlvi. p. 308. 2 See Methods of Study in Natural History, p. 36, AND REJOINDERS. 123 ities occur in the inorganic, as well as in the or- ganic, world. Increase of knowledge has augmented the difficulty of distinguishing metals from metal- loids, and an acid from a base. In crystallography there are only a few fundamental forms ; but these forms shade oif into one another through insensi- ble gradations. The patent office is a standing illustration of the difficulty of distinguishing objects which have originated in separate acts, but under similar mechanical laws, and for similar ends. For instance, there are three forms of bridges — suspension, girder, and arch. These forms are determined by mechanical laws. The girder is intermediate between the other two kinds, and innumerable varieties are possible and actual, which it is not easy to assign to their proper class. What one would call " a stiffened arch," another would denominate a " girder of a peculiar form " ; "a third man calls a bridge a strengthened girder, which a fourth says differs in no practical way from a suspension-bridge." ^ This intermingling of forms in the classification of Ijridges arises from the fact that " there are only certain ways in which a stream can be bridged ; the extreme cases are easily perceived, and inge- nuity can then only fill in an indefinite number of intermediate varieties." Lawyers have a simi- lar difficulty in determining whether a " particular 1 North British Keview, Vol. xlvi. p. 311. 124 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM case falls under a particular statute," or " is ruled by this or that precedent." In so simple a matter as that of docketing letters or cataloguing books the same perplexities arise. " How difficult it is to devise headings, and how difficult afterwards to know under what head to place your book." i It must be confessed that this line of objection has great apparent force, as directed against one of the supposed positive arguments adduced in support of Darwinism. If the theory were largely dependent for its proof upon considerations of this nature, these objections would be more in point. But the Darwinian is free to say, first, that the considerations adduced above do not disprove his hypothesis. The gradations in the classifications of animals and plants are certainly not incompatible with the theory of their com- mon descent. This hypothesis more definitely. explains the gradation than any other ; and the extent to which the Creator has restricted himself in the possible combinations of elementary matter, is not known. Secondly, it is not the bare fact of gradation upon which reliance is had in proof of the Darwinian theory ; but it is, rather, upon tlie method in which one group of species clusters around another gro\ip, together with the manner in which these are distributed both through time and space, and the tenacity with which organs ' North British Review, Vol. xlvi. p. 312. AND REJOINDERS. 125 remain as rudimentary after they have become useless. TI. IndiTidual Yariations Counteracted by Inter- crossing.i A single individual, where he mingled freely with the ordinary forms of his tribe, would have small chance of transmitting his peculiarities through many generations. " An illustration will bring this conception home. Suppose a white man to have been wrecked on an island inhabited by negroes, and to have established himself in friendly relations with a powerful tribe, whose customs he has learnt. Suppose him to possess the physical strength, energy, and ability of a dominant white race, and let the food and climate of the island suit his constitution. Grant him every advantage which we can conceive a white to possess over the native ; concede that, in the struggle for existence, his chance of a long life will be much superior to that of the native chiefs ; yet from all these admis- sions there does not follow the conclusion that, after a limited or unlimited number of generations, the inhabitants of the island will be white. Our shipwrecked hero would probably become king ; he would kill a great many blacks in the struggle for 1 See North British Review, Vol. xlvi. pp. 286-294; Mivart's Genesis of Species, pp. 57-60 ; Darwin's Origin of Species, pp. 70-79. 126 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM existence ; he would have a great many wives and children, while many of his subjects would live and die as bachelors ; an insurance company would accept his life at perhaps one tenth of the premium which they would exact from the most favored of the negroes. Our white's qualities would certainly tend very much to preserve him to a good old age ; and yet he would not suffice, in any number of generations, to turn his sub- jects' descendants white In the first gener- ation there will be some dozens of intelligent young mulattoes, much superior in average intelligence to the negroes. "We might expect the throne for some generations to be occupied by a more or less yellow king ; but can any one believe that the whole island will gradually acquire a white, or even a yellow, population ; or that the islanders would acquire the energy, courage, ingenuity, patience, self-control, endurance, in virtue of which qualities our hero killed so many of their ancestors, and begot so many children ; those qualities, in fact, which the struggle for existence would select, if it could select anything? " ^ It will appear in all similar suppositions to be impossible for any " sport or accidental variation in a single individual" to transmit its advantages, even though they be manifest, to continually in- creasing numbers. In case the advantage were 1 North British Review, Vol. xlvi. pp. 289, 290. AND EEJOINDEES. 127 slight, the chance of continued transmission would b3 still more remote. The preponderating num- bers of the ordinary herd constitute an advantage to them that is insurmoautable by the single indi- vidual. The " sport " will be in the second gen- eration but a drop in the bucket, and his strain will at each removal decrease in strength by a geometrical ratio. Mr. Darwin remarks that, until reading the Article from which we have quoted, he " did not appreciate how rarely single variations, whether slight or strongly marked, could be perpetuated ; " ^ and strengthens the position by an illustration of his own : " If, for instance, a bird of some kind could procure its food more easily by having its beak curved, and if one were born with its beak strongly curved, and which consequently flourished ; nevertheless, there would be a very poor chance of this one in- dividual perpetuating its kind to the exclusion of the common form ; but there can hardly be a doubt, judging by what we see taking place under domes- tication, that this result would follow from the preservation during many generations of a large number of individuals with more or less strongly curved beaks, and from the destruction of a still larger number with the straitest beaks." ^ This admission of Darwin is thought by Mivart " almost to amount to a change of front in the 1 Origin of Species, p. 71. " Ibid., p. 72. 128 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM face of the enemy." ^ It certainly is the ciase that natural selection is powerless to preserve an ad- vantage, except when a large number of indi- viduals have simultaneously varied in the same direction. Natural selection does not originate advantages. Its office is to preserve those advan- tages that have arisen through the operation of the unknown cause of variation. Darwin says: " There can be little doubt that the tendency to vary in the same manner has often been so strong that all the individuals of the same species have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of selection." ^ To theists these concessions rob Darwinism of its sting ; for large numbers of individuals do not vary at the same time and in the same direction, by chance; and the tendency to variation, which is itself the origin of the advantages (these becom- ing _/?a;e£Z only by natural selection), still remains among the mysteries of the creation. In confront- ing that tendency we have reached the present length of our tether. Vll. Natural Selection and Specific Stability Incom- patible. While the accurate observer of nature is im- pressed with the variability of many species, espe- cially of domesticated animals and of cultivated ' Genesis of Species, p. 60. ^ Origin of Species, p. 72. AND REJOINDERS. 129 plants, his attention is equally attracted by the persistent stability of otlier species, or of the same species in other circumstances. Drawings upon the monuments of Assyria and Egypt prove that many of the animals and plants of those countries have remained during tliree or four thousand years unchanged. For example, at that early period many of the present varieties of the dog were in existence, such as the greyhound, the common hound, the mastiff, the lapdog, and the turnspit.^ Other still more striking instances of long-con- tinued specific stability can be adduced. Some of the species found in the early Tertiary formation are still in existence, and hence have continued un- changed for a period of probably millions of years. A still more striking instance of specific stability appears in case of the Lingulae. Lingula is a genus of Mollusk, which appeared in the Palaeo- zoic age even as early as the Cambrian epoch. " The Lingulae are especially interesting as exam- ples of a type of beings continued almost from the dawn of life until now ; for their shells as they exist in the Primordial are scarcely distinguishable from those of members of the genus which still live." '' J See Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. i. p. 29 f. '^ Dawson, Story of the Earth and Map, p. 41. See Darwin, Origin of Species, pp. 169, 290-293. 9 130 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM It is plain that any theory of the origin of species by derivation must be broad enough to comprehend the indisputable and striking facts concerning the extremely long duration and un- changed condition of some species. Accordingly, Mr. Darwin has provided a theory of such in- definite dimensions as to allow the most diverse facts to take shelter under its ample folds. His hypothesis " includes no fixed law of development, causing all the inhabitants of an area to change abruptly, or simultaneously, or to an equal degree. Whether such variations or individual dif- ferences as may arise will be accumulated through natural selection in a greater or less degree, thus causing a greater or less amount of permanent modification, will depend on many complex con- tingencies — on the variations beingof a beneficial nature, on the freedom of intercrossing, on the slowly changing physical conditions of the country, on the immigration of new colonists, and on the nature of the other inhabitants with which the varying species come into competition." ^ " Darwin clearly maintains — what the facts warrant — that the mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede the parent form, or it may co- exist with it ; yet it does not in the least hinder 1 Origin of Species, p. 291. AND REJOINDERS. 131 the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the curtailed fox in the fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their tails; nor have the dorkings (appar- ently known to Pliny) affected the permanence of the common sort of fowl. As to the objection that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwin's theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, and replaced by higher forms, the objectors for- get what a vacuum that would leave below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organ- ization is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the conditions, is what Nature seems to aim at ; and this is effected by diversifi- cation." 1 The " many complex contingencies " which per- tain to the theory in question afford theologians opportunities of wheeling it into line with a true 1 Professor Asa Gray, Natural Selection not Inconsistent with Natural Theology (London, 1861), pp. 53, 54. See Darwiniana, pp. 175, 176. 132 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM tlieistic view of nature. It is to be deplored that more have not seen this, and so closed the mouths of the atheistical and deistical interpreters, who have been so ready to volunteer their services.- Ym. Natural Selection Inoperative in tbe Incipient Stages of Advantageous Yariations. Closely allied to-the preceding objection is that urged at such length and with so much force by Mivart, viz. that sligM variations could not give their possessors any appreciable advantage in the struggle for existence. Darwin's view is repre- sented to be, that the progress of a species along a line of variation that is advantageous to it is by exceedingly minute steps, and tliat " natural selection acts only by the preservation and accu- mulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being ; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial ■wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure " ; ^ Darwin himself having said that " if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." ^ 1 Origin of Species, pp. 75, 76. ^ Ibid., p. 146. AND EEJOINDEES. 133 The writer in the North British Review, already- quoted so freely, speaks of " the Darwinian theory of the gradual accumulation of infinitely minute differences of every-day occurrence and apparently fortuitous in their character." ^ The line of Mr. Mivart's criticism is, that variations to be of ad- vantage must be appreciable in extent. " Minute incipient variations " of an "infinitesimal degree in any special direction," would be valueless. In case of the supposed development of the mam- mary gland, or breast, he asks : " Is it conceivable that the young of any animal was ever saved from destruction by accidentally sucking a drop of scarcely nutritious fluid from an accidentally hypertrophied cutaneous gland of its mother?"^ It appears evident that the mammary gland must have come into existence by a variation that was distinctly marked before it could give the young of its possessor special advantage in the struggle for existence. " The development of whalebone (baleen) in the month of the wliale is another difficulty When the whale feeds it takes into its mouth a great gulp of water, which it drives out again through the intervals of the horny plates of ba- leen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny 1 North British Review, "Vol. xlvi. p. 293. See Mivart,GreneBia of Species, pp. 23-62. 2 Genesis of Species, p. 47. 134 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM fibres, which retains the minute creatures on which tliese marine monsters subsist. Now, it is obvious that if this baleen had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits would bo promoted by natural selection alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development " is the question.^ Similar difficulties are supposed to arise, among other examples, in the preservation through nat- ural selection of the incipient stages in the devel- opment of the eye and the ear, and of the curious habits of mimicry characteristic of some species of insects. In case of the latter, imitation of the form, color, or motion of disagreeable objects, to be protective, must be well marked before they can be of any use. If the counterfeit is only a slight approach to the original, it will be of no advantage. The ass must keep the lion's skin well pulled over his ears, or the fraud will be detected. To this class of stinctures Mr. Darwin has both replied at length himself,^ and has commended the rejoinder of Mr. Chauncey Wright.^ Making due allowance for the imperfection of a brief summary, the answer is this : first, that Mr. Darwin does not 1 Genesis of Species, pp. 40, 41. 2 Origin of Species (6tii ed.), pp. 176-204. * North American Rerieje, Vol. cxiii. pp. 63-103. AND REJOINDERS. 135 say so much about " infinitesimal beginnings " and " infinitely minute difierences," as his re- viewers are accustomed to assert. The adjectives ■which Mr. Darwin has chosen are " slight," " small," " extremely gradual," as opposed to " great and sudden." He thinks it almost certain that many species " have been produced by steps not greater than those separating fine varieties." ^ The misunderstanding is similar to that which Sir Charles Lyell's views encountered. As already remarked,^ his theory of geological facts was de- nominated " uniformitarian," because he supposed past changes in geology had been produced by agencies such as are at work now in the world, and with no greater intensity of action than char- acterizes them at the present time. His real work, however, was to emphasize and set in its proper light the power of the geological agencies which we see still at work, and to show that these were neither trifling nor insignificant. So the standard of variability which Darwin assumes to account for the changes which have been produced in species is that which passes under our obser- vation. "That species have a capacity for change will be admitted by all evolutionists ; but there is no need, as it seems to me, to invoke any inter- nal force beyond the tendency to ordinary varia- bility, which through the aid of selection by man 1 Origin of Species, p. 203. ^ See above, p. 90. 136 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM has given rise to many well-adapted domestic races, and which through the aid of natural selection would equally well give rise by graduated steps to na.tural races or species Every one who believes iu slow and gradual evolution will, of course, admit that specific changes may have been as abrupt and as great as any single variation which we meet with under nature, or even under domestication." ^ Moreover, the "interesting facts [adduced by Professor Allen] ^ support the belief in the variabil- ity of all animals in all their parts and organs, to an extent amply sufficient for natural selection to work with. We may, indeed, admit that these are extreme cases, and that the majority of species do not vary half or a quarter so much as shown in the examples quoted, and we shall still have am- ple variation for all purposes of specific modifica- tion. Instead of an extreme variation in the dimensions and proportions of the various organs of from 10 to 25 per cent, as is here proved to occur, we may assume from 3 to 6 per cent, as generally occurring in the majority of species ; and if we further remember that the above ex- cessive variations were found by comparing a number of specimens of each species varying from 50 to 150 only, we may be sure that the smaller variations we require must occur in con- ' Origin of Species, d. 201. ^ See above, p. 119. AND REJOINDERS. 137 siderable numbers among the thousands or milHons of individuals of which all but the very rare spe- cies consist. If, therefore, we were to divide the population of any species into three groups of equal extent, with regard to any particular char- acter — as length of wing or of toes, or thickness or curvature of bill, or strength of markings — we should have one group in which the mean or average character prevailed with little variation, one in which the character was greatly, and one in which it was little, developed. If we formed our groups, not by equal numbers, but by equal amount of variation, we should probably find, in accordance with the law of averages, that the central group, in which the mean characteristics prevailed, was much more numerous than the extremes ; perhaps twice, or even three times, as great as either of them, and forming such a series as the following : 10 maximum, 30 mean, 10 min- imum development. In ordinary cases we have no reason to believe that the mean characters or the amount of variation of a species changes ma- terially from year to year or from century to cen- tury, and we may therefore look upon the central group as the type of the species which is best adapted to the conditions in which it has actually to exist. This type will always form the majority, because the struggle for existence will lead to the continual suppression of the less perfectly adapted 138 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM extremes. But sometimes a species has a wide range into countries wliich differ in physical con- ditions, and then it often happens that one or other of the extremes will predominate in a portion of its range. These form local varieties ; but as they occur mixed with the other forms, they are not considered to be distinct species, although they may differ from the other extreme form quite as much as species often do from each other. " It is now very easy to understand how, from such a variable species, one or more new species may arise. The peculiar physical or organic con- ditions that render one part of the area better adapted to an extreme form may become intensi- fied, and the most extreme variations thus having the advantage, they will multiply at the expense of the rest. If the change of conditions spreads over the whole area occupied by the species, this one extreme form will replace the others ; while if the area should be cut in two by subsidence or elevation, tlie conditions of the two parts may be modified in opposite directions, so as to be eacli adapted to one extreme form ; in which case the original type will become extinct, being replaced by two species, each formed by a combination of certain extreme characters which had before ex- isted in some of its varieties." ^ Such an amount and kind of variation as will 1 Wallace's Island Life, pp. 57, 58. AND REJOINDERS. 139 give its subject some advantage over its competi- tors is necessarily assumed. Natural selection cannot, of course, preserve an advantage till the species has got it to preserve. The choice is be- tween reasoning from such data as observation has given us concerning the variability of races, and that of supposing a much stronger tendency to variation in the past than now exists. Darwin speaks of the " canon in natural history of ' Natura uon facit saltum,' " as " somewhat exaggerated." ^ Huxley thinks Mr. Darwin's position might have been even stronger than it is if he had not embar- rassed himself so much with this aphorism. Mr. Huxley believes that " nature does make jumps now and then," and that a " recognition of the fact is of no small importance in disposing of many minor objections to the doctrine of trans- mutation." ^ Professor Joseph Le Conte and Mr. Clarence King, by introducing the hypothesis of " paroxysmal evolution," have done much to re- lieve the theory from objections both scientific and theological. IX. Independent Similarities of Stmctnre. We are indebted, also, to Mr. Mivart ^ for set- ting in order the important series of objections to Darwinism which fall under the present head. If 1 Origin of Species, p. 1 56. '■^ Lay Sermons, p. 297. * See Genesis of Species, pp. 63-96. 140 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM there are any who view " variation " and " natural selection " as strictly fortuitous in their operation, they will, in the facts we are here considering, meet with a degree of improbability that is insur- mountable. " The organic world supplies us with multitudes of examples of similar functional re- sults being attained by the most diverse means." For example, birds and bats both fly ; but their machinery of flight is constructed on very diverse patterns — so diverse that they must have had independent origin. In case of the bat, the bones of the hand are greatly elongated, and an expanse ■of naked skin forms the membrane of his wing. On the contrary, in case of the bird, the bones of the hand are excessively reduced, and the expanse of the wing is formed by feathers, which are an outgrowth of the skin. The " flying fish," the " flying dragon," and the pterodactyl had each an independent and unique structure for securing aerial locomotion. A multitude of analogous in- stances could be cited. A mathematical calcula- tion would, according to Mivart, show that chance variations which were not guided by some higher law than that of mere natural selection are entirely inadequate to such results. The probabilities are an " indefinitely great number to one against a sim- ilar series of variations occurring and being simi- larly preserved in any two independent instances." ^ '■ See Genesis of Species, p. 67. AND REJOINDERS. 141 A still more remarkable instance is to be found in the independent development of the eye in dif- ferent orders of animals. It " must have been perfected in three distinct lines of descent," ^ viz. among Mollusks, as in cuttle-fish ; among Articu- lates, as in spiders, crabs, trilobites ; and among Vertebrates. These all existed, and were furnished with well-developed eyes, as early as the Upper Si- lurian period. These orders of animals are so distinct that " it would be impossible to find a common ancestor without going back to some very simple form not yet provided with even the rudi- ments of vision." ^ Mr. Mivart does not suppose that these facts bear against all doctrines of the derivative origin of species ; for he has an evolutionary hypothesis of his own, which differs from that of Darwin ' mainly in making more prominent the influence of outward conditions in producing changes, and in the length of the leaps which nature is supposed at some times to take. We are glad to give Pro- fessor Huxley the credit of the following exposition of Mr. Darwin's views, which we suppose the lat- ter would accept, and with which no theist need quarrel. " I apprehend that the foundation of the theory of natural selection is the fact that living bodies 1 See Genesis of Species, p. 76. " Lyell, Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. p. 498. 142 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM tend incessantly to vary. Tliis variation is neither indefinite nor fortuitous, nor does it take place in all directions, in the strict sense of these words. Accurately speaking, it is not indefinite, nor does it take place in all directions, because it is limited by the general characters of the type to which the organism exhibiting the variation belongs. A whale does not tend to vary in the direction of producing feathers, nor a bird in the direction of developing whalebone. In popular language, there is no harm in saying that the waves which break upon the sea-shore are indefinite, fortuitous, and break in all directions. In scientific language, on the contrary, such a statement would be a gross error, inasmuch as every particle of foam is the result of perfectly definite forces operating accord- ing to no less definite laws. In like manner, every variation of a living form, however minute, how- ever apparently accidental, is inconceivable, except as the expression of the operation of molecular forces or ' powers ' resident within the organism. And as these forces certainly operate according to definite laws, their general result is doubtless in accordance with some general law which sub- sumes them all If I afiirm that ' species have been evolved by variation, including under this head hereditary transmission (a natural proc- ess the laws of which are for the most part unknown), aided by the subordinate action of AND REJOINDERS. 143 natural selection,' it seems to me tliat I enunciate a proposition which constitutes the very pith and marrow of the first edition of tlie Origin of Species." ^ X. Infertility of Hybrids. For the purpose of testing an hypothesis, it is customary to resort to what is called a " crucial experiment." Newton's attempted demonstration that the motion of the moon conformed to his hy- pothesis of gravitation was such a test. His suc- cess in the effort swept away at once a host of objections, and silenced almost all critics. Had he failed to demonstrate the couformability of his law to that crucial test, the best he could have done woxild be to show that the data were not such as could make it a determinate case ; proving that, he then would have been at liberty to seek some more satisfactory case. An attempt has been made to set up the fertility of individuals with one another as the test of their community of descent. On this view, it is a manifest and oft-repeated objection to the filiation of species, that hybrids are not continuously fertile. If we concede that " the fundamental idea of spe- cies is that of a chain of which genetically-connected individuals are the links," ^ it seems to some un- 1 Critiques and Addresses (London, 1873), pp. 298, 299. * See Dr. Asa Gray's Darwiniana, p. 2C1 144 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM scientific to infer unity of origin in any case in wliicli a present cross is proved to be infertile. Close inter-breeding, in the same, variety produces sterility. The crossing of varieties with one an- other is favorable to fertility. On the contrary, when the divergence has become a little greater, and is such as would be called specific, intercross- ing produces sterility. " He who explains the gen- esis of species through purely natural agencies should assign a natural cause for this remarkable result ; and this Mr. Darwin has not done." ^ Several methods are open by which to parry these objections ; and at present not much more can be done. First, the difierences separating one species from another are the same, through whatever process they may have originated. If degree of unlikeness be the cause of infertility, it would be a cause whether secured at once by direct creation, or by the accumulation of smaller and successive steps of divergence. So that the existence of the fact of infertility of crosses does not really bear on the question of community of origin. A possible test which would be of great value is suggested by Professor Gray.** If natu- ralists could adduce an instance in which two 1 See Dr. Asa Gray's Darwiniana, p. 51 . See also Huxley on the Origin of Species, pp. 140-143; also, Lay Sermons, etc., pp. 271-277 ; also Mivart, Genesis of Species, pp. 123-126. ^ Darwiniana, p. 51 . See also Hnxley on the Origin of Species, p. 141. AND REJOINDERS. 145 varieties have diverged enough from the parent stock to bring about some sterility in the crosses, this v^ould be a complete and satisfactory answer to the objection. But this no one has yet done. It should bo observed, however, that there is, on this point, great danger of reasoning in a circle, and naming the race " species " when the cross is sterile, and calling the species a " race " when the individuals freely interbreed. Darwin attempts to break the force of the objection by adducing a parallel case in the effect of a change of condition. Slight changes of circumstances are beneficial to both plants and animals, and increase their fertility. Extreme changes, like those involved in the con- finement of wild animals, are deleterious and pro- ductive of sterility. Still further, we are in danger of forgetting that if fertility of intercrossed varieties be accepted as proof of specific unity, an important point is gained with reference to the degree of unlikeness that is acknowledged as com- patible with descent from a common ancestry. In that case a genetic connection would be acknowl- edged between the several varieties of the horse, as well as of the cow, the dog, the hen, the pigeon, and of the human race. Each of these names represents a group of varieties physiologically one, but morphologically so distinct that many natural- ists have insisted on calling the varieties species. , 10 146 OBJECTION TO DARWINISM Botanists dispute whether the blackberry consists of one species or of four hundred ! Finally, Professor Gray now informs us that among plants there are known hybrids of unlimited fertility, and that there are almost all degrees between this and sterility ; and Dr. Englemann, in a recent memoir upon North American oaks, enu- merates six unquestionable hybrids as well known to him, of which those that have been tested are fully fertile, although these plants belong to very distinct species, and that this is also true of the other probable liybrid oaks of this country. XI. Agassiz on the Si^iflcance of Embryology. In 1863, Agassiz writes as follows : " One im- portant trutli already assumes great significance in the history of the growth of animals ; namely, that whatever the changes may be through whicli an animal passes, and however different the as- pect of these phases at successive periods may appear, they are always limited by the character of the type to which the animal belongs, and never pass that boundary. Thus the Radiate begins life with cliaracters peculiar to Radiates, and ends it without assuming any feature of a higher type. The MoUusk starts with a character essen- tially its own, in no way related to the Radiates, and never shows the least tendency to deviate from it, either in the direction of the Articulate or the AND EEJOINDEBS. 147 Vertebrate types. This is equally true of the Articulates ; [and] emphatically true of the Vertebrates These results are of the high- est importance at this moment, when men of au- thority in science are attempting to renew the theory of a general transmutation of all animals of the higher types out of the lower ones. If such views are ever to deserve serious considera- tion, and be acknowledged as involving a scientific principle, it will only be when their supporters shall have shown that the fundamental plans of structure characteristic of the primary groups of the animal kingdom are transmutable, or pass into one another, and that their different modes of de- velopment may lead from one to the other. Thus far embryology has not recorded one fact on which to base such doctrines." ^ The argument is here somewhat misstated. Darwin's principal point is to prove that each of these types or classes has developed into its various orders, genera, and species. Back to that point at which the characteristics of the class appear, the analogical argument from embryology is very strong. Previous to that stage of develop- ment Darwin wovild go only so far as the momen- tum of his analogical argument at the beginning of the classes would carry him. If, however, a naturalist has been brought by plain analogies to 1 Methods of Stndy in Natural History, by G. L. Agassiz (Bos- ton, 1871), pp. 302, 304. 148 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM believe in only four distinct lines of genealogical descent, it is difficult to stop there, although there may be no further accessible facts upon which to base a positive argument, just as in the realm of astronomy we can hardly help applying our gen- eral conclusions . to regions of space beyond the reach of the telescope. Unless there is counter- evidence, we may sometimes extend our generali- zations a long way beyond the bare facts, and throw the burden of proof upon those who deny such extension. This is akin to the argument known in mechanics as the method of proof by gradual approach. XII. Natural Selection Incompetent to Produce Beanty of Form and Color. Nothing in nature is more striking than the beauty with which organic forms are clothed. Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like the lily of the field. It is difficult to say which is the more graceful in form and exquisite in coloring, — the humming-bird, or the flower before which he balances himself in the air, and from which he sips the nectar. No painter can equal the beauty of color and delicacy of shading that appear in the plumage of the peacock or of the bird of para- dise ; nor can any designer improve upon the pattern of the ev6ry-day dress in which these birds clothe themselves. Even the fish of the sea revel AND REJOINDERS. 149 in gorgeous colors ; and the shells of marine Mol- lusca, both those now existing and those of past ages, are exceedingly beautiful, both in form and in superficial ornament. Mr. Darwin ^ admits that if it could be proved that " structures have been created for the sake of beauty, to delight man, or for the sake of mere variety," it would be absolutely fatal to his theory. And lie recognizes as fully as any one, the extent to which beauty abounds in nature ; but he remarks, (a) " The sense of beauty obvi- ously depends on the nature of the mind " whicli perceives it.^ (6) Beauty existed in the early geo- logical ages, and now exists in countless microscop- ical animals that are never visible to man. " Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.'' (c) We cannot deny to the lower animals the ca- pacity of being attracted by the beautiful, and so, through their agency in sexnal selection and in fertilizing and distributing the seeds of plants hav- ing highly colored flowers, much of the beauty in those objects may owe its origin to their instru- mentality. He infers that a " nearly similar taste for beautiful colors and for musical sounds runs through a large part of the animal kingdom." " How the sense of beauty in its simplest form — 1 Origin of Species, pp. 159, 160. 2 See Origin of Species, pp. 160-162 150 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM that is, the reception of a peculiar kind of pleasure from certain colors, forms, and sounds — was first developed in the mind of man and of the lower animals is a very obscure subject There must be some fundamental cause in the constitu- tion of the nervous system in each species." It will be perceived here, as frequently else- where, that the natural agencies to which Mr. Darwin appeals do not form a closed circuit such ass would exclude the directing agency of the Creator. Inspection reveals abundant arrangements through which the Engineer is at liberty to control the course of biological development.^ Xm. Natural Selection Accounts for the Preserration of Tarieties, but not for their Origin. The thought with which we closed the preceding section will be still more prominent in this. The ultimate cause is never reached by Mr. Darwin. At the best, the naturalist does no more than grope along the periphery of an infinite circle, the centre of which is far out of his sight. The causes of the phenomena of heredity and of variation are alike inscrutable to him. The most he can propose is to catch here and there a few glimpses of the orbit along which the bodies propelled by tliem move. The criticism which is the subject of re- 1 See this question discussed by Argyll, Eeign of Law, pp. 188- 194. Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 413, 427-443. AND REJOINDERS. 151 view in this section is neatly presented by the Duke of Argyll : i " Natural selection can do i.othing except with the materials presented to its hands. It cannot select except among the things open to selection. Natural selection can originate nothing ; it can only pick out and choose among the things which are originated by some other law. Strictly speaking, therefore, Mr. Darwin's theory is not a theory on the origin of species at all, but only a theory on the causes which lead to the relative success or failure of such new forms as may be born into the world." It will appear, we think, that so elastic a prin- ciple as natural selection, as Mr. Darwin defines it, cannot be particularly dangerous to theism. In appreciation of its being extremely indetermi- nate as a cause, Darwin remarks : ^ " Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term ' natural selection.' Some have even imag- ined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life The variability which we almost universally meet with in our domestic productions is not directly produced, as Hooker and Asa Gray have well remarked, by man. He can neither originate varieties nor 1 Eeign of Law, p. 219. * Origin of Species, pp. 62, 63. 152 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM prevent their occurrence ; he can only preserve and accumulate such as do occur." A careful study of each sentence in the follow- ing extract from Darwin will serve in a measure to dispel the fears which any may have had re- garding the omnipotence of natural selection. " I have now recapitulated the facts and considera- tions which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous, successive, slight, favorable variations ;• aided in an important man- ner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts ; and in an unimportant manner — that is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present — by the direct action of external condi- tions, and by variations wliich seem to us, in our ignorance, to arise spontaneously As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modifi- cation of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position — namely, at the close of the Introduction — the following words: ' I am convinced that natural selection has been the main, but not the exclusive, means of modifi- cation. '"1 1 Origin of Species, p. 421. AND REJOINDERS. 153 To realize how indeterminate the problem of the origin of species is, even after Mr. Darwin leaves it, we need to combine the indefinite quan- tities which are assumed. First, variation is pro- duced by action of the " conditions of life " (a term as complex as all nature) upon the "individual organism" (another term of equal complexity). This raises our quantity to the second power. Secondly, we must introduce " natural selection " (a term as broad as that of both the others com- bined). In considering any specific result in nature, we find ourselves in the presence of an indefinitely large indetermination, raised to the fourth power. In other words, we cannot tell de- ductively what variations will arise, unless we know all about the constitution of the individual, and all about the outward circumstances that act upon it to produce variation ; and we cannot know what variations will be perpetuated till we know how each is related to the whole system of nature. It would seem that such an hypothesis left God's hands as free as could be desired for contrivances of whatever sort he pleased. At every point of this discussion the conviction re- curs that naturalists are no nearer than ever to obtaining " any insight into the nature of the forces by which a higher grade of organization or instinct is evolved out of a lower one, by becoming acquainted with a series of gradational forms or 154 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM states, each having a very close affinity to the other." 1 The " mystery of creation " is still as great and as much beyond the domain of science as ever. Lyell further remarks ^ that the real question at issue " is not whetlier we can explain the creation of species, but whether species have been intro- duced into the world one after the other, in the form of new varieties of antecedent organisms, and in the way of ordinary generation, or have been called into being by some other agency, such as the direct intervention of the First Cause. Was Lamarck right in supposing that the changes of the organic world may have been effected by the gradual and insensible modification of older pre- existing forms ? Mr. Darwin, without absolutely proving this, has made it appear in the highest degree probable, by an appeal to many distinct and independent classes of phenomena in natural history and geology, but principally by showing the manner in which a multitude of new and com- peting varieties are always made to survive in the struggle for life. The tenor of his reasoning is not to be gainsaid by affirming that the causes or processes which bring about the improvement or differentiation of organs, and the general advance of the organic wdrld from the simpler to the more 1 See Lyell, Principles of Geology, Vol. ii. pp. 496, 497. 2 Ibid., pp. 499, 500. AND REJOINDERS. 155 complex, remain as inscrutable to us as ever The more the idea of a slow and insensible change from lower to higher organisms, brought about in the course of millions of generations according to a preconceived plan, has become familiar to men's minds, the more conscious they have become that the amount of power, wisdom, design, or fore- thought required for such a gradual evolution of life, is as great as that which is implied by a mul- titude of separate, special, and miraculous acts of creation." XIY. Natural Selection subject to Peculiar Limitations when applied to Man. This objection might well have been treated under the second or third sections, when we were speaking upon the abrupt appearance of many species, and the absence of intermediate varieties. But it is worthy of special attention at this stage of the discussion. Wallace^ has devoted a chapter to the proof of the proposition that natural selec- tion cannot account for the development of man. His points are, 1. That the brain of the savage man is much beyond his actual requirements in the savage state. It is a remarkable fact " that the average cranial capacity of the lowest savages is probably not less than^^ve sixths of that of the highest civi- 1 Contrib. Nat. Selection, pp. 332-362. 156 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM lized raoe^, while the brain of the anthropoid apes scarcely amounts to one third of that of man — in both cases taking the average." ^ The average internal capacity of the cranium in the Teutonic races and the Bushmen respectively is ninety-four and seventy-seven cubic inches, while we drop at once to thirty inches in tlie highest of the apes. " The savage possesses a brain capable, if culti- vated and developed, of performing work of a kind and degree far beyond what he ever requires it to do." 2 If this be the case, natural selection could not have produced it, since that preserves only such variations as are of positive service at the time of their occurrence. 2. The absence of hair from the back of the human species could not have arisen through natural selection. For with the lower animals the hairy covering of tlie back is of very great ser- vice, and gives them an advantage which could not well be dispensed with. Just where liair is of special service as a covering it is absent in man. Of course a natural selection of advantages could not secure a great disadvantage. 3. The origin of the moral sense is inexplicable on natural principles. The ideas of right and wrong are independent of the utility of the action. " So those faculties which enable us to transcend time and space, and to realize the wonderful cou- 1 Contrib. Nat. Selection, p. 338. * Ibid., p. 340. AND REJOINDERS. 157 ceptions of mathematics and philosophy, or which give us an intense yearning for abstract truth, are evidently essential to the perfect devel- opment of man as a spiritual being, but are utterly inconceivable as having been produced through the action of a law which looks only, and can look only, to the immediate material welfare of the individual or the race." ^ This latter point, as it arises in connection with theories of the ori- gin of language, has been discussed at length by Professor Max Miiller.^ " No animal has ever spoken." The step from a non-speaking to a speaking animal is a long one — long enough, in fact, to be called a leap. The characteristic point of distinction in man, however, is not articulate speech ; for the parrot can utter almost every sound of which man is cap- able. Thevoice is but an instrument. Emotional language, such as interjections and other single sounds which express simple feelings, man shares also with the brute creation. Nor can we deny that animals may have some degree or kind of conceptual thought. But man alone " realizes bis conceptual thought by means of words derived 1 Contrib. Nat. Selection, pp. 358, 359. 2 See Essays on Darwinism and Language, in Frazer's Magazine for J-'ay, June, and Jn!y 1873, republished in Littell's Living Age. Also Chips from a German Workshojj, Vol. iv. pp. 417-455. On the contrary, see Prof. W. D. Whitney in North American Re- view, Vol. cxiv. pp. 272-309 ; Vol. cxix. pp. 61-88. 158 OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM from roots." The study of comparative philology reveals the fact that in the Aryan group of lan- guages a few hundred " roots " constitute the elements from which the diversified structure of these languages are built. These " roots " are the ultimate facts in the analysis of language. Doubtless they had their origin in the tendency to use interjectional and imitative sounds. How the vast number of complicated concepts which man employs could have been packed away for use in the simple sounds to which he gives utterance surpasses our comprehension. The creative power of mind which has given origin to the material machinery of the nineteenth cen- tury must take a very humble place beside that of the men who first put thoughts and words to- gether. The former harnessed heat and electricity ; the latter made available the true promethean fire. The question chiefly concerns a mental power. The child of the lowest savages can learn the most cultivated language, while the highest of the ani- mals cannot learn any language. Not to multiply words, it is sufficient to remark, that here, as everywhere else, something certainly is added whenever there is a step taken in advance. The question under discussion does not necessarily concern the source from which the additions come, but rather the rapidity with which they accumu- late. Are Nature's steps all of corresponding AND REJOINDERS. 159 lengtli? How long a step would be called a leap ? This, perhaps, depends upon the magni- fying power of the lens through which we look. A.t any rate, the same amount of power is required to raise a given weight to a given height whether the velocity be slow or rapid. Doubtless divine power is competent to move in natural operations by long strides ; but it is not compelled to move in that manner. The question under consideration is to determine by evidence what relation the steps of nature sustain to human powers of reason. A closing extract from Professor Mtiller will show how little the naturalist, the linguist, and the theist need come in conflict with each other. " Let us suppose, then, that myriads of years ago there was, out of myriads of animal beings, one, and one only, which made that step which in the end led to language, while the whole rest of the creation remained behind. What would follow ? That one being, then, like the savage baby now, must have possessed something of his own — a germ very imperfect, it may be, yet found nowhere else ; and that germ, that capacity, that disposition, — call it what you like, — is, and always will remain, the specific difference of himself and all his de- scendants. It makes no difference whether we say it came of itself, or it was due to environment, or it was the gift of a Being in whom we live and move Language is something ; it presup- 160 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM poses something ; and that which it presupposes, — that from which it sprang, — whatever its pre- historic, pre-mundane, pre-cosmic, state may have been, must have been different from that from which it did not spring. People ask whether that germ of language was ' slowly evolved ' or ' divinely implanted ' ; but if they would but lay a firm grip on their words and thoughts, they would see that these two expressions, which have been the watch- words of two hostile camps, differ from each other dialectically ouly."^ XT. Conclusion. Of those who have read thus far, doubtless some will be disappointed that we have not mentioned the objections to a derivative origin of species which seem to them most cogent ; while others will think the presentation of the argument in favor of such origin deficient in many particulars. But there are limits both to all things in time and space, and to the patience of our readers. While it would be easy to multiply objections, it would not be diffi- cult to strengthen the argument. So far as we have gone we have endeavored to state the case fairly. An exhaustive treatment of the subject, as at present developed, would involve the reproduc- tion of several octavo volumes. Nevertheless, an 1 Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. iv. pp. 45.3, 455. Cora- pare remarks of Sir Charles Lyell, above pp. 154, 155. AND REJ0INDEB9. 161 outline map may be of service where a Johnson's atlas would be cumbrous and confusing. Two or three conclusions have forced themselves upon us in this investigation. First, that Darwin's hypothesis has attained to such a degree of probability that it deserves digni- fied treatment. Sneers and ridicule are no longer sufficient to overthrow it. Secondly, protracted study of the subject in its various aspects lias allayed many of the fears with which, as a practical expounder of the sacred Scriptures, we approached tlie investigation . This may, we admit, arise from the fact that error, no less than "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.' The writer would not, however, put himself for- ward as a disciple of Mr. Darwin, or as a champion of his theory. Instead of pausing to discuss the irrelevant, and comparatively imimportant, ques- tion concerning Mr. Darwin's personal attitude to theism, we have thought it more incumbent upon us to consider tlie logical relation of his principles to tlie system which without peradventure sets God on a throne of supreme authority. Our ob- ject in the preceding pages has been, by careful study of the subject, to get such a knowledge of n 162 OBJECTIONS TO DABWINISM it that we could understandingly discuss its rela- tion to natural and revealed theology. We have by that means been led to a well-assured, convic- tion that there is no more reason now than at any previous time why the scientific " leopard " and the theological " kid " should not lie down to- gether, and there is nothing in recent develop- ments to hinder the evolutionary lion from " eating straw like the ox." There has been an exaggerated fear of the em- barrassments which the establishment of the deriv- ative origin of species was likely to bring to a theistical view of the universe, and especially to the reverent interpretation of the Bible. This has been fostered, on the one hand, by the hasty and heated: attacks of some ill-informed theologians, and, on the other hand, by the crude and over- confident metaphysical speculations of some mem- bers of the scientific guild ; for many of these have been more than ready to forsake the tedious pro- cesses of natural history, and to put themselves forward as authoritative interpreters of the deepest mysteries of existence. At this stage of our discussion it is not in place to set forth in detail the position which can be oc- cupied in common by the sober-minded naturalist and the Christian believer. Intimations of our views have already appeared at various stages in the progress of this chapter. We may, however, AND REJOINDERS. 163 briefly remark that, on the scientific side, deliver- ance can easily come from two quarters : (1) Prom the expansive nature of the principle of natural selection ; for it is a personification of such a general nature that it necessarily leaves the whole question of ultimate causation just where it was before ; and the principle is so indeter- minate that providential interpositions for adequate reasons are in no manner excluded. As before remarked, " utility " is a word of very broad significance. Regarded from a dogmatic evolutionist's point of view, Mr. Darwin's caution in stating tliis prin- ciple seems timidity ; while to those who are un- accustomed to the methods of inductive reasoning, the hypothetical nature of much of his discussion seems an evasion of the real question. Not with- out some reason has Mr. Darwin's theory (and we could speak in much the same strain concerning the theory of gravitation) been described as a series of " loopholes " and " may-bes " ; since difficulties in it are explained by reference to such things as " reversion," " correlation," " use and disuse of parts," " direct action of external conditions," and " spontaneous " variation. The believer in transmutation " can invent trains of ancestors of whose existence there is no evidence ; he can marshal hosts of equally imagi- nary foes ; he can call up continents, floods, and . 164 OBJECTIONS TO DAEWINISM. peculiar atmospheres ; he can dry up oceans, split islands, and parcel out eternity at will. Surely, with these advantages, he must be a dull fellow if he cannot scheme some series of animals and circumstances explaining our assumed difficulty quite naturally." ^ Yet, if one has sufficient posi- tive analogies on which to base an argument, it is perfectly legitimate to employ such hypotheses as are referred to above (provided they are not un- natural), in order to parry objections. Such use of hj^potheses is constantly made in every depart- ment of inductive reasoning, and in none more often than in the establishment and interpretation of the Christian system. If a " dull fellow " could devise a system of evolution that should not be inconsistent with the facts of biology, it is singular that it had not been done before Darwin's time. (2) Moreover, as Professor Gray well remarks,^ natural selection is only a directing agency. It is " the rudder which by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course " of the vessel, i.e. which acts in virtue of a movement already induced. The propelling agency is " variation," which proceeds from an unknown power within the organism itself. K is " not physical, but physiological." 1 North British Review, Vol. xlvl. p. 293. 2 See Darwlniana, p. 386. CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSE OR DESIGN IN NATURE. I. Is there Desigrn in Jfatnre ? If on shaking a quantity of type in a basket it should appear that some of the pieces, when they fell, stuck together in such order as to compose the story of Moses in the bulrushes, could we re- sist the conclusion that these particular types were loaded with the design of composing that story on condition that they were well shaken ? Indeed, we should see far more design in type thus endowed than in ordinary" pie," from which an intelligible sentence can be formed only by the direct efforts of a highly skilled, workman. We read the design in the complicated and intelligible adaptation of the final result. It is no prejudice to our con- clusion to show that the forces producing this deli- cate adaptation have passed through a variety of transformations, and that their origin is out of sight. Whatever that might prove, it would in no manner disprove origination in an intelligent designer. Modern science is not inimical to the Paleyan 165 166 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE argument when properly understood, but is rather a positive supporter of it. We hear much about the conservation of force. Energy may be cast down from one seat and another, but it cannot be destroyed. It is protean in its forms. Tliere is a principle of continuity in nature. Lines of force which we see in operation in present phenomena may be traced backward into more indefinite, be- cause less known, forms ; but they cannot be run so far back as to project beyond adequate causa- tion. It is precisely so with the evidence of design in complicated adaptations of nature. Chance pro- duces nothing definite and orderly } Nature " con- serves" design as much as it does force, and in much the same manner. " One day at Naples," says a French writer, " a certain person in our presence put six dice into a dice-box, and offered a wager that he would throw sixes with the whole set. I said that the chance was possible. He threw the dice in this way twice in succession ; and I still observed, that possibly he had succeeded by chance. He put back the dice into the box for the third, fourth, and fifth ^ How little sense tliere is in attributing orderly manifestations to chance, especially such adaptations as tliose by which we lire and move and have our being, we have shown at various points in the two preceding chapters ; see also the author's Logic of Chris- tian Evidences, Part II. ; and Hill's Natural Sources of Theology, p. 77 f. ; J. S. Mill's Inductive Logic, Book iii., chapters 17 and 18; Bowen, on Metaphysical and Ethical Science, pp. 165-171 ; Jevons's Principles of Science, Vol. i. p. 225 ff. OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 167 time, and invariably threw sixes with the whole set. ' By the blood of Bacchus,' I exclaimed, ' the dice are loaded' ; and so they were. Philosophers, when I look at the order of nature that is con- stantly reproduced, its fixed laws, its successive changes, invariably producing the same effect, — when I consider that there is but one chance which can preserve the universe in the state in which we now see it, and that this always happens, in spite of a hundred millions of other possible chances of perturbation and destruction, — I cry out, ' Surely, Nature's dice are also loaded. '" ^ The adaptations which we behold in such pro- fusion in nature may, each of them, with respect both to their secondary causes and their final causes, be compared to a river like the Mississippi, flowing past our doors. We shall not be able to dispense with the idea of design in the location of the river by showing that the channel was not dug by the use of spades and the material removed on wheel- barrows ; for that is only one way, and is not God's way, of forming a canal. The nature of tlie instru- ment used in accomplishing an object has nothing whatever to do with the fact of a design. We may, if we please, trace the Mississippi back through all its numerous tributaries to the raindrops and the skies, but we are still in a charmed and closed cir- 1 The Abbe Galiani in discussion with Diderot, translated and qnotcd by Bowen from Dugald Stewart's notes. 168 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE cle of " principles of order," combining for definite results. We never in our investigations get within sight of chaos. What is science but a study of orderly operations ? Where order seems to cease, the scientific investigator pauses in bewilderment. "Principles of order" compass his path and his lying down, they beset him behind and before. If he ascend up into heaven they are there : if lie take the wings of the morning and dwell in tlie uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall they lead him. In any case of secondary causation we do not care, so far as the argument for the existence of an intelligent designer is concerned, at how many, or at what points, the various elements of design entered. The inference of design in nature is drawn from complexity and nicety of adaptation. This inference need not be afiected by any new view of the mode of origination, and cannot be re- butted, except by assigning a sufficient physical cause, irrespective of intelligence. If any one as- serts that these adaptations arise from necessity, he is bound to show by what necessity. Until that is shown, the inference of an intelligent cause is as good as it ever was, however much our con- ception of nature's intricate machinery may be enlarged. Man is himself a designer. The hypothesis that the adaptations of nature had their origin in design is, to say the least, more OR DESIGN IN NATDBB. 169 intelligible than that which ascribes them to necessity. Certainly it devolves upon those who deny or refuse to recognize design in organic com- plexity, to do more than push back one step, or one hundred steps, the point at which the design- ing impulse may have been given. They must draw lines of circumvallation around the whole field, and cut off every avenue of approach, or the argument for design will enter with all its force in spite of them. Sober-minded naturalists do not attempt this task. We do not envy the success of those philosophers who have undertaken it; for, it is as hard to banish the idea of final cause as of efficient causation, and for precisely the same reason. In the case referred to, of type arranging itself to compose the story of Moses, there is a remark- able accumulation of designs. In type set up by a printer a very large part of the combination of designs originates in his work. But he did not prepare the type, nor did the type-founder com- pose the story. In this case the skill of the type- setter is called into requisition because the type- maker had not the power or the inclination to go farther in his design than to get the material in readiness for the more specific work of the printer. But if this type, when shaken sufficiently by horse power in the cellar, would in a square box become Milton's Sonnet on his Blindness, in a round 170 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE one the Lord's Prayer, ia a tin pan the Sayings of Poor Richard, and in a rusli basket the story of Moses, we have not lost the evidence of design because an animal furnished the power to do the shaking. We grant that the animal did not of his own will add anything to the evidence of the design, — perhaps he was only trying to get at an ear of corn on a stick before him. But a designer must have preceded the dumb animal, or his blind efforts would have produced no such intelligible results as we have supposed. We grant, also, that a person of less skill than a printer could harness the horse and set the mill in operation. But so far as the argument for design is concerned, we have, in bringing forward these considerations, only at- tributed more of the designing activity to the extraordinary type-founder. The evidence of his design is increased a hundred fold. II. Paley did not Reason in a Circle. Paley, in the second chapter of his Natural Theology, considers the case of one watch being produced from another in a regular series ; and shows that such a discovery would only increase our " admiration of the contrivance,' ' and our " con- viction of the consummate skill of the contriver." In company with all the scientific investigators of his day, Paley was ignorant of the considerations which are now forcing upon the world the question OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 171 of the derivative origin of species as well as tliat of individuals. But lie was not so short-sighted as to base his argument on the mode of origination. This acute reasoner considers that when one in- dividual gives birth to another, the one is only " in some sense the maker" of the other. He is " asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have re- marked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question by telling us that a preced- ing watch produced it." ^ Still farther on in the chapter Paley contends that supposing one watch to have been produced from another watch, and " that from a former, and so on indefinitely, does not, even though we go ever so far, bring us any nearer to the least degree of satisfaction on the subject." The difficulty is not diminished by removing it farther back. " A chain composed of an infinite number of links can no more support itself than a chain composed of a finite number of links. And of this we are assured, though we never can have tried the experiment, because, by increasing the number of links, from ten, for instance, to a hun- dred, from a hundred to a thousand, etc., we make not the smallest approach, we observe not the smallest tendency, toward self-support." ^ In the case of one watch being produced by 1 Paley's Nataral Theology, chap. ii. sec. 3. ' Ibid., sec. 4. 172 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE another, Paley denies that " we have [in that fact] any cause whatever for the design, the contrivance, the suitableness of means to an end." Tlie real effect of discovering such an origin would be to " increase beyond measure our admiration of the skill which had been employed in the formation of such a machine." ^ But, while Paley satisfactorily disposed of the objections to his argument on the ground that individuals are propagated from each other, it could not be ex- pected that he should altogether anticipate a somewhat different line of objection, subsequently arising out of a belief that living species have a genetic connection with one another. If indi- viduals are endowed not merely with the power of producing exactly after their kind other individ- uals, but of producing them with variations of such a kind, and so correlated to their euviron- ment, that there shall be improvement in the organization, this, as Professor Gray early con- tended, compels an extension of the Paleyan argu- ment for a designer. We are fully aware of a remarkable passage, in which Paley is thought by some to assert that he would throw up his whole style of reasoning if such an hypothesis as that of Mr. Darwin should be established. The passage is as follows : " There is another answer which has the same effect as the 1 Paley's Natural Theology, chap. ii. sec. 4 and 5. OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 173 resolving of things into chance, which answer would persuade us to believe that the eye, the animal to which it belongs, every other animal, every plant, indeed every organized body which we see, are only so many out of the possible varieties and combinations of being which the lapse of infinite ages has brought into existence ; that the present world is the relic of that variety ; millions of other bodily forms and other species having perished, being, by the defect of their constitution, incapable of preservation, or of continuance by generation." ^ If Paley had written in our day, he would no doubt have guarded his phraseology with more care. But even as it is, the section, as a whole, plainly indicates that the Lucretian theory of fortuitous development was in view. For in his more explicit statement, on the following page, we read : " The hypothesis teaches that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence, — by what cause or in what manner is not said, — and that those which were badly formed perished ; but how or why those which survived should be cast, as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the hypothesis does not explain ; or, rather, the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phenomenon." Now, Mr. Darwin, iu our day, has brought forward an hypothesis which purports to be con- 1 Natural Theology, chap. v. sec. 4. 174 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE sistent with this phenomenon. On this hypothesis, — suggested by observation of a wide range of variability, correlated to a complicated series of changing conditions which do not neutralize the effect of the tendency to variation, but direct and intensify it, — naturalists are attempting to account for the definite direction in which species have progressed, and the " regular classes " in which they are cast. Yet this can be no hap-hazard process, however concealed from our plodding intellects. No one can suppose that all possible events have occurred. The farthest one could go in that direction would be to surmise that all events possible under the present system of nature had come to pass ; but that would be a very dif- ferent thing. Like all illustrations, the one we are now going to bring forward is very unsatisfac- tory in some respects ; but it is truthful to the main point. Each single variation in the hy- pothesis of Mr. Darwin is like an explosion of gunpowder, determinate in its tendency only as tliere is a gun-barrel to direct its force. Had the modern speculations concerning the derivative origin of species been promulgated when Paley wrote, there can be little doubt that our American naturalist would have been antici- pated in his supposition of the watch whose imme- diate descendants produced better watches, and whose remote descendants gave birth to a chro- OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 175 nometer and a town clock. The question in natural theology raised by Darwinism does not disturb the argument for an intelligent designer, but pertains only to the times and modes in which the forces of design are introduced. It also modi- fies in some degree the interpretation of that de- sign. How little the students of natural theology liave to fear this theory of the origin of species will appear when attention is directed to the con- trivance and foresight of a higher power demanded by this theory, not so apparently in the construc- tion of each particular part of the organic and balanced whole, when taken singly, as in the construction and preservation of the whole itself, which should incorporate and retain these con- trivances and adaptations among its parts. If Paley is open to criticism in one point more than another, it is in this : that he does not make sufficiently prominent the a fortiori nature of his argument. To come down from the " cosmos " to a watch to find design, seems like labor lost, since the one is so infinitely inferior to the other. Furthermore, the watch reveals two separate things which we are likely to confound, namely, design, and man's method of executing design. Making sucli a comparison prominent incurs the danger of encouraging conceptions of God which are too anthropomorphic, both as to the narrow- ness of the design contemplated and as to the means of attaining the end. 176 CONCEENING FINAL CAUSE in. Life does not exist or continue by Necessity. The profoundly mysterious power of life, some- how introduced into the world, is adjusted on the Darwinian hypothesis to the other forces which have operated co-ordinately with it. We can easily conceive that at any time since its intro- duction, changes in these co-ordinate powers might have altogether extinguished life itself. The theory of pangenesis, which is derided by some as absurd, has only that degree of absurdity that pertains to any attempt to state in compre- hensive material figures of speech the marvellous facts concerning the manifestations of life. We are aware that at this point we are likely to be told that there is no more propriety in speak- ing of the " power of life " and " vitality " than in speaking of the "power of aquosity" in water. For the sake of the argument we are willing to grant it. But certainly " the power of aquosity " is something. Water is not a necessary existence, even when all the elements in its composition abound. Oxygen and hydrogen are not water, till other and a whole congeries of powers have brought them into a particular relation to each other ; and then they are held in that relation only so long as certain conditions are preserved. The word " aquosity," because superfluous, is not senseless. But no one would contend that there OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 177 is not a far greater manifestation of power, and an inconceivably more delicate adjustment of con- ditions required in the production and perpetu- ation of living organisms, especially those of a higher grade, than in the production of water. As water is more than oxygen and hydrogen, so a living organism is more than oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and whatever other chemical elements enter into it. If any one says that liv- ing organisms exist in nature by virtue of neces- sity, we ask, by what necessity ? Chance knows no necessity. There can be no necessity in the outcome of Nature except such as is put into her operations. The reasoner never can get so far back in the chain of secondary causation that he is not compelled to posit a nature and conditions which involve in their operations all present phe- nomena. We by no means admit that philosophers have reduced, or ever can reduce, all phenomena to two or three elementary forms of motion. But if they should do so, they will not have reduced the amount of intelligence necessary to work out of these so-called simple motions the present complicated results and adaptations ; for since the days of Aristotle we have rather heard that wisdom was most manifest in the power of accomplishing wonderful results by simplest means. Let us now look more closely at the Darwinian 12 178 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE hypothesis, and see if it in any manner excludes design. Life is not, according to this hypothesis, a prod- uct of the present conditions of existence. It comes down from the past through a mysterious power of propagation. Life is a power co-ordinate with the other natural forces, and clothes itself in material forms which accord both with the nature of the inner principles and of the conditions. A living principle, capable, to a limited extent, of transforming other material powers, is set in motion. To maintain its existence this principle has to run the gauntlet of all the changes that take place in such a world as this. This power of life may be compared to a rove of cotton, and the conditions of life to the spinning-jenny and the combined machinery of a cotton-mill. The nature of the product depends on a vast compli- cation of movements and adaptations, from those of the water-wheel to those which secure the proper tension of the thread. All these movements are independently adjusted with reference to the na- ture of the cotton. Too much tension wUl break the thread, too little will loop it. The Darwinian supposition is, that life has been so adjusted to the changing conditions of the ma- terial forces of the world, that for a period of one hundred million years, more or less, it has been continuous. That surely makes a demand for a OB DESIGN IN NATUKE. 179 Contriver who is omniscient as well as omnipo- tent. For, the conditions through which that plastic principle has passed have been change- able and trying. Time and again, land and water have shifted place, and transferred the scene for organic development from one portion of the globe to another. The alternations of cli- mate have been extreme between distant periods of time. Now an arctic climate has crept slowly down far towards the equator, to give place in due season to ameliorating influences that should dispel even the rigor of the frigid zones. Volcanoes have at times belched forth their fires in almost every portion of the world, and earthquakes have every- where shaken her solid foundations. Vast regions have sunk beneath the sea ; while elsewhere plains as vast, and bearing! mountain cliains on their summits, were rising towards the sky. Amid all these changes, however slowly they may have occurred, the equation of life has had continually to re-adjust itself not only to forces outside, but to its own inherent tendencies. Race has warred on race, and individual has been brought into sharp competition with his fellow. The mystery is that the higher forms of life have been preserved at all. The hand of Providence certainly is not dispensed with, but rather called for. The Providence of the Darwinian resembles a far-seeing capitalist, who like the ant lays up his store in the summer season ; 180 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE ■while that of the catastrophist is like the day- lahorer whose family lives from hand to mouth. It is the inability of our imaginations to cross the cycles of time and its secondary causes, which makes it so difficult for us to recognize the simi- larity of contrivance from eternity with that which is originated to-day. There is convincing force in tlie remarks of Whewell when applied to the sub- ject in hand, as well as to that upon which he was writing. " The adaptation of the bones of the skeleton to tlie muscles, the provision of fulcrums, projecting processes, channels, so that the motions and forces shall be such as the needs of life require, cannot pos- sibly become less striking and convincing from any discovery of general analogies of one animal frame witli another, or of laws connecting the develop- ment of different parts. Whenever such laws are discovered we can only consider them as the means of producing that adaptation which we so much admire. Our conviction that the artist works intelligently is not destroyed, though it may be modified and transferred when we obtain a siglit of his tools. Our discovery of laws cannot contra- dict our persuasion of ends ; our morphology can- not prejudice our teleology The assertion appears to be quite unfounded that as science ad- vances from point to point final causes recede before it, and disappear one after the other. The principle OR DESIGN IN NATUBE. 181 of design changes its mode of application, indeed, but it loses none of its force. We no longer con- sider particular facts as produced by special inter- positions ; but we consider design as exhibited in the establishment and adjustment of the laws by which particular facts are produced. We do not look upon each particular cloud as brought near lis that it may drop fatness on our fields ; but the general adaptation of the laws of heat and air and moisture to the promotion of yegetatiou does not become doubtful. We do not consider the sun as less intended to warm and vivify the tribes of plants and animals because we find that, instead of revolving round tlie earth as an attendant, the earth, along with other planets, revolves round him. We are rather, by the discovery of the gen- eral laws of nature, led into a scene of wider de- sign, of deeper contrivance, of more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they appear driven further from us by such an extension of our views, embrace us only witli a vaster and more majestic circuit. Instead of a few threads connecting some detached objects, they become a stupendous net- work, which is wound round and round the uni- versal frame of things." ^ 1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, "Vol. ii. pp. 88, 89, 93, 94. London, 1840. 182 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE IT. Difficulties in the way of an Exhaustire Interpre. tation of God's Designs in Nature. It may be well to recur to our opening illustra- tion of types possessed in some way of the capacity of sticking together according to an intelligible plan. Suppose, now, that after the amount of shaking, more or less, which brought out the story of Moses we should find a large quantity of" types," " leads," " spaces," and " quads " still jumbled to- gether according to no discernible order : would that disprove the positive testimony we already had of intelligent design ? We will not insult our read- ers by answering so plain a question for them, but may bring to their attention a pertinent remark of Paley on the point : " True fortitude of under- standing consists in not suffering what we know to be disturbed by what we do not know. If we perceive a useful end, and means adapted to that end, we perceive enough.for our conclusion. If these things be clear, no matter what is obscure. The argument is finished A just reasouer removes from his consideration not only what he knows, but what he does not know, touching mat- ters not strictly connected with his argument, that is, not forming the very steps of his deduction. Beyond these, his knowledge and his ignorance are alike relative." ^ [That is to say are irrelative to the matter in hand.] 1 Natural Theology, chap. v. sec. 7. OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 183 But by the seeming waste and the apparent failures and imperfections of nature, we are brought to face a difficulty regarding the power, wisdom, and goodness of its Designer. We come now to the more important and difficult question of interpreting the designs of the Creator. The position which we defend is, that — though his ways are as much higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts, as the heavens are higher than the earth, — his name is something better than the " Unknowable." We do know something about the heavens. The heavenly bodies are set for the dividing of times and seasons. The fugitive and the sailor know something, though far less than the astronomer, about the north star. " We may find God, though we can never find him out." One may endeavor to point out the means of res- cuing the doctrine of final causes from the gen- eral disrepute into which it has fallen in some quarters ; and from certain objections, supposed to be new, arising in connection with Darwinism. There are, indeed, few subjects upon which there has been so much loose speculation as upon that of the interpretation of the reasons which have actuated the Divine Mind in the creation of particular things. The arrogance of our short- sighted wisdom in pronouncing upon the ultimate reason why certain things are brought into exist- ence has often been so manifest and so offensive, 184 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE that it is not surprising that some phuosopners have gone to the other extreme, and pronounced the ways of God absolutely unknowable. But it is surprising and somewhat discouraging that au- thors of the calibre and breadth of Hamilton and Mansel should have lauded in such a suicidal and self-stultifying position. The error has been in failing to consider the universe as a whole. We have cut nature up into parts, and discussed the meaning of these in their isolation. We have brought an atom within the field of the micro- scope, and reasoned about it as if it were the centre of the universe, as it is of our vision. Whatever thing was useful it has been assumed was made for that special purpose, with no far- ther thought of its relation to other objects. The bill of a mosquito is doubtless useful to its possessor, but it is a torment to the rest of the animal crea- tion. The tail of the cow is of advantage to the cow chiefly as it is a terror to the mosquito. There is no disguising the fact dwelt upon in a former chapter at some length, namely, that a constant state of warfare exists among the mem- bers of the animal kingdom, in which the weakest go to the wall.i Carnivorous animals live by dep- redations upon the herbivorous, and the more favored of the herbivorous live by snatching the food from the mouths of their less favored breth- 1 See pp. 83-89. OR DESIGN IN NATURE. 185 ren,and subjecting them to slow starvation. The Carnivora, too, struggle among themselves as well as with their more peaceable neighbors. Tlie very need of many of the contrivances necessary for the preservation of tlie lives of plants and ani- mals is created by the existence of antagonistic elements in surrounding nature. For example, some individual fishes produce millions of young every year ; but the adverse conditions are so numerous and destructive that, on the average, not over one or two survive to maturity. It has even been adduced as evidence of the care of the Deity for the welfare of these fishes, that since the elements are so adverse to the survival of their young they are compensated by the power of pro- ducing countless numbers, so that the species may not be lost. But then the rocks are full of evi- dences that numberless species have at last suc- cumbed and become extinct. " From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries 'A thousand types are gone.' " Where is the benevolent wisdom in these facts when considered in themselves, apart from the general system in which they are introduced? The truth is, that the rose-colored views of many of the evolutionists, and of still more of the pie- tistic interpreters of natural theology, are built upon a very narrow basis of facts, to the exclusion of another class of facts which abound in startling 186 CONCEENING PINAL CAUSE number. Much of what is ascribed to God as be- nevolence, displays as much confusion of mind on the part of those who adduce it, as did certain laws of Massachusetts for the protection offish. Among other statutes on the subject, there was one making the lives oS pickerel sacred at certain times of the year. The legislators did not consider that the lives of the more valuable fishes were iu greater danger from the voracity of one hungry pickerel than from the depredations of half a score of fislier- men. Y. The Doctrine of Second Canses iuToIres Difflcnlties analogous to those iu the Doctrine of Final Causes. In stating the doctrine of secondary causation, logicians have found it necessary to disencumber themselves of many old-time distinctions between causes and conditions. In the realm of secondary causes nothing is the product of a single cause. As Hamilton remarks: "Of secondary causes, there must almost always be at least a concur- rence of two to constitute an effect. Take the ex- ample of vapor. Here, to say that hea:t is the cause of evaporation is a very inaccurate, at least a very inadequate, expression. Water is as much the cause of evaporation as heat. But heat and water together are the causes of the phenomenon. Nay, there is a third concause which we have forgot — the atmosphere. Now, a cloud is the result of OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 187 these three concurrent causes or constituents ; and, knowing this, we find no difficulty in carry- ing back the complement of existence, which it contains prior to its appearance. But on the hypothesis that we are not aware what are the real constituents or causes of the cloud, the human mind must still perforce suppose some unknown, some hypothetical, antecedents, into which it mentally refunds all the existence which the cloud is thought to contain." i According to Stuart Mill : " The statement of the cause is incomplete, unless in some shape or other, we introduce all the conditions. A man takes mer- cury, goes out of doors, and catches cold. We say, perhaps, that the cause of his taking cold was exposure to the air. It is clear, however, that his having taken mercury may have been a neces- sary condition of his catching cold ; and though it might consist with usage to say that the cause of his attack was exposure to the air, to be accurate we ought to say that the cause was exposure to the air while under the effect of mercury Every condition of the phenomenon may be taken in its turn, and with equal propriety in common parlance, but with equal impropriety in scientific discourse, may be spoken of as if it were the entire cause. And in practice that particular condition is usually styled the cause whose share in the mat- 1 Lectures on Metaphysics, chao. xl. po. 554, 555. Boston, 1859, 188 CONCEENING FINAL CAUSE ter is superficially the most conspicuous, or whose requisiteness to the production of the effect we happen to be insisting upon at the moment. So great is the force of this last consideration that it often induces us to give the name of cause even to one of the negative conditions. We say, for example, ' the cause of the army's being surprised was the sentinel's being off his post.' Since, then, mankind are accustomed, with acknowledged propriety, so far as the ordinances of language are concerned, to give the name of cause to almost any one of the conditions of a phenomenon, or any portion of the whole number, arbitrarily selected, without excepting even those conditions which are purely negative and in themselves incapable of causing anything ; it will probably be admitted, without longer discussion, that no one of the con- ditions has more claim to tliat title than another, and that the real cause of the phenomenon is the assemblage of all its conditions The cause, pliilosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative, taken togetlier.''^ We would not care to be held by all the phrase- ology of Mill, nor would we speak disrespectfully of those logicians and philosophers who, for special purposes, have endeavored to make accurate and intelligible distinctions between causes of various ^ Logic, Book iii. chap. 5. See also President Edwards' defini- tion of cause, in " Freedom of the Will," Part ii. sec. 3. OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 189 kinds and conditions. It is sufficient for our pur- pose that there is a word " concause " : and its idea in a very comprehensive sense is indispensable to any proper understanding of the true doctrine of secondary or ef&cient causation. A difficulty which is always encountered by the men of science is to keep hold of all the threads of physical cau- sation which centre in a given phenomenon. Some are invariably lost, and there is necessarily an ap- parent dissipation of energy. The doctrine of the conservation of energy is not one of perfect ex- periment, but is one of thought; it is a belief which goes beyond experiment.^ The students of natural theology, or of design in nature, encounter in their field difficulties altogether analogous to, but we apprehend no greater than, those just referred to as experienced by scientific men. The students of natural theology are en- deavoring to harmonize in one principle the imperfect evidences of apparently conflicting de- signs which appear in nature. Tlie universe is a compromise, in which subordinate ends are but imperfectly realized. Justice and mercy are not the only principles which coalesce with difficulty. There are paradoxes other than those presented by the co-existence in the human will of freedom and certainty. There is a nature of things which 1 See an instructive paper, by Prof. Leebody in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, for October 1876. 190 CONCBENING PINAL CAUSE presents obstacles even to omnipotence ; for omnip- otence has relation only to such things as are the proper objects of power. The supposition of two hills without a valley between is absurd. So two or more ends, desirable in themselves, may be so related as to require an indirect process for their accomplishment. For example, the per- fection of the whole and the perfection of the part, are in a manner exclusive of each other, except as the mutual adaptation is an element of the perfection. It may not be derogatory to the divine wisdom to afl&rm that the eye is an imperfect optical instrument, because the securing of the power of sight is only one of the many ends, to be accomplished in such an organism. Vision as an end is correlated with other objects of design. As each writer has his style, so God has his chosen and appropriate mode of operations. The style of God's workmanship may be as essential in reveal- ing truth to the intellect of his creatures, as light is in revealing objects to the eye. The manner in which a thing is done, is a part of the thing itself. If it be impossible to penetrate far into the designs of the Creator, it is equally impossible to compre- hend to any great extent the method of his opera- tions. For what we know we should be thankful. With respect to what is beyond our comprehen- sion we should be humble inquirers. In the comprehensive theory of virtue elaborated OR DESIGN IN NATURE. 191 by President Edwards and his successors, the " good of being " is made the ground of obligation. " The creation, taken not distributively, but collectively, as a system raised to a high degree of happiness," constitutes " the declarative glory of God." ^ God, in his infinite benevolence, must have sought in the creation as a whole the " good of being," in the most comprehensive sense of that phrase, in- cluding himself. Here comes the practical diffi- culty of interpretation ; when we attempt to follow out the lines of this design as they radiate from the divine activity ; or (to speak more properly) when we pick up a few loose strands of this infinite web, we soon plunge into mysteries and encounter para- doxes. But it ill becomes scientific men to mag- nify those difficulties in forgetfulness of their own. The scientific fraternity had trouble, not long since, with a guild popularly styled " posi- tivists," who classified science well nigh to death, and insisted that philosophers were to take no step beyond actual observation and experiment. Prom that folly Darwin has happily delivered them. So have we had, in the ethical field, those called " utilitarians," who insisted that there was no virtue except in such acts as have a tendency to promote happiness, — the promotion of happiness being the foundation of obligation. But that is 1 See Edwards' Works [the younger], Vol. i. p. 481. Boston, 1854. 192 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE too narrow a view of virtue, since man cannot tell absolutely what actions will, on the whole, pro- mote happiness. To learn this he must study the mind of God as seen in the construction of human nature and in providence and in revelation. To the question what is Virtue ; the Edwardean an- swers. Virtue consists in choosing " the good of being " ; and that involves, on the part of a finite creature, only such conformity of executive action in attaining the general object as corresponds to the light he has regarding the correlation of means to the end. Where there is a willing mind God takes care of the results. But when we rise above the region of human infirmity, and speculate con- cerning the designs of infinite wisdom, we see that with God the choice and the action must coalesce. To him the general design becomes particular, and the particular, general. Doubtless, the universe is " all of a piece " both as to second causes and as to final causes. No part of the creation can be fully interpreted, either as to efiicient cause or as to final cause, without regard to every other part. We may say, then, of any object in nature, that in the divine idea the final cause of its creation is the sum of all the uses to which it is ever to be put. This should introduce us to a very broad view of design, comprehending the principle of correlation, which has regard to negative use as well as posi- OB DESIGN IN NATDBE. 193 tive, and bringing to view the whole question re- garding the dignity of human nature, and the requisites for its mental and moral development. Even then there is an unknown range of possible intelligence, different from our own and perhaps above it, which will make us cautious about ex- pressing negative conclusions regarding the wisdom of any work of God. With some of these questions, as they liave been met both in the field of science and in that of theology, we shall deal in the next cliapter ; so we will touch lightly upon them here. Doubtless there is in the mind of God a " sufficient reason " for the existence of each particular thing in the creation ; but the full interpretation of this sufficient reason, like the complete compre- hension of the doctrine of the " continuity of nature," lies beyond our capacity. Still, we are not in either department complete " agnostics " ; we do know something. Let us see what, and about how much, it is. TI. How folly can the Human Mind interpret the Design in Nature 2 To get a proper understanding of the true doc- trine of final causes we must endeavor to shift the point of view from that in which we see things singly and disconnected to a position from which we shall see them as parts of an organic whole. The reason for the existence of any part of the 18 194 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE creation cannot fully be understood except in its relation to all the other parts. The final cause of the least part of the universe can be interpreted only from a proper understanding of the final cause of the whole. The part must be merged in the whole before it can he exhaustively interpreted. As each particle of matter feels the attraction of evei-y other particle, so all lines of design are deflected by the requirements of each subordinate element. The distinction between the chief end of creation and what is subsidiary or incidental to it has not been insisted upon sufficiently. Each incidental good, however, comes in as a part of that whole which constitutes the chief end. The comprehensive end of creation is the " highest good of being in general " ; but we must conceive of this as secured through a variety of co- ordinate lines centring in that one generalization. The sensational happiness of all organic creatures, from the lowest animalcule to that of the most higlily organized animal form, is an element to be considered in that general good of beijig. The pleasurable sensations of the intellect, investigating and interpreting the ways of God as displayed in the creation, are likewise a part of that good in- cluded in the end for which all things were made. The interchange of sympathy and love and admira- tion and gratitude depending upon the development of moral character amid the trials of life, forms also OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 195 a part of that object for which all things exist. But, aside from the satisfaction which we may suppose God to have himself in his own work and its re- sults, we must, perhaps, in estimating the material creation's " value in use " give the foremost place to the probability that intelligent beings throughout all future time and in all space will need a clew by which to unravel and rightly interpret the scheme of God. The intellectual and moral emotions de- pendent upon the adaptability of the works of God to being understood may form the chief part of finite good. In other words, it may reasonably be sup- posed thatitisofmoreaccounttoGod'screatures as a whole that the universe be capable of interpreta- tion, and that the method of God in his works be manifested, than that any amount of temporary good should occur during the earlier stages of the process of development. The happiness occurring now may be only such as can be worked in incidentally to the greater good that is to supervene in the con- summation of all things. And even now it may be of more account to be assured that we have some conception of God's general plan of opera- tions with reference to us, than it would be to know the full meaning and object of any part of his creation ; just as it is of more importance that a child should be certain that the command is from his parent than that he should understand the reason of the command. 196 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE The use to which we may put a thing is never more than a fragment of the final cause of its existence. We may illustrate this by the reasons that prevail in the establishment of a manufactory at a particular place. "We will suppose it is a saw- mill, the main object of whose construction is tlie production of lumber. A combination of reasons, no single one of which may have been sufficient alone, accounts for the existence of each particular saw-mill. The price of labor, the facility to a mar- ket for the principal production, the obstacles to be overcome in getting the raw materials to the mill, and, finally, the use that can be made of the refuse, or incidental production of the establishment, may, any one of them, come in as the determining rea- son. All the profits of the mill may be in the sale of the slabs, or in economizing them and the sawdust as fuel. The uses the miller's children may make of the refuse for play-houses, and the miller's wife for kindling, are none of them so insignificant as not to be taken into account. The children very naturally might, at a certain age, fix upon their incidental advantage as the main object, or final cause, for which the mill existed. And their error may not be half so ludicrous as that we make in assigning the temporary advantages we derive from them as the exhaustive reason for the exist- ence of the several parts of the universe that come OB DESIGN IN NATOEE. 197 within the range of our limited observation. In- deed we may well suppose that the highest con- ception of the perfection and design of the divine workmanship which our imagination can com- pass, is but a partial appreciation of the utility of the chips that have fallen off incidentally in the process of rearing the walls of the city of God. We are living in the quarry, and are concerned with the fragmentary pieces of emerald and sar- donyx and topaz that are scattered thickly about the region where God's hand is at work. This view is suggested by the last three pages in the work of Darwin on " Animals and Plants under Domestication " ; which are worthy of the most careful study of the theologian. " In accordance with the views maintained by me in this work and elsewhere, not only the various domestic races, but the most distinct genera and orders within the same great class ; for instance, whales, mice, birds, and fishes, are all the descend- ants of one common progenitor, and we must admit that the whole vast amount of difference between these forms of life has primarily arisen from simple variability. To consider the subject from this point of view is enough to strike one dumb with amazement. But our amazement ought to be lessened when we reflect that be- ings, almost infinite in number, during an al- most infinite lapse of time, have often had their 198 CONCBaJNTNG PINAL CAUSE ■whole organism rendered in some degree plastic, and that each slight modification of structure which was in any way beneficial under exces- sively complex conditions of life, will have been preserved, whilst each which was in any way injurious will have been rigorously destroyed. And the long continued accumulation of bene- ficial variations will infallibly lead to structures as diversified, as beautifully adapted for various purposes, and as excellently co-ordinated, as we see in the animals and plants all around us. Hence I have spoken of selection as the para- mount power, whetlier applied by man to the formation of domestic breeds, or by Nature to the production of species. I may recur to the metaphor given in a former chapter; if an architect were to rear a noble and commodious edifice, without the use of cut stone, by selecting from the fragments at the base of a precipice wedge-formed stones for his arches, elongated stones for his lintels, and flat stones for his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the paramount power. Now, the fragments of stone, though indispensable to the architect, bear to the edifice built by him the same relation which the fluctuating variations of each organic being bear to the varied and admirable structures ultimately acquired by its modified descendants. " Some authors have declared that natural OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 199 selectioii explains nothing, unless the precise cause of each slight individual difiference be made clear. Now, if it were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building, how the edifice had been raised stone upon stone, and why wedge-formed fragments were used for the arches, flat stones for the roof, etc. ; and if the use of each part and of the whole building were pointed out, it would bo unreasonable if he declared that nothing had been made clear to him, because the precise cause of the shape of each fragment could not be given. But this is a nearly parallel case with the objection that selection explains nothing, be- cause we know not the cause of each individual difference in the structure of each being. " The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our precipice may be called accidental, but this is not strictly correct ; for the shape of each de- pends on a long sequence of events, all obeying natural laws ; on the nature of the rock, on the lines of deposition or cleavage, on the form of the mountain, which depends on its upheaval and sub- sequent denudation, and, lastly, on the storm or earthquake which threw down the fragments. But in regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape may be strictly said to be accidental. And here we are led to face a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I 200 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE am travelling beyond my proper province. An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every con- sequence which results from the laws imposed by him. But can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain fragments of rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder might erect his edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape of each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake, can it with any greater probability be main- tained that he specially ordained for the sake of the breeder each of the innumerable variations of our domestic animals and plants, — many of these variations being of no service to man, and not bene- ficial, far more often injurious to the creatures themselves? Did he ordain tliat the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds ? Did he cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport ? But if we give up the principle in one case, if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order that the greyhound, for instance, that per- fect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed, no shadow of reason can be assigned for OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 201 the belief that variations, alike in nature and the result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief ' that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines, like a stream along defi- nite and useful lines of irrigation.' If we assume that each particular variation was from the be- ginning of all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of organization, which leads to many injurious devi- ations of structure, as well as that redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the natural selection or survival of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omnis- cient Ci'eator ordains everything and foresees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free-will and predestination." This remarkable passage really involves, as Mr. Darwin evidently perceives, no new questions re- garding final causes, but only such as had been raised by Copernicus and the geologists, and in- deed by theologians in their discussions of the doctrine of general providence. That structure 202 CONCERNING FINAL OATJSB of rock which makes it fall into fragments fit for buildjng purposes is certainly adapted to the wants of man, whether the fragments are quarried by human tools or by the powers of nature ; and the general dispersion of such fragments presents a remarkable correlation to the infirmities of man's bodily condition and to the range of his mental powers. Likewise the capacity for variation in animals, ofiering such a wide range of uses sub- servient to the purposes which men may cherish, whether benevolent or otherwise, is correlated to the intelligence which man really possesses, and afibrds material upon which man's character may impress itself in tangible shape. We may not fully comprehend the extent of the necessary limitations of any particular plan of crea- tion. Into that question theologians have ventured, ,and have to venture, much farther than any other class of reasoners. But any one can see that the adaptability of nature to be used by man does not exist from any necessity other than is involved in the conditions which we are compelled to postu- late before we reason at all upon the matter. If there be necessity that adaptation arise, it is a created necessity ; and if there be design it is all- comprehensive. Nature is made for a long time ; what is not of present use perhaps has been of use, or will be. To have things lying around loose, so that a being with man's freedom of choice and OR DESIGN IN NATUBE. 203 abundant infirmities will run upon them, is an element of value in them. To have them preserve marks such that the geologist or the naturalist can interpret their scientific meaning is, perhaps, the highest of all the uses to which they are ever put. Professor Asa Gray's pertinent suggestions ^ con- cerning the purpose which is served by much of the seeming waste in nature lay open a very wide subject. The apparent waste in nature is often made an argument against the wisdom of the Creator. But, as Professor Gray remarks, if there seems to be a superabundance, for ex- ample, of pine pollen, we must remember that " wind carriage is cheap " ; and there is no wasteful excess when both the end — cross-fer- tilization — and the means of transportation are taken into account. So of all mere material mechanism and of the lower forms of life we can say, as of dirt, that they are exceedingly cheap. Our chief arguments in natural theology are drawn from the intellectual and moral consti- tution of man as he is related to the complex system of nature. We might easily premise with regard to the adaptations suitable to man that it would usually be much easier, and far better, to make Mohammed go to the mountain than to bring the mountain to Mohammed. What else should we expect of such a far-seeing capitalist as Nature, ' See Darwiniana, pp. 375-378. 204 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE but that she should have laid by in store the tools and materials and means of intellectual and moral advancement which man, her crowning work, would need ? The man of science does well in exalting to the highest degree of importance man's capacity for discerning truth. It is an inspiring and en- nobling thought that man can " Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." In his search for truth in nature the man of sci- ence is not discarding final causes. He is but reading the hand-writing of God, and, con- sciously or unconsciously, paying deference to the highest end for which nature exists, namely, that of revealing the glory of the Creator's ways. The doctrine of final causes has been too often associated with low forms of utilitarianism. The palaeontologist, for example, finds the cast of a Trilobite in the bed of what was an old Silurian sea. The purpose of that low organism is by no means exhaustively explained when we have taken a measure of the sensational happiness he derived from his monotonous existence. The light so well adapted to his marvellous eyes, the agreeable tem- perature of the waters, the slimy food on which he lived, all this, and more, brought him some degree of pleasure ; and that is to be considered a part of tlie final cause of his existence. But a far higher puipose is served in the adaptation of his compli- OB DESIGN IN NATURE. 205 cated organism and of the position of his tomb in a sedimentary deposit to arrest the attention and direct the reasoning of a scientific observer. The pleasure of one lofty thought is worth more, and so more fitted to be mth the Creator an object of design, than a wliole herd of sensational pleas- ures. A page of Darwin has to a single reader more " value in use " than all the elements had to the whole race of Trilobites in Silurian seas. Yet the latter, with their marks in the rocks, — what are absent as well as what are present, — when correlated with general laws of production and preservation, may have been necessary before ever the thought which illuminates the page of the naturalist could have been engendered. This leads us to the real question of the doctrine of final causes, a question that lies also at the foun- dation of the authority of conscience. And here the modern bent of the scientific mind allies it- self with theism as opposed to deism, and with the intuitional theory of morals as opposed to the utilitarian. Tn. The Serelation of God is the Highest End of Natare. By those modern men of science who give attention to the philosophy which really underlies their processes of thought, the combination of marks in the organic world pointing to the afiSn- 206 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE ity of all species with each other is held to be of the very highest value as a hand-writing of God. The men of science would live " not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The temporal good incidental to the course of nature's development is of in- finitely less account than the purpose it serves in revealing the eternal glory of the Creator. The very doctrine of final causes which leads us as theologians to look for occasional miracles in the administration of God's moral system would, perhaps, persuade us not to look for them previous to the establishment of that system. In the true doctrine of final causes the wants of rational creat- ures must be supposed to be the principal object kept in view by the Creator. " How much better is a man than a sheep ? " " Are ye not of more worth than many sparrows ? " And of the wants of such beings the most imperious is that of a means of communication with one another and with the Creator. Tlius the persistent adherence of the Creator to a definite plan of operations, and the trustworthiness of the marks revealing the style of his workmanship and hand-writing, become es- sential elements in the well-being of a progressive and immortal race. It is confidence in this uni- formity of manifestation, as involving the veracity of supreme goodness, that renders it possible to have communion and companionship either with our OE DESIGN IN NATURE. 207 fellow creatures or with our Creator. It is this intuition of the value to us of uniformity in the ordinary operation of divine power wliicli makes a miracle miraculous, and therefore an instructive attestation ; i.e. which makes a break in the ap- parent uniformity for moral ends conceivable and cognizable. The theistic hypothesis which acknowledges the need of the revelation of the Bible has this special merit, that it brings into prominence the inscrutability of the ways of God. A fundamental assumption in the reasoning of theists regarding the revelation given in the Bible is, that we have less power to interpret, in the narrow sense, the final causes of existing things than we have to discern the marks of God's veracity in revealing a law of conduct for us. Indeed, this revelation of a law of duty to us is a large part of the final cause of all things. Our faith in Scripture rests on the intuition that, with the conscious limitations of power and experience belonging to human reason, it is easier for us to recognize the authenticity of the hand-writing of God than it is to interpret the ultimate end which a particular part of the creation is designed to serve. The veracity of God in his dealings with us flows more directly from his good- ness than any other of his moral qualities. Con- fidence in the marks of his veracity as guides of our conduct is what constitutes faith. In these 208 CONCERNING PINAL CAUSE marks of God's veracity in revealing himself to us we have a provisional guide in practical mo- rality. The instincts of our nature have thus a certain amount of authority from God. And with reference to the Bible, though its revelations are beyond the reach of reason, and are many of them profoundly mysterious, yet the veracity of God is so bound up in the evidence of its genuineness, and of its authority on moral subjects, that, not- withstanding all there is in it to stagger the reason, we accept it as a rule of action. It is upon the same department of our reasoning powers that the present scientific habit of thought makes its demands. It denies our power to inter- pret exhaustively the final cause of the narrow fields of nature which we explore. It says, in the true spirit of theism, the full meaning of this is above our sight, and we do not attempt to comprehend it. We will acknowledge to the fullest extent the uses to which all these contrivances are and may be put ; but we still hold that there are irrefragable evi- dences that these uses are only incidental to the working out of a vast scheme, whose law of develop- ment we dimly discern. We transfer you from the narrow and delusive study of the final cause of the things as isolated and in themselves, to contemplate the final cause of the whole scheme of nature. In that infinite scheme — so the thoughtful man of science must say — ' we believe that the good which OR DESIGN IN NATURE. 209 may come from being able to discover the truth in the works of God and to enlarge our conceptions of his plans may be far greater than that possible to arise in connection with the transient, sensational uses which a contrivance is allowed to serve.' That is, God has taken more pains to reveal to us his methods and laws than to reveal his particular ends. It is the supremest mark of design that the method of God should be thus admirably corre- lated to the capacity of our understanding. The revelation of God himself is the larger part of the final cause of creation. A question similar to the foregoing has to be considered when we seek for the ground of the authority of conscience. Is conscience guided by a direct perception of the utility of its commands, or by an indirect belief that certain impulses and intuitions are infallible guides to utility? The latter is most certainly the case. Man cannot refrain from acting till he has demonstrated the utility of his choice. He obeys certain impulses and intuitions and tendencies of mind as being the voice of God. Within certain limits he does not discern the utility of purity or honesty, but accepts obedience to the voice of God as infallibly leading to the highest utility. General principles have more weight in sanctioning moral action than a narrow circle of visible results. There is the same distinction as this between the prevailing scientific 14 210 CONCERNING FINAL CAUSE interpretation of final causes and the ordinary method. When a scientific principle comes upon the stage, particular instances of apparent design retire to a subordinate place. To prevent misapprehension it may be well, in conclusion, to repeat more explicitly our position. The universe is made for happiness of one sort or another. There is no happiness in the universe, not even that of the smallest insect, but such as was designed by the Creator. The system, how- ever, was chosen as a whole. The prospective pleasure of the worm had some power as an ele- ment determining to his creation, — his good was a part of that sufficient reason which moved the Divine Being to this particular creative activity. But there are grades of happiness, and hierarchies of being. The same impulse of the designing mind which leads to a provision for the sensational hap- piness of the oyster, leads also to the subordination of the oyster to the higher orders of being. The welfare of oysters, of birds, and of men was each an element in the final cause which led to the creation as it is. But for the sake of the oysters God would have made the world somewhat differ- ent from what it is. But for the sake of the birds he would have made it still more different. Had it not been that man was to be incorporated in the scheme the plan would have been very dif- ferent indeed. OR DESIGN IN NATURE. 211 It is important for both men of science and theologians to occupy that median position where the truth lies ; on the one hand avoiding the pre- sumption -which aspires by searching to "find out" God, and on the other hand shunning that false humility which disowns our divine birthright of reason — a birthright which enables us to pene- trate to some extent into the realm of both final and secondary causes, and to answer partially the two inseparable questions, How does God work ? and What does he work for ? We beg our scientific readers, if we have any, to be as patient with us, as we have been with them ; for theology, even more than science, suffers from fi'agmentary treatment. If the men of science ob- ject to the petty criticisms and narrow judgments of those who have only a superficial acquaintance with the problems presented in nature, so may students of theology complain if the system of thought to which the great body of Christendom has given its assent is set aside without being adequately understood. " We be brethren," all of us, gathering pebbles along the shore of the same illimitable ocean. CHAPTER V. SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN CALVINISM AND DABWINISM. I. Introductory Cautions. To those who believe that the material creation, the mind of man, and the Bible are all productions of one author, it will not be unexpected if atten- tion reveal internal evidence of this community of origin. It need not surprise such to find a thread of analogy running through the sciences which treat of nature as embodied in matter and mind, and that revelation of the supernatural which more fully unfolds the unseen and the future. The in- terpreters of these three departments of divine rev- elation should have many principles in common. It may not, therefore, be irreverent to join together, for purposes both of comparison and contrast, the names of Paul, Augustine, and Darwin — the first, an inspired apostle ; the second, a profound phi- losopher and theologian ; the third, a painstaking modern interpreter of nature. It woxild, indeed, be irreverent to place these names together as standing in anything like the same rank of impor- 212 CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 213 tance or authority. Therefore let it be expressly understood that these names, as representing dif- ferent systems of thought, are brought togetlier for purposes of contrast as well as of comparison. The inspired theologian was limited only by the extent of eternity. The third heaven was within the reach of his clarified vision. The theologian is a philosophical interpreter of the apostle, and deals with the fragmentary records of inspiration as the palaeontologist does with the scattered remains of extinct animals. By careful study of the conformation and articulation of a few bones the comparative anatomist can determine what other bones, and what sinews and muscles, and what hairy covering and digestive organs are complements to the parts discovered. So the philosophic theologian is ever at work upon the typical facts of verbal revelation, arranging around them their natural clothing of flesh and blood, showing how present experiences and newly-dis- covered facts in other fields of science spring out of and adjust themselves to the pregnant- utterances of the inspired writers. The systematic theologian is an exegete, drawing out of the Bible and human history the material from which to construct a system of unending hopes and of eternal aspira- tions. The naturalist chooses a much humbler sphere for his investigations, and walks by a much dimmer light. With the flickering lamp of ex- 21J: SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN perience he gropes his way, between daylight and dark, along the surface of the earth, and stumbles about over the dSbris that is scattered upon it. The naturalist does not concern himself either with the beginning of things or with the end of things. That is work for the philosopher and the theologian. The naturalist studies, with what light he has, the order oi divine operations within the range of what is visible. The phenomena of physical nature are to the man of science what the words of the Bible and the phenomena of human nature are to the Christian theologian. The axioms and intuitions concerning the divine nature and the authority of evidence are the common property of both. It may or may not be truCj' that species are of derivative origin, and that natural selection is the main guiding force operative in their derivation from one another. It is sufficient for the purposes of this discussion that the theory has at present a firm hold upon the scientific world. As students of theology we ask : How does this theory, whether true or false, adjust itself to that comprehensive system of theological speculation of whose correct- ness in the main we are persuaded by a variety of considerations? II. Salient Features of CalTinism. The mantle of Augustine fell upon the re- former of Geneva. But " theologians are still CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 215 divided oil the question as to what constitutes the peculiarity of the Reformed [Calvinistic] church." 1 Much in -this cliapter that is styled Calvinistic or Augustinian might with equal propriety be labelled " evangelical." The most distinctive point of Calvinism relates to the di- vine " purposes." As it is desirable to draw comparisons between that distinctive trait and the bent of modern science we retain the word " Calvinistic," instead of the less explicit and in- tensive word " evangelical. We fear that those who are merely evangelical will not get the full benefit of some of our analogies. We may further premise that in this discussion we have nothing to do with the mere minutiae of the doctrines either of science or of theology. It is only in their broader aspects, in which distinguished men have become representative teachers, that we are view- ing the subject. We therefore shall use the word " Calvinism" interchangeably with " Augustinian- ism," and shall be careful not to make Darwinism responsible for everything Mr. Darwin and his co- adjutors have written. The scientific theory under consideration has already been presented with sufi&cient fulness. The theological system is familiar, but for pres- ent purposes may be epitomized as follows : God 1 Hagenbach's History of Doctrines. Translated by C. W. Bach (New York, 1862), Vol. ii. p. 160. 216 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN only is self-existent. The universe is his work, and is the embodiment and unfolding of his eternal ideas. The foreknowledge of God comprehends all things. " Known unto God are all his ways from the beginning." Not only is the providence of God concerned in the sparrow's fall and in the fate of each particular hair of our heads, but, para- doxical as it seems, the fore-ordaining providence of God has also comprehended the actions of the free-will of man. And furthermore, notwithstand- ing the knowledge of all the parts of the universe and the fore-ordination of the system as a whole (and in logical consequence of this fore-ordination, foreknowledge of all), the goodness of God is held to be consistent with the creation of a condition: of things in which sin enters in such degree and extent that some of its subjects will be consigned thereby to endless punishment ; so that the Author of all things himself can say of some persons, when considered with reference to themselves, it had been better for them if they had never been born. According to this system, also, the scheme of the universe is so vast that it is unsafe to assume that the happiness of particular individuals, or generations even, much less of animals, is a prominent object of the existing order of things. Calvinism is opposed to utilitarianism as a theory of virtue. The chief end of man is not to seek his own happiness, but the glory of God. The CALVINISM AND DABWINISM. 217 authority of obligation to particular duties is not the perceived bearing of our actions upon the happiness of being, but the perceived evidence that God enjoins the course of action. God's ways, though not absolutely unknown, are often inscrutable, compelling man to walk by faith, and not by sight. m. The Gronnd of Opposition to CalTinism. This system of theology is vigorously opposed in many quarters with the objections that it nar- rows to the smallest sphere, if it does not wholly obliterate, the self-determining power of man's will ; that it belittles the true dignity of human nature ; that it leaves no ground for the interven- tion of mercy ; that it represents God as at once unfeeling, unjust, and remote from the world and its affairs. A popular preacher of the radical school ex- claims: "The faults [of Calvinism] come from its peculiar doctrine It makes God dark and awful He is the Draco of the universe, the author of sin This system degrades man. It deprives him of freedom. It does not tell of God now near at hand, but a long while ago." ^ A leading defender of Arminian theology thus addresses a select audience of Sabbath-school 1 Theodore Parker. A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion. (Boston, 1842), pp. 455, 456. 218 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN teachers: "Calvin, in whose mind the logical faculty was predominant, and who never hesi- tated to follow out his own accepted premises to their legitimate conclusion, at length developed a complete system of philosophical theology, which so exalted the divine sovereignty in grace .and provi- dence as to leave no room for the action of any creature, except as moved and actuated by the power of God. Whatever might occur must, therefore, be interpreted as the outcome of the will .of God, whether of righteousness or of sin, eternal life or eternal death. The only possible laws in the universe were the divine decrees, from which there could be no departure ; the actions of all creatures were subject to his hands, in both their inception and their execution ; and the whole universe, physical and spiritual, was subject to a complete order of predestination. As a piece of machinery, the system was organically complete and sublimely effective ; but, at the same time, to ordinary minds it seemed utterly heartless and cruel as destiny itself. This system proceeds iipon the assumption of such a real and practical or administrative sovereignty in God over every man and his eternal destiny that the whole thing admits of neither conditions nor qualifications. The ordering of the affairs of the universe is an eternal and unalterable decree, complete in the divine mind from eternity, and unfolding in part CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 219 in the form of events within the realms of time. It is in its logical outcome simply fatalism, substituting the name of its God for the mythologi- cal Jupiter or Zeus, or the philosopher's fate or chance or destiny — names that designate the un- known force that sustains and directs the course of affairs in lofty disregard of the weal or woe of the intelligent and sensitive beings that are evolved in its resistless movement. But its God is not that ' Father of the spirits of all flesh,' of whom and of whose abounding mercies the Bible tells us." ^ Now if the Darwinian can show that his theory of the origin of species is, from a theological point of view, open only to these same and analogous objections, then he may shelter himself behind Calvinism from charges of infidelity. The stu- dent of natural history who falls into the modern habits of speculation upon his favorite subject may safely leave Calvinistic theologians to defend his religious faith. All the philosophical difficulties which he will ever encounter, and a great many more, have already been bravely met in the region of speculative theology. The man of science need not live in fear of opprobrious epithets ; for there are none left in the repertory of theological dis- putants which can be specially aimed at the Dar- winian advocate of continuity in nature. The Arminian, the Universalist, and the Transcenden- t Rev. Daniel Curr7,D.D.,Chautaaqua Address, Aug. 12, 1879. 220 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN talist long ago exhausted their magazines in their warfare against the lone camp of the Oalvinist ; while the Calvinist has stood manfully in the breach, and defended the doctrine that method is an essential attribixte of the divine mind, and that whatsoever proceeds from that mind con- forms to principles of order; God "hath fore- ordained whatsoever comes to pass," The doctrine of the continuity of nature is not new to the theo- logian. The modern man of science, in extend- ing his conception of the reign of law, is but illus- trating the fundamental principle of Calvinism. Proceeding with the analogy, we notice first, that IV. Darwinism is not a Theory of Universal Pro- gression. Darwinism conforms to the facts both of nature and of the Bible in not being a theory of invariable and progressive development. The organisms that succeed one another under the action of natural selection are not necessarily always of a higher or of a better kind. There may be, by the action of this law, either advancement or degradation. The condition necessary to secure the continued exist- ence of a form of life is, not that the form is the best that could be prepared for its position, but that it is the best that could be secured under the actual scheme of operations. CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 221 Darwin is careful not to say that we are descended from apes, but takes pains to speak of our pro- genitor as being an ape-Zi&e creature ; ^ from which, according to his theory, the apes may have branched off as far in one direction as we have in the other. On his theory an organ or an instinct that might be of great advantage in one condition of things may in another be indifferent, or actually disad- vantageous, and so may become rudimentary, or wholly aborted. Then, on return of the former circumstances and with fresh competition, the ani- mal or organ would succumb, and the race become extinct. So this theory comprehends extinction of species and organs as well as their production, and degradation as well as advancement. Indeed, the advancement of some is sure to be accompanied by the degradation of others ; and the extinction of the more generalized forms of life is the very reason why we have the present diversity. In this respect the theory, in its application to the human species, may well consist with the teaching of the catechism, that man was made in the beginning upright, but fell from his first estate ; and, not unlikely, has in his fall involved all nature to a certain extent with him. That new and superior moral element which was added when man became man, and which constitutes 1 Descent of Man, Vol. i. pp. 131, 148, 151, 153, 226; Vol. u. pp. 312, 345, 366. 222 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN his distinctive characteristic, is capable of being a hinderance as well as a help in the career of progress. No organ is an advantage in itself. An organ can be of advantage only as it is in harmony with its environment. In nature the environment is undergoing constant change, which necessitates as constant adaptation on the part of the organ- ism in order to have its peculiarities continuously advantageous to it. The imposition of a moral faculty upon man's physical organism brought in a double source of danger. Through the perver- sion of that spontaneity which we call moral free- dom, the high endowments of the human race became an active source of disharmony. In the moral world sin, as to its effects, may be considered a maladjustment of the soul to the conditions of its best existence. The soul must reap the wages of such voluntary maladjustment by^ bearing as a burden what, properly used, would be a help. The conscience of a sinner is an impediment. The moral powers of a rebellious race are a burden to it, and may even become rudimentary. It is a question of revealed theology whether they ever become wholly abortive and the soul itself annihilated. A being with a moral nature ill used is of all creatures the most miserable. It impedes him in his search for happiness as the antlers of a stag, however useful in their place, CALVINISM 4-Nt) DARWINISM. 223 interfere with the animal's progress througli a jungle. Weight is of advantage to the elephant for certain purposes, but is a manifest disadvan- .tagewheu searchuig for food in miry ground or where the wild goats pasture. Thus the very greatness of man's endowments is a source of misery to him so long as he persists in trying to stand on slippery places. Man's desires outstrip the earthly means of gratification. His worldly ambition is often as disproportionate to the pro- vision made for its satisfaction in this world as is the unwieldy form of the mastodqn to the scant vegetation of an arctic summer. Indeed, it is a serious question whether civilization may not end in the destruction of itself. The strength and present safety which result from political union and the division of labor tend to diminish the power of the individual to care for himself. Civ- ilization produces changes in the human consti- tution analogous to those produced in brute ani- mals by domestication. The balance and harmony of the individual are disturbed by the enormous development of particular capacities. Why should an ox want to weigh a thousand pounds ? Why should a horse wish to be bred into the shape of a greyhound? Why should a man desire to unfit himself for everything else for the sake of acquir- ing facility in making the fifteenth part of a pin? Through the action of natural selection in the 224 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN human race, the social and political organism is likely to be developed at the expense of the individual. The individual, as a social force, is being transformed into a rudiment. He is in danger of becoming an organ rather than an independent being. Y. The Organic Connection of the Human Bace. The Calvinistic doctrine of the spread of sin from Adam to his descendants has also its illus- trative analogies in the Darwinian principle of heredity. The Calvinist holds that A-dam's sin insured that of the whole race. Corruption was trans- mitted from Adam to all his descendants. The Calvinist cannot regard mankind as a loose aggre- gation of individuals with nothing but an ideal bond of connection ; but in a most profound sense the children of Adam compose an organic whole. Adam was not merely a " progenitor, but, as it were, a root," by whose corruption " the whole human race was vitiated." When Adam cor- rupted himself " he transmitted the contagion to all his posterity." From the " corrupt root " of our first known progenitor "corrupt branches pro- ceeding transmit their corruption to the saplings which spring from them. The children, being vitiated in their parent, conveyed the taint to the grandchildren ; and so the corruption commencing CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 225 in Adam is by perpetual descent conveyed from tliose preceding to those coming after tliem." Calvin calls this viciousness of human nature " natural, to prevent any one from supposing that each individual contracts it by depraved habit, whereas all receive it by a hereditary law." ^ We should, however, remark that notwithstand- ing the hereditary transmission of sinful tendencies, Calvin thinks he sees his way clear to absolve God from direct responsibility for sin. " The blame of our ruin rests with our own carnality, not with God; its only cause being our degeneracy from our original condition It is plain that this wound was inflicted by sin ; and therefore we have no ground of complaint except against ourselves." ^ Still we confess that it is difficult to give logical consistency to this language, except we adopt either the so-called New School theory of Calvin- ism, or resort to traducianism in explanation of the origin of the soul. The New School party do not maintain that sin itself, or sinful qualities, are inherited, but only that depraved conditions are transmitted to such extent that sin does infallibly occur in the soul which is the subject of these conditions. The (rdp^, or in modern language the whole automatic ma- chinery of our nature, is unhinged ; and the ' See Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Beligion, Book ii. chap. 1, sec. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11. ^ Ibid., sec. 10. 15 226 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN disarrangement is transmitted from generation to generation. The New School Calvinists, moreover, would not accept, without qualification, the saying of their master that " our whole nature is a seed-bed of sin, and therefore can but be odious and abomi- nable to God." 1 They cut the Gordian knot, and say man's fallen nature is a " seed-bed of tempta- tion," and the character which certainly, but not necessarily, develops iu those conditions is odious, — a distinction which those who cannot see the difference between a moral motive and a locomotive are slow to recognize. Oh the other hand, the traducianist, by intro- ducing a counter mystery, analogous to that en- tertained by the Darwinians, pushes the original problem respecting transmitted sin a little farther back and out of sight. The creationist says, with Calvin, that the responsible soul is in every case breathed fresh from God, but in the case of man is at once joined to an infected body ; while the tra- ducianist contends that the soul is propagated by natural generation. The language of the Westminster Catechism is, " All mankind, descending from him [Adam] by ordinary generation sinned iu him, and fell with him in his first transgression." ^ Professor Shedd ^ 1 Institutes, Book ii, chap. 1, sec. 8. ^ Larger Catechism, Question xxvi. 8 See Essay on the " Doctrine of Original Sin," in Christian CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 227 maintains with great spirit that this means " that all men were, in some sense, co-existent in Adam ; that, all men were, in some sense, co-agents in Adam " ; that " the will of Adam was not the will of a single isolated individual merely ; it was also, and besides this, the will of the human spe- cies — the human will generically " ; that " each individual of the human race is in some mysterious, but real manner a responsible partaker in Adam's sin — a guilty sharer, and, in some solid sense of the word, co-agent in a common apostasy." Pro- fessor Shedd contends that Augustine, Luther, John Owen, and President Edwards were advo- cates of this view. What should really be said of Augustine and President Edwards, however, is, that according to Professor Shedd's logic they ought to be advocates of his view in order to be consistent in maintaining, as both did, the doc- trines of free-will, original sin, and total depravity. Edwards uses the following language : " There is no sure ground to conclude that it must be an absurd and impossible thing for the race of man- kind truly to partake of the sin of the first apostasy, so that this in reality and propriety shall become their sin ; by virtue of a real union between the root and branches of mankind (truly and properly availing to such a consequence) established by the Beview, No. 67. Reprinted in Disconrscs and Essays (Andover, 1862), pp. 218-271. 228 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN Author of the whole system of the universe ; to whose establishments are owing all propriety and reality of union in any part of that system ; and by virtue of the full consent of the hearts of Adam's posterity to that first apostasy. And therefore the sin of the apostasy is truly and properly theirs." 1 The italics are his. This language prob- ably loses its value to the traducianist by virtue of the peculiar views Edwards elsewhere advances regarding the relation of God to the creation. The significant thought is, that Edwards's appre- hension of the presence of God in creation does not interfere with his conception of God as creating by law and through an " established course of nature." This is his language in another place : " It is true that God by his own almighty power creates the soul of the infant, and it is also true that God by his immediate power forms and fashions the body of the infant in the womb ; yet he does both according to that course of nature which he has been pleased to establish." He says that by nature " no more is meant than an established method and order of events, settled and limited by divine wisdom." '^ Passing, now, back to Augustine, we find that he devotes a special treatise to the question of the origui of the soul.^ In this, while he does not ad- 1 Treatise on " Original Sin," Part iv. chap. 3. * Ibid., chap. 8. s De Anima. CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 229 vocate traducianism, he does, with great vigor, defend it from the charge of heresy, and insists that, at any rate, it is an open question. In say- ing that God created all breath, the Scriptures do not — so Augustine contends — commit themselves to any metaphysical theory regarding the mode of creation. It may as well be indirect as direct. " ' I have created all [or every] breath,' is un- deniably spoken of each individual soul. Well ; but God also creates the entire body of man ; and, as nobody doubts, he makes the human body by the process of propagation. It is therefore, of course, still open to inquiry concerning the soul (since it is evidently God's work), whether he creates it, as he does the body, by propagation, or by inbreathing, as he made the first soul All our question is as to the mode of the forma- tion. Now, let us take the eye of the body, and ask, Who but God forms it ? I suppose that he forms it not externally, but in itself, and yet, most certainly, by propagation. Since, then, he also forms the human spirit, or soul, in itself, the question still remains, whether it be derived by a fresh insufflation in every instance or by propa- gation."^ In reading these discussions it is plain ■ to see 1 De Anima, Lib. i. cc. 21, 22. In further confirmation of this view of Augustine's position, see in the same work, Lib. i. cc. 6,13, 16, 18, 19, 26, 28, 33 ; Lib. ii. cc. 10 and 20 ; Lib. iv. cc. 2, 15, 38. 230 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN that theologians are as much puzzled to form a satisfactory conception of the origin of each indi- vidual soul as naturalists are to conceive of the origin of species. Their difficulties are, indeed, nearly identical. In both instances they are forced to take hold of the old questions so hotly disputed between the nominalists and the realists. We should be warned by the fruitlessness of these discussions to recognize the limits of human thought, and learn to be content with such partial knowledge of the divine methods of activity as our minds can really cornpass. It would have been well if on some of these insoluble questions theologians had either maintained the dignified reserve of Scripture, or had displayed the caution of Mr. Darwin in his speculations concerning pangenesis, when he ex- pressly labelled it a " provisional hypothesis." It is unjust to blame Mr. Darwin, as Professor Bowen does,^ for modestly limiting himself to a consider- ation of the Creator's method in the production of vital phenomena, instead of extending his specula- tion so as to cover the method of creation in gen- eral. The naturalist, as such, is not compelled to settle questions in theology and metaphysics. YI. Evolution, Correlation, Design, Fore-ordination, and Free-will. The adjustment of the doctrines of fore-ordina- tion and free-will occasions perplexity to the Cal- 1 Modern Philosophy, p. 124. CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 231 Tinist in a manner strikingly like that experienced by the Darwinian in stating the consistency of his system of evolution with the existence of manifest " design in nature. The doctrine of free-will stands in as much danger of being strangled by the en- circling coils of fore-ordination, as the doctrines of final cause and particular providence do by evolu- tion. The most puzzling question which theologians have to deal with is that which concerns God's responsibility for the existence of sin. It will not do to say that God is in no way answerable for the existence of sin, since his foreknowledge must have comprehended all things, and no sin could have existed without the creative fore-ordination of a system that was known to include sin and suifer- ing among its incidents. Nor can it be correct to say that God is the direct author of sin [evil] , for that would contradict the clearest affirmations of our consciousness concerning personal guilt. It would also destroy the idea of any degree of finite freedom of will, and compromise the goodness of God. These apparently contradictory ideas are reconciled in our systems of theology by making a distinction between the ordaining and the per- missive decrees of divine power. God permits many things to occur which are not in the direct range of his original design. This method of statement amounts to the same 232 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN thing as changing the point of view from the cir- cumference of the system to its centre. From the centre we do not look upon each part singly, but view the parts in their relation to the whole. From this stand-point the narrow sphere of human freedom appears encircled in the more compre- hensive folds of the system as a whole. Sin and its consequent evils occur as incidents to that meas- ure of freedom which it has been thought best to give a portion of the creation. In stating the theological problem we do not say that the design of the creation of a particular sinner is that he may commit sin and be punished for it ; but the reason for his existence resolves itself into the more comprehensive one of the design of all things, and the relations of the parts of the creation to the whole. The Calvinist assumes that the highest good of the whole is consistent with that consti- tuted order of things in which sin is allowed to exist, and in which the freedom that makes sin pos- sible and actual may be put to good use, and even the wrath of man be made to work God's praise. It is not difficult to see that in these speculations theologians are struggling with problems concern- ing final causes far deeper than those which the scientific evolutionist touches. The problem of the theologian is as much deeper than that of the man of science as the nature of a moral being is more profound than that of an irrational creature ; CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 233 and as much farther reaching as eternity is than time. The Darwinian hypothesis, in like manner with the Calvinistic, would regard creation from the centre instead of from the circumference, and in- sists on viewing the parts in their proper perspec- tive. The sphere of one is the moral world, the sphere of the other the physical. In hoth, the main discussion of the question of final causes gathers ahout the constitution of -the system as a whole, rather than about that of the parts taken singly. The perfection of the parts is not absolute, but relative. Absolute perfection resides only in the whole, and the parts can be perfect only as related to the whole. The Darwinian refuses to accept as exhaustive that interpretation of design which limits the purpose to the narrow sphere of the immediate uses to which a form of organized matter is put by its possessor. In his sphere he makes the same distinction with the Calvinist be- tween what is designed and what is incidental. The scientific world is familiar with the so-called principle of correlation. In living organisms the parts are all interdependent. Any change in one organ must be correlated by adaptive changes in other organs, or the harmony is destroyed. To use the standard illustration of Mr. Spencer : The Irish elk has horns weighing a hundred pounds. If these have been acquired through natural selection an 234 BOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN extended series of changes must have simultane- ously occurred in other portions of the skeleton in order to render such enormous antlers service- able. They are used for purposes of offence and defence. But an increase of size can be advan- tageous only when there is an increased develop- ment of the supporting bones and muscles. The skull must be thickened ; the vertebrae of the neck must be increased in size ; the ligaments and mus- cles that move these must be enlarged ; the upper vertebrae of the back must be strengthened. Like changes must take place in the shoulders. " Still more, there must be a simultaneous development of the bones and muscles of the fore leg, since each of these extra growths in the horns, in the skull, in the neck, in the shoulders, adds to the burdens which the fore legs have to bear." All these changes necessarily involve disabilities. The in- creased size of the animal makes a demand for more food. The branching horns are likely to impede the flight of the animal through tlie forest. And this whole circle of advantageous develop- ment is correlated to the antagonistic development in some other animal. Where there are no ene- mies there is no call for means of defence. The danger is first created and then the way of escape devised. Tlirough the perpetual recurrence of such cor- relations in nature the naturalist is prepared to CALVINISM AND DARWTNISM. 235 study deep questions concerning omnipotence, and to discern the true solution of the problem of evil. Creative power is seen to be limited by the nature of things. At any rate tlie Author of nature has limited himself in the act of creation. A creation in space and time is compelled to con- form to the nature of space and time. There can- not be two hills without a valley, nor a before without an after. It would be an absurdity to speak of a physical organism which did not con- form to the laws of gravity and chemical combi- nation of the system into which it was introduced. To impeach the wisdom of any part of a system we must understand the reason of the whole. A system, like an organism, is designed as a whole. The parts are correlative. The supposition of a universe in which the parts do not limit one another is a logical contradiction. Limitation is a neces- sary incident of creation, but in defining God's omnipotence as " ability to do whatever is an ob- ject of power " we do not limit the divine power by any intractable and eternal substance. We only say that omnipotence is not a power which can transcend the law of logical contradiction ; and tliat God has made matter what it is for reasons best known to himself. Now these limita- tions to power appearing in the organic world are analogous to those revealed in the moral system of which Calvinism gives the completest sum- 236 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN mary and the soundest interpretation. For ex- ample, the Calvinist need not say that the character of Judas was designed for what it is in itself. He might say a general system was de- signed in which Judas's crime was permitted as an incident which could be put to good use. The Calvinist need not say that the design of the creation of the wicked was their reprobation. But the reprobation of the wicked may come in as a circumstance subsidiary to the general ends of the moral system that is created. It was better to have the system as a whole, notwithstanding such a perversion of freedom, than not to have the sys- tem at all. Thus the character of God may easily be shielded from the imputation of direct responsibility for sin ; since his omniscience enables him to look beyond incidental evils to an ulterior good, and to make use in his general system of the perverted powers of those who sin against him. The happiness of the individual creature would seem at first sight to be the reason for his creation. But the Calvin- ist learns so to exalt the principles of justice and holiness, and the ideas of law and the glory of God, that the happiness of tlie individual retires to a very subordinate place among the reasons that jus- tify his creation and continuance. As it is said : " In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power ; and that my CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 237 name may be declared throughout all the earth " (Ex. ix. 16 ; Rom. ix. 17). Not only is the Calvinist accustomed to look with submissive spirit upon the misery of the wicked on account of the requirements of the general system ; he is also led by comparison to speak disparagingly of the value of the happiness of the obedient. The elect are not led to believe that they are chosen for good in themselves that distinguishes them from Other men, nor because they have greater capacity for happiness than others, but, before divine wisdom, their election depends upon the general requirements of the moral system chosen, and the uses to which they themselves could be put. It is this idea that makes self-sacrificing missionary zeal so constant an outgrowth of Calvinism. Calvinistic preachers use this thought with powerful effect in securing the virtues of humility and self-forgetfulness. The reason for giving the elect more privileges than others does not lie in any antecedent personal superiority over others. They were all alike vessels of wrath, and some of them were the chief of sinners. But the decisive reason for the choice of them to become vessels of mercy lay in their relations to the all-comprehensive divine plan. Their position was such that they could be made specially useful, therefore they were chosen. In the language of political economy, the Cal- 238 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN vinistic conception of the Christian scheme, while keeping in prominence two distinct elements of worth in a soul, viz. the value in use and the value in exchange, seems unduly to emphasize the latter. The first of these is the value of the being to him- self, or his personal capacity for happiness. The second is his value to the universe as he fills a particular place in the general scheme of creation. The redemptive agencies which are set at work by an all-wise Creator must keep in view both these elements of value. Wisdom cannot permit one to be swallowed up by the other. We are not at liberty to put asunder what God has joined to- gether. The salvation of a human soul is both an end and a means. In the evangelical conception neither of these considerations stands alone. Christ would save a soul, but only in such a manner as will not (in the existing order of things) interfere with his saving other souls, and in such a manner as will allow him (in the exist- ing order of things) to reveal all sides of his own character, and all the hazards of moral freedom. It passes our power to estimate the amount of happiness secured to the apostle Paul by his re- demption. But, in the broader outlook, the tran- scendent gain secured in his conversion is to be found in the transmitted effects of this change in making him a preacher of righteousness to the Gentiles, an illustrious example of self-devotion to CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 239 subsequent generations, a systematizer of theology, and a monument of the power of divine grace to transform the heart of an obdurate man. The universe will doubtless derive infinitely more of good from its acquaintance with the life and writings of Paul, and from the direct influence transmitted through him to them, than Paul him- self will ever derive from getting to heaven. The continuance of the saints in the earth finds more warrant in the use to which they may be put in revealing the glory of God than in any capacity they may have for individual enjoyment. These views are natural corollaries to Calvinism, and hence it stands utterly opposed to all low forms of utilitarianism, and exalts ideal good and remote results to the highest degree of importance. Now, if Darwinism raises any difficulties with the belief of design in nature, the problem is sure to be solved on principles analogous to those which un- derlie Calvinism. Evidently, in his attempts to construct a system of theology out of the facts of history and revela- tion, the Calvinist is dealing with the profoundest questions of design. There is something truly sublime in the boldness with which he faces the dark question of reprobation, and attempts to reconcile this doctrine with the apparently antago- nistic doctrines of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of the Creator. The resoluteness with 240 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN which the Calvinist propounds the doctrine of elec- tion, with all its humiliating consequences to hu- man pride, is likewise heroic. In accusing Cal- vinists, however, as some do, with having exalted God and his glory at the expense of due recogni- tion of the importance of the happiness of the individual man, they are charging them with the acceptance of a truth of the very widest applica- tion. Scientific investigations are constantly rais- ing analogous (and, so far as we can see, not essentially different) questions to these that have long been discussed in speculative theology. But . the men of science do not have such profound and staggering facts to deal with as those revealed concerning sin, freedom, election, and foreknowl- edge. The schemes of the physical philosopher stop far short of attempting to comprehend eter- nity, past or future. They compass only a section of time. They touch but the surface of problems in causation and design which theologians are com- pelled to probe to the core. They drop their lines only in the shallows of the great ocean of which theologians must sound the depths. But there are for the true man of science, as well as for the profound theologian, glimpses of a higher and more comprehensive design than appears in the immediate uses to which even the most advanta- geous circumstance is put. To the student of natural history there are so CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 241 many things which indicate the genetic relation of succeeding species with one anotlier, that when he essays to interpret the ultimate designs of the Creator he is compelled to assume that the reve- lation of method and order in nature is a higher end, and so a more important factor in the final cause of the creation than are the passing advan- tages which organic heings derive from it as the scheme of nature is unfolding. The Darwinian's view of the life of organized beings is, that they are pilgrims and strangers, all of them, and have to put up with such accommodations as the reign of general laws and the requirements of their fellow-travellers will allow. He does not find, and, like the Calvinist, he is not bound to find, absolute perfection in each individual ; but only such perfection as is consistent with the require- ments of the general scheme. It is the glory of the Creator to accomplish a variety of objects by simple means. This "law of parsimony " so commends itself to our reason that we cannot well refuse assent to it. Infinite wisdom would not be infinite wisdom, unless it accomplished its ends by the simplest means, and readied them by the shortest method. That is certainly true. But there is always the under- lying question, What is the end to be accom- plished ? If, for example, it be a canal for trans- portation, a straight canal is the shortest means 242 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN to the end. But if the design of irrigation be added, a very crooked canal may be the most economical contrivance. If the design had been to get Israel from Egypt to the promised land hi the shortest time, there was a direct road, and (in the opinion of the evangelical theologian) there was unlimited power to perform miracles. But if there was the added design of such discipline for the chosen people as should adjust them into a vast scheme by which God is controlling a moral universe, then the shortest road may well be a very round-about one, and the wanderings in the desert may be the straightest path to the complete fulfil- ment of Israel's mission. De Quincey said that he did not tell the tragic tale of his life for the sake of the story, but for the flowers and foliage which clustered about it. The story was but the support, around which a vine should twine. To a creature of mere sensa- tion, the foliage, the flowers, the fruit, and the shade might appear to exhaust the useful qualities of the vine. But to reasoning man there is all this, with the addition of a still nobler element of use, viz. the revelation in its structure of its law of growth and of its generic aflBnities. What if we have opened to us evidence of the continuity not only of a single vine or species, but of whole genera and families and classes and orders in the animal and vegetable kingdoms ! Is anything too CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 243 hard for the Lord ? Is it impossible for him to give us bread and to satisfy our reason in the same substance ? Far be it from us to say that this is impossible. The true and full statement of the doctrine of final cause involves, as we have already shown,^ the recognition of all the uses which the object serves in the total plan of the Creator. The sum of all the uses to which an object is put is its sufficient reason for existence. The tendency of mind which leads us to seek for the bond of unity and order which appears in similar and analogous phenomena is among the noblest impulses and the highest endowments of the soul. The gratification of that tendency must constitute an important part of the reason of our existence. The adaptation of the creation to this tendency of our minds is among the most impres- sive and important of nature's contrivances. This introduces us to our next comparison. VII. The Similarity between the Calvinistic Hypotheses and the Darwinian, In the Limits they assign to the Specnlative Reason. The philosophical student cannot fail to be im- pressed by the analogy between the Calvinistic rule defining the attitude of reason toward the revelation of the Bible and that guiding the 1 See pp. 193-205. Also the Author's Log^'c "f Christian Evi- dences, Part ii. chap. i. pp. 104-122. 244 SOME ANALOGffiS BETWEEN modern naturalist in his interpretation of design in nature. ■ Without pausing to consider how much of ap- proval it implies, the theological opponents of Darwinism sometimes say that Darwinism is not proved, but it maybe a very good working hypoth- esis. This opens the way to some remarks upon the common ground regarding the nature of proof, occupied by systematic naturalists and the advo- cates of a positive' revelation an the Bible. They are both alike opposed to what may be called the expectation of an absolute and exhaiistive knowl- edge of divine things. Neither expects or requires demonstration. Both content themselves with what is called probable or moral evidence.^ The proof of an hypothesis is that it works well. We can make discoveries by it. It explains or co-ordinates complicated phenomena which other- wise are confused and unintelligible. The hypoth- esis furnishes the clew by which we thread our way -through the phenomenal labyrinth. The proof that we have the fight clew is the extent to which it leads us through a complicated mass of phenomena. Christianity, considered as an external revelation,- is a mass of purported his- torical facts. We have first to show th&.t the phenomena really.' appeared. In proof that they did, and that the history is true we make free use > See Logic of Christian Evidences, Fart i. CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 245 of hypotheses, eliminating those which are unsatis- factory. To begin with, we are at liberty to suppose that the purported facts are either fables or myths or pure fabrications. It is not necessary here to ex- plain on what ground these hypotheses are rejected. Suffice it to say that the only hypothesis which has worked well — i.e. which has not raised more difficulties than it has explained — is, that the Bible is true history, and that the writers of it were competent witnesses as to what they saw and heard, and as to the value of the documents which they used. Now, in order to explain these historical phe- nomena we have to make a still farther use of hypothesis. Are these facts natural or super- natural? Here, too, demonstration is out of the question ; since it is not a subject of abstract logic, but of inductive evidence. The belief of the writers that they were inspired, and of the actors that they were for special purposes and seasons endued with supernatural power, coupled with the manifest sobriety and sanity of both ; the contrasts between this system of purported revela- tion and other systems that have been presented for the consideration of the world ; the effects of this system in the development of history and on the individual believer, — these, and a great number of other concurring facts are so harmonized by the 246 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN hypothesis of supernatural intervention that few well-balanced minds who have fully considered the evidence can resist assent to the theory that a supernatural factor is present. The hypothesis of inspiration and miraculous intervention works so well, and the hypothesis of imposture and de- lusion works so ill, that a heavy burden of proof comes upon him who denies inspiration and mira- cle. The reasoning is not such as can be compressed into the hard-and-fast forms of a syllogism. For no two persons can ever have the same conception of the major premise. It is cumulative evidence, depending for its force upon a variety of consider- ations, including the personal experience of a sense of dependence arising from a feeling of guilt and of the natural limitations to the development of our capacities, and including also the success and diligence with which we have studied the Bible and given attention to the problems of human history. The so-called evangelical school of theology em- phasizes man's dependence upon a positive revela- tion of God which is outside of nature, and rejects " absolute " religion. It insists upon anchoring its speculations to a solid body of facts. This rule has been well stated as follows : " The province of hu- man reason in interpretation is to ascertain what the Scriptures teach ; to put its varied teachings in systematic form ; to construe them so as to shun CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 247 obvious contradictions with each other, with the in- disputable testimony of sense, and of unpervei'ted reason ; and humbly to bow to them when so ascertained and determined, however incompre- hensible, unwelcome, or irreconcilable with our feelings, judgments, or predilections. This gives reason a very high oflBce in ascertaining and ac- cepting the teachings of revelation, a very humble office as an original authority touching any mat- ters in regard to which God spealis in his word. Reason soars beyond its true level when it assumes to judge what can or cannot be true or possible relative to the infinite God — what, there- fore, he cannot mean to declare, although he seems to declare it, in his word. Human reason is com- petent to no such oflSce. It cannot span infinity." ^ The devout believer in inspiration finds no in- superable difficulty in accepting the mysteries that are revealed in the Bible, such as those relating to the mode of the divine existence, and those con- cerning the manner of the transmission of moral character from Adam to his posterity. For these mysteries pertain to questions of ontology, and have only that amount of difficulty which belongs to everything which we really try to fathom. In a similar manner, the Darwinian says that his theory is not to be rejected simply on the ground 1 Professor Atwater of Princeton College, N. J., in Bib. Sac, Vol. xxi. p. 70. 248 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN of its mystery ; for that belongs essentially to all facts and to any system that tries to unify them. Darwinism does not propose to explain ultimate facts, but only to interpret their significance re- garding the mode or laws of the Creator's action. Thus Mr. Darwin, in his provisional hypothesis of pangenesis, presents some of the acknowledged facts concerning the multiplication of gemmules, as of small-pox and rinderpest, and endeavors to, use them in formulating a theory of the proximate cause of the facts of inheritance and reversion. The most obvious objection to this hypothesis is, that it makes such extreme demands upon our imagination in trying to conceive the minuteness of the atoms. In reply he sagaciously remarks, " that a cod-fish has been found to produce 4,872,000 eggs, a single ascaris about 64,000,000, and a single orchidaceous plant probably as many million seeds. In these several cases the sperma- tozoa and pollen grains must exist iu considerably larger numbers. Now, when we have to deal with numbers such as these, which the human intellect cannot grasp, there is no good reason for rejecting our present hypothesis on account of the assumed existence of cell-gemmules a few thousand times more numerous." ^ 1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. ii. p. 453 f. See per contra, J. Clerk Maxwell in Article on Atoms in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Bni " Mr. Sorby calcn- CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 249 At the same time, Darwinism is a powerful pro- test against unrestricted a priori methods. Mr. Darwin does not propose, after the free manner of some, to sail into the open sea : he intends never to be out of sight of laud. He does not, indeed, hug the continuous shore of a continent ; nobody can do that ; but he threads his way through an archipelago. When he gets to the eud he stops, or thinks he does. He will, for example, at pres- ent, have nothing to do with theories of spontar neous generation. We do not, by any means, give assent to all Mr. Darwin's conclusions. Neither, on the other hand, do we accept all the interpre- tations that have been put upon the Bible. How could we? For the interpreters, not being in- spired, have made many grievous mistakes. But it is a point of great value and significance that the best modern representatives of science, as well as the best theologians, alike recognize the impor- tance of keeping their feet upon the ground, and are willing to fetter themselves with the objective facts of creation and revelation. They each accept the humble rofe of the interpreter of God's revealed systems — the one of organic nature, the other of lates that the smallest sphere of organic matter which could be clearly defined with our most powerful microscopes would contain many millions of molecules of albumen and water " ; hence there may he an almost infinite number of structural characters in or- ganic tissues which we have no present means for examining. See " Nature " for Sept. 1, 1881, p. 411 250 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN human nature. The naturalist finds himself in the midst of a vast and accumulating mass of ob- servations. The theory that species are genetically connected gives order and consistency to the facts, and brings in an element of purpose to much that otherwise seems purposeless. The growing diffi- culties of classification through the discovery of intermediate forms ; the distribution of species through space and time as if they were geneti- cally connected ; the arrangement of species in clusters, like planets and their satellites ; the persistent anatomical similarity in all species of the same class, even to the existence of the useless rudiments of aborted organs, togetlier with the analogy of embryological development, convince him that species are not new creations, but are of derivative origin. If these facts do not point to community of descent in the species connected, then, so far as the revelation of the divine purpose is concerned, the universe seems unskilfully made. In the case of such complicated similarities, " to reject a real for an unreal, or at least an unknown, cause," Mr. Darwin cogently argues, is to make " the works of God a mere mockery and deception. I would," he continues, " almost as soon beliete, with the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells living on tlie sea- shore." 1 This reasoning is strictly inductive, and 1 Origin of Species, p. 130. CALVINISM AND DARWINISM 251 a posteriori iu the sense tha± it grounds itself upon a revealed body of facts, and thereby gives aid and comfort to those who regard the facts of the Bible as a basis for inductive conclusions of higher authority than the unrestrained assertions of the speculative judgment. Tin. The Reign of Law. A further point of analogy between the Darwin- ian view of nature and the scheme of revelation defended by Calvinists relates to the method in which the Creator has transmitted his action dur- ing successive periods of time. Under both repre- sentations of the actions of the Creator law reigns supreme, and the main reliance for the dissemina- tion of the divine influence is upon what are called natural means. The revelation of God in the Bible is progressive, and in general is by means of nat- ural instrumentalities, with only occasional mira- cles. The revelation to Adam was very dim ; that to Noah, and later to Abraham, was still far short of what appeared in the prophetic era of Jewish history ; while the least in the kingdom of heaven, after Christ had come and the Holy Spirit had been poured out, was greater than John the Baptist. Tims through thousands of years, notwithstanding all the pressing exigencies of human history, the special revelation of God, by which alone we be- lieve the world is to be saved, was left to run in 252 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN a very contracted current, through a single family and their descendants. The family is chosen as the centre from which these influences are to spread. And still, even now, the vast majority of the Iniman race have not caught siglit of a single beam of that light which radiates from Calvary. This reliance of an Almighty God upon human activity for the dissemination of that knowledge of him which re- veals his brightest glory, and upon which depend the highest personal interests of mankind, is a mystery of infinite wisdom which we cannot hope to solve. It is a most inspiring truth of revelation that " the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved " (Rom. x. 12, 13). But the next sentence of the inspired word throws us adrift, with nothing to support us but our faith in the sovereign wisdom of God. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? And how shall they believe in him of whom tliey have not heard ? And how shall they hear with- out a preacher ? And how shall they preach ex- cept they be sent ? " It is also instructive, in this connection, to think of the means by which the evidence of the genuineness of the Scriptures is preserved. The providence that has protected monuments and manuscripts and fragments of historical writers has not been what is called a particular, but a CALVINISM AND DARWINISM. 253 general providence. We have no miraculous proof of miracles. We have no inspired inter- preters of inspiration. Use has been made of the caprices of the human mind (even of the pecu- liarities of the hand-writing, and the unwise mo- nastic habits of misguided believers) to establish the credibility of the Bible. The very desolation that has come over the seats of early civilization has preserved from destruction the monuments confirmatory of the Scriptures. The thread of natural causes which leads us by a process of induction back through the unfolding stages of the revelation of the Bible has nowhere been ab- sohitely broken by miracle. Miracle and special providence have come in only to incorporate new fibres with the lengthening thread ; and we are wont to say that now the day of miracles is past ; while we have always acknowledged tliat these spe- cial interpositions have been limited to well-defined epochs of history. This gradual developuient of revelation and its spread by natural agencies, wliich are so evident in the providential history of the scheme of re- demption, fall in with the expectations of that scientific bent of mind which has constructed the Darwinian theory. Miracles are neither to be in- troduced to explain phenomena, nor expected for human deliverance, unnecessarily. Clearly, tliere is a reason for their use in a providential govern- 254 SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN ment of moral beings, which does not exist previous to the creation of such beings. Miracles are for moral ends, and without positive evidence we have no reason to look for them in the developments of an irrational creation. It is no more inconsistent with the goodness of God that lie did not interfere with organic life by special creation for many mill- ion years before the appearance of man, than that he has interfered so little by miraculous manifes- tations with the spread of the gospel. If he has relied in so large a degree upon natural means for the dissemination of the moral forces of his spiritual kingdom, there is no a priori presumption agains Vol. vi. p. 278. 288 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. dirt which came from a tunnel under Table Moun- tain, two hundred feet in, at Shaw's Plat. Mr. Llewellyn Pierce also makes affidavit that a certain stone mortar which he gave to Mr. Voy was taken from under Table Mountain, eighteen hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel. All this is preliminary to the famous Calaveras skull, the facts about which are as follows : In February 1866 Mr. Mattison, one of the owners of a claim on Bald Mountain, near Altaville, says he took from a tunnel under the basaltic capping of the mountain an object which, on account of encrusted earthy and stony material, he thought at first to be the petrified root of a tree, but which he discovered to be a portion of a skull. He took it to Mr. Scribner, agent of the express company, who, after seeing the importance of the discovery, passed it over to Dr. Wm. Jones of Murphy's, a physician of extensive practice and scientific tastes. Both these gentlemen are well known to Professor Whitney, and their veracity is vouched for by him. The skull was forwarded by Dr. Jones to the office of the state survey on the following June (1866). Mr. Mattison has been repeatedly interviewed, and his testimony is uniformly coherent and explicit, to the effect that he took the skull with his own hands from gravel underneath a capping of forty feet of black lava and in connection with driftwood. The appearance of the skull in every way corrob- AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 289 orates his statement. The original encrustation shows that it was not taken from a cave. Dr. Wyman of Harvard College and Professor Whit- ney togetlier carefully removed the encrustations from the skull. I?ragments of bones with gravel and shells were so wedged into the cavities of the skull as to prove that there could be no mis- take respecting the character of the situation in which it was found. Chemical analysis showed that organic matter was nearly absent, and the carbonate of lime had largely displaced the phos- phate, proving tliat the skull was in a fossilized condition. We omit mention of a large number of human remains found at great depths in the ancient higher level gravel where not covered with lava, though some of them are doubtless of the same age with those from under Table Mountain. According to Professor Whitney, the evidence " all points in one direction, and there has never been any attempt made to pass off on any member of the survey anything out of keeping or, so to speak, out of harmony with what has been already found, or might be expected to be found. It has always been the same kind of implements which have been exhibited to us — namely, the coarsest and the least finished which one would suppose could be made, and still be implements at all." This result, he cogently remarks, would hardly be 19 290 AN ESSAY ON PEKHISTORIC MAN. possible where so many parties are concerned in furnishing the evidence, if tlie objects were not genuine, and shows to his mind that tlie evidence has not been gotten up to deceive. As might be expected, strenuous efforts liave been made to discredit these facts. With reference to the Calaveras skull, we read in Dr. Southall's "Recent Origin of Man" (p. 558) that "Dr. Andrews informs us [Dr. S.] that the Rev. R. W. Patterson, D.D., of Chicago, tells him that he was informed by the Rev, W. W. Brier, a reliable minister of Alvarado, Cal., that his [Brier's] brother, a miner, was one of two men who took the so-called Calaveras skull from a cave in the side of the valley, and placed it in the shaft, where it was found, and that the whole object was a practical joke to deceive Professor Whitney, the geologist." Whether this is prob- able can be judged from the foregoing statement of facts as since detailed by Professor Whitney. At any rate, it would have been the proper thing for this renegade brother of the Rev. Mr. Brier to have submitted himself to closer cross-examination from competent parties than he seems to have done. Dr. Dawson, and others, have questioned whether these human remains might not have been introduced at a period subsequent to the deposition of the gravel and the overflow of the lava. They have suggested that the Indians in AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 291 searching for gold may have run horizontal shafts into the gravel underneath ; or, since the lava is not compact, but tufaceous in its character, it does not seem impossible that in some places pits may have been sunk from the surface. The variety and explicituess of the testimony brought forward by Professor Whitney, however, make these suppo- sitions improbable, and throw us back upon the cousideratious touching the credibility of such per- sonal and circumstantial evidence as is adduced to substantiate the facts. The most formidable opposition to Professor Whitney's conclusions comes, curiously enough, from evolutionists, so that upon this question they are uow found " among the prophets." The thorough-going evolutionist believes that early man was ape-like in his features, and that he in- variably passed through a stage in which he used rough stone implements before learning to polish them. But the Calaveras skull, which, if genuine, far antedates anything human which has been dis- covered in Europe, is not of a particularly inferior order, and the implements purporting to come from under Table Mountain are not of the Pal- aeolithic type, but though exceedingly coarse and rude correspond to those of the smooth stone period in Europe. Professor Putnam, however, suggests,^ and Professor A. Winchell is ready to ' Keport of U. S. Geological Surveys West of the One Hun- dredth Meridian, Vol. vii. pp. 10-15. 292 AN ESSAY ON PEEHISTORIC MAN. admit,^ that man wandered into California long before he entered Europe, and attained there the higher state of development reached by Palaeo- lithic man in other parts of the world at a much later date. IX. Palaeolithic Man in New Jersey. However incredulous we may be concerning the evidence of prehistoric man in California, there now is little doubt that Palaeolithic man appeared in New Jersey before the close of the glacial period.^ Several years ago, Dr. C. C. Abbott began finding in the vicinity of Trenton rough stone implements, which attracted attention by their close resemblance in form to those found in the high-level river gravels and in the caves of Northern France and Southern England. Pro- fessors Putnam, Whitney, Carr, and Shaler of Harvard University satisfied themselves by per- sonal inspection of the genuineness of the imple- ments, and secured Dr. Abbott's collection ; arranging also for the transmission of all his future discoveries to the archaeological museum ^ See Pre-Adamites, p. 428. " Primitive Industry, or Illustrations of the Handiwork in Stone, Bone, and Clay of the Native Races of the Northern Atlantic States. By C. C. Abbott, M.D., pp. 560. Salem: Geo. A. Bates, 1881. See also Proceedings of the Boston Society of NataraJ History, Vol. xxi. pp. 125-149. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 293 Palaeolith found by Dr. Abbott in undisturbed Trenton gravel six feet from the surface. This is natural size, and presents both a side and a profile view. For cut of a larger specimen see preface. 294 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTOBIC MAN. at Cambridge, where they are now preserved and displayed. By carefully watching a bank of gravel which was undergoing slow erosion, and the exca- vations in progress during the construction of a railroad. Dr. Abbott has found a number of these Palaeoliths in situ, that is, in gravel which has remained undisturbed since its deposition. Many were found several feet below the surface; and one " was discovered in a perpendicular exposure of the bluff, immediately after the detachment of a large mass of material, in a surface that had but the day before been exposed and had not yet begun to crumble. The specimen was twenty-one feet from the surface of the ground, and within a foot of the triassic clays that are here exposed. Directly over it, and in contact, was a boulder of large size, probably weighing one hundred pounds ; while at a distance of five feet above was a second, much larger boulder." To understand the significance of these discov- eries attention must be turned to the geological questions involved. The city of Trenton is built upon a gravel terrace, whose surface is between forty and fifty feet above the flood-plain of the Delaware. This terrace extends for some distance below the city, upon the east side of the river, and is about three miles in diameter. The gravel of which it is com- posed is thus described by Professor Shaler : " The AN ESSAY ON PKEHISTOEIC MAN. 295 general structure of the mass is neither that of ordinary boulder clay nor of stratified gravels, such as are formed by the complete rearrange- ment by water of the elements of simple drift deposits. It is made up of boulders, pebbles, and sand, varying in size from masses containing one hundred cubic feet or more to the finest sand of the ordinary sea-beaches. There is little trace of true clay in the deposit. There is rarely enough to give the least trace of cementation to the masses. The various elements are rather confusedly arranged ; the large boulders not being grouped on any par- ticular level, and their major axes not always distinctly coinciding with the horizon. All the pebbles and boulders, so far as observed, are smooth and water-worn ; a careful search having failed to show evidence of distinct glacial scratch- ing or polishing on their surfaces. The type of pebble is the sub-ovate or discoidal ; and though many depart from this form, yet nearly all observed by me had been worn so as to show that their shape had been determined by running water . The mate- rials comprising the deposit are very varied ; but all I observed could apparently with reason be supposed to have come from the extensive valley of the river near which they lie ; except, perhaps, the fragments of some rather rare hypogene rocks." We may add, that it is now settled beyond contro- versy that the rocks from which these beds of 296 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. gravel were derived are all found in place in the upper Delaware valley .^ X. Relative Agre of the Trenton Gravel. The: lower part of New Jersey is covered with a deposit of gravel much older and more extensive than that just described, and which is distinguished, from its color, as the " yellow gravel." The Tren- ton gravel is much coarser than the yellow, and is composed of freslier looking and softer pebbles, showing that it has been subjected to much less abrasion. The yellow gravel is largely composed of smallj well-rounded pebbles of quartz and hard limestone ; and from its wide distribution over the state it is inferred to be of oceanic origin ; while the Trenton gravel is limited to the valley, and never rises more than fifty feet above -the river. One other deposit must also be mentioned, namely, the Philadelphia brick clay. This, too, is confined to the river valley and its tributaries, but is found at a much higher level than the Trenton gravel. The brick clay lines the margin of the valley to a height of one hundred and fifty feet. A signifi- cant characteristic of this clay is that it contains large boulders of sandstone from ledges a hundred miles up the river. These could scarcely have been transported to their present position, except 1 New Jersey Geological Eeport, 1877, p. 21 ; Lewis, on Trenton Gravel, p. 51.' AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 297 on floating ice. This boulder-bearing brick clay overlies, to the height mentioned, the general de- posit of yellow gravel, but is never found upon the Trenton gravel. The chrono- logical relation of these deposits is shown in the accompanying cut, prepared by Pro- fessor Lewis, giving a section across the Delaware River at North Trenton. Of these, the oldest is that underlying all, and marked by dots ; while next in age comes the boulder-bearing clay, marked a ; and which was partially worn away by the later stream which deposited the Trenton gravel, marked b ; the river bottoms, marked c, are the most recent. It is in the Trenton gravel, and in that only (6), that Palaeolithic implements have been found in undisturbed strata. Hence, if we can determine the period when this gravel was deposited, we shall have found the shortest chronology which can be assigned to man's existence in America. In approaching this questipn we shall, .'•• in the first place, show the relation of the boulder -bearing clay and the Trenton gravel to the glacial period ; and, in the next place, consider some facts which give a clew to the time which has elapsed since the close .of the glacial period. 298 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. XI. The Trenton Gravel and the Glacial Period. There is no other field in the world so favorable for the study of glacial geology as North America, and no portion of America more instructive and interesting to the glacialist than New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In Europe the insular character of England, and the disturbing effect of the Alps, where glaciers still continue, have so complicated the problem that little progress has been made in discussing the age of the glacial deposits ; but in America we have an open field. If any doubt has existed concerning the general truth of Agassiz's theory, that at a comparatively recent period North America was covered with a vast sheet of ice slowly moving southward, and extending, on the Atlantic coast, as far as the latitude of New York city, the facts elicited by the recent explorations by the Pennsylvania Geological Survey of the terminal moraine in that state must settle the question.^ The general evidences relied upon to prove the glacial theory of Agassiz are, — 1. The scratches upon the rocks. The action of water in i-oUing gravel and sand loosely over exposed rocks polishes both the gravel and the rocks, but can do no more. The freshly exposed surfaces of rocks all over the northern part of the United States, however, have numerous par ' Pennsylvania Geological Report for 1881, upon the Terminal Moraine, by Professor H. Carvill Lewis and G. Frederick Wright AN BSSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 299 allel striae running across them, and continuing across hard and soft portions alike. In some places, these striae extend for many feet, or even yards, and in size vary from the finest markings of a needle-point to grooves or furrows ploughed in the rocks several inches in depth. Professor A. A. Wright describes one on Kelley's Island, in hard limestone rock, near Sandusky, Ohio, known to be more than two hundred feet long, and from two to six feet deep. The general parallelism of this striation demon- strates that it could not have been made by icebergs, as was formerly supposed ; though, as might be ex- pected, the direction of the striae varies greatly in different portions of the country. In the eastern part of New England the direction is considerably east of south. In the vicinity of the Connecticut and Hudson rivers the direction is south ; while towards the western end of Lake Erie the striae run west of south. In general they may be said to radiate from a centre situated near the south end of Hudson's Bay. The larger valleys modified the motion of the ice-stream somewhat ; but usually the movement was continental, and was undis- turbed by ordinary hills, and at its height was not deflected in its upper portions even by low ranges of mountains. Upon the summits of the Green Mountains in Vermont, and upon such isolated peaks as Monadnock in New Hampshire 30O AN ESSAY ON PEEHISTORIC MAN. and Mounts Tom and Holyoke in Massachusetts, the direction of the scratches is diagonal to that of tlie adjacent yalleys. The ice-stream was no more disturbed by such obstacles tlian the moving water of a deep stream is by a pebble.^ 2. A second evidence that the southerly move- ment of ice was glacial in its character, and not like that of icebergs in the Atlantic, is to be found in the existence of a true " ground moraine " all over the northern part of the United States. The material resting upon the striated surface of the rocks in that region is not a stratified water deposit ; but coarse pebbles and the finest clay are indiscriminately packed into one mass. The enclosed pebbles also are scratched, the scratches upon them usually running parallel with their longest diameter, showing that the overlying mass was shoved along upon the rocks by an unyielding force. The stones that did the grooving were themselves striated in the process. This ground moraine, or " till " as it is technically called, closely corresponds to what accumulates under present glaciers, and is spread pretty generally over the glaciated region, though it varies greatly in depth in different localities. Sometimes the till is heaped up into hills two or three hundred feet high, as in the vicinity of Boston, and in ^ See Professor Dana's discussion of the evidence in American Journal of Science for 1875, Nos. 57, 58, 59, and 60. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 301 Central New York. In other places, especially in the western states, it forms a more uniform covering of considerable depth. By damming up old watercourses, the irregular deposition of till has produced nearly all the smaller lakes of the country. 3. A third evidence of the existence of a glacier in North America continental in its dimensions is the recent discovery of its terminal moraine (or, we should say, of a concentric series of such moraines), extending from the Atlantic coast west- ward to the Ohio line, and beyond. This terminal moraine consists of a line of hills varying from fifty to three hundred feet high, and composed of a compact, uustratified mixture of clay, sand, gravel, and striated pebbles. Such accumulations would naturally mark the line of conflict between the heat and the cold of the glacial period. The warm currents of air from the south here met the front of the slowly-advancing glacier, and for a while held it at bay, — melting back each summer as much as had advanced during the winter. In various ways earthy material becomes in- corporated into the ice of an advancing glacier. When the ice moves past an exposed precipice, fragments of rock fall down upon the ice, and land- slides bring down from time to time a promiscuous mass of material. It is not improbable that the moving ice also breaks off projecting fragments of 302 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOEIC MAN. rock, and encloses tliena to be carried along by it in its onward motion. It is certain, also, that stones are picked up'by the moving ice from the floor of the glacier, and by some process raised to a higher level. The ice being more or less plastic, and the stones unyielding, pebbles seem to work up in the moving mass as the larger marbles in a basket rise to the surface when the whole is sliaken. But whatever be the explanation, a great deal of earthy material was in and upon the con- tinental ice-sheet, and moved with it southward. The effect would be that along the southern terminal line the material would be " dumped " whenever the supporting ice was melted under it ; and thus vast piles of transported material would accumulate. In many cases it can be demonstrated that boulders have been carried upon the back of the glacier for hundreds of miles. There are hill- tops in Western Pennsylvania completely covered with large granite boulders whose native place is far beyond Lake Erie, in the northern part of Upper Canada. Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts is a boulder ; being as really a pilgrim as those who made it famous by landing upon it. This interesting natural feature of our surface geology waited long for its true interpretation ; the §rst correct announcement of the location of the terminal moraine of the continental ice-sheet having been made in 1876 upon the authority of AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 303 Mr. Clarence King.^ The investigations of Mr. Warren Upham of the New Hampshire Geological Survey soon placed the matter beyond dispute.^ Briefly stated, the results are that in 1877 a dis- tinct line of moraine hills, from one to three hundred feet high, was traced from southeast of Town Cove, at the southeastern end of Cape Cod, Mass., through Brewster Station, West Brewster village, into the northwestern part of Dennis, through the centre of Yarmouth, a mile south- west of Yarmouthport, Barnstable village, and West Barnstable, from one to three miles soiith of Sandwich village. West Sandwich, and North Sandwich, where it forms a right angle, passing from one to three miles east of Monument village and Pocasset, through North Falmouth, West Falmouth, and Wood's Holl. The Elizabeth Islands are, as Mr. King surmised, the back of the moraine emerging above the water. This moraine is, according to Mr. Upham, represented along the south shore of Rhode Island by a line of liills running from near Point Judith to Watch Hill, thence through Fisher's and Plum Islands, and along the north shore of Long Island, as far west as to Port Jefferson. The extreme terminal moraine appears, however, 1 See paper by the author in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. xix. pp. 60-63 (Dec. 1876). ^ New Hampshire Geological Keport, Vol. iii. pp. 300-305. 304 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOEIC MAN. farther south, first in Sankaty Head and Saul's Hills in Nantucket, on Tuckernuck Island, Chappaquid- dick Island, and on Martha's Vineyard in the prominent hills extending southwest to Gay Head, reappearing again in No Man's Land, and in a remarkable knot of hills on Block Island. On Long Island it appears at Moutauk Point, thence running to Sag Harbor and Canoe Place, and due west to Harbor Hill at Rozlyn, the highest point in the island, thence west-southwest through Green- wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, to the Narrows at Fort Hamilton, and across the southeastern part of Staten Island. About the same time (1876-77), Professors Cook and Smock of New Jersey accurately mapped the moraine across that state.^ Beginning at Perth Amboy, it bends northward, through Earitan, Plainfield, Chatham, Morris, and Hanover, to ROckaway, thence a little south of west to Bel- videre on the Delaware, a few miles above Easton. Prom that point Professor H. C. Lewis and the author have, under tlie auspices of Professor J. P. Lesley, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, ex- plored and mapped the moraine as far as tjie Ohio line.2 Leaving the Delaware at Belvidere, fifteen miles above the mouth of the Lehigh, the moraine 1 See their Report upon the Geology of New Jersey for 1878. 2 For further particulars with maps and illustrations, see their Report to Professor Lesley for 1881. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 305 crosses Northampton county by a general north- western covirse to the centre of Monroe county. Here it turns westward, crossing the Lehigh at Hickory Run, fifteen miles above Mauch Chunit, and continuing westward till it crosses the east branch of the Susquehanna at Beech Haven, twenty miles below Wilkesbarre. Thence by a northwesterly course it continues through Colum- bia -county, rising upon the summit of the AUe- gliany Mountains, and crossing them diagonally in Lycoming county ; thence (still northwest) through Tioga and Potter counties into Catta- raugus county. New York ! reaching its most northerly point at Little Valley, six miles north of Salamanca. Thence it runs in a pretty direct southwest course to Columbiana county, Ohio, entering that state about fifteen miles north of the Ohio River. So far the line marking the southern extension of the ice during the height of the glacial period is definitely determined. Be- yond this it is only known in a general way that the terminal moraine runs through the southern portions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, crossing the Mississippi below the mouth of the Missouri, and trending northwest through Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska into Dakota Territory. An interior line of moraine hills has been studied by Professors Whittlesey, Winchell, Chamberlin, and Irving, forming the so-called "kettle range" 20 306 AN ESSAT ON PREHISTORIC MAN. (named from the bowl-shaped depressions abound- ing in it), running south of Fond du Lac, Wis., and sweeping by a majestic curve soutliward and westward through Madison (enclosing in its folds the beautiful lakes for which that capital is celebrated). This range, after a detour to the north, again bends southward through Southeastern Minnesota, where Mr. Upham has taken up the thread, and followed it in an ox-bow-shaped extension, whose southern extremity is near Des Moines, Iowa, and whose western limb is the Coteau des Prairies of Dakota. The principal features of the glacial period are exhibited upon the accompanying plate I. A A represents the terminal moraine. The continuous part is from actual survey ; the broken part is somewhat conjectural. B B marks interior lines of moraine where the ice-front rested in its retreat. C C represents the space covered by " Lake Agas- siz," a temporary body of water created by the damming up by ice of the outlets into Hudson's Bay — the outlet meanwhile being through the Minnesota. The vast wheat fields of the Red River valley are in the bottom of this former lake. D is a driftless region which the ice surrounded and passed by without covering. The arrows indicate the direction of glacial sci'atches. The kames of New England, and the terraces on the western rivers are imperfectly shown upon so small a map. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. PLATE I. SOT 308 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. The depth of this continental glacier is a matter of great interest. The ice of the glacial period is known to have covered the Green Mountains in Vermont and the Wliite Mountains in New Hamp- shire. Professor C. H. Hitchcock has found boul- ders upon the top of Mount Washington, and trans- ported blocks abound upon the lower summits, thus indicating a depth of four or five thousand feet. In Tioga county, Pennsylvania, the moraine is foimd resting upon highlands twenty-five hun- dred feet above the sea ; and, again, in Lycoming county, fronting the Alleghanies, a few miles to the south of them, where the mountains rise to an equal height. The ice must have surmounted these sum- mits in a continuous sheet ; for the moraine crosses from the Blue Ridge to Pocono Mountain, and thence across the Lehigh and the Susquehanna to the Alleghanies, in a line which is nearly straight, though the intervening valleys are one thousand feet lower tlian the mountains. The instances are numerous in Pennsylvania whore the moraine thus crosses at right angles and in a straight line, north and, south valleys several hundred feet in depth. These facts show that at the period of greatest ex- tension the southern front of the continental glacier was a nearly perpendicular wall of ice from five hundred to two thousand feet in height.^ 1 This is in accordance with the law regulating the motion of glaciers; for as in water, so in ice, the upper moves faster than the AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 309 XII. Terraces. It seems pretty certain that the glacial period closed rather suddenly ; indeed, this result would follow from the natural operation of the forces at work. When the causes producing the southern extension of ice began to abate their force, there would still be for some time no marked results ; but when the point of equilibrium had been once reached, the process of decay would have proceeded with great rapidity, and, like the spring-time of the ordinary year, the spring-time of the glacial epoch would be characterized by immense floods. A glance at the map will show upon what scale these " spring freshets " of the glacial period must have occurred. At that time the mouth of the St. Lawrence was closed by the ice, and all the drainage of the great lakes, and of the region whose rivers now flow into Hudson's Bay, must have found its way into the Mississippi. The fact of such an accession to the volume of the Mississippi is, however, not wholly theoretical ; at least it does not depend upon this single hypoth- esis. The marks of the swollen watercourses of the declining glacial period still exist in the terraces of coarse gravel which border all the under surface, since in both cases friction retards the motion of the bottom. When the glacier ceased to move the conditions would of course be changed, and a sloping southern exposure would have been formed. 310 AS ESSAY ON PKEHISTOEIC MAN. streams flowing from the glaciated into the non- glaciated region. The terraces of the Connecticut valley have long been celebrated, and Professor Dana has demonstrated that they were produced by the swollen streams at the close of the glacial period.^ Professors N. H. Winchell and Newberry have connected with the same period the gravel deposits marking former southwestern outlets of Lakes Erie and Michigan, when a great volume of water poured from Lake Erie over the watershed between the Maumee and the Wabash rivers, and between that of the small stream entering Lake Michigan at Chicago and the Illinois River. Gen- eral G. K. Warren has shown that the outlet for all the waters now flowing through the Red River of the North into Hudson's Bay, at one time passed south through Lake Traverse and Big Stone Lake into the Minnesota River, making of it an immense stream, compared with which the present Missis- sippi at its junction is but a driblet. Lower down the Mississippi valley, where the current of these swollen glacial streams converged, a mighty flood was produced, leaving extensive deposits of gravel high above the present river. These constitute the bluffs of the lower Mississippi, so faithfully studied by Professor Hilgard, and are denominated in the text-books " Orange sands." When one contemplates the indications of these I American Journal of Science for 1875, Nos. 57, 58, 59, and 60. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 311 floods marking the close of the glacial period, he can scarcely help wondering if the deluge of Noah was not in some way connected with them. XIII. Eames. In the eastern part of New England the glacial floods left their marks not only in high terraces, but in a remarkable series of gravel ridges, which run across the country in singular independence of the present watercourses. From their resem- blance to similar ridges in Scotland these are called " kames " ; in Ireland they are named " eskers." Their fullest display, however, in the Old World is in Southern Sweden, where they are termed " asars " ; but now that New England has been more fully explored, the kames of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are found to exceed in extent anytliing of their character before dis- covered. Between New Brunswick and the Con- necticut River as many as thirty well-marked series of kames have been followed from the coast far into the interior ; in several instances reaching back more tjian one hundred miles. One, ending in an extensive gravel plain at Cherryfield, Me., nearly north of Mount Desert, can be traced northward to the foot of Mount Katahdin, a hundred and twenty miles distant, crossing the valley of the Penobscot River twice in its course ! Another has been followed from Portland northward through the 31^ AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. Rangeley Lakes, crossing the valley of the Andros^ coggin at right angles. The series most written about passes through An do ver, Mass., crossing the Merrimack at right angles near Lawrence, and dis- appearing at the sea-level, near Boston. In the Transactions of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists for 1841 and 1842, President Hitchcock, of Amherst Col- lege, gave a detailed account of this series, so far as then observed.^ He there characterizes it as decidedly the most interesting and instructive case of the kind which he had met with. A map of a mile and a half of it (prepared from surveys by Professor Alonzo Gray,, of Phillips Academy, An- dover), then supposed to be its limit, was given by President Hitchcock in the same paper. This map^ on a reduced scale, reappears in Hitchcock's Ele- mentary Geology.'' We cannot improve upon tlie description of the main features of this formation given by Dr. Hitchcock in his first account of it in 1842. " Our moraines [kames] form ridges and hills of almost every possible shape. It is not common to find straight ridges for a considerable distance. But the most common and most remarkable aspect assumed by these elevations is that of a collection of tortuous ridges, and rounded, and even conical hills with corresponding depressions between them. 1 p. 198. » p. 260 (30th edition). AN ESSAY ON PREmSTORIC MAN. 313 These depressions are not valleys, which might have been produced by running water, but mere holes, not unfrequently occupied by a pond." ^ These bowl-shaped depressions marking the course of the kames (one of which will hereafter be described in detail, for the sake of a chrono- logical calculation 2) are identical in character with the kettle-holes of the terminal moraine. The town of Plymouth, Mass., is a wild waste of kames, — its three hundred and ■ sixty lakes being nothing else than so many kettle-holes filled witli water.3 The kames of New England are composed of clay, sand, gravel, and pebbles of all sizes, up to those which are four or five feet in diameter. In most places the stones exhibit some signs of irreg- ular stratification ; but frequently for a depth of twenty feet or more, signs of stratification are entirely absent. The stones in this formation are never scratched as in the till ; but they are more or less subangular, showing abrasion of some kind ; and are largely from the north. 1 Transactions of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, p. 191. ' See below, p. 342. ' A " kettle-hole " should be distinguished from a " pot-hole " ; the latter being worn in solid rock by a shallow rapid stream bearing pebbles ; whereas the kettle-hole is a depression in a gravel deposit, — a rim of gravel being built up around an empty Epace. 314 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. Plate II. shows a portion of a kame- system. East Ridge, Indian Ridge, and West Ridge are composed of gravel such as was described in the preceding paragraph. They each terminate ou the upper surface in a sharp angle, and are respec- tively, at the points a, b, c, forty-one feet, forty-nine feet, and ninety-one feet above the general level of the country which is itself fifty feet above the river. The reticulations are also shown, with the kettle- hole near Pomp's Pond afterwards to be more particularly described. Another kettle-hole is marked at x, which is in the summit of a gravel hill about one hundred feet high. Tlie kame here crosses the river at an acute angle. The portion of the formation shown in the plate may be taken as a fair representative of kames in general. The series indicated are made up of such links repeated. The manner in which kames were formed has long been a source of contention among geologists. The most probable theory proposed is that kames are contemporaneous with the terraces spoken of in the preceding section, and that, like them, they mark the courses of the floods which closed the glacial period. This explanation gives to the kames something of the character of medial moraines. They doubtless mark, in the more level regions of country, the courses of the surface flow of water during the last stages of the glacial period. It was partly the levelness of the country and the AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 315 PLATE IT. KAMES ITS ANDOVER MASS. lill 316 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. comparative shallowness of the river valleys, which allowed the glacial streams depositing the kames to exhibit such independence of the present water- channels. Glacial ice must also be invoked, to explain some of the facts regarding kames. At the time of these deposits the lower stratum of glacial ice still lin- gered in many localities, and filled many of the depressions. In some places the gravel and pebbles would be deposited in channels worn in the ice by the water, and in other places spread out over masses of ice ; thus protecting them from the sun and the warm air. The final result was, that when the various ice-barriers were removed, and the water sought its present lines of outflow, these previous gravel deposits of the glacial rivers were left undisturbed, except where the changed course of the water-flow led across their path and eroded them. In places, where the earthy material had been deposited in ice-channels, a ridge of gravel would be formed when the sides melted away ; while in the places where masses of ice had been so covered with sand and gravel that the melting was delayed the earthy material would settle down in a very irregular manner, forming the character- istic reticulated ridges and the frequent kettle- holes wherever the material should slide off, and leave an enclosed mass of ice to melt away gradually. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 317 XIT. The Champlain Epoch. It should also be stated that at the time when the material composing the kames and terraces ■was being deposited there was a notable depres- sion of land to the north ; at any rate, in North- eastern America. The tourist who descends the St. Lawrence and ascends the Saguenay cannot fail to notice at the junction of these rivers exten- sive deposits of gravel high upon the mountains back of Tadousac. The St. Lawrence is here twenty miles wide ; hence it would be absurd to suppose any rise of the river could account for the terraces referred to. They must mark a depres- sion of the land. From similar gravel deposits at Montreal it is inferred that the land was nearly five hundred feet lower at the time of the forma- tion of these terraces than now. On the shores of Lake Champlain there is evi- dence that the depression was not far from four hundred feet. In the state museum at Montpelier, Vt., the skeleton of a whale is preserved, which was dug up from a clay deposit on the borders of the lake, one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the ocean. Upon going farther soutli the extent of this depression continues to diminish, till it has nearly disappeared upon the coast in the latitude of Philadelphia. In the Mississippi valley the depression carried the region four hundred feet below its present level. This period of subsidence 318 AN ESSAT ON PBEHISTOEIC MAN. accompanying the close of the glacial period is called by Dana the Champlain epoch. Such a northward and westward depression, even where it did not proceed to the extent of submergence, must have greatly affected the southward flow of water at that time, for by as much as the de- pression at the north exceede'd that at the south, by so much was the slope of all southward flowing streams diminislied. XV. Glacial Floods of the Delaware Talley. When, now, we return to Trenton, N. J., the presence of human implements in gravels deposited by glacial floods is still more suggestive of Noah than such gravels without any implements. Doubt- less the boulder-bearing brick clay of the Delaware valley and the Trenton gravel in which Palaeoliths are found are of glacial origin, though the clay belongs to a much more remote period than the gravel. Both were deposited by the river when swollen by the melting ice toward the close of the glacial period ; and the clay belongs to the Cham- plain epoch. The succession of events in the Delaware valley would seem to be as follows : During the early part of the glacial period ice continued to accumulate in the upper portion of the valley until it attained a depth of many hun- dred feet. It is probable that its average depth was not less than fifteen hundred feet. The ice- fa AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 319 covered area of tlie upper Delaware is, however, small when compared with that of the Connecticut. The valley of the Connecticut embraces about twenty thousand square miles, and is all glaciated ; while the glaciated portion of tlie Delaware does not exceed six thousand square miles. But fifteen hundred feet in depth of ice over six tliousand square miles make fifteen hundred cubic miles of ice to melt, with which to swell the torrents of tlie channel below. Still, enormous as the amount seems, it is not sufficient to account for the floods which deposited the Philadelphia brick clay, even though it might explain the Trenton gravel. The depression of the Champlain epoch must be invoked to account for the Philadelphia brick clay. We will give the reasons for this inference more in detail. Tlie Delaware valley below Trenton is nowhere, at forty feet above its present level, less than five miles in width, and constantly enlarges towards the sea. If the water at Trenton were to rise suf- ficiently high to deposit the brick clay, — namely, one hundred and fifty feet, — the slope of the sur- face would be about two feet per mile to the bay, which is seventy-five miles distant. Now a current of five miles per hour, one hundred and fifty feet deep and one mile wide, would discharge a cubic mile of water every eight hours, or three cubic miles per day. (The mean rate of the Ohio River, with 320 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. an average descent of five inches to the mile, is three miles per hour ; that of the Mississippi, very neady the same.) To supply such a volume of water as this, the whole accumulation of ice in the upper Delaware would suffice for only five hundred days, or for about sixteen months ; and to furnish this amount of water there would need to be, dur- ing such floods, a daily accumulation by rains and the melting ice over the whole upper valley of the Delaware of about three feet of water ; which, of course, is incredible, even if we suppose the floods confined to a single month of eacli successive year. Hence, without doubt, we may conclude that the deposition of the boulder-bearing brick clay in the Delaware valley, below Trenton, implies a depres- sion of that region to the extent of one hundred or more feet. Plate No. III. illustrates the general situa- tion. ^ The shaded portion about Trenton is the space covered by Trenton gravel in which the Palaeoliths are found. The relation of the river to the glaciated region may also be taken in at a glance. Doubtless the region north of Trenton shared ill this depression marking the Champlain period; but being above tide-water, the effects of the sub- sidence are not equally evident. But since, as we have seen, it proceeded at an increased rate I See also sections on pp. 297, 325. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 321 PLATE ni. 322 AN ESSAY OK PREHISTOBIC MAN. towards the north and northwest, and must have greatly diminished the velocity of the torrents of that period as compared with what it would be in the present condition of things, the subsidence would aid in accounting for the terraces in the upper part of the valley. . Considering, now, this Trenton gravel, we find it to be limited at the head of tide-water to a level of about forty feet, and diminishing in height rela- tively to the river as you ascend the channel until, a few miles above Trenton, it merges into a terrace, which maintains a pretty uniform height of fifteen or twenty feet above the river all the way to the terminal moraine at Belvidere, sixty-five miles distant. The present descent of the valley from that point to Trenton is two hundred and thirty- two feet, or at the rate of nearly four feet to the mile, as the river runs. These being the conditions, it is easy to account for the accumulation of gravel at Trenton. The transportation of gravel by a river is depend- ent both upon the amount of material accessible to the running stream, and upon the rapidity of the current. Towards the close of the glacial period the pebbles accessible to the running water in the upper Delaware were superabundant, having been conveniently deposited by the melting of the glacier. (The water- worn pebbles at Trenton were probably largely derived from the terminal AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 823 moraine.) But even a glacial torrent may have more loose material than it can manage, and so may silt up its bed with gravel. Hence it is not necessary to suppose the river at this point to have been of sufficient volume to fill the whole valley with water to the height of the terrace — fifteen or twenty feet. The river may have flowed upon the surface of the gravel in a shallower current than the terrace would seem to imply. But when the current passing down this declivity of three or four feet to the mile reached tlie level of the sea at Trenton its transporting power would be greatly diminished, and thus we should have an accumulation of gravel at the head of tide-water, without bringing into the problem of accounting for these gravels the supposition of any very ex- traordinary increase in the volume of the river. The loss of transporting power upon diminish- ing the rapidity of a current of water is enormous. The transporting capacity of a stream of water is estimated to vary as the sixth power of the velocity, i.e. if a current is checked so that it moves at only half its former rate its transporting capacity is diminished theoretically to one sixty-fourth.' It is easy to see that the sudden enlargement of the valley just above Trenton, as well as the occurrence there of tide-water, would diminish the rapidity of the river, and hence cause an extraordinary 1 Le Conte's Geology, p. 18. 824 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORTC MAN. deposition of gravel when it was abundant and accessible in the glaciated region through which the river flowed. The most likely time for this deposition to have occurred was, as we have said, near the very close of the glacial period, when the lower moraines were fresh, and when local masses of ice still lingered in the southern valleys of the Catskills. The pro- cess of deposition must have been so rapid that it could not not have been much subsequent to the withdrawal of the continental glacier north of the Catskills. In brief, we are led to the following conclusions : 1 . That the Philadelphia brick clay was deposited during the Champlain epoch, when the Delaware valley was considerably depressed below its present level. 2. Towards the close of that period, when the land had resumed nearly its present level, and the ice had nearly all disappeared south of the Catskills, the still swollen stream brought down the super- abundant loose material from the kames and moraines of the upper Delaware, and deposited it in the valley below. The material was so abundant that doubtless the whole cliannel was silted up, so that the bed of the river was con- siderably above that which it now occupies. At Trenton it flowed over and througli an extensive delta of coarse gravel, forty feet above its present AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 325 level ; and above Trenton, over an accumulation of gravel from fifteen to twenty feet above the present high-water mark. This period was also charac- terized by the presence of the mastodon and other extinct animals (the skeleton of a mas- todon having been found by Professor Cook in the Trenton gravels), and by the advent of Palaeolithic man to the neighborhood of Trenton. 3. Since that period the river has worked its way down through the delta of gravel at Tren- ton, and has eroded its present channel. Higher up, where the current is swift,. the lateral erosion in recent times has been small. The accompanying cut, pre- pared by Professor Lewis, is a section of the bluff two miles below Trenton, a, 6, Trenton gravel; implements; a, fine gray sand (boulder) ; b, coarse sandy gravel ; c, red gravel ; d, yellow gravel (preglacial) ; e, plastic clay ; /, fine yellow sand ; g, gneiss ; h, alluvial mud ; i, Delaware Kiver. 326 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. XYI. Date of the Glacial Epoch. Having thus, with a fair amount of probability, connected man with the closing scenes of the glacial period in the valley of the Delaware, it is next in order to inquire concerning the time which has elapsed since that event. For some years past the reading public has been at the mercy of those who attempt to fix the date of the glacial period by certain astronomical calculations. Dr. James CroU,^ following the suggestions of the astronomer Adhemar, and endorsed by Mr. James Geikie,^ has attempted to estimate the effect produced upon climate by the changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, combined with the precession of the equinoxes. It is well known that the earth's orbit is elliptical, that is, it is longer in one direction than in the other so that the sun is one side of the centre. During the winter of the northern hemisphere the earth is now about 3,000,000 miles nearer the sun than in tlie summer ; but the summer makes up for this distance by being about seven days longer than the winter. Through the precession of the equinoxes, this state of things will be reversed in 10,500 years ; at which time we shall be nearer 1 See Climate and Time in their Geological Relations. 2 See The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man, The extreme views of these writers are ably criticised by Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his Island Life, pp. 101-199. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 327 the sun during our northern summer, and farther away in winter, our winter then being also longer than our summer. Besides, through the unequal attraction of the planets the eccentricity of the earth's orbit periodically increases and diminishes, so that there have been periods when the earth was 10,500,000 miles farther from the sun in winter than in summer ; at which time, also, the winter was nearly twenty-eight days longer than the sum- mer. Such an extreme elongation of the earth's orbit occurred about 200,000 years ago. It is easy to assume that such a change in astronomical conditions would produce great effects upon the earth's climate ; and equally easy to connect with those effects the vast extension of ice during the glacial period. But as this period of extreme eccentricity terminated only 80,000 years since, the close of the glacial period would, upon Mr. CroU's theory, be compara- tively a recent event; for if the secular summer of the earth's eccentricity lags relatively as far behind the secular movements as the annual sum- mer does behind the vernal equinox, we should, as Professor Charles H. Hitchcock suggests, have to place the complete breaking up of the ice period as late as 40,000 years ago.^ We have not space to indicate, as it deserves, the comparative merits and demerits of this in- 1 Geology of New Hampshire, Vol. iii. p. 327. 328 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOBIC MAN. genious theory. It would, however, be a great calamity to have geologists accept it without scrutiny. It is, indeed, a part of the business of geologists to doubt such theories until they are verified by a thorough examination of all accessible terrestrial evidence bearing upon the subject. There is no reason to question the reality of the variations in the relative positions of the earth and the sun assumed' by Mr. CroU ; though there may be serious doubt whether tlie effects of those changes upon climate would be all that is surmised ; since equal amounts of heat would fall upon the earth during summer, whether made longer or shorter by the cause referred to. During the period of short summers the earth is so much nearer the sun that it receives each season absolutely as much heat as during the period of longer summers, when it is farther away from the sun. Thus the theory rests at last upon the ques- tion as to what would become of the heat reach- ing the earth in these differing conditions. It is plausibly urged by Mr. CroU that when a hemi- sphere of the earth is passing through a period of long winters the radiation of heat will be so ex- cessive that the temperature would fall much below what it would be during the shorter winters ; and so ice and snow would accumulate far beyond the usual amount. It is also supposed that the effect of the summer's sun in melting the ice during the AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 329 short summer would be diminished through nat- ural increase of the amount of foggy and cloudy weather. The aid of theoretical consequent changes in the volume of the Gulf Stream, and in the area of the trade winds, has also to be invoked. The theory likewise receives supposed confirmation from facts alleged concerning the present climate of the southern hemisphere, which is passing through the astronomical conditions thought to be favorable to its glaciation. The antarctic continent is com- pletely enveloped in ice, even down to the sixty- seventh degree of latitude. A few degrees nearer the pole Sir J. C. Ross describes the ice as rising from the water in a precipitous wall, one hundred and eighty feet high. In front of such a wall, and nearly seventy degrees from the South Pole, this navigator sailed four hundred and fifty miles! Voyagers, in general, are said to agree that the summers of the antarctic zone are much more foggy and cold than they are in corresponding latitudes in the northern hemisphere ; and this, even though the sun is 3,000,000 miles nearer the earth during the southern summer than it is during the northern. Another direction in which to look for evidence confirmatory of Mr. CroU's theory is to the geo- logical indications of successive glacial epochs in times past. If there be a recurring astronomical 330 AN ESSAY ON PEEHISTOBIC MAN cause suflScient of itself to produce glacial periods, such periods should recur as often as the cause exists ; but glaciation upon the scale of that which immediately preceded the historic era could hardly have occurred in early geological time without leav- ing marks which geologists would have discovered. Were the "till" now covering the glaciated region to be converted into rock its character would be unmistakable, and the deposit is so extensive that it could not escape notice. In his inaugural address before the British Association in 1880, Professor Ramsay, Director General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, presented a formidable list of glacial observations in connection with rocks of a remote age.^ Be- ginning at the earliest date, he cites Professor* Archibald Geikie, one of the most competent judges, as confident that the rounded knobs and knolls of Laurentian rocks exposed over a large region in Northwestern Scotland, together with vast beds of coarse, angular, unstratified conglom- erates, are unquestionable evidences of glacial action at that early period. Masses of similar con- glomerates, resembling consolidated glacial boul- der-beds, occur also in the Lower Silurian forma- tion at Corswall, England. In Dunbar, Scotland, Professor Forbes has found in formations of but little later age than the Coal period, " brecciated I Nature (Aug. 26, 1880), Vol. xxii. pp. 388, 389. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 331 conglomerates, consisting of pebbles and large blocks of stone, generally angular, imbedded in a marly paste, in which some of the pebbles are as well scratched as those found in medial moraines." In formations of corresponding antiquity the geol- ogists of India have found similar boulder-beds, in which some of the blocks are polished and striated. Still, this evidence is less abundant than we should expect, if there had been the repeated glacial epochs supposed by Mr. CroU's astronom- ical theory ; and it is by no means impossible that the conglomerates of scratched stones described by Professor Ramsay in Great Britain, and by Messrs. Blauford and Medlicott in India, may have resulted from local glaciers coming down from mountain- chains which have been since removed by erosion or subsidence. We are not aware that any incon- testable evidence has been presented in America of any glaciation previous to that of the glacial period. Coming, now, to the case in_ hand, we inquire concerning the terrestrial evidence bearing upon the date of the disappearance of the ice of the so- called glacial epoch in America ; and will attend first to that drawn from the recession of water- falls whose present position can be compared with that occupied previous to the glacial period. To geologists, probably the gorge below Niagara Falls has been the most convincing evidence of the great antiquity of the glacial age. A preglacial 332 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. channel exists below the whirlpool, reaching Lake Ontario at St. Davids, some distance west of the present mouth of the river. This old chaimel was filled with glacial debris, so as to turn the water into its present course. In 1841 Professor Hall and Sir Charles Lyell, assuming that the whole gorge, from Queenston to the present falls, had been formed shice the filling up of the old channel below the whirlpool, estimated that the smallest amount of time which would suffice for this task was 30,000 years, and that probably a much longer period was consumed. But these eminent obser- vers overlooked one circumstance of the greatest significance, to which the late Mr. Thomas G. Belt has called attention.^ There is nothing to show that the portion of the gorge extending from the whirlpool up to the present site of the falls is not also preglacial, but many things to indicate that it is the true continuation of the old preglacial channel. Plate IV. (taken from Sir Charles Lyell's Travels in America, First Series, Vol. ii. p. 78), explains the situation. The figure at the bottom of the page illustrates the manner in which such falls as Niagara and the gorges below them are formed. 1 and 3 are strata of hard rock, 2 and 4 of soft rock. The falls were originally near Queen- ston. The soft strata of rock wear away more 1 London Quarterly Joarnal of Science for April 1875. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 383 PLATE IV. Sectioji t^ the ,stretta cUffn^ i^JVict^ gurcL Jiifvjr,'fr(mi J^ake Ontitrio to the Tans. 834 AN ESSAY ON PEBHISTOEIC MAN. rapidly than the hard, and leave the hard project- ing more and more beyond their support, till at length they fall down, and are themselves ground to powder by the commotion of the water at the foot of the cataract. If the rocks are of uniform hardness no cataract will be produced. The distance between the present cataract and the whirlpool is about three miles, or half that of the whole gorge ; and the position of the strata is such that through this portion of the gorge the rate of retrocession must have been much slower than that below the whirlpool. One of the evidences that this upper portion of the channel belongs to the preglacial times is that it is wider than that below from the whirlpool tu Queenston. Now, if we suppose that when the* cataract had worn out the gorge from Queenston to the whirlpool, it struck the preglacial channel, and above that point had simply to scour out the loose material from it, the measure of the time since the glacial age is that required by the river to form the gorge below the whirlpool plus so much of the upper end as was not already in existence. What this last element is we have no means of telling precisely ; but the time required for eroding the lower sec- tion could scarcely have been more than 20,000, and very likely was less than 10,000 years ; that being much the easiest part of the work to be done. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 335 The gorge through which the Mississippi flows, below the Falls of St. Autliony, has been carefully studied by Professor N. H. Wiuchell, the state geologist of Minnesota, who thinks he can pretty closely approximate to the truth concerning its antiquity.i During the glacial age the old channel of the Mississippi, leading past Minneapolis to the larger valley of the Minnesota River, was so filled with glacial dSbris as to turn the course of the water, after the glacial age, into the new channel which it now occupies. This post-glacial gorge extends from Minneapolis to Port Snelling, a distance of not far from eight miles ; and is our dividend. This is the whole work done there by the Missis- sippi since its course was changed by the deposits of "till" left by the retreating ice of the glacial epoch. The next thing is to find a divisor. The gorge is through limestone strata of pretty uniform com- position. It remained for Professor Winchell to ascertain the annual rate at which the waterfall recedes. The falte were discovered by the Jesuit Hennepin in 1680, and visited by Carver in 1766. Fortunately, both these zealous propagandists and explorers took such copious notes and made such ' Fifth Annual Report of the Minnesota Geological Survey, pp. 156-189, first published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geo- logical Society of London for 1878, pp. 886-901. 336 AN ESSAY ON PEEHISTOEIC MAN. accurate drawings that the exact position of the falls at the time of their visits can be determined. The distance which the falls have receded since 1680, a period of two hundred years, is very nearly one thousand feet, or five feet per year. At this rate the river c'annot have been much over 9,000 years in wearing the gorge from Fort Snelling to the present falls at Minneapolis. Other things, as the shortness of the tributary gorges, like that below the Falls of Minnehaha, confirm the approxi- mate accuracy of this estimate. This brings the date of the close of the glacial period down to very moderate limits. Plate V. illustrates Professor Winchell's calcu- lation about the falls of St. Anthony at Minne- apolis. The shading along the banks of the rivers shows the comparative width of their valleys. The preglacial channel from above Minneapolis to the Minnesota is marked by a succession of lakes, and is determined by facts brought to light in dig- ging wells and by boring. The gorge from Fort Snelling to Minneapolis is about one hundred feet deep, and the rocks here show much less weath- ering on the Mississippi than below Fort Snelling or on the Minnesota. The blufis along the Min- nesota are from twenty-five to sixty feet higher than on the Mississippi above Fort Snelling. Another source from which something may be expected to shed light upon the date of the with- AN ESSAY ON PREHISTOEIC MAN. 337 PLATE V. 'SSIJ.SIS'JSSa 338 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTORIC MAN. drawal of the continental ice-sheet lies in the abundant opportunities to estimate the amount of superficial erosion of gravel and till, and of the disintegration of rock, which have taken place since that period. Professor Chamherlin, the state geologist of Wisconsin, remarks 1 that no sensible denudation has taken place there since glacial times. Even Mr. Croll, whose views concerning the antiquity of the glacial period are, as we have seen, extreme, expresses surprise (as well he may) at the small amount of erosion which has taken place since the kames of Scotland were deposited. Both in Europe and in America these peculiar gravel ridges which we connect with the glacial period, retain a sharpr ness of outline which it is difficult to believe could have survived the protracted period of 100,000, or even of 40,000 years. When, alsp, he considers the cheinical agencies at work to decompose the rocks even where protected by a covering of till, the freslniess of the glaciated surfaces never ceases to be a cause of astonishment to the reflective observer. Material is accumulating for more defi- nite estimates from such data ; but it is as yet too early to formulate the conclusions. Closely connected with the preceding class of facts are the observations made upon the extent to which lakes dating from the glacial period have 1 Geology of Wisconsin, Vol. ii. p. 632. 1877 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 339 filled with sediment. Little reflection is required to make it evident that our present lake-basins could not always have existed ; for in due time the " wash " of the hills will fill to the brim all (except where counteracting agencies are at work) enclosed areas of depression. Mr. Upham of the Minnesota Geological Survey, is impressed with the small extent to which the lakes dotting the surface of that state have been filled by the solid matter continually washing into them. " The lapse of time since the ice age has been insufficient for rains and streams to fill these basins with sedi- ment, or to cut outlets low; enough to drain them ; though in many instances we can see such changes slowly going forward." ^ Dr. Andrews of Chicago has made calculations, deserving of attention, concerning the rate at which the waters of Lake Michigan are eating into the shores, and washing the sediment into deeper water or towards the southern end of the lake. The United States Coast Survey have carefully sounded the lake in all its parts, and have ascertained the width of the area of shallow water extending in- wards from the shores. It is well known that waves are limited in their downward action, so that there will be a surrounding shelf, or shoulder of shallow water, in cases where the waves of a deep lake are eroding its banks. This fringe of I Minnesota Geological Report for 1879, p. 72. 340 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTORIC MAN. shallow water encircling Lake Michigan is only a few miles wide ; and from such imperfect data as have been gathered, the average rate of erosion is judged to be five or six feet per annum ; which would indicate that the lake-basin had not been in existence more than 7,500 years. Leaving these more definite, and in many re- spects unsatisfactory efforts to estimate the age of lake-basins, we may get some assistance in approximating to a correct chronology of the glacial age by studying the kettle-holes to which we have already alluded^ as a marked feature in the kames and moraines of the glaciated region. The most satisfactory explanation of these holes is, as we have said, that they mark places where masses of ice were buried in the debris of sand and gravel brought down by the streams of the decaying glacier ; and where, upon the melting of the buried ice, a cone-shaped depression would appear, with sides as steeply inclined as the nature of the soil would permit. At any rate, there can be no question that these curious depressions were formed about the close of the glacial period. Kettle-holes are to be distinguished from simi- larly shaped depressions in limestone and other regions where subterranean streams have removed soluble matter from the rock or soil, and thus left the surface unsupported and ready to cave in. The 1 See above, pp. 313-316. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 341 bottom of the kettle-hole we are describing is con- siderably lower than the drainage level of the val- ley, and both the nature and condition of the material enclosing the depression forbid any other theory of its origin than that supposed. These depressions are of all shapes and sizes from symmetrical kettle-holes to ponds and lakes of no mean dimensions. It is evident that, like larger lakes, they cannot always continue, since they are constantly wearing down at the top and filling up at the bottom. For the same reason we know that they cannot always have been in existence. As typical of numberless others that appear in the kames, we present the facts concerning one near Pomp's Pond, in Andover, Mass. Pomp's Pond is itself a moraine basin about a quarter of a mile in diameter, and but slightly above the level of the Shawshin River, into which it empties. Upon its north side is an accumula- tion of gravel and sand, with pebbles intermingled, in which there are several of the smaller character- istic bowl-shaped depressions of which we have spoken. Their appearance is much like that of volcanic craters. You ascend a sharp acclivity from every side to a rim of gravel, and then descend as rapidly into the bowl-shaped, or crater-like depression. A section carried across will present the idea.^ 1 For the situation, see above, Plate 11. p. 315. 842 AN ESSAY ON PEEHISTOEIC MAN. From the level of the pond, and two or three rods from the edge, you begin to ascend at an average rate of about one foot in three, ^^-^ till the south Side of the rim is reached, 1|| at a height of 52.5 feet above the pond. (This rim is not, however, of a uniform height. On the east side it rises into a pyramid 77 feet high.) Then descend- i \ ing 60.5 vertically you are carried 138 feet horizontally, teaching at that point the edge of a circular mass of pfeat, [j^ which is 96 feet in diameter. Prom the opposite side the ascent of the northern » rim begins, and you descend from its |. i j top to the vall.ey, repeating almost ex- „ ^P°:^ actly the first ascent and descent from ; the pond. The distance from rim tos ■ rim, or the diameter, is 380 feet. ^ \ It is evident that since the first for- 1- mation of this crater-shaped depression " no material can have reached the bot- tom, except from three sources : 1st. the ) wash from the sides ; 2d. the decay of vegetation which grew within the cir- cumference of the riih ; 3d. the material brought by the winds. It isequally evident that what is once in cauflot get out. Dust, leaves, and twigs carried by the winds in- evitably lodge in such depressions more thickly AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOEIC MAN. 343 than ill other places, since the atmosphere in such hollows is comparatively quiet. For the same reason the surrounding trees as they are blown down are more likely to fall towards the centre of the kettle-hole ; and the ashy material which their roots abstract from the sides of the depres- sion is no insignificant factor in the problem. Now, from the angle of the declivity, the original depth of the depression can be approximately esti- mated. If the angle be still the same as at first, the first three terms of the proportion would be 138 : 50.5 :: 48 : 17J|, making the original depth below the present surface of the peat a trifle over 17.5 feet. If, however, we suppose the original slant to have been steeper and the rim higher, we can still see that there must have been a limit to the depth. Suppose the rim to have been one third higher and the slant one third steeper, we then should have in round numbers the proportion 138 : 68 :: 48 : 23if , making the original depth of the depression nearly 24 feet below the present surface of the peat. From the nature of the material it is impossible that the depth could originally have much exceeded that amount. Accepting this conclusion, the problem is to determine the time it would require the agencies mentioned above to fill the bottom of this bowl to a depth of twenty-four feet — a cone ninety-six feet in diameter at the base and twenty-four feet to the 344 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOEIC MAN. apex — which would be equal to a deposit of only eight feet over the present surface of the bottom. Let us apply some of the estimates of the date of this period. Mr. J. Geikie, following the lead of Mr. CroU and others who look to astronomical data alone, supposes, as we have seen, that the so-called glacial period, whose marks we now study in these low latitudes, synchronized with the last period of high eccentricity of the earth's orbit, which closed about 80,000 years ago, and whose maximum influence must have been exerted about 200,000 or 210,000 years since. The question arising in connection with the bowl-shaped depression described is, Could this have stood with so little change for 80,000 years? or even for 40,000 years, as C. H. Hitchcock supposes ? Is not the supposition of 10,000 suflBciently extravagant ? If the close of the great glacial period be so far back as Mr. CroU and Mr. Geikie estimate, we must believe that sediment would accumulate, in the situation above described, over a surface of the area of the present peat bog, at the rate of only one inch in a thousand years ! while if we put the close of this period back 10,000 years, the rate of accumulation would seem to be as slow as our imagination can well compre- hend. One hundred inches, which is little more than eight feet, divided into 100,000 parts would give only .001 of an inch ; i.e. if this depression AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 345 has been in existence 100,000 years, we must believe that with all the dust there is in the air, and all the soil which would wash down the steep incline of the sides, and all the vegetable matter falling into the depression, or forming in it year after year, one thousand years would be required for one inch of sediment to accumulate ! If we reduce this supposed period to 50,000, 25,000, and 12,500 years successively, the time required for the accumulation of an inch of sediment would be proportionally 500, 250, and 125 years. If the reader will divide an inch into one hundred and twenty-five equal parts, he will probably be sur- prised at the insignificance of the quantity. The slowest rate which Boucher de Perthes calculates for the accumulation of peat over Roman pottery in the valley of the Somme is three centimeters, or a little over an inch, in a century. We do not bring railing accusation against those who, from astronomical considerations, con- fidently speak of the close of the glacial period as an event which occurred scores of thousands of years ago ; but it is important that they know what other beliefs that long chronology carries with it. If any one chooses to believe that kettle- holes can stand 100,000 years, and fill up only twenty-four feet from the apex of the inverted cone, he miist run the risk of being considered credulous. 846 AN ESSAY ON PBEHISTOBIC MAN. Altogether, these considerations have led us to look with increasing distrust upon the astro- nomical calculations that are made concerning the glacial period, unless it may be supposed that the. moraine of which we have spoken marks the limit reached at the last semi-revolution of the earth's equinoxes, about 10,000 years ago. It is, however, to be observed that glacial deposits as far south as New Jersey are somewhat earlier than those in Minnesota and New England, since some time is required for so much northerly retrocession of the ice-front to take place. But we have much .to 'indicate that this retrocession was rapid ; while nothing compels us to assign a difference in date of more than a few hundred years. The foregoing estimates shortening the period separating us from the glacial epoch should be as grateful to the Darwinian as to the theologian ; for the changes in animals and plants since the glacial period have been so slight, that if the epoch be set too far back eternity itself would scai-cely suffice to account for all the divergences which have arisen. Nor need we associate the glacial age with universal gloom. In Greenland man still lives amid the scenes and occupations of those who followed the retreating glacier in lower latitudes. Even at the time of the greatest extension of ice, AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 847 there were sunny skies and green fields every- where to the south of its extreme limits. XYII. Man is Man eren in the Sarage State. A study of even the earliest and rudest indica- tions of human art impresses one with the con- trast between man in his lowest estate and the brute creation in the higher. When Robinson Crusoe found on the sand the imprint of a single human footstep he was filled with amazement and concern. So when geologists discern in ancient river gravels a single flint in- strument they have made a most significant dis- covery regarding the condition of the world. Whatever characteristics man may share with the brute creation, the gap between the lowest man and the highest animal is an enormous one, and it is difiBcult to see how there can be anything but an abrupt passage from one to the other. We are accustomed greatly to underrate the in- tellectual capacity of the individual savage, and to overrate the mental calibre of ©ivilized man. The average wit of a savage is higher than that of the civilized man. Doubtless if a promiscuous com- pany of the most highly cultivated persons were turned out into the woods to get their living by the arts of savage life, ninety-nine in a hundred of them would be unequal to the task. 348 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. A modern novelist ^ illustrates this point by representing a company of Europeans as lost in the wilds of Australia. When their food became exhausted, and their supply of ammunition failed, they turned in despair to a native who was with them, and said, " What shall we do ; our food has failed us ! " , The self-contained savage laughed, and said, " Me find plenty food " ; and with a little hook forthwith began to draw worms out from under the bark of trees, and to resort to various other devices for satisfying hunger, — devices of which civilized man was totally ignorant, and for which his stomach was poorly prepared. In a civilized state man is strong through the organization of society and the co-operation of its individuals ; but when dissevered from that organ- ization, he is very helpless. Greater individual skill is required to hit an object with a boomerang than with a shot-gun. It requires more personal ability to kill an elephant with bows and arrows and sharp sticks than with breech-loading rifles. When David bearded the lion and the bear he dis- played more manly-qualities than a modern hunter shooting with a rifle from behind a tree. The greatest inventive genius which the world has ever seen was the man wlio taught his fellows how to produce fire at will. One can easily believe that the art was stolen from heaven, or imparted 1 Charles Keade. AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. 349 by direct communication of an angel. Any igno- ramus might learn to warm himself by a volcano, or to boil his meat in the water of a hot spring ; but tlie places at which he could do tliis are very rare. So any one might derive a temporary advan- tage from a burning tree that had been struck by lightning. But how should he learn to kindle a fire for himself whenever he wanted it ? When one has a fire and an iron kettle it is easy enough to boil a dinner ; but when one has no fire and no lucifer matches and no kettle, what can he do in a cold climate ? And yet Palaeolithic man had means for making fires and for boiling his food. We know he had fire, for we find charcoal in the caverns ; and we find the round stones with wliicli to heat water. He could not have done as our grandfathers did, use flint and steel, for it was before the days of iron. Hence, doubtless we may infer that he resorted to tlie process in vogue among savage nations at the present time — a pro- cess requiring more patience and skill than is now requisite to run a locomotive. He had learned to rub two sticks together, or to whirl one stick pivoted upon another till the friction produced fire. We do not reflect sufficiently on the value of the gifts we have received from people who were in a comparatively barbarous condition. As we have seen, nearly all the animals were domesticated in 350 AN ESSAY ON PREHISTORIC MAN. prehistoric times. The use of the most valuable metals was discovered before the dawn of history. The knowledge of the most useful grains is the heritage of prehistoric times, together with the knowledge of poisons which we must avoid on peril of death. The noblest views of God were revealed to the world through a comparatively rude people. The patriarchs never travelled by rail, nor wore a pair of boots, nor appeared in a dress coat, nor enjoyed the luxury of kerosene and gas. They were pilgrims and strangers in the world. Abraham had no library, and Job no morning newspaper. Yet these ancient worthies were giants in intellect, and were worthy com- panions of the angelic beings. The noble concep- tion of God and of humanity coming to us through the history and literature of the Hebrew nation make it doubtful whether man is moving in a line of progress or only round and round in a circle. No ! man is not merely a developed animal ; but the inventive genius displayed in the rudest flint implement stamps him as a new creation. The new creation, however, is spiritual rather than material or physical. The image of his Maker is to be sought in the highest mental endowment of mankind rather than in those which are organic and instinctive. CHAPTER VII. THE EELATION OF THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. I. Sense in Trhlch the Bible is regarded as Infallible. In ascribing infallibility to the Bible it is very desirable that we observe the same moderation and caution that were exercised by the divines who framed the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is not so generally known as it ought to be-, that that eminent body of theologians applied the word infallible to the Scriptures only in an incidental manner, and in a limited sense. The Westminster divines emphasized the practical and religious char- acter of the revelation, together with the peculiar exposure of such writings to misinterpretation. Their Confession well^ays that " all things in Scrip- ture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all ; yet those things which are neces- sary to be known, believed, and observed for salva- tion are so clearly propoxinded and opened in some place of Scripture or other that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient un- derstanding of them." ^ ^ Confession of Paitb, chap. i. sec. 7. 851 352 THE EELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. The phrases which we have italicized indicate some of the respects in which infallibility may not be ascribed to the Bible. The utterances of the Bible are not infallible except as pertaining to things " necessary to be known, believed, and observed for s'alvation." Upon this point the language of Dr. Hodge is also sufiBciently clear and emphatic. " They [the sacred writers] were not imbued with plenary knowledge. As to all matters of science, philosophy, and history they stood on the same level with their contemporaries. They were infallible only as teachers, and when acting as the spokesmen of God. Their inspira- tion no more made them astronomers than it made them agriculturalists. Isaiah was infallible in his predictions, although he shared with his country- men the views then prevalent as to the mechanism of the universe. Paul could not err in anything he taught, although he could not recollect how many persons he had baptized in Corinth." ^ We experience somewhat the same difficulty in ascertaining the teachings of nature that we do in deciding upon the triie interpretation of the Bible. Two distinct elements contribute to our knowledge of the material creation. The content of a sensa- tion is a resultant of two forces, of which one is subjective and the other objective. The action ot the object is modified in its transmission both by 1 Systematic Theology, Vol. i. p. 165. THE RELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. 353 tbe media through which it passes and by the nature of the receptive mind. Whether or not the ray of light conveys to the mind the normal sensations of color depends upon whetherthe organs of vision are normally constructed. Whether the melody and harmony of a musical performance are pleasing or not, depends upon the perfection and the cultivation of the ear which hears. Nothing, except the unbridled imagination, is more likely to mislead the mind than nature itself, except it be properly interrogated and thoroughly cross- questioned. In some respects the knowledge of nature must always be imperfect, and perhaps incorrect; and so far in history theories of the mode of the operation of natural forces have followed each other in rapid succession. It was not, however, because nature was untrue that the Ptolemaic system of astronomy so long held sway over the minds of men. The fallible element was in the interpreters of the celestial phenomena rather than in the phenomena themselves. But this error of the astronomers affords no encouragement to seek knowledge in the vaporings of Brahmanistic cosmology, where visible nature is totally neglected. What truth we get must come from a patient study of the phenomena of nature itself. The liability of the scientific man to fall into error does not imply any absolute imperfection in nature. Pride prejudice, and indolence may cause the observer 23 354 THE RELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCB. either to pervert the facts or to fall short of inter- preting their full meaning. The apparent shallow- ness of the water, and the seeming crookedness of the stick that is thrust obliquely into it, would not deceive unless our range of experience were narrow, and our judgments immature. Nature would still be true, though every interpreter were a liar. It is thus that in ascribing infallibility to the Bible we do not assert the infallibility of its inter- preters and commentators. The truth is not what man does learn from the word of God, but what he oug/d to learn, and what with a due use of his mental powers he may learn from it. The Protes- tant regards the Bible as an objective revelation to man of spiritual truth, and of the divine plan of salvation, similar to the revelation in nature of the material side of the divine activity. He believes that the Bible is to be studied as sci- entific men study nature, and that the authority of the Scriptures is to be maintained by a process of continual inspection and discussion such as in modern times has been so fruitful in the realm of physical science. It is by no means to be supposed that the readers of the Bible can safely dispense with any of the natural aids to its understanding. The common people of Protestant countries in forming their opinions of the Bible are not independent of scholars; but their dependence is very different THE EELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. 355 from that of the rank and file of the Roman Catho- lic Church, who must receive the utterances of their successive councils as an infallible interpretation and development of the original word. The Prot- estant way of arriving at the sense of Scripture, though somewhat less regular than the Romish, is scarcely less effective. The aberrations of indi- Tidual scholars offset each other, so that in the long run, where there is freedom of thought and discussion there cannot be any serious doubt as to where the orbit is in which the tnith is moving. The Bible carries and controls the church in his- tory as the earth conducts the moon through space. While the orbit of the moon around the sun is not a perfect ellipse, but a succession of cycloids, it is near enough to an ellipse to be called so in the language of common conversation. II. Principles upon which Scriptural Allusions to Science should be Interpreted. An important principle of interpretation ought to be allowed in great measure to regulate the relation of the Bible to modern science. The principle is one which alike renders possible emphasis in oratory, perspective in art, and effect in literature. It is this, that for the sake of enforcing the main point it is allowable to avoid subsidiary questions, and to throw into the back- ground the comparatively unimportant objects, 356 THE RELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. and leave them indistinct. Continued emphasis of every word and sentence produces the effect of no emphasis at all. In literature there is no more difficult art than to so handle the accessories and details of a great subject that they shall enforce rather than obscure the main point. Brevity is as essential to literary success as it is to wit. It falls upon us, therefore, at the outset to ask, What is the main and manifest object of the Bible ? To this question there can be but one answer. The Bible is the religious classic of the common people. Its supreme design is to show men the path of holiness, and to incite them to walk in it. It aims to accomplish these all-important objects by revealing to us more fully than nature can do the attributes and character of the Creator, and the requirements of the particular moral system under whicli we have been created. The system of divine revelation appearing in the Bible, centres and culmi- nates in the person and sufferings of Jesus Christ, who was God manifest in the flesh. All the facts which go before and all the facts which come after are but concave mirrors, whose reflected rays con- verge upon him who is "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Also, as any one who attends to the subject can see, an important object to be attained in the Old Testa- ment, was to clear the ground of certain false religious conceptions, and prepare a language and THE RELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCB. 357 a symbolism which should hold and convey the exalted religious ideas found in the New Testa- ment. The moulds of thought most essential to Christianity were manufactured in the forges of Hebrew history. The Hebrews were a people of agricultural habits and limited means of scientific knowledge. Their ancestor Abraham emigrated from the city where the civilization and culture of the Euphrates valley centred, and doubtless brought with him the scien- tific conceptions prevalent in the circles of society in which he moved. Moses, the first great lawgiver of the Jews, was educated in the court of the Pharaohs, and was familiar with the wisdom of the Egyptian priests. The emigration of Abraham, and the whple subsequent history of Israel, was a protest against polytheism and the degrading prac- tices and superstitions naturally growing out of it. The exalted conceptions of monotheism have been preserved to the world by the Jews ; and at the present time those conceptions are not found out- side the influence of the Hebrew religion. For this purpose was that people called and for this mission did the Lord raise them up to bear witness to the existence of the one living and true God and to the Creator's continued interest in human affairs. In the words of Cardinal Baronius, " the purpose of the Holy Scriptures is to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go." 358 THE EELATION OF THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. With such an exalted mission bfefore the chosen people, it is evident that the concentration of their thoughts upon a single purpose and object was appropriate and necessary for success. It is but natural that the holy men and prophets, who, under divine guidance, worked out the religious problems of monotheism, should, like all other successful reformers, be men of One idea, the redeeming feature in their case being that their idea was the most comprehensive and inspiring which the human mind can cherish. The truths of religion which they apprehended and enforced are of pressing and eternal importance. The truths of science which they neglected are com- paratively uninaportant in their nature. Man can enjoy the effects of the sunshine, and of alternate day and night, even though he is ignorant of the fact that the earth revolves on its axis. He can eat the fruits of the vine, and nourish his body and mind upon the ripened grain, even though the chemistry of vegetable growth and of diges-; tion are unknown sciences to him. The limitations to the spread and progress of truth in the world present to the human reason the most formidable difficulties in the way of believ- ingin the power, benevolence, and wisdom of God. That a benevolent Creator should leave his crea- tures so ignorant as manis of the things necessary to his temporal welfare, is a mystery which can be THE RELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. 359 explained only by supposing that this is a state of probation, designed to bring into prominence the moral nature of man, and the importance of spirit- ual rewards. With all the attainments of science, man is still ignorant, among a multitude of other things, of the cause and cure of innumerable dis- eases, of the centre of future earthquake-shocks, and the course of future tornadoes. The wisest of statesmen are unable to establish a government which shall be perfectly secure, or to form an inter- national league that shall dispel the danger of war. The confidence of educators and reformers in their schemes is in most cases in inverse ratio to their breadth of view and real wisdom. The perfect school is likely to become a machine, and its pro- ducts to bear the stamp of machine-work. The concentration of the attention of the reformer upon a single object blinds, his eyes to other evils, so that while he clears one part of the field of briers another part becomes overgrown with thorns. In great measure these difiiculties arise from the necessary limitations of human powers and the shortness of human life. On the same principle we may excuse the sacred writers from burdening themselves with the endless labor of revealing and explaining to men the whole course of nature. If the Bible had been written; with this object, and upon the scale of the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, it would still have been defeo- 360 THE BELATION OP THE BIBLE TO SCIENCE. tive (among other things, its very size would have been an imperfection), and would have needed constant re\